This set covers Points from Stage 8 to Stage 12.

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

So I was telling you about evil tables and overflow errors.  I was able to crank out consolidated ones for Team, Hill Climbing, and Youth.

Tonight I’ll attempt to assemble a complete data set.  I’m dividing it into chunks to make debugging easier and to identify true overflows (there’s a lot of information and the formatting is not trivial).

This particular group has all been previously published and covers Point standings until Stage 7.  I hope to follow shortly with the other daily Point standings and then with General Classification tables and Team, Hill Climbing, and Youth (also to date).

Among other useless skills and trivia picked up in my misspent youth, I know how to use a Research Library.

What lies behind the battle over the New York Public Library

Jason Farago, The Guardian

Saturday 7 July 2012

Libraries across America are facing swingeing budget cuts and uncertain futures. But here in New York, home to the second-largest library in the country, the future is now.

The hottest cultural controversy of this already hot summer concerns the New York Public Library (NYPL), and a plan to disembowel its main building – a plan that will slice open the stacks and “replace books with people”, in the words of the NYPL system’s CEO, Tony Marx. It’s enraged writers and professors, demoralized a staff already coping with layoffs, and called the entire purpose of the system into question.

…

Unlike the borough branches, the central library does not lend books. It’s a research institution, and compared to establishments of the same caliber – the Library of Congress, say, or the collections of Harvard and Yale – it is exceptionally open. You don’t need an academic affiliation. You don’t need to pay for a reader’s ticket. You don’t even need to come up with a convincing excuse to call up Walt Whitman’s manuscripts if you want to have a rifle through. Just fill out a call slip and you can have it in about an hour.

The new Central Library Plan, though, will move 3m books (about 60% of what’s now on site) out of the central facility, to be immured in some bunker in New Jersey. Researchers have been promised that they can summon these books with a day’s notice. But the library already promises that for books currently off-site, and it doesn’t really work that way; in practice, it takes closer to two or three days.

…

What will take the place of the books? Well, the closed stacks will be smashed open to make way for a smaller lending library, to supersede the large one across the street from the main facility which the NYPL plans to sell off. That worries not just researchers but architectural preservationists. The library, designed by Carrère and Hastings, is a masterpiece of engineering; unusually, the grand reading room sits at the top of the building, perched on stacks that were state of the art in their day.

…

A research library has a different mission from a lending library; it’s there to put everything, not just the most popular volumes, at our disposal. If you hit an intriguing footnote that references another publication, or if you find an irregularity in a text and want to check it against another source, all you have to do now is grab one of the library’s stubby golf pencils, write down the title, and it’s yours. That will soon be gone, and its effect on research will be brutal if not mortal.

…

The central library plan might not be irredeemable. Several advocates have proposed a sensible alternative that would keep most of the books in town. But the NYPL has shown no inclination to listen to its own users, or even to make its deliberations public, and that is the truly worrying thing. Replacing books with people may look accessible and anti-elitist. But the real popular gesture is to keep research free for all.

Instead, on the advice of some of the world’s most profitable consultancies and a board full of oligarchs, we are being told that what we really deserve is not a world-class library, but comfy chairs and blueberry muffins.

Samatan / Pau (98.5 miles)

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Perhaps you have wondered what would happen if you ran out into the middle of the course and dumped a box of tacks.

Well now you know.

Everyone stops as soon as they can’t pretend not to have heard about it anymore and waits around until they fix all the flats and clean up the tacks.

Sportsmanship of the misplaced sort you get in contests where you’re packing your bag for the quick get away.

The breakway was 18 minutes ahead and made no difference in the standings.

Today is short and bumpy with the possibility of a Sprint finish.  Two category 3s and a category 4 stand between the Award point and the finish which could screw that up.

Robert Kiserlovski was forced to withdraw yesterday.  Luis León Sánchez won the stage.

General Classification

Coverage is customarily on Vs. (NBC Sports) starting at 8 am with repeats at noon, 2:30 pm, 8 pm, midnight, 8 am, 11:30 am, and 3 pm.  There will be some streaming evidently, but not all of it is free.

Tomorrow is a rest day in Pau which accounts for the extended repeats.  My Rest Day 2 piece will be up some time before the Rest Day Recap on Vs. (NBC Sports) at 8 pm.

Getting right to those tables, ayup.

Sites of Interest-

• 2012 Le Tour
• Samatan / Pau (98.5 miles)
• Wikipedia
• Geek Guide (very basic)
• Guardian Interactive Guide

The Stars Hollow Gazette Tags-

• Le Tour
• 2010 Le Tour
• 2011 Le Tour
• 2012 Le Tour

Lifeguard’s ordeal is parable about outsourcing

By Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post

Published: July 14

Because they are generally free from union contracts and the unwritten norms of pay equality that exist within any enterprise, contractors are able to pay lower wages and benefits – in many cases, a lot lower. That was certainly the case with Ellis and the Hallandale lifeguards.

The second big advantage that outsourcing firms enjoy is the economies of scale. A firm that specializes in one function and does a lot of it can generally do it at a lower cost simply by spreading fixed costs over a much larger base of business.

Simply by having more experience, a specialty contractor is also more likely to hit upon the most efficient and effective ways of doing things and can quickly adopt those improvements throughout its operations.

…

There is, however, an important trade-off that is made by outsourcing that contractors reflexively deny but is inherent in any firm that derives its competitive advantage from having carefully constructed systems for doing just about everything.

It is these systems – the rules, the procedures, in effect the operational software – that allow companies to take relatively low-skilled, low-paid workers with relatively little experience and have them do tasks that were once done by people with higher skills, higher pay and more experience. And it is the very nature of these systems that workers are discouraged, if not prohibited, from exercising their own discretion. Their only job is to follow rules, stick to the script and leverage the experience and expertise that are embedded in the system.

That’s why the person in the airline call center in Bangalore can’t do what is necessary to help you catch your honeymoon cruise after your flight has been canceled because a co-pilot failed to show up on time. Her computer simply won’t allow her.

…

The reason these various systems can deliver reliable service at lower cost most of the time is precisely because front-line workers are willing and able to act like cogs in a machine. So when two of Lopez’s colleagues later told supervisors they would have done the same thing, they were fired as well.

If you want discretion and judgment, if you want workers who really understand and relate to customers, if you want the flexibility necessary to respond to individual needs or unforeseen circumstances, then you can go back to paying twice as much to have your own, longtime employees doing the work. That’s the outsourcing trade-off. It may be a good trade-off – most of the time I suspect it is. But it is an unavoidable trade-off, no matter how good the contractors or their systems.

Limoux / Foix (119 miles)

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

So Wiggins rode point for Boasson Hagen (Geipel won anyway) and the commentariat can’t wait to proclaim him the new “boss”. Le Tour has reached that gossipy point where Vilager Idiots are talking about “respect” and not wanting to be too dominant.

Fools.  Tiger Woods is already coming to win on Thursday and your quaint 20th century notions of “sportsmanship” are obsolete.  This race is just little over half over but it’s already done.

I suppose a bus.  First day of the Pyrenees and someone could put it away or back in contention over the one 2 and two category 1 climbs.  The Point award is well after the initial category 2, but even in Point competition the margins are all in favor of the current leaders and it’s unlikely here shall be much change unless someone gets caught out on the time limit.

Tom Veelers and David Moncoutie withdrew Friday and Robert Gesink did not start.  Tony Gallopin withdrew yesterday.

General Classification

Coverage is customarily on Vs. (NBC Sports) starting at 8 am with repeats at noon, 2:30 pm, 8 pm, and midnight.  There will be some streaming evidently, but not all of it is free.

Sites of Interest-

• 2012 Le Tour
• Limoux / Foix (119 miles)
• Wikipedia
• Geek Guide (very basic)
• Guardian Interactive Guide

The Stars Hollow Gazette Tags-

• Le Tour
• 2010 Le Tour
• 2011 Le Tour
• 2012 Le Tour

(an annual tradition)

Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux / Le Cap d’Agde (135 miles)

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Oh I’m sure it looked exciting with the 5 rider break away and the 4th British stage winner and all, but it was much less than it seemed and the last Mountain stage before the Pyrenees.

This is a Sprinter’s stage, a hot, flat, humid ride by the Med punctuated by an Award point and a category 3 climb at the end.  I can’t see that it will change much anymore than yesterday’s results did.

Today is Bastile Day, a traditional time for French riders to try and make some noise.

General Classification

Coverage is customarily on Vs. (NBC Sports) starting at 8 am with repeats at noon, 2:30 pm, 8 pm, and midnight.  There will be some streaming evidently, but not all of it is free.

Sites of Interest-

• 2012 Le Tour
• Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux / Le Cap d’Agde (135 miles)
• Wikipedia
• Geek Guide (very basic)
• Guardian Interactive Guide

The Stars Hollow Gazette Tags-

• Le Tour
• 2010 Le Tour
• 2011 Le Tour
• 2012 Le Tour

Let’s Talk Turkey About Greece

Ian Welsh

2012 May 26

• Start gun-running and other black market activities up.  European gun-running currently goes through Albania.  Greece has much better ports.  If the Euros don’t like it, they can militarize Greece’s borders at a cost much higher than feeding the Greeks.
• Become a full on black-hole for banking.  If anyone wants to store money in Greece, they can.  No questions asked, no forms needed.
• Make deals with other “pariah” and semi-pariah nations.  Start with Iran and Russia for oil (Iran will be happy to give oil in exchange for black market help).  Make a deal with various 2nd world nations for food, start with Argentina, they have no reason to love the IMF or the European Union, which promised to “punish” them for nationalizing oil in Argentina.  In exchange Greece can offer use of their fleet, for cheap, and port rights for the Russian navy.  They’ve wanted a true warm water port for some time.  Offer them a nice island in the Med with a 30 year lease.

Europe’s Downturn Creates Unlikely Smugglers

By STEPHEN CASTLE and DOREEN CARVAJAL, The New York Times

Published: July 11, 2012

For years, law enforcement officers and smugglers have played cat and mouse in Europe, where contraband cigarettes are stashed in everything from furniture shipments to loads of Christmas trees. But Europe’s four-year-old economic crisis is expanding the black market for cigarettes, robbing European Union nations of valuable revenue and drawing in a new class of smugglers.

…

Hard facts about this smuggling trade are found in the lowliest places: the garbage. In annual surveys, financed by cigarette companies, researchers fan out to major cities in 27 European nations and collect crumpled cigarette packs. In turn those packs are analyzed by laboratories to determine how many are bought across the counter and how many are counterfeit. Some boxes are so meticulously produced in China, Dubai or Eastern Europe that they contain bogus tax stamps for different nations.

The latest results of the garbage scavenging showed the black market competition had increased to record levels. In Spain, illicit sales last year soared 300 percent to more than 4.6 billion cigarettes. In the struggling region of Andalusia, they showed, contraband cigarettes commanded 20 percent of the market.

In Ireland, smugglers are robust competitors with legal cigarette companies, reaching more than 17 percent. Over all, black market cigarettes continued a steady climb for the fifth straight year, topping 10 percent of consumption or 65 billion cigarettes, according to the annual report issued in June by KPMG for Philip Morris International.

…

“A lot of people perceive this as a ‘Robin Hood’ type of fraud and that the ordinary person in the street, who has a lot less money these days, is gaining the benefit,” said Austin Rowan, head of the unit responsible for cigarette smuggling at OLAF, the European Union’s Anti-Fraud Office. “But this trade is financing organizations that are involved in other activities including drugs smuggling.”

Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne / Annonay Davézieux (140.4 miles)

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

You see, it’s not just the 1:26.  You can think of scenarios where you could make that time back.  Nope, it’s the fact that you now need 3 buses and Cadel Evans has demonstrated that he’s not even close to finding a solution to any of the other contenders.

Yes, we have Medium Mountains today.  Two category 1s and a category 3 with the Award point after the two category one climbs.  However much the commentators and organizers may wish it however, it doesn’t seem like that’s any kind of advantage for Evans.  He can’t out climb, out sprint, or out trial them, what exactly is he supposed to do?

Mark Renshaw, Bauke Mollema, Rob Ruijgh, Gustav Larsson, and Lieuwe Westra had to withdraw yesterday, Fabian Cancellara did not start so he could visit his wife and newborn.  Alessandro Petacchi and Yuriy Krivtsov were outside the time limit.  Jean-François Pescheux, the official site analyst, thinks that many more Sprinters will be forced out today.

General Classification

Coverage is customarily on Vs. (NBC Sports) starting at 6:30 am with repeats at noon, 2:30 pm, 8 pm, and midnight.  There will be some streaming evidently, but not all of it is free.

Sites of Interest-

• 2012 Le Tour
• Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne / Annonay Davézieux (140.4 miles)
• Wikipedia
• Geek Guide (very basic)
• Guardian Interactive Guide

The Stars Hollow Gazette Tags-

• Le Tour
• 2010 Le Tour
• 2011 Le Tour
• 2012 Le Tour