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text: Deepwater technology Advances in technology have enabled ExxonMobil to produce offshore oil and gas deposits in water depths that were impossible a generation ago. Today, we can build a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel that enables us to reach targets in water depths of over 5,000 feet. We recently deployed these deepwater technologies in the Erha fields offshore Nigeria, where we are partnering with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to produce at water depths of 4,000 feet. The success of our approach is demonstrated by the addition of an average of 3.1 billion oil-equivalent barrels to the resource base per year over the past five years.

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Looks good enough
but the article does not seem to mention what range it has if driven at slower than 100. Anybody want to make a guess?
General Motors has formally unveiled the production version of the Chevrolet Volt, the auto giant's attempt to prove that electric cars needn't look butt ugly. Originally unwrapped at the Detroit motor show last year, the Volt won't go into production until "late 2010" for the US market. It's not clear when - or if - it'll …
The ENTIRELY Electric Car (plug in somewhere) is the GREAT Environmental / Economy Scan of the 2000's!
WHERE do you think you are going to get that Electric Recharge Source from FREE? From the Sky? From the 5th Dimension? From the Government? Windmills in your suburban homes backyard? Out of your ass? YOU WILL BE PAYING THE POWER COMPANY, AND AT A PREMIUM!!
Electricity Rates are at an ALL TIME HIGH now! Especially in States like California, NY, Florida, Texas, etc.! In MANY of these states, rates are even stepped depending on monthly use, AND you are docked EXTRA charges when you go over your assigned "regular use". What the hell are you going to do to charge your "Volt" when there is a power "brown out" or OUTAGE!!??
The Electric Car is pure media hype Bullshit! In fact, make a car that will run on bullshit, there is plenty of that going around for free .... especially from the LEFTY MEDIA!
DRILL NOW, DRILL EVERYWHERE! .... Before the Commie Chinese and Corrupt Ruskies do it in YOUR backyard!
Only Paris Hilton and Osama Obama really thinks Electric makes sense.
I would really, really like to get the Volt, but the problem is I don't have a garage and park on the street. Getting the power to plug in the car means running a heavy-duty extension cord from the outside power tap to the car.
The plus side is, my daily commute to work is about 8 minutes... which means I can run on battery power there and back again for a few days between plug-ins.
If I start saving for it right now, I can probably put a down payment on it when it becomes available.
.. this reads like a press release. You've even forgotten to remove the Americanisms "Driving on gas charges up the battery just as it does in every other car.". Unless of course you think people use gas in their cars an not petrol.
Come on El Reg, how about some journalism!!
Most American cars are so unbelievably dull that just being near one can cause premature onset of Alzheimer's disease. Every now and again, one gets the impression that some fed-up designer breaks the creative curfew imposed on American designers since the 80's and actually creates something the world may think is interesting.
Sadly, the design police seem to have noticed that the concept car risked upsetting two decades of mediocrity. Looking at the production version makes me want to move to the suburbs, get a job in accounting, have an naggy wife and finally gas myself in the garage.
Oh wait, no exhaust fumes!
Do they quote distance with all accessories off or on?
Now I predict a batch of these owners who will drive around at night without their headlights on in an effort to squeeze every last mile out of the battery pack.
My coat - with the long extension cord to plug my car into your house mains when you are on vacation!!! Much cleaner than siphoning gas from your tank, sucka!!!
Just as lackluster as the rest of GM's product line. No wonder they're on the verge of bankruptcy. Only 40 miles? It's got nearly as much range as my bicycle then! Or my horse!
It looks like it has a totally LCD dash w/o any analog gauges at all. I wonder if it'll be readable, or it'll be that digital crap? Does it have satnav, and did they tie it into the driver's dash? - that is, does it display turn hints and stuff directly in front of the driver?
The EV1 could get 50-70 miles per charge, that was years ago
Perhaps its the inclusion of the heavy petrol engine that is decreasing its range?
No production til 2010? So.. just designing it to look environmentally friendly, then lease not sell them and recall and crush them again?
We can do better than this, I'm sure. And they better stick a solar panel on top, there is no real reason not to.
Burning Dirty Carbon Producing COAL, OIL, Natural Gas, Wood, or evil NUCLEAR POWER (that freaks the Lefties)!
The Power Companies that will provide the electricity to recharge your stupid Volt or and any electric car, don't pull Electricity out of their asses either.
Think about it, morons that think the Volt is "hot".
Paris Hilton and Osama Hussein Obama THINK Electricity comes from rubbing Cashmere together
This is great news. Despite the rather frightening rant from a previous commentator, moving the power source from internal combustion to the grid is a wonderful idea.
Power in the grid is produced at a few well regulated points. Power from internal combustion is produced from countless barely regulated (and often poorly maintained) sources moving all over the roads.
If the cost of electricity from the grid frightens you, install solar on your garage. It can offset the cost increase and it is energy you are capturing all on your own. Try that with internal combustion. Any luck drilling and refining your own petroleum lately?
1) Electric cars are different than petrol. The range will be the same at 100 or 40 miles an hour.
2) The cost of electricity to charge the vehicle it amounts to under $1.50 (US) in the most expensive places. Electricity can be generated many ways. In the worst case, if the power is out, you are getting a car that gets 40 mpg and still had reasonable pickup and acceleration.
3) The EV1 was not the perfect car. It had problems, it's short range and heavy batteries limited the vehicle severely. Think of the Volt as an improved EV1. Better batteries, better engineering, and a petrol generator to recharge the batteries.
4) The concept car wasn't very aerodynamic. The new design is a compromise, staying as close to the original concept as they could while making it as efficient as possible. Compared to the other options, the Volt looks very nice, at least to an American eye.
I may understand why they did it but this thing looks nothing like the Volt concept other than both being a car. Not from the front, nor the side, nor the roof line, maybe a tad from the rear.
Not necessarily the worst looking car but cool or hot it is definitely not. Bland, uninspiring and not worth the wait.
It's not a "production electric car" since they aren't making it yet. It's not "fully electric" since it requires a gas engine to get more than 40 miles (60 kilometres, or not enough to get to drive back and forth once across a typical urban sprawl). Not to mention that your cost per mile increases dramatically if you factor in the need to replace the lithium-ion battery pack on a regular basis, as opposed to using something like NiMh. In other words, it's not as good as the EV1, which GM could just start building again if they wanted to. Why don't they? We aren't told. Are we reading a press release or a piece of investigative reporting? I suspect the former.
I'm also starting to suspect that El Reg was secretly purchased by some marketing asshole with too much money and not enough ethics (a state implicit in the term "marketing"), and the regular Reg staffers are being held hostage, threatened with no more long liquid lunches and having to wear suits unless they conform to the new agenda. I understand the dilemma, because vast quantities of alcohol and really comfortable clothes are provably much more important than integrity. It's the only reason I can come up with for the sudden spate of moronic changes and un-critical automotive "press" worthy (ie: advertising masquerading as news) articles that have been spewing forth lately.
Consider the Lohner-Porsche Mixte Voiturette made in 1900, with a range of around 60 miles per charge.
Or go to Beaulieu, the National Motor Museum, where they have a 1901 Columbia, and a Harrods van from the 1930s, both with ranges in excess of 40 miles.
No improvement in 100 years? Pah! It's a conspiricy to keep us buying gasoline from the likes of Haliburton.
The "small" battery + gas engine combo is an advantage.
Most people drive ~30 miles/day in the US. The 40 mile battery covers this perfectly.
If you put another 16 kWh battery in the car, you roughly triple the range (complicated explanation, won't bother), but you also increase the weight of the car by 400 more lbs, you increase the price by at least $10,000, and you triple the time it takes to charge... i.e., 18 hours via a regular 110V US wall socket.
How is this desirable, again?
As the previous poster noted, there are a lot of advantages to doing the dirty part of power generation in a few well regulated places. The point of the 40 mile charge is that batteries are costly and their weight reduces efficiency. In the USA, most people, most days, drive less than 40 miles, so that's good enough to do without gasoline most of the time.
Here is a web link with specific details for the Tesla (data wasn't available yet for the Volt). To summarize, even with a coal-fired electric plant, and counting transmission line losses, the Tesla should result in twice the efficiency of a Prius and about the same emissions. For electricity generated from natural gas, it would have about half the emissions.
The real payback comes if you run your electric car off hydro, wind or solar power. Then the emissions would be essentially zero. Standard cars don't allow these options...
@ In response to several of the preceeding posts
No the range will not be the same at 100 as at 40 MPH. Drag (air resistance alone) increases with the square of speed among other factors.
@ Let's see
It's fully electric just like any fully electric car can only drive X number of miles. Don't want to use the gas engine? Just stop driving when the battery gets low, same as any other fully electric car.
Cost per mile doesn't dramatically increase because you'd have to have more or higher capacity NiMH cells for the same 40 mile range, thus adding weight, thus requiring even more battery power for the same range, thus increasing car size to hold the pack, thus increasing weight again.
You won't be replacing the pack on a regular basis, figure that over the average lifespan of an automobile it will need replaced one time.
@ Solar panel enthusiasts
No point in putting a solar panel on the roof, it wouldn't provide a significant % of power for recharging even if it were light out 24 hours a day. What it would do is increase cost, weight, and be more vulnerable to the weather unless additional weight is added for a protective cover over it. I suppose the entire roof could be made of a transparent material but then cost goes up even more as well as weight.
About the car styling, it looks like a Chevy. Go figure.
I hate with a passion just about every American car that I see on the roads as I drive to and from my place of work - they are all rubbish. They look like crap, and suck down petrol like it's cheap or something. The distorted car market in the US means that it is incredibly hard to get a sensible car - I want my old 1.6 A3 that I had in the UK in 2000. Why do they only sell 2.0+ Audis here? Because only super powerful cars are marketed here.
So I was thrilled to hear about the Volt. I didn't like the look of the concept car - it put me off. I think the production design is just as crappy looking as most US vehicles, but at least it looks like a car. The 40 mile range is perfect for my daily commute.
Now if only it stood some change of being available as a hatchback.
In the US a large part of road taxes are collected at the gasoline pump (petrol for you wanks). It varies state-by-state but in Illinois where gas is over $4.29 per gallon right now the taxes come out to be almost $1 per gallon. The electric car freetards will be exploiting a loophole where they use the roads that the rest of us pay for via fuel taxes.
So that will have to change right away, and if we know how government works it won't be for the better - will have to shift to some sort of alternate road use tax collection method. Like some assigned annual fees based on miles driven or something. You're looking at something like $1 per every 20 miles driven, in order to keep it comparable to what is currently done? Another option would be to have a separate electric meter where you pay your electric car rate. What could possibly go wrong with that..... I certainly don't want my home electric bill to be the place that the gov goes to collect on my road taxes.
Cyril • Tuesday 16th September 2008 18:57 GMT
1) Electric cars are different than petrol. The range will be the same at 100 or 40 miles an hour.
Hey? How'd ya figure that out? Wind resistance is surely going to increases proportionally to velocity no matter what you're powered by. Therefore the faster you go, the less far you'll get. Presuming electric cars haven't started producing their own vacuum?
I love the old chestnut that the US auto industry is "backward". Look hard enough and you can find all sorts of "firsts" like the Mixte drive (more famous for being used in the Maus military vehicle), but quite a lot of genuine innovation comes from the US auto industry. However, the car buying public don't always adopt it.
GM has the technology to produce something genuinely clever; their Saturn product line offered the basic engineering expertise to make an aluminium spaceframe, unstressed panel (could be made from renewables; think 21st century duroplast) lightweight hybrid. However, they have found Saturn buyers really want rebadged Opels.
EV1 was a two seater. EV1 should never have been killed off, but it wasn't a production car, it wasn't SOLD to people, it was a technology research programme and leased. Volt is a serious attempt at producing a true plug-in hybrid - more than can be said for Toyota's Prius, which will be coming up for plug-in "improvements" next year with a range of... 5 miles. Admittedly, this is an improvement over the 2.5 miles the current model can handle on pure EV mode (in territories where this is allowed), but it's a far cry from the expensive, but very interesting, third party conversions.
Manufacturing a car is a set of compromises. The US prefers different ones, but their engineers and research teams are just as good at developing new car technology - the marketing teams have to direct them differently.
It's a bit like the old chestnut that the Japanese made boring, knock-off cars in the 60s and 70s. Vehicles like the Mazda R130 Coupe and Toyota 2000GT prove otherwise, but we only see what we're sold. Imagine if Vauxhall had been selling rebadged RHD Saturns, with dent-proof panels and aerodynamic designs reminiscent of Cherry's finest droop snoots?
I really doubt that GM has the political clout to have prevented the production and release of a viable electric car. There are (and have been) many car companies, operating in many countries. I would think that one of them would want to build an electric car, if it were profitable.
If GM were able to prevent car companies in the UK, France, Germany, Japan, S. Korea, S. Africa, Russia, China, etc from building electric cars, why wouldn't they just prevent them from building ANY cars?
Why would anyone think that the car companies have the engineering know-how to build a better electric motor, but that they just haven't been "motivated" enough by "green" laws?
General Electric is a much larger company than General Motors. There are many more manufacturers of electric motors than there are car manufacturers. Electric motors and batteries are separate (and large) industries. Wouldn't one of these companies want to invent efficient motors and batteries, then have them in every car in the world?
Why would anyone think that a car company would be able to step in and create better electric motors and batteries? You give them too much credit.
Electric or combustion, they rely on fossile fuels or nuclear power to generate the energy. And their efficiency as a personal transport system sucks dogs bollocks: a 1500Kg machine to transport a 75Kg person for an hour a day! And all the shit it is made of will be dumped after 200K kilometers... The economics are just absurd.
The only eco-friendly car there is is the one that has not been built. Those wannabe eco-conmuters should use public transportation if they really want to help the environment. Now, if they want to *appear* to be tree huggers and show their disdain for the unenlightened while in their daily traffic jams, this ridiculous car will be just perfect.
Mine? The one with the monthly rail ticket in the pocket.
Didn't think it would matter to anybody... but, the Volt's 16 kWh battery actually operates between 30% and 80% charge... first of all, it's bad (even fatal) for Li-ion batteries to be fully charged or discharged... second, when running on gas, the Volt does not completely recharge the battery but maintains a 30% charge, and there needs to be a buffer between ~20%-30% to provide bursts of full-power acceleration when running on gas. There is also presumably a buffer towards the higher end to allow for some regenerative braking after a charge.
(The reason for the 30% charge target is that your "electric car" is not really running on electricity if the gas engine has recharged the battery by the time you pull into your driveway...)
What this boils down to is that 8 kWh of charge => the advertised 40 mile range. If you add another 16 kWh battery, it won't need the same percentage of buffering, so your range will end up being closer to 120 miles than 80 miles.
Plug-in hybrids are a sensible evolutionary step in vehicle development while the technology matures and production cots decline. The great majority do indeed drive <40 miles (65 km) per day, so most use will be electric only. The Li-ion batteries should last ~100,000 miles or 160,000 km before needing replacement - to put that in perpective, I've owned transmissions that didn't last as long - but electricity storage technology will improve, too.
@PunkTiger - not everybody is going to be in a position to use "early" electric or plug-in hybrid cars easily, although, even on petrol alone, it should still be more efficient/lower emitting than pure ICE. Can you convince your employer to let you recharge at work, perhaps?
As for Webster Phreaky - well, he's obviously trolling for a particular kind of response. Or possibly he's an oil-company employee on crack.
And El Reg? It is getting to be a bit like a marketing outlet, sometimes, but with a subject that evokes such a polarised response, perhaps that's the safest option?
PS: Please bring back the old Tux and Jolly Rodger icons, plus better Love and Flame icons while you're at it.
My rough back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Worst case scenario, you drive 40 miles each way to/from work requiring two full charges per day using. We'll assume the charger pulls 15A @ 120V (1800 watts). We'll assume you have permission to charge at work.
1800W @ 16 hours/day = 876KWh/mo
At $0.08/KWh, it would cost $70/mo to charge (my local rate, no on/off peak rates).
At $0.15/KWh, it would cost $131/mo to charge (high end for most states)
That works out to $0.03 to $0.05/mile.
Gas would need to be $1.05/gal to $1.75/gal for a 35MPG car to match the price-per-mile.
Worst, worst case scenario. If electric is $0.30/KWh, it works out to $261/mo, or $0.10/mile, which is the equivalent to a 35MPG car running on $3.50/gal gasoline.
Now, can they build them so they can retail for $25k or less??
--Firstly, to @AC cars suck--
I would love to travel by public transport, but It would cost me too much (Time).
To travel the 15 miles by car takes me 15-25 minutes. Cost (I drive a diesel that does 50+mpg) about £3 - £3.50 a day in fuel.
By train ignoring the 4 mile walk it would take me 40 minutes, oh and to get to work before 9am I would have to catch the 7:35am train. The cost about £6 a day, if the trains run and I walk to the station.
To travel by Bus I would have to leave my home at 6:42am to get to work by 8:52am, because I would have to change bus twice once with a half hour wait. It would also be across 2 companies so I would need two bus passes. Cost God knows not prepared to try it.
When they sort out public transport I will use it.
My wife on the other hand takes the bus into Birmingham daily as it is reliable and only £47 a month. Shame about the other passengers who are sometimes violent and generally ignore the smoking ban.
-- To @AC, Rough math.. --
I agree with you totally, If I could by a car that did 40 miles a day on one charge I would get one.
Electricity costs me £0.14 per Kwh,
UK Plugs can support 13A @240V roughly 3Kw, times that by 4 hour charge (In the article somewhere) equates to 12.5Kwh in a day. This is only £1.75 in electric! half my daily fuel usage today!
If we generate this electric with nuclear power the carbon is (close to) zero. If I put a 150Watt Solar panel on my roof (<£700 from Maplins) I would save another 17p a day and be even greener!
On the other hand If I charged it at work, I would get too and from work for free!
No-one is seriously bothered about the overall emissions. If they were, then "buying a new car" would be WAY off the list, and if a car were needed, then "buying an old, efficient, fuel injected car" (like a Mk II Golf GTI) without a catalytic convertor - and maintaining it perfectly - would be a far better option.
Plug in hybrids allow the emissions within cities to be reduced and they pander to people's car usage habits; most people I know drive around 10-20 miles to work and back again and rarely exceed that area of travel (living in the Scottish Borders gave me a skewed idea of distance - 20 miles to the next town - I keep getting places in the Midlands far too early because it's all so close). They eliminate one of the worst traits of modern emissions controls - dreadful fuel economy when cold. The engine need never fire up for the bulk of the car's usage; when it does it'll be when the car is driving on the freeway, where it should warm up quickly (since the load is predictable, to charge the batteries, it may be possible to drastically reduce the emissions by tuning the engine to run very lean in a narrow, optimal rev range) and isn't contributing to the local emissions that present a problem for America's cities.
As an example of the effect a catalytic convertor has on a car - I had a 1993 Volvo 480 with instant readout MPG and a cat, and an older example of the same car. The cat equipped one, on my drive from the village to the town I worked in (3 miles in total, but not ideal for cycling), would return 10mpg until the cat was up to temperature. Which it didn't get to on that drive. The non-cat model had come off the "fast idle" setting after the first mile and have 30mpg.
Now I live somewhere with public transport, I really try very hard to leave my car alone unless it's needed, although it would be far more convenient to drive it to places than spending £2 on a train and another £1.50 on a bus for some more convoluted routes. If I had a plug-in hybrid, I'd be inclined to use it.
Anyone who has visited America knows most cities and towns are not designed for walking. They're designed for car use. The banks are drive-thru. Without massive infrastructure changes, plug in hybrids are the next best thing for short term reductions in pollution, and in states where energy production is "clean" could have a small impact on the environment as a whole.
Of course, making a car like this tends to involve a much greater impact on the environment than a conventional new car, and it may have a shorter useful life given that when the batteries fail it may well have depreciated to the stage to make economic replacement unviable, but it's a brave step - it's a bigger step forward than Toyota made with the Prius. The main failing is that it won't be on sale for some time yet - GM's shouting about new models seems to get earlier and earlier - can you actually buy a Camaro yet?
> "Wouldn't one of these companies want to invent efficient motors and batteries, then have them in every car in the world? ...Why would anyone think that a car company would be able to step in and create better electric motors and batteries?"
Yes and no. Although a range of motors (both AC and DC, actually) can and have been used in electric car propulsion, the most efficient and best performing car motors are in-wheel AC motors, which are relatively expensive at the moment.
PML Flightlink is a British electrical manufacturer that has developed a line of compact and efficient in-wheel motors (Hi-Pa Drive) - used in their technology demonstrator electric Mini QED conversion and the in-development electric Lightning. On the other side of the world, Mitsubishi has developed their own in-wheel motor for their prototype electric Colt, which has competed in rally competitions. The Tesla Roadster uses a quite different central motor with mechanical power train - simpler and less efficient (but not necessarily more reliable).
Like most emerging market segments, the vehicle-optimised-electric-motor and power train segment is inviting a number of competitors vying for technical superiority and first-to-market position - not all will succeed. Things should be pushed forward a bit from 2009/10 with KERS inclusion in Formula One cars.
There are also a number of promising electrical energy storage developments too numerous to describe here. I suggest ordering pizza and settling in for an evening with Google if you want to learn more.
You know, there's so many to jump on the slam the American car bandwagon, I have one (a 2007 Pontiac) and I love it - yes it corners, yes it works, no it doesn't gas guzzle even with a V6 and I find it as good as any car you can buy out there. Oh and it cost me less than £19k to get it on the road in the UK - try and find an equivalent here that won't cost you at least 1.5-2 x that!
The Volt looks great, and I expect that it'll retain the Chevy branding when it does eventually get here (suspect EU € will end up funding some of that), and by 2010 I think there'll be more recharging stations. But think of this too, when this car comes out, as it is primarily an electric vehicle - it'll get classified by those lovely people at DVLA as "Electric" - viz no Road Tax, no Congestion Charge - so roll on the Volt!
I'm all for drilling too, but there's nothing wrong with alternative sources of energy. Free market capitalism works best when there's choices. The advantage of electric vehicles is that suddenly the vehicles are decoupled from their energy source. If you want a wind powered car, go for it. Solar, sure. Nuclear, heck yeah!
And, even if you want it to still be gasoline powered it's actually more efficient to use gasoline to power a generator to charge a battery to power an electric motor than to use gasoline to power a gasoline engine.


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Plastic optical fiber (POF) has been used for 30 years in specialized applications that require low data rates and cabling runs less than 100 meters long. But now, because of new developments, POF is on the verge of gaining wide acceptance in high-bandwidth communications markets, such as industrial control, telecommunications, and home networking.
Most POF is called step index fiber (SI-MMF), which has a fiber diameter of 1 millimeter, or 1,000 micrometers, and a core diameter of 980 micrometers. Generally, polymethacrylate (PMMA) and acrylic resins are used as the core material, and fluorinated polymer is used as the clad material. One manufacturer offers a premium POF with a core of high-purity polymethyl methacrylate and a cladding made of special fluorinated polymer.
POF can be cut with a razor blade, and the cut end can be polished without much effort. Plastic fiber can be terminated by a variety of methods. One popular method involves heating the fiber end and pushing it against a mirrored surface.
The material can withstand rough treatment, and if the ends of the fiber are somewhat damaged or if the light axis is a bit off-center, it will still transmit light. The large diameter of the core makes it easy to insert into the fiber a large amount of light from a relatively inexpensive light source. POF optical transceiver modules typically use a 650-nanometer red LED as the light source. In addition, typical POF connectors cost substantially less than those for glass fiber.
SI-MMF has a loss of 0.15-0.2 decibels per meter with a 650 nanometer light source. Bandwidth is limited by the large numerical aperture of the core and the step-index profile. All of these parameters restrict SI-MMF fiber to relatively short links at low data rates. But the recent development of low-loss, high-bandwidth graded-index POF (GI-POF), which can offer 2 GHz of bandwidth at extended distances, should allow plastic to challenge glass optical fiber. Not only that, GI-POF could become a contender in applications like fiber-to-the-desk, fiber-to-the-home, and other short-haul links.
The advancements in GI-POF and low-cost transceivers that use red and green LEDs and economical laser diodes are driving renewed interest in many types of POF data links. Several companies in Japan and one U.S. firm have introduced improved SI-POF and the new family of GI-POF. A number of semiconductor companies have also introduced suitable transmitter diodes.
Home networks could become an important market for POF. The demand for high-speed Internet access and the wide use of digital devices, such as DVD players and video surveillance systems, requires a residential network that can interconnect computers, printers, digital cameras, music recording equipment, and all of the appliances of the future.
POF cabling continues to be a popular choice for low-cost, point-to-point links in noisy EMI/RFI instrumentation and factory environments. Additionally, the industrial networking segment, which has been a strong market for low-speed, step-index, POF links, is adopting the Industrial Ethernet standard. The industrial control networking market is moving from the 12-Megabits- to 16-Megabits-per-second Profibus and SERCOS standards to the 100-Megabits-per-second Industrial Ethernet standard. The next step is the integration of the Ethernet standard with field bus standards. And looking to the future, the industry is studying Gigabit Ethernet to further lower manufacturing costs in plants. Higher performance GI-POF should find application here.
In the telecommunications interconnect industry, GI-POF can also provide lower cost network components at a time when carriers are looking for cost savings in their network infrastructures. While maintaining the performance associated with glass optical fiber, GI-POF allows the use of less expensive transceivers and connectors. Most of this increased tolerance is in the transceiver, where important cost reductions can be achieved.
As a result, the overall cost of new interconnection equipment in data/telecom networks can be reduced as much as 75% with GI-POF, and it will be possible to meet the demand for 10-Gigabit-per-second speed over distances less than 30 meters. An example of a high-capacity, ultra-short distance connection is found in a server farm environment.
Additionally, in the next few years, wide use of 40-Gigabit-per-second optical interconnect systems is expected. The individual component alignment tolerance of plus or minus one-tenth the diameter of the glass fiber, or five microns, requires expensive components in connectors and transceivers. The 180-micrometer diameter of POF, which is three times the diameter of multimode GOF, affords a total alignment tolerance of plus or minus 85 micrometers, compared to a plus or minus 20-micrometer alignment tolerance for glass in a typical link. This makes it possible to use less expensive designs for all components.
In addition, placing optical fibers in parallel within a single ribbon cable offers a connection design that is less expensive, has more relaxed tolerances, and makes field installation easier. This type of GI-POF cable can meet the needs of existing OC-192 and emerging OC-768 optical transmission speeds for carriers.
Four connector styles are available for terminating plastic optical fiber: simplex, simplex latching, duplex, and duplex latching. The latching connector is designed for rugged applications that require greater retention force than nonlatching connectors. Duplex connectors are keyed to ensure proper orientation. For extreme temperature environments, the cable/connector attachment can be strengthened with an RTV adhesive.
Similar to glass fiber, POF test equipment includes optical power meters, stabilized 660-nanometer LED light sources, and a family of interface adapters.
Several worldwide industry organizations are boosting the awareness of POF applications. The most important is the POF Trade Organization, which has a Web site that offers information on suppliers of POF equipment and services to end-users and designers. Other organizations include the POF Consortium in Japan, the POF Applications Center at the University of Applied Sciences in Germany, and POF organizations in the United Kingdom, France, and Brazil.


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back to calendar
Arrive before 6 pm to sign up.
This is the night many of us have anticipated for years, the extraordinary Orion 062 is our feature.
Orion 0.62 is a Swiss-born, Israeli-raised poet who came to America at the age of 12. He's the author of approximately 30,000 poems, many of which explore socially-taboo topics. He's has published two collections of his works, including "A Dozen Brutes" and "Don't Call Me Harvey," a collaboration with Margueritte.
In addition to several torrid affairs with the glitterati, Orion claims that he has singularly participated in more open poetry readings than anyone in history. He's currently banned from several venues for various reasons. In addition to creating intellectually sizzling abstract & philosophical works, Orion also frequently explores extreme concepts of sexual prowess and deviancy. This reading may contain poetry of an extremely graphic nature and is not recommended for anyone who may find this offensive.
Cover $7
(includes one house drink)
Malaby is joined by some of his favorite NY improvisers - Advanced Reservations recommended.
Cover $10
4 Storytellers, 3 True Stories, 1 Pack of Lies. Uncover the liar and win a prize worth its weight in fool's gold.
Admission $12 which includes a drink.
Featued on October 3 are
Author, "House Of Cards"; NPR's This American Life
Author, "The NY Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance"
Nerve.com: "10 Best of 2008
Fuel TV's "American Misfits"
Cover $5
Charles Darwin's last sentence in The Origin of the Species reads: "There is grandeur in this view of life�from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
Grandeur indeed. To celebrate, and to preserve.
Lisa Karrer is an internationally celebrated composer, vocalist and multi-media performance artist. She brings us "Schismism: Natural Law", a solo performance inspired by Darwin's exploration of evolution and universal connectedness, in collaboration with composer/musician David Simons. In the spirit of natural selection, the audience will decide the sequence of events in real-time during the performance.
And Shahid Naeem from Columbia University will join us reflecting on the consequences of the modern day unraveling of the entanglement of biological diversity evolution has spun over the last 3.5 billion years. His laboratory's motto is "Ecology With No Apology," and explores the environmental consequences of widespread losses in biodiversity, or the disentanglement of what Darwin called, the "entangled bank."
Cover $10
"I've just returned from an all too brief visit to Dublin and can't wait to hear yet again Kathleen's beautiful Irish lilt."
_Angelo Verga (Poet Laureate of The Cornelia Street Cafe)
Cover $7
(includes one house drink)
A new twist on the ancient tradition of oral history.
SpeakEasy is people telling stories-- true stories. Period. No scripts. No crib notes. No rehearsals.
SpeakEasy has a dynamic and constantly changing cast of storytellers that include such greats as Mike Daisey, Jonathan
Ames, and Reno, along with homemakers, lawyers, dog walkers, street magicians and writers
You never know what you'll hear. So join us for what could be a life changing experience!
Cover $10
October 7th readers include:
Among the readers this month are the lovely and talented Claudia Cortese, Aldina Kennedy,
and Claire Shefchik
Featuring :
Jeffrey Gustavson, the editor of Epiphany magazine. He will be reading from �The Little Iceberg; or, Can You Say �Solipsism�?,� an autobiographical essay.
as well as American novelist Mark Childress, author of six novels: A World Made of Fire, V for Victor, Tender, Crazy in Alabama, Gone for Good, and One Mississippi. Mark is a native of Alabama and now lives in New York and Key West.
Cover $7
(includes one house drink)
Ensemble Elektra�s music was recently called by the audience "Mediterranean Dixieland" and described by All About Jazz as �profound yearning, ecstatic wailing, and an aching beauty.
Cover $12
BLAS FALCONER, A Question of Gravity and Light
TYEHIMBA JESS, leadbelly
HELENA MESA, Horse Dance Underwater
SUSAN B.A. SOMERS-WILLET, Roam & Quiver
Cover $7
(includes one house drink)
Since 2003, Mel Flannery Trucking Co. has carved a home for themselves in New York's most influential independent and jazz venues including Joe's Pub, the Cutting Room and Rockwood Music Hall. Defining what it is to be a 'band' and not a group of hired musicians, Mel Flannery Trucking Co. has developed an organic and nuanced sound that comes on easy, but leaves one breathless in its wake. The songwriting of frontwoman and namesake, Mel Flannery (with the occasional co-writing of pianist Lee Pardini) is an exercise in balance; blending complexity and accessibility, heartbreak and humor, wisdom and youth. MFTC injects electricity and fire in their live performances, shunning the notion that a jazz is �background music.� Playing songs off their two acclaimed self-produced records, MFTC is an unforgettable event of jazz for a new audience.
Cover $10
Cover $7
�Brilliantly performed�very impressive.�
- Ahmad Jamal, jazz piano legend, of Waltzer's �100 Dreams Ago.�
"In the era of concept records, this startling young pianist has
flipped the script: the message behind One Hundred Dreams Ago is
�let's just play.� Accordingly the trio gets its bustle on.
Ellington's small groups are in the air here, and the pleasure Waltzer
generates is bountiful.�
- Jim Macnie, the Village Voice
Cover $12
Cover is given where known
Many spoken words events are free
There is always a one-drink minimum per set; times are door opening times


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Today, Lego turns a ripe old age of 75. Founded in 1932 by carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen from Billund, Denmark, the company made wooden toys. The trademark name didn't come until 1934, inspired from the Danish words "leg godt" (play well), and it wasn't until 1949 that Lego began producing their now-famous interlocking bricks.
The design finalized in 1958 and it took another five years to find proper materials to produce the blocks. So even though Legos are one of those "why didn't I think of that" ideas, creating the actual product was a painstaking process. Luckily that process will pay off for generations to come.
Ahh, Legos. I actually have none in my home at the moment, despite a plethora of other adult adolescent gear. Maybe it's a good day for a run to the store. [earthtimes via neatorama]


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Legislation introduced by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Silver Lake) that would prevent authorities from issuing tickets for parking at broken or malfunctioning meters may be eliciting fist pumps from drivers everywhere, but in the tri-city area, it's largely a moot point.
Introduced this week, Assembly Bill 61 would essentially prevent local governments from enacting laws that make it illegal to park in a space controlled by a broken meter.
But Burbank doesn't employ parking meters, and neither Glendale nor Pasadena prohibit parking at a broken or malfunctioning meter, although both cities do ticket drivers who park longer than the posted time limit.
Still, in a region of commuters, the bill would no doubt settle longstanding confusion among drivers who travel from city to city and never quite know whether they've struck the parking jackpot — or sand trap — when pulling up to a broken meter.
"It's just wrong for cities to ticket people who want to park at a meter that the city has failed to fix, or to force a motorist to drive around or park in a paid lot when a perfectly good spot on the street is available," Gatto said in a statement on Monday.
The Los Angeles City Council last year upheld a law prohibiting drivers from parking at broken meters, allowing the city to continue ticketing drivers. The ordinance was approved after state legislators unanimously passed a law that permitted parking at a broken meter up to the maximum time allowed by the meter — unless there was an ordinance prohibiting it.
Gatto said that he introduced AB 61 to close the loophole and prevent cities from penalizing drivers for the mistakes of local government.
"It is the responsibility of local governments to maintain their meters and keep them in good working order," Gatto said in his statement. "The people should not have to pay for the government's mistakes or inefficiencies, especially when the people already paid to install and maintain the meters in the first place."
-- Daniel Siegal, Times Community News
Follow Daniel Siegal on Google+ and on Twitter: @ValleySunDan.


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WAYNESBORO, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, nTelos Wireless (NASDAQ: NTLS) announced that it will begin offering iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 to customers on April 20. iPhone 4S will be available starting at $149.99 for the 16GB model, $249.99 for the 32GB model and $349.99 for the 64GB model. iPhone 4 will be available for just $49.99. All models will be available in nTelos Wireless retail stores, online at www.ntelos.com, and through telesales at 1-888-427-8858. Customers can pre-register their interest starting today at www.ntelos.com/iphone.
iPhone 4S is the most amazing iPhone yet, packed with incredible features including Apple's dual-core A5 chip for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics; an all-new camera with advanced optics; full 1080p HD resolution video recording; and Siri, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking. iPhone 4S comes with iOS 5.1, the world's most advanced mobile operating system; and iCloud, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that work with your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or PC to automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices.
"As a wireless service provider well-known for delivering the best value in wireless, we're pleased to offer the amazing new iPhone 4S to our customers," said Jim Hyde, president and CEO for nTelos Wireless. "iPhone 4S offers an abundance of new features, and with our industry-leading, nationwide smartphone plans, customers can now enjoy the nation's best networks for less."
nTelos Wireless retail stores will open early, at 7:00 AM on Friday, April 20, so customers can take advantage of the best value in wireless. Nationwide smartphone plans start at just $79.99 and include unlimited data and messaging. Plus, families can save with the industry's best value unlimited everything smartphone rate plans, which start at just $139.99 a month for two lines.
iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 require activation on one of nTelos Wireless' individual or family Nation's plans and a new two year agreement:
|Plan 1
|Plan 2
|Monthly Fee
|Voice Minutes*
|Data (MB)**
|iPhone 4S 16GB
|iPhone 4S 32GB
|iPhone 4S 64GB
|iPhone 4 8GB
*Calling may be restricted from certain geographies.
**Throttle after 5GB
Note: 24-month contract required
For more information on iPhone 4S, please visit: www.apple.com/iphone.
About NTELOS
NTELOS Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: NTLS), operating through its subsidiaries as "nTelos Wireless," is headquartered in Waynesboro, VA, and provides high-speed, dependable nationwide voice and data coverage for over 400,000 retail subscribers based in Virginia, West Virginia and portions of Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky. nTelos's licensed territories have a total population of approximately 8 million residents, of which its wireless network covers approximately 5.9 million residents. nTelos is also the exclusive wholesale provider of network services to Sprint Nextel in the western Virginia and West Virginia portions of its territories for all Sprint CDMA wireless customers. Additional information about NTELOS is available at www.ntelos.com or www.facebook.com/nteloswireless and www.twitter.com/#!/ntelos_wireless.
nTelos Wireless is the best value in wireless, offering smartphone plans on the nation's best networks for less, a 100% money back guarantee, and personal service in more than 100 retail outlets and 3 regional call centers. Plus, the Company and it's employees support a wide variety of local community programs such as The United Way, The National Kidney Foundation Walks, and initiatives such as nTelos nSpirit, which is used in partnership with local organizations to raise donations for worthy causes.
Any statements contained in this press release or made on the above-referenced conference call that are not statements of historical fact, including statements about our beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements and should be evaluated as such. The words "anticipates," "believes," "expects," "intends," "plans," "estimates," "targets," "projects," "should," "may," "will" and similar words and expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect, among other things, our current expectations, plans and strategies, and anticipated financial results, all of which are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Many of these risks are beyond our ability to control or predict. Because of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Furthermore, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. We do not undertake any obligation to update or review any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Important factors with respect to any such forward-looking statements, including certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, include, but are not limited to: our ability to attract and retain retail subscribers to our services; the dependence on our affiliation with Sprint Nextel ("Sprint"); a potential increase in roaming rates and wireless handset subsidy costs; rapid development and intense competition in the telecommunications industry; the potential to experience a high rate of customer turnover; the potential for Sprint and others to build networks in our markets; cash and capital requirements; operating and financial restrictions imposed by our senior credit facility; adverse economic conditions; federal and state regulatory fees, requirements and developments; loss of ability to use our current cell sites; our ability to realize the benefits anticipated following the spinoff of our Wireline business; our continued reliance on indirect channels of retail distribution; our reliance on certain suppliers and vendors; and other unforeseen difficulties that may occur. These risks and uncertainties are not intended to represent a complete list of all risks and uncertainties inherent in our business, and should be read in conjunction with the more detailed cautionary statements and risk factors included in our SEC filings, including our Annual Reports filed on Form 10-K.


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January 29, 2007
By JOHN FLOWERS
MIDDLEBURY — All seven communities in the Addison Central Supervisory Union (ACSU) have crafted proposed 2007-2008 school budgets that are below the state's per-pupil spending guideline, though some of the towns may be in store for hefty education tax jumps — particularly if they haven't recently conducted town-wide reappraisals.
ACSU officials recently unveiled school spending plans for the towns of Bridport, Cornwall, Middlebury, Ripton, Salisbury, Shoreham and Weybridge. The K-12 budgets showed increases ranging from 2 percent (Shoreham) to 6.3 percent (Bridport), though local taxpayers would see education property tax rate increases ranging from 2.7 percent (Cornwall) to 15.9 percent (Shoreham) if the budgets are approved as submitted.
By JOHN FLOWERS AND JOHN McCRIGHT
MIDDLEBURY — For the second time this month local economic development officials and a contingent of more than 100 manufacturing workers are rallying to pull things together after the announcement of a Middlebury plant closure.
Standard Register Co. on Friday said it will close its Route 7 South plant in March, putting 112 people out of work. The Middlebury facility, which prints customized checks and forms, primarily for businesses, hospitals and government agencies, "will continue to perform limited production through March," a corporate press release said.
The announcement from the Dayton, Ohio, corporate headquarters of Standard Register provided a second dose of bad news for the Addison County economy this month. Bristle-maker Specialty Filaments closed its doors on Jan. 5, sending 175 people in search of new jobs, though an Illinois-based company is making a strong push to acquire and reopen that operation (see related story, this page).
January 29, 2007
MIDDLEBURY — Two local lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against the Vermont Electric Power Co. (VELCO) on Friday, arguing among other things that the company had "misrepresented the scope of its condemnation authority" in acquiring land for transmission lines that will also carry fiber optic wires.
The four-page complaint, filed in Addison County Superior Court by attorneys Peter Langrock and James Dumont on behalf of as many as 1,000 Vermont landowners, asks that a judge:
• Prevent (VELCO) from further construction, installation and leasing of fiber optic lines along its electrical transmission rights-of-way across plaintiffs' land and to remove any lines that are not directly needed for the transmission of electricity.
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Wordsworth's birthplace reopens
Submitted by rc-admin on
The house in the Lake District where William Wordsworth grew up reopened to the public last week after an eight-month £1m renovation. "We want visitors to be inspired to go away and find out more about Wordsworth and his poetry," said Kate Hilton, curator of Wordsworth House, Cockermouth, where the poet was born in 1770. "And perhaps to find out more about life in 18th-century Cumbria."
The people of Cockermouth bought the grand Georgian house, the finest in the town, when it was about to be demolished to make way for a bus station, and gave it to the National Trust in 1938.
See the story in The Guardian, and see the Wordsworth House site here.


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Shop Brushless Motors
A typical brushless motor has permanent magnets which rotate around a fixed armature, eliminating problems associated with connecting current to the moving armature. An electronic controller replaces the brush/commutator assembly of the brushed DC motor, which continually switches the phase to the windings to keep the motor turning. The controller performs similar timed power distribution by using a solid-state circuit rather than the brush/commutator system.
Brushless motors offer several advantages over brushed DC motors, including high torque to weight ratio, more torque per watt (increased efficiency), increased reliability, reduced noise, longer lifetime (no brush and commutator erosion), elimination of ionizing sparks from the commutator, and overall reduction of electromagnetic interference (EMI). With no windings on the rotor, they are not subjected to centrifugal forces, and because the windings are supported by the housing, they can be cooled by conduction, requiring no airflow inside the motor for cooling. This in turn means that the motor's internals can be entirely enclosed and protected from dirt or other foreign matter. -Wikipedia


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OK, now it's getting REALLY SILLY!
Last episode had UFOs and aliens in an abandoned military base in Roswell, NM complete with abductions!
Previous episode had a "Zombie Museum" ran by a Timothy Leary lookalike.
But what really bugs me about this season is the goddamn South American drug kingpin popping up all over the US.
Don't get me wrong though, I still watch religiously.....


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Snowpuppe - Moth Gradient - bright pink
or make 4 interest-free payments of $35.00 AUD fortnightly with More info
Moth Gradient paper origami lampshade pink
The Original Dutch paper origami shade.
With the lampshade you get a cord set, consisting of a porcelain socket, coloured textile cord and ceiling rose. Please choose a colour for the cord from the menu above.
Look & feel
This lampshade is folded with utmost precision out of special FSC paper.
The strong folds and curved folds on the inside play with the light.
The dimensions of this lampshade are:
- 20 cm / 7,9 inch height;
- 20 cm / 7,9 inch diameter.
The lamp gives smooth, cozy light. It is very suitable for above the dining table for everyday use or for use in a bedroom.
The lampshade fits around a standard energy-saving lightbulb. It is suitable for use as the only source of light in the room.
How to clean?
The lampshades are made of special FSC certified paper, which lasts for years and years.
They can be easily cleaned by either using a feather-duster, blowing dust off or by using a vacuum cleaner at low power.
What kind of lightbulb?
These lampshades are for use with an energy-saving lightbulb or LED lightbulb only. Do not use standard lightbulbs!
If you use an energy-saving lightbulb of maximum 11 Watt, then it's completely safe to use our lampshades.
Compared to the lightbulbs that you are probably used to, an energy-saving lightbulb of 11 Watt is the same as an old lightbulb of 60 Watt.
The lampshades are perfect for use with energy-saving lightbulbs because the lampshades make the light warmer, more natural and cosy.
The colored paper has a stunning coloring effect on the light.
Snowpuppe shades are safety tested approved with LED bulbs only.
Delivery conditions
All of our models are delivered with a porcelain socket, textile cord of 3 meter length and user manual. They come in a high quality carboard box.
This listing is for 1 lampshade. We usually do keep stock in Australia, but larger orders will have to be shipped directly from The Netherlands and will take approx 14 days to arrive from the moment of receiving the payment.
We strongly recommend a certified electrician to install your light. The lampshade is very easy to install. Just get it out of the box and slide it over your energy-saving lightbulb. It will sit perfectly on top of the socket, thanks to the folds on the inside of the lampshade.


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Today I feel like rambling. I hope I make it worth your while.
To the right is a fantastic picture of Rob Halford, lead singer of Judas Priest. He just turned 60 in August. The entertaining Jay Lee (@JayLee) as found at the Chronicle and at BaldHeratic.com and took the picture when Judas Priest played at the Woodlands recently. The jacket Halford wears is outrageous.
This is the story about how Judas Priest became Priest as we know them. I watched some random TV show about the birth of heavy metal, and had no idea that Priest was originally formed in 1969. They weren't instantly popular, and the Judas Priest we know in America didn't start out that way. At first they had more of a blues sound, but their metal sound didn't happen until the late 70's.
For example, this from 1975 doesn't sound like Judas Priest as most of us know them, and LOOK AT WHAT HALFORD IS WEARING!
There's Hippy Halford (with long hair!) and some fun guitar work:
And then there's the unusual-for-the- time song "Exciter." In 1978, typically rock wasn't played at that tempo by anyone other than maybe Motorhead. It's metal tempo with some crazy metal vocals but Halford is dressed more like the David Bowie starter kit:
To be fair, a lot of people in the late 70's had a Bowie thing going on. But I didn't know until I saw the TV show that Halford was credited for being the first rock guy to go with the leather/S&M/biker look around '78. Then the rest of Priest joined him doing that. And now, it is hard to think of metal bands without leather. This is the vintage Halford look that most people associate him with:
Love this song. The song is from 1976, but the clothes aren't. The guitar work is crazy, and I have no idea how Halford can sing like that for so long. But Priest in the early 80's was killing it, and they are the guys we tend to think of if we think of them. Iconic Priest.
What does any of this have to do with a Houston Texans blog?
Not much. Typically, I like to be digressive after losses because it is hard to put them into context until the season ends. Usually, you can't identify <cue violins> Defining Moments </violins> as you are living a history, no matter the tendency is to try to do that. That's not a very satisfying answer to people with pitchforks, but that's all I got.
It's like what I wrote in the comments of the last blog post. Just about every single team that wins the Super Bowl experiences adversity during their seasons but most teams that experience adversity don't go to the Super Bowl. So if you are inclined to be negative after adverse things happen during a season, you are likely going to be on the right side of history.
So IS this the same old Texans under Kubiak?
I could cue up the blathering sports talk radio of the last couple of days, or I can start with a point of reference. Some numbers of what the Texans have looked like by game 6 of every Kubiak/Schaub year. All of these numbers are Football Outsider's premium stats, which I strongly suggest subscribing to if you do the fantasy football thing or like numbers. My disclaimer is the one that you should imagine for all my discussion of stats…numbers are a great starting point for discussion but not the be all or end all.
Week 6 DVOA Rankings Years 2007-2011 (For further understanding of what these stats measure, read here).
I made the table sort of Christmasy because look at the stores these days, they already have their Christmas stuff up before Halloween. Booo! No actually, the green graphically illustrates how the team improved from their 6th week result, and the red illustrates how they got worse at the end of the season.
There is a ton of fodder for the point of view that this is the Same Old Texans except for that box I colored a bright ray of sunshine. Wade!
Lots to chew on from both the pessimist and the optimist point of view. I'm just watching. I have more hope that the offense can get more on track than I ever did that the defenses prior to 2011 could get their stuff together. The caveat to that depends on the health of Matt Schaub. He is not going to make it through the season if the running game can't get on track and he keeps getting hit the way he has.
The other note that I will tell you is that according to this week's Football Outsiders' discussion of the rankings (worth reading), there isn't a particular stand out team by Week 6:
Perhaps the most notable thing about this week's DVOA ratings is how condensed they are. 2011 has been a season with a lot of competitive balance. I don't know if it is related to the lockout or not, but it is certainly evident in the record number of big early-season comebacks. In the 20-year history of DVOA, this is the first time that there has been no team over 30% after Week 6. Last year was like this too, which is a piece of evidence to suggest that this has nothing to do with the lockout. Last year, only Pittsburgh was above 30% after six weeks. But the year before, in 2009, six different teams were above 30% at this point.
So there's that. Whether fans are happy or sad with that state of affairs likely depends on what their preseason expectations were.
Back to Judas Priest.
This is where I do the conclusion that ties all this up in one knot. When Rob Halford decided to retire the 70's clothes and turn into leather Halford, likely nobody at the time knew that this would create Priest's iconic look. You can say that in retrospect but at that moment, nobody likely knew.
I don't know if the Texans will find their metal moment or not this year. What I know for a fact is that I wish the Texans marketing people would play less foofy pop music at games and more run-thru-brick walls, heavy guitar riff rock, both new and old. Look at Brian Cushing's bleeding face and play more music that goes with that.
Apologies if you didn't like my digression this week. I've blogged for a mostly losing team since 2006, and well, if I wrote only traditional blah blah sports stuff during that time period, I would be bored out of my skull, and you likely would too.


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"Camera Attribution Forensic Analyzer in the Encrypted Domain", in IEEE International Workshop on Information Forensics and Security (WIFS), Hong Kong, 2018. PMTP18_WIFS18.pdf (655.48 KB),
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Good Digital Marketing= Good Process. Facebook is shaping the future of advertising so to keep my clients happy, I had to build a consistent approach for Facebook advertising different from what I was doing with Google Adwords. Here are my 6 steps to create successful Facebook ads. Enjoy:
Visit Dribbble.com to see how today's designers communicate ideas( Look at the route they use colours and play with topics …).


text:
Belmar Starts Rebuilding Its Boardwalk
The job of rebuilding one of New Jersey's most popular boardwalks has begun.
Belmar began construction on a 1.3-mile boardwalk to replace the walkway destroyed by Superstorm Sandy in October. The goal is to have it done by May.
Gov. Chris Christie helped Belmar officials kick off the construction Wednesday morning.
Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty says new designs including the use of strong hurricane tie-down straps will help anchor the new boardwalk to its support moorings. The town intended to rebuild the boardwalk with tropical rain forest wood but abandoned those plans Tuesday, saying it wanted to avoid a protracted legal battle with environmentalists.
Other shore towns are also about to begin work on their own damaged boardwalks, including Seaside Heights and Spring Lake.
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved)


text:
Zack Greinke came into spring training wanting to make 34 starts during the regular season.
He might get that chance after all.
Greinke, pitching to live hitters for the first time since he was shut down with elbow tightness earlier this month, threw four shutout innings in a Triple-A game against the Chicago White Sox at Camelback Ranch. The right-hander allowed a single, hit a batter with a pitch, walked none and struck out two.
He threw 43 pitches.
"It wasn't perfect command. You saw me upset with several pitches," Greinke said. "It was my first outing in two weeks, so I guess that's kind of expected."
His last Cactus League start was March 1, a three-inning outing against the San Diego Padres. He received a platelet-rich plasma injection in his right elbow 10 days later and hasn't reported any pain in the elbow since he resumed throwing.
Assuming that doesn't change today, he'll pitch in exhibition games March 25 and March 30, with the possibility of making his first regular-season start April 5 at home against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Whether or not Greinke makes that start will depend largely on the progress he makes in exhibition games.
"Today, I would not want to be pitching the way I did today the first game of the season," he said.
Are two starts enough to get ready?
"I hope so," Greinke said. "It should be."
He also said he started feeling tired facing the final two batters in a 1-2-3 fourth inning.
"That's what you want to do," he said. "Pitch just enough so you're testing yourself a little bit, but not too much so that you hurt yourself."
Dodgers manager Don Mattingly originally slotted Greinke into the second start of the season April 2. He has plenty of options for reshuffling the rotation – seven, to be specific, after Opening Day starter Clayton Kershaw.
Because of a quirky schedule early in the season, the Dodgers might not miss Greinke much. They have an off-day April 4 after opening the season with a three-game homestand against the San Francisco Giants and another April 8 after the three-game series against Pittsburgh.
Also …
The Dodgers optioned right-handed pitcher Chris Withrow to minor league camp, bringing their major-league camp roster to 39.


text:
I am trying to derive a closed form for computing the number possible outcomes of rolling $k$ dices such that the sum is $n$.
This seems to be the problem of finding number of positive integral solution of an equation $$x_1+x_2+\cdots+x_k=n$$ with $x_1,x_2,\cdots,x_n \in [1,6] $,but here a solution $(a,a,a,a,\cdots \text { k-times} )$ is not considered different.
Direct application of stars and bars gives a closed form $\binom{n-1}{2} \times k \binom{n-7}{2}$ but this is not working for all the cases, For example the case of $n=16$ and $k=3$,what exactly should I modify in my approach?