text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Oct 7, 1997
|Filing date
|Dec 8, 1995
|Priority date
|Feb 7, 1994
|Fee status
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Pierre Garneau, Josee Corriveau, Michel Dufresne
|Original Assignee
|Le Groupe Videotron Ltee
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (7), Referenced by (85), Classifications (24), Legal Events (3)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
This is a divisional of application Ser. No. 08/193,410, filed Feb. 7, 1994 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,420.
This invention relates to a method and system for distributing signals to valid subscribers, which is usefully employed in a television pay per view system.
Pay TV systems generally fall into one of two categories, in which either subscribers pay a monthly fee to view all signals transmitted on certain channels during a certain time period, or subscribers "pay per view" in which selected programs may be viewed by certain subscribers who pay a fee for each requested program. In the first category, filters may be removed from the transmission lines of authorized subscribers, or a descrambling signal may be downloaded from a head end to decoders in subscribers' terminals. In the second category, decoding signals restricted to particular programs are transmitted either via a telephone line or via the cable network to addressable decoders.
It is very expensive to send a serviceman to remove or to add filters locally at each subscriber location in a large population each time subscribers sign on or cancel service, or neglect to pay for the service. Further, the requirement to address each subscriber terminal by individual address in order to provide a descrambling code for specific programs or for specific time periods has been found to be a less than desirable system, since it utilizes scarce bandwidth and it is slow since it requires downloading of codes over a long period of time.
Further, such systems have not been capable of being used with common cable TV networks used by multiple cable TV companies, since a subscriber to one cable TV company could telephone another and obtain a download of a descrambling code thus receiving signals to which the subscriber is not entitled, thus depriving the first cable company of revenue from that subscriber.
Moreover, because of the relatively poor security, such systems are not feasible for use to provide other than cable TV services, for example banking services, personal service or merchandise ordering services, etc., in which information as to accounts, account statements, etc. would be desired to be displayed on the television display of the subscriber.
The present invention provides pay per view or the equivalent service which does not require the downloading of a descrambling or subscriber terminal enabling code from a head end on a terminal by terminal basis, and can be used to allow service providers to provide services such as banking, merchandise ordering, personal information storage and retrieval, etc. to a population of subscribers. In addition, the system can facilitate the use of a single network by multiple cable TV operators without the danger that a subscriber of one can order programming or services from another.
In addition, the system is not necessarily linked to a cable network distribution system, but can be used to control the provision of useful signals to subscribers distributed by domestic "on air" broadcasters, satellite broadcasts, etc.
The system is also suitable to be used to "narrow cast" e.g. to allow specifically authorized subscribers to select data or to receive data, and to translate that data via facsimile machine equipped to receive the signals into reports, messages, newspapers, bank statements and confirmation slips, etc. without there being need for the head end to transmit specific enabling or descrambling codes to specifically addressed terminals.
Each terminal can be individually enabled to receive a specifically requested sequence of signals (designating a program, service, etc.) by the subscriber inputting a password to the terminal. That password is obtained from a central station which has verified an event request code which is input, typically by touch tone telephone, and which provides the password by a synthetic voice response system. The event request code is provided on the television screen of the subscriber, after the subscriber has input to the terminal a request for a specific program or service.
In a pay per view system, for example, a barker channel displays the available programs and services, each coupled with a number. When a particular program or service is desired, the corresponding number is input to a subscriber terminal by the subscriber. The terminal in the meantime has stored the identification codes of the various programs and services in a memory, and checks the number input by the subscriber against the stored numbers, in order to verify that an input error has not been made.
The terminal then retrieves a unique logical or physical terminal address (I.D.) which can be stored in ROM, DIP switches or the like, retrieves the program or service identification code corresponding to the selected program or service, and utilizing an encryption key, processes the program number and terminal ID through an algorithm using the encryption key to form an encrypted event request code, which is displayed on the television screen. In a successful embodiment of the invention that code was 14 digits long, including an arithmetic check number, although other code lengths could be used, depending on the needs of the cable company. The subscriber then initiates the action of placing an order for a pay-per-view event. Automatic number identification (ANI) may be used if desired, which allows reduction in the number of digits used.
To place the order, the event request code that is displayed to the subscriber on the television screen is provided by the subscriber by telephone to the central station. The central station decrypts the code, checks the terminal number against the list of valid subscriber terminal numbers, checks the program code and provides the aforenoted password, e.g. by a synthetically generated voiced response to the subscriber. The subscriber then inputs the password to the terminal, which password provides to the terminal not only a descrambling code specific to the requested event, program, service, etc., but also authorizes the terminal to descramble, during a certain program interval, during which the descrambling code is to be invoked, and also preferably commands to the terminal to automatically switch the output to the television display to the required channel, which may be the barker channel, at a specific time, and for a specific interval, whereby the program is automatically provided to the subscriber.
Once the password is provided to the subscriber, the order for the pay-per-view event is accepted and billed. The subscriber has the option to cancel the order up until the start of the event. The process of cancellation is similar to that of requesting the event. The selected programs are listed on the television screen when you select the "cancel" option in the barker menu. You can select the program to cancel and once done, a 14 digit cancel code is displayed, and the program is immediately cancelled in the terminal. The 14 digit code should be given to the head end to cancel the bill before the program starts. After obtaining an encrypted cancel code on the television screen, the subscriber transmits it to the central station, using a different telephone number from the one used to place the order. A different password is given to the subscriber to input to the terminal to complete the cancel transaction.
It is known that it is virtually impossible to decrypt an encrypted code generated using modern encryption techniques within a reasonable time, which provides substantial security Furthermore the encryption keys stored at the various terminals can be changed from time to time by broadcasting from a head end to terminals each addressed by the permanent address of the terminal, e.g. every two months. Since for this case each terminal need not be addressed immediately prior to a selected program or service, the saving of the required transmission equipment, bandwidth during peak times, etc., is evident.
Further, since the codes associated with various programs can be selected by the cable TV service provider, and are typically not provided on the barker channels until hours or only a day or two prior to transmission of a pay per view program, and both the encrypted code and password depend not only on the encryption key but also on the program number, it is virtually impossible to generate appropriate passwords by pirates in time to be able to descramble and fraudulently use the distributed pay per view signals.
It should be noted that the encryption key can be different for each of several cable TV operators which distribute signals on the same cable TV network or other media. Thus a subscriber terminal having stored a particular encryption key associated with the cable TV operator with which the subscriber has subscribed, will generate event request codes which are not recognized by the central station equipment of another of the cable TV operators, and either no passwords or no valid passwords will be generated upon request by a subscriber of another cable TV operator. This provides segregation of subscribers to separate cable TV operators all of which are connected to a single network. Thus a facility is provided in which an entire region can be connected in a single network or to a grouping of single networks, large or small. Yet there is no monopoly of the subscribers to one operator, and subscribers can choose whichever cable TV operator they wish. Plural cable TV operators serving an overlapping population need not duplicate a cable TV network, thus saving a considerable cost.
In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, a method of distributing signals to valid subscribers is comprised of storing at least one subscriber terminal valid identification code at a central station, broadcasting promotions of services available to subscribers, each associated with a specific promotion code, selecting one of said services and entering a selected service promotion code into a terminal at a subscriber location, automatically reading an identification number associated with the terminal in response to the entering of a selected promotion code, processing the identification number and the selected promotion code in accordance with an encryption algorithm, and generating an encrypted event request code therefrom, providing the event request code to a verification center, at the verification center, decrypting the event request code, verifying the number against the valid identification codes, and providing a password unique to the terminal and the selected promotion code, entering the password into the terminal at the subscriber location, and providing access to a service utilizing one of the distributed signals corresponding to the selected promotion code to the subscriber in response to the entering of the password.
In accordance with another embodiment, a method of distributing signals to valid subscribers is comprised of, at a subscriber terminal, generating a request code for a service utilizing the signals by accessing a stored program code relating to the service and an address code relating to an identification of the terminal, and encrypting the codes using an encryption key to generate a service request code, requesting the service from a central terminal by providing the service request code, at the central terminal decrypting the service request code and checking the validity of the address code and of the program code, and generating a password, entering the password at the subscriber terminal, and in response providing access to signals providing the service.
In accordance with another embodiment, a cable TV system is comprised of subscriber terminals, each subscriber terminal including apparatus for storing a terminal identification code, apparatus for storing a program identification code, apparatus for storing an encryption key, apparatus for processing the codes and the key according to an encryption algorithm and generating a program request code thereby, a display for displaying programs and for displaying the program request code, apparatus for receiving a password and in response, enabling a program to be passed to the display for display thereon, a head end, and a CATV network connected thereto, for transmitting a scrambled representation of the program to the subscriber terminals, a central station comprising apparatus for receiving the program request code, apparatus for decrypting the program request code, and determining the program identification code and the terminal identification code therefrom, apparatus for verifying validity of the determined program and terminal identification codes, and apparatus for generating the password in response to verification of the validity of the determined program and terminal identification codes.
In accordance with another embodiment, a cable TV system is comprised of a cable TV distribution network, a plurality of cable TV broadcaster equipments adapted to transmit programming via the network destined for subscriber terminals authorized to receive only from individual broadcaster equipments, a plurality of subscriber terminals connected to the network, each subscriber terminal including an encryption code, each code being unique to a particular broadcaster, apparatus at each the terminal for selecting a program, and for obtaining an encrypted event request code derived from the encryption key, apparatus at the equipments for generating a password which is unique to an event and is unique to an individual particular broadcaster, apparatus for applying the password to a terminal at which a program has been selected, for controlling display of a selected program at the terminal at which the program has been selected, whereby programs broadcast by other broadcasters are inhibited from being displayed at other terminals.
In accordance with another embodiment, a cable TV system is comprised of a network, subscriber terminals connected to the network authorized to receive signals offered by specific ones of different operators, and apparatus for restricting receipt by the subscribers of the signals to those offered by the specific ones of the operators for which the subscriber terminals have been authorized.
In accordance with another embodiment, a method of distributing signals to various subscribers is comprised of connecting plural subscribers to a single program distribution network for receiving programs therefrom, connecting plural program suppliers to said network, downloading to each of various subscriber terminals a code related to a particular program supplier, and storing said code at relates subscriber terminals, transmitting programs from said program suppliers to the network in particular separate channels, and enabling the receipt of particular programs only from related program suppliers by specific subscriber terminals using said codes.
A better understanding of the invention will be obtained by reference to the detailed description below, in conjunction with the following drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system used to implement the invention,
FIG. 1A is a block diagram of an alternate form of checking system,
FIG. 1B is a block diagram of another alternate form of checking system,
FIG. 2 is a block diagram of pertinent portions of the subscriber terminal, and
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a multi-operator program broadcast system.
FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram example of a system for implementing the invention. It will be recognized that structural portions of a television distribution system which do not bear on the invention are not shown, as they are deemed to be known by persons skilled in the art.
A head end 1 generates program signals such as CATV signals and transmits them via a medium 3. In accordance with a successful prototype of the invention and in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, the medium 3 is a cable TV distribution network. However it will be understood that the head end could transmit via a satellite distribution system, normal local broadcasting, a wide area network such as an optical fiber network (information highway), etc. Signals transmitted by the head end can be commercially supported, freely distributed signals, scrambled television signals, or other signals which provide various services to the various subscribers. The description below is mainly concerned with freely distributed signals, but only those that have been scrambled. Therefore subscriber terminal elements which bypass the descrambler/converter or which provide signals to a e.g. a facsimile port, to a computer input, etc. will not be shown. However those construction aspects of a terminal are known to persons skilled in the art, for example from U.S. Pat. No. 4,623,920 issued Nov. 18th, 1986, invented by Michel Dufresne et al.
Signals transmitted from the head end are received by subscriber terminal 5, and are fed to the input of descrambler/converter 7. Unless a descramble code has been received by the descrambler/converter, the signals are blocked from being passed through the descrambler/converter and thus from being shown understandably on a video monitor 9 which is connected to its output.
In operation, the head end 1 transmits unscrambled on a barker channel a display of promotions of services available to subscribers, each associated with an associated promotion code. The services can include or be comprised of scrambled TV programs as might be desired to be viewed in a pay per view scheme. The list is compiled from a pay per view service provider 2.
At an appropriate time the programs to be selected are also transmitted in other channels; for example there may be two different pay per view auxiliary channels, scrambled, which are transmitted from the head end at predetermined times.
The barker channel is not scrambled and either bypasses the descrambler/converter or passes through the descrambler/converter without the requirement to be descrambled, and are displayed on video monitor 9. The subscriber views the barker channel, and selects a program service, identified by a program code.
The subscriber then inputs the program code into the subscriber terminal e.g. by means of a remote control which is passed into an encryption processor 11.
A terminal address module 13 is associated with subscriber terminal 5, and could be a group of dip switches which logically identify the subscriber terminal, or a logical address stored in a read only memory (ROM), or an address in firmware, or an address permanently stored in some other manner.
The subscriber terminal 5 also contains a memory 15 which stores an encryption key.
Upon the subscriber entering the program code to the subscriber terminal 5 for a specifically desired service such as a pay per view program, the encryption algorithm accesses the terminal identifying serial number from module 13, the encryption key from memory 15, and utilizing the program code, processes the aforenoted data in accordance with the encryption algorithm, generating an encrypted event request code. In a successful embodiment of the invention, the event request code was 14 digits long, and will be described in more detail below.
It is also preferred that the program number signals of the services that are promoted on the barker channel should be stored in a program memory 17, which is connected to receive those signals from descrambler/converter 7. Prior to the processor 11 generating the event request code, it is preferred that it should access the program memory and compare stored program numbers with the program code input by the subscriber. If it fails to detect the input program code, clearly the subscriber has made an error in entry, and processor 11 can send a signal via path 19 to descrambler/converter 7 to display a message on video monitor 9, advising the subscriber that an erroneous program code has been entered.
Assuming that the program code has been verified as correct, the event request code generated by processor 11 is passed via signal path 19 to descrambler/converter 7 for display to the subscriber on video monitor 9, with an appropriate message generated by a video display generator 20 connected to the descrambler/converter, such as advising the subscriber to telephone the displayed event request code to a predetermined telephone number.
The subscriber then uses his telephone 21 and dials a central station which contains a checking system 24 as will be described, keying the encrypted event request code by touchtone (or equivalent) and transmitting it via telephone line 23 to a telephone set 25, modem, or equivalent at the central station 24.
It should be noted that rather than the subscriber dialing his telephone, the terminal 5 could include a modem, and upon inputting a command to subscriber terminal 5, the modem could be enabled to automatically dial a corresponding modem at the central station. Therefore for that embodiment, telephone sets 21 and 25 should be replaced with modems which automatically communicate with each other.
In accordance with a successful embodiment, the 14 digit code was in the general format: AAAAAAEEECBBBV, in which
AAAAAA is a field of 6 decimal numbers taken from the terminal address of the subscriber terminal, and is an unique identification of the subscriber terminal from which an event is ordered and to which a program or service is to be delivered.
EEE is a field that contains the number of the service or pay per view event ordered by the subscriber. A different event number is assigned to each event and each date and time the event is provided. For example, on odd numbered months the event number was designated to range from 001 to 399 for movies, and from 400 to 499 for special events. On even numbered months the event number was designated to range from 501 to 899 for movies, and from 900 to 999 for special events.
The C field contained the event logical channel number on which the event was to be broadcast. The possible values were in the interval 0-9. In a small system using the above format, for example, 0 can be a publicity channel (called a barker channel), 1 can be a first pay per view channel and 2 can be a second pay per view channel. Logical channels are translated by the descrambler/converter to specific channels; for example, if logical channel 1 was selected and was enabled to be decoded, channel 56 could be designated as the first pay per view channel, which can be decoded and shown on channel 14, a representative barker channel.
BBB was a billing code generated by a subscriber terminal. The billing code also serves to prove to the central terminal that the subscriber used his or her own subscriber terminal to generate the code. The BBB billing code was created using the encryption key located in a read only memory (ROM) in the subscriber terminal.
V was a validation code calculated from the preceding 13 numbers, and serves to indicate to the central terminal that the user has not made any errors entering the data for the event.
Returning now to FIG. 1, when the event request code has been received by telephone 25 or equivalent modem, it is detected in interface 27 of checking system 24. This is where the event request code entered by the subscriber is validated by rebuilding the validation code V in conjunction with description system 29. If proven invalid, a feedback message is sent to the subscriber, to retry his entry, which could be a synthesized voice message if telephones are used, or a message for display on the TV screen of the subscriber if a modem is used.
In one embodiment of checking system 24, a table 33 has stored in it a list of all valid subscriber serial numbers, and a table 35 has stored in it a valid program list. Processor 36 reads table 33 and determines whether a valid terminal address has been entered. It also checks table 35 to ensure that a valid program number has been entered.
In another embodiment as shown in FIG. 1A, checking system 24A is comprised of a PPV server 31 which detects the validity of the event request code, and generates a password, which is applied to interface 27. Interface 27 generates in synthetically voiced language the numbers and/or characters of a password, which is reproduced acoustically in telephone 25 whereby it is provided to the subscriber which has keyed in the event request code.
Alternatively, the password can be applied to the aforenoted modem and passed directly into the subscriber terminal 5 for application to descrambler/converter 7 after being translated locally by a local modem and data receiver 37 into a signal recognizable by the descrambler/converter.
According to another embodiment, the table 33 is dispensed with. The encrypted event request code contains a check sum. By first determining that the check sum is correct for the event request code, and if correct, then decrypting the event request code, it is determined that a valid subscriber has requested an event. If the code will not decrypt, an invalid subscriber is indicated, or if the check sum is not correct, there has been an error, or tampering in transmission. In either case the event is denied.
If the code is decrypted, table 35 is accessed to determin whether a valid program has been selected. Alternatively, table 35 is not used, and an assumption is made that the validity of the program has been checked with the creation of the event request code at the subscriber terminal.
Assuming that it is the subscriber which has heard the password from telephone 25, he then applies the password to the subscriber terminal, e.g. by keying the password into his terminal remote control. The password is received in the data receiver 37, is translated into a signal recognizable by descrambler/converter 7, and applies it thereto. After it is received, the encrypting processor will reverse the process and decrypt the password. The result is compared with the original request code kept at the subscriber station for validation. When there is no conformity an invalid message appears on the screen.
If the password is accepted, this causes display of the desired program at the appropriate time and for the appropriate interval.
In order to control the validity of subscribers, the checking system includes an SMS 30 which contains a billing unit 39 (shown in more detail in FIG. 1). The billing unit can be a personal computer operated by a cable TV operator. Registered subscribers to the particular cable TV operator which have a good credit history or which have prepaid for certain programs are entered into the billing unit which stores the addresses of the terminals of such valid subscribers in table 33.
It should be noted that the billing unit 39 could be associated with a particular cable TV operator. The encryption key is broadcast to each subscriber in a data channel, then stored in memory 15 of subscriber terminal 5. It is preferably changed from head end 1 at predetermined intervals, e.g. bi-monthly, monthly, etc. The encryption code can be generated by billing unit 39 or by network supervision (not shown). It will be recognized that a single encryption key can be used for all subscribers authorized to receive programs and services from a single cable TV operator.
Different central stations 24 can be connected to head end 1, one associated with each cable operator. However all of the subscriber terminals can be connected to the same cable TV network medium 3. In order to separate the subscriber terminals associated with each cable TV operator, all of the subscriber terminals which are authorized to receive from a particular cable TV operator should have the same encryption key; different encryption keys are used by subscriber terminals authorized to receive from different cable TV operators.
As a result of the above, event request codes will not be recognized by the central stations 24 of cable TV operators related to subscriber terminals which are authorized to different cable TV operators. Thus plural cable TV operators can use the same network and can pool the transmission of free cable channels and services. Yet due to the different encryption keys, their pay per view customers can be kept totally separate. This allows complete security to various cable TV operators which may sign different service providers for their respective systems.
Turning to FIG. 2, a more detailed view of a subscriber terminal 5 is shown.
An input 41 receives signals from the medium 3 and applies them to converter 43. Typically converter 43 converts the channel of the input signal to e.g. channel 3 for display on a video monitor. For normal signals, the output of converter 43 is passed through switch 45 to video output line 45 for application to a video input of a video monitor.
Switch 45 can alternatively apply the output of converter 43 to descrambler 47. Converter 43, switch 45 and descrambler 47 are controlled by microprocessor 49 via bus 51.
A remote controlled receiver 53 receives e.g. infrared signals from a remote control transmitter used by a subscriber, converts the signals to digital form, and applies them to bus 51 for reception by microprocessor 49. A random access memory RAM 55 stores programs for use by microprocessor 49 in carrying out the functions of the subscriber terminal. The microprocessor 49 can also access data stored in RAM 55 for display on video monitor 9, and after forming a display using a video display generator 56 applies the signal through digital to analog converter 57, where the signals are converted into a form that can be displayed by video monitor 9, which signals are modulated in modulator 58 and are applied to output line 45.
Normal operation of the above is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,623,920 issued Nov. 18th, 1986, invented by Michel Dufresne et al, which is incorporated herein by reference.
A terminal address module 13 is connected to bus 51, whereby the microprocessor can access the serial number of the terminal. In addition, an encryption key memory 15 can store the aforenoted encryption key sent from the head end.
In addition, a RAM program memory 17 is connected to a bus 51 for access by microprocessor 49.
Programs on a barker channel, e.g. channel 14, are displayed by bypassing descrambler 47. Data transmitted on a data channel which can be in the vertical interval or line 21 of the barker channel is applied via converter 43 or is demodulated on a demodulator (not shown) to bus 51. This data can be e.g. the program identifier numbers associated with programs listed on the barker channel. Microprocessor 49 controls storing this data in program memory 17.
When the program list is viewed by a subscriber on the barker channel, he selects a program by inputting the displayed associated program code using e.g. his remote control. The program code is input by the remote control transmitter into the remote control receiver 53 (preferably prefixed by a special designator, such as *), where it is translated into data and is temporarily stored in RAM 55. Microprocessor 49 detects the program code, and using a program stored in RAM 55 determines the event code therefrom, e.g. digits which will become EEE referred to above. Microprocessor 49 then checks those digits with corresponding digits stored in program memory 17, and if valid accesses the encryption algorithm program stored in RAM 55.
Upon processing the encryption algorithm, microprocessor 49 accesses the serial number from module 13 and the selected program number, temporarily stored in RAM 55, and generates the preferably 14 digit event code. It formulates the event request code into displayable form using generator 56, adds some explanatory characters such as a confirmation advisory, an instruction to telephone a certain telephone number by accessing data stored in RAM 55, and applying the information thereto for display on the video monitor. The subscriber, seeing the event request code displayed on the monitor, dials the digits of the indicated telephone number and, as described above, receives a password from central station 24. The subscriber then keys the password into the terminal remote control which is received by the remote control receiver 53. The password is temporarily stored in RAM 55. Using a program stored therein, microprocessor 49 decodes the password into an enabling time, an enabling interval, a descrambling code and a channel control signal for descrambler 47.
It will be understood that a modem 61 can be connected to bus 51 and instead of the event request code being keyed into a telephone by the subscriber, the modem 61 under control of the microprocessor 49 can dial a modem at central station 24, can apply the event request code thereto automatically, and can receive the password therefrom, applying it to bus 51 for storage in RAM 55 and subsequent use thereof by microprocessor 49.
At the appropriate time indicated by clock 59, the microprocessor switches switch 45 to output the converter 43 into the input of descrambler 47, applies the stored descrambling code to descrambler 47 and switches a tuner contained in converter 43 to receive from a specific scrambled channel designated by the logical channel indicated in the password, and causes converter 43 to output the signal to the barker channel or to some other predetermined channel. The requested channel is thus converted, descrambled and is applied to output line 45 for display on the video monitor.
After the designated interval of the program, the microprocessor 49 removes the scrambling code 47, switches converter 43 back to the channel previously tuned to, and switches switch 45 to bypass descrambler 47, allowing the video monitor to display ordinary free channels.
It will be understood that memories described with reference to the embodiment of FIG. 2 can be combined in an efficient way if desired. Further, it is preferred that a backup battery should be used to preserve data stored therein in case of a power failure.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating a multi-operator network. Plural cable operator control systems 70A-70N each transmits programs via a common network 72 to its own set of subscribers, each of which is connected to the same common network. Each subscriber has a reception control subscriber terminal such as that described with reference to FIG. 2. Each receives signals from a main head end by wired link, microwave link 74 or other means of receiving signals. Each cable operator system has its own subscriber and program authorization and verification system comprised of SMS 30A-30N and server 31A-31N. Each program authorization and verification system has its own telephone number for the telephone line 25. Thus each cable operator system can provide subscriber terminal and encryption codes for its own group of subscribers, can provide its own program codes on its own barker channel, and can authorize its own subscribers to receive programs by providing its own passwords. It will also be recognized that the individual cable operators can contract with the head end operator to operate an SMS 30 and server 31 on its behalf. In order to ensure that the individual cable operators do not use interfering or overlapping codes, it is preferred that the operator of the head end should assign individual unique codes to each of the operator systems. The systems operate within the common network as described earlier. It should be noted that with each of the various terminals storing an unique common code that is specific to a particular cable operator system, even for non pay-per-view programming, the receipt of programs by each of the subscriber terminals can be restricted to those sent out by an associated cable operator system, since the code can control the descrambling of normal program signals which are transmitted with an unique scrambling code by each of the various operator systems. Other programs can be accepted from the head end 72 and are not scrambled by the cable operator systems, and are transmitted in common by all cable operator systems for general viewing by all subscribers without restriction. The network need not be a cable TV system, but may be any form of mass audience program distribution system which carries any form of signals for reception by a mass audience.
A person understanding this invention may now conceive of alternative structures and embodiments or variations of the above. All of those which fall within the scope of the claims appended hereto are considered to be part of the present invention.
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|Sony Corporation
|Signal reproducing/recording/transmitting method and apparatus and signal recording medium
|Jul 6, 2000
|Jun 20, 2006
|Sony Corporation
|Signal reproducing/recording/transmitting method and apparatus and signal recording medium
|Feb 15, 2002
|Jul 1, 2008
|Macrovision Corporation
|Method and apparatus for providing copy protection using a transmittal mode command
|Sep 7, 2006
|Dec 8, 2009
|At&T Intellectual Property Ii, L.P.
|Concise dynamic grammars using N-best selection
|Jun 1, 2005
|Aug 24, 2010
|General Instrument Corporation
|Method and apparatus for linking a plurality of user devices to a service location
|Feb 13, 2006
|Sep 21, 2010
|Research In Motion Limited
|Secure method of termination of service notification
|Aug 18, 2010
|Feb 15, 2011
|Research In Motion Limited
|Secure method of termination of service notification
|Dec 30, 2002
|Apr 5, 2011
|Arris Group, Inc.
|Method and system for managing television viewing habits
|Oct 28, 2003
|Apr 19, 2011
|Comcast Ip Holdings I, Llc
|Secure distribution of video on-demand
|Jun 15, 1998
|May 3, 2011
|At&T Intellectual Property Ii, L.P.
|Concise dynamic grammars using N-best selection
|Jun 4, 1999
|Aug 9, 2011
|Opentv, Inc.
|Flexible interface for secure input of pin code
|Feb 14, 2011
|Dec 27, 2011
|Research In Motion Limited
|Secure method of termination of service notification
|Oct 19, 2010
|May 8, 2012
|Broadcom Corporation
|Preventing a non-head end based service provider from sending media to a media processing system
|Mar 19, 2008
|Aug 21, 2012
|Rovi Solutions Corporation
|Method and apparatus for providing copy protection using a transmittal mode command
|Apr 11, 2005
|Aug 28, 2012
|Universal Electronics, Inc.
|System and method for limiting access to data
|Mar 25, 2011
|Feb 5, 2013
|Comcast Ip Holdings I, Llc
|Secure distribution of video on-demand
|Sep 30, 2003
|Feb 26, 2013
|Broadcom Corporation
|Method and system for secure linking with authentication and authorization in a media exchange network
|Jan 19, 2001
|Nov 12, 2013
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|System and method for providing broadcast programming, a virtual VCR, and a video scrapbook to programming subscribers
|Apr 28, 2011
|Mar 25, 2014
|At&T Intellectual Property Ii, L.P.
|Concise dynamic grammars using N-best selection
|Aug 8, 2011
|Jun 24, 2014
|Opentv, Inc.
|Flexible interface for secure input of pin code
|Jan 16, 2007
|Aug 19, 2014
|Qualcomm Incorporated
|Apparatus and method for decoding digital image and audio signals
|Apr 5, 2012
|Aug 26, 2014
|Broadcom Corporation
|Preventing a non-head end based service provider from sending media to a media processing system
|May 14, 2012
|Jan 20, 2015
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|Personal content server apparatus and methods
|Feb 4, 2013
|Mar 3, 2015
|Comcast Ip Holdings I, Llc
|Secure distribution of video on-demand
|Feb 20, 2012
|Apr 28, 2015
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|Methods and apparatus for providing virtual content over a network
|Jul 26, 2006
|Jun 16, 2015
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises, LLC
|Scheduling trigger apparatus and method
|Apr 12, 2012
|Jul 7, 2015
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|Apparatus and methods for enabling media options in a content delivery network
|Jul 15, 2009
|Nov 3, 2015
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|Methods and apparatus for evaluating an audience in a content-based network
|Mar 24, 2014
|Mar 15, 2016
|At&T Intellectual Property Ii, L.P.
|Concise dynamic grammars using N-best selection
|May 6, 2013
|Apr 26, 2016
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|Personal content server apparatus and methods
|Sep 22, 2004
|Jun 28, 2016
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|Scheduling trigger apparatus and method
|May 24, 2006
|Jul 5, 2016
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|Secondary content insertion apparatus and methods
|Feb 19, 2008
|Nov 22, 2016
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|Methods and apparatus for enhanced advertising and promotional delivery in a network
|Jul 1, 2015
|Apr 11, 2017
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|Apparatus and methods for enabling media options in a content delivery network
|Jan 19, 2015
|Sep 19, 2017
|Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc
|Personal content server apparatus and methods
|Jun 20, 2001
|Jan 17, 2002
|Sony Corporation
|Signal reproducing /recording/ transmitting method and apparatus and signal record medium
|Sep 28, 2001
|Mar 28, 2002
|Pekka Talmola
|Method and arrangement for locally and wirelessly distributing broadband data
|Feb 15, 2002
|Nov 21, 2002
|Wonfor Peter J.
|Method and apparatus for providing copy protection using a transmittal mode command
|Oct 9, 2001
|Apr 10, 2003
|Merrill Solomon
|Wireless video-on-demand system
|Jan 19, 2001
|Dec 4, 2003
|Berberet Suzanne M.
|System and method for providing broadcast programming, a virtual vcr, and a video scrapbook to programming subscribers
|Oct 28, 2003
|May 13, 2004
|Son Yong Ho
|Secure distribution of video on-demand
|Nov 7, 2002
|May 13, 2004
|International Business Machines Corp.
|User specific cable/personal video recorder preferences
|Nov 7, 2002
|May 13, 2004
|International Business Machines Corporation
|PVR credits by user
|Dec 18, 2001
|May 20, 2004
|Patrick Sansom
|Television receiver and method of operating a server
|Sep 30, 2003
|Jun 17, 2004
|Jeyhan Karaoguz
|Method and system for media exchange network functionality accessed via media processing system key code entry
|Dec 12, 2002
|Jun 17, 2004
|Universal Electronics, Inc.
|System and method for limiting access to data
|Sep 30, 2003
|Jun 17, 2004
|Jeyhan Karaoguz
|Method and system for secure linking with authentication and authorization in a media exchange network
|Jan 5, 2005
|Jun 23, 2005
|Morley Steven A.
|Apparatus and method for encoding and storage of digital image and audio signals
|Apr 11, 2005
|Sep 8, 2005
|Universal Electronics Inc.
|System and method for limiting access to data
|May 27, 2004
|Dec 1, 2005
|Bernard Marc R
|Optical line termination, optical access network, and method and apparatus for determining network termination type
|Jul 26, 2006
|Nov 16, 2006
|Concrete Pictures, Inc.
|Scheduling trigger apparatus and method
|Jun 1, 2005
|Dec 7, 2006
|General Instrument Corporation
|Method and apparatus for linking a plurality of user devices to a service location
|Sep 6, 2006
|Mar 8, 2007
|Method and system for initiating, controlling and managing a content-on-demand session via phone, mobile communication or internet based services
|Feb 13, 2006
|Sep 6, 2007
|Research In Motion Limited
|Secure method of termination of service notification
|Jan 16, 2007
|Oct 18, 2007
|Qualcomm Incorporated
|Apparatus and method for decoding digital image and audio signals
|Oct 25, 2006
|May 1, 2008
|Microsoft Corporation
|Private data transmission via an analog broadcast transmission
|Mar 19, 2008
|Jul 24, 2008
|Wonfor Peter J
|Method and apparatus for providing copy protection using a transmittal mode command
|Jan 12, 2009
|May 7, 2009
|Waptv Limited
|Television receiver and method of operating a server
|Aug 18, 2010
|Dec 9, 2010
|Research In Motion Limited
|Secure method of termination of service notification
|Oct 19, 2010
|Feb 10, 2011
|Broadcom Corporation
|Preventing A Non-Head End Based Service Provider from Sending Media to a Media Processing System
|Feb 14, 2011
|Jun 9, 2011
|Research In Motion Limited
|Secure method of termination of service notification
|Feb 14, 2011
|Jun 9, 2011
|British Sky Broadcasting Limited
|Television receiver and method of operating a server
|Mar 25, 2011
|Jul 28, 2011
|Comcast Ip Holdings I, Llc
|Secure Distribution of Video On-Demand
|Apr 28, 2011
|Aug 18, 2011
|At&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.
|Concise dynamic grammars using n-best selection
|Feb 26, 2013
|Jul 4, 2013
|Broadcom Corporation
|Method and system for secure linking with authentication and authorization in a media exchange network
|Jun 27, 2001
|May 16, 2002
|Prediwave, Corp.
|Counterfeit stb prevention through protocol switching
|May 16, 2005
|Dec 15, 2005
|Tellabs Petaluma, Inc.
|Optical line termination, optical access network, and method and apparatus for determining network termination type
|May 16, 2005
|Aug 10, 2006
|Tellabs Petaluma Inc
|Optical line termination, optical access network, and method and apparatus for determining network termination type
|U.S. Classification
|International Classification
|Cooperative Classification
|European Classification
|May 1, 2001
|Maintenance fee reminder mailed
|Oct 9, 2001
|Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees
|Dec 11, 2001
|Expired due to failure to pay maintenance fee
Effective date: 20011007


text:
Don't miss your chance to see GWAR in Las Vegas! Check out the schedule below for the concert date of your choice, then buy your GWAR Las Vegas tickets before they sell out!
Looking for GWAR tickets in other cities? View all GWAR tickets »
Sorry! We couldn't find any events for GWAR in Las Vegas.
If you were searching to see if GWAR is coming to Las Vegas, then you're in luck! For their latest tour, GWAR will indeed hold a concert in Las Vegas. Have an awesome concert experience when you go to see GWAR in Las Vegas. Get your GWAR tickets Las Vegas and join fellow fans for a concert to remember!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
He isn't man enough to be alone. It terrifies him. So, rather than find someone to have a healthy relationship with, which would take time, he keeps trying to get someone that fell for his BS before back, because it would take less time than actually doing a relationship the proper way! If he can just get one of the OW to let him back in, he won't have to do all the dating stuff, the hard stuff. He can just fall back in to her life and her bed and it will all be good again.
He's just too broken to step back and look. He just needs some woman to tell him how wonderful he is and stroke his ego. He doesn't know how to do real.
Why are you still wasting time thinking about it? Eh. As long as you are still ranting at him....it's normal. He was part of your life for a long time, and sometimes it's just hard to not hear some of these things and try to figure out WTF they are thinking.
WH says marriage is over: May 15, 2009.
EA#2 July 20, 2009. Legally sep: Aug 16, 2009. DIVORCED!!!! Signed Nov 23, final Dec 24, 2010, adultery listed.


text:
La Center Centennial
Ridgefield Centennial
Woodland Historical Museum Society
Cowlitz County Thumbnail History
Clark County Historical Museum
Cowlitz County Historical Museum
History of Woodland Planter's Days
History of Lewis River Golf Course
Mt. St. Helens
North Clark Historical Museum
Yacolt Burn
Web site owned by NWNature.com Inc. Inquiries to Noel Johnson.
Site designed and maintained by
Farnell Web Design


text:
WIZnet's W5100 is a full-featured, single-chip, Internet-enabled 10/100 Ethernet controller designed for embedded applications where ease of integration, stability, performance, area and system cost control are required. The W5100 has been designed to facilitate easy implementation of Internet connectivity without an OS. The W5100 is IEEE 802.3 10BASE-T and 802.3u 100BASE-TX compliant.
The W5100 includes a fully hardwired TCP/IP stack and integrated Ethernet MAC & PHY. Hardwired TCP/IP stack supports TCP, UDP, IPv4, ICMP, ARP, IGMP and PPPoE which has been proven in various applications for several years. 16Kbytes internal buffer is included for data transmission. Loaded with features the W5100 is great for a number of applications, including home-network devices, serial-to-ethernet, USB-to-ethernet, security systems, building automation, embedded servers and more!
For easy integration, three different interfaces - direct, indirect bus, and SPI - are supported on the MCU side.
We cannot offer refunds for this product as it is a consumable product.
- Support Hardwired TCP/IP Protocols : TCP, UDP, ICMP, IPv4 ARP, IGMP, PPPoE, Ethernet
- 10BaseT/100BaseTX Ethernet PHY embedded
- Support Auto Negotiation (Full-duplex and half duplex)
- Support Auto MDI/MDIX
- Support ADSL connection (with support PPPoE Protocol with PAP/CHAP Authentication mode)
- Supports 4 independent sockets simultaneously
- Not support IP Fragmentation
- Internal 16Kbytes Memory for Tx/Rx Buffers
- 0.18 μm CMOS technology
- 3.3V operation with 5V I/O signal tolerance
- Small 80 Pin LQFP Package
- Lead-Free Package
- Support Serial Peripheral Interface(SPI MODE 0)
- Multi-function LED outputs (TX, RX, Full/Half duplex, Collision, Link, Speed)
- Datasheet
- W5100 Reference Schematic
- Comparison between W5300 and W5100
- WIZnet Product Page (more documents and downloads)
|3,0 Months


text:
Effects of reserve requirements in an inflation targeting regime: the case of Colombia
In: The global crisis and financial intermediation in emerging market economies
The Colombian economy and financial system have coped reasonably well with the effects of the global financial crisis. Hence, "unconventional" policy measures have not been at the center of the policy decisions and discussions. Nominal short term interest rates have remained the main monetary policy tool and "Quantitative easing" measures have not been central in the policy response. The one "unconventional" monetary instrument used by the Central Bank in Colombia has been changes in reserve requirements (RR) on financial system deposits. Interestingly, they were adopted before the global financial crisis, as a reaction to domestic credit conditions. The effects of RR on interest rate and interest rate pass-through in an inflation targeting regime are not as straightforward as those under a monetary targeting regime. Conceptually, those effects depend on the degree of substitution between deposits and central bank credit as sources of funds for banks and on the extent to which RR changes affect the risks facing banks. The empirical results for Colombia suggest that RR are important long run determinants of business loan interest rates and have been effective in strengthening the pass-through from policy to deposit and lending interest rates.
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- Agustín Saade Ospina & David Pérez-Reyna, "undated". "Cambios en los incentivos de los bancos como consecuencia de modificaciones en los esquemas de encaje," Temas de Estabilidad Financiera 041, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
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text:
Dan Weiss, one of the first packagers of young adult titles--including the Sweet Valley High series--has sold Daniel Weiss Associates Inc. to two veteran company executives, Ann Brashares and Leslie Morgenstein. Brashares and Morgenstein have renamed the company 17th Street Productions and will serve as co-presidents; Brashares will oversee the creative aspects of the business, while Morgenstein will be responsible for administration and management.
Morgenstein said 17th Street will concentrate on its core YA business for about the next six months, but added that he expects to move into new areas at some point next year. "The market has changed. We'd like to get involved in more cutting edge projects." The company will consider entering the adult book market as well as getting into book management, which Morgenstein described as a combination of packaging and agenting.
Weiss told PW that after being involved in book packaging for nearly 20 years, he felt it was time for a change. He said that he hopes to develop some television projects and also may become a partner in a small publishing company.


text:
The Champagne has flowed, the punch has been drunk, and now it's time to face the coldest, cruellest month of the year, along with the equally dreaded concept known as New Year's resolutions. But what if you actually followed through on those "life-altering" promises you made to yourself? All this week, we'll look at individuals who made complete career and lifestyle changes. Today, Mark Medley on a Vancouver writer who swapped columns for cufflinks.
Life, like an ill-fitting suit, sometimes requires alterations. Needing such a change, in 2006 the Vancouver journalist JJ Lee left his job at the CBC and began an apprenticeship at Modernize Tailors under the stern hand of master tailor Bill Wong. He was 37 years old. It did not go exactly as planned.
Lee chronicles his career change, from columnist to couturier, in his recently released memoirs The Measure of a Man, which was shortlisted for the 2011 Governor General's Literary Award and is on the longlist for the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. The book is at once a sartorial history of the suit and a candid account of Lee's often tumultuous relationship with his father, John, a hard-working, hard-drinking restaurateur who died in 2001 at the age of 52.
Although the book stitches together his time at Modernize in a neat and chronological fashion, the real timeline is as jagged as Lee's first attempt at using a sewing machine. Lee first met Bill in 2001 (a few months after his father's death), when he went into the shop to order a made-to-measure suit — a graduation present to himself. He began his apprenticeship in 2006 (he lied and said he knew how to sew), though eventually returned to the CBC in 2007, at which point he produced a radio documentary based on his experience, and from which the new book takes its name.
The radio doc caught the attention of McClelland & Stewart editor Anita Chong, who asked Lee if he was interested in writing a book along the same lines. He said no, believing the topic exhausted. Not long after, Lee found himself standing at his closet, browsing his suits, when he came across one of his father's old dark navy ensembles.
"That was the magic moment, actually," he says of the incident, which became the book's first chapter. As well, he realized there was more left to uncover. "I really still hadn't confronted my father," he says.
The thread that knits the narrative together is Lee's mission to alter one of his father's suits, in the process learning about a man he never really knew.
"I'd done a lot to forget about my childhood," says Lee, now 42, on the phone from the Vancouver home he shares with his wife and eight-year-old twin boys. "And I started to really, for the book, think about those quiet moments, and try and find a way to explain why my life was the way my life was."
Lee's Montreal childhood blended the quintessential immigrant story with Dickensian flourishes; his father, who came to Canada when he was four years old, climbed the service industry ladder, from waiting tables to hobnobbing with Montreal's elite. The clothes always matched the man, which is likely where Lee developed his own lifelong interest in fashion. At home, though, Lee and his siblings dealt with a much different man, one crippled by alcoholism and prone to violence against his wife and children. Still, after reading the book Lee's older sister asked him, "Why did you make our childhood sound so nice?"
"I don't even know how forgiveness is supposed to work, to be honest," Lee says when asked if he's forgiven his father. "I accept what happened, and I understand him more."
At the same time he was writing about losing his father, he gained another in Bill Wong, who along with his brother Jack has been running Modernize Tailors since the 1950s. Lee paints the pair as gruff, no-nonsense and entirely old-school, but above all else kind.
"I don't think they knew how much I love them," Lee says. "That's the part [of the book] that surprised them."
Founded by their father in 1913, this Vancouver institution is the last of its kind in Chinatown. A trip to the tailor used to be as regular as a visit to the barber or dentist. No longer. "That's the threat: If you don't have people feeling comfortable going to visit tailors, then the tailor shop can disappear."
In a way, The Measure of a Man is a paean to the days when all men, from teachers to lawyers, regularly sported suits. Lee doesn't pine for a return to those times, but does "think it's necessary everyone know how to wear a suit. And I think that's the thing I'm most nostalgic for."
Still, he doesn't expect everyone to shell-out for custom-made suits like those sold at Modernize.
"I think people shouldn't follow rules. What they should follow is what suits them best," he says. "If you can look good in a $100 suit, you look good in a $100 suit. I don't really care where it came from. And if you know how to wear that $100 suit, that's actually even more important."
And how many suits does he own?
"I'm going into my closet right now." He counts them off. "Seven suits, three tuxedoes."
In the end, Lee lasted about a year at Modernize Tailors before he was fired. Writing, it would seem, is the career he's cut out for. Still, a man can dream.
"I've actually become a better tailor since then, on my own," he says. "I'm now thinking, 'Oh God, I should go back.' I think I'm ready to actually start doing alterations."
• The Measure of a Man by JJ Lee is published by McClelland & Stewart ($29.99).


text:
Don't miss your chance to see Joey Bada$ in Noblesville! Check out the schedule below for the concert date of your choice, then buy your Joey Bada$ Noblesville tickets before they sell out!
Looking for Joey Bada$ tickets in other cities? View all Joey Bada$ tickets »
Sorry! We couldn't find any events for Joey Bada$ in Noblesville.
If you were searching to see if Joey Bada$ is coming to Noblesville, then you're in luck! For their latest tour, Joey Bada$ will indeed hold a concert in Noblesville. Have an awesome concert experience when you go to see Joey Bada$ in Noblesville. Get your Joey Bada$ tickets Noblesville and join fellow fans for a concert to remember!


text:
Two Ways To Kick Out The Old Year and Bring In The New Year
Stress, trees, gifts, food, travel, blah blah blah. It's going to happen next week whether we're ready or not, so instead let's talk today about the whole fresh page we get when the New Year comes. I am going to invest in myself in two ways, and I invite you to do either or both of these with me. One's short and intense, and the other's longer and intense over more time.
Write Out 2013; Write In 2014
Close the book on 2013 and beckon in goodness for 2014 by writing with us on New Year's Eve (1 pm -7 pm EST). This retreat (or mad scramble, perhaps) is designed to carve out the space and time for you to write for closure of the old year and to write what you hope for for the new year.
Personal, professional, spiritual, whatever you need it to be. Your choice of writing format: write it as a story, list, haiku, plan, whatever resonates for you. We give guidance and feedback as you go, then once you're done, you're done and have a piece you're proud of! $45 for the whole event.
For everyone, of all ages, sexes, situations, locations. Information and registration here. (We're hosting the information page on our Writing Through Your Divorce site, but this retreat has nothing to do with divorce and is for everyone.) Starts December 31st at 1 pm EST, so sign up now so you can log in to the message board and be ready to hit the ground typing when we start.
Your Amazing Year Workbook 2014
I told you about this last year, and a bunch of us bought it to try it out. Last year I said, "And I was just having this feeling that I could do more this year and somehow my regular one-page list of goals wasn't going to do it, and right them Leonie's bright pink and purple glittery superfantastical planning tool landed right in my inbox. So I bought it, and it is no joke."
What I love about the Your Amazing Year Workbook (both the personal and the business versions) is the structure underlying the woo-woo sparkliness. That combination worked for me, but in ways I hadn't anticipated.
Essentially what happened for me was that I made all these goals for the year and then halfway through my vision entirely changed. So looking back at what I wrote, half of it isn't even stuff I'm interested in right now anymore anyway. BUT. The most important thing I wrote down (which you can see if you look hard at the photo there taken of the that page in my book) absolutely happened. It was a combination of being aware of wanting it so I could change my motivations and reactions to things, and just plain being open to possibility. Who knew. Seriously. I mean, Leonie knew, which is why she wrote the book. But I didn't.
I started a closed Facebook group for people doing the workbook, and these are some results from some of the people in the group:
Anandi Raman Creath started The Papercraft Lab (Handcrafted Memory Albums From Bits to Book) and is thriving with it.
Tiffany Noel Taylor's business increased 300% over the previous year and she's driving a free car from her company.
Julie Abbot Clark wrote a fiction book in a month in the hour every morning before she had to pack her kids up to get out of the house for daycare and her job.
Kristen moved to a walkable neighborhood and reorganized her entire life around that.
Jennifer was so hesitant to verbalize her goals that she didn't write anything down in the 2013 book, but is writing down things in the 2014 book for the new year.
Shalini made an effort to surround herself with positive, energetic people and has been doing stealth acts of creativity with this gang of artists in her town.
Jillian gave herself the space and time to adjust to a new career that seemed like a mismatch at the beginning but that she's enjoying now.
Kristina Elsayed made some shifts in her business and her jewelry-making business is now serving a broader but also more targeted audience.
Even the biggest sparkle resister in the group (who shall remain nameless) got and accepted a new job.
So I think it was a great investment of $20 for each of us.
This year, Leonie is offering the workbooks two ways:
1. A pdf download from the internet. You need to print out the pages on your own and decorate them or not, as you choose. I three-hole punch mine and keep them in a purple binder. I'm going with this option again this year so I can keep mine all in the same binder. Plus, I like the coloring-in process for help thinking. To download, click through and pay, and then you're sent the link to download. (When you click through that link I get a kickback from your purchase.)
2. Buy the book already printed and bound from Amazon. Sources inside the Facebook group that have gotten theirs report that it's about the size of a People magazine and is gorgeous, printed on both sides of the page (so don't use Sharpies on it), and just super-delightful. (I'm actually thinking of buying one of the pre-printed ones from Amazon just to touch it, even though I'm committed to working with the three-hole-punch version as a working document.)
Buy the book, join the FB group, do the work in the book, and then see what happens for you this year.


text:
50/50: How to lose 1,000 pounds without trying
'I think we should just pull a dump truck up to the front door and start shoveling."
There are several questions to ask when decluttering, and in 1999, they went something like this:
"What IS this?"
"Do you even know what this is?"
"Do you remember who owned this?"
"Do you have 25 others just like it?"
"May I please throw it out?"
I was a machine, zipping through that house like a garbage bag-wielding, organizing demon.
So when we bought our lake home, I was confident we'd be able to make the move in one, maybe two, fell swoops.
I started a little pile in our library, you know, of Lake Stuff. The little pile soon took over, first reaching the piano, then crawling up the bench and onto the keys, then balancing precariously on all sides. Everywhere I looked in our Fargo home, I saw things "that would look SO precious at the lake!"
Hubby looked at the needlepoint saying my mom had done in the mid-'80s – "Divorce? Never. Murder? Maybe."
He didn't say anything, just raised his eyebrows at me.
"What?" I asked. "It's PERFECT for the lake!"
As I walked from room to room with what I now call my Lake Eyes, I started to see a theme. We have too much junk. Just too much of everything.
"Let's organize everything!" I cheerfully yelled last night at my husband.
He tried to slowly back out of the room, but I had locked eyes with him, and there really was no escape. He sighed, and I could tell I was going to get a good workout hauling and lifting.
We have 20 sets of sheets. Twenty. Flannel and cotton. Four sets for each room, and we have four bedrooms. We also have at least 40 blankets. I have no idea why we have so many blankets, but I think it may have something to do with our mild fascination with the zombie apocalypse and how blankets will be an important part of survival.
We have 10 tote boxes of dishes. Don't ask me why. I don't even know.
Because I'm a fashion consultant, I have clothes. Not a LOT of clothes, but seeing as I get a whole new wardrobe twice a year, camis can really pile up. I quickly found a whole rack of beautiful clothes I never wear. Besides, that Japanese kimono was never a good idea.
Three hours later, we had piles. Dress for Success, Boys Ranch, garbage and the lake.
Plastic hangers, dusty candles and wool pants covered in dog hair blocked our path to our bedroom, so as Hubby returned to the TV room to calm down, I bagged up everything and put it all in the kitchen. Of course, then we couldn't see the kitchen table, but I could feel the energy lightening in the house.
I noticed it before when we'd return from our lake home, or Heaven, as I call it. I always have a lot of energy when I'm there – pulling seaweed, going for long walks, vacuuming, sweeping, cooking. But as soon as I walk into our Fargo home, I feel tired. Could it be that all of our possessions are weighing us down?
Hubby pulled a blanket from the giveaway pile.
"We could use this at the lake," he suggests softly, ending the sentence on a higher note, as if it may be a question if I choose to think it's a question.
"No," I firmly reply. "We have enough blankets. And enough dishes. And enough CDs. And enough books. And enough clothes. We can get rid of what we don't use. We can help others who don't have a lot. We can know where everything is, and we can be free to walk through our house without tripping on unhung pictures and turtle statues."
Today is Get It All Out of the House Day. And I'm quite certain I just lost 1,000 pounds.
Maybe part of lightening my body weight is lightening my life weight. Moving toward living a balanced, organized, lean life? Yes, please.


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As he does about this time each year, Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg) has pulled together a cheat sheet on the budget amendments making their way through the House and Senate. As Obenshain notes, this is not an exhaustive list. But it is instructive, particularly the bottom lines.
The Senate's amendments result in an "ending balance" of $15.4 million, with $76.5 million in new spending, while the House has an "ending balance" of $4.6 million with a net decrease in new spending of just over $71 million.
In short, there's plenty of room for the budgeteers to fashion a deal.
Or perhaps not, if Senate Democrats get their way:
Democrats in the evenly divided Senate signaled Sunday that they will try to force another budget stalemate unless the General Assembly agrees to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
[Continue reading Norman Leahy's post at Bearing Drift.]
Norman Leahy blogs at Bearing Drift. The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.


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National Film Board of Canada logo (NFB / ONF)
by techknight, published
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The NFB logo is a beloved icon to many Canadians.
I chose to make a 3D printed version of the "Man Seeing" figure because I wanted to print something cool with my UV-reactive green ABS plastic.
The original source of the logo is an EPS file that I found on SeekLogo here: http://www.seeklogo.com/nfb-onf-logo-99153.html
I deleted the non-figure portions, saved it as SVG, and then extruded it into 3D using Blender.
PS: I know some folks might prefer the original 1969 logo with the free-floating iris/head, but it's more practical to print the modern one as a single piece. :)
Video of print: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHYckrWA0iY
Download NFB_logo.stl
While it prints (preferably in green), watch The Big Snit on the NFB website: http://www.nfb.ca/film/big_snit/
- Subdued but resolute patriotism!
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Great! I was looking for a model to make a nice paratrooper... This logo is perfect ;o)
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Deadly Fog
I was thinking recently about a huge multi-vehicle accident that happened in Virginia a few months ago involving 77 vehicles in thick fog. It was a terrible tragedy that made me wonder whether it was the worst possible, or whether there were others even more extreme. I didn't know that an even larger pileup had already happened in England only a few days ago. That's the scary part. Accidents involving fifty, a hundred, even two hundred vehicles or more happen somewhere around the world with alarming regularity.
That prompted me to abandon my quest to find the most extreme accident caused by fog. At some point the distinction became meaningless. The overwhelming sample size and the resulting destruction was way too large. Instead, I highlighted a single example from several nations. They all followed similar patterns involving motorists driving too quickly in low visibility and often without lights, and then unable to stop when an accident appeared before them. What may have been fender-benders under ideal circumstances transformed into huge chain reactions in the fog.
United Kingdom
Sheppey Crossing in Kent
The English incident happened on September 5, 2013, on the A249 at Sheppey Crossing, a bridge over the Swale from the Kent mainland to the Isle of Sheppey. Numerous news sources covered the event. The Independent noted that the accident involved 130 vehicles and caused a nine-hour delay. They described it as "the mother of all rush-hour pile-ups."
Visibility was very bad, down to 25 metres in thick fog… Drivers described being able to see no further than two or three car lengths ahead prior to the crashes, which left a trail of buckled vehicles stretching for several hundred metres, including cars thrown on top of each other and others flipped on to their roofs.
The Mirror more colorfully asserted, "Witnesses blamed 'idiots' for driving at speeds up to 70mph and failing to use their fog lights."
Michigan, USA
SOURCE: Screen grab from Google Street View image, I-96, Lansing, Michigan, July 2011
It was difficult to select only one example from the United States because of the frequency of large scale multiple-vehicle collisions. I went with the January 12, 2005 pile-up on Interstate 96 at mile marker 116 outside of Lansing, Michigan (map).
Typically Michigan in January should be extremely cold. Freak conditions caused the temperature to rise above 50° Fahrenheit (10+° c), rapidly melting snow and creating a thick fog by afternoon. The Lansing State Journal described "a sudden and blinding afternoon fog, resulted in Michigan's worst roadway disaster in recent history, involving more than 200 vehicles, injuring 37, and killing two," in Hell on Earth.
The interstate highway was closed in both directions for twelve miles. Photos from the aftermath can be found on Michigan Fire Ground.
California also had more than its share of massive pile-ups caused by fog in the San Joaquin Valley and also closer to Los Angeles, for example a 200 vehicle smashup on I-710, the Long Beach Freeway, in 2002.
E17 Motorway at Nazareth, Belgium
The tiny Belgian nation experienced an oversized disaster on the E17 motorway near Nazareth (southwest of Ghent), on February 27, 1996. Fog, again, was the culprit. This one was particularly horrific with ten people killed from the collisions and ensuing fire. Over 200 vehicles crashed.
The tragedy is still remembered. Nieuwsblad.be published an article in late 2012, Monument commemorates pileup on E17 ("Monument herdenkt kettingbotsing op E17"). Please pardon the imprecise auto-translation into English:
At the entry and exit complex Deinze / Nazareth the E17 is a memorial placed on the night of Wednesday to Thursday. The artwork is in memory of the deadly pileup on February 27, 1996… At the entrances and exits complex on the E17 had that morning a treacherous fog formed. This exceptional whim of the weather caused an unprecedented pileup. Dozens of trucks and cars drove on each other.
Images of the memorial can be seen on the Nazareth, Belgium website.
Tranarpsbron, Klippan, Sweden
Sweden made the news earlier this year on January 15, 2013, for a hundred vehicle pile-up on the E4, atop the Tranarps Bridge (Tranarpsbron) in the southern part of the nation. As described at the time by The Local,
Photographs from the scene showed the dense fog that contributed to poor visibility, and lines of cars and trucks spilling haphazardly across the lanes of the low bridge near Helsingborg. The accident occurred just before midday on the Tranarp Bridge just northeast of Helsingborg, and the roads in both directions have been shut down since.
The Swedish press placed the blame on dense fog, slippery roads, and a recent change in the law that allowed trucks to forgo snow tires when conditions warranted. Apparently roads were in worse shape than some truck drivers anticipated. Fog compounded the issue and they couldn't react in time to avoid collisions.
I know I'll think twice now before venturing onto a freeway during foggy conditions. Failure to adjust driving patterns to weather conditions seems to be a worldwide phenomenon.
12 Responses to "Deadly Fog"
Cool article. It's just alarming how many people are too reckless. Anyways, I am a bit of an aviation geek and was playing around some websites and found the coolest geo-avia-historical thing. So US Airways operates a flight from Boston to Philadelphia. Not surprising. The funny part is that it's flight number is US Airways 1776. The year of the country's independence between the two major colonial hub. Thought this was just interesting and something of note.
Keep the great geo-oddities coming.
The highest death toll from a pile-up in the United States is from one on Interstate 75 in Tennessee around 20 years ago, which resulted in at least ten deaths. It happened in an area prone to heavy fog. In response, the Tennessee DOT installed gates at entrance ramps which automatically block vehicles from entering the highway if visibility falls below certain limits.
A related entry is fog that itself actually killed. In 1948, the town of Donora, PA (outside Pittsburgh, and not too far away from us here in DC!) killed 20 and sickened another 7,000. More details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Donora_smog
Canada's worst traffic accident occurred on the 3rd of September 1999. It happened in the fog on Highway 401 between London and Windsor Ontario. The pile up involved 87 vehicles, including up to a dozen tractor-trailers, and the line of wreckage stretched for about two kilometers along Highway 401. At its center, 15 cars and 5 tractor-trailers collided before being consumed in flames. Many of the victims, still trapped in their twisted vehicles, some with roofs sheared off, made desperate, dying pleas as their autos caught fire. This was the worst accident in Canadian history, killed 8, and injured 45.
I forgot the link where I took the information from http://www.ptsdassociation.com/faces-of-ptsd.php
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On Tuesday when Moody's announced that it might downgrade Virginia's AAA bond rating because of the struggle in Washington to raise the national debt limit, three current or former governors reacted.
Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) called for Republicans to compromise on debt talks. Former Gov. Tim Kaine (D) urged members of Congress to set aside "political gamesmanship." U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D), another former governor who has been working on a compromise for months, said the consequences of inaction were far-reaching.
But George Allen, the former governor and senator who is running for U.S. Senate next year, was uncharacteristically quiet.
Allen said through a spokesman Wednesday that while the news from Moody's is "extremely concerning," he maintains his firm stance on the deal being worked on in Washington.
Allen spokesman Bill Riggs said Allen believes that any solution needs to include "iron clad spending cuts"and no new taxes as well as some kind of balanced budget amendment.
Riggs said Allen, who has pushed for a balanced budget amendment for years, believes the United States government "would not be facing trillion-dollar deficits" if Congress had agreed to a balanced budget amendment.
"It's the only longterm solution that gets to the root of the problem — a responsible, reasonable approach," he said.
Kaine, his Democratic rival in the Senate race, was quick to criticize.
"As a former governor, George Allen should know what a dangerous game he is playing," Kaine spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine said. "Virginia's credit rating is not a bargaining chip. It's time for George Allen to join Governors McDonnell, Kaine and Warner in calling on Washington to set aside partisanship and do what's right for the nation and the commonwealth."
This story has been updated.


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Lakeland's First Youth Triathlon is this Weekend!
Posted on April 12th, 2011 by CNP
Categories: Cycling, Running, Upcoming, Water Sports
The Lakeland Rotary Club is providing youth with the opportunity of becoming a triathlete by hosting a youth triathlon in conjunction with their Child of the Sun Jazz Festival and Urban Triathlon. Youth ages 5-15 are welcome to compete at the Fantaine/Gills Family YMCA on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. Click here to register your child for the youth triathlon. Registration is $40 for all categories. Each child will receive a medal upon crossing the finish line. For more information on the Youth Triathlon, click here.


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June 13 2005 Vol. 10, No. 24 THE MATH FORUM @ DREXEL INTERNET NEWS Summer PoWs | A Su Doku Solver | The Kid's Pages SUMMER PROBLEMS OF THE WEEK http://mathforum.org/pow/ The PoWs are officially on vacation, but we'll continue to post problems every two weeks and you can still submit solutions. However, we will only have a few volunteer mentors working, and our responses will otherwise be limited. We're working to get ready for a new series of problems at the end of August. In the meantime, we've posted a new FunPoW and Algebra PoW. The Pre-Algebra PoW and Geometry PoW will have new problems starting June 13. Check the calendar link on each PoW for a full summer schedule. -|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|- A SU DOKU SOLVER http://sudoku.sourceforge.net/ The London Times newspaper publishes a Su Doku problem each day. The goal of a Su Doku problem is to complete the 9x9 grid so that no number appears more than once in any row or column of its 3x3 subgrids. View also: - FAQ - Releases - Brain of Britain - Library Books - Work in Progress - App Documentation \|/ SUDOKU SOLVER http://188.8.131.52/Sudoku/ Enter known values in the grid and click the "solve" button to determine how many solutions exist, if any. Also available for sudoku puzzles in three dimensions. -|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|- THE KID'S PAGES http://www.hernandoliving.com/kids/math.shtml Rob Rogoski and Bill Pierson offer online "worksheets," each with 30 randomly generated problems in: - Addition [five levels] - Subtraction [five levels] - Multiplication [six levels] - Division [nine levels] After users have typed their answers and submitted, they are given a results page that includes: - their name - individual answers checked right or wrong - overall percentage correct - number of correct out of total number of problems -|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|-\-/-|- CHECK OUT OUR WEB SITE: The Math Forum @ Drexel http://mathforum.org/ Ask Dr. Math http://mathforum.org/dr.math/ Problems of the Week http://mathforum.org/pow/ Mathematics Library http://mathforum.org/library/ Math Tools http://mathforum.org/mathtools/ Teacher2Teacher http://mathforum.org/t2t/ Discussion Groups http://mathforum.org/kb/ Join the Math Forum http://mathforum.org/join.forum.html Send comments to the Math Forum Internet Newsletter editors Donations http://deptapp.drexel.edu/ia/GOL/giftsonline1_MF.asp Ask Dr. Math Books http://mathforum.org/pubs/dr.mathbooks.html _o \o_ __| \ / |__ o _ o/ \o/ __|- __/ \__/o \o | o/ o/__/ /\ /| | \ \ / \ / \ /o\ / \ / \ / | / \ / \
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How Much Would It Cost To Actually Buy The Gifts From The 12 Days Of Christmas Song?
With soaring prices and ever-growing holiday shopping budgets, are you curious what it would cost to buy all of the gifts in the 12 Days song? Well, start saving now for next year... The cost will surprise you!!!


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For most people, the winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year, a gloomy occasion when the sun goes down early and total darkness ensues. For others, the winter solstice marks the longest night of the year, a cause for raucous celebration and fanfare.The people behind the 18th Annual Winter Solabration are definitely in the latter category. The evening is "a community celebration of Christmas and Solstice" say the event's producers. "Dancers, singers, musicians, actors and other performers participate in bringing in the new year at the time of the Winter Solstice."
Activities for children include shows by the Cloud of Dust Puppet Theater and tales by storyteller Susan Marie Frontczak. Adults will encounter staples like the Solstice Sword Dancers and the Mummers' Play, a traditional Celtic performance of death and resurrection. A performance of the old English Abbot's Bromley Horn Dance, an ancient tradition involving six antler-clad deer-men, will also unfold. Canto de Galo, a capoeira (a Brazilian cross between dance and martial arts) troupe, will perform for the first time at the Solabration.
Crowd participation is the main goal of the evening, and no hoofer will be left on the sidelines. The Solabration takes place on Saturday, December 20, at the Temple Events Center, 1595 Pearl Street. Tickets are $26 for adults, $6 for children ages six to twelve, and free for wee ones under six. For ticket information, contact the Swallow Hill Box Office, 303-777-1003.
Another way to go is The Christmas Revels: A Celtic Celebration of the Winter Solstice. Through dance, music and theater, the show, backers say, honors "the midwinter hopes that have connected and sustained people for thousands of years."
This year's production weaves together various Celtic traditions in a show that takes the audience back in time to 1740. There, the townspeople of rural hamlets share their Christmas bounty and rejoice in the shortest day of the year. The Christmas Revels is Revels Inc.'s most popular production, and Boulder is one of only nine cities in the country producing the show.
The fun begins at 7 p.m. at the Boulder Theater, 2032 14th Street, on Friday, December 19, with repeats at 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, December 20, and 2 p.m. Sunday, December 21. Ticket prices range from $16 to $30, with discounts available for seniors, students, children and groups of more than ten. For tickets, call 303-786-7030 or log on to www.bouldertheater.com. -- Adam Cayton-Holland
CSO cooks up a blend to make chestnuts sizzle
How much Handel can you handle? The ever-practical Marin Alsop and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra understand their prospective Christmastime audiences well, and let's face it: For some of you more modern folk, those endless "Hallelujahs!" can be a trifle -- yawn -- irritating. That's why the CSO deals out that ancient composer dude's Messiah both ways every December, in jazzed-up and by-the-book versions.For holiday hipsters, there's Too Hot to Handel, which hits the stage tonight, tomorrow and Saturday at Boettcher Concert Hall, 14th and Curtis streets. The performance has become a CSO classic over the years in Alsop's able hands. What's so hot about it? Maestra Marin reheats the well-roasted chestnut over coals of jazz, rock and gospel rhythms, giving a whole new swinging understanding of the work, one that encourages the audience to get up and -- believe it or not -- shake some booty. My God, there's even a Hammond B-3 organ grooving in the background! But if you're part of that buttoned-down symphony crowd that politely coughs between movements, calm down immediately and exhale: The definitive, traditional Messiah returns to Boettcher for two afternoons, in all its enduring grandeur.
Hear Too Hot to Handel at 7:30 p.m. nightly December 18 through 20 or the pristine Messiah at 2:30 p.m. December 20 and 21; admission prices range from $9 to $60.50 for either version. Call 303-893-4100 or log on to www.denvercenter.org. -- Susan Froyd
Seasonal Sounds
Take a break from Christmas commercialization at the annual celestial Solstice Concert, performed by Boulder women's a cappella ensemble Sound Circle."We want to provide a musical holiday experience that is not religious or secular, but one that is very much about the rich time of year that we're in," says Sue Coffee, director of the 22-member group. "I feel like this is kind of an oasis for the audience. There are a lot of people who appreciate that it is not relentlessly Christmasy."
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Sound Circle will entertain with music by James Taylor, the Beatles and contemporary choral composers Joan Szymko and Janika Vadervelde. "I think that the show has an overall message about the importance of community and the power that we all have to together make a change, an optimism for our collective future," says Coffee. "It has a wide appeal."
The Solstice Concert will be performed tonight at 7:30 p.m. It will also be heard at 8 p.m. December 19 and 2 p.m. December 20 at the Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder. Tickets are $15 for general admission, $10 for seniors and kids ages sixteen and under. Call 303-473-4525 for reservations. -- Julie Dunn
Two in Tune
Marshall and Thile show their pluck
Attention, mando-maniacs! As if you didn't already know, when mandolin-pickers as magnificent as Mike Marshall and Chris Thile come to town, you simply drop everything and go. Here's why: Veteran mandolinist Marshall, who's played with David Grisman, Stephane Grappelli, Béla Fleck and just about everyone else picking on the planet in the last twenty years or so, is among the best of the acoustic-music old guard, while twenty-something phenom Thile's work, alone and with the chart-busting combo Nickel Creek, represents a youthful avant-garde sound. Both are flat-out virtuosos. Together they're unstoppable, as evidenced by their new collaborative CD Into The Cauldron, a sweet-pitched acoustic journey through genres and time. And by the way, you don't really have to be obsessive to grok this concert's mandolin-driven fun. You just have to like good music. Marshall and Thile will reprise a mutual repertoire from the album; they'll bounce from Bach to bop to Brazil and beyond, tonight at 8 p.m. at the Boulder Theater, 2032 14th Street, Boulder. For tickets, $19 to $24, call 303-786-7030 or log on to www.bouldertheater.com. Get 'em while they're hot. -- Susan Froyd


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Apple M0001A Macintosh Plus 1MB Desktop Computer. The Macintosh Plus computer was the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K
No Hard Drive Boots from Floppy Sold from January 16, 1986 to October 15, 1990 Original Release Price: $2,600 USD Form Factor: Macintosh 128k 8 MHz 68000 processor 1 MB of RAM - (4 qty 150 ns 30-pin SIMM) 800k 3.5 Double Sided floppy disk drive (Not PC Compatible) Internal Hard Drive: None. Was not an option Beige all-in-one case 9 monochrome display (512 x 342 pixel 72 PPI Resolution) First Macintosh model to include a SCSI port to allow external expansion 4 RAM Simm slots to allow the RAM to be expanded to 4MB. (One lead of the 256k resistor must be clipped to use 1 MB SIMMs.) Mac OS Supported: 1.1-7.5.1, 7.5.3-7.5.5 Power: 105V-125V AC, 50-60 Hz Frequency, 60 Max Watts. The case does have yellow discoloration from the sun. Does not include keyboard or mouse. The Macintosh Plus was the last classic Mac to have a phone cord-like port in front for the keyboard, as well as the DE-9 connector for the one button mouse; later models use ADB ports.