To ensure the company delivers for its customers, the Midlands outfit recently invested in a Ricoh C9100 digital press and shortly afterwards added a DYSS digital cutter from AG/CAD.
The packaging company evolved into design and print, which resulted in the company moving from an old pen plotter that assisted with drawing out samples to be hand cut, to actual sample production on a KASEMAKE KM sample cutter supplied by AG/CAD in 2008. The KM machine has now been superseded by a DYSS X5-1310T digital die cutter that was delivered in September.
Traditionally a B1 Litho printer and packaging specialist, Quantum has diversified into small format (SRA3) digital work with the purchase of the Ricoh digital press and the DYSS. The step into fast turnaround multiple printed sample production left the previous KM machine struggling to keep pace with the exponentially increasing demand for samples and cutting jobs precisely to print was time consuming.
Commenting upon the situation, Quantum Print & Packaging Joint Managing Director, Mr Peter Thomas said: "Our previous KM machine was bought for prototypes and samples and it served us well, but as the business has evolved with the digital press, our workload has increased and customer expectations on turnaround times were ever shortening. The older machine was suitable for prototypes and quantities up to say 20-off, but higher quantities were not economical. In addition, the original machine was a lot larger, whereas the new DYSS has a 1m by 1.3m bed that is much more suited to our B1 format and also the fast turnaround of SRA3 work."
"Additionally, the K-CUT Vision system on the DYSS enables us to precisely cut and crease several digitally printed sheets all laid out on the bed at the same time, even if they are not all the same design. We print registration marks on jobs and the K-CUT Vision system will locate each sheet and adjust each cut path independently to ensure remarkably precise cutting. This minimises set-up times and speeds up production and makes the new DYSS perfect for digital work."
Whereas the previous cutter could only process a limited number of jobs, the new DYSS X5-1310T is frequently cutting anything from samples and small batch runs through to production runs of several hundred. Previously, such quantities would have required a cutting forme at a cost of anything from £150 to £250 with a lead-time of 3-5 days for the production of the cutting forme. With litho press and diecutter setup times and costs this often rendered small quantity fast-turnaround jobs unfeasible. Working digitally with the Ricoh and DYSS combination makes these jobs both viable and profitable.
The flexibility also extends to the specification of the DYSS X5 that has a cutting head with two interchangeable tools and automatic tool calibration feature. This makes the new DYSS X5-1310T 100% faster to set-up and more efficient with production being estimated to be at least another 50% faster than the previous cutting table. "The digital press brings a greater demand for more samples and small batches and without the DYSS we simply would not have been able to keep up."
When Quantum realised it needed a digital cutter to expand into new market segments and streamline production, the company did its due diligence in investigating the options. As Mr Thomas continues: "We looked at all the leading players in the digital cutting market, but only AG/CAD offered us a machine that was within our price expectations and was capable of delivering all the features we needed. Added to this, we already had a KM table from AG/CAD that had been running well for almost a decade. We were familiar with the high level of service and support and the complete confidence that being an AG/CAD customer gives us. Opting for an alternative supplier would have been stepping into the unknown."
The Wednesbury business has an established and high profile customer base that encompasses the food, alcohol and health industries as well as the e-cigarette, DIY, automotive, pharmaceutical and engineering sectors to name a few. However, low-production runs under 500 that previously required a cutting forme tended to limit new business uptake from a price point of view. The DYSS has given Quantum the ability to produce small runs cost effectively without the add-on of cutting formes.
In a summary of the new table, Joint Managing Director Mr Giles Foden says: "The DYSS gives us a price-point that is attractive for new customers aiming, at least initially, for small production quantities and samples. This gives us a better opportunity to convert potential prospects into customers. Since having the DYSS, we are converting more of our internet enquiries into business and this reflects how the DYSS fits well with the low quantity fast turnaround demands of on-line business."
"We also see the DYSS as a tool that can take new customers and prospects from seed level through to mature, long term customers. The DYSS combined with the Ricoh gives our customers the option of bringing their packaging ideas to life before committing to a full production run. Furthermore, the 3D KASEMAKE CAD suite is something we will explore further as we become more familiar with the system. This software has the capability of working as a sales tool to give the customer a complete visualisation of their concept and how it can be brought to life before production even begins. The DYSS has already delivered measured benefits and we see many more opportunities arrive as a result of buying the DYSS," concludes Mr Foden.


text:
Peshtigo River – Wisconsin [July 2020]
River Paddled: Peshtigo River
Trip Date: July 10, 2020
Big Joe Landing
Parking lot with a brief trail hike down to the river. Landing makes for an easy put in.
CCC Bridge
Side of the road parking just off the CCC bridge. No designated landing but an easy enough takeout around the bridge.
Gradient: ~3 feet per mile. Some current to it, with occasional riffles.
Here is information on stream gauge readings around the date of this paddle (Note: Hwy C Bridge gauge, located about 35 miles downriver of the takeout of this section):
Our Experience Paddling This Segment of the Peshtigo River at These Levels
Paddling at this water level wasn't the problem. The gauge height of 4.96 ft was higher than the suggested minimum of 4.2 ft thanks to lots of rainfall just before and during the paddling. This section of River just happens to be riddled with downed trees and branches making for plenty of maneuvering, scooting over, and a short portage. Higher water levels could lessen this some but could also add flooding to the stretch of river with lots of winding.
This section of the Peshtigo is one of the calmer stretches of it. It had a class I rapid early on and then flatter water, but with a decent current. A lot of winding occurred in the middle, which also provided us with a lot of downed trees and logs to scoot over, squeeze around or completely portage.
The banks to this section of River are mostly deciduous trees and some grassy marsh areas. The narrow River and more wooded land around here makes it feel more intimate. And there isn't much human development outside of the put in and take out areas.
No other paddlers were spotted on the River, nor was there much sign of people in general. Three bridges occurred in the first four miles and then nothing until the takeout.
Big Joe - CCC Bridge
I was looking to paddle a river with my brother while up in northeastern Wisconsin. Something in the range of flat water to a few light rapids, so we ended up choosing a section on the north branch of the Peshtigo. It was about 9 miles from Big Joe landing to CCC bridge, which I got from the website called Wisconsin Trail Guide. The morning of our planned river trip came. With two people and vehicles, we parked one at the takeout and drove the other one to our put in of Big Joe Landing. We arrived and started unpacking and inflating our inflatable kayak and packraft, which became a hurrying process as we were welcomed by swarms of mosquitos and then downpouring rain.
After some quick inflating we were both on the Peshtigo paddling. But the mosquitos remained, while the rain became thunderstorms. To go with the theme of setbacks, were the numerous hazards of downed trees. This shouldn't have been a surprise though, as both Mike Svob in his book Paddling Northern Wisconsin and the website Wisconsin Trail Guide give this very warning, which I unfortunately saw later on. There were branches across the river making for quick maneuvering and tight squeezes, logs just below the water surface to hoist and scoot over, and one instance of a full on portage needed. Much of the downed trees occurred in the middle of this section where the river tightly winds for a couple miles. This stretch also had some flooding, where it wasn't always clear what the direction or path of the river was, which gives the impression that water levels aren't the issue or a solution for that matter to all the downed trees either.
With these issues also came many positives to the river itself and it's surroundings. One was the light but wavy Camp 8 rapid, a class I rapid in the first mile of this section, while it had a decent current to it throughout. It varied in width, usually depending on the route of the water, whether it be winding or rather straight. And it had a dark brown color to it with okay clarity, occasional plant life, and less boulders than downed trees. The banks of the Peshtigo were mostly lined with trees, along with some grass or marsh areas, that remained uninterrupted as houses were few and far between. They only occurred near the put in and takeout, while access points or bridges were also clustered, with four in the first four miles, followed by the takeout five miles later. And not surprisingly, we were the only ones on or off the water, almost including wildlife, as all we spotted were some geese, ducks, and one osprey in the just over three hours of paddling.
Takeout was manageable and on river right for us just after the bridge. It was a short walk back up the slope to the road and to the other vehicle. After a final ride back up to put in, we were officially done with this Peshtigo river trip. It was a challenging one for the obvious elements of mosquitos, thunderstorms, and hazards, but also time well spent for the shared experience out there. There is something special to passing through the undeveloped water and surrounding forests of northeastern Wisconsin, even in as brief a stretch as that was.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Can Suge Knight make money from Nick Cannon's Eminem diss track?
By Alex Heigl
December 11, 2019 | 10:01am
Nick Cannon and Suge Knight Getty Images
Nick Cannon compares Eminem to Ku Klux Klan in latest diss track
Nick Cannon involves 'Wild 'n Out' audience in feud with Eminem
Eminem responds to Nick Cannon's diss track: 'Stop lying'
Nick Cannon releases Eminem diss track 'The Invitation,' takes shots at his family
Nick Cannon gave new legs to an old feud this week when he released a full-length diss track, "The Invitation," in response to a verse Eminem recorded on Fat Joe's "Lord Above."
Em's verse was in reference to a story Cannon, 39, told in September in which he said that he wanted to confront the Detroit rapper, 47, over a slight against Cannon's then-wife, Mariah Carey: Eminem's 2009 track "The Warning," which he recorded to counter Carey's song "Obsessed" — obliquely about Em's public claims that he and Carey had a relationship.
In the new track, Cannon features vocal interludes from Marion "Suge" Knight in its intro and outro, which he apparently recorded from prison, where he is serving a 28-year sentence for the 2015 hit-and-run death of a man on the set of the movie "Straight Outta Compton."
Kurt Dahl, of Vancouver law firm Murphy & Company, who writes about the legal side of the music business on his blog LawyerDrummer, told Page Six on Tuesday that Knight does stand to earn income from the track, but it all depends on how he's credited on the track. "The Invitation" was released through Cannon's company Ncredible Entertainment, though they — and Cannon's management — did not respond to Page Six's request for clarification on the track's credits.
"There are three questions that come up for me," Dahl says. "First and foremost, does Nick Cannon have the right to use this recording? I'm gonna presume yes, so that seems like a non-issue.
"The second question is: Is this songwriting; should it be afforded songwriting credit? And that is sort of a question of degree in terms of what constitutes songwriting, and the law isn't crystal-clear on this. But any contribution to lyrics, melody, or the actual composition of the music usually counts as songwriting.
"From my experience, and in industry practice, it really depends on what the two of them — or more likely, their lawyers — have agreed upon. If Suge said, 'This is gonna be a key part of the song, I want ten percent,' then they can agree on that. But if I were Nick Cannon, I'd say, 'Well, no, I don't wanna give you ten percent for this.'
"But, if this voicemail was the heart of the chorus, if this was sampled every time the chorus came around, well then, yeah, that would be songwriting, because it's a big part of the hook.
"The third question I would ask is, 'Is he registered as a performer on the master [recording]?' Because he may be a performer rather than a songwriter, and that's a lot more clear. That includes producers, and assuming they logged his contributions a certain way, he could see income from that, though it comes more from the master than the composition."
Knight, 54, and Cannon have a close relationship: The elder man revealed in October that Cannon had been tapped to handle a book about Knight's life, and described the "Masked Singer" host as "the most realest guy in the business today" to The Blast.
However, Dahl says that unless "The Invitation" racks up hundreds of millions of views, the payout to Knight will be minimal, given YouTube's streaming royalty system. The song is not available on Spotify, and though its Genius lyrics page links to Apple Music, it seems likely most people are listening to the song on YouTube.
Filed under celebrity feuds , eminem , mariah carey , music , nick cannon , suge knight
Bette Midler: Justin Timberlake should apologize to Janet ...


JUVENTUS boss Max Allegri is reportedly keen to replace Arsene Wenger at Arsenal - and the Italian's agent has already contacted bigwigs at the Emirates.
The Sun claim the 49-year-old feels unloved in Italy.
And it's suggested he's eyeing a move to the Emirates where he believes he'll be more appreciated.
It's suggested Allegri has a tough relationship with the Italian press.
And his strained relationship with the media means he could leave the Old Lady at the end of the season.
Arsenal have apparently been receptive to Allegri's advances as they consider life without Arsene Wenger.
The Frenchman has been in the Gunners hot seat for two decades.
But Wenger's contract is up at the end of the season and his time at the Premier League heavyweights looks to be coming to an end.
RB Leipzig chief Ralph Hasenhuttl has also been linked with a move to north London.
Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe is another potential candidate.
The talented young English coach might have the edge given his Premier League experience.


text:
Sharding is bitter medicine
By S. Alex Smith	Apr 03, 2015
Percona mentioned this years ago, and it's still true. Sharding is generally a bad idea. At Asana we put this off for years, and reaped a number of benefits from doing so:
Our application logic was simpler.
We had more freedom to change our data model.
We could spend more time on things that weren't sharding.
It was also easy for us to delay sharding: we made our database schemas more compact, and AWS released bigger RDS instances. If we'd held out long enough, we would probably be on AWS's new Aurora.
We ultimately were forced to shard because of space considerations. Our database was a 3TB RDS instance, and we were using half of this space and growing strongly. Being on a single instance was also a source of pain. Load was a problem, backups took forever, and the database was a huge single point of failure.
In this post I'll talk about some of the work we did related to sharding. I'll cover the work we anticipated and how it turned out, some best practices that paid off for us, and some surprises we hit along the way.
Known Work
Deciding how to shard
There is no single "right way" to shard data. Rather, the right way to shard data depends on your application. At Asana we decided the right way for us to shard was "by workspace". Our reads and writes are almost always limited to a single workspace, so sharding by workspace let us continue to use single transactions for most of our writes and keep using mysql queries for most of our reads (instead of relying on app level joins). These features — transactions and rich queries — are why we were on a relational database in the first place, so it was important to us to preserve them. Additionally, sharding by workspace means users typically interact with only a handful of databases, so if a database has trouble, it impacts only a fraction of users.
However, sharding by workspace also has its drawbacks. Some data do not fit into a workspace, so this data needs to be special cased. For this we created a separate singleton "master shard". Also, sharding by workspace means that our shards are much bigger than they would be if we sharded by object, so if a workspace becomes too large we'll need to change our sharding behavior to accommodate it. But overall, sharding by workspace seemed significantly better than our other options.
Updating the app
The big pieces to sharding were reading, writing, and the ability to migrate shards between databases. Of these, we were most worried about reading, since we expected to have a lot of cross-shard queries that we would need to rewrite to work client side. In comparison we expected writes to be easy, since we could only come up with a few examples of cross-shard writes. These expectations turned out to be backwards: in actuality, reads were quite straightforward, and writes were much worse than expected.
Writes were quite hard to get into shape. Since cross-shard writes can't be done transactionally, every cross-shard write required careful examination to make sure that it was idempotent. Frequently, this meant rewriting that part of the application. Many of these rewrites were long and messy enough that they took multiple weeks to get right.
We still aren't in the state we wish we were. We occasionally use nested transactions, where we perform an operation against shard B while in the middle of a transaction against shard A. This made the code hard to get right, and we're left with parts of the code base that are unintuitive and will be dangerous to refactor. For example, in a code block like
runInTransactionAgainstShard(user.shard()):
user.addNewEmail(email)
workspace = getWorkspaceForEmailDomain(email)
runInTransactionAgainstShard(workspace.shard()):
workspace.addUser(user)
assert False
we will have added the user to the workspace, but will not have added her new email address.
Migrating Data
For migrating shards off of the primary database, we had a few objectives.
Don't lose any data.
Minimize downtime.
Migrate data quickly.
These objectives typically don't align. For example, it's much easier to copy a shard quickly and safely when it's offline. Ultimately we settled on copy shards while they were live, with brief unavailability when we transitioned to using the copy. The basic method we use is straightforward: we start one process to copy a shard, and a second process to re-copy any object that changes. Once the copy completes, we update a shard-to-database record to indicate that the shard now lives on the new database. In practice, this migration process allows even our biggest shards to be moved with only seconds of unavailability.
Doing this requires some book-keeping at the app layer. First, we maintain a queue of modified objects so we can re-copy any object that is modified while the migration is underway. We already had such a system in place to allow search indexing, so this took no additional work. Second, we maintain a table of "shard locks" on each database. This table holds rows of shard_id, shard_is_on_this_database, and whenever we start a transaction against a shard, we take a shared lock on this row and confirm that shard_is_on_this_database is true. When we switch which database holds the live shard, we update shard_is_on_this_database to false on the original database. This addresses race conditions where a process could write to the old database after we transition off of it.
Best Practices that Paid Off
Sharding was made substantially less risky (and thus easier) by our large suite of automated tests. Our tests caught lots of bugs and missed only a few; and the bugs that were missed were generally in places where we had poor coverage. Generally the tests that caught the bugs weren't sharding specific — they were just unit tests exercising specific behaviors of the application.
Dogfooding
Asana is a medium-sized Asana customer, and we continuously work off of internal releases before we deploy them to other customers. Similarly, when it was time to migrate shards, the first non-test shard that we migrated was the Asana shard. This worked out well, since even after extensive testing, the first migrations resulted in mildly corrupted data. The problem was that our migration script copied associations, but never deleted them. For example, if a task was removed from a list during the migration, it was possible that the task would reappear in the list once the migration was complete. Since we caught this in dogfooding, we could fix the data by apologizing to coworkers and asking them to redo a small amount of work.
Data cruft
In the process of sharding, we discovered that we had accumulated a fair amount of data-cruft debt over the years and now needed to pay it down. We discovered this because there were multiple paths through which we could determine an object's shard, and they didn't all agree. Fixing this kind of data involved a lot of patchwork. Some of the data could be made consistent by deleting offending objects, for example when these objects were temporary in nature or were unreachable by users. Some of the data could be made consistent by changing what shard it was in. Frequently we would fix one kind of object only to realize that this had just moved the inconsistency.
We discovered these data problems through a combination of means. In the app we had assertions around loading objects. For example, if we queried for objects on shard A, these assertions would check that each of the returned objects agreed that it was on shard A. Once the assertions tripped and we knew there were problems, we wrote offline queries that reported every shard-inconsistency in our database. The queries were necessary for completeness, but the assertions were crucial for detecting the problem in the first place and helping to confirm that we'd actually solved it.
User-found bugs
Turning sharding on in production was more eventful than beta testing was, and our users found a small number of insufficiently tested code paths that we hadn't hit ourselves. Typically these bugs emerged when a server process would crash at an inopportune time and leave data in a state we couldn't automatically recover from. These issues largely centered around users signing up or joining a new workspaces — two things that we don't personally do very often, and thus remained untested in our beta cluster. They also required that the product crash at a particular time and then retry an action — something we simply didn't test.
A couple of weeks into migrations, we hit our only known problem with customer data. The scheduling scripts weren't as robust as the migration scripts themselves, and they managed to schedule two simultaneous migrations for a single domain. Our migrations were scheduled as "move shard X to database Y", and in particular, they would always be migrating from whatever database the shard happened to be on at the time. This meant that, once the first migration finished, the second migration was left trying to migrate shard X from database Y to database Y. Because of what we'd learned during our dogfooding, our migration script operated as
deleteRowsOnTargetDatabase()
readRowsFromSourceDatabase()
writeRowsToTargetDatabase()
The silver lining is that the migration deleted data from the new database incredibly quickly, and the shard was promptly unusable. This meant that users on the shard could not enter new data, so when we switched the shard to read off of the original database again, these users lost only their last few minutes of writes. We contacted the users in the workspace to let them know what had happened, fixed our scripts to refuse to ever migrate from a database to itself, and restarted the migrations.
Burn Rate Irony
As we continued migrations, we kept an eye on how quickly disk space was dropping on the primary database. We regularly made estimates of when we would run out of space and marked these on a calendar. If we could get the rate low enough that the run-out-of-space date was a decade in the future, we were done. After a few weeks the rate was down to half of where it started, but then it plateaued.
It seemed like the long tail of data was much fatter than we anticipated, and this meant that our current rate of migrating data wasn't going to be good enough. We spun up more EC2 instances and started migrating more aggressively. When we checked back on the database a few couple of days later, we were using data even faster than we had been before. After the panic subsided, we realized that the migrations themselves used a fair amount of space for bookkeeping, and all of this space was being used on the primary database. Happily there was no requirement for where this bookkeeping should live. We updated our migrations to keep their metadata on a different database, and were rewarded by our burn rate plummeting.
Sharding is a lot of work, and you should put it off as long as you can. By delaying sharding you get to spend more time working on your app, and you accumulate technical debt that you may never need to pay off. Even if you eventually need to shard, the tradeoff is worthwhile.


text:
General Rally
WRC'15 Rally Sweden Feb12-15 talk/results spoiler **
citroen ford hyundai volkswagen wrc 2015
Weasel 555
Rnd 2 - WRC Sweden Feb 12-15
Official Site: rallysweden.com/
Listen Live: wrc.com/live_popup_radio
WRC+ : Live Stages/Live Maps/Onboard Action/Full Highlights plus.wrc.com/
First run in 1950 when it was called the Rally to the Midnight Sun as it was held in summer. It became a winter event in 1965.
It featured in the inaugural championship in 1973 and has been dominated by Scandinavians, who won every year until 2004 when Sebastien Loeb broke the mould. Sebastien Ogier is the only other 'outsider' to win.
Stig Blomqvist and Marcus Gr?nholm top the roll of honour with five wins each.
What's new for 2015
While Friday's territory will be familiar to drivers, about 20 per cent of the icy action will be new compared to last year.
The rally returns to its traditional Thursday to Sunday schedule after moving forward 24 hours in 2014 due to a clash with the Winter Olympic Games.
[video=youtube;5f1lATRqOcA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f1lATRqOcA[/video]
Admin for.... FB-Worldwide Ford Rally Fans
and Admin for...FB-Subaru Worldwide Rallying
Sebastien Ogier edged out Robert Kubica and Mads Ostberg to set fastest time in shakedown at Rally Sweden this morning (Thursday).
The Volkswagen Polo R pilot went quickest on his fourth and final pass through the 3.99km Rada stage, near the rally's Hagfors service park, to pip Kubica's Ford Fiesta RS and Ostberg's DS3 by two-tenths of a second.
Conditions improved with the passage of every car as rising temperatures melted the snow and ice, allowing the spiked tyres to bite into the gravel beneath and generate better grip.
"It was crazy. We calculated the stage was getting quicker by almost a tenth of a second per kilometre with every car," said the Frenchman.
Both Kubica and Ostberg had earlier set the pace, both drivers completing seven runs through the stage.
Kris Meeke was fourth in Citroen's other DS 3, a further 0.1sec behind, with the Polo R duo of Andreas Mikkelsen and Jari-Matti Latvala completing the top six.
Yuriy Protasov was seventh, having returned to an M-Sport Fiesta RS after tackling last month's Rallye Monte-Carlo in a DS3 run by the Italian D-Max Racing squad.
click: wrc.com/sweden-shakedown
oregonwings
For those of you that have MAVTV, their are 3 Live TV stages. First one is the super-special head-to-head (like DiRT3) which is always fun to watch. Then there is of course the WRC Live Radio crew which we all adore so much. Should be exciting! I'm especially stoked to see how WRC2 field does. Looking like it should be a great battle, but my money is on Pontus Tidemand to lead the WRC2 class.
From http://openpaddock.net/2015/02/12/wrc-rally-sweden-usa-live-coverage/
Live TV Stages:
SS1: SS Karlstad 1 - 1.9KM – Thursday, February 12th 11:00 AM Pacific (2PM Eastern)
SS14: Vargåsen 1 - 24.63KM – Saturday, February 14th 1:30 AM Pacific (4:30 AM Eastern)
SS21: Värmullsåsen 2 "Power Stage" – 15.87KM – Sunday, February 15th 3:00 AM Pacific (6:00 AM Eastern)
WRC Live Radio On Air Times:
Thursday, February 12th 11:00 AM (2:00 PM Eastern)
Thursday, February 12th 11:00 PM (2:00 AM Eastern)
Friday, February 13th 10:30 AM (1:30 AM Eastern)
Saturday, February 14th 11:30 AM (2:30 AM Eastern)
johnhuebbe
Robert Kubica is quick, but he will most likely crash as always.
Behold the POWER of cheese! www.huebberally.com
Organizer: 100aw.org & perryville.100aw.org/ | Rally Cars: 1970 VW Beetle & 1991 Subaru Legacy
Sadly I agree regarding Kubica. He's been finding his limits and the limits of the WRC cars though, albeit at a cost. I think next year will be the one to really watch out for him. Although I'd bet Kubica does quite a show at Rallye Tour de Corse later this year.
Kubica tho certainly has the drive and that "never give up" attitude
Thursday evening Karlstad SS1:
Pontus Tidemand in the lead !!
That was a brilliant drive by the Swede Tidemand! Kid is so darned quick! Apparently he is going to try and do a full WRC2 campaign this year (last year he did a bunch of WRX Rallycross rounds with the Audi). I think my favorite run though was Ostberg vs. Ogier. What a great job by Mads! I heard he said "I wanted to show Ogier how it's gonna be" LOL! Fun fighting talk indeed!
madev
Watched the Stage live last night, WRC+ is the only decent coverage of the event in RSA.
Quick question, obviously the stages in Sweden is snow, but what does the competitors do in the open sections with the spike tires, or do the organizers keep them on snow covered roads?
Don't find a problem, find a solution!
SS2 / SS3: Ogier sets pace in Sweden
After the debate about thawing snow and the best position in the start order, Sebastien Ogier gave an early indication that opening the road wasn't a bad place to be by winning Friday's opening two stages at Rally Sweden.
The championship leader topped the times through Torsby by 2.7sec in his Volkswagen Polo R from team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala. He then outpaced Andreas Mikkelsen by 2.2sec in Röjden to open a 7.8sec lead.
"It's really nice, conditions are beautiful. There is good ice on the road and it's fast and narrow. On this one running first was quite OK," said the Frenchman at the finish of SS3.
Latvala was only fifth in Rojden, the Finn non-plussed with his performance. "Not good. I thought I had a good run but it seems we're losing time. In SS2 I struggled in the junctions. The car wasn't turning in and I couldn't find the braking points," he said.
Mikkelsen was third overall, despite dropping a few seconds after clipping a hay bale in a Torsby chicane. Consistent performances in both tests put Mads Ostberg fourth in Citroen's DS 3, just 1.3sec behind his fellow Norwegian and 1.9sec ahead of team-mate Kris Meeke.
There were plenty of early incidents. Ott Tanak lost 10sec after burying his Ford Fiesta RS in a snow bank near the finish of SS2, while debutant Kevin Abbring lost 1min 30sec in his Hyundai i20 when he missed a corner after his glasses steamed up.
Lorenzo Bertelli dropped nearly two minutes in SS3 after driveshaft issues left his Fiesta RS in front-wheel drive only, while Robert Kubica, Hayden Paddon and Michal Solowow all overshot a junction and had to reverse back onto the road.
click: wrc.com/friday-sweden/ss2 & ss3
SS4 / SS5: Three out of four for Ogier
Sebastien Ogier ended Friday morning at Rally Sweden with a 9.1sec lead after topping the timesheets in three of the four special stages.
Having won SS2 and SS3, he conceded fastest time to Volkswagen Polo R team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala in Finnskogen, before winning the Kirkenær test despite a startline glitch.
"I had a problem at the start because the gears didn't engage and maybe I lost a second. It wasn't a big drama. We have to take our chances now because there are maybe different times coming for us this afternoon," said road opener Ogier.
It was a mixed pair of stages for Latvala. "SS4 was good but I've never driven the next one well, and now I realise why. I'm too careful turning into tight corners, maybe I'm not relaxed enough," he said.
Andreas Mikkelsen and Mads Ostberg continued their all-Norwegian duel for third. Mikkelsen held the edge over the DS 3 driver by 2.4sec despite struggling to turn his Polo R into corners.
Thierry Neuville is isolated in fifth, but the Belgian was frustrated with his times. He was 17.2sec clear of Kris Meeke, who slipped behind the Hyundai i20 after losing 30sec with a spin in Finnskogen.
"It was quite high speed," said the Northern Irishman. "I hit a snow bank and it dragged the front in, and spun us 360 degrees down the road. This is new for me and it's all part of the learning curve."
Seventh-placed Elfyn Evans admitted he was searching for the 'sweet spot' with his driving, while team-mate Ott Tanak was a place behind despite 'driving as fast as I possibly can'. Robert Kubica and Martin Prokop completed the top 10.
Just outside the leaderboard was a frustrated Hayden Paddon. The Kiwi is effectively driving the injured Dani Sordo's i20 with the Spaniard's set-up due to key parts being linked to other rallies and said he had no confidence with the set-up.
click: wrc.com/en/wrc/news/february-sweden/ss4 & ss5
SS6 / SS7: Latvala eats into Ogier's lead
Jari-Matti Latvala slashed Sebastien Ogier's Rally Sweden lead to just 1.0sec as the Frenchman endured two troublesome stages following the mid-leg regroup.
The windscreen wipers on Ogier's Volkswagen Polo R failed in the second pass through the Kirken?r stage, allowing team-mate Latvala to reclaim 5.8sec of the Frenchman's lead.
Ogier worked on the following liaison section to make repairs but finished the following Finnskogen test with a smashed windscreen and buckled bonnet.
"The wipers still don't work, but on this one that wasn't a problem. I made another mistake by forgetting to put the bonnet pins back in on the road section. The bonnet flipped up and broke the windscreen. It was bad luck, but we do our best," Ogier explained.
Latvala was second in Kirken?r in his similar Polo R, before winning Finnskogen. "I was a bit lucky that Ogier had a problem, but it wasn't easy because the roads were softer. There was ice but at the side of the ruts there's lots of snow, and if you touch that you immediately lose grip," he said.
Kris Meeke's hopes of reeling in Thierry Neuville for fifth place ended in Finnskogen. "I made a stupid mistake. I went into a snow bank. I couldn't find the entry point to a corner in the ruts," said the DS 3 driver, who lost almost three minutes.
Also in trouble in the same stage was Robert Kubica, the Pole dropping two minutes after limping through with a suspected differential problem in his Ford Fiesta RS. "Either that, or the propshaft or driveshaft," he said. "Now we have front-wheel drive only. All we can do now is cruise through the rest of today."
Yuriy Protasov was the surprise winner of Kirken?r, the Ukraine driver's first WRC stage victory.
Lorenzo Bertelli, who struggled with just front-wheel drive in his Fiesta RS after a driveshaft problem, retired at the regroup after SS5.
SS8 / SS9: Mikkelsen on top after Torsby drama
Andreas Mikkelsen emerged from Friday's penultimate special stage of Rally Sweden as a surprised leader after Sebastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala both went off the road.
Ogier started the Torsby test with a 2.9sec advantage over Volkswagen team-mate Latvala and was the first to suffer near the start.
"We hit a snow bank in a slow corner. I made a mistake and braked too late for a junction. I thought it would be OK but I hit the bank and got stuck. As first on the road I had to take risks. It was my only chance to try to do something," said the Frenchman, who dropped almost 40sec into fourth.
Then it was Latvala's turn, the Finn ditching his Polo R just 400 metres from the finish and losing 8min 30sec before spectators manhandled his car back onto the road.
"After a long straight we came too fast into a right corner. I saw some gravel on the road and thought the grip would be better, but the rear hit a snow bank and it pulled the front in. I kept full throttle on but the whole car was dragged into the ditch," he explained.
Second fastest Mikkelsen headed to Karlstad for the final stage of the leg with a 19.7sec lead over Thierry Neuville (pictured below), who claimed fastest time in his Hyundai i20 by 1.0sec. Mads Ostberg dropped time to them in both tests, and the DS 3 pilot is 0.9sec further back.
In trouble on the previous stage was Elfyn Evans, another to fall victim to the snow. "I didn't get enough turn into a junction. I used the handbrake and thought we'd bounce off a snow bank, but instead we bounced up and became beached," explained the Ford Fiesta RS driver, who lost almost two minutes and fell from sixth to 10th.
Martin Prokop has lost fourth gear in his Fiesta RS but the Czech driver is up to seventh.
click: wrc.com/friday-afternoon/ss8 & ss9
I was so sad hearing on WRC radio that Latvala went off the road just before the finish.
I have to say that I'm praising the removal of split times in the cars. Yes, it's sad that Latvala went off, however it does show that he was pushing the entire stage not knowing what happened to Ogier. And the shocked reaction from Mikkelesen that he was now leading the rally was simply priceless! Unfortunately my Fantasy WRC team is not doing so well anymore though.
yeah real shame for JML .....
Mikkelsen leads
Andreas Mikkelsen led Rally Sweden after Friday's dramatic opening leg in which team-mates Sebastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala both went off the road while leading.
Mikkelsen battled handling issues on snow and ice-covered forest roads in Sweden and Norway to hold a 19.1sec advantage over Thierry Neuville, putting himself in a strong position to net his maiden FIA World Rally Championship victory.
The Norwegian clipped a chicane with his Volkswagen Polo R early in the day, and was astonished to leap from third to first following the troubles that befell championship leader Ogier and Latvala in the penultimate special stage.
"To be in Norway, with so many local supporters, gave me lots of motivation," said Mikkelsen. "Obviously it's a great feeling to lead, but I have to feel a bit bad for the luck of my team-mates. It's also a bit of a surprise because we didn't have the best rhythm all day."
Ogier won three of the opening four stages to build a near-10sec lead but faulty windscreen wipers allowed Latvala to close. The gap fell to a second when Ogier's bonnet flipped up and cracked his windscreen after he forgot to secure it while trying to repair the wipers before the test.
click more: wrc.com/friday-wrap
dunhamr1
!!! R4>2/][
So many things happening and it's only the second day! I'm looking forward to tomorrows stages and where things will lead.
Good place to get started: Rally University
SS11 / SS12: Ostberg falls back
Mads Ostberg hit problems in Saturday's opening special stage at Rally Sweden when the third-placed Norwegian slammed his car into a snow bank near the finish of the test.
His DS 3 slid wide in a right corner and punctured the left rear tyre, but Ostberg left the stop line fearing there might be suspension damage also. That wasn't the case and he was third fastest through the following Rammen test.
"We had a few problems with the gearbox in the first stage. That didn't cause me to hit the bank, but I was out of the rhythm," he said.
Sebastien Ogier moved ahead of Ostberg in Fredriksberg, and the Frenchman was fastest in Rammen in his Volkswagen Polo R to relegate Thierry Neuville and take second place. The gap between the duo is 7.9sec.
"There was so much fresh snow in the first stage," said Ogier, who is second in the start order. "The second stage was better with less loose snow."
Neuville arrived at the finish of R?mmen shaking his head and said: "I'm flat out everywhere and can do no more. I'm over the limit and taking too many risks. I want to fight for second but it will be difficult. I have a perfect racing line but I can't go faster."
Leader Andreas Mikkelsen was quickest through Fredriksberg but had a less enjoyable time in the next test. "We were a little in a ditch and filled the front of the car with snow. The rhythm wasn't as good as the first stage," said the Norwegian who dropped 8.0sec to Ogier.
Jari-Matti Latvala lost a handful of seconds after hitting a snow bank in his Polo R while Henning Solberg dropped five minutes in the opener after burying his Ford Fiesta RS into the snow. Solberg was also suffering the same gearchange issues that plagued him yesterday.
click: wrc.com/saturday/ss11 & ss12
SS13/14: Mikkelsen slip allows Ogier in
Rally Sweden leader Andreas Mikkelsen handed away most of his advantage to team-mate Sebastien Ogier after dropping almost 20sec with a spin in Saturday morning's Vargasen special stage.
The Norwegian's 20.8sec lead was slashed to just 1.7sec as Ogier continued his recovery from his own off-the-road incident yesterday afternoon.
"I touched the bank a little with the rear of the car and it spun," said Mikkelsen, who admitted he was feeling the pressure of fighting for a maiden WRC win in his Volkswagen Polo R.
"I had to turn around but it took a long time because the road was so narrow. It will be an interesting afternoon now but we'll give it everything. This is a new situation for me but we'll do the job as well as we can. It will be tough but we won't give up," he added.
There was plenty of loose snow in the test, famed for the Colin's Crest jump, and Ogier opened the road for the final section after first in the start order Lorenzo Bertelli went off.
"Everything was fine but the stage wasn't for me. Conditions were quite slippery but I pushed as much as I could," said Ogier, who, despite his misgivings, was fastest.
Thierry Neuville was just 0.3sec behind Ogier in a Hyundai i20 and trails him by 10.7sec overall in third, with Mads ?stberg a further 38.8sec behind in fourth in Citroen's DS 3.
Ott Tanak is fifth in his Ford Fiesta RS with Hayden Paddon sixth, the Kiwi making changes to his Hyundai i20 to find a better feeling. Martin Prokop is seventh with Elfyn Evans and Kris Meeke, third in Vargasen, recovering from yesterday's offs in eighth and ninth.
Yuriy Protasov is 10th, despite dropping almost 30sec in the previous Hagfors Sprint stage in his Fiesta RS. "A lot of slide and after it wasn't possible to turn. We went a little bit off the road," he said.
Jari-Matti Latvala's troubled weekend continued when the Finn lost a further 45sec after spinning into a snow bank.
SS15/16: Mikkelsen rebuilds buffer
Andreas Mikkelsen delivered the perfect reposte to Sebastien Ogier's attempt to wrest the Rally Sweden lead from his hands on Saturday afternoon.
Ogier slashed Mikkelsen's advantage in the morning's final stage to just 1.7sec, but the Norwegian pulled clear again in the second pass through the Fredriksberg stage as the Frenchman struggled for traction.
He was second fastest, 10.9sec clear of Volkswagen Polo R team-mate Ogier. "We pushed very hard. I knew Ogier would push as well but the conditions helped a bit," he said.
Mikkelsen was on target to stretch his lead further in the following Rammen stage until two slight errors in the final section handed 2.2sec back. "Every year I never get that last split right," he laughed. "I went a little bit straight in two junctions so I had no speed coming out. But we'll continue to drive flat out, we have nothing to lose."
Road opener Ogier had the worst of the slushy conditions, especially in Fredriksberg. "It was really, really bad. The line was messed up by the cars behind us in the first pass and I never had any grip in the loose with the rear. The next stage was better, but still not good," he said.
Thierry Neuville capitalised on Ogier's struggles to edge his Hyundai i20 into second. The Belgian won Fredriksberg and although he ceded fractions to Ogier in Rammen after sliding into the snow, Neuville held a 3.7sec advantage.
"I pushed hard in the first one but conditions were tricky. I had a couple of moments and Nicolas told me to calm down. I was a bit smoother towards the end. I tried to look outside the lines for traction in the next one. It wasn't the best feeling but the time is good," he said.
Kris Meeke (below) won Rammen in Citroen's DS 3, the Northern Irishman admitting: "Conditions are definitely improving for cars further down the order."
Martin Prokop counted himself lucky to have escaped when his Ford Fiesta RS landed on its nose after a SS15 jump, while Kevin Abbring dropped 90sec at the same corner as Mikkelsen and Neuville made mistakes.
click: wrc.com/sat afternoon/ss15 & ss16
Neuville vaults into Sweden lead
Thierry Neuville delivered a masterful drive through Saturday's final speed test to snatch a slender lead at Rally Sweden.
Armed with new spiked snow tyres on the front of his Hyundai i20, he blitzed rivals Andreas Mikkelsen and Sebastien Ogier to turn a 7.3sec deficit into a 1.5sec advantage with one day remaining in this second round of the FIA World Rally Championship.
Daylong leader Mikkelsen held second in a Volkswagen Polo R and team-mate Ogier was just 8.1sec further back in third.
"That was one of the best stages I've ever driven," said Neuville. "I had a big, big push. The new tyres were probably worth three or four seconds and I had a good feeling in the car, it's so much fun. It'll be hard tomorrow with three tricky stages, but I'm not going to slow down."
Neuville was more than 30sec adrift of Mikkelsen after three of today's eight snow-covered special stages near Hagfors. But the Norwegian, who admitted to feeling the pressure of chasing a maiden WRC win, gave away 20sec after touching a snow bank and spinning.
Conditions favoured Neuville this afternoon as the early starters cleared slush off the driving line, and neither road opener Ogier nor Mikkelsen could hold the Belgian at bay as his clever tyre strategy paid dividends.
After restarting this morning in fourth, Ogier was up to second within two stages, slashing Mikkelsen's lead to 1.7sec after his team-mate's mistakes. Slushy roads cost valuable seconds this afternoon but he remained poised to attack in Sunday's final leg.
Mads Ostberg lost third place after slamming Citroen's DS 3 into a bank in the opening stage and puncturing the left rear tyre. Gearbox problems hindered him all day and he is 53.4sec off the lead in fourth.
Ott Tanak consolidated fifth in a Ford Fiesta RS and Kiwi Hayden Paddon improved the feeling with his Hyundai i20 to stay sixth, more than a minute behind.
Martin Prokop was seventh, despite almost rolling his Fiesta RS after it landed on its nose at a jump. Elfyn Evans held off Kris Meeke in eighth, Meeke grabbing a stage win this afternoon. Yuriy Protasov completed the leaderboard, despite dropping 30sec after going off.
Jari-Matti Latvala's troubled weekend continued when he dropped 45sec after spinning into the snow and the Finn ended the day in 17th.
Sunday's final leg covers three stages and 46.74km, with the Power Stage offering bonus points to the fastest three drivers.
click: wrc.com/saturday-wrap
nav77
I don't know what 100K left is
STAGE WINS
Ogier - 9
Latvala - 3
Neuville - 3
Mikkelsen - 2
Tidemand - 1
Protasov - 1
Meeke - 1
Kubica - 1
VW - 14
Hyundai - 3
Ford - 2
Citroen - 2
No one thinks to put the handbrake on when the car is on its roof.
Discussion Starter · #19 · Feb 15, 2015 (Edited)
SS19: First blood to Mikkelsen
Andreas Mikkelsen regained the lead of Rally Sweden in the opening special stage of Sunday's final leg after intercom problems delayed Thierry Neuville.
He moved ahead by 3.8sec in his Volkswagen Polo R, although fastest time went to team-mate S?bastien Ogier, who is now only 6.8sec off the lead.
Second-fastest Mikkelsen admitted to a minor mistake. "I was a bit too wide in the fast section. I was OK at the beginning but I was too careful in places after that. The stage was in great condition and maybe I didn't take advantage of that. We have to fight like crazy and see what we can do in the next two stages," he said.
Neuville's intercom issues began just 500 metres after the start. "I had a lot of interference in the intercom and it was disturbing. Nicolas (co-driver Gilsoul) couldn't hear me and I hit a snow bank," said the Belgian.
Ogier was content with his performance. "It was a bit tricky and there were a lot of snow banks missing from the other drivers. It wasn't a bad stage. I slowed down because Mads' Ostberg car was in the road and I hope the others slowed down like me," he said.
Ostberg lost more than five minutes after burying Citroen's DS 3 into the snow midway through. The Norwegian said his car's handbrake didn't work. "I tried to use it but it locked all four wheels and put us off," he said.
Robert Kubica restarted with a five-minute penalty after stewards found the engine in his Ford Fiesta RS exceeded the maximum permitted turbo boost. His team said it could not control the boost level as the mapping was supplied by engine supplier M-Sport, to whom it had reported the issue twice.
click: wrc.com/sweden ss19
SS20: Final stage thriller awaits
A thrilling live TV finale lies in wait at Rally Sweden as Andreas Mikkelsen, Sebastien Ogier and Thierry Neuville will head into the Power Stage with just 4.6sec covering the trio.
Ogier was fastest of the tussling threesome through the first pass of the Varmullsasen stage to edge ahead of Neuville into second. However, Mikkelsen still heads him by 3.0sec, with Neuville a further 1.6sec behind in third.
Mikkelsen was on the ragged edge as he powered down the ski slope towards the finish, a huge jump followed by a brush with a snow bank in the final corner.
"I went wide there and lost a second, but otherwise it was a clean stage. It's going to be a very exciting last stage. A win is definitely possible," said the Norwegian Volkswagen Polo R driver, who conceded 3.8sec to Ogier.
"It wasn't a perfect stage for me. I made a few mistakes when I hit snow banks. One stage to go and I still need more time, "said Ogier.
Neuville repaired the intercom problems that hindered him in the previous test and the Hyundai i20 pilot still fancied his chances.
"It's not over. We had a very good stage, close to perfect. I have good tyres which could be helpful and everything is still open," said the Belgian.
Martin Prokop slipped from sixth to eighth as the pressure of trying to keep the dueling Elfyn Evans and Kris Meeke behind him almost proved too much.
"I had a huge moment. I was pushing on a high-speed corner and had a half-roll. I have no idea how we got back on the road. When we stopped it was all dark - there was snow all over the car," said the Czech driver who lost 30sec in the incident. Just 1.4sec separate the two Britons in sixth and seventh.
Michal Solowow retired after his Ford Fiesta RS went off the road and became stuck in the snow.
SS21: Ogier wins Sweden thriller
Sebastien Ogier snatched a dramatic last-gasp victory at Rally Sweden after a titanic three-car tussle through Sunday's final speed test.
Team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen held a 3.0sec advantage going into the closing 15.87km of the four-day snow rally. He maintained his advantage until the final third of the stage when he touched a bank and spun his Volkswagen Polo R into the snow.
That handed victory to the championship leader, who held off Thierry Neuville. The Belgian led going into today's final leg and finished 6.4sec behind Ogier in a Hyundai i20, with the recovering Mikkelsen a further 33.4sec back in third.
Ogier's charge earned him three bonus points for winning the rally-closing live TV Power Stage. Neuville claimed two points for second with Mads Ostberg taking one point in third.
Ogier wins after thrilling Sweden finale
Sebastien Ogier claimed a thrilling last-gasp victory at Rally Sweden on Sunday after team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen spun away a maiden WRC victory almost within sight of the finish.
In the most exciting WRC finale for years, Ogier kept his cool to overturn a 3.0sec deficit in the final 15.87km special stage, while holding off Thierry Neuville in a titanic three-car tussle through the snowy forests of central Sweden.
Just 4.6sec covered the trio heading to the final live TV Power Stage. Interim times showed Mikkelsen remained on target to win as he entered the final section of the stage, but his Volkswagen Polo R touched a bank and was dragged into deep snow.
Ogier was already at the finish line and punched the air as news of Mikkelsen's mistake was relayed to him, the Frenchman beating Neuville by 6.4sec.
"This was one of the most exciting WRC events," he said. "It's a crazy win because I had to push flat out from the beginning of the rally to the end. My first win here two years ago was a hard fight, but I had to play everything here in the final stage and it was a fantastic end. Andreas did a great job and he's very young so we'll have many more future battles.
"I made only one mistake on Friday and apart from that I'm proud to have kept the car on the road at that level of speed," added Ogier.
An emotional Mikkelsen recovered to take third, 33.4sec behind Neuville, and the Norwegian said: "We gave it all in the last stage, but there was a bank full of snow and we were stuck. We tried and hopefully we'll get more luck next time."
Neuville led going into the final day but a faulty intercom and a brush with a snow bank earlier this morning allowed Ogier through, and the consistent Belgian was happy with second after the final stage showdown.
Ott Tanak finished fourth in a Ford Fiesta RS after Citroen's Mads Ostberg lost more than five minutes buried in a snow bank in this morning's opening stage. Hayden Paddon, replacing the injured Dani Sordo, scored a career-best fifth in another i20.
Elfyn Evans was sixth after Kris Meeke's determined effort to displace him ended in a high-speed spin in the final test. Meeke remained seventh, both Britons having relegated Martin Prokop to eighth earlier when the Czech driver almost rolled his Fiesta RS.
Yuriy Protasov and Ostberg completed the leaderboard, while the Volkswagen team retired Jari-Matti Latvala in service after the final stage.
wrc.com/sweden-sunday-wrap
Next: Rnd 3 Rally Mexico Mar 5-8
First held in 1979, the rally moved to Le?n in 1998 and joined WRC in 2004.
The 2007 rally was the shortest in WRC history with a total distance of less than 850km. It still included more than 366km of stages and more than 43 per cent was competitive.
Sebastien Loeb scored six consecutive wins between 2006 and 2012 (the rally was absent in 2009 due to rotation).
Thursday night's curtain-raiser in Guanajuato is followed by tests at Le?n's race circuit, a popular viewing spot for fans.
A short street stage close to the service park returns to an early afternoon slot on Friday and Saturday.
Official Site: rallymexico.com
Lawrence Partington
The new rules concerning running order and split times helped to make this a thriller. Thanks to Weasel555 for posting. We missed you during Monte Carlo.
TV2GO Toronto
madev Feb 19, 2015
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text:
FIYou: Joanndra F. Ramdass
Joanndra F. Ramdass in FIU's on-campus Annual Giving Call Center, from which students reach out to FIU alumni, current FIU parents and friends of the university in request of contributions.
Name: Joanndra F. Ramdass
Hometown: Siparia, Trinidad
Job Title/Department: Coordinator, Phone & Parent Programs, Office of Annual Giving, University Advancement
Location/Campus: MARC 237, Modesto A. Maidique Campus
In a nutshell: As a coordinator in the Office of Annual Giving, I work with our annual fundraising campaigns, which are carried out via phone, direct mail and email. Our office reaches out to our FIU community, alumni, friends of FIU, parents and our very own faculty and staff to raise funds for the areas of greatest need at FIU. My specific focus has always been with the phone program, and in the past two years I have spearheaded the launch of the annual Parent Campaign, which is a new initiative for our office.
Number of years at FIU: 8 years – four years as a student/student employee and four years as a full-time employee
What do you enjoy most about your job? Our office has the opportunity to work with all of the university's academic units and divisions through our different campaigns. As a result, I get the chance hear about all the great accomplishments across campus and, if I'm lucky, even get insight into new and innovative projects before they are publicized. It feels like I have an insider's pass to FIU's upcoming successes, which keeps me energized and excited about coming to work every day. But more importantly, through our campaigns, I get to share these achievements with our alumni, parents and faculty and staff and, hopefully, this keeps our community excited about FIU.
What do you think students and your fellow faculty/staff should know about your area? The Office of Annual Giving is a resource and a voice for your success. Our office coordinates annual phone, mail and email campaigns geared towards raising funds for the areas of greatest need throughout FIU from our alumni, parents and fellow employees. So, for example, if there is something you are passionate about as a member of our faculty and staff, reach out to us via our Ignite campaign and we will help you to set up a project to make your vision a reality.
Where is your favorite spot on campus? Why? The outdoor patio behind the Frost Art Museum. It is the perfect place to have lunch. Quiet and cool.
What is one thing you wish everyone knew about FIU? FIU is dynamic! At FIU, the people, the programs, the vibe are full of energy, enthusiasm and a sense of purpose. The FIU mindset is to get things going and to get things done. This is a great energy to be a part of, and it is gratifying to be a witness to the successes that come from this dynamic atmosphere.
Family snapshot: My immediate family, my mom and my brother, both live in Trinidad. My dad passed away three years ago. I try to get back a couple times for the year. My cousin Theo just started at FIU after being in the Marines for almost 10 years, so it is nice to have family close by. Other than that, my uncle and his family live in Orlando. Both my aunt and uncle are great cooks, so whenever I want a taste of home and family, I head up to Orlando and I feel like I'm home.
Word that best describes you: Considerate
First paying job: A substitute teacher at my old high school.
Favorite TV show: Bones, Veep, Graceland, Shark Men, Everybody Loves Raymond and The Big Bang Theory… I could go on and on.
What is playing on your iPod? Don't have one, but my daily playlist on Spotify: Paul Simon, Maroon 5, James Taylor, DMB, Bob Marley, Shakira, Fleetwood Mac, Zac Brown Band…
Favorite off-campus dining spot: Special Tea! It takes a bit of planning because you have to get there at 11:55am to avoid the rush & get a table. It's great food, an insane selection of teas and coffee… not to mention fun board games. We have a Parcheesi battle simmering in our office.
Your proudest accomplishment: Learning to drive/ getting my driver's license. I know this seems pretty mundane but I have… had a very intense fear of driving. With the help of a very kind, patient driving instructor called Jim and months and months of practice I finally got my license and a car last year. I'm still alive—and so are you—so I think I'm doing well.
What do you do when you are not working at FIU? I'm currently pursuing a master's degree in public administration so I spend most of my free time doing homework or reading for class. There is SO much reading. Outside of that, I like to go to the movies or head down to the Fruit and Spice Park or Robert Is Here in Homestead.
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9/14/2009 – By the skin of their teeth, we might add, half a tiebreak point ahead of Russia, which took Silver, and 1.5 ahead of Ukraine, which took Bronze. In the final round the Chinese team played Vietnam, which was in last position but appeared to be winning two games against the leaders. However, both were suddenly agreed as drawn, which led to suspicion of match fixing. Report and games.
The 2nd Women's World Team Chess Championship took place in Yinzhou, China, from September 2nd to 11th 2009. The time controls were FIDE: 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest with a 30 second increment per move.
Apparently there was something strange going on in the final round, as Mark Crowther of TWIC pointed out. "China met bottom placed Vietnam in the final round and drew 2-2," he writes, "but this was a hard fought draw with long games – although there have now been questions asked as to whether the match was fixed as a draw in advance. Vietnam had a big advantage on board one and a winning advantage on board four when the draws were agreed. This draw allowed them to pip Russia on tie-break. Sadly, for them, long term leaders Poland lost for a second time in row and ended up 6th."
And now, three pawns up and with a decisive attack the Vietnamese girl played 37.Bc5 and offered a draw, which her Chinese opponent naturally accepted. With all games in this encounter drawn China One was able to nudge ahead of Russia (and Ukraine) to take first place. Vietnam remained in hopelessly in last place.
No. Title Name Rtg Team Pts.


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a factory able to create 3D objects from home items or null to use default one. The createObject3D method of this factory is expected to return an instance of Object3DBranch in current implementation.
the controller that manages modifications in home (optional).


There are different reasons why a brand is successful and gets the attention of the media. An appealing product is definitely the main factor. But it is not only this. Each label must convey a message, a vision. I discovered Upper Class denim thanks to Instagram and I want to share their unique vision with you.
"We are artist, we are perfectionist, we are denim lovers"! This how the crew behind this exciting denim label defines itself.
Upper Class is a Swiss brand, based in Zurich, founded in 1990 by a group of friends who shared the same passion for graffiti and street culture, "Les Enfants Terribles Street Artist Crew".
They used graffiti to decorate the urban landscape of Zurich and to communicate critical messages about the society and the environment. They started, in fact, making limited edition t-shirts featuring different type of slogans and, eventually, expanded to denim.
Denim is now the core of their collections. And their denim is amazing! The production is made exclusively in Italy. They use only the best high quality selvedge denim coming from Japan, comfort Italian denim and organic Turkish denim.
Each pair of jeans is delivered only if every detail, every thread, every seam is carefully checked. "Details make the difference" is their slogan.
This un-compromised high quality makes every pair of jeans unique, timeless and extremely durable. Nothing is accidental, every detail reminds their artistic activities on the streets.
Their signature is a lightening bolt embroidered in the back pockets, symbolizing the "danger zone" signal they encounter in the railways during their nocturnal painting adventures. The color orange represents the color of the railway workers.
The 21-3 barcode, embroidered in the back pocket originates from the code language used by the Upper Class crew as a signature for its work. The numbers 21 and 3 stand for the letters U and C in their alphabetic position.
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Birds Up, O's Down
Birds Up, O's Down - 2014 Week 18
Who's hot and who's not for the Baltimore Orioles from August 4 - 10
By twistedlogic Aug 11, 2014, 12:00pm EDT
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Caleb Joseph certainly turned a few heads with homers in five straight games
Joy R. Absalon-USA TODAY Sports
Brad Brach
Needed 31 pitches to make it through his last appearance against the St. Louis Cardinals, but at least no harm was committed. That marked his 5th straight appearance of at least one inning with no earned runs allowed.
Zach Britton
Big wins meant the closer was mostly unnecessary. Did get the ball in Sunday's game, even though it was not a save situation, but he got worked anyway, allowing both a walk and a homer (3 ER allowed).
Wei-Yin Chen
Although Chen continues to lead the Orioles in both wins and WAR, he had his worst start in recent days against the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday. Chen lasted just 5 innings and allowed 8 hits and 4 earned runs.
Kevin Gausman
Provided an almost identical start to Chen's with 1 fewer ER allowed an no homer. He's gone two straight starts with 8 hits and 3 ER allowed.
Posted a line of 6 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, and 4 K before ending up back at AAA Norfolk with the return of Jimenez. He's expected to make a start there, but will be back with the Orioles next week.
Tommy Hunter
Made two appearances totalling 2.2 innings and allowed just one baserunner.
Ubaldo Jimenez
Ubaldo's first start in a month started exactly how you'd expect: two walks, a couple of hits, a homer, and 2 ER allowed (through just two innings). However, he rapidly settled down and provided an additional 4 innings with just one more earned run. He ended up K'ing 6 and eventually got the W for his efforts.
Brian Matusz
Somewhat up and down week, but mostly down. He was brilliant in a longer outing on Friday evening, going 1.1 innings and facing the minimum 4 batters (no hits, 1 strikeout). He was featured in two more "situational" outings, however, and did not perform as well.
T.J. McFarland
His last two outings have been hit parades.
Allowed his first ER as an Oriole in Sunday's game against St. Louis. Had some control issues that lead to two walks in his first outing of the week, as well.
Not entirely sharp in a win against the Blue Jays, but did strike out 6 in 5.1 innings.
Darren O'Day
With a few big wins, O'Day didn't see regular action this week.
Chris Tillman
Got a ton of run support and cruised to victory on Friday night vs. the Cardinals. Allowed 2 ER in 6.2 innings, including 7 strikeouts.
Nick Hundley
Did not see regular action, but still posted a three-hit game on Friday night in support of Tillman.
Caleb Joseph
Homers in 5 straight games left Joseph one shy of the Orioles record for consecutive games with a round-tripper.
Infielders
While three of his five hits left the park and his overall slugging in August has been solid, his contact rate has been miserable. His OPS remains below .700 and average below .200 for the season.
Ryan Flaherty
Receiving fairly regular starts at 2B, but not providing regular offense.
J.J. Hardy
Scratched from Sunday's game with a thumb injury, which is a shame since Hardy has been on fire. Eleven hits in 23 trips this week, including 2 that left the park.
Manny Machado
Continues to provide solid offense and had three multi-hit games this week.
Jonathan Schoop
See Flaherty, Ryan. His week was just a touch better, as he provided an approximately equal contribution in fewer ABs.
Nelson Cruz
Saturday's homer was his first in 13 games.
Like Machado, his offensive contribution hasn't been overwhelming, but very steady.
David Lough
Nick Markakis
Another very solid week for Markakis: 11 hits (1 homer), 2 RBI, and 6 BB. He took a walk in 5 of 7 games this week.
Steve Pearce
Delmon Young
Was called into action more than usual this week and certainly delivered - 6 hits in 17 AB including a homer, 5 RBI, and 2 BB.
Disabled List
Matt Wieters
Kind of weird having Wieters solo on the DL list