Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) made a second attempt at curbing the greatly over reaching Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that was passed as an amendment to the 2006 Safe Ports Act. His first attempt, H.R. 5767 Payments System Protection Act, failed to make it out of the House Financial Services Committee. His new bill, H.R. 6870 Payments System Protection Act of 2008, DID make it out of committee this past Wednesday passing by a 30-19 vote. The bill will now be discussed by the House at large. Alfonce D’Amato, Chairman of the Poker Players’ Alliance, said of the passing of H.R. 6870, “The PPA is pleased that the House Financial Services Committee today recognized the need to provide necessary clarification to what constitutes ‘unlawful Internet gambling’ under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) by passing H.R. 6870.” Read the rest of Chaiman D’Amato’s comments at the PPA blog.

This new bill takes a slightly different tact than last year’s failed bill. H.R. 6870 seeks to restrict the UIGEA’s jurisdiction to only those forms of gambling already explicitly prohibited by Federal law. This includes only sports betting, at the moment, but the bill also asks the Secretary of the Treasury to clarify exactly what forms of gambling are directly prohibited so as to remove the great amount of ambiguity and confusion in the online gaming, and especially poker, sector now. The passage of this bill could open up online poker to US citizens again in a clearly legal fashion, at least at the Federal level.

Personally, I don’t think this will fully clear the waters regarding online poker, nor ease the concerns that some have over rouge entities taking advantage of unwary players, nor address underage gaming. It IS a start in the correct direction, and hopefully will lead to legislation that offers a framework for the regulation and oversight of online gaming sites and the protection against underage gaming. From a business perspective, these two things are key to an online cardroom’s continued existence and profitability, and it only seems logical that our country, as the standard bearers of capitalism, should embrace policies that permit the successful and safe operation of businesses offering services demanded by the populous.

We watched the weather report on Sunday morning with great interest. On Saturday, the prediction had been for increasing clouds and thunderstorms, some heavy, through out the afternoon. They couldn’t have been more wrong as Saturday was hot and sunny all day. So when we saw the prediction of the remnants of hurricane Ike hitting the track midday we thought, “Yeah, right. They said that yesterday, too.” Well, this time they got things exactly right. Morning warmup wasn’t too bad. Little spits of rain here and there, but nothing of any big concern. The white IMS poncho was a popular purchase at the souvenir booths as was evident by their numerous appearances in the stands. However, unlike what I usually see during a wet day for the 500, many of the riders were far better prepared than having a glorified trash bag to throw over themselves. Note for next year: get wet weather riding gear for the track. That stuff looks great! Expensive, perhaps, but they sure looked far less miserable than the rest of us.

The first race of the day was the Red Bull Rookie Cup, which was an exciting race to watch. Unfortunately, the AMA riders didn’t fare so well this race after taking 1st and 2nd in Saturday’s race. After a yummy lunch of track fries and an giant breaded tenderloin (YUM!) we got ready to watch the 125cc race. The weather started out ok, but the track was wet and we had expected to see a lot of riders off in the gravel. However, we were surprised to see that the miscues were minimal, fewer even than one would expect during a dry race. Although the weather started out ok, things deteriorated rapidly eventually bringing a halt to the race! The wind was starting to get really bad and the rain was coming down in sheets. Well, I say coming ‘down’ when really it was coming in sideways! This was the worst weather conditions I’d ever seen at the speedway, including the 2005 Indy 500 when a tornado warning was issued at the end of the race! The National Weather Service had issued a high wind warning for the Indianapolis area that was supposed to terminate at 3pm, right before the MotoGP race, but it kept getting extended and turned out to be valid for most of the day. As a result of the storm, the 250cc race was postponed until after the MotoGP race.

As per usual, when it rains at IMS, the fans all seek refuge under the grandstands. The place was completely packed in! During the 500, many fans walk back to their cars and just leave, since with the conditions that we had on Sunday would have brought a complete halt to any IndyCar action. These riders, though, will ride in any kind of dry or wet weather, so the race was still on.

At long last, the weather finally broke and we made our way back to our seats, and the MotoGP race did NOT disappoint! Nicky Hayden (as close to a local boy as you can get being from KY) started 4th, but stormed through the field with a great start passing defending world champion Casey Stoner right in front of us to take over 2nd place on the first lap. In turn one of the second lap, Nicky passed Dovizioso for the race lead, a lead he would retain for the majority of the race. Every lap that Nicky would come by, there was enormous jubilation from the fans!

Valentino Rossi would eventually catch and overtake Nicky, but he would hold onto 2nd place with fading tyres as the remnants of Hurricane Ike came back for another round. The debris blowing around the Speedway was terrible, many of the grandstand flags were ripped from their flagpoles, many a poncho found their way onto the racing surface, and the power went out in many parts of the Speedway including the scoring pylon! At lap 20, the MotoGP race was terminated, and the 250cc race was canceled. I was particularly disappointed about the 250cc race as I’d really hoped to see a real bar-brawl of a race, and my fav 250 rider, Hector Barbara, was on pole and very quick all weekend. Oh well, what can you do? Some fans have been grumbling loudly about truncated 125cc and MotoGP races saying they didn’t get what they paid for. Sounds to me like those “fans” only came out on Sunday. The tickets were well worth the price for us, and we enjoyed three days of great on-track action at the greatest motorsports facility in the world! We’re definitely coming back next year!

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Saturday started out slightly overcast, but rapidly became sunny and hot. With all the rain from Friday, it also became incredibly humid! We did run into the strangest sight of the weekend, two cars parked next to each other from completely opposite sides of the automotive design spectrum. We couldn’t help but laugh at the scene.

As we made our way across the infield, we stopped along the back stretch to watch some of the riders wizz by on the much drier, although still damp, track and marveled at the huge drop in the lap times from Friday. Well, all except for Anthony West who was fastest on Friday and the absolute slowest on Saturday, some 3+ seconds off the pace. Instead of walking around the joint like we did on Friday, we decided to rest our legs and check out our seats in Stand H. Apparently a LOT of other people had the same idea. I’m not going to say the place was packed, but there was definitely a healthy turn out. The Stand B penthouse seats where we sat on Friday were pretty nice and offered a good view of the front straight, pit-out, and turns 1-4, but Stand H was by far the better place to watch the race. The final sequence of turns and the run down the front stretch offered some great action. The two large video screens infront of our seats offered the opportunity to watch the times during the qualifications while keeping an eye on the track.

The qualifications for the 125cc, 250cc, and GP bikes were amazing. Especially impressive were the 250cc riders. They were fighting tooth and nail, every one, to get that last tenth of a second out of their ride. In the end, it was Hector Barbera who held the pole after also posting the top time in morning practice. There was a lot of bad blood between the top riders after a very aggressive battle at the Misano event, and the race at Indy was shaping up to be the best one to watch. The GP qualifications, although exciting and fun to watch, were also rather predictable. Valentino Rossi, who is perhaps the best rider in MotoGP history, set the pole followed closely by his rival for the series championship Casey Stoner. Local fan favorite, Nicky Hayden qualified a solid fourth just ahead of multiple AMA champion and MotoGP hopeful Ben Spies. The two other Americans in the race, Collin Edwards and John (Hopper) Hopkins, didn’t do so well and qualified in 11th and 16th, respectively.

The first race of the weekend, the first Red Bull Rookies’ Cup race, was the last event of the day, so we decided to get out of the sun and find some shade near the Yard-Of-Bricks. Again, the view from the start-finish line was pretty amazing, and it was neat to see the bikes on grid, but Stand H is still tops in my book.

The race was fun to watch, and two of the American AMA riders battled for the win. Unfortunately, from that vantage point, we couldn’t see much of the race except for what we could see on the smaller video screen on top of the Tower Terrace grandstands. What we DID get to see was Nicky Hayden showing off his bike to none other than Danica Patrick! My little camera is great for parties and some general photography, but it was definitely out of its league here. I did the best I could to get a shot, but the pictures are still pretty fuzzy. …kinda reminds me of ‘Nessie’ or ‘UFO’ photos.

Nicky and Danica talking in front of the frenzied media.

Danica trying out the feel of Nicky’s MotoGP bike.

Here’s a little video summary of the day’s events.

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In a word. Ick. Here I refer to the weather, not the on-track action which was amazing. I never did make it to a Formula One race when the the USGP was at IMS, so this was my first time seeing the Speedway in its road course configuration. Looking at the track, the flow of the curves, and the transitions from infield to the oval sections, I thought it was the absolute best possible layout. Many who had never experienced the Speedway before were extremely skeptical of the IMS road course being like to many other ‘rovals’, thinking that infield section would be tight and twisty with few if any passing zones, and the transition onto the front stretch would be from a flat track to a severe banking. Those of us who know the Speedway knew better.

The initial forecast was for an 80% chance of rain all three days as the remnants of Gustov continued to pelt Indiana, and Ike was on its way. For Friday, that prediction wasn’t wrong, and our first signs of what the day was going to be like were splattered all over our windshield as we drove in from our stay at Effingham, IL. We outpaced the rain and when we arrived at the track, the weather was grey and overcast, but dry.

We parked in the infield inside of Turn 3 of the oval and started making the long trek around the track. Our first contact with the course and the MotoGP bikes was at the back stretch at the entrance to Turn 10. Much like with seeing the IndyCars at speed live versus on TV, you don’t truly appreciate the speed these riders carry until you see them whip by you at 160-180 mph. Seeing them ride at those speeds on a wet track was even more astounding! We slowly walked our way down the back stretch to see Turns 6, 7, 8, and 9. This was a neat viewing area, but also a low-action area. It offered a great view of the bikes and the pagoda, though.

After touring the Museum (3rd time this year for me, and 1st for my brother and his friend), we met up with a fellow member of the F1Weekly forum, Apexslide. He invited us up to the Stand B Penthouse boxes which was excellent since it had started to rain in earnest and the awning was greatly appreciated! The view of the front stretch, the pits, and the Turns 1 through 4 complex was great, it was at the same time a very bleak view. The rain never let up all afternoon long, completely drenching the track causing some puddling in places including the entrance to Turn 1. Bad place for a puddle as Tony Elias found out. Its really amazing how these riders can fall off the bike at 150+ mph, slide across asphalt, turf, and gravel and then standup, pick their bike up, and ride away. Elias ended up being just fine and did quite well for the remainder of the day. The rain never did stop, and continued to fall well into the evening promising for a wet start to Saturday morning.

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The TwisterSisters is a site that you MUST bookmark if you’re into tornadoes and other extremes of midwestern storms. Peggy and Melanie (oh, and no, they’re not biological sisters, but they are sisters in spirit) spend their springs and summers chasing after storms all throughout the midwest, and they’ve been very successful in their hunts. Just check out their photo gallery! Its filled with some of the most amazing storm shots I’ve ever seen.
They don’t keep all the chase excitement to themselves, either. You can join them on a chase tour, but you’ll have to hurry for this season. Their last regular tour is on August 16th. After that, short-notice tours are the only option. How did I find out about the TwisterSisters? Well, as it turns out, Peggy is a HUGE motorsports fan. I met her, and found out about her site and storm chasing at the Indy Car Garage. Which is a very cool site all to itself, but that’s a topic for another post.

What a trip! Tab and I left from the west side of Missouri on Thursday night right after Tab got off work and started to head east. We stopped in Effingham, IL for the night before continuing on to Winchester, IN to visit my sister and her family. Being back in Indiana, we had to go to lunch at Pizza King (sausage and bbq, please). YUM! Tab had never had Pizza King pizza before, and now she says its her absolute fav. That night, we met our folks in Muncie at the Cheeseburger in Paradise. Its a cheesy joint, but they do have excellent food and their sweet potato chips rock! While in Muncie, I was surprised to run into Rob, the cousin of my friend Steve, with whom I’ve gone to the Indy 500 for the past eight years. I think he was more surprised than I, “Um, don’t you live in KC?”

Saturday morning - 0530hr - we were on the road from Winchester to Mid-Ohio. It took us a bit longer than we’d though to make it to the track, but we made it in time to see some of the FIL practice and the ICS qualification. With our paddock passes, we roamed around the garages for a while and saw quite a few of the FIL and ICS drivers, but we were too nervous to actually approach any of them. It was cool to see the mechanics working on the vehicles. Every once in a while, you catch an unguarded moment such as this one of a confused mechanic starting in wonder at the Danica’s machine.

We ran into fellow Downforce member and Garager, Christy there in the paddock as well. This was her daughter’s first race, and she got to meet a LOT of drivers. Check out Christy’s photos so see who all she got to meet. While Tab and Christy were visiting there by the Goodyear Tower, I headed down to the Carousel to watch the Firestone Fast Six. The participants were really no surprise: Briscoe, Castroneves, Andretti, Kannan, Dixon, and Wilson. The Carousel section is a 270-degree right-hander just before the front straight, and is a great section for photography since the cars are going a bit slower and not changing directions rapidly as they are in the Esses and the fence is closer to the track than it is in the Keyhole.

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This also proved to be a great location to watch the start of the ALMS race that afternoon. This was our first sports car race, and we loved it. It really brought back something that I’ve felt the 500 has lacked in recent years, different engine sounds! Every type of car that went by had a different engine note. Most radically different were the Audi R10 turbo diesels. Wow, what a sound! After a few first laps (and after watching the AGR #26 Acura go plowing through the turf at the entrance to the Carousel) we headed back to the infield to watch the rest of the ALMS race and the first FIL race. We found that the Esses were the best place to watch, although we did spend some time at Turn 1 as well.

Sunday, we made it to the track in time to see the SCCA Speed World Challenge Touring Car race, but sadly, the Downforce pre-race party was scheduled for the same time. As much as I wanted to see my man Jason Saini kick butt, the pre-race party won out and we got to see Darren Manning. He gave a really fantastic and technical description of racing line strategies through the first two turns of the Esses section. That was very cool to hear, but then I’m a geek. The walking on Saturday killed us, so on Sunday we decided to just park ourselves in the Esses right below the concession stands and bathrooms for the duration. Where Saturday was a beautiful summer day, Sunday was a typical mid-western summer day. Right before the beginning of the Indy Lights race, it rained. Saying “it rained” though is perhaps insufficient. It poured, and stormed! The wind was fierce, blowing the gigantic, bucket-sized rain drops sideways all accompanied by a chorus of thunder and lightning. Our 97c ponchos and tiny little umbrella gave a false sense of security because we were soaked to the bone in spite of them, but at least the backpack was able to keep the camera and phones dry. The rain did make the second FIL race quite exciting! A number of drivers had issues with Turn 5 at the end of the backstretch, but it was cool to hear the fans cheer for them as they struggled to drive out of the wet sand and back onto the race track. Check out this start!

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The rain stayed away for the remainder of the FIL race, but return with a vengeance right before the start of the IndyCar Series race. This meant a start on wet tires, with teams switching as early as they dared to slicks. As an aside, its my humble opinion that the series really needs to allow the use of intermediate tires for conditions such as what we had at the beginning of the race. The track wasn’t soaked enough by time the race started to really justify full wets, but it was too wet for slicks. An intermediate tire would have been perfect. The start of the race was clean with Wilson really charging up hard. It turned out that our selection of viewing locations was pretty good. We got to see a lot of great passing and passing attempts. We even got to see Milka put a pass on Marty Roth! You should have hear the crowd cheer! ]:) Sadly, we weren’t able to keep close tabs on the progress of the race since the track announcers were inaudible over the sounds of the cars. They did have a simulcast on FM which we listened to at first, but the announcers absolutely sucked. “Wilson is out in the lead. Oh there’s someone off in China Beach… So anyway, Wilson is out in the lead.” We tried scanning around the FM and AM dial for the IMS Radio Network broadcast, but without success. So we just sat and enjoyed watching the cars as they went by us, and sometime off onto the beach. As the race wore down, it was obvious, even to us, that Briscoe had figured out his car and the course and was absolutely checking out on the rest of the field. Nice job, that. Briscoe has made remarkable improvements to his racecraft since the beginning of the season, and I’m quite certain that Mr. Penske is happy to be cashing winners checks instead of writing checks for repair bills.

We thought about staying for the SCCA GT race that followed the IndyCar race, but since we needed to make it back to Winchester that night, we decided to start heading west. We finally made it back to my sister’s by 9ish and shared our stories (after taking showers to wash off all of the Ohio mud). The next morning was a bit more relaxing than the previous three up-by-5 mornings had been, and we finally left for home at 9am. It didn’t take us long to get distracted, though. Since we didn’t have any real reason to be home early, and since we were driving right by along I-70, we made a side trip to the Speedway. Tab had never seen the place before, so we went to the museum and took the shuttle bus around the track. Very cool, although I think I was more excited about the track tour than she was. It was a long weekend, but Mid-Ohio was a LOT of fun. Next time we go, though, we’re definitely renting a golf cart!!

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Reports of the demise of Ulysses have been slightly exaggerated. The bird still lives!! It must be admitted, that its living on a day-to-day basis. It was expected that by July 1st, the hydrazine fuel would have frozen in the lines, and the spacecraft would begin to tumble. To stave this off, the flight engineers have been using small alternating bursts from the thrusters to maintain a trickle flow of fuel through the line. This is not unlike the practice of leaving your faucet to run slowly to keep your water pipes from freezing in the winter time. Same concept. Apparently, the trickle trick has been working! Here’s the latest from Nigel Angold, Ulysses Mission Ops Manager:

Dear Ulysses friends and colleagues,

As you are aware, the proposed July 1st Ulysses operations end date
has come and gone. And as a result of our fuel bleeding and other
operations strategies, we have managed to avoid freezing the
hydrazine so far!

Now we are continuing operations on a day-to-day basis until the
fuel freezes. That includes fuel bleeding every 2 hours to keep the
hydrazine moving through the pipes and Earth-pointing manoeuvres
interleaved, when required.

When we see the fuel freezing, we will switch off the S-band and
some instruments for a couple of days in an effort to thaw the
hydrazine. After that, we’ll try to switch on the X-band once again
using some more radical (and hence more risky) procedures.

If the fuel has not frozen by the end of July, we’ll try some benign
X-band switching in early August and plan for radical switching in
late August.

What will happen in the unlikely event that we re-establish our
X-band downlink? Well, obviously we’ll leave it on!!! And at the end
of August we should have enough fuel remaining to continue for a
number of months (assuming that we stop the fuel bleeding). The
short portion of pipe that is currently close to freezing will warm
up but other areas of pipework will cool down and they will get
close to freezing during the last quarter of 2008. As for funding
for operations beyond August, that’s another question.

This coming weekend, we will be testing the redundant on-board
receiver which is connected to the front low gain antenna (LGA-F).
This is to validate our ability to command the spacecraft when the
HGA is not pointing towards Earth e.g. if no manoeuvres have been
performed for several days due to frozen fuel.

I know some of the instrument teams have held wakes to celebrate the
fantastic journey that we have been on all these years. However, I
make no apology for the fact that Ulysses is not dead yet. I hope
that in the coming weeks we get to see the transition from fast to
slow solar wind.

Very best regards,
Nigel

All of this reminds me of that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I finally made it back to a casino after a LONG hiatus. I think the last time I was in a casino was in May of 2007 when I went with my friend Phil to the Horseshoe casino in Council Bluffs. Well, Phil was back in town this past week, so we went to the North Kansas City Harrahs.

Ordinarily, we’d have gone to the Ameristar, but I was listening to my F1Weekly podcast, and flew right by it. :S Well, as it turns out, it was a happy accident. I didn’t risk a lot as the cost of propane right now is killing me! Ten bucks in a video poker machine to warm up yielded a twenty buck cash out. Yay! Already up by ten. Anytime that I end up with about double my starting buy-in, I’m cashing out. Far too many times, I’ve thought “Hey, I’m doing really well! Let’s see if I can win more!” only to piss away not only my winnings, but my original investment as well. Lesson learned. Phil got off to a rough start, but also ended up with a net gain from his investment. With our new-found confidence, we set off to the craps tables. When we got to the craps tables, they were all full! Mind you, we were there in the early afternoon on a Tuesday. Business was good, I guess. We finally got our spots at the table after waiting for a while, and as luck would have it, the dice were to me as we bought in. I threw really well. I hit three points and a couple of winners on the come out roll. Net gain of $65. YAY! I didn’t get crazy this time, I only played the pass line with 2x odds. Ordinarily, I’d also place the 6 and 8 or make a come bet, but with only an $80 buy-in, I didn’t want to hit a bad stretch and go broke within a couple of rolls. Phil did rather well, too, and was up near $100 when we left the table. Walking out $75 up was a good feeling. It will help pay for the gas as Tab and I head out to Mid-Ohio next week!

Its was like watching someone turn off the life-support machines of an old friend. June 30th, 2008, was the last day of mission operations for the Ulysses spacecraft, after nearly 18 years of service. It also brings to an end the exploration of a region of our solar system that’s not likely to be visited again in our lifetimes.

The Ulysses Mission was originally conceived as the International Solar Polar Mission, a tandem mission with one spacecraft being built by NASA and the other by ESA. Budget cuts reduced the mission to a single spacecraft jointly engineered by the two agencies. Ulysses was originally to be launched in 1983, but was delayed to the Spring of 1986 and set to deploy from the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle Challenger. As a result of the Challenger accident, its launch was delayed even more. These delays would come back to haunt the mission as the radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) used to power the mission have a fixed lifetime and were constructed and tested in the early 80s. Ulysses was finally launched and deployed from the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle Discovery on October 6th, 1990 and began is trek out to Jupiter and to the Sun’s polar regions.

The primary 6-year mission called for a single solar orbit giving coverage of both the Sun’s southern and northern polar regions at solar minimum and covering radial distances from its perihelion of 1.3 AU to its aphelion of 5.4 AU. Ulysses performed so well that its mission would be extended multiple times allowing it to complete three full orbits. The additional orbits allowed Ulysses to investigate the polar regions during solar maximum, and during our current rise to maximum.

Eventually, the old RTGs became a terminal factor for the spacecraft. With power from the RTGs dwindling, power sharing techniques had to be employed. Various power sharing schemes were developed, but the one that was used allowed all of the science missions to remain active, however it required that the high-bandwidth X-band transmitter be shut down during data collection. Data was to be stored on board for later download. To retrieve data, the science instruments would be shut down and the transmitter restarted. However, the X-band transmitter never came back to life. This was not a stopper for the recovery of science data. The S-band transmitter used for command and telemetry could be used to stream the science data if at a slower rate, but the heat generated by the X-band transmitter was used to help keep the hydrazine fuel lines from freezing. With its power ebbing, its heaters off, and the X-band transmitter broken, Ulysses was destined to freeze and begin to tumble. Once it tumbles and loses lock on the Earth, recovery is impossible. It was determined that July 1st, 2008 would be the day that Ulysses was put to rest.

Since 1999, I’ve been working with the energetic particle data from the MF Spectrum Analyzer (MFSA) of the Heliosphere Instrument for Spectra, Composition and Anisotropies at Low Energy (HISCALE). Here the term “low energy” is relative. The HISCALE instrument measured protons and ions with energies from around 50 keV/nuc to upwards of 20 MeV/nuc and electrons from about 40 to 400 keV. The MFSA worked within the energy range of 50 to 5000 keV/nuc for protons, but provided a higher degree of energy resolution than anything else out there. Even though the spacecraft is now silent and adrift, we still have one and a half solar cycles worth of high-quality data that can yield a LOT of science.

Our immediate project at Fundamental Technologies is to organize and describe the data we have in such a way that it can be easily shared through the Virtual Heliospheric Observatory. If you’d like to use the HISCALE data or are just curious as to what we do at FunTech, browse over to http://ulysses.ftecs.com/ where I keep a blog on the current state of a few of our projects.

Today, there will be a hearing in the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. On their agenda is the Barney Frank and Ron Paul’s bill H.R. 5767 Payments System Protection Act. If you’re so inclined, you can watch a webcast of the proceedings! Unfortunately, I’ll be running errands most of the day with two preteen girls, so my day is booked. If only there were a way to TiVo webcasts.

H.R. 5767 is designed to block the implementation of the poorly worded, poorly crafted, and ill-conceived UIGEA law that passed under the cover of darkness in September 2006 as an amendment of the SAFE Ports Act. The banking industry is very much against this bill, as of course we poker players are, because the lion’s share of enforcement work is being dumped on them. This is an unfunded mandate from their perspective. Mr. Frank and Mr. Paul both realize that the bill not only is poorly constructed, but ill-intended as well. Be sure to call or write the committee to let them know our thoughts as poker players. The Poker Players’ Alliance has some great online tools that we can use to contact our representatives, and the Financial Services Committee specifically.