I have just bundeled up the changes and bug fixes of the past 2 years and released PTLib 2.10.9.6.

Most notable in this release is working IPv6 on *BSD, macOSX and Solaris as well as support for newer compilers and many small platform fixes.

Since PTLib is the foundation for the GNU Gatekeeper and many H323Plus projects, all these improvements get propagated into those projects as well.

Changes:
- IPv6 support fixed for *BSD, macOSX and Solaris
- support for newer compiler, eg. gcc 13 and VS2022
- support for C++-17
- support for Win64 builds
- support AIX as platform
- small OpenBSD fixes
- other small fixes

Download from https://www.h323plus.org/source/

GNU Gatekeeper version 5.13 has been released.

Download: https://www.gnugk.org/h323download.html

This is a bug fix release with a no new features added. It fixes an issue with the RTP port detection and 2 other minor issues.

I like the convenience of a charger for my phone in my car or by my desk at the office. The constant plugging and unplugging a micro-usb cord is a bit harsh though, a least from a first world problem perspective. I ran across a post on the XDA-Developers forum that described modding a Wireless Charger […]

The post A Magnetic Mount for a Wireless Fast Charging Dock first appeared on robotthoughts.

I am fascinated with the success of the Amazon Echo. A company founded on selling books has worked very hard to become a hardware powerhouse and I think they achieved that goal with the Amazon Echo. I bought an Echo to play with home automation but when Amazon posted instructions on how to build your […]

The post Building An Amazon Echo on the Raspberry Pi Model B Revision 2 first appeared on robotthoughts.

There has been a lot of mud-slinging over the referendum on the Alternative Vote. The “No” campaign have been particularly bad at avoiding sensible debate and resorting to fear-mongering and smears.

The polling shows they will likely win by a significant margin. They shouldn’t. And with apparently 20%+ of people still undecided, I’d like to share some thoughts that might tip the balance in some people’s heads: please share this with anybody who is still undecided.

Here are 10 very good reasons you should vote “Yes” in the AV referendum tomorrow:

1. First Past The Post (FPTP) doesn’t work in a system with more than two parties

You might only like one of the two leading parties, but you can’t deny that we live in a society where more than two parties matter. If you live in Scotland or Wales, multi-party politics is a reality even more so.

FPTP was designed when there were only two political groups in Parliament: the Tories and the Whigs. Since the birth of Labour, the reformation of the Liberals and the rise of nationalist parties and groups like the Green Party, we live in a nation where there are multiple political voices.

You might not agree with them, but you agree under a democracy that they have a right to be heard, right? So why would you persist with a system that denies them that voice?

Right now, an MP can have support of less than 20% of the people in their constituency, and be sent to Parliament on behalf of all 100%. AV eliminates that from being possible, and forces more engaged politics.

2. AV actually weakens extremist parties

There are three parties wholly against the Alternative Vote: the Conservatives, the BNP and the Communist party.

The Tories don’t like it for a variety of reasons along with some Labour MPs (see below), but the BNP and the Communist parties don’t like it because it reduces their chances of getting a seat. How? It comes down to second preference votes.

People who are inclined to vote for extremist views typically will place them first. People who put other parties first are unlikely to offer a second preference to an extremist party. That means on the whole, parties like the BNP are likely to be eliminated quite early on.

To win, a candidate must convince at least 50% of the people who vote to give them at least a second or third preference vote. The BNP and the Communists are unlikely to achieve that whilst their views and the electorate’s are so out of kilter.

Under FPTP it’s possible to win a seat with just 20% of eligible voters agreeing with you, or around 30% of voters who actually vote - a much more achievable target for extremist parties to get.

3. AV forces consensus and a new mode of political debate

You might have noticed politicians from opposite sides don’t seem to like each other very much. Most people can’t stand watching Prime Minister’s Questions for all its Punch & Judy mechanics. FPTP requires confrontation and feeds off fear-mongering.

AV forces politicians into a very different mode. They have to talk about what they’re for, rather than what they’re against (as tactical voting disappears, see below), and they need to seek out ways to find compromise and agreement rather than just shout the other side down.

You might have strong feelings against the coalition government, but you can’t deny that the disagreements seem to have been dealt with more philosophical debate than previous disputes between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. It’s not that either side has sold out completely, but rather it’s because that’s what coalitions need to work. AV turns that progressive debate into the daily routine of politics.

4. AV doesn’t cost a penny more. The only penalty is a slightly longer election night special on the BBC

There have been some preposterous claims made about the cost of AV. One leaflet suggested it would cost us £250m, and another campaign suggested that maybe the money would be better spent on hospitals.

We could argue that democracy shouldn’t have a price put on it - particularly one so low given the size of our GDP - however that’s not the point.

AV won’t cost us anything more. The referendum will cost virtually nothing as it coincides with many local elections anyway. There are no “counting machines” that need to be bought, and the cost of explaining AV to the electorate has basically already been met by the (privately-funded) “Yes” campaign and various other groups. If you don’t currently understand how AV works, you can learn it yourself in under two minutes by reading the article on Wikipedia about it.

5. FPTP supports incompetent and lazy MPs - it provides a “job for life”, undeservedly

There are a lot of very bad MPs in Parliament. You’ve probably never heard their names, but they’ve been there for a long time, and know that they have a job for life. They are in “safe seats” where it would take a political Tsunami of epic proportions to remove them.

If you analyse which Labour members support the FPTP system over AV, you will realise they are generally unpopular figures who have held safe seats whilst resorting to “we hate the other side” politics, which would likely flounder under AV: John Prescott, Margaret Beckett, et al.

The Tory back-benches are filled with a similar breed of politician. They resent the voter, on the whole.

These MPs do not represent their constituency in Parliament. They represent their party in the constituency. With perhaps no more than 35% of the vote (and often with low turnouts, just a 10-15% approval from their constituency as a whole), they know they can do pretty much what they want. For example, on average MPs in safe seats claim more in expenses than MPs in marginals, and cost the taxpayer more.

One beauty of AV is that it pretty much eliminates the concept of a safe seat. There will be some left where there is overwhelming support for a candidate, but MPs will be more inclined to fight for the continued support of their entire constituency, and therefore act more in accordance with their wishes.

6. Under AV you can - if you wish - select just one candidate (and it’s actually easier)

At the moment under FPTP you type an X in a box. Under AV, if you only want to support one candidate and have no second preference, simply write ‘I’ instead. It’s one less line. It could be argued that under AV you’ll halve your time spent actually physically voting.

OK, I’m clearly making a small joke here, but there is nothing complicated about AV if you don’t want to think about multiple candidates, just vote for the one individual you want to see elected.

But don’t you want the option of being able to specify a second candidate if your first preference doesn’t win, just in case? Isn’t the elimination of tactical voting worth it? That brings us onto…

7. Tactical voting pretty much disappears under AV

This morning I got a “the Tories can’t win here” leaflet from the Lib Dems through my door. We’ve all seen them. Basically, if you don’t want Labour to win in this ward, there is no point in voting Conservative because of how the vote is counted.

Under AV at general elections, this would make no sense. Tory voters, instead of being told their votes are futile, would be reached out to by both parties seeking to build bridges with that community who live locally.

You would no longer need to go to the polls and vote for a party you disagree with, just to keep another party out. Campaigners would instead want to listen to views across the political spectrum in the hope of getting a second preference vote from people within those groups.

It completely changes the way we think about politics and political campaigning. For the better, and permanently.

There is a more complicated explanation of how tactical voting pretty much becomes impossible under AV in a section of the Wikipedia article.

8. We all start to count again

You might have heard the phrase “Mondeo Man”, “Windsor Woman” or the like at previous elections. These are demographic groups targeted by campaigners whose vote determines the election.

You see, at the last election, it’s thought that only 1.6% of votes actually changed the outcome. Because of the way FPTP favours jobs for life, safe seats and promotes tactical voting and negative politics, experts realised that the “swing” that would win the election would come from less than 1 voter in 50.

They identified who these people were based on where they lived. They analysed their lifestyles based on demographic information and labelled them. Experts then ran focus groups composed of this tiny demographic, and party policy and manifesto promises were crafted around what was responded to by that group.

All of those billboards, manifestos, news reports and editorials. They weren’t meant for 98.4% of the electorate - they were crafted to shape the opinion of just 1.6% of the electorate.

Does that seem a reasonable way to run a democracy to you? Under AV, we all start to count again.

9. It’s not a rubbish version of PR, and we don’t want PR anyway!

Some people have argued we should hold out for Proportional Representation because that means the number of MPs representing each party is in exact proportion to the number of votes cast for that party nationally.

We don’t want that.

Note, I said the MPs would be representing each party. They would no longer represent a constituency, and would be positioned on a list based on their loyalty to the party elders and the small Westminster clique that runs politics today.

We want and need a system that means an MP is tied to a constituency. We want and need a system that makes the MP want to represent the constituency within Parliament, rather than the other way around.

PR doesn’t do that. FPTP doesn’t do that. AV does.

10. If we vote “No”, we keep the status quo for at least a generation. 

The reality is, if we collectively vote “No” to the Alternative Vote, that’s it, we don’t get any more reform for a while - probably at least a generation. The concession prize might be a reform of the House of Lords, in order to try and keep the coalition together (it’s a very weak second prize for the Lib Dems), but I suspect if we voted “Yes”, then Lords reform would be here within no more than one more Parliament anyway - it’d be popular with voters.

We all agree that the current system is broken, but if we vote “no” we’re saying “that’s OK”. We are committing our children and possibly several generations more to the broken politics we’re so disenchanted with ourselves.

So, there we have it. 10 reasons. If you need any more, feel free to email me and I’ll try and answer your questions and answer any lingering doubts before polls open tomorrow.

As I write this, outside the sun is burning lazily down on a quiet, sleepy and green corner of Manchester as the day draws to a close. Fine weather, often makes me think about an alternate career I considered about a decade ago. I thought I’d share the story.

In 2002, the dot.com crash was in full effect. The internet era looked like it might be over for a while. As a software developer specialising in internet technologies, I was in a little bit of trouble. Whilst contracts appeared occasionally, I realised I was looking at 6-7 months of unemployment.

Not having any savings, and as yet mentally unprepared for the path of entrepreneurship I have now followed for half a decade, I was a little stumped as to how to actually pay my food bills, etc. I applied for barwork, but there was none forthcoming. I looked at minimum wage jobs, perhaps as a cleaner, but was “over qualified”. One CTO of an ISP I interviewed with thought I was too bright for the role he had in his firm, and that I would quickly become bored.

One contract I acquired however, led to an interesting discovery. I was hired by a small startup in Eccles to help “fix” a betting platform. It was a clone of Betfair.com, which was still relatively young at the time. I was hired for three reasons:

1. I knew how to fix the problem - their Bulgarian programmer was an idiot who didn’t understand what he was doing
2. I knew quite a bit about horse racing and gambling, and therefore had “domain expertise”
3. I was cheap

Since the age I’ve been legally allowed to gamble, I’ve been interested in it as a maths problem. Books on technical analysis in FOREX trading - one of which I’ve been reading recently - fascinate me. I had developed quite an eye for reading form, had become a better than “good” poker player, and enjoyed “the game” and all that came with it. I still have an impressive collection of books on sports betting and horse racing. Gambling, quite simply, is something I have always found a little bit fun.

An example of how confident I was: A few years before the events below unfolded, my mother was very concerned about my “gambling problem”. I did not have a gambling problem, beyond the fact I gambled, and this alone was enough to scare her. Sat in a small cafe in the town I grew up in, she decided to try and prove a point. She handed me £10 of her own money - money she could scarecely afford to fritter away at the time - and told me to go and bet on a horse with it there and then. If it lost, I would agree to repay her the £10 and to stop gambling. I didn’t quite understand her logic, but I agreed. I walked to the bookmakers around the corner, backed £5 each way a 4/1 chance in a jumps race, and then sat and watched as it won by 3 lengths. I returned to the cafe with my mother’s winnings, and she became silent as I handed her the cash.

So when I turned up at a rather dingy office in Eccles and discovered Betfair, I was transfixed. The major appeal to me was simple:

It allowed you to take the position of a bookmaker.

Bookmakers say that the moment somebody has to make a choice about which competitor will win a challenge, they are at a disadvantge. That means the bookmakers put themselves in a position where they don’t have to make a choice, they just balance the odds with the bets coming in.

The bookmakers generally don’t care who wins - they will “lay a book” at odds that mean whoever wins, they make a guaranteed profit. Some of them - especially on big prize handicaps - will often “lay to a common liability” which means they might lose some money if a favourite wins, but make a much larger profit if an outsider wins. A few don’t bother risk managing and just hope it all balances out. There are some truly horrifying scare stories about the last group.

The advantage they have however - encompassed in a mathematical measure of odds we call “the over-round” is that they are pretty much guaranteed to make money in the long run.

I opened a Betfair account, deposited £20, and laid a book on a race. I made 27p. It might not sound significant, but the important thing is, because of how I had done this, my risk was effectively zero by the time the race started. It was a “free” 27p that had magically been produced out of thin air.

I dived into the subject, buying whatever I could about bookmaking. I spent a lot of time - and frankly money - understanding the different conditions different laying approaches were best in. Like most geeks, once I choose to learn a subject, I go deep - I try and completely understand the whole domain. This was no different. I read up on the history of bookmaking, the backgrounds to important bookmakers, the maths, the probabilities, the strategies, and spoke to whoever I could about it that understood “the game”.

With my work done at the company, I now had an abundance of free time to put some of this learning to effect.

I was able to lay - and sometimes back using a method called “Dutching” on “under-round” books - over that summer out of Internet cafes (I had no connection to the Internet at home at the time), and cover my living expenses. I ate and drank well, I had a comfortable apartment in Manchester city centre, and was learning about being a bookmaker on a razor thin margin of 102% over-round.

About this time, I thought about becoming a professional bookmaker. The lifestyle of being on-course appealed to me almost as much as the 130% over-round (i.e the roughly 30% profit on capital staked pretty much guaranteed to a bookmaker), and I started to enquire about how to make it happen. I would need £100,000-£150,000 to get started at the courses I wanted to get started at which meant it would have to be a long-term plan. I contemplated assisting established names in the meantime, but without a driving license or a car, I was going to have a problem there as well.

And then the dream was interrupted, and all hell broke lose. 

When you’re trading all day on Betfair, you’re moving money around in order to make just a little tiny bit more money. You are not improving the planet, or people’s lives. It’s boring, and frankly, it’s selfish. Your ego takes a hit, even when you’re winning.

I didn’t have the equipment available to automate the process (despite being a software developer), so for me it was about just grinding it out, hour after hour, day after day. I would get up at 10am, buy and read a copy of the Racing Post, head to an Internet cafe for midday, and lay books on around 20 races until at least 5pm, and during the Summer as late as evening racing allowed. Sometimes I even laid books on US races in the evening, or started earlier and managed to catch races in timezones some hours to the East of us.

It was soul-destroying and boring work. I lost discipline. I stopped managing my risks, and suddenly started to gamble a little to make things more “interesting”. I rode out a lucky streak for a few weeks.

And then I took some losses. I don’t like losing. Nobody does. The original plan said losses were impossible, but I was now being reckless. It was more exciting. But stupid. But the losses hurt.

I started to chase the losses. Any experienced gambler will tell you that this is the beginning of madness.

When you lose, walk away, and accept it. It’s as a good a lesson for life as it is for gambling: don’t take it personally. Right then though, the “red mist” gamblers talk about descended, and it stuck with me for days.

The numbers accumulated as loss after loss built up. Three days later, as an unemployed - perhaps unemployable - software developer, I had lost just over £5,200. Given my goal was to make just £3 per race, this was a rather large sum.

I stopped, stood back, and took a deep breath. I went and decorated a friend’s bathroom for some spare cash to live on and to get away from the screen for a day or two.

I thankfully got a job, and recouped my losses in a more traditional manner, and until the mist that had enveloped me had left, stayed away from Betfair.

Betfair now has an API - a means for a software developer to automate trading strategies. I’ve put off coding anything against it for years for a few reasons. Principally, the environment is now very different as a trading arena to what it was (the liquidity makes the markets zero-sum games, in essence, and that means profitability is harder to come by), and frankly I have other more interesting things to spend my time working on that are likely to make me more money, sooner. I still ponder it though - an automated solution can be developed calmly and unemotionally. It should work quite well.

That said, on evenings like this, when the weather is fine, and a great Derby will be with us at 4pm tomorrow, I think back to those dreams of becoming a bookmaker. Being in the ring at Epsom tomorrow - or even better, on the rails - would not be a terrible way to make a living. Providing you manage your risk properly, of course…

… but then I remember, as with most things, my Mum was probably right.

I’m a member of the Amazon “Vine Program”. If you’re unaware of it, this is a cool little channel Amazon run where top reviewers on Amazon’s website get to choose a couple of items from a pre-defined list every month, to receive for free. In return, you must review on the Amazon website at least three out of every four items you receive.

It’s a good programme, I’ve received a couple of dozen books from it over the years and it has this quality of both being free and serendipitous that book lovers should - and seemingly do - love. Publishers get lots of reviews on their product’s page, Amazon get UGC and the people who love to read and review books get free stuff. Win-win for everybody.

I’ve just received a very odd email from Amazon about it though. First, can I just say to whoever sent this out, that putting at the end:

Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message

has made an error. They’ve sent it from order-update@amazon.co.uk which the above implies is you know, a fake, non-read email account. So why then is the email itself cc’ed to that address? I think somebody does read mail at that address. Smart anti-spam skills Amazon! Alas, the game is up!

Anyway, that’s not the really weird bit. It goes on:

We are contacting you to let you know that there have been some changes to the Amazon Vine Voice Participation agreement. 

Do we all get a free pony? Really, I love Amazon Vine, that’s the only way it could get better… Somehow when I get an email informing me of changes to T&Cs though, I always feel the rest of the email is going to be me being told off for something I didn’t do. It goes on:

Please note the following changes: 

1) The ownership status of Vine products and the circumstances in which you may dispose of Vine products has been clarified. Ownership of Vine products supplied by Amazon or one of its subsidiaries (such as AmazonEncore books, AmazonCrossings books and Amazon Basics) transfers immediately to you upon receipt of the item and you can dispose of them at your convenience, but you may not transfer ownership to another person at any time. In the case of products provided by other suppliers, the product supplier retains ownership for six months from the date of your review, after which you may keep or destroy the product, but again you may not transfer ownership to anyone else. 

Wait, what now? Amazon: do you know you’re dealing with people who know how to read? From http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=ownership:

ownership: the relation of an owner to the thing possessed; possession with the right to transfer possession to others

So, if they transfer ownership, they are transferring the right to transfer possession to others. That’s what the word means.

I can understand publishers and Amazon getting sniffy if review copies are flooding the market before release dates, but the answer to that is simple: make it policy that selling pre-release copies (and it’s obvious when you get a review reader copy), before the release of the actual book will result in you being evicted from the Amazon Vine programme.

I’ve never sold any of the items I’ve received on Vine. I love books, I collect books, and I’m happy that my collection grows at 2 books/month beyond what I buy at no cost to myself in return for a review on the website for the majority of them. I’ve had books I’ve loved, books I’ve hated, and books I’ve simply just not seen the point of and been indifferent to. But I have always considered those books mine on receipt, and without logging into the Amazon Vine site, I wouldn’t even be able to identify which books came from the programme any more. They do not sit on a special shelf, so when the time comes to start selling copies off, I’m not sure I can definitely state that in 10 years time I will not sell off an edition I received via Vine.

Because these books are typically first prints of first editions, if the book should become very popular, this of course means I might profit greatly from the transaction. Publishers don’t want that to happen. All I can say is, the great success of the book to get it to that point is in part thanks to us reviewers talking it up in its earliest days. Stop being so silly.

Whilst I also understand the need of publishers to make sure the hundreds of review copies they give away don’t reduce initial sales because the reviewers are all flogging them on Amazon or eBay, I think this is a little silly. Just ask reviewers to play fair, and we will. We’re not bad people.

In fact, make it a condition that selling anything within six months is a no-no. I don’t think we’d have a problem with that. But trying to redefine the meaning of the word “ownership”? That’s crazy talk.

It gets better though:

2) You may submit Vine reviews on other websites, but not to any online or offline channel that advertises or offers the Vine product for sale except in the form of a link to a website operated by Amazon or its affiliates. 

So if you get a free copy of a book from Vine, you love it, you tell all your friends about it, and you go onto forums that happen to be affiliated with Waterstone’s (or B&N in the states) rather than Amazon, you’re in breach of T&Cs.

Amazon are - I suspect - paid by the publisher to distribute their books via Vine. I can’t imagine they make a loss on it. Therefore, I can’t quite understand how it’s in the publisher’s interest for a reviewer to talk less about a book that they love. I also have no idea how Amazon intend to police this.

If I recommend a book to a friend whilst in a bookshop, do I also have to “subtly hint” in the conversation that the book is available on Amazon.co.uk don’t you know and that Amazon is really good, or is discussion of the book whilst in a bookshop to be met with a mute indifference by me? If not, it possibly means I am submitting a review in an “offline channel” in a context that “advertises or offers” the book for sale in a form that isn’t a link to Amazon.

My friend might actually buy the book on my recommendation right there and then. How is it in the publisher’s interest that I refuse to discuss it. What if I forget that I originally got my copy on Vine and the Amazon police are around the corner and get to hear of it? Will I be punished?

These two combined make the Vine programme a little more crazy than I thought, when you try and stick to the letter of the T&Cs as opposed to perhaps the spirit.

On receiving a book, I can only discuss it on Amazon or Amazon-affiliated websites and nowhere else and I must keep the book for ever more and not sell it, give it away, donate it, or let anybody else consider it theirs until the end of time.

I am permitted however, to set fire to it. Book-burning: the kind of party Amazon Vine approves! Just you know, don’t talk about the books unless you have a laptop open nearby with Amazon.co.uk up…

I ordered up two books last night on Vine I am looking forward to receiving. I suspect they may be my last. I simply can’t see how I can commit to complying with those two conditions in a sensible way until the end of time, and I’m not somebody who likes to know he might be breaching an agreement unintentionally.

Maybe one day somebody will see sense at Amazon or at the publishers and they’ll make this all a lot simpler: don’t sell the books within six months, and whilst you’re free to talk about them wherever you want, your first and primary review should be submitted on Amazon. Simple.

bookoasis:

The World In A Bookshop by infra-leve.

My living room is starting to look like this actually…

This is not an exciting story, despite the title. But it’s true. And it happens to dozens of people every day, and is the reason why getting to work in London can sometimes take so long.

First, let me explain that this is not a story of me causing a fire alarm to go off, for anti-terrorist police to close a station for half an hour, or some dramatic incident that has left TfL seeking an ASBO against me.

This is a story that starts with a strap of a backpack. This strap, in fact:

This morning I caught a tube from Baron’s Court on the District Line heading East. Normally I change at South Kensington for a Circle Line to Moorgate, or hop off at Mansion House and walk up to the office through the City. This morning I had decided to stay on the District line until Blackfriars, and change there for a Circle line. It’s a man’s perogative, etc.

The tube this morning was very busy. During the Olympics it has on the whole been very quiet, but this morning it was the normal 8:15-8:45am peak time crush. I was stood right next to the door at the very front of the train, crushed in by about 20 other souls attempting to share the exact same square foot I was stood on.

At Victoria, as is often the way for the District Line, a lot of hustling and bustling went on as people fought their way out to the platform, and others tried to struggle onto the train. After around a minute, the doors closed.

Except for the one next to me. Looking down, it was jammed on my bag strap.

Swearing, I attempted to free it. It was jammed solid because the hydraulic pressure of the door was pushing against it, but not with sufficient force for the door to close. The guy next to me tried to help. The guy on the platform waiting for the next train also tried to help. Neither of us could free it. Moving it simply led to the door moving along a bit, keeping the strap jammed.

Then the sound of hydraulics releasing was heard, all the doors on the train went to open, and the driver climbed out of the cab. The release of pressure had allowed me to unjam the strap, and recover it into the train. The driver confirmed we were all fine, climbed back into the cab, closed the doors, and off we went.

I apologised to those around me for delaying their journey, even though the total delay was perhaps 60-90 seconds.

Then realised everybody else on the train was delayed, too.

Then a thought about queuing theory and a little knowledge about how loaded that line is with train traffic at that time of the morning hit me: I had delayed tens of thousands of people.

Let me explain how I worked this out.

The District Line is composed of rather large gauge trains. I estimate that conservatively, each train is capable of shifting 2,000 people during peak times. There were certainly at least 2,000 people on my train this morning. Yes, they are only 6 carriages each, but each is certainly capable of holding nearly 350 people, and frequently does. I’m prepared to revise my numbers down if shown evidence.

In addition, the District Line platforms are not just used by the District Line. They’re also used by the Circle line between Gloucester Road and Tower Hill.

A glance at any “passenger information display” on a platform along this part of the network during rush hour will tell you the mean time between trains is 1 minute. There are close to 60 trains an hour going along that piece of track during rush hour.

Because my train was delayed for over a minute, this must have caused the train behind it to be given a red signal. This in turn would have caused the train behind that to be given a red signal, and so on. This buffer effect would be dampened beyond Gloucester Road going West, because the Circle and District lines diverge, giving more time for the red signals to switch to green, meaning scheduled trains would not have to stop in an unscheduled manner.

However, there would have been at least - I think - 5 trains affected by this delay in addition to my own. So we’re now up to 12,000 people in total delayed by my bag strap jamming a door.

It gets worse.

I changed at Blackfriars to a Circle line train. I got off the train I had delayed, waited 60 seconds on the platform and got on the Circle line train immediately following it, obviously now delayed. Cautiously making sure my bag was far from any doors, I boarded aware this train was now at least 2 minutes late against schedule.

Satisfied at the figure I had come up with of around 12,000 delayed passengers, I had assumed I had done no more damage, until we got to Aldgate.

The tube system has a tendency to expect passengers always want to be moving all of the time. Any delay of more than a minute or two at a station is always explained via an announcement. As we sat at Aldgate, the driver announced we were being “regulated” by a red signal. Looking out of the window, I could see an East-bound Metropolitan line train crossing our tracks to head across to East London.

That’s when it hit me. We were “out of position”. The train was a couple of minutes late, and so the guys running the switching had decided to give priority to the Metropolitan Line train, and we were held for approximately 4-5 minutes.

Whilst this part of the Circle line between Aldgate and Tower Hill was not as busy as the District/Circle line Tower Hill back West, a 4 minute delay was enough to ensure that the train behind us was going to be red signalled waiting for us to clear the platform.

That would be enough for the train behind that to be stopped.

And that would be enough for the train behind that to be stopped, which would probably be on the shared part of the network. That would be enough to cascade across the whole part of that line back to Gloucester Road, causing delays to perhaps 12 trains in total.

By now the numbers per carriage were down a little as we were close to the end of peak, but there was probably at least 1,000 people per train out there. Rounding up for the few more probably still around the Victoria area, and we’re up to 25,000 people.

There’s obviously some fudging here - people boarding trains at the “correct time” for them, did not realise the train they were getting was in fact the one after the one they had expected, and they did not suffer any delay. But I also suspect that this effect wasn’t dampened until after the peak ended at around 9:30am, and there were people who boarded their trains at 8:30am or before still out there (it can take 60 minutes easily to get from the “end” of a line into central London), whose journey had taken at least a few minutes longer than normal.

I doubt many noticed. I doubt anybody cares.

But it did make me think about how queueing theory applies to real world problems, and how when TfL moan about people keeping coats, bags and belongings clear of the doors, or jamming the doors to squeeze on rather than wait 6 more minutes for the next train, that they might have a point.

If you cause a train to be delayed, you are not simply inconveniencing the dozen or so people glaring at you in your vicinity. Or the people on the rest of the train who would glare at you if they could. But in fact, you have a cascade effect down the rest of the network. Tens of thousands of people delayed, because you didn’t want to wait 5 minutes. Or because you didn’t keep an eye on your belongings near the door.

I’ll certainly be more careful in future.

The next time I’m sat waiting for a signal to clear or am told that we are “being regulated”, I’ll wonder about whose bag or foot was to blame, and how the numbers of people flowing through London make butterflies flapping their wings on the network capable of huge cascading effects on transport infrastructure.

In South Kensington they take their fashion so seriously, that if you find yourself on the District/Circle line platform wearing something untrendy, TfL have got you covered. 

Gap are a bit mainstream though. Surely a jumper from somewhere more boutique would have been more fitting?

Con CSS se logra aumentar la densidad de las palabras clave dentro de los contenidos, ya que muchas de las etiquetas ocuparán muchísimo menos espacio. Esto también supone un menor peso para las páginas Web, lo cual agradecen tanto los robots de búsqueda como los usuarios finales. Adicionalmente se podrá cambiar rápidamente los estilos de ciertas palabras, modificando la importancia que les quieres otorgar ante los robots de búsqueda...

Un abuso de frecuencia en la palabra a menudo es interpretado como spam y es penalizado. Debemos mantener siempre el contenido de las Webs legible para las personas, pues además del tema de las penalizaciones de contenidos hechos solo para buscadores debemos tener en cuenta que el objetivo final de nuestras Webs e llegar a los usuarios y ofrecerles contenidos de calidad que ...

Un tema que he visto poco tratado en los foros y sitios SEO es el posicionamiento web en sitios multi-lenguajes (o multi-idiomas), es decir, el posicionamiento web de aquellos sitios que tienen versiones en más de un idioma. Sin embargo, considero que es un tema muy interesante, por lo cual he decidido compartir algunas ideas que me he ido formando al respecto, sobre el como realizar la implementación y el posicionamiento Web de un sitio multi-lenguaje. Primeramente es bueno destacar...

Como usar las estadísticas para el posicionamiento Web? La evaluación de los resultados del posicionamiento Web es un paso requerido en dicho trabajo. A través de la evaluación se detectan que estrategias están dando resultados, cuales no, y se redirige el trabajo de posicionamiento según las necesidades. El estudio de las palabras claves y frases de entradas, y llegar a conocer con cuales hemos aparecido en las primeras posiciones de los buscadores, así como ...

Las herramientas mencionadas de análisis de registros no siempre logran diferenciar bien cuando un acceso fue generado por un robot de búsqueda, otro tipo de software, visita de usuario y otros tipos de accesos, puesto que la variedad de estos es muy grande. De ahi surge la necesidad de poder separar eficientemente las estadísticas del acceso de usuarios del resto de los tipos de acceso, pues para el análisis con miras al posicionamiento Web resulta de interés manejar estos datos por separado, ya que cada uno representa...

El desarrollo y maduración de los métodos de identificación de contenidos por parte de los robots de búsqueda, y el consecuente desarrollo de las técnicas de posicionamiento Web, hacen pensar en la necesidad de que las herramientas de gestión de contenidos para Web sean capaces de permitir sin restricciones y potenciar la aplicación de los métodos SEO. Centrándonos solo en las necesidades para el posicionamiento Web podríamos identificar las siguientes...

When Sylvia and I started leasing and managing rentals in Austin in the early 1990s, the business operation was phone-based. I had a phone, answering machine, and spiral pad on a desk in our kitchen nook. All business happened there. I also had a Windows PC, a 386 with a dot matrix printer which ran the DOS version of my property management software. If you don’t know what 386, DOS or “dot matrix printer” means, you’re probably less than 40 years old. Oh, it probably had a 2400 baud modem as well, and a 50 meg hard drive. It wasn’t until 1996 that I put up my first website and started using email for business. All rental inquiries thus originated with a phone call to that one phone. It was a “single channel” communication system. Those callers either saw a yard sign or a 3-line ad in the Rentals section ... Read more

One of the more vexing and frustrating aspects of managing a Texas real estate transaction is what we agents call “clearing the Option Period”. The Option/Inspection Period is the agreed upon number of days during which a Buyer can unilaterally terminate the purchase contract. It’s usually 5-10 days. The buyer doesn’t need a reason. It’s a straight up right to terminate, for which the seller is paid a nominal fee, usually less than $500. The problem is that, per the current contract language, a 7 day Option Period ends at midnight on the 7th day. I don’t know about you, but whether you’re a buyer, seller or agent, none of us like being up at 11:45PM waiting for an Amendment and wondering if the deal is going to crater. It’s one of the stupidest things we do, and nobody likes it, but it happens repeatedly. A proposed change to the ... Read more

About a year ago, Sept 2014, during a violent Austin thunder storm, a rental property I personally own in SW Austin was struck by lightening and caught fire in the attic. As the thunderous flash of light, noise and immediate smoke jolted the tenant out of bed at 2:30AM, he quickly realized that he was standing in water. The home was flooding, and also on fire, simultaneously. Wow! Wake up!! His elderly mother was visiting and he was able to get her and his son out quickly as the house filled with smoke. Then he called 911. Then me. I showed up around 3:15AM, sloshed through about 18 inches of water at my driveway, as about 6 firetrucks were on the scene. It was an apocalyptic scene, like out of a movie. But everyone was ok, and the fire was contained to mostly the attic and three bedrooms. But the ... Read more

Update August 2018: The Austin Board of Realtors has Discontinued use of the Coming Soon Status. It caused more trouble that it was worth. Austin Realtors can now enter For Sale listings into the Austin Central Texas MLS before the listing is ready for showing. For up to 14 days prior to the “Active” date. And, therefore, buyer agents and buyers can get a “heads up” on listings that are (supposedly) about to come onto the market live in the MLS. What Problem Does This Solve? During Austin’s red hot seller’s market of the past 5 years, it had become increasingly frustrating for Buyer Agents and Buyers trying to operate in a low inventory market. We heard tales of buyers literally driving zig zag through neighborhoods looking for “Coming Soon” signs. Every new listing that popped up live in MLS became a Red Alert fire drill, as I wrote about ... Read more

Historically in Texas, homes have appreciated at 4.5% annually (according to Texas A&M Real Estate Center). This is the expected appreciation we use when making real estate investment assumptions as well. For example, a $200,000 home would increase in value to $209,000 if appreciation was 4.5% for that year. If you wanted to save for 1 year a 5% downpayment for a $200,000 home in Austin, you would save 5% of the future value of the home, not the current value. You would save for a $209K purchase, $10,450, not $10,000, if saving just for 1 year. Starting in about 2012, homes in Austin have appreciated at a much greater rate, closer to 8% annually. This makes it harder to save for a down payment, like chasing a vanishing horizon. Also, there are no more $200,000 homes. The median value of a home in Austin is now about $400,000 if ... Read more

“Kira öder gibi ödüyorsunuz ama kendi evinizin sahibi oluyorsunuz” yalanıyla mortgage kredi sistemini pazarlayan bankacıların, pazarlamacıların ve televizyoncuların kabirde kemikleri sızlayacak. Bu öyle büyük bir yalan ve öyle bir büyük […]

The post Mortgage Kredisi – ALLAH RIZASI için, Çocuklarınız için ALMAYIN first appeared on Amerikada Birgün.

[Dikkat]: Bu yazıda bahsedilen işgal; 1947, 1960, 1980 vesaire yıllarına ait değildir. Bu yazılanlar 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 ve müdahale edilmediği müddetçe devam edecek bir işgaldir. Tahtakurularının, […]

The post İsrail Filistin Topraklarını Adım Adım Nasıl İşgal ediyor? first appeared on Amerikada Birgün.

In July 2024, the Biden-Harris administration made a significant move to bolster the United States’ energy security by purchasing 4.65 million barrels of crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). This acquisition is part of a broader effort to replenish the SPR, which had been significantly drawn down in response to the global energy crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) confirmed that this latest purchase brings the total amount of crude oil secured for the SPR to over 40 million barrels since the administration began its replenishment efforts. The DOE has been able to procure this oil at an average price of $77 per barrel, which is nearly $20 less per barrel than the average sales price during the emergency releases in 2022. This strategic purchasing not only ensures a good deal for American taxpayers but also maintains the operational readiness of the SPR. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm emphasized the administration’s commitment to safeguarding the nation’s energy security while securing favorable terms for taxpayers. She noted that the DOE has successfully accelerated the return of nearly 5.5 million barrels initially slated for later in the year, further maximizing the...

India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) recently announced the discovery of five new oil and gas sources, marking a significant development for the country’s energy industry. These discoveries were made in multiple regions, both onshore and offshore, and promise to strengthen India’s position in the global energy landscape. One of the most notable discoveries is the PURN-1 well, located in block CB-ONHP-2019/1. This well was drilled to explore the hydrocarbon potential of the Olpad and Kadi formations. During testing, the well produced viscous oil after heat treatment, establishing the presence of oil and gas in the area and opening up new exploration opportunities. Another important discovery is the West Matar-2 well, drilled in the Matar Addl area. This well explored the hydrocarbon potential of the Hazad Formation and resulted in the production of oil and gas in commercial quantities. This discovery is significant as it establishes the commercial viability of the GS-6 and GS-8 sands in the West Matar field. In the offshore sector, ONGC made a promising discovery in the B-56-2 well located in the Tapti-Daman area off Mumbai. This well explored the hydrocarbon potential of the Panna and Bassein formations and produced gas in commercial quantities. This...

The US oil and gas industry is experiencing a paradoxical trend: record-breaking production levels coupled with a significant decline in employment. Despite the United States achieving unprecedented oil and gas output, the number of jobs in the sector has been steadily decreasing. This decline is not driven by climate policies or the rise of clean energy but rather by the industry’s relentless push for efficiency and the cyclical nature of the market. According to recent data, oil production in the US has increased by 5% since 2019, reaching an average of 13.4 million barrels per day. However, employment in the oilfield sector has dropped nearly 20% from pre-pandemic levels. The oil and gas extraction industry employed approximately 112,000 people in 2022, a significant decrease from previous years. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this trend, leading to a loss of nearly 200,000 jobs in the sector, a 20% reduction in the total workforce. Although there are signs of recovery, with projections suggesting a rebound in employment levels by 2027, the current job market remains challenging for many workers. The industry’s focus on efficiency means that fewer workers are needed to produce more oil. This shift has resulted in job losses across various...

In a surprising turn of events, the Brazilian government has found a new ally in its fight against inflation and energy challenges: online casinos and crash games, like Aviator operators. By introducing additional taxes on these rapidly growing sectors, the government aims to channel the revenue into critical areas of the economy, including the burgeoning green energy sector. This strategy not only addresses economic stability but also aligns with Brazil's long-term commitment to sustainable development.

Recently, a significant reserve of oil and gas was discovered in Pakistan’s territorial waters. This finding came after a three-year geographical survey conducted in collaboration with a friendly country. The identification of these reserves could mark an important milestone for Pakistan’s economy. The discovery was confirmed by a detailed study that mapped the exact location of the deposits. The reserves found are considered substantial and have the potential to transform Pakistan’s economy, which currently faces significant financial challenges. The exploitation of these reserves could provide a new source of revenue and reduce the country’s dependence on energy imports. Energy sector experts highlight that, although the discovery is promising, it is still in the early stages of exploration. Considerable investments in infrastructure and technology will be needed to efficiently extract and process the oil and gas. Additionally, the sustainable management of these resources will be crucial to ensure that the economic benefits are long-lasting. The Pakistani government has already been informed about the discovery and is taking steps to initiate exploration activities. The expectation is that, over time, these reserves could significantly contribute to the country’s economic growth, creating jobs and boosting industrial development.

According to the latest GlobalData report, the oil and gas industry is experiencing a slowdown in its energy transition efforts. The report highlights that despite the growing global emphasis on sustainability and reducing carbon emissions, the pace at which the oil and gas sector is adopting renewable energy and other green technologies has decelerated. This slowdown is attributed to several factors, including economic uncertainties and fluctuating oil prices. Investment Shifts and Challenges The report points out that while there has been a significant investment in renewable energy projects, the overall commitment from major oil and gas companies has not met the expected levels. Companies are facing challenges in balancing their traditional fossil fuel operations with the need to invest in cleaner energy sources. The economic pressures and the need to maintain profitability in a volatile market have led to a cautious approach towards large-scale investments in renewable energy. Ravindra Puranik, Oil and Gas Analyst at GlobalData, commented on the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on energy security. He noted that the resultant supply chain disruptions have driven countries towards readily available fossil fuels, thereby boosting oil and gas demand. Puranik also highlighted that the push for energy self-reliance and high...

Awesome

Would buy again!

Scary fast and a major thrill ride

What an amazing machine

More than an absolute beginner should get, but so well designed that only an idiot can mess it up

With Creator Studio, you can easily convert your Google Slides presentations into a video file with audio and upload to YouTube. You can also export slides as animated GIF images.

The post How to Download your Google Slides Presentation as a Video File appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

Want to read faster and better? Switch to Lexend, a free font from Google that can significantly improve your reading speed without losing comprehension.

The post Want to Read Faster? Change your Default Font In Google Docs appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

Learn how to use a Google Sheet to track product prices on Amazon shopping websites and get email alerts when the prices go down or up.

The post How to Use Google Sheets as an Amazon Price Tracker appeared first on Digital Inspiration.

Interested in building widgets? Check out my tutorial!

This tutorial contains the basics, but it also covers some "advanced" topics including:

- Accessing the command line (including PHP, shell scripts, and more)
- Saving and retreiving preferences
- Asynchronous HTTP requests (like those used in most RSS widgets)
- Tapping the power of Quartz drawing methods

I am excited to announce easily my most sophisticated widget ever, Sundial. In the past I have sort of hacked my widgets together. This project was for work, so I was really thorough and did things according to the Apple guidelines (imagine that!). What is Sundial, you ask? Sundial makes it easy to track time on projects through Basecamp. Check it out!

Looking for a secure, random WEP/WPA passkey generator? Check out Entropy. It’s like Make-A-Pass for wireless.

I blogged today about the imminent release of PHP Function Reference 1.0 (and it’s about time!). PHPfr has been stuck at version 0.9.6.2b for over a year now, but the project is fast approaching this important milestone. There are some great new features and it’s localized in English, German and Romanian so far, with more to come. Watch this space for the big announcement sometime (hopefully) in the next week!

Make-A-Pass generates secure, random passwords with the click of a button! This widget is highly configurable, similar to the online utility at WinGuides, but also including FIPS 181 capabilities. Note: most of the configuration options are on the back!

New in Version 2.5:

- Updated for Mac OS X Lion compatibility

Mirza Hassan began as a freelancer, where his passion for WordPress and Shopify ignited his creativity. His dedication and expertise led him to Themefic, a platform for WordPress themes, and PSDtoWPService.com, a service that turns Photoshop designs into WordPress sites. Besides his technical prowess, Mirza has a unique perspective and dedication to his craft. As […]

The post A Conversation with Mirza Hassan, Creator of Tourfic and Ultimate Addons for CF7 appeared first on MonstersPost.

Do you have a WooCommerce store with slow product pages? Images could be the speed bump. Research shows that 60-85% of page load size comes from photos. And excess seconds cripple conversions—a 1-second delay causes a 7% drop in sales! Properly optimized images can drastically accelerate the loading speed of a WordPress online store. Simple […]

The post How to Optimize Images for 10x Faster WordPress Product Pages appeared first on MonstersPost.

More and more people prefer staying at home to work. And, yes, today we will have a small talk about it.

The post Home Based Business Guide + free checklist appeared first on MonstersPost.

It's no secret to our classes that triceps are Craig's favorite track. Worked correctly, triceps develop quickly and add arm definition that looks great on men and ladies alike. So while most tracks are designed to give you practical strength for everyday life, the results you get with triceps can actually be more of more emotional benefit. Especially when someone says "Hey, you look like you've been working out lately."

It was almost exactly four years ago when release 47 hit the streets. For those involved with Pump back then, the 40's series was especially exciting - the program had clearly evolved as a worldwide group fitness regime, and a loyal following numbering in the millions begun to take hold. Maybe it's our nostalgia for those those times, or just the fact that we've played those tracks so doggone much that we always manage to throw a few into our weekly mix. Last week it was 47's Tu Es Fontu, better known to our class as "The Frenchie Song" (no disrespect intended to our French counterparts, we might add).

Prior to release 47, track #5 was a fairly predictable set of presses, extensions, kickbacks, and maybe a few tricep pushups thrown in for good measure. When "Tu Es Fontu" hit the floor, however, we saw presses as a relief for maybe the first time ever - for those who might remember, head choreographer Mike McSweeney said it best: "Enjoy them now, because there aren't that many."

He was right. After an all-too-short set of singles, there's an eternity of thirty eight extensions and an active recovery (presses) before the kickbacks begin. If you ever wondered where your triceps are, you'll know after this routine. It gets the job done, and that's why it was a consistent pick for our Wicked Wednesday series.

Tu m'a promis. You promised me. And we promise you results when you throw this track in the mix.

(posted by Craig) A couple weeks ago, I was giving my usual demonstration for proper deadlift technique before the back & hamstrings track. Getting the form nailed on this part of the routine seems to be a tougher nut to crack with classes than it ought to be. Many times I notice class participants - especially new folks - simply bending over rather than executing the move with the backside leading the motion, knees behind the toes.

And then it struck me - I was thinking of some demonstration I'd seen once where women could bend over and pick up a chair while standing next to a wall, while men would fall forward. So rather than check my facts, I just went with that and proceeded to tell our class full of ladies that it's probably more natural for them to bend over without pushing their butts out than it is for us guys. While demonstrating the motion, I noticed Tami staring at me. "Really?" she asked.

"Oh yes" said I, though it came out with a tad less conviction than I'd hoped. "Haven't you ever seen that little trick where women can bend over and pick up a chair but men fall flat on their faces?"

"No, I haven't."

"You haven't? I thought everybody knew about that. It works because of the way we're balanced - men have more mass concentrated in their shoulders, see, while women have more mass... uh, you know, lower than... men."

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Why don't you show us?"

Self confidence fleeting, I looked around the room for support - by now everyone had stopped getting their weights together. And while most will tell you they come to our classes for the workout, truth be told it's tasty moments like these that surely must add something extra to the post-class locker room conversation. Small wonder, then, that nobody offered up a hint of support.

I stood against the wall, and bent over. Naturally I fell forward. Then Tami did the same. "So much for your anatomy lesson" she said, as my theory dissolved into that sea of satisfied laughter that comes from witnessing a member of the opposite sex make a complete fool of himself.

I wish I could say I learned a lesson that day, but chances are I didn't. It'll happen again. It always does. I suppose that's why Tami gets so many hugs from our class regulars, and why she always says it's a "lot less interesting" when she has to teach alone.

PS. Here's a link to a question and answer info about the women vs. men bending-over thing. I may've been technically right about the difference in balance, but equating it to ease of doing deadlifts probably wasn't my proudest moment!

Just a few days ago we received 65. It turned out that we were the first instructors to receive our music at our club, so Tami put the word out that we're getting to work on our review. Her post had hardly hit our blog when we got several messages back that 65 was old news - not only had other instructors long ago received their music, they'd already launched the release!

To be sure, rollout of a new release must be a huge job - According to LMI these programs now run in more than 10,000 clubs worldwide. Even if you had only one instructor per club that'd be a big undertaking, but of course there's quite a few more than that.

Which begs the question - does this distribution model really make sense anymore? Really, in this age of iTunes and movies over the internet, can we not make use of technology to help get the job done? Obviously having downloadable releases won't work for everyone, but consider this - for those instructors who do have access to a fast connection and know how to download music to an iPod, this might actually work just fine.

Let's suppose that's one instructor per club - 10,000. And just for the sake of round numbers, let's suppose the cost of putting together the physical materials for each release (CD, DVD, plastic case, book, etc.) is US $15, and the cost for packaging all that up and getting it to an instructor's mailbox is another $5 - so (round numbers again) we're at $20. If my numbers are even remotely close, that puts $200,000 per release back on the table if even one instructor at every club would download their release rather than take physical shipment.

Again, the population of instructors that could benefit from electronic release distribution is probably limited. But maybe - just maybe - it's large enough to make it a viable option. Especially if it means we here in little ol' Blacksburg, Virginia aren't the last ones on the planet to get music anymore!

Well a couple weeks ago we finally got around to launching release #68. Ours is the Wednesday 4:10pm class, an awesome timeslot for everyone who just wants to knock off work a bit early and take a midweek break for an hour. It's our favorite class to teach.
I'm a full-time software developer who's always running five minutes late, so finding the time to pick up choreography can be a challenge sometimes. It's definitely not unusual for me to resort to "cramming" just before class - Tami, on the other hand, is never late and learns her music days ahead of time. Good thing for me that opposites attract!
Our class tells us they enjoy the banter that goes on between Tami and I during the workout. Well there's nothing scripted or made up for that - it's just a continuation of what goes on between us pretty much most of the time. It just so happens for an hour that day everyone gets to overhear it. I'm behaving badly in this pic to the right, with Tami on the verge of thumping my head lest I forget who really wears the pants in our family.
Somehow, in spite of ourselves, we usually manage to run a pretty tight class. Form - not weight - is our hot topic, and we've found that most everybody really wants to execute the routines properly. Last week we ran another of our Form Friday classes - the cool thing this last time around was that we were mostly helping people make "fine tuning" adjustments (all the typical "big stuff" seemed to be in pretty good shape!) Which brings me to the closing thought for this post - maybe it's time to resurrect our Wicked Wednesday mix for this afternoon's class...

Question! -Why Haven't you heard from Me!Answer! -Nothing to Say! If the frequency of Bike Stuff coupons were graphed lately it would look like this: _______________ Straight Line. Except for Nashbar's generous consistent offer of 10% off Coupons I would have nothing to offer!Just for variety I've included REI, they have a fair amount of Bike Stuff and currently offer $20 off of $100 or more & $30 off of $150 or more. Also I'm going to start offering exclusive coupons through this EMAIL list and the RSS feed NOT available on the Website so stay tuned to this list for the most complete and current list of Discount Coupons for Bike Gear Available anywhere! That is, when we start getting some!Thanks,CarlDetails: http://www.bikewebsite.com/Otherbikesources.htm#Coupons