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Murphy homers in 8th, leads Mets over Cubs 4-3
The New York Mets wanted more pop up top, and hoped Daniel Murphy could provide it.
He delivered, hitting a tiebreaking home run in the eighth inning that sent the Mets over the Chicago Cubs 4-3 on Sunday for their first series win at Wrigley Field since 2007.
The Mets won two of three on this trip to Chicago.
Murphy batted leadoff for the first time this season and fifth time in his career. He'd mostly been in the second slot this season.
"It's still always about quality at-bats," Murphy said.
Murphy hit a leadoff shot against reliever Kyuji Fujikawa (1-1). Murphy has homered twice in three games and has an eight-game hitting streak, during which he's batted .469 (15 for 32) with seven extra-base hits.
Manager Terry Collins indicated Murphy might remain in the leadoff spot.
"I feel like I'm taking better swings," Murphy said. "I feel better with my swing. I'm also getting better pitches to hit. When your swing is going good, you feel comfortable at the plate. You just don't miss them. That's kind of where I'm at."
Mets rookie Juan Lagares hit his first major league homer, a tying, two-run drive in the seventh against starter Travis Wood.
"I wish I could have that pitch back," Wood said. "I went with a changeup, was trying to get it down and happened to leave it up. He put a good swing on it and hit it out."
Lagares planned to keep the baseball, which a fan threw back onto the field.
"When I came here I just tried to keep doing the same thing I was doing in Triple-A," Lagares said. "The key is to keep working hard."
Scott Rice (2-3) pitched two scoreless innings. Bobby Parnell earned his sixth save.
Wood hit his first homer of the season and fourth of his career, clearing the left-field bleachers with a two-run drive off Dillon Gee in the fifth to end a scoreless tie.
"I felt like I located fairly well today, other than a couple pitches that really hurt me," Gee said. "Wood hitting the home run kind of surprised me because I was throwing so many sliders to him. It was like he was sitting on the fastball as soon as it left my hand."
Wood made his ninth straight quality start, allowing three runs and five hits in seven innings. He struck out three and walked two. The last Cubs starter to begin a season with at least nine straight quality starts was Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown in 1908.
"Wood was throwing the ball well today," Murphy said. "He didn't make a whole lot of mistakes. The one that did, Juan did a great job capitalizing on it. It was an awesome first home run."
The Mets cut the lead to 2-1 in the sixth on a walk to Gee, a forceout, a wild pitch and an RBI single by David Wright.
The Cubs extended their lead to 3-1 in the bottom half on Ryan Sweeney's leadoff homer. It was his first home run since July 27, 2011, when he played for Oakland.
Gee allowed three runs and eight hits in five innings. He has allowed nine runs in his last nine innings and hasn't won since May 1.
"When he's making his pitches with his changeup, which is his No. 1 pitch anyway, he's effective," Collins said.
Sweeney tried to stretch a leadoff double into a triple in the fourth but was thrown out at third. The Cubs also had leadoff doubles in the first and fifth.
NOTES: The Cubs announced reliever Michael Bowden will be designated for assignment to make room for RHP Matt Garza, who is coming off the disabled list on Tuesday. ... Cubs 1B Anthony Rizzo struck out in the first inning, ending 39 straight at-bats without a strikeout. ... Cubs RHP Carlos Villanueva was available. He moved to the bullpen to make room for Garza, who will make his season debut on Tuesday against Pittsburgh. Garza strained a back muscle in spring training. Villanueva (1-3) hasn't won since April 18. He has made 245 of his 309 career appearances as a reliever.


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Sea to Summit
For this trip, in 1990, Tim swam in India's Bay of Bengal and then set off on foot across the Gangetic plain toward the distant Himalayan foothills and four months later, set foot once again on the highest point on earth. Tim's solo ascent of Mt. Everest was named the "Sea to Summit" expedition.
Back in Australia, he joined forces with friend Roland Tyson to build a business that could make use of their knowledge of the outdoors to create truly ingenious, well-made but affordable outdoor equipment. They named their company Sea to Summit® after Tim's expedition and the business prospered. Today the Sea to Summit brand continues to provide innovative gear and serves a growing band of outdoor enthusiasts all over the world.

subset: commoncrawl


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TransACT beefs up data centre for Dept of Finance
The Australian Department of Finance and Deregulation has amplified its data centre requirements
signing an AUD$8.6 million deal with iiNet owned TransACT for the provision of data centre
TransACT secured the ten year agreement after being selected by the Australian Government
Information Management Office (AGIMO) to be part of the coveted Whole-of-Government Data
Centre Facilities Panel.
The other supplier on the panel, Canberra Data Centres (CDC), signed a larger agreement with the
Department of Finance and Deregulation earlier in the year worth $45.6 million.
To meet emerging government demand, iiNet has invested in a 4.5 MVA power and support
infrastructure upgrade increasing the capacity its data centre facilities. While energy partner
ActewAGL has beefed up power redundancy requirements, delivering power from two independent
zone substations as part of the upgrades.
TransACT Chief of Federal Government and ACT, Ivan Slavich, said under the new agreements
agencies are now able to purchase tailored amounts of data centre space through simplified
procurement procedures.
Federal government superannuation administrator ComSuper was the first agency to sign data
centre leasing agreements with the panellists TransACT and CDC and it is expected that a raft of
other key agencies are currently negotiating their data housing requirements.
Data Center Talk updates its resources everyday. Visit us to know of the latest technology and standards from the data center world.
Please leave your views and comments on DCT Forum


text:
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For Military Sexual-Assault Survivors, Proposed Reforms Are Only a Start
"You can't train a rapist to not be a rapist ... But you can change the way those complaints are handled in the hopes that it resets the standard for behavior."
Brian Lewis was a determined 20-year-old petty officer, envisioning a long career of service after three years in the Navy. But that was before he was raped.
In August 2000, after being assigned as a fire-control technician aboard the USS Frank Cable, a submarine tender out of Guam, a superior offered to provide career guidance over dinner. Later that night, in a remote area near some commercial fishing docks, the superior attacked the young petty officer, irrevocably changing his life.
"After that, my chain of command ordered me not to report it to Naval Criminal Investigative Service," Lewis told National Journal Daily. "That's what happens in our military justice system. I cannot in good conscience tell a service member that reporting to their chain of command is in their best interest."
As officials in Washington grapple with reforms to the military justice system, among those watching with sharp interest may be thousands of victims. An an estimated 26,000 cases of unwanted sexual contact occurred in the armed services in fiscal 2012, according to the Defense Department. Although most of the military health services offered to deal with it cater to women, more than half of the victims are actually men.
The military says it is making changes, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill have committed to putting some reforms in place this year. But many victims and their advocacy organizations insist that what's being discussed is nowhere near adequate to eliminate the conflicts of interest in the military justice system or to curb a culture that often blames victims when incidents occur.
"A lot of emphasis is now being placed on protecting victims from retaliation after they come forward," Lewis said. "All of the proposals fail to address what happens to the victim before that."
Survivors of sexual assault argue it is practically impossible to seek medical or legal assistance in private, that the only way to get help and try to seek justice is to go through superiors.
But commanders have broad leeway over how to handle such situations.
In the military justice system, the chain of command decides what to do with allegations of sexual misconduct, including whether to prosecute cases or throw them out without further investigation. What happens in the chain also reflects on the commander, so critics argue it can be in commanders' interest not to acknowledge problems in their ranks.
On the Hill, dozens of lawmakers, led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., in the Senate, and Rep. Dan Benishek, R-Mich., in the House, are fighting a tough battle to change that. They are pushing legislation--opposed by both the Pentagon and Armed Services Committee leaders--that would take the decision to prosecute out of the chain of command but leave it within the military. However, even the staunchest advocates of this bill say that this is not enough.
Paula Coughlin, who brought the problem of sexual assault in the military into the public eye after her assault at the Tailhook convention of aviators in 1991, said she does not know that any bill proposed in Congress could have prevented her attack. But she argues that reforms like Gillibrand's would have ensured at least a greater attempt at justice, and this might change behavior.
"I don't know if one of those bills would have prevented my attack," she said. "But I feel certain that the way I was mistreated by the military justice system, and most importantly by my chain of command, that it would have been different if there had been a law that said you have to handle every sexual-assault complaint immediately and hand it over to a third-party investigating unit."
Lewis said that his commanders' lack of interest in his case--there was never an investigation or prosecution--became unbearable. Meanwhile, he found out that his attacker had raped at least one other person before him, and he felt vulnerable in the ship's close quarters. "There are only so many places to hide on a 600-foot-long gray floaty thingy," Lewis said.
Lewis was medevaced to a Navy medical facility in San Diego. Rather than the Navy treating his attack like a crime, investigating it, prosecuting it, and providing him with appropriate treatment and support, Lewis says he was diagnosed with a personality disorder and discharged. It left him with what he considers a shameful and unfair black mark on his record that haunts him professionally. The Navy declined to discuss Lewis's situation citing privacy reasons.
Lewis has refocused his career to try to bring about justice for military sexual-assault survivors. He is in the process of setting up the first nonprofit advocacy organization for male victims, called Men Recovering From Military Sexual Trauma, and he hopes to eventually become a lawyer to advocate for those unfairly discharged. He also serves on the advocacy board for Protect Our Defenders, an nonprofit advocacy organization for military sexual-assault victims.
This spring, Lewis became the first male survivor of sexual assault to testify before Congress, and he says a full palette of reforms are needed.
Besides the Gillibrand-Benishek bill, he supports a provision in both the House and Senate defense bills that would provide a specially trained counsel to provide legal advice to victims.
Lewis is also strongly advocating for a bill by Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., that would review the cases of more than 31,000 veterans who were diagnosed with a personality disorder and discharged. Another bill he favors from Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., would take the system for reporting military sexual assaults out of the chain of command entirely.
He is also calling for the military to provide services for male victims of sexual assault. "The military will have to develop programs to accommodate male survivors. One of the reasons male survivors do not come forward is the lack of services," he said.
Yet, while Lewis argues that the reforms he supports would have helped his situation, he acknowledges they might not have prevented the attack. He argues that the military has to go much further to change behavior.
"Really it's a culture change that is needed where we stop blaming the victim," Lewis said.
One common criticism is that the military hangs posters on bases warning against drinking too much or walking home alone, when victims argue that the assaults are often about control and abuse of power, rather than negligence on the victim's part.
Coughlin, who is also on the advocacy board of Protect Our Defenders, said she has heard the Pentagon say for decades that it is going to take the problem seriously. But assaults have steadily increased.
"I have been waiting 20 years, and they really haven't made any concrete change," she said. "You can't train a rapist to not be a rapist, and you can't train a group of military people to behave better than what they were modeled. But you can change the way those complaints are handled in the hopes that it resets the standard for behavior."
As Lewis put it, "Our uniforms did not cause us to be raped; our looks didn't cause us to be raped. The rapist caused us to be raped."


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Patch 6.0.2, The Iron Tide, brought a number of changes and a bit of new content.
Iron Horde Invasion
The Dark Portal turns red, and the Iron Horde begins to attack. The Horde and Alliance settlements in the Blasted Lands fall, and we're tasked with cleaning up. It was interesting, but it seemed to lack zest. It was just a bit anti-climatic. I never really got the feeling that we were in much danger. The questline did more to introduce mechanic changes than anything else. For example, quest objectives are clearly marked on the map and are outlined differently in the world. This includes locations that are targets for items; instead of going to where you think you need to plant a flag and clicking it, you right-click the outline of a flag. I like it. Still, I would have liked the event to feel more important. I think what I liked most was Thrall's new model. He's finally integrating the aspects of being a shaman and a warrior. Awesome.
Updated character models
I didn't care previously, and I still don't think this is a big deal. I'm looking at numbers. I'm watching health and mana, looking at buffs and debuffs, and tracking adds. I'm not looking at my cloak. At first, I certainly did. My troll runs stupidly. Honestly it seems normal now though.
Upper Blackrock Spire
It's much more straight-forward, but it didn't seem like it was anything special either. I suppose that could make sense because it's only the first half, but why show us the first half if the first half isn't awesome?
Flexible raids are great. Losing Renew and Void Shift sucks. Having to choose between Spirit Shell and Power Infusion sucks. Losing Heal wasn't a big deal.
Stat Squish
Now we're even more OP in earlier content. That's cool.
Void Storage and Toy Box
Oh, goodness. This was awesome. With a whole new Void Storage tab and the nifty Toy Box, I actually have free bag space again, allowing me to go do past raids for transmog. It's wonderful. I don't understand why they didn't try to patch this in a couple months ago so we could actually do something in WoW. I can't say enough good about this, although I know I'm going to fill it up soon. Mmmm old tier sets.
My progress
What have I done in the patch? I did the questline and UBRS of course. Besides that, I've mainly been going after old tier sets. That's what I was doing months and months ago before I filled up all my bags, so it's nice to be able to continue it again. I also got my heroic Siege of Orgrimmar heirloom – the staff. Unfortunately, I was hoping for the mace or offhand. The mace is shaped like a Horde symbol, and the offhand is a book with the Horde symbol on the cover. Maybe I'll get one of them in normal mode!


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For the entirety of Germany's postwar history, Adolf Hitler's infamous manifesto of hate, Mein Kampf, has been out of print. Thanks to the Bavarian government and the vagaries of German copyright law, however, that's about to change.
The German state of Bavaria owns the book's copyright, a privilege it has used to prevent publication of the foundational document of Nazism since the end of World War II. But with those copyright restrictions due run out at the end of 2015, officials decided to publish an edition for students, which puts Hitler's work in historic context with critical annotations, before it can be published elsewhere. (While Germany has strong laws against hate speech and stringent regulations prohibiting Nazi symbols, the book itself is not specifically banned, except when used or displayed in violation of those laws; Bavaria has, however, used its copyright to successfully block publication of the book or excerpts in the past.)
(MORE: Should Mein Kampf Be Un-Banned?)
Markus Soeder, Bavarian state finance minister, said that the move is aimed at "demystifying" the defining text of Nazism, reports the BBC . "We want to make clear what nonsense is in there…what a worldwide catastrophe this dangerous body of thought led to." The state also hopes to make future German editions as "commercially unattractive" as possible.
Mein Kampf (literally, "My Struggle"), which Hitler began writing during a stint in prison after his failed Munich coup of 1923, is an odd mix of autobiography, racist dogma and political ideology; published in Germany later that decade, it became a huge bestseller and made Hitler rich. But it's is unlikely that the Führer imagined it would be central to an argument in support of German democracy and openness, an angle many are taking on the Bavarian government's decision.
Jacob Heilbrunn, writing in The Atlantic, argues that the decision is "good news" for Germany, as "defanging" such a notorious text will help speed "normalization" in a country that still struggles with the legacy of its Nazi years. "Germany is democratic and mature enough to form its own picture of Hitler's book," said Rafael Seligmann, publisher of the newspaper Jewish Voice from Germany.
(PHOTOS: Hitler Exhibit Opens in Germany)
However, the Daily Telegraph reports that "Holocaust survivors and their families have expressed fears that neo-Nazis could seize upon the book as propaganda," and the idea of publishing an edition for schoolchildren has prompted an outcry among some commenters. But Thomas Neumann, a Bavarian state spokesman, tried to reassure critics, telling Reuters the book would have no sinister influence in the classroom:
"We discussed a copy for schools. It wouldn't be a whole book but excerpts that were presented in a particularly didactic way so they were suited for use in schools – that is conceivable."
It certainly seems poignant that this process is launched amid an apparent far-right revival currently underway in Europe, epitomized by far-right candidate Marine Le Pen's surprising gains in France's recent presidential elections to Anders Breivik's extremist rhetoric at his murder trial for last year's massacre in Oslo and Utoya, Norway. But as Dieter Graumann, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the AFP, the Bavarian government made the best of a bad situation, seeing as how the book is already widely available outside Germany and on the Internet. "If it is going to be released, then I prefer seeing a competent annotated version from the Bavarian state than profit-seekers trying to make money with Nazis," he said. "I would of course prefer it if the book disappeared on a dust heap of contempt but that will not happen."


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"Saturday Night in Tiger Stadium: Reflections on 120 Years of LSU Football" exhibit on display at Hill Memorial Library
BATON ROUGE – Hometown heroes, bitter rivalries, and close games that generate enough crowd excitement to move the earth are the hallmarks of LSU Tiger football.
A small exhibition currently on display in the lecture hall at Hill Memorial Library, "Saturday Night in Tiger Stadium: Reflections on 120 Years of LSU Football" showcases the players, games, facilities, and culture that have made Tigers football the spectacle it has become over the last 120 years.
Free to the public and accessible via an interactive station, the exhibition features images of and interviews with some of LSU's greatest players, teams and coaches. These include College Football Hall of Famer Abe "Miracle" Mickal, a former LSU fullback who went on to become a major figure in the Louisiana medical education field; Gaynell "Gus" Tinsley, LSU's first unanimous All-American selection and former LSU head football coach; Bert Jones, former LSU and NFL quarterback and the first quarterback in LSU history to be awarded consensus All-American honors; former running back Lora Hinton, the first African American to receive an LSU football scholarship and one of the first black players on the team; former quarterback Tommy Hodson, the first quarterback in Southeastern Conference history to surpass 8,000 career passing yards and 60 career passing touchdowns and the quarterback for LSU during the 1988 "Earthquake Game;" and former LSU Athletic Director Carl Maddox, after whom LSU's Carl Maddox Field House is named.
Also part of the exhibition are unique archival materials that include game programs, flyers and sheet music; the seismogram that recorded ground movement during the famed "Earthquake Game" in 1988 between LSU and Auburn University; and personal items such as a student ticket booklet from 1934 and Lora Hinton's football jersey.
Documenting 12 decades of LSU Football, the exhibit highlights a sampling of LSU Football treasures from the University Archives, the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections, and the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, all housed in LSU Libraries Special Collections.
To learn more about Hill Memorial Library and LSU Special Collections, visit http://lib.lsu.edu/special.


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Actions reveal more than words, we know, and companies are watching carefully, using business intelligence and analytics tools to figure out what's happening in their markets. But it isn't just what makes a consumer buy a product or respond to an e-mail promotion that companies want to understand. They're also putting business operations-where efficiency can make the difference between profit and loss-under the microscope.
By using insights from analytics to improve business processes, CIOs can help managers feed updated intelligence into their decision-making routines almost continuously. A marketing campaign can be adjusted in hours in reaction to uptake on a website. A logistics process, such as trucking equipment to construction sites, can be adjusted to changes in the price of fuel.
As analytics tools become more powerful, analysis happens faster, enabling business changes that make or save significant amounts of money, says Rick Roy, senior vice president and CIO of CUNA Mutual Group, a $2.8 billion insurance company. CUNA Mutual has pored over customer data to identify which of its products are selling, why and to whom. Using insights from analytics to guide business process changes is a "dramatic productivity enhancer," Roy says.
Sixty-five percent of 335 IT leaders we polled recently say business intelligence and analytics have spurred a business-process change in the last year. However, they also indicate that there's more work for IT to do. For example, just 41 percent say their analytics and business process management (BPM) tools are closely integrated.
If analytics and BPM tools were integrated, they could be used to map how best to change business processes given a particular insight from the data, says David White, a senior research analyst with Aberdeen Group. But for now, CIOs like Roy have to work with their business partners to make such determinations. Connecting analytics and business processes sometimes means creating data warehouses to collect information from multiple systems in order to study it. IT leaders also find themselves promoting old-fashioned conversation across departments.
Companies where CIOs enable the best use of predictive analytics tools and techniques-including tying them to BPM initiatives-are better at financial forecasting, retaining customers and eking out more operating profit than companies that haven't caught on, says White. He recently studied 159 organizations that actively use predictive analytics and determined, for example, that best-in-class companies retain 93 percent of their customers, compared to laggards who retain just 66 percent.
Competitive pressure-along with substantial, measurable financial gains-will lead more CIOs down this road, says Tim Fleming, CIO of the Industrial Technologies sector at Ingersoll Rand, a $13 billion heavy-equipment manufacturer. "It's not easy, but you want to do it," he says. "You have to do it."
How Data Enables Change The insurance industry may have been among the first to connect analysis tools-in the form of fraud detection-with automated workflow technology-systems for claims processing. But meshing analytics with other kinds of enterprise software can produce new ways to engage customers or make operations more efficient.
CIOs who can give business users the means to connect analytics and BPM can cut a path to faster and more fruitful decision making, says Fleming. "Data starts to tell a story. We can help them find that story," he says. And rewrite the ending.
Fleming's division at Ingersoll Rand has used analytics to flush out and correct problems in such varied processes as order management, global inventory and invoicing. Fleming has dedicated the biggest portion of his IT staff to analytics, he says, because the company has found it so powerful.
Doing analytics well has helped raise the profile of IT at Ingersoll Rand. The company recently replaced a mix of manufacturing and financial systems with Oracle's ERP suite. Historically, IT released new reporting capabilities twice a year. But by updating these capabilities quarterly, then every two months, end users caught errors and spotted trends sooner than they used to. "This gets you back in front of your user groups very frequently, so they're seeing the value of IT," he says. "It's not a Christmas present once a year; it's multiple birthday parties."
For example, business people were able to identify on-time delivery problems in the Asia-Pacific region and Europe. Through analytics, Ingersoll Rand discovered the use of some incorrect data about supplier lead times. In the past, the company had relied on knowledge of factory employees to identify a problem like this, Fleming says. Also, managers, thinking about efficiency, sometimes waited until the end of each month to enter all the details about some orders. "You don't get that service order in, we can't invoice. If we don't invoice, our accounts receivable balances will be lower than they should be. Then we have a forecasting issue," Fleming says.
After getting accurate lead-time data to the factories, the division changed its service-order process so managers now enter data every week. Revenue forecasting improved measurably, Fleming says. Among respondents to our survey, accounting departments topped the list of beneficiaries of analytics-driven business change. (Read more about the survey in " Cloud Analytics Picks Up the Pace.")
Those kinds of outcomes allowed Fleming to get funding to double the analytics team in his division to about 15 full-timers who help business groups plan and implement analytics projects. "Business made a decision to make a higher investment in it because they saw results."
Analytics tools integrated with customer-relationship management (CRM) or e-commerce systems can also lead to better processes for engaging with customers.
In the past year, CUNA Mutual has used analytics to understand members of the credit unions it serves. The company provides financial products to 7,000 credit unions, and, through the credit unions, to individual members. The number of credit-union members has grown by 14 percent since 2000, which CIO Roy attributes to people seeking stable alternatives to big banks. But CUNA Mutual's primary customer base is shrinking: The number of credit unions in the United States has dropped 24 percent since 2000, mainly through acquisitions. To keep the remaining credit unions, and therefore itself, growing, CUNA Mutual has to know what moves credit-union members-the end customers-to buy a new product or service, Roy says.
In 2009, the company launched an analytics project called Voyager, which uses Microsoft's SQL Server database alongside analysis tools from CA Technologies and SAP BusinessObjects to segment its credit union customers by variables such as product, profitability and demographics. The first step was consolidating customer data from sales and marketing systems, as well as systems used by its credit unions, into a single data warehouse. Then business analysts explored the data with canned reports and iterative queries on the fly.
"They were able to complete in a couple hours using multiple queries an analysis that before would have taken one to two weeks to complete," Roy says. "It's game-shifting change."
Business analysts were startled to find that half of CUNA Mutual's $2.8 billion in revenue comes from three of its 12 customer segments. Now the company wants to build financial products to attract the other nine. To appeal to Generation Y consumers, for example, CUNA Mutual is developing more Web and mobile access to products it offers to its credit unions. The company also built software that automatically offers life or disability insurance to people after they take out a loan, over whatever channel the customers used to close the deal-phone, website or in-person.
The new thinking has CUNA Mutual moving away from doing three or four large marketing pushes per year to 12 smaller ones focused on producing specific results: selling a particular product to new customers in a given demographic, for example, or gaining more profit from an existing customer segment. "You run the marketing, test it and use what you learn to start new campaigns," Roy says.
New Ways to Save While CUNA Mutual looks outward, at customer dynamics, Welch's, the grape juice and jelly cooperative, uses analytics to make internal operations, namely transportation, more efficient. During a 2007 upgrade of Oracle's enterprise resource planning suite, Welch's saw it needed newer tools to enable more flexible queries using multiple dimensions of data, says Kevin Kilcoyne, director of customer operations at the family farmer-owned co-op. The organization does manufacturing and marketing for the National Grape Cooperative Association.
Welch's wanted to collect every data element from each year's 40,000 orders and bills of lading, sweep it into a database and look for patterns to highlight where it could save money on transportation. Welch's auctions its transportation business to trucking companies every year.
At the time, Oracle's reporting tools couldn't perform the in-depth analysis Welch's wanted quickly enough, Kilcoyne says. To prepare for the auction, it took about 30 hours to cull a year's worth of data and then a few months for analysts to study it to decide how to formulate each bid request. Analysts consider routes, kinds of transportation available and fuel pricing trends, along with carriers' limitations and performance statistics.
Because so much time was involved, Welch's was not always able to bid out all of its distribution routes; typically it bid out only about 60 percent of them each year. The balance went largely unanalyzed and, therefore, unoptimized, says Bill Coyne, director of strategic sourcing.
Welch's hired Oco, a software-as-a-service vendor, to provide analytics and data warehousing. Oco accesses Welch's ERP system through a secure Internet connection, skimming the data from order fulfillment and other modules and putting it in a data warehouse at Oco. The process takes about half an hour, Coyne says. Each morning, Welch's analysts tap into Oco to draw the fresh data to their own PCs. They can study it in pre-written reports or formulate their own queries.
The time saved on data collection and analysis enables Welch's to bid out all of its transportation routes and do it more than once per year, Coyne says. Welch's can also tweak those routes to save money. For example, the company discovered that if it relocated some of its distribution points, it could use rail instead of trucks, further reducing fuel use and rates as well as carbon emissions. All told, Welch's cut 12 percent to 15 percent from its $50 million in annual transportation costs, Kilcoyne says.
Conversations With Customers As Kilcoyne and Coyne learned, modern business intelligence and analytics tools can extract data from enterprise software, populate pre-built statistical models and quickly produce insights that used to take weeks. "In the past, doing predictive analytics needed a PhD in statistics to build a model and interpret results," says Aberdeen's White. But newer analytics tools "hide the underlying statistical nerd details," he says. "Business people don't have to worry about how the sausage gets made." Many tools, have models built in for such complex analyses as segmenting customers based not simply on demographics and the products and services they buy, but also on less cut-and-dried information, such as how they behave at a website or what comments they make during call- center interactions.
Key to game-changing decision making is the ability to detect and respond to market changes, taking into account historical knowledge. DirecTV uses analytics to save customers who want to cancel their television service. The company started the program two years ago when it sought to cut churn rates.
If a regular call-center agent can't persuade a customer to stay, the agent will let her go, promising to discontinue service in 24 to 48 hours. During this cooling-off period, a specially-trained agent calls the customer, armed with the knowledge of why she wanted to cancel and a series of proposals designed to change her mind. The proposals are ranked according to the likelihood that they will work, says Jack Gustafson, director of business intelligence at DirecTV.
To someone who cited a competing offer from Verizon, DirecTV will offer a better deal. To someone who complained about technical issues, DirecTV offers free service, support and perhaps upgraded hardware.
How hard agents press depends on how valuable the customer has been to DirecTV, Gustafson says. "There are some people we just do not want to lose." About 60 percent of customers who want to depart are deemed worth trying to save, he says. The company uses tools from Teradata and SAS to analyze past behavior, evaluating data such as the average annual revenue the customer represents, her payment history and how many pay-per-view shows she buys.


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Erik Buell is the founder of the Buell Motorcycle Company. A national AMA road racer and a chassis engineer for Harley-Davidson, Buell left Harley in 1982 to pursue his dream of building his own racing motorcycle. His first bike was a two-stroke AMA Formula One racer called the RW750 that he completed in 1983. When the AMA dropped the Formula One road racing class Buell turned his attention to building the first world-class sportbike designed and built in America. That led to the production of the Buell RR1000, utilizing a Harley-Davidson engine. Buell's small company expanded to a major manufacturer when Harley-Davidson bought into Buell in 1994.
Buell was born in Pittsburgh on April 2, 1950. He grew up on a farm and learned to work on equipment from a young age. As a teenager, Buell, like many of his generation, took up motorcycling. His first machine was an Italian-made Parilla 90cc moped.
"Next, I took a giant step up and got a 74-cubic-inch Harley in a basket," Buell remembers. "To be exact, it was a '57 Panhead in a '52 frame with KHK front end. Red metal flake paint and those crazy two-piece ape hanger handlebars, which would come loose and swing back and forth. I'd shove wads of steel wool into the mufflers to quiet it down for the cops, but when I was really hauling, it would shoot these glowing balls of flame out the back. Man, that's cool stuff when you're a kid!"
He then progressed through a series of bikes and raced motocross before becoming interested in road racing in his early 20s. Buell progressed through the club ranks and by the mid-1970s he began competing in AMA national road races. By the late 1970s, Buell was a solid privateer racing a Yamaha TZ in AMA Formula One and a Ducati in Superbike, where he scored a couple of top-10 finishes.
During this period, Buell was a motorcycle mechanic by day and engineering student taking night classes at the University of Pittsburgh. After earning his degree in 1979, Buell turned down offers from other major companies to pursue a career with Harley-Davidson. He flew himself to Milwaukee to get an interview and "beat my way in the door," Buell later said.
At Harley-Davidson, Buell worked on chassis design and with his road racing experience was able to put the big bikes to the test, riding the cruisers well beyond the limits on test tracks that any normal rider would be able to duplicate on the street. Buell's rigorous test riding, along with the state-of-the-art electronic chassis testing instrumentation and development test methodology he implemented, helped to greatly improve the handling of Harley's street bikes.
While doing this testing, Buell's racing took a back seat. With Harley-Davidson going through tough times in the early 1980s, he didn't feel right racing a Japanese or Italian motorcycle. He'd heard about a small private GP engine maker in England producing a water-cooled, 750cc Square Four two-stroke racer. He purchased one of the bikes with the idea of racing it in Formula One, but he found the bike was so poorly manufactured and used such cheap materials that it was far from ready to race. He began modifying the engine and building a new chassis himself when he found out the struggling maker of the bike had gone out of business. He might have abandoned the project, but found the parts and tooling of the company were available at a cheap price so he purchased the machinery and had it shipped to his home workshop.
"I was just approaching it as a bike to race," Buell said. "I really wasn't trying to turn it into a business."
Buell refined the bike and dubbed it the RW750 (RW standing for Road Warrior). He did well on the club level with the machine, but its temperamental and over-powered motor made the RW750 a difficult bike to ride, and the reliability wasn't sufficient for AMA racing.
"There were places in the powerband where it would pick up 40 horsepower in 500 rpm! You couldn't ride it. The only way to ride it was to ride it around the corner completely out of the powerband, get it completely straightened out, turn on the thing and have it wheelie. Or, you had to ride it with the wheel spinning, because you couldn't deal with it coming on the pipe in the corner — it would just crash. The bike was incredibly hard to ride. The power was like a light switch. This thing was a monster. It was terrifying to ride."
Buell left his job at Harley-Davidson and continued to refine the RW750 and decided to offer to build bikes for customers.
"At the time, the Yamaha TZs were becoming unobtainable and the Hondas were going for $30,000," Buell explained. He offered the Buell RW750 for $17,000, but unfortunately his timing couldn't have been worse. Superbike had supplanted Formula One as the premier AMA road racing class and the AMA decided to discontinue Formula One, leaving Buell with no market for his two-stroke racer.
Again Buell reached a crossroad. He could have written the RW750 experience off to bad timing, but instead he turned the apparent setback into an opportunity. He had built a solid road racing chassis. All it needed was a motor to power the bike. Through his relationship with Harley-Davidson he found the factory had a number of unused XR1000 engines. Buell had ridden an XR1000 to a podium finish at the 1983 Road America Battle of the Twins National, so he knew the engine had excellent potential for sporting use.
In 1985, Buell melded a Harley-Davidson XR1000 engine to his custom Grand Prix-style chassis and built the first Buell RR1000. The unique bike featured exotic bodywork. Vetter (a fairing company) displayed the RR1000 at motorcycle shows and the bike was also featured in several magazines, giving Buell's new machine a strong launch. From the start, Buells were built for the track and established a reputation as excellent handling motorcycles. Riders looking for an American sportbike finally had a place to turn.
Buell sold 50 of the original RR1000s. His relationship with Harley-Davidson grew and his bikes were being sold through Harley dealers.
Buell continued to grow with the introduction of the RR1200 and RS1200 motorcycles using the new Harley-Davidson Evolution engines. When it was introduced in 1988, the RR1200 caused quite a sensation, with its streamlined bodywork, rubber-mounted Harley engine, Buell-designed four-piston front brakes, and a Works Performance rear monoshock mounted under the engine.
Over the next several years, Erik Buell refined those concepts into his own line of street motorcycles, while maintaining close relations with Harley. And in the '90s, Harley began to invest in the motorcycle company its former engineer founded, eventually increasing its ownership to 100 percent of the Buell brand by 2003.
With Harley financing and Erik's vision, the Buell brand has moved on to create some of the most innovative motorcycles of the early 2000s.
True to its heritage, Buell's machines have always been a part of American motorcycle road racing. His company sponsored several racing series as well as individual teams and riders. Buell riders won AMA nationals in Formula Xtreme and Pro Thunder classes as well as winning other races and championships around the world.
The Buell Lightning was a leader in ushering in the "Naked Bike" era of the late 1990s, named for sportbikes that are stripped down without a lot of bodywork to make them lighter and to show off the engine of the bikes.
In 2009, a Buell 1125R won the AMA Daytona SportBike Championship, piloted by Danny Eslick. However, due to the strains of a severe recession, Harley-Davidson suspended production of the Buell product line in October. Nevertheless, Buell's meteoric rise from a single two-stroke race bike to a full-fledged manufacturer in such a short period of time is one of the most remarkable stories in all of motorcycling.
Eric Buell was inducted into the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002.


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Bloody Vampire
This is the story of Latis, a girl who is half-human, half-vampire, and her quest to discover why a vampire is invading the human world. This is a platformer type game with elements of an RPG. The player advances and collects money by defeating enemies and must explore to discover items used to increase abilities, such as magic and transformation.
Several years ago, a strange man made his way to the ruins of an abandoned castle on the outskirts of a small town called Verulia. Since then, the townspeople's fear of the castle has grown, and none would dare venture near it. Recently, a merchant traveled to Verulia and discovered the entire town was deserted. Her story was embellished, as disturbing rumors of a vampire inhabiting the castle spread like wildfire through the land.
As Latis has become older and learned more about herself from Cereza, she feels she is destined by her heritage, to bring an end to any threat that vampires pose to humanity. After a lengthy discussion with Emarle, who raised Latis since she was a baby and whom Latis considers to be her mother, it's agreed that she must go with Cereza and travel to Verulia.
Latis, travels to the town of Verulia to infiltrate the ancient castle in order to defeat the vampire lord residing there. During her exploration she will obtain powerful items greatly improving her abilities. She will discover and learn how to master her transformation ability and finally through the time spent with Cereza, she will learn her history and the sacrifices made allowing her to become who she is.
Latis can summon four magic elements, (each with 3 levels). Fire Magic attacks in a straight line. It can also be used as a light darkness. Ice Magic for rapid fire and defense and at higher levels; it can be used as a shield. Lightning Magic attacks in spirals, and its power can be charged up with the item Thor Gauntlet. Dark Magic calls down meteors to attack diagonally. Certain blocks can be destroyed with these meteors. She will learn to transform into a bat and fly around to reach places that are otherwise inaccessible and even perhaps uncover new items. She also can transform into a mighty wolf, increasing movement speed and jumping ability, and colliding with enemies does not damage her while in wolf form.
Join Latis and Cereza on their adventure and discover the secrets buried deep in the ancient castle of Verulia.
- Four magic elements, able to increase three levels.
- Transform between a daring bat and an invincible wolf.
- Fight enemies to earn gold and buy rare items.
- Encounter event battles and confront powerful beasts.
- Explore and discover a significant side quest.


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Galaxy Note 5 Tempered Glass Screen Protector [2 Pieces]
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Teardrop 4.5 x 120 Storage Rack Beams
Supplier: Stromberg
FOB Oregon Warehouse
Stocked Color - Orange
Combine Beams and Frames for maximum discount!
This rack is designed to interchange with most of the teardrop designs on the market today. Constructed of high grade steel with 2" vertical adjustment step beam design. Accommodates crossbars, wood stringers or wire decking. Removable safety load clips are attached to each end of the beam.
Stromberg I Series Storage Rack Horizontal Beams offer:
- Teardrop design is the most commonly manufactured rack in the United States.
- Adjusts on 2" centers.
- 5" x 7" x 3/8" seismic plates are standard.
- We build and design racking systems to your operation.
- Custom height or depth frames are available.
- Reinforced struts, columns, column guards, set back frame designs, etc.
- Quick shipment available on the most common sizes.
- Note: Upright frame capacities are based on 42" maximum vertical beam spacing.
How to Select Pallet Rack
1. Frame Capacity
Add total weight of all pallets for each bay (exclude pallets on floor).
2. Height
Measure all verticals including height of pallet, pallet load and beam height, add 4" clearance between top of load and bottom of beam above. Top beam should be a minimum of 6" less than maximum lifting height of your forklift.
3. Depth
Pallet should overhang frame by 3" front and back (48" pallet, use 42" deep frame). Deduct 6" from pallet depth. Pallets need to be in good condition.
4. Width
Measure width of pallet, add a minimum of 3" pallet-to-frame clearance and 4" between pallets to determine correct beam length. Each pair of beams must support weight of pallets per level. Add-on sections require only one additional frame and required number of beams.
We address your needs, not just sell you a pile of steel.
- Model Info


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It's probably too good to be true; the venerable Gallup Poll is turning into an outlier. But it sure is fun to see: Romney 52%, Obama 45%, among likely voters. Gallup uses a 7-day rolling average, which means that all of these numbers post-date Joe Biden's performance, and one-seventh of the responses are after Tuesday night's second presidential debate. While, as I say, the seven-point margin is an outlier, there is no doubt that the tide is flowing in Romney's direction, and no sign so far that the Obama campaign's desperate efforts have done anything to stem it.
STEVE adds: I credit Dennis Miller's endorsement for the Romney surge.
UPDATE: Romney has also taken the lead in Real Clear Politics' electoral map. Not too meaningful, given the number of states in the "toss up" column, but I think this may be the first time Romney has had the higher electoral total:


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This beautiful waist chain is available in larger quantities, just send me a message and I will let you know if I can provide the quantity that you need.
Size - One Size. Band is adjustable so it is suitable for various body types.
If you have any questions then just send me a message, I am always happy to help.
1-2 business days
I'll do my best to meet these shipping estimates, but can't guarantee them. Actual delivery time will depend on the shipping method you choose.
Buyers are responsible for any customs and import taxes that may apply. I'm not responsible for delays due to customs.
Just contact me within: 14 days of delivery
Ship items back to me within: 30 days of delivery
Buyers are responsible for return shipping costs. If the item is not returned in its original condition, the buyer is responsible for any loss in value.
Please contact me if you have any problems with your order.
We offer custom and personalized orders on most of our products. If you would like an item in a different size, color or design. Just send me a message and I can organize that for you.
Most of our items can be adjusted to meet your specific sizing requirements. Feel free to get in touch and we can let you know if the item can be adjusted to meet your needs. We do a lot of orders for plus size women so any size is welcome! :)
Most of our items can be made in a large quantity. We regularly make larger custom orders for events, such as weddings, hen parties, charity events, and birthday parties. Please contact me for more details.
If you select 'Gift' at the checkout the receipt included in the parcel will not contain the price of the items you have ordered. I can provide gift wrapping if you request it however all items come in a white organza bag.


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With Oracle's surprise win in federal court today over its Java intellectual property being used without permission in Google's Android mobile platform, a whole new can of worms has been opened when it comes to use of APIs in software development. Android uses Java APIs in its own Dalvik virtual machine, and Google had argued that the use of those APIs didn't require Oracle's permission because it wasn't using the actual Java Virtual Machine.
Although Java is offered as an open source platform, which means it is supposed to be openly accessible for developers, Oracle had argued this openness did not extend to the API packages. "It is undisputed that the Java programming language is open and free for anyone to use," the appeals court ruled (PDF) today. "Except to the limited extent noted below regarding three of the API packages, it is also undisputed that Google could have written its own API packages using the Java language. Google chose not to do that. Instead, it is undisputed that Google copied 7,000 lines of declaring code and generally replicated the overall structure, sequence, and organization of Oracle's 37 Java API packages.... the 37 Java API packages at issue are entitled to copyright protection."
That ruling reverses a lower district court's order from two years ago that said APIs could not be protected under U.S. copyright law, which was Google's defense at the time. The appeals court today didn't actually rule that the Java APIs at issue are in fact protected; a new jury in the original district court will have to decide that. The appeals court instead ruled that they could be copyrighted, and that the previous court's decision to the contrary was wrong.
The court's ruling that APIs can be copyrighted could open a new front in the battle over intellectual property being waged in the tech industry. Most of the battles involve Android -- such as the years-old cases involving Samsung and Apple over patent claims -- but the emerging principles would affect software developers everywhere. All along, Oracle's case has caused fears in the software industry that it would open a legal quagmire for both Android and open source. Now, these fears could be at least partially realized.
"I am not a lawyer, but from a developer perspective, the idea of copyrighted APIs does nothing but introduce friction and uncertainty into the very integration efforts the developers use APIs to accomplish," said Jeffrey Hammond, a vice president at Forrester Research. "Devs will now need to worry about the potential for API lock-in via copyright, as alternative suppliers can't produce like-for-like substitutions without risk. I don't see how this is good for developers as it amps up the fear, uncertainty, and doubt about using third-party services."
"While the goal of avoiding fragmentation of Java that has been Oracle's stated intent in pursuing this has some merit, we're not comfortable with the idea that copyrighting APIs is the way to accomplish this," said Ed Anuff, vice president of product strategy at Apigee, whose service provides API access to developers over the cloud. "It's likely going to have the opposite effect, causing the proliferation of convoluted APIs for no other reason than to avoid the potential of legal exposure. That's a no-win proposition for anyone involved."
Not surprisingly, Oracle attorney Josh Rosenkranz is happy with the ruling. "Today, the federal circuit court affirmed that innovators can rest assured that their breakthroughs will be protected." Oracle did not respond to InfoWorld's inquiries over whether it might try to negotiate a settlement before a new trial began in the lower court. Google did not respond to InfoWorld's inquiries at all.
This story, "Oracle's surprise win in Java API case could make it harder for developers," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.


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Microsoft forwarded some more info about today's Vail announcement.
Later this morning (April 26), Microsoft will announce the availability of the public beta for the next version of Windows Home Server, code name "Vail." The announcement will be made on the Windows Home Server team blog.
The new version of Windows Home Server includes feature improvements in four key areas:
- Extending media streaming outside the home or office
- Improvements in multi-PC backup and restore
- Simplified setup and user experience
- Significantly expanded development and customization tools for partners
The announcement will also touch on these points:
- The beta is available today for anyone to download and start testing. Users can sign up for and download the beta here: www.connect.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver
- The beta runs on a 64-bit platform and is an English language build
- As part of the beta, there's also a new software development kit (SDK) for developers who want to create add-in applications using Vail's new extensible programming model.
- Microsoft is recommending that because this is beta code, testers should install the code on a secondary computer to ensure maximum testing scenarios and the best possible experience.
More info as it becomes available. This is clearly a developing story. :)
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Harley-Davidson's Veteran's Day ad campaign — currently plastered all over YouTube's homepage, among other properties — indulges in some very thorough Photoshopping of model Marisa ("Barbie Toe") Miller.
Miller, famous for her work for Victoria's Secret, apes classic cheesecake poses in the campaign. The ads — or, excuse me, the "Salute From the Home Front to Those Who Defend Freedom" — are slated to run all month. (In fact, in a neat bit of corporate-branded patriotism, Harley-Davidson has re-named November "Military Appreciation Month." Traditional festivities apparently include ogling half-naked models in uncomfortable poses.) But is it just us, or is there something a little bit off about the appearance Miller's waist in the picture of her in profile, on the far right of the YouTube homepage banner?
As a tipster put it, maybe Photoshop is supposed to be patriotic now? Perhaps we should be thankful the retoucher at least left her whole hip intact.
In still images from the campaign, Miller's waist looks to have been similarly whittled. In fact, her head looks as wide as her rib cage.
Which is funny, because in the attached campaign video, we see footage of Miller posing for what seems to be the very same picture — she is saluting, wearing the same shoes, hairstyle and cap, and a similar outfit. (Clothes can easily be changed in post-production programs like Photoshop; it wouldn't surprise me if the belted beige leotard Miller wears in the final version of the picture was drawn on.)
And, again in the video, the camera even zooms in for a second on that unretouched image on the monitor at the shoot.
Funny, Miller really looks much better in these than she does in the over-processed end result.
Images like these, or Annie Leibovitz's photomontages, or the recent Ralph Lauren ads that have caused so much consternation, immediately jump out at the viewer because they ring false. We've seen bodies before: we all know nobody is built like that. The people responsible for the images know they're unreal. We know they're unreal. So why do marketers continue to assume we will buy products associated with pictures we fully recognize to be false?
We imagine female members of the armed services would be among the many upon whom the charm of such a campaign is lost.
YouTube [Official Site]
Harley-Davidson Military Appreciation [Official Site]
Marisa Miller & H-D Salute Those Who Defend Freedom [YouTube]
Ralph Lauren's Ridiculous Photoshop, More Ridiculous Rage
Ralph Lauren Fires Photoshopped Model For Being Too "Fat"
Ralph Lauren Fires
Yet Another Ralph Lauren Photoshop Of Horrors
Vogue's November Cover: Photoshop Of Horrors
ANTM: The Importance Of "Barbie Toe"
The Curious Case Of Demi Moore's Left Hip


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The great ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky once said "A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be" (the original quote actually came from his father, Walter).
At the start of each year, it is a useful practise to layout what is planned for the next 12 months. This can help us better anticipate where 'the puck' will be, and allow us to prepare for things further ahead.
2017 was an incredible year for Parkinson's research, and there is a lot already in place to suggest that 2018 is going to be just as good (if not better).
In this post, we will lay out what we can expect over the next 12 months with regards to the Parkinson's-related clinical trials research of new therapies.
Charlie Munger (left) and Warren Buffett. Source: Youtube
Many readers will be familiar with the name Warren Buffett.
The charming, folksy "Oracle of Omaha" is one of the wealthiest men in the world. And he is well known for his witticisms about investing, business and life in general.
Warren Buffett. Source: Quickmeme
He regularly provides great one liners like:
"We look for three things [in good business leaders]: intelligence, energy, and integrity. If they don't have the latter, then you should hope they don't have the first two either. If someone doesn't have integrity, then you want them to be dumb and lazy"
"Work for an organisation of people you admire, because it will turn you on. I always worry about people who say, 'I'm going to do this for ten years; and if I really don't like it very much, then I'll do something else….' That's a little like saving up sex for your old age. Not a very good idea"
"Choosing your heroes is very important. Associate well, marry up and hope you find someone who doesn't mind marrying down. It was a huge help to me"
Mr Buffett is wise and a very likeable chap.
Few people, however, are familiar with his business partner, Charlie Munger. And Charlie is my favourite of the pair.
Continue reading "The road ahead: Parkinson's research in 2018"


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With much of the city flooded by Hurricane Katrina, looters floated garbage cans filled with clothing and jewelry down the street in a dash to grab what they could.
In some cases, looting on Tuesday took place in full view of police and National Guard troops.
At a Walgreen's drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers.
When police finally showed up, a young boy stood in the door screaming, "86! 86!" — the radio code for police — and the crowd scattered.
Denise Bollinger, a tourist from Philadelphia, stood outside and snapped pictures in amazement.
"It's downtown Baghdad," the housewife said. "It's insane. I've wanted to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I guess not."
'Everybody's store'
Around the corner on Canal Street, the main thoroughfare in the central business district, people sloshed headlong through hip-deep water as looters ripped open the steel gates on the front of several clothing and jewelry stores.
One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store.
"No," the man shouted, "that's everybody's store."
Looters filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation as National Guard lumbered by.
Some in the crowd splashed into the waist-deep water like giddy children at the beach.
Mike Franklin stood on the trolley tracks and watched the spectacle unfold.
"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.
A man walked down Canal Street with a pallet of food on his head. His wife, who refused to give her name, insisted they weren't stealing from the nearby Winn-Dixie supermarket. "It's about survival right now," she said as she held a plastic bag full of purloined items. "We got to feed our children. I've got eight grandchildren to feed."
Police commandeer pharmacy
At a drug store on Canal Street just outside the French Quarter, two police officers with pump shotguns stood guard as workers from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel across the street loaded large laundry bins full of medications, snack foods and bottled water.
"This is for the sick," Officer Jeff Jacob said. "We can commandeer whatever we see fit, whatever is necessary to maintain law."
Another officer, D.J. Butler, told the crowd standing around that they would be out of the way as soon as they got the necessities.
"I'm not saying you're welcome to it," the officer said. "This is the situation we're in. We have to make the best of it."
The looting was taking place in full view of passing National Guard trucks and police cruisers.
One man with an armload of clothes even asked a policeman, "Can I borrow your car?"


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Rhinosporidiosis is a chronic, nonfatal, pyogranulomatous infection, primarily of the nasal mucosa and occasionally of the skin of horses, cattle, dogs, cats, and aquatic birds, caused by the fungus Rhinosporidium seeberi. Uncommon in North America, it is seen most often in India, Africa, and South America. The organism has not been cultured, and its natural habitat is unknown. Trauma may predispose to infection, which is not considered transmissible.
Clinical Findings and Lesions:
Infection of the nasal mucosa is characterized by polypoid growths that may be soft, pink, friable, lobulated with roughened surfaces, and large enough to occlude the nasal passages. The cutaneous lesions may be single or multiple, sessile or pedunculated. The nasal polyps and cutaneous lesions have a granulomatous, fibromyxoid inflammatory component and contain the fungal organism.
Rhinosporidiosis may be confused with other granulomatous lesions of the nasal mucosa and skin, including aspergillosis, entomophthoromycosis, "nasal granuloma," and cryptococcosis. Microscopic demonstration of spherules (sporangia) of R seeberi in biopsy specimens confirms the diagnosis. The spherules may be numerous, vary in size (up to 300 μm), have thick walls that stain periodic acid-Schiff positive, and contain endospores 4–19 μm in diameter. Developing stages of varying size without spores are distributed throughout the lesion.
Surgical excision of the lesions is considered standard, but recurrence is common. Amphotericin B and itraconazole have been described for medical treatment but are generally not as effective as surgery.


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Table Of Contents
High Laurel Inn offers panoramic views of the Shenandoah Valley from several decks. The private and secluded (20'x20') appointed suites include queen beds with sitting areas, stocked in-room refrigerators, ceiling fans, gas-log fireplaces and private decks to enjoy the sunsets and sunrises. Large private baths include step-in showers. Enjoy our 6-person Sundance® hot tub with gorgeous views year-round. Adjoining the Shenandoah National Park and hiking trails, we are just a few steps away from a nature walk. Paines Run Trail ends at the bottom of the hill from High Laurel Inn.
Staunton, Waynesboro, Harrisonburg and Charlottesville boast an eclectic mix of restaurants, vineyards and microbreweries and antique shops...all an easy drive. Grand Cavern, listed as one of "America's top cavern adventure spots", is just minutes away.
Each morning, wake to adelicious full breakfast including a bounty of fresh-baked muffins or scones and a full entrée course of stuffed French Toast, Layered Egg Casserole or something else delightful Helen has created. Local fresh berries in-season and orange juice greet you in the morning. Flavorful, rich coffee can be enjoyed early at the main house or on several decks overlooking the Shenandoah Valley.
Insider's Info
Travelers are always looking for memorable and relaxing experiences. Let's discover more through the words of our innkeepers. Many thanks to Helen and James Madison for sharing their own secrets with BBOnline.com! Why do most travelers stay at your inn?
Our proximity to the Shenandoah National Park, hiking and for relaxation.
What are you best known for? What makes your inn unique? What do you love most about your inn?
Being located in the Shenandoah Valley. The view of the Shenandoah Valley. Meeting people from all over the world.
If someone has never been to your city, what is the #1 reason to come visit?
Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park.
What's the best compliment you have ever received about the inn?
The large spacious rooms and our hospitality.
What's the best kept secret about the area?
The Grand Caverns located here in Grottoes.
If a traveler is staying at your inn for 4 nights, what should he/she do in the area?
After hiking visit the many vineyards and microbreweries located nearby with great restaurants too.
Is there anything within walking distance of your inn?
The Shenandoah National Park is literally right out our front door with its many hiking trails.
What is your favorite restaurant/food in the area?
The Mill Street Grill.
Any good area guides/websites that travelers could reference? How many rooms does your inn have?
2 spacious suites
Do you accept pets?
No pets.
Meet the Inkeepers
Helen is an administrative secretary at the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville. Among her many hobbies are cooking and flower gardening. Helen enjoys swimming, hiking and biking. James is a graduate of William & Mary College and retired to the Shenandoah Valley and acquired what is now High Laurel Inn.
During the month of October a two-night minimum is required (Friday and Saturday nights apply) and will be non-refundable.
Gift Certificates are available as a Great Gift for all occasions. Email your request to [email protected]
Local Points of Interest
- The National Park Service with hiking literally at our doorstep
- Kings Family Vineyard and Afton Vineyard are within an easy drive
- Shenandoah National Park
- Grand Caverns
- Blackfriars Shakespearean Playhouse
- Queen City Brewery
- Monticello- Home of Thomas Jefferson
- Numerous restaurants and pubs
- Bridgewater College
- Eastern Mennonite College
- James Madison College
- Mary Baldwin
- University of Virginia
How to Find Us
Traveling on I-81
- Exit #235 Route 256 at Weyers Cave, East to Route 340 intersection
- Right onto 340 South for 3 miles
- Left onto Harriston Road, Route 778 for 1.8 miles
- Right onto Horsehead Road for 1 mile
- Inn entrance on left at #51 stone driveway & entrance
From Interstate 64
- Exit #99 at Afton Mountain onto Route 250 West for 3 miles
- Intersects with Route 340, turn right heading North for 11 miles
- Right onto Harriston Road, Route 778 for 1.8 miles
- Right onto Horsehead Road, 1 mile
- Inn entrance on left at #51 stone driveway & entrance


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By the word "best" I mean best for gaming. Gamers want high quality sound for our games with the least amount of tinkering. On the other hand, a musician would have a very different concept of what "best sound card" would mean. If you're a musician, you might want to check out the Linux Audio Quality HOWTO.
Now that Linux is beginning to mature, this question isn't as important as it used to be. Once upon a time, soundcards without onboard MIDI chips (most PCI sound cards) didn't do MIDI. This was mostly a problem for things like xdoom or lxdoom using musserv. These days we have MIDI emulators like Timidity and libraries like SDL which don't require hardware MIDI support. Frankly, I've had many cards and I can't tell the difference between any of them for gaming. If you want to do things like convert a record LP to digital format, then your choice of a soundcard with a professional grade A/D converter is absolutely crucial. For this HOWTO, we'll assume that you're more of a gamer than a studio recording engineer.
Your decision should be based on what will be the easiest to configure. If you already have a card and it works well, that's good enough. If you're in the market to buy a sound card, get something that will take you a second to configure. PCI cards are much easier to deal with than ISA since you don't need to tell their drivers about which system resources (IRQ, DMA, I/O addresses) to use. Some ISA cards ARE plug-n-play, like the Creative AWE-64, and the Linux kernel has come a long way in auto configuring them.
My personal recommendation is any card which has the es1370 or es1371 chip, which uses the es1370 and es1371 sound drivers on Linux. These cards include the older Ensoniq es1370 and newer Creative PCI-128. These cards are extremely cheap and trivial to get working under Linux.
I used to be a fan of the Creative Soundblaster AWE 32, AWE 64 and AWE 64 gold soundcards. These ISA PnP cards are well supported by both OSS and Alsa. They all use the same E-mu 8000 synthesis chip which enables them to play 32 voices simultaneously (they have 32 "channels"). A few notes: First, the Soundblaster AWE HOWTO is very out of date. Second, the AWE 64 and AWE 64 gold can play 64 voices simultaneously, but this is done in software. Creative never released a Linux driver for these cards (and they never released programming information to Linux developers), so Linux users cannot use the extra 32 channels on the AWE 64 and AWE 64 gold. As far Linux users are concerned, all three cards are completely identical (although the AWE 64 gold has gold plated connectors, which are better for sound quality than the more common steel connectors).
The Creative Soundblaster Live! is an extremely popular PCI sound card these days. I've never owned one, so I cannot comment here. However, there have been numerous reports about serious problems with the Live! and AMD motherboards that use the 686b southbridge. A google search should turn up alot of information on this problem.
A more relevent issue is speakers, but even here the difference isn't huge. I've had expensive Altec Lansing speakers perform only slightly better than el-cheapo speakers. You get what you pay for with speakers, but don't expect a huge difference. You'll want to get something with a separate sub-woofer; this does make a difference at a cost of extra power and connector wires.
First of all, it's probably not the game, it's probably your setup. AFAIK, there are 3 options to getting a sound card configured under Linux: the free OSS sound drivers that come with the Linux kernel, the Alsa drivers and the commercial OSS sound drivers. Personally, I prefer the free OSS drivers, but many people swear by Alsa. The commercial OSS drivers are good when you're having trouble getting your sound card to work by free methods. Don't discount them; they're very cheap (like 10 or 20 bucks), support bleeding edge sound cards and take a lot of guesswork out of the configuring process.
There are 5 things that can go wrong with your sound system:
Shared interrupt
Misconfigured driver
Something's already accessing the sound card
You're using the wrong driver
A permissions problem
The first thing to do is to figure out if you have an IRQ conflict. ISA cards can't share interrupts. PCI cards can share interrupts, but certain types of high bandwidth cards simply don't like to share, including network and sound cards. To find out whether you have a conflict, do a cat /proc/interrupts. Output on my system is:
$ cat /proc/interrupts CPU0 CPU1 0: 24185341 0 XT-PIC timer 1: 224714 0 XT-PIC keyboard 2: 0 0 XT-PIC cascade 5: 2478476 0 XT-PIC soundblaster 5: 325924 0 XT-PIC eth0 11: 131326 0 XT-PIC aic7xxx 12: 2457456 0 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse 14: 556955 0 XT-PIC ide0 NMI: 0 0 LOC: 24186046 24186026 ERR: 1353
The second column is there because I have 2 CPU's in this machine; if you have one CPU (called UP, or uniprocessor), you'll have only 1 CPU column. The numbers on the left are the assigned IRQ's and the strings to the right indicate what device was assigned that IRQ. You can see I have an IRQ conflict between the soundcard (soundblaster) and the network card (eth0). They both share IRQ 5. Actually, I cooked this example up because I wanted to show you what an IRQ conflict looks like. But if I did have this conflict, neither my network nor my sound would work well (or at all!).
If my sound card is PCI, the preferred way of fixing this would be to simply move one of the cards to a different slot and hope the BIOS sorts things out. A more advanced way of fixing this would be to go into BIOS and assign IRQ's to specific slots. Modern BIOS'es can do this.
Sometimes, a card is hardwired to use a certain IRQ. You'll see this on ISA cards only. Alternatively, some ISA cards can be set to use a specific IRQ using jumpers on the card itself. With these types of cards, you need to pass the correct IRQ and memory access, "I/O port", to the driver.
This is a sound card specific issue, and beyond the scope of this HOWTO.
Perhaps an application is already accessing your soundcard. For example, maybe you have an MP3 player that's paused? If something is already accessing your card, other applications won't be able to. Even though it was written to share the card between applications, I've found that esd (the enlightenment sound daemon) sometimes doesn't work correctly. The best tool to use here is lsof, which shows which processes are accessing a file. Your sound card is represented by /dev/dsp. Right now, I'm listening to an MP3 (not a Metallica MP3, of course...) with mp3blaster.
# lsof /dev/dsp COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME mp3blaste 1108 p 6w CHR 14,3 662302 /dev/dsp
fuser is similar; but it lets you send a signal to any process accessing the device file.
# fuser -vk /dev/dsp USER PID ACCESS COMMAND /dev/dsp root 1225 f.... mp3blaster root 1282 f.... mp3blaster
After issuing this command, mp3blaster was killed with SIGKILL. See the man pages for lsof and fuser; they're very useful. Oh, you'll want to run them as root since you'll be asking for information from processes that may be owned by root.
There are only two ways to configure your card:
Support must be compiled directly into the kernel
You must have the correct driver loaded into memory
You can find out which driver your sound card is using by doing "lsmod" or looking at the output of "dmesg". Since sound is crucial for me, I always compile sound into my kernels. If you don't have a driver loaded, you need to figure out what's been compiled into your kernel. That's not so straight forward. Your best bet is to compile your kernel. BTW, let me say that compiling your own kernel is the first step towards proficiency with Linux. It's painful the first time you do it, but once you do it correctly, it becomes very easy down the right, especially if you keep all your old .config files and make use of things like "make oldconfig". See the Kernel HOWTO for details.
If you haven't compiled the kernel yourself, there is an overwhelmingly good chance that your system is set up to load sound drivers as modules. That's the way distros do things. Have everything under the sun compiled as a module and try to load them all. So if you don't see your sound card's driver with lsmod, your card probably isn't configured yet.
If the sound card works when you're root but not any other user, you probably have a permissions problem. If this is the case, as root, look at the group owner of the sound card using ls -l /dev/dsp; it'll probably be audio. Then, as root, add your non-root user to the audio group in /etc/group. For example, I added the users p and wellspring to group audio on my system:
Don't forget to use grpconv if you use shadow passwords (which should be the case on most recent distributions) in order to maintain a consistent group configuration. Then log out and log back in as the non-root user. Your sound card should work. Thanks to James Barton for reminding me to add this to the howto.


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One of the really simple things that makes me happy is waking up and laying in bed listening to the birds outside my window. Some chirp, some whistle, some screech. Some talk fast, some slow. I love to hear their variations.
It got me thinking: How absurd it is to imagine one species of bird being jealous or envious of another bird's song. I can't say that they don't have those feelings because what do I know, but it does sound absurd. The blackbird sits on his branch thinking, "Man, I wish I could sound like that bluebird over there. His voice is so nice."
What if I went outside to have my coffee and all I heard was the sound of one bird? What if they all sounded the same? Not nearly as interesting, right? You know where I'm going with this.
I want for you to think about how you– your voice (both figuratively and literally), your style, personality, ambitions– add to the variety of life on this planet, in your home, at work, in your class, among your group of friends. Anywhere that you go, you contribute to the beautiful variety of life.
But resisting comparing ourselves to others can be really tough. Theodore Roosevelt is quoted as saying, "Comparison is the thief of joy," and although we know that to be true, it can be hard to resist. Back in the day we had a monthly fashion magazine or two delivered to our houses and we would pour over the glossy pages and poreless women. Nowadays social media follows us everywhere we go. Comparison has gotten a lot easier. We can compare in detail and at length, and it can be poisonous. But envy can also be used to our benefit. Let's talk about the ins and outs of comparison and envy.
Look inward.
Often, comparison comes at a higher cost when we aren't content with the course of our own lives or with ourselves. So the first place to focus if we find envy biting at our ankles is inward. Think about what you can do to feel more in love with yourself and your life. What do you love about yourself and how can you magnify those traits?
The bird who's out there whispering her song because she's compared herself to others and doesn't like where she stands will soon find herself and her offspring someone's dinner. Constant comparison will makes us tired. It endangers our self-esteem, our goals, our individual paths and our unique contribution to the world.
Use envy to your benefit.
If you find that you gravitate toward something or someone, try and study exactly what it is that you like. If women living a jetset lifestyle is what usually brings up feelings of envy for you, you can use that to hone your vision about the life that you want. You can make choices that will lead you closer to the direction that you envy. You can use that envy to energize you to make the moves necessary to get to that place you admire so much.
Keep in mind that most often, the people we admire have paid prices to achieve the things that we want. Maybe she works a high-powered job which comes with a huge salary. Maybe she's in the gym 5 days a week. Maybe she spends countless hours honing her craft. You have to be honest with yourself in figuring out if you're willing to pay the cost to get that thing you envy.
Get creative.
There are different ways to achieve what we want, so it's important to get specific. What is it about the jet set lifestyle that you admire? Is it the travel? Is it the luxury? Is it looking polished and expensive that you like? Let's face it, it's probably all of the above. But pausing to analyze means that we give ourselves a place to start.
Want to look more expensive? There's a ton of YouTube videos for that. Like luxury? Forgo other things you spend money on in order to invest in a designer bag that you love. (Sidenote: A classic designer bag can be a great investment over time as they go up in value. Shoes not so much). Take a vacation to a cheaper destination and stay in a much nicer hotel. Hell, you can even save more money by staying in an expensive hotel in your own city for a taste of the good life.
Pay up or shut up.
Everything that we want requires an investment in time, resources, energy. If there's something out there that you really want or admire, be inspired to go out there and make it happen. Possible outcomes are:
- It takes time and effort, but you make it happen. Yay.
- You try it out for a while and realize that you aren't willing to pay the price. Yay.
Now you get to admire another person and let the envy go.
Some stuff just ain't for you or me.
We all have to come to grips with one of life's simple realities: We can't have everything we want. I have a friend who has big, plumpy soft natural lips. Mine are not like hers. Sure, I can get lip injections, but that's not a cost I'm willing to pay to achieve those lips. And even if I did get my lips plumper they wouldn't be soft and natural looking like hers. I'm also 5 foot tall. I'm not getting any taller, ever. I may get shorter when it's all over. How much energy should I spend fretting over how I wish my legs were longer? Zero. I used to fret in my younger days, now I could care less. I work out my legs to give them great definition which I love. That I can control. My legs aren't exactly where I'd like them to be right now. I haven't been willing to pay the cost lately to keep them how I like them. I spend zero energy complaining about them. Okay, I spend very little energy complaining about them.
Feeling envious and comparing ourselves to others isn't fun, and changing the conversations we have with ourselves isn't always easy. But it does get easier over time if we are committed to loving ourselves and our life.
What are some ways that you've found to deal with comparison and envy?
Side note: I'll be on Instagram Live this Wednesday at 6:30pm sharing some fascinating women's history. My focus will be on the Gilded Age. I promise you're going to love this one. I personally like it even more than last week's segment on life before the Civil War. I'll keep reminders coming on Instagram, so it's a great time to follow me there if you haven't already. I hope to see you there!
Instagram I Twitter I Pinterest I YouTube
My name is Lyz-Stephanie and I want to inspire you to be more connected to yourself and the world, to find beauty in simple pleasures, and to have more adventures. Every day we can do something to make our lives happier and richer, make our minds more active and engaged. I'm on the journey. Will you join me?


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Bed is one of Robert Rauschenberg's first Combines, works in which he affixed cast-off items, such as tires or old furniture, to a traditional support. Here he framed a well-worn pillow, sheet, and quilt, scribbled on them with pencil, and splashed them with paint in a style reminiscent of Abstract Expressionism. These bedclothes, legend has it, were Rauschenberg's own, and the work is thus as personal as a self-portrait, or more so. "Painting relates to both art and life," Rauschenberg said. "(I try to act in that gap between the two.)"
Gallery label from 2011.
Bed is one of Rauschenberg's first Combines, his own term for his technique of attaching cast–off items, such as rubber tires or old furniture, to a traditional support. In this case he framed a well–worn pillow, sheet, and quilt, scribbled them with pencil, and splashed them with paint, in a style derived from Abstract Expressionism. In mocking the seriousness of that ambitious art, Rauschenberg predicted an attitude more widespread among later generations of artists—the Pop artists, for example, who also appreciated Rauschenberg's relish for everyday objects.
Legend has it that the bedclothes in Bed are Rauschenberg's own, pressed into use when he lacked the money to buy a canvas. Since the artist himself probably slept under this very sheet and quilt, Bed is as personal as a self-portrait, or more so—a quality consistent with Rauschenberg's statement, "Painting relates to both art and life. . . . (I try to act in that gap between the two)." Although the materials here come from a bed, and are arranged like one, Rauschenberg has hung them on the wall, like a work of art. So the bed loses its function, but not its associations with sleep, dreams, illness, sex—the most intimate moments in life. Critics have also projected onto the fluid-drenched fabric connotations of violence and morbidity.
Publication excerpt from The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 207.


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Cold-shooting Hounds fall to Buffs
CANYON, Texas — Eastern New Mexico University's men missed their first 17 shots from the field over the opening 10 minutes and the Greyhounds were unable to dig themselves out of the hole in a 67-49 Lone Star Conference South Division men's loss to West Texas A&M on Saturday.
The Buffaloes (12-10, 3-4 South) ended a four-gamelosing streak and avenged a 61-58 overtime loss to ENMU (8-13, 3-4) at Greyhound Arena on Wednesday night. The teams are tied again for fourth place in the division.
Guard LaDarius Hall led a balanced WT attack — five players in double figures with 13 points, while the Hounds got 12 points each from junior forward Tyler Jefferson and junior guard Tralyn Harden. Jefferson finished with a double-double, grabbing 11 rebounds, while the Buffs' Bijan Dotson matched him with 12 points and 11 boards.
WT opened a 10-0 lead just over five minutes into the game before the Hounds got on the board on two free throws by Equs Darby. Their first field goal didn't come until the 9:39 mark when Darby converted a layup to make it 16-5.
Trailing 32-18 at halftime and by 15 points early in the second half, ENMU to within five points twice midway through the second half. The Hounds were still within 53-47 when Jefferson converted a 3-point play with 4:49 left.
ENMU didn't score again until Jefferson scored a pair of free throws at the 1:36 mark. The Hounds misfired on their final six shots from the field and finished the game at 21 percent (13-of-60).
The Hounds stayed within striking distance by converting 20-of-22 free throws, including 15-of-16 in the second half.
WT shot 43 percent from the field and went 23-of-35 from the free throw line.
ENMU returns to action on Wednesday with an 8 p.m. tipoff against Tarleton State in South play. The Texans beat the Hounds 76-36 on Jan. 20 at Stephenville, Texas.


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THE JOB: Helping post-op patients with pain management as a registered nurse in the anesthesia department of a large city hospital
SALARY: $62,000 a year ($33 an hour)
THERE'S DRAMA. But it's not exactly like Grey's Anatomy. "The ER staff may see some crazy things, but it's unlikely that they'll see five extremely rare cases in one day. That said, when I worked in the ER, I saw things like a mentally-ill patient who tore out his own eyeballs during a hallucination--he showed up with them in a Ziploc baggie. There's no way you can prepare for a situation like that."
More From Redbook
AT-WORK ROMANCES ARE COMMON. "I used to date an ER tech, and I know two nurses who married paramedics and one who married a doctor. Most couples keep things professional at work, but after a storm, when no one could leave the hospital, I found empty condom wrappers under a stretcher!"
GERMS ARE RAMPANT. "Patients can be contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria that nurses and doctors carry on their hands. Some staffers don't wash up as often as they should, and it's estimated that 1 in 20 patients gets a hospital-acquired infection. So before anyone touches you, ask if their hands are clean."
DOCTORS CAN BE JERKS. "I see patients mostly in orthopedic surgery and neurosurgery, two specialties that tend to have male physicians with big egos. They sometimes treat nurses with an air of condescension. Once, a doctor was so impatient waiting for me to administer a sedative before a painful procedure that he did it without me--or the sedative! I can still hear that patient's screams in my head. I should've reported him, but I was too new at the time to have the guts to do it."
YOU GOTTA LOVE THE FLEXIBILITY. "One of the biggest draws for this field is that most nurses work three 12-hour shifts a week. I know colleagues who only work weekends so they can be around for school carpool and Little League with their kids. Plus, there are many opportunities to make extra money. If a unit is struggling to find fill-ins, they'll offer incentives like an additional $500. It's been a great option when I want to go on vacation: I picked up three extra shifts to pay for a week in Cancún."
MY ADVICE FOR HANDLING DIFFICULT TYPES: "Just listen! Often, frustration from patients or family members stems from their feeling helpless or not being heard. I usually let them get everything off their chest. Sometimes I apologize for things I didn't even do, since I'm a representative of the hospital. And I make sure they're okay with the next steps, even if that simply means re-toasting a piece of toast that was 'too light.'"
HELPING PEOPLE FEELS AMAZING. "There are times when I'm having a rough day, and then I get to work and am helping a patient who's my age and recovering from a mastectomy or the removal of a brain tumor. It puts everything in perspective. Just the other day, I helped a patient who was in tears after ankle surgery. I grabbed a box of tissues and listened to her. When I came back in to check on her, the pain had subsided and she asked if she could give me a hug. She told me she would never forget my kindness for really taking the time to sit with her. Those interactions mean the world to me." --AS TOLD TO JESSICA PRESS


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Tuesday storm could bring more snow to Massachusetts
Snow could cause problems for evening commute
The conveyor belt of February storms is poised to bring more accumulating snow to the region Tuesday into Tuesday night, forecasters said.
Tuesday snow: Hour-by-hour-predictor | Snow totals from Saturday storm
A winter storm warning was issued for snow, from Tuesday morning to Tuesday evening for Essex, northern Middlesex and northern Worcester counties as well as part of southwest New Hampshire and Maine.
StormTeam 5 meteorologist Harvey Leonard said areas north and west of Boston could expect between 3 to 6 inches of snow.
Areas south of the city are expected to get 1 to 3 inches and the Cape and Islands can expect a coating to an inch.
A winter weather advisory was posted for the rest of Massachusetts, except for coastal Plymouth and Bristol counties, Cape Cod and the Islands.
"(Tuesday's) snow starts by lunchtime. It will be heaviest during the early afternoon and taper off in the evening," StormTeam 5's Cindy Fitzgibbon said. "This is going to mix with rain along the south coast and the Cape. North and west of 128, there could be 3 to 6 inches of snow, especially through the Worcester Hills."
StormTeam 5 video forecast | Check closings
The forecast follows the fast-moving, high-impact nor'easter that lashed the Massachusetts south shore and Cape Cod Saturday night with near hurricane-force winds and impressive snow totals, but spared much of the rest of the state.
Snow fell at rates of 2 to 3 inches an hour in the jackpot areas of the Upper Cape and south shore, and high winds led to power outages that left more than 20,000 customers in the dark during the storm.
At its peak Sunday morning, more than 13,000 homes -- mostly on the Cape -- were without power.
"This storm, of all the storms we've had this winter, has caused the most damage in terms (of) tree-related power outages," said NSTAR spokesman Mike Durand.
For much of eastern Massachusetts the storm was a nuisance, but for southeastern areas and Cape Cod, it was a very different story.
Snowfall totals ranged from 15.5 inches in Sandwich and 10.5 inches in Yarmouth to less than 2 inches in Ipswich, north of Boston.
The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for coastal Essex County, Cape Cod and the Islands and Plymouth County from Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning. For Cape residents, it was their third blizzard warning of the winter.
Boston was largely spared any significant impact from the storm, with 4 inches reported at Logan Airport. Mayor Marty Walsh elected not to declare a snow emergency in the city.


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State discovers Triple E in Newington
NEWINGTON — The state has discovered Eastern Equine Encephalitis (also known as Triple E) in Newington.
It was recently detected in Exeter as well. Triple E is a rare but very serious disease transmitted though the bite of a mosquito. Newington Selectmen urge all residents to stay indoors whenever possible or to wear long pants and long sleeves if they do venture outside during peak mosquito hours from dusk to dawn.
Please make sure to use mosquito repellant anytime you are outdoors such as waiting for the bus, walking to school or during outdoor sports practice. Mosquito netting should be used on baby carriages or playpens when babies are outdoors.
The town is being sprayed with a residual mosquito control product.
Mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water so clear any standing water from around your home. Turn over unused wading pools or flower pots and change the water in bird baths and pet bowls frequently. Repair holes in screen doors.
Feel free to contact the Town Health Officer John Stowell at 603-436-7640 if you would like further information.
In late August, the New Hampshire Health Department found a batch of mosquitoes in Exeter has tested positive for Triple E, the first finding of the virus in the state this year.
In 2012, there were 13 positive tests for EEE, including nine mosquito batches and four animals.
Symptoms may include high fever, severe headache, stiff neck, and sore throat. There is no treatment for the disease, which can lead to seizures and coma. The health department says symptoms usually occur four to 10 days after being bitten.
Six batches of another mosquito-related disease, the West Nile Virus, have tested positive so far this season.
Also in late August, Triple E mosquitoes were found in York, Maine, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The positive test came from a mosquito pool from the town of York. That was the second mosquito pool from Maine to test positive for EEE in 2013.
Regionally, all of the surrounding states have also identified Triple E in 2013 including mosquito pools in Vermont, and Massachusetts. Two horses have tested positive for Triple E in Massachusetts.