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LITTLE ROCK — State House members say a proposal to limit enrollment in the so-called private option to a certain period of time each year may provide a way to end the stalemate over the program, but they admit it raises a number of questions.
LITTLE ROCK — State House members say a proposal to limit enrollment in the so-called private option to a certain period of time each year may provide a way to end the stalemate over the program, but they admit it raises a number of questions.
"It is not something that can be completely analyzed and figured out in a course of days," said House Speaker Davy Carter, R-Cabot. "This is a weeks, months-type process. And it should be, because if you make that call then that triggers other things, and you've got a whole laundry list of issues that that develops."
As outlined by Carter and others, the proposal calls for the state Department of Human Services to request permission from the federal government to impose a limited enrollment period each year on the private option, the state's program to use federal Medicaid money to provide private insurance to people earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. Currently, people can enroll in the program year-round.
The proposal grew out of talks between House members seeking to resolve an impasse over renewing funding for the private option. The proposed budget for DHS includes a $915 appropriation of federal funding to continue the program that launched last year, but the House has failed in multiple votes to muster the three-fourths majority needed to pass it, though the Senate approved it in a single vote.
Earlier in the session, an attempt was made in the House to reach a compromise by adding language to the appropriation to bar the state from promoting the private option or the Arkansas Health Insurance Marketplace. That amendment by Rep. Nate Bell, R-Mena, was adopted but ultimately secured only Bell's vote, and now some proponents of the private option are wondering how the Bell amendment would affect the new proposal.
"If we've already agreed not to fund outreach and publicity efforts, it's going to be very difficult to let the people of Arkansas know when they can enroll in the plan," said Rep. Warwick Sabin, D-Little Rock.
DHS spokeswoman Kate Luck said that if enrollment becomes limited to certain times of year, the agency will not be able to spend money advertising the change, but the information will be available.
"We think that the insurance brokers and agents, are doing a really good job of letting people know what benefits are out there for them, and on our website obviously people will be able to find information," she said. "And as the program goes on, there's more word of mouth."
Luck said legislators are talking about implementing the enrollment period starting in 2015. Full participation in the private option is projected at 250,000 people, and about 189,000 have already applied, so by 2015 "we could be approaching that," she said.
If a person were to apply outside of the enrollment period and be found eligible, the person would be placed on Medicaid until the next enrollment period comes up, Luck said. That temporary Medicaid coverage would be funded the same way the private option is: The federal government will pay 100 percent of the costs for the first three years of the program, after which the state's share of the cost will increase gradually to 10 percent.
The process for switching people from Medicaid to the private option still needs to be worked out, Luck said.
Sabin said the proposal runs counter to the goals of the private option.
"(The proposal) in a lot of ways defeats the purpose of the private option, which is to make this insurance available to as many people as possible when they need it and to be flexible as people move through different income brackets," he said.
Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison, one of the architects of the private option, said legislators are discussing an enrollment period that mirrors the open enrollment period of the insurance marketplace. Under the rules set by the federal government, open enrollment in the marketplace for coverage starting in 2014 runs from Oct. 1 of last year through March 31 of this year, with a second open enrollment period expected to start in November.
"The benefit would be that you're applying the same enrollment period to all exchange members and that you're encouraging people to enroll inside that period, which is something they should get used to," Burris said. "I think a year-round enrollment just incentivizes people to realize, 'There's no real urgency. I can walk in the door when I need it and enroll.' There ought to be an incentive to do like the rest of us do, and that's enroll inside of a window."
The proposal would need approval from the feds, but Luck said that should not be a problem.
"They're anxious to do what it takes to get it passed," she said.
Democratic House members are unlikely to withdraw their support because of the latest proposal. Republicans who oppose the program say they would prefer to end it or cap enrollment — they have raised concerns about its effect on the national debt and the state's ability to pay its eventual 10 percent share of the cost — but lacking support for that approach, their choice may come down to accepting the latest compromise or ending the session without approving a DHS budget.
Rep. Bruce Cozart, R-Hot Springs, said the proposal is not enough to get him to vote "yes," but he speculated that it may be enough for some members who are ready for the stalemate to end.
"They're tired. I think we're all tired," he said.


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Note: passwords are case-sensitive
We put into practice an Environment Program, inclusive of an Environmental Management System that is designed to identify areas where we can preserve our natural environment, conserve resources and reduce waste.
Christie's Environmental Management System (EMS)
In 2007, Christie's manufacturing facilities in Canada (Kitchener, Ontario) and the United States (Cypress, California) became ISO 14001 certified.
We are very proud of this certification through an internationally recognized environmental standard. ISO 14001 provides a framework to establish and maintain an Environmental Management System (EMS) within an organization. Key elements include identifying products, services and activities which may have an environmental impact and, where necessary, implementing appropriate controls for them. This involves setting specific environmental goals which are monitored to ensure continual improvement, compliance to applicable laws and regulations and a commitment to the prevention of pollution.
Christie takes energy and the environment into account when developing products. Our goal is that all components in future products will be recyclable.
RoHS compliance
By following RoHS guidelines, we ensure that hazardous materials are not in our products and they are RoHS compliant. All Christie products conform to the European Union (EU) Directive 2011/65/EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS).
WEEE recycling
We've partnered with qualified electronic recycling centers across Europe, in compliance with WEEE, so our customers can dispose of projectors in an environmentally conscious manner. We are looking for a similar program within North America.
Projection technology
We introduced a true, stand-by mode in our new digital cinema projectors to reduce power consumption.
Christie has achieved the highest lumen per watt output efficiency for the 3-chip DLP® projector in the 5000 – 12,000 lumens range, using mercury and xenon lamps as well as the 12,000 – 30,000 lumens range, using xenon-based lamps.
The Christie Matrix StIM™ and Christie Matrix StIM WQ offer a unique lamp-less illumination system for high performance arrayed simulation displays. This product has no lamps to replace or dispose of, conserving resources, technician time, labor and other costs required for proper disposal and maintenance. Very low power consumption directly translates to lower operating heat, lower cooling requirements and cost savings in electricity. The Christie Matrix StIM™ and Christie Matrix StIM WQ are virtually maintenance-free, environmentally-friendly simulation system.
The Christie M Series is a flexible and efficient line of 3-chip DLP® projectors. Ranging from 2500 ANSI lumens (single lamp, 200W) to 9500 ANSI lumens (dual lamp, 350W) each M Series projector operates at 120V – giving you more lumens while using less power. These projectors employ feedback systems to save energy by determining the number of lamps and power level used to adjust the fan speed required to cool the system. As well, the automatic shut-off feature determines when the projector is not in use and powers down the unit to stand-by mode.
Within the M Series projector lineup, 90% of the components and parts are recyclable. As well, the skins and plastics used throughout the system are stickered and identified with the appropriate material identifiers and recycling codes.
Operational improvements
In 2007, Christie USA implemented reduced work weeks (nine days/eighty hours and four ten hour days). The program is in place in customer service/RMA, GIS, production and QC departments. Christie Canada also compressed the manufacturing facility work week to 4 days with 10-hour shifts. With fewer travel days to and from work, this has resulted in a reduction of approximately 375,000 kms.
In 2007, Christie (Canada and USA) reduced paper usage by at least 50%. This was achieved through changing the default settings on our copiers and printers throughout the building to print on both sides of the paper. Additionally, all promotional materials are produced on recycled paper stock and the quantities that are brought to tradeshows have been drastically reduced. Our primary print supplier is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified, an international certification and labeling system that guarantees that the forest products we purchase come from responsibly managed forests and verified recycled sources.
In 2008, Christie Canada implemented a very successful car pooling program which encourages employees to use an alternate means of transportation to and from work. To support this, Christie has designated parking spots for car poolers that are conveniently located close to the entrance of the building and more bike racks were added for those who choose an even greener option for commuting.

subset: commoncrawl


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Neko de Gomen! Latest Comments
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Superfight: Mayweather And Mosley
[Black Star Sports]
After years of trash talk between Floyd Mayweather, Jr., and Sugar Shane Mosley, the current W.B.A. Welterweight Champion, the two finally inked a deal to fight on May 1 at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas.
The deal was made possible when Mayweather's camp accused Manny Pacquiao of "doping" in order to gain an athletic advantage. Now Mayweather fights for Mosley's W.B.A. 147 lb. crown. Pacquiao instead fights Joshua Clottey next Saturday.
Last week's press conference between the two prime boxers produced fireworks. An ugly shoving match, risking foolish and unnecessary injury to both combatants.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO, Richard Schaefer and Mark Taffet CEO of H.B.O. Pay-Per-View, restored calm.
Some would say Mayweather-Mosley and Pacquiao-Clottey isn't the same as Mayweather-Pacquiao. Others say less is better than nothing. These two fights are not really "less," of anything. They are great matches, and long over due. Many agree that Clottey has the tools to upset Paquiao, while others are convinced that Mosley will defeat Mayweather.
Mosley has a 46-5 record with 39 KOs and undefeated Mayweather is 40-0 with 25 KOs. Some sports analysts see Mosley's age presenting the younger Mayweather with the opportunity for victory. Recall that the "old man" destroyed Antonio Margarito --who liked fighting with loaded gloves. I believe Mosley will erase Mayweather's perfect record.
Mayweather has avoided a fighter of the caliber of Mosley, including welterweights in the 147 lb. level, such as Miguel Cotto, Paul Williams, Kermit Cintron, Clottey, and Margarito. He chased Pacquiao away into the gloves of Clottey. While talking to Mosley, I was impressed by the fact that he was very happy that finally he was getting his dues--a mega pay-per-view fight after languishing in the no man's land of boxing.
"I am going to give Floyd an old fashion whipping, and his '0' will disappear and, he fears it, because he cannot handle defeat like most of us in the hurt business, and move forward," Mosely said. "He may even retire, but this time, but, for good." Mosley hopes to also fight the winner of the Pacquiao vs. Clottey match.
Mayweather was his usual self, saying: "If I beat Shane which I know I will, I'll be accused of beating an old man that's too slow. I'm in a no win situation because what fans don't understand is that in his prime I would've beaten him anyway. I am the undefeated fighter and come May 1st I will still leave that ring undefeated. Shane doesn't jab, he lost to the likes of Miguel Cotto, Winky Wright. So how could he beat me the best fighter in the world?"
Some "experts" claim the two fights may not generate record sales because all the fighters are Black, with no Caucasian in the mix. This is a preposterous view. The four fighters have a combined 171 victories, 123 KOs and only 11 losses, and two draws.
I honestly gave Mayweather, Jr. the only clear cut victory advantage over Pacquiao. With Mosley, I feel Floyd actually bit off more than he can chew.
Latest comments
Ann GarrisonFebruary 22,2018 @ 08:03 PM
I think you have "Filtered HTML" turned on here. If you switch to "Full HTML," it will probably...


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I have a horrible habit. It's not really a habit as much as a constant boo boo. I type exceptionally fast and frequently hit the space bar before the letters slip off my fingers, creating memorable combinations of letters to spell "the" like hte, t he, theo, and eth? I'm also quite renown for quiet and have a form for from once in a while.
This week's blog challenge is:
Blog your favorite or worst writing boo boo.
We've all done it, so it's time to get your flaws out of the closet and come clean. I know that you've published a fantastic blog post, only to look at it a few days later to find that you misspelled a critical word that changed the entire meaning of the sentence, and possibly the point you wanted to make. Of course, I've never done this. 😀
As usual, blog about it on your blog with a trackback here, or if you don't have a blog or it's inappropriate on your blog, you can share your writing snafu here.
This is one of many blogging challenges I offer weekly to help kick your blogging ass. For more challenges, see the Blog Challenge category.
Site Search Tags: blog challenge, blogging challenge, challenge, writing tips, blogging tips, spelling errors, spelling mistakes, publishing mistakes, mistakes, errors, boo boo, spelling, publishing errors
Subscribe Via Feedburner Subscribe by Email
Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network, and author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.


text:
Panamaproperties necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 102 diseños de 28 diseñadores freelance.
The 4WD Workshop
High Guys, We are not your average 4x4 Shop we specialize in high tech and high performance repairs, service and 4x4 modifications while providing the highest level of service and customer satifaction. What we need is a logo that reflects us as modern and innovative. A strong, solid, professional company that people would feel confident in doing business with.
We want to target those people that look for the very best and not at the price. People that value excellence in both product and service regardless the cost.
The above pretty much says it all, so we will leave it open to people like you guys that have a more imagination and more creative then we are. If you want some feed back or have any questions please drop us a line
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Across the country, subsidized wind farms are meeting increasing resistance — and not just from taxpayers and electricity consumers forced to foot the bill. "If wind power made sense, why would it need a government subsidy in the first place?" wondered Heritage Foundation policy analyst Ben Lieberman, who deals with energy and environmental issues. "It's a bubble which bursts as soon as the government subsidies end."
It turns out that wind power is expensive and inefficient even in the best wind-farm locations in the world. And regular power plants always need to be on standby in case there is no wind, not enough wind, or even too much of it — a fairly regular occurrence.
That is why, when the tax subsidies run out, the towering metallic structures are often simply abandoned. In their wake: a scarred landscape and dead wildlife — the very same ills offered as justifications by administration officials for preventing oil exploration.
"Wind isn't the most important thing about wind turbines. It is all about the tax subsidies. The blades churn until the money runs out," noted Charleston Daily Mail columnist Don Surber last week. "If an honest history is written about the turn of the 21st century, it will include a large, harsh chapter on how fears about global warming were overplayed for profit by corporations."
Even environmentalists are jumping on the anti-wind power bandwagon. In California, where state mandates and subsidies have led to a boom in subsidized "green" energy projects, a San Francisco-based company just announced last week that it was halting plans to build a new wind farm. The scheme was shelved over concerns about the danger it would pose to birds.
The press is starting to ask questions, too. "As Beaufort County [North Carolina] considers the proposal of Pantego Wind Energy, LLC's to build 49 1.6MW wind turbines on 11,000 acres of land, it may be of interest to some that the trend in the industry is to abandon such projects once the tax credits expire," noted the Beaufort Observer on November 19. The editorial urged county commissioners to attend a seminar exposing the "Big Wind" industry hosted by the John Locke Foundation next month.
Around the world, concern about wind turbines is growing as well. In the UK, the Daily Express reported on November 28 that government ministers were being urged to abandon the race to build wind farms because they can cause "life-threatening" illnesses.
"The health impacts of wind farms are serious. I have no doubt that many people have suffered serious adverse effects," said Dr. Chris Hanning, an expert in sleep medicine. "The Japanese government implemented a four-year program of research into the health effects of wind turbine noise. Pressure should be placed on the UK governments to do likewise."
And in Australia, conservation supporters are battling to stop the wind farms, too. Activists in the nation's southwest rejoiced over the announcement this week that one windmill project in the area was being shelved. But there are still many battles to fight. "It really is one of the most important breeding areas, but wind turbines just don't mix with birds unfortunately. We've got to keep fighting to keep the brolga," Susan Dennis, a longtime defender of that breed of bird, told The Standard. "I don't accept that their endangered population is acceptable collateral damage for green energy."
Of course, dead birds, health problems, and massive wealth destruction are not the only reasons to stop subsidizing wind farms. Other environmental concerns exist, too.
"There are many hidden truths about the world of wind turbines from the pollution and environmental damage caused in China by manufacturing bird choppers," noted environmental blogger Tory Aardvark in a recent post about wind farms, also citing the dangerous noise produced by turbines. He added,
The symbol of Green renewable energy, our savior from the non existent problem of "Global Warming," abandoned wind farms are starting to litter the planet as globally governments cut the subsidies taxes that consumers pay for the privilege of having a very expensive power source that does not work every day for various reasons like it's too cold or the wind speed is too high.
He called the more than 14,000 abandoned wind turbines in theas U.S. symbols of a "dying Climate Religion."
In recent days, a wave of articles and opinion pieces highlighting the wastefulness and destructiveness of wind farms swept the worldwide web. But with so much tax money at stake for the green-power industry, which lobbies intensely for ever more money, it will be hard to end the subsidies which generated the bogus "industry" in the first place.
The Solyndra debacle, however, has created what analysts called a serious public-relations problem for subsidized "green-energy" producers of all stripes. And then there is "Climategate 2.0." The scandal, surrounding a second batch of embarrassing e-mails from "climate scientists" leaked last week, has dealt another serious blow to the foundation of it all — United Nations-backed global-warming alarmism.
"This whole wind energy mess just further illustrates how the American people have been played by their elected officials who bought into the 'global warming' hysteria that spawned the push for wind energy in the first place," wrote Jonathan Benson for a piece in Natural News dealing with the abandoned wind turbines. "And now that the renewable energy tax subsidies are gradually coming to an end in some places, the true financial and economic viability, or lack of wind energy, is on display for the world to see."
Analysts have said that if and when tax subsidies to wind power and other green-energy schemes are finally cut, the whole house of cards will come crashing down almost instantly. But then a new question arises: Who will clean up the mess?
Photo: AP Images
Related articles:
"Green" Jobs and Real Jobs
Environmentalists Against Windpower?
"Green" Wind Power Devastates Environment
Wind Power II: The Wind-farm Eruption
Wind Power: An Ill Wind Blowing
Danish Wind Power Overblown
Blown Away: Wind Energy Analyzed
Climategate 2: More E-mails Leaked Ahead of UN Summit
Solyndra Falls After Acquiring Over $500 Million in Federal Loans
Solyndra's Bankruptcy and the Failure of 19th-century Steam Subsidies
Solyndra Just the Tip of the Iceberg


text: ALL PRICES IN CANADIAN DOLLARS CART MENU Open menu UrbanRIP Toggle search bar What can we help you find? Submit search CART Keepsake Urns Featured Products Full Collection Adding Single Urns Full-Sized Urns Biodegradable Urns Our Story About Us Our Narrative Our Products Product Info Our Products Nav Menu 3 Nav Menu 4 Nav Menu 5 Nav Menu 6 Nav Menu 7 Nav Menu 8 2 Set: Polished Sliver Finish, Urn Colour: Art Deco Azure and Matte Jet Black Finish Finish may appear darker or lighted in your home, depending on your lighting. Our modular designs are simple and intended to keep your family heritage in your home; dividing cremation ashes may support "peace within the family." Price: $1,090.00 Currently sold out Email me when Back-In-Stock Description Product Features Shipping Information UrbanRIP products are handcrafted in Toronto by Canadian artisans using U.S. steel. Each part is made from a solid block of high-quality corrosion-resistant and tarnish-resistant stainless steel, hand-fed through a CNC. Our Candlesticks are polished by hand to achieve a mirror finish. The colour is flawless and perfectly even, because we coat each individual part with 4 mm of powder and then bake each part twice; this process also achieves incredible durability and high scratch resistance. Each Egg-Urn holds approximately 8 tsps of cremated ashes. Each Egg-Urn and Candlestick goes through five individual quality control inspection stations, to ensure the standard of quality is one we can be proud of. In the final step, while wearing white cloth gloves, we place the Egg-Urns and Candlesticks into a custom-fit container, to ensure a safe journey to your front door. The Candlestick Egg-Urns were designed to fit organically into your everyday life. A burning light brings comfort and warmth to the memory of our loved one, on special occasions and every day, when we share, celebrate, or grieve, either in privacy or together as a family. The egg shape was inspired by the idea that the universe was born from an egg, an idea shared by nearly all ancient civilizations. An egg is the beginning of all life forms, a seed with a promise of rebirth and hope. Modular design Set: Set of two Material: High-quality corrosion-resistant and tarnish-resistant solid U.S. stainless steel FinishDetails: Candlesticks: Polished by hand to mirror finish Egg-Urns: Polished by hand to mirror finishEgg-Urns: Coated with 4 mm of powder and then baked twice for added durability and scratch resistance Weight: Two set: total weight 5.86 lb (2.66 kg) Size: Height 13.68 in (34.75 cm); base diameter 4.25 in (10.8 cm) Egg-Urn Volume: Each Egg-Urn holds approximately 8 tsp of ashes (93 grams or 2.4 cubic inches) PiecesIncluded: 2 Modular designed Candlesticks 4 Egg-Urns 1 Instruction booklet 1 Measuring scoop 1 Funnel 2 Metal nameplates for engraving (Please note: engraving is not included.) Candle Compatibility: Designed to fit any standard sized (7/8 in or 2.22 cm) candles. We recommend pairing Candlestick Egg-Urns with tapered dripless candles. (Please note: candles are not included.) Care Instructions: Dishwasher use is not recommended. Clean using a "soft" dampened cloth with mild soap and water or water and white vinegar to surface-wash only. Surface-rinse using a "soft" dampened cloth with clean water. Dry immediately with a soft cloth to avoid spotting. Do not use scouring pads, steel wool or abrasive cleaners. Do not immerse in water or wet for long periods of time as this may damage the surface finish. Country of Origin: Canada A patent-pending modular design ensures versatility for personalization, so each creation is unique for you, and can be modified by adding or removing certain components of the Candlestick Egg-Urn set. Egg-Urns are designed to be stackable and can be purchased individually, so you may add to your original set of two at any time. (We don't recommend stacking more than two Egg-Urns in one configuration.) UrbanRIP Candlestick Egg-Urns are custom made in small production runs to ensure high quality control. Designed and made in Canada and shipped from Canada. For updated shipping times, please check under "shipping information" at checkout. Your order will be confirmed by email, and we will contact you by email when your order has been shipped. Related Items 2 Set: Polished Sliver Finish Urn Colour: Matte Jet Black 3 Set: Matte Black Finish, Urn Colour: Matte Jet Black Finish 2 Set: Matte Black Finish, Urn Colour: Black Onyx Finish 2 Set: Polished Sliver Finish, Urn Colour: Polished Silver Finish Price: $885.00 Add Price: $1,630.00 Add Price: $1,090.00 Add Price: $1,090.00 Add 3 Set: Matte Black Finish, Urn Colour: Art Deco Azure and Matte Jet Black Finish 2 Set: Matte Black Finish, Urn Colour: Polished Silver and Black Onyx Finish 3 Set: Matte Black Finish, Urn Colour: Porcelain White and Art Deco Azure Finish 3 Set: Matte Black Finish, Urn Colour: Black Onyx and Porcelain White Finish Price: $1,630.00 Add Price: $1,090.00 Add Price: $1,295.00 Add Price: $1,630.00 Add


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This time with Dad and Uncle Kirk who was visiting from Utah!
I like this shot of Zach, as the sun came out from behind the clouds, just as they finished parasailing.
Someone should give this man a job as an adventure tour guide! Wait…somebody did. Did Zach tell you he's going ziplining in Costa Rica next month? No? He would have…if you had been within a 50-ft radius. Don't get him started on the volcano.


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This is pretty fantastic. Good idea, Andy. If you haven't done so already, be sure to check the comments to Andy's post below for other lists/thoughts/comments. Smart and interesting.
Here's my shot
1. Bottle Rocket
2. Airplane
3. To Kill a Mockingbird
4. The Stoning of Soraya M
5. The Godfather
6. The Jerk
7. Caddyshack
8. Napoleon Dynamite
9. Metropolitan
10. I Confess
11. Platoon
12. Miller's Crossing
13. Rear Window
14. The Pink Panther
15. Dial M for Murder
16. Memento
17. American Movie
18. Little Miss Sunshine
19. Vernon, Florida
20. Top Secret
21. Schindler's List
22. Office Space
23. Braveheart
There's my Top 23. A few comments on the entries that might need some explanation.
Bottle Rocket is phenomenal. It doesn't feel epic enough to be my favorite movie, but there it is. "She said you're a failure? What has she ever accomplished with her life? Nothing. Nothing." That is brilliant. Or: "How's an asshole like Bob get such a great kitchen."
The Stoning of Soraya M is extraordinary. It's a film about Islamic law and women's rights in modern Iran – based on a true story in a book of the same name. It's not out yet – I saw it at a small, private screening last fall. I thought it was one of the most powerful and moving films – maybe the most powerful and moving film – I've ever seen.
I liked Napoleon Dynamite before it was cool to like Napoleon Dynamite. I've probably seen it thirty times and it doesn't get old.
Metropolitan – Whit Stillman's best – a classic, and subtle, social commentary.
Yes, I'm a Hitchcock freak. The three Hitchcock films on this list could have easily been three or four longer (Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rope).
How could a bunch of commentators with ties to Wisconsin omit "American Movie." For shame.
Vernon, Florida, is a fascinating documentary by Errol Morris (director who did, most famously, "The Fog of War.") Entertaining, sad and disturbing all at once. Find it, watch it.
And I completely agree with Andy on The Shawshank Redemption. Very overrated. (So was The Usual Suspects back in the day.)


text: Here's a place for new owners to ask those "stupid" questions. The kind you're embarrassed to ask for fear of being laughed at, or lectured for being such a noob. Questions like: Where's the fusebox? or What does OBC stand for? Then hopefully some wise BMW sage who, feeling ambivalent or simply bored, cruises by might share said wisdom with grace and style. Since I seem to be a frequent violator, I'll start this Thread by asking my next stupid question: "Is something wrong with my fuel range calculator on the display? It never reads higher than about 110 miles, after I refill the tank. It seems to wait until the fuel level falls below a certain level, then it begins a countdown from 100 toward zero. Is that the way all the OBC's work? HF


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Maybe she's not so much of a material girl - Madonna is donating one of her favorite pairs of Christian Dior shoes to a charity supporting Gypsy child education.
The skyscraper gold heels, autographed by Madonna, will be sold at the Ovidiu Rom annual ball in Bucharest, Romania, later this month. The singer appears to be backing up a statement she made during an August concert there that widespread discrimination against Eastern Europe's Gypsies should end. The comment received international attention after thousands of fans at the performance, which was part of her "Sticky & Sweet" tour, responded by booing her.
"Madonna's very mild comment regarding equality shone a spotlight on a common European attitude toward Gypsies," Leslie Hawke, president of Ovidiu Rom, told The Associated Press. "We're thrilled to have her donation because she is such an icon of innovation and vigor and 'can do' spirit."
Hawke's son, actor Ethan Hawke, will attend the ball and speak to guests.
Guests at the ball will make donations to win raffle tickets for the auction of donated prizes. This year's items also will include a gold chain provided by actress Vanessa Redgrave.


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Robert Reich has some excellent advice for Vice President Joe Biden, regarding his debate we VP wannabe Rep. Paul Ryan: Don't debate the earnest, affable Paul Ryan who's likely to show up tonight. Debate the right-wing Randian behind those blue eyes. Tell Americans just what that Paul Ryan wants to inflict on their families and communities — and that he's put it in writing. No matter how much he feints, dodges or even tries to deny it, make him own it.
Your job is to smoke Ryan out, exposing his fanaticism. The best way to do this is to force him to take responsibility for the regressive budget he created as chairman of the House Budget Committee.
Ryan won't be able to pull a Romney — pretending he's a moderate — because the Ryan budget is out there, with specific numbers.
It's an astounding document that Romney fully supports. And it fills in the details Romney has left out of his proposals. Mitt Romney is a robot who will say and do whatever he's programmed to do. Ryan is the robot's brain. The robot has no heart. It's your job to enable America to see this.
No pair of issues throw as much light on the cold, dark, heart of the of the GOP agenda — the budget crafted by Ryan, endorsed by Republicans, and embraced by Mitt Romney — as Medicare and Medicaid.
Reich suggests that Biden even hold up a copy of the Ryan Budget, and read selected passages. Far be it from me to craft "zingers" for Joe Biden, but while he's thumbing through the Ryan Budget, perhaps he should say something like this: "There is a program in here called Medicaid. You did let it keep the name. Unfortunately, that's the only thing about it that's recognizable."
Emphasize these points: Ryan's budget turns Medicare into vouchers. It includes the same $716 billion of savings Romney last week accused the President of cutting out of Medicare – but instead of getting it from providers he gets it from the elderly.
I'm not sure how much time the veep will get, but it might help if he could throw in a few factoids.
- Ryan's Medicare vouchers will become worthless. Make it plain that Medicare vouchers in the Ryan Budget increase to keep up with inflation not health care costs. Inflation is growing a lot slower than the cost of health care. So, those vouchers will pay for less and less every year.
- Seniors will pay more. Thus spoke the CBO: "Under the proposal, most elderly people who would be entitled to premium support payments would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system." According to the CBO, by 2030 a 65-year-old could be liable for up to 68% of her health care costs.
- Ryan's budget raises the Medicare age. This is also from the CBO: "In addition, the eligibility age for Medicare would increase by two months per year beginning in 2023 until reaching age 67 in 2034." It's one of three time bombs in Ryan's Medicare budget, and it could increase health care costs for seniors by almost $60,000 for seniors turning 65 in 2023.
Biden would also do well to heed Reich's advice on Medicaid.
It turns Medicaid over to cash-starved states, with even less federal contribution. This will hurt the poor as well as middle-class elderly in nursing homes.
So, I'd add this much to Reich's advice: Remind Americans that the GOP still wants to gut Medicaid.
Sometimes there no joy in being right. Sometimes it's just no fun to say "I told ya so." This is one of those times.
Depending on whom you ask, Mitt Romney's choice of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as a running mate is either inspired or insane; bold or boneheaded; a opportunity for meaningful debate or a triumph of theory. But without a doubt, Romney's pick or Ryan as his running mate has revived the Ryan's seminal budget document, The Path to Prosperity, which would end Medicare as we know it back in the spotlight. (It's OK, really. There would still be a program called "Medicare," but the resemblance would end there.) This is already turning in to bad news for the campaign, as Romney can't win without Florida, and it seems neither Mitt Romney nor Paul Ryan can show their faces down there right now.
But a few people have noticed something I pointed out at length about a year ago. He may want to give Medicare a witness-protection-style makeover, but Paul Ryan still wants to gut Medicaid. Apparently, so does Mitt Romney.
Though we'll all hear more about the GOP's dastardly plans for Medicare, we'll probably hear less about their equally destructive plans for Medicaid. That's dangerous, because Medicaid is just as important as Medicare, and the GOP's plans for it could have devastating consequences for millions of Americans.
Forewarned is forearmed. Here's what you need to know about Medicaid and the Ryan/GOP Budget.
- Medicaid is not the problem. It's part of a larger health care cost problem.
- Medicaid is not "just a program for poor people." It's also important to most middle- and working-class Americans.
- The Republican cuts to Medicaid don't lower health care costs. They shift costs to poor, elderly, middle- and working-class Americans.
- The Republican cuts to Medicaid are just as unpopular as the Republican cuts to Medicare. Democrats compromise with Republicans on Medicaid cuts at their peril.
In past few days Ed Kilgore, Meteor Blades at Daily Kos, and WaPo's Suzy Khim have been among those to point out the not-so-obvious: Paul Ryan's plan to gut Medicaid, chop it into little pieces, and bury bits of the remains in each state. His plans for Medicare — embraced by the GOP, and endorsed by Mitt Romney — look mild by comparison; like the difference between a manicure and an amputation.
This is important, because Americans reject the Republican agenda when they hear what's in it.
Even among groups that have been strong on the deficit all year, this budget opens with only moderate support. Just over half (53 percent) of white non-college voters initially favor this plan. The numbers are similarly modest for white seniors (51 percent) and in the rural non-South areas (50 percent). There is stronger initial support among white men (58 percent favor the plan at the outset) but this support erodes as soon the plan is described. When the budget is described — using as much of Paul Ryan's description as possible (see text box below)— support collapses to 36 percent, with just 19 percent strongly supporting the plan. The facts in the budget lose people almost immediately – dropping 12 points. Putting the spotlight on this budget is damning. A large majority of 56 percent oppose it, 42 percent strongly. The impact is much stronger with seniors where support erodes from 48 percent to just 32 per-cent, with 57 percent opposed. Support with independents drops from 55 percent to 43 percent.
The plan cuts 6.2 trillion dollars below the president's budget and reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy. It makes small cuts in defense spending. It cuts spending for domestic programs in the coming year by 72 billion dollars, almost 20 percent, and freezes it for five years. It repeals the new health care bill and the new Wall Street reform law, makes major cuts of almost 800 billion dollars to Medicaid and Medicare for seniors over the next ten years. Starting in 2022, new retirees will no longer get health coverage through Medicare, but instead will get a voucher that will partially pay for insurance they purchase from private health insurance companies. The proposal cuts taxes for corporations and people making over 370 thousand dollars a year.
…The information and debate on the Republican budget brings new Democratic base voters to life. At the end of the survey, almost 60 percent of young voters and two-thirds of unmarried women and African American and Hispanic voters oppose the plan. Getting these voters back and energized should be a top priority for Democrats heading into the election season. In challenging the budget, Democrats are creating the kind of intensity that made such a difference in the last na-tional elections.
Goodness knows, a bit of intensity would be a big help right about now.


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|January 06, 2019
Two Milk Minimum Family Friendly Comedy Show
Submitted by: April Reyna
Event Location:
Address: 532 W 1st St, Claremont, CA 91711
Description: Two Milk Minimum is a 90 minute family-friendly comedy show that features a rotating cast of outlandish, zany, amazing magicians, jugglers, musicians, improv artists, puppeteers, and novelty acts. Each week features performers seen on Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel, and the Cartoon Network, and have included Joseph Tran (The Magic Castle), Corey Edwards (Hoodwinked!), and Dee Bradley Baker (SpongeBob Squarepants). The show has been described as "preposterous brilliance" and "whacky jugglement," a combination of hilarious tricks and stunts with uproarious stand-up and a bounty of improvised fun.
Phone: 818-845-9721
Website: http://www.flapperscomedy.com/site/index.php?pg=showdetail_page&meetid=015007586000f92&id=24072
City News Group Inc. | 22797 Barton Road Grand Terrace CA 92313 | Phone: 909.370.1200 | Fax: 909.825.1116


text:
After a rough quarter which suggested that the variable-track pricing record labels fought so hard for was hurting digital sales, Warner Music Group has announced that it will no longer be licensing its music to services that offer free streaming. Warner hasn't specifically spelled out if that will apply to current deals with services like Last.fm, Spotify, and Pandora, or just to future deals, but it could put a damper on them if artists like REM, Death Cab for Cutie, and T-Pain were no longer available on those services.
"Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed," Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. told BBC News. "The 'get all your music you want for free, and then maybe with a few bells and whistles we can move you to a premium price' strategy is not the kind of approach to business that we will be supporting in the future."
Instead, said Bronfman, Warner will focus on licensing to pay subscription services. "The number of potential subscribers dwarfs the number of people who are actually purchasing music on iTunes," he told BBC News. Free streaming services still pay royalties for each song played, usually supported by ads. But Bronfman contends that those royalties are far less than what Warner earns on download sales or from its cut of a monthly subscription.
Though Warner seems opposed to the free, ad-supported streaming model (not unlike radio, where record labels get no royalties), other major labels aren't in agreement. "Spotify is a very sustainable financial model—full stop," Rob Wells, senior vice president of Universal Music Group International, told BBC News in January.
Paid music subscriptions have been available for years, and have yet to prove as popular, or as lucrative, as selling downloads through services like the iTunes Store. Online sales were a full 20 percent of Warner's revenue last quarter, with digital revenue up 8 percent year-over-year, but CD sales continue to plummet. The music industry in general is still in the middle of a huge transition, and it seems premature to abandon streaming services that are free to end users.
"On-demand, access based services will be the foundation stone of the 21st century music business," Forrester analyst Mark Mulligan wrote on Forrester's consumer product strategy blog. "Added to that, the majority of consumers simply have no appetite for paying for digital music, certainly not on a subscription basis. Free and subsidized services are quite simply part of the future."
Jon Webster, the head of UK's Music Managers' Forum, agrees that any service that stems out-and-out piracy is a net win for artists and labels. "New media has to give the consumer what they want and the consumer is in a world where they want things right here, right now—and if you don't give it to them, they'll steal it," he told BBC News.
"Anything that's going backwards is denying where the world's going," Webster said.


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Export 3 results:Author Title [ Type] Year
Filters: Author is Joyashree Roy [Clear All Filters]
Book Chapter
"Climate Change 2014 Mitigation of Climate Change." IPCC 5th Assessment Report. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014..
"Industry." Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.: Cambridge University Press, 2007..
Industrial Energy Efficiency and Climate Change Mitigation. 2009. LBNL-1867E..


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Tagged: CJ Wilson
Old news is good news
So I've been away for a bit.
There was Summerfest. There was a wedding. There were 3 glorious, albeit sweltering, days of Dave Matthews Band.
But the good news isn't that I'm back. No. The good news is that I have good news to report. And not even report, really, but just weigh in on. Because, let's face it, you already know what I'm about to tell you.
The Brewers wrapped up the official first part of the season in a first-place tie with the Cardinals before sending 3 elected starters to the All Star Game. Even though top vote-getter Ryan Braun bowed out of the game with a lingering leg injury, Rickie Weeks and Prince Fielder were not only starting the game, but participating in Monday's Home Run Derby. Which we can just gloss over.
But for once, some Brewers players actually helped out during the game. Prince's 3-run homer off CJ Wilson put the NL on top and subsequently was named MVP. Later, in his 3rd and final at bat, Weeks reached on a fielder's choice and scored an insurance run. Not too bad of a showing for the Brewers. Minus the Derby, anyway. (Hottie Robinson Cano absoultely killed it.)
And just to be sure the excitement we Brewers fans were feeling after the ASG wasn't wavering, Doug Melvin wanted to present us with one more little nugget before bedtime: Francisco Rodriguez was joining the team.
Say what???
Yeah. You know, Mets closer. Little bit of a temper, apparently. But hey, for a spotty bullpen, any arm helps.
All Dougie has to do is send off 2 minor league prospects and K-Rod is his. Not a bad deal.
I mean, let's face it. The 'pen needs help. It needs consistency. It maybe even needs a guy that isn't afraid to assault an old man. I don't know. It needs someone. Maybe Rodriguez isn't the solution. But maybe he is. Melvin's stated K-Rod won't officially take over the closer's role from John Axford but he won't not close, either. So he'll apparently be a set-up/closer on an "as needed" basis, sharing both roles with Axford.
But, you know, I can't knock it til I try it.
I learned that lesson with Nyjer Morgan. I hated that guy for all the bases he stole against Milwaukee and all the fights he started on the field. But hot damn do I love me some T. Plush now!
So, welcome, Francisco. I hope you help.
Now. Middle infielders, anyone…?
And, just because there are so many American Leaguers fresh in my mind after the All Star Game, my running tally of MLB Hotties will get a final run-through on this wonderful off-day. I expect to have the official list up in the coming weeks.
I know you can't wait.
But real baseball is back tomorrow. Milwaukee takes on the NL West this week. Rockies, Diamondbacks, Giants.
Go Brewers!


text:
Packing Heat, Prettily with Concealed Carrie
What woman doesn't want to pack heat in a pretty purse?
Leslie Deets, co-owner of the gun range SharpShooters USA in Roswell, says as women started reacting to headlines and becoming more gun-savvy, buying and learning to use weapons, she added the range's concealed carry and defensive handgun classes to her own schedule so she could better represent them to their customers. Then, she started to notice something.
"The women were coming in either with firearms strapped to their bodies--which I'm not comfortable with--or they were bringing them in what was available on the market, in these very unattractive concealed carry options and handbags," says Deets.


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"What's this?" asked the CFO of the Data Warehousing Director, now holding a fresh-off-the-press request for more hardware.
"We've hit capacity," said the Director with a sigh, lowering himself wearily into a padded chair.
"What? That machine is barely a year old! And just last month you claimed it would be two years before we would need more capacity. I didn't allocate any budget for hardware because you said we wouldn't need it!"
"I was wrong. We just implemented an upgrade of the application and it started hammering the machine. We didn't know we had hit capacity. We thought we had enough."
"I've had enough," said the CFO, "I want some answers before I sign off on this."
And so began three weeks of malaise in searching for the right answer. An answer that nobody was particularly trained to find. Throwing in the towel, they sought outside help and eventually discovered some very interesting artifacts.
- Firstly, the solution using the machine had been inefficient from the beginning. The machine's power had masked the inefficiency. The new implementation only created a tipping point.
- Secondly, they discovered that of all the SQL statements hitting the machine, over eighty percent of them were singleton operations. Of these, over half of them were singleton updates. Of these, none of them were using a distribution key to support the update. This information was generally available in the query history database, if one only knew where to look. And if one had the time. And the patience.
- Thirdly, many other inefficiencies were pervasive, including the use of big-fat transforms (as opposed to more and leaner transforms with intermediate tables) and the inability to see the spikes in application activity.
- Lastly, much of this activity went across machines (several machines shared the load of processing) so that finding the nefarious operations was nothing short of a submarine hunt.
- Several of the large tables had been distributed on keys that were more suitable for zone maps than distribution, meaning that the vast majority of queries would only leverage one or two CPUs out of hundreds. Sort of like trying to pull liquid cement through a soda straw. This is process skew rather than data skew and is sometimes difficult to diagnose.
- Couple the above with the lack of proper controls for update/delete operations, resulting in an enormous count of aborted queries and their attendant instabilities - and the pernicious growth of unrecovered space and we have hidden inefficiencies that require a different level of resolution and investigation.
- The cost to remediate these problems was not as substantial as wholesale upgrade, but could have been avoided or at least mitigated had the principals been aware, or had visibility to the lurking dangers and inefficiencies that were literally draining the lifeblood from the systems like parasitic insects on an unsuspecting host.
Now the reader may well assert, ahh, we have enterprise tools that allow us to see the machines on the network and in the operations center. Those tools should tell us everything we want to know. Well, sure, about the Linux host of the machine, but not about the health of the various databases, usage stats, trending and most certainly not application-level nuances like misapplied or ignored distribution keys, mangled zone maps and tables that haven't been groomed. What's that, the nzPortal could give us some of this? Sure, on a per-machine basis. But the machine admins want to deal with machine health on one level, while the information architects want a completely different, even oblique level of information that may require deep immersion into the logistics of one or more enterprise applications.
What's the real problem here? Logistical complexity. The simple fact that as we add more technologies, applications and functionality around the machine, it becomes the fulcrum for the enterprise. Without management of the activities both in detail and in context, logistical complexity arises. We want to embrace the simplicity of management and administration, and on a purely administrative level (e.g. what the common DBA role fulfills) it's still a part-time job. But this may hide the fact that the application engineers and implementors have been given, or rather been delegated with, the additional responsibility of logistics. Perhaps they didn't realize that implementation and architectural logistics was now on their plate. After all, they only build applications. Deploying, operating and maintaining them has always been someone else's gig. In any other technology besides Netezza, the DBAs make it their business to know the data and its processing nuances. But in those technologies, there is no power in the machine to take us very high, so the possibility of logistical complexity is held in check by the lack of power in the machine. This constraint released, logistical complexity now becomes a very real threat.
A number of years ago these needs reached critical mass and the ninjas of the Enzee Community that had been addressing these issues as onsite consultants finally congealed these capabilities into a platform that can not only see these trends, nuances and capacity issues, it can do it across multiple machines and applications. In the spirit of Netezza's "driving toward simplicity", this platform plumbs the depths of Netezza's more complex interior and serves up the nuggets in visualized, actionable form. It is essentially the application-administrative level of business intelligence - for the machines.
In the aforementioned "submarine hunt" the principals learned an important lesson of very-powerful machines: they can make even the most horrible implementation look stellar. By correcting the discovered issues, they reduced the machine's load by over eighty percent. Imagine recovering eighty percent of a machine's capacity just by applying some simple fixes. One day the machine is overloaded and we're looking at upgrading for non-trivial costs, and the next day the machine is barely breaching twenty percent capacity and we won't be chatting with the CFO anytime soon. Years even.
Some of you have similar stories (I've heard many of them!) and sincerely want a better way to deal with multiple machines and a wide array of applications and users in a more holistic manner, with an eye on what counts in a Netezza machine, not just what a typical database does. This takes administration to a level that simplifies and clarifies the complex in a form that intersects to the language base and nomenclature of the Enzee Universe.More importantly, the Enzee Universe is an ecosystem where many of us have found, through experience of success or pitfall, what works and what most people are asking for (and wondering why some of the leaders aren't taking the bull by the horns to solve it). Well, many members of the ecosystem have worked around the logistical issues without privy to the expanding capabilities of core observational needs, codified and implemented by people in-the-trench.
The inception of this observation technology was both brilliant and simple. It would faithfully gather stats from each of the machines as a summarized, transmission-safe extract and drop it to disk. Their on-site consultants could install it, kick it off and then go about their other analytic activities. At the end of a day (or two) they could examine the summaries and these would reveal all. As scheduled operations using the machine's power to process the machine's own statistics, it has a very low footprint and can be brought under workload management. As structured extracts. it was only a matter of time before they would put a pretty face on it. Now it's a dashboard to the inner sanctum of the Netezza machines, from the people who have collectively installed and shepherded more Netezza installations into production than any other, with no close second.
The Observation Deck, from Brightlight Consulting.
Next Tuesday, August 30th is a Webinar demonstration of this technology and I would like to cordially invite the Enzee Community (and all other interested parties!) to attend and take a deep look at what it can do, and what it could do for you.No pressure and no sales push. The need for this is obvious and we are simply demonstrating that it can be filled and supported. But the participants will be the judge as to its viability. It is the ecosystem's way after all.
The webinar is on Tuesday, 8/30 at 11 am pacific / 2 pm eastern. You can get more details and sign up for it at: http://advancedmonitoring.eventbrite.com/


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College Foundation of NC
College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC) is a premier college access program in the United States with the mission of increasing the college-going rate in North Carolina. Its Internet website, CFNC.org, provides a comprehensive resource to assist all North Carolina students and families in planning, applying, and paying for college.
The successes of the combined program have been unparalleled–knowledge and use of the CFNC.org site continue to grow annually. CFNC.org has registered over 2.4 million users. The most recent student awareness study indicated 93% awareness among high school students in North Carolina and 88% awareness among parents of North Carolina middle and high school students (Bellomy Research, 2006).
CFNC.org has a partnership with all 110 public and private North Carolina colleges as an application portal, with over 1.25 million college applications submitted online to date. CFNC.org was selected by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) as the sole partner and provider of electronic high school transcripts in the state.
By Fall 2007, 88% of first-time freshmen students attending the University of North Carolina had a CFNC.org account, the majority of which were created during either the planning for college phase or while submitting an online admission application.


text:
The shadow of the law: Surveying the case law dealing with competing rights claims
This document explains the legal backdrop for the Commission's Policy Framework. It is divided into two main sections. The first provides an overview and summary of key legal principles from some significant legal decisions. This section aims to help readers understand the relevant legal background when seeking to conciliate or otherwise reconcile competing rights claims. The second part of the document surveys the leading cases that deal with competing rights. It also provides examples of situations where the leading cases, and the key principles from them, have been applied by courts and tribunals. It is divided by the types of rights conflicts that most commonly arise. The cases are discussed in some detail as the specific factual context of each case is so important to the rights reconciliation process.


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High school students tend to fall into two distinct categories when they reach their junior and senior years: those who take college prep very seriously and those who cannot afford it. While it can be a problem when students get too obsessed with college prep, it is that the other category where public policy people should turn their attention.
What happens when a student knows that he or she is not going to college? Whether a student has no interest in college or they cannot afford it, we need academic programs to prepare them for the world after school.
Some educational nonprofits have sprouted up that focus on opportunities other than college for
students, and this is good because the last thing a school wants is a student with no direction or plan...or hope.
A nonprofit called The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NTFE) works with schools to develop programs that teach entrepreneurship to students that may not be headed to a university.
None of this guarantees results, but at the very least students with limited means and limited backgrounds get a rudimentary understanding of the economy, and they will be prepared to participate in that economy regardless of how successful they might be.
Do students need to learn how to save money and invest it? Absolutely.
The American rate of personal savings used to hover at around 10 percent until the early 1980s. After 1982, the rate of savings in America dropped until it hit rock bottom at 2 percent in 2007. What changed in the 1980s?
History tells us that the main earners in our economy before the 1980s belonged to the World War II/Great Depression generation. They saved money.
The baby boomers entered the work force in full around the late 1970s and early 1980s. The value of saving money lost ground to the allure of easy credit for many people.
Think of the bills that came into the house of an average American before 1980. There was a gas bill, mortgage or rent, a phone bill, and an electric bill. Think of the bills we have today: all of the aforementioned, plus internet, cable, credit cards, interest on credit cards, data packages, Netflix, etc.
Okay, some of these things keep the economy going, so we are patriots in some sense, but why not teach students about budgeting and investing? If they are not headed to college, they are going to need all the help they can get, and this is the help they will need.
A good business education should not be solely for the wealthy or privileged.
The savings rate in the United States has climbed a little since the economy crashed because people are being more cautious, and they are less inclined to invest in risky projects. Teaching the value of money has not always been welcome with open arms in some communities.
Parents and schools can see this as condescending, but perhaps in these economic times it is right to re-introduce programs that teach entrepreneurship. Many students in Queens, Brooklyn, and The Bronx might be of limited economic means, but there is also a bevy of creativity there as well.
Economic education might be a great new direction for troubled public schools, if we can get people to teach it. By teaching financial responsibility, students will feel connected to the economy and not victimized by it.


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When woolens ruled: The mill behind the neighborhood
Before it was a college town, Charlottesville was a mill town. In fact, the mill was such a big deal that it made the fabric for uniforms of the Confederate Army, West Point cadets, and New York City cops.
Long before the Woolen Mills dam [see cover story] was built in 1830, the location at the base of Monticello Mountain on a triangle of land between the Rivanna River and Moore's Creek made industrial history.
Edward Moore built a gristmill there in 1795 that he sold, along with 500 acres, to William D. Meriwether in 1805. Meriwether expanded the mill to weave cotton and wool, grind flour, and saw lumber, and built a wooden toll bridge in 1826.
Over time, the textile end of the business was most profitable, according to historian Harry Poindexter in the Magazine of Albemarle County History. Wool was carried up the James and along the Rivanna River Canal in boats pulled by mules on the towpath.
"For more than a hundred years its busy hum has disturbed the sleep of Thomas Jefferson," writes Poindexter of the mill. Jefferson supposedly used a shortcut path down Monticello Mountain past the mill to get to the university.
John Adams Marchant bought the mill in 1852 when it was making jeans fabric from wool in white or blue that clothed slaves. Marchant sold the factory in 1864 to the man who would turn Woolen Mills into a powerhouse: his son, Henry Clay Marchant, whose leg had been shattered by a Civil War minié ball in 1862.
While Charlottesville escaped the Civil War relatively unscathed, a month before Appomattox the mill became a casualty when General Philip Sheridan and General George Custer accidentally destroyed it while trying to burn the railroad.
Marchant fils rounded up additional capital, and in 1868 incorporated the business as Charlottesville Woolen Mills. While initially manufacturing an average-grade fabric, he was eventually producing high quality woolens, including cashmere.
The mill grew from 25 looms in 1883 to 50 looms, at its peak employing between 150 to 200 workers. For three years, Jefferson's grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, was its president, and prominent Charlottesvillians sat on its board.
From 1885 to 1945, the factory's output went to uniform cloth, and by 1930, company officials claimed they could travel coast to coast on railroads whose crewmen wore their cloth, says Poindexter. During World War II, most of the mill's monthly output of 15,000 yards went to the Navy, according to John Hammond Moore in Albemarle: Jefferson's County 1727-1976.
When the mill burned a second time in 1882, workers rebuilt it. The company was known as a good employer: It didn't hire workers younger than 13, rarely laid off anyone, and tried to provide decent housing for its employees, according to an article by Andy Meyers in the Magazine of Albemarle County History.
Working at the mill was a respectable option for those not on the university track. You could tell who worked in dyeing because their hands were likely to stay blue and skill at matching colors earned $1.50 a day around the turn of the last century.
Long before terrorists commandeered anthrax as a weapon, people working around livestock especially sheep were prone to the disease. Possible exposure to anthrax bacillus made the sorting room the most dangerous and highest paying– area to work, paying a handsome $2 a day circa 1910, says Meyers.
The now-gentrified neighborhood surrounding the Woolen Mills factory was a self-contained community providing housing, a school, and a church for the mill's employees, thanks to what Poindexter calls Marchant's "benevolent paternalism."
And the company was progressive: It installed the town's first telephone in 1878 to connect a downtown office with the factory, according to Moore.
Some believe it was the switch to synthetic fabric that led to the mill's ultimate demise. A November 19, 1963, article in the Daily Progress headlined "Shortage of Capital Makes Sale Necessary" reports that the mill, long profitable, had been operating in the red for all but one of the previous 10 years. The Small Business Administration refused to lend the mill $250,000, and the article cites "unionization" as a big stumbling block for potential buyers.
In July 1964, the mill and land surrounding it were split into parcels and auctioned off. Collett M. Thach bought the old mill, which today houses Security Storage and Van Lines, run by his son, Presley Thach.


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Talk that slowing rainfall will spark a surging in U.S. corn plantings reportedly sank the market early Monday morning. That weakness was then exaggerated by a disappointing result on the weekly Export Inspections report; that came in at just 6.506 million bushels (mib) later in the morning, whereas traders were apparently looking for a result between 10 and 13 million. July corn fell 21.25 cents to $6.40/bushel late Monday morning, while December dropped 18.75 cents to $5.3475.
Evidence of persistent tightness in the soybean market here and in China seemed to limit losses in the soybean complex Monday morning. The fact that the latest USDA Export Inspections report stated the weekly total at 11.6 mib, thereby matching industry expectations, probably offered support as well. However, the soy complex apparently could not resist the general weakness depressing the Chicago crop markets. July soybean futures sank 13.25 cents to $13.74/bushel as the lunch hour loomed Monday, while July soyoil dipped 0.14 cents to 49.13 cents/pound, and July soybean meal slid $4.8 to $401.7/ton.
Wheat futures apparently suffered follow-through losses Monday morning in the wake of the surprisingly large result of last weeks Wheat Quality Council tour. Traders were probably disappointed by the USDA Export Inspections report as well, since the stated 16.639 mib result fell well short of forecasts in the 23-27 mib range. The potential for accelerating spring wheat plantings also seemed to weigh upon prices. July CBOT wheat futures dove 19.0 cents to $7.02/bushel around midsession Monday, while July KCBT wheat plunged 20.75 cents to $7.5775 and July MGE futures lost 13.25 cents to $8.0575.
Cattle futures reportedly reversed downward last Friday as bulls took profits on recent gains in apparent anticipation of a sustained wholesale price decline in the wake of big gains posted last week. However, the late-Friday jump to a record high in choice cutout encouraged fresh buying Monday morning. The course taken by cash and wholesale prices this week will very likely set the tone for short-term futures trading. June cattle climbed 0.72 cents to 122.55 cents/pound late Monday morning, while December gained 0.17 cents to 127.07. August feeder cattle futures surged 0.90 cents to 148.40 cents/pound, while November added 0.87 cents to 153.00.
CME lean hog futures were mixed Monday morning, which probably reflected trader uncertainty about the spring outlook. That is, while they are almost surely expecting a major rise in cash and wholesale values over the next 4-6 weeks, it is not at all guaranteed that those gains will justify the optimism already built into CME futures. June hog futures edged up 0.15 cents to 92.32 cents/pound in late Monday morning trading, while December futures skidded 0.62 cents to 78.27.


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IBM announces new Storage for Small and Medium Size Business workloads
Visits (17231)
Well, it's Tuesday again, and you know what that means! IBM Announcements!
Today also happens to be [Election Day] in the United States, and some have questioned IBM's logic of making major storage announcements on Election Day. During the campaigns, a major theme was to help Small and Medium size businesses, because these are the engines of economic growth and improved employment.
To tie in with this Election Day theme, all of today's [storage announcements are designed for Small and Medium size business workloads]! Whether you want to [Move Forward] with new features and functions to help transform your business for the future; [Live Free] with improved flexibility and ease-of-use for your storage infrastructure; adopt a more [Green and Envi
Hopefully, you all saw today's Launch Webcast on these announcements, but in case you missed it, waiting in line at the polling station to cast your vote, or caught without electricity or Internet access from [Superstorm Sandy], it is now available [On-Demand].
Here is a quick recap:
Whether you are a midsize business looking to expand, or a large enterprise with midsize workloads, these products could be just the right solution for you! To learn more, see the [November 6th Storage Announcement Landing Page].
technorati tags: IBM, LTFS-LE, TS3200, Storwize V7000, LTFS-SDE, TS2900, LTFS, midrange, FlashCopy, TS3500, TS3310, Storwize V3700, TS1140, TS2260, TS2360, LTO-6, TS3100
Busting Four Myths About Tape
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This week, I am in beautiful Sao Paulo, Brazil, teaching Top Gun class to IBM Business Partners and sales reps. Traditionally, we have "Tape Thursday" where we focus on our tape systems, from tape drives, to physical and virtual tape libraries. IBM is the number #1 tape vendor, and has been for the past eight years.
(The alliteration doesn't translate well here in Brazil. The Portuguese word for tape is "fita", and Thursday here is "quinta-feira", but "fita-quinta-feira" just doesn't have the same ring to it.)
In the class, we discussed how to handle common misperceptions and myths about tape. Here are a few examples:
Next month, IBM celebrates the 60th anniversary for tape. It is good to see that tape continues to be a vibrant part of the IT industry, and to IBM's storage business!
technorati tags: IBM, Google, Microsoft, EMC, Brazil, LTO, TS2900, TS3500, Space Shuttle, Challenger
IBM Symposium Melbourne Day 3
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This week, I am in Melbourne, Australia for the [IBM System x and System Storage Technical Symposium]. Here is a recap of Day 1:
This week is also hosting [The Presidents Cup] golf tournament at the [Royal Melbourne Golf Club] featuring 24 of the top golfers, including Tiger Woods, as well as [celebrities like Michael Jordan].
technorati tags: IBM, Storage, Symposium, Melbourne, Australia, TPC, Storage Hypervisor, Storwize V7000, SVC, VAAI, vMotion, DWDM, TS1140, 3592-E07, TS3500, LTFS, Emmy, 3592-C07, FICON, The Presidents Cup, Royal Melbourne Golf Club, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan
Upcoming IBM Technical Conferences for November 2011
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Here are upcoming conferences I will be presenting at for November 2011.
Next week, I will be in Auckland, New Zealand for the [IBM System x and System Storage Technical Symposium], similar to the one I attended in Orlando, Florida last July. Here are the sessions I will present:
The week after that, I will be in Melbourne, Australia for the [IBM System x and System Storage Technical Symposium]. Here are the sessions I will present:
In December, I will be going to Gartner's Data Center Conference in Las Vegas, but the agenda has not been finalized, so I will save that for another post.
technorati tags: IBM, Storage Symposium, Auckland, New Zealand, Melbourne, Australia, Storwize V7000, XIV, Storage Strategy, Smarter Computing, Encryption, Information Archive, Tivoli Storage, Productivity Center, TPC, SONAS, SBSC, TS3500, LTFS
#ibmtechu Day 1 IBM Storage University - More Keynotes
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First day of the [IBM System Storage Technical University 2011] continued with more keynote sessions.
As is often the case, I am torn between getting short posts out in a timely manner versus spending some more time to improve the length and quality of information, but posted much later. I will spread out the blog posts in consumable amounts throughout the next week or two, to achieve this balance.
technorati tags: IBM, Jim Rymarczyk, Clod Barrera, Storage University, Scale-Up, DS8000, TS3500, Cloud, Middleware, Scale-Out, XIV, SVC, SONAS, GPFS, HDD, SSD, VAAI, VMware, SAN, LAN, convergence, FCoE
IBM Announcements for July 2011 - XIV Gen 3, and more
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Well it's Tuesday again, and you know what that means... IBM Announcements! While most of the attention is going to [IBM's new servers, the zEnterprise 114 and the POWER 775], there were a few [announcements related specifically to storage] that I wanted to discuss.
To learn more, read Jim Kelly's [XIV Gen 3: Both Hands Clapping], and Anthony Vandewerdt's [Brief History of XIV], and Elisabeth Stahl's [Big Day, Big Data, Big Announcements] blog posts, or see the resources on the [XIV resources page].
technorati tags: xiv, rv1, Information Archive, Tape Sticks, 3592, emc, symmetrix, hds, c07, usp-v, crossroads, readverify, hewlett-packard, ltfs, sonas, p9500, vmax, ts3310, ts2900, vsp, archiveverify, ibm, ts3500
TSM Economices of Scale
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While I am not trying to start a blogfight with fellow blogger Scott Waterhouse from EMC, his latest post about TSM is just distasteful. Quick recap:
"So does TSM scale? Sure! Just add more servers. But this is not an economy of scale. Nothing gets less expensive as the capacity grows. You get a more or less linear growth of costs that is directly correlated to the growth of primary storage capacity. (Technically, it costs will jump at regular and predictable intervals, by regular and predictable and equal amounts, as you add TSM servers to the infrastructure--but on average it is a direct linear growth. Assuming you are right sized right now, if you were to double your primary storage capacity, you would double the size of the TSM infrastructure, and double your associated costs.)"
I talked about inaccurate vendor FUD in my post [The murals in restaurants], and recently, I saw StorageBod's piece, [FUDdy Waters]. So what would "economies of scale" look like? Using Scott's own words:
So, I have demonstrated how savings through economies of scale are achieved using IBM Tivoli Storage Manager. Adding one more person in each case is cheaper than the first person. The situation is not linear as Scott suggests. But what about larger deployments? IBM TS3500 Tape Library can hold one PB of data in only 10 square feet of data center floorspace. The IBM TS7650G gateway can manage up to 1 PB of disk, holding as much as 25 PB of backup copies. IT Analysts Tony Palmer, Brian Garrett and Lauren Whitehouse from Enterprise Strategy Group tried IBM TSM v6.1 out for themselves and wrote up a ["Lab Validation"] report. Here is an excerpt:
The majority of Fortune 1000 customers use IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, and it is the backup software that IBM uses itself in its own huge data centers, including the cloud computing facilities. In combination with IBM Tivoli FastBack for remote office/branch office (ROBO) situations, and complemented with point-in-time and disk mirroring hardware capabilities such as IBM FlashCopy, Metro Mirror, and Global Mirror, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager can be an effective, scalable part of a complete Unified Recovery Management solution.
technorati tags: IBM, Tivoli, Storage Manager, TSM, TS7650, TS7650G, TS3500, Scalability, deduplication, economies+of+scale, Scott+Waterhouse, EMC, Symantec, NetBackup, backup, software, solutions, disk, tape, optical, drive


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Flipping Verilog
reg keyword in the output declaration.
Last time I spent some time talking about simple User Defined Primitives (UDP). The synthesis tool I use won't actually create FPGA gates for UDPs, but it still useful for creating test benches or other simulation use. The simple UDPs were little more than look-up tables. But it is possible to model more complex sequential logic using UDPs.
The key difference between a sequential UDP and a combinatorial one (the ones that act like look-up tables) is the use of the
reg keyword in the output declaration:
primitive latch(q, clk, d) ; output q; reg q ; input clk, d;
This cues the simulator that the state table will have an extra entry that represents the current state of the output (
q, in this case). Without the
reg keyword, the lookup table uses the inputs as a "key" to find the output. With the
reg keyword, the "key" is all the inputs plus the current state of the output.
You can force the start up state of the output using the initial keyword (just like you would for any
reg variable). Here's a simple latch:
primitive latch(q, clk, d) ; output q; reg q ; input clk, d; table // clk d q q' 0 1 :?: 1 ; 0 0 :?: 0 ; 1 ? : ? : - ; endtable endprimitive
Note the value after the first colon on each row of the state table is the current state of
q. Then there is another colon and the new output value (indicated in the comments as
q'). The hyphen in the last row of the state table means "no change" so when the clock is high, the output doesn't change no matter what the input values are.
You can also elect to make one input per row (but only one input) edge sensitive by indicating a transition in parenthesis instead of a single value. For example, the following row matches a clock transition from high to low:
(10) 1 : ? : 1
To make life easier, you can use "r" instead of (01) and "f" instead of (10). If you want to include transitions to and from
x and
z states, you can use
p and
n. Keep in mind that in a Verilog simulation, "x" is a valid state (unknown, basically). Any case not matched in the state table will put the output in the "x" state. With that in mind, you may want a table entry that uses the "*" transition, which matches all transitions.
Here's a simple SR flip flop using the shortcut notation:
primitive srff (q,s,r); output q; reg q; input s,r; reg q; initial q = 1'b1; // initial state of q table // s r q q' 1 0:?:1; f 0:1:-; 0 r:?:0; 0 f:0:-; 1 1:?:0; endtable endprimitive
Note that while any one row of the table can only have one input that is edge sensitive, it is allowed to have edge sensitivity on different inputs on different rows.
You might wonder about a practical use for these primitives. After all, you expect to find latches and flip flops already available in your environment. However, you might want to model a majority gate, for example, or take special actions when a clock signal goes to "x" in order to get a simulation going.
Have you used UDPs in your Verilog simulations (or will you)? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.


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Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt? Who had the greater Olympic achievement?
Posted by silentarchimedes on August 20, 2008
I'll put in my two cents on this Usain Bolt versus Michael Phelps discussion.
8 gold medals (7 world records, 1 Olympic record) (5 individual events, 3 team events)
Men's 4 x 100m Medley
Men's 100m Butterfly
Men's 200m Medley
Men's 4 x 200m Free
Men's 200m Butterfly
Men's 200m Free
Men's 4 x 100m Free
Men's 400m Medley
2 gold medals (2 world records) (2 individual events, 1 or 2 upcoming team events)
Bolt will most likely run on Jamaica's 4×100 team, which is favored for a gold or silver medal.
1. Physical toughness of sport – I ran the sprints in high school, and the training for it is pretty straightforward. A lot of one-event-up training for endurance. For example, if you are training for the 100m, you run a lot of 200m and 400m wind-sprints. You also do a lot of leg work, like stadium stairs, stretching and form. Reaction time training is a must to get good starts off the blocks. In the end, it mostly comes down to natural ability plus endurance training and diet. Training will increase your times, but it is not as much of a factor as natural speed. Sprinters with "lanky" builds, such as Bolt and Carl Lewis, have made up for it with natural speed. When you finish a sprint, the body parts that are in pain are mainly your legs and heart. The arms and chest are secondary.
Swimming is a totally different story. It is a full body work out. Too much muscle will not lead to success. Too skinny will not either. Although natural ability does make a big difference, such as Phelps body frame, the sport definitely requires a harder training regimen. If you've ever tried to swim a couple of laps in the pool, you'll know what I mean. When you finish a swim event, your entire body is in pain… from legs to arms to back to chest to head to heart.
Edge: Phelps
2. Diversity of events – Phelps' huge wingspan, feet size and body frame make him perfect for the butterfly event. It is also a big advantage in the freestyle. However, the wingspan appears to not be ideal for strokes such as the breaststroke and backstroke. Although he is ranked 11th in the backstroke, Phelps has not swam in either one in his 8 gold medal events. All have either been in the freestyle or butterfly. He also does not swim in events higher than the 200m. In looking at the butterfly and freestyle, they do require a completely different set of skills. The breathing technique is different, the body motion is different, thus stressing different muscles. However, the start of the race begins the same for both races.
Bolt is a natural 200m sprinter. In high school he ran in the 200m and 400m. It is not unusual for a 200m runner to add another event to his repertoire. If he is known to have good endurance, he might add the 400m. If he is known to have a quick start, he might add the 100m. Carl Lewis was a 100/200 runner and Michael Johnson was a 200/400 runner. No one has ever done a 100/400 pairing before. That wouldn't make sense because of the attractiveness of the 200 for both 100m and 400m runners. There are only minor differences between the 100m and 200m races. The 100m requires a faster reaction time and quicker burst of speed. The 200m requires excellent turn running, fast finishing speed and a bit more endurance. However, both are still considered all-out sprints with no pacing. Most 100m sprinters also run the 200m at some point in their track careers.
Edge: Phelps
3. Difficulty of reaching finals of events – For each event Bolt was in, there were 3 preliminary rounds and then the final, for a total of 8 races. Each round was on a separate day. The 200m race followed after the 100m final was over, and thus Bolt ran in 8 straight days. The 100m started with 80 sprinters, and the 200m started with 66 sprinters. The times of the prelims are not important, since part of the strategy is to make it to the next round while conserving energy.
Phelps, on the other hand, had a much tougher path to the finals. He had a total of 9 preliminary races to get to the 8 finals. The three relays did not have any prelims in which Phelps swam in. His teammates took care of that. Four of his 5 individual races had two rounds each of prelims. Only the 400m medley had one prelim round. Although Bolt's races each had 3 prelims, none of his races were on the same day. Phelps 17 races spanned 8 days, with 2 days having one race, 3 days having two races, and 3 days having three races!
Edge: Strongly Phelps
4. Mental toughness required – This one is clearly for Phelps. With 17 races in 8 days. With all eyes on him, it requires the ability to completely focus on the task at hand, while shutting out all the distractions of the media, fans, other athletes, past races, future races, etc. It is unimaginable what he had to go through, pealing a layer off one by one. He must've felt a huge mountain on him heading into the Olympics. Bolt had no such pressure on him. Although there was some anticipation of a Tyson Gay – Asafa Powell – Usain Bolt 100m dream final, the pressure definitely was on Gay and Powell to perform. Powell was trying to eliminate the label of choker of big meets and reclaiming the world record that he lost to a pure 200m runner. Gay was trying to overcome his hamstring injury and to reclaim the US waning dominance in the 100m. Bolt had the world record and it was evident in the way he ran and showboated in the 100 that he felt no such pressure on him. Additionally, there just wasn't that much media coverage of him until he easily broke the 100m record. The pressure he felt in the 200m is still nothing compared to what Phelps had to go through.
Edge: Strongly Phelps
5. Natural ability – This one is somewhat harder to determine. Although Bolt's natural ability clearly has a profound impact on his performance, it is harder to determine how much of Phelps performance is due to natural ability instead of training. Swimming is more of a learned talent than running is. Although Phelps has an ideal body frame consisting of long arms, big feet, wide wing span and long torso, it's hard to think he would be as good in swimming if he did not have the muscle and endurance from training. However, Bolt's build might not be that different to normal athletes without Olympic training. His natural speed, height, quick long strides cannot really be learned in training.
In thinking about this area further, and reading Red's comment below, I believe there is another component to think about when it comes to natural ability. What makes Bolt's races so amazing is that he is only 21 years old and has not fully reached his natural potential. As he fills out his body both mentally and physically, it is scary to think what he can accomplish. Phelps appears to have reached his natural ability in this Olympics. Although the question of who had the greater Olympic achievement focuses on current results, the potential factor of the athlete has to be accounted for because of the WOW factor the public and media reacts to such achievements.Thus, I would have to give the edge of natural ability strongly in Bolt's corner. He is still very raw.
Edge: Strongly Bolt
6. Walking the walk – Although many fans, media and other runners were clearly dismayed at Bolt's showboating in the 100m final, I personally enjoy seeing that confidence and joy in track and field. I just wished he would have waited until he crossed the finish line. Not really because of the showboating, but because I wanted to see how fast he really could have ran. Blowing past the world record and other runners would have made a much bigger statement than showboating. I also have seen many races in the past where runners ease up too early only to be caught by other runners. However, Bolt clearly walked the walk. He seemed so relaxed and confident during all 8 races. He was clearly ahead of the rest of the field.
Phelps had a different story, however. At least two of his races were down to the wire, and not necessarily a lock for him to win. He clearly had to stay focused, and had no chance of celebrating. However, in the end, he walked the walk and accomplished something no one has ever done before.
Track and field requires a level of confidence and rivalry that borders on conceit. Swimming, however, is more of a fraternity. Where everyone respects each other and would never show up anyone else. It's just two difference cultures, and neither is better than the other.
Edge: Even
7. Any changes in sport that might increase performance – The biggest swimming story leading up to the Olympics, other than the athletes themselves, was the new Speedo's LZR swimsuits. It was obvious they were making a big difference in the world of swimming. By reducing drag, and increasing aerodynamics, swimmers in all events were bettering their personal bests. Swimming is going through a major evolution, in terms of science and technology. Suits are better. Technical analyses are better.
Sprinting has had no such evolution. The closes thing to change in the past ten years has been the sneakers. Because the clothing of sprinters is so minimal, and because runners run straight into the wind, it is very difficult to increase aerodynamics. Swimming on the other hand cuts through the water horizontally, thus allowing improvements in friction and drag to be made.
In this rating, the less change in the sport the better. That means the athlete is more comparable to old world records.
Edge: Bolt
8. Domination of world records – Let's see the domination of Phelps' and Bolt's individual world records at the Olympics. We will only analyze individual world records, and not relay world records or Olympic records.
The metric we will use is something I call the record impact. Using the event's 1990 record as the baseline (0%), and the most recent event record (even if held by Phelps or Bolt) as the topline (100%), how much did the the new record impact this record progression. The record impact is calculated as follows:
((2008 record – world record) / (1990 record – 2008 record)) * 100
Michael Phelps individual world records are based on long course 50m pools only
Record (s)
Record (s)
Record (s)
Impact (%)
|Men's 200m Medley
Men's 200m Butterfly
Men's 200m Free
Men's 400m Medley
Phelps' Average World Record Impact: 14.5%
Record (s)
Record (s)
Record (s)
Impact (%)
|Men's 200m Final
Men's 100m Final
Bolt's Average World Record Impact: 9.9%
This is unfortunate for Bolt. His showboating costs him here. If he ran hard throughout the 100m final, he easily gets the edge here. To beat the 14.5% record impact of Phelps, all Bolt had to run was a 9.67. This was easily attainable had he not slowed down. If he ran a 9.62, as some have predicted he could have done had he not slowed down, his record impact would have been 50% for the 100m, and his average world record impact would have been a gaudy 27.5%, putting the edge strongly in Bolt's favor. Quite unfortunate.
Edge: Phelps
9. Quality of world record – Another thing to look at is how long the previous record was held before being broken in Beijing. If it was broken in Beijing prior to the final, such as in the preliminaries, we use the record prior to the Olympics. We also need to look at how many times the record has been broken since a certain baseline; we will use 1990 again. The final parameter to look at is how many people have held this record since the baseline.
An event that has a high quality of world record means it is difficult to break the world record, only a few athletes have had the world record since 1990, and that the last time it was broken was a while ago.
I calculate the quality of record as:
C – (A + B) = Years since 2008 record – (Unique athletes holding record since 1990 + Times record broken since 1990)
The higher the number the better the quality of the world record. Obviously this is not a scientific calculation.
|Times record
since 1990 (A)
|Unique athletes
holding record
since 1990 (B)
|Years since
2008 record (C)
|Quality of
|Men's 200m Medley
Men's 200m Butterfly
Men's 200m Free
Men's 400m Medley
Phelps' Average Quality of Record: -14.5
That's a funny coincidence that Phelps Quality of Record is the same as his Record Impact Percentage!
|Times record
since 1990 (A)
|Unique athletes
holding record
since 1990 (B)
|Years since
2008 record (C)
|Quality of
|Men's 200m Final
Men's 100m Final
Bolt's Average Quality of Record: -4.5
The edge here is obviously in Bolt's favor. The quality of breaking the 200m world record balances out the ever changing 100m world record. It is obvious that the swimming sprints are going through an evolution, even if a lot of the records are being broken only by Phelps and a select few colleagues, such as Crocker and Thorpe.
Edge: Strongly Bolt
So who wins the award as the greatest 2008 Olympic achievement? Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt?
Strongly Phelps = 2 * 2pts = 4
Phelps = 3 * 1pt = 3
Even = 1
Bolt = 1 * 1pt = 1
Strongly Bolt =2 * 2pts = 4
Final: Phelps 7, Bolt 5
Winner: Michael Phelps
One interesting to realize here is that the showboating of Usain Bolt actually costs him this contest. As mentioned in the 8. Domination of World Records, if Bolt had not slowed down and ran a possible 9.62, we would move 1 pt from Phelps, and add 2 pts to Bolt. Then the final score is Bolt 7, Phelps 6. Even if Bolt runs between a 9.63 and 9.66, the edge is to Bolt, and the final score is Phelps 6, Bolt 6. Wow!!!!
What do you think?
|Who had the greater Olympic achievement?
1) Michael Phelps
My related Olympic posts:
- NBC Olympics equals "No Bolt Coverage Olympics"
- Olympics – Usain Bolt and the new generation of men's 100m sprinters
Suggested Phelps vs Bolt webpage:
5 Responses to "Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt? Who had the greater Olympic achievement?"
August 21, 2008 at 12:41 am
very astute analysis. What phelphs has done is truly amazing. Bolt's natural ability is quite phenomenal though. I think if he had the same work ethic as phelps he could achieve similar success
August 23, 2008 at 11:54 am
So now that Bolt and Jamaica won the gold in world record time for the 4 x 100m, does that change the analysis?
I just can't get past the fact that the swimsuits and swimming pools keep getting better, making it easier and easier for athletes to swim faster and faster. That doesn't diminish the fact that he won 8 golds (thanks largely to Lezak's amazing finish), though.
All things considered, I say Bolt, but then again I'm a huge track fan so maybe my opinion is totally biased.
I made a site about this specific debate. I linked to your article and I think you should stop by and check it out!
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