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RE: [RC] [RC] Tevis live feed?? (webcast info) - Lucy Chaplin Trumbull

We are going to do our very best to keep you
all up-to-date over the web as to how the ride
is going.

UAE live-television-feed it *isn't* going to be
due to a lack of camera men, helicopters, large
sums of money and the inaccessibility and remoteness
of the trail (i.e. we're lucky to get radio out of
the canyons).

* * *

If you point your browsers to:

http://www.foothill.net/tevis/webcast/

there will be regular updates as to who is where.

In addition, you can query your favorite riders
by going here:

http://www.foothill.net/tevis/webcast/riderquery.html

You will need to know their rider # to do this.

Rider #s (as well as the start list) will be available here:

http://www.foothill.net/tevis/webcast/rp.htm

I will be hand-carrying the sign-up list (as of Friday
night) to Auburn on Saturday morning, so any last minute
changes won't appear until then. And hopefully we'll get any
"DNS" (did not start) information over the radio on Saturday
morning also.

At this point, it's hard to tell where we will be able to
get results from. We've had some last-minute substitutions
due to one key team member being stepped on by a clumsy
horse and breaking her leg, necessitating some rearranging
of people - and meaning that we've got some complete novices
out there, feeding us information. Wish them luck!

It is possible that there will be little to no data between
the time the ride starts and the arrival of horses and riders
at Robinson Flat - some time after 8:30/9:00 am, so don't get
antsy if you don't see anything until later in the morning -
we will update the web as soon as we start getting fed,
honest.

Please be patient and bear with us if information seems
slow in being updated. We aren't deliberately witholding
information, but often experience hiccups (in the form of
software and hardware problems - the temperatures are
forecast to be in the high 90s/100s and equipment hates
that) and there are often log-jams in the chain of information
(people get sidetracked at busy checks, catching loose
horses, dealing with mini-crises, etc)..

What happens at each check:

* Rider arrives at check and gets an IN Time
* the in-timers write down the IN Time
* they pass rider #/time in batches to a runner
* the runner passes the rider #/time to a radio person
* the radio person at the check reads the rider #/time over the radio
* the radio person in Auburn has to transcribe those rider #s/times
* the radio person in Auburn hands it off to a laptop inputter
  (possibly Nina Vasiliev - spare a thought for her! <g>) who types
  it into the computer and submits it to the database
* the data is run through the database to make sure it makes sense
  (does the rider exist? has that rider already gone through the
  check and the # is a typo and actually a different rider #? has
  that rider been pulled? etc... come 3 am, we're getting really
  dopey and number reversal is common - you can barely function
  after being up 24 hours)
* the data is then uploaded to the web.

So there are many steps to go through and the volunteers are
only human. If you would like, you are welcome to volunteer
next year and help speed things up <grin>.

We do have laptop operators at Michigan Bluff and Foresthill
(hopefully), so they are able to key the rider #/time in
directly, speeding things up a little and limiting the
opportunities for mistakes to be introduced.

Occasionally, you will query the "Where's my rider" *right* at
the moment that we are uploading the file and it may give you
some peculiar information. If the information seems suspect
(i.e. your rider is suddenly unexpectedly winning the ride),
run the query again and hopefully it'll be correct the second
time around.

Enjoy!


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Lucy Chaplin Trumbull - Graphics

lucy_trumbull@xxxxxxxxxxx - 916.679.2236 - Monday/Wednesday/Thursday
elsietee@xxxxxxxxxxxx - 530.333.1316 - Tuesday/Friday
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *




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