[fred]

Connectivity to the Internet here in Hangzhou, China is very sporadic. I have a broadband connection in my hotel room, but no data seems to be getting through at least 80% of the time. For 10 seconds everything seems to be OK, but then there are roughly 2 minutes of silence before another 10 second burst of data.

I am here for a tournament, the Yeh Brothers Cup, that is supposed to be broadcast in BBO starting on Sunday. The operators are having the same connection problems that I have been experiencing and, if this continues, there is no way that vugraph is going to work.

I tried to log in to BBO in order to warn Roland, but so far I have not had much success. My e-mail isn't working either so I thought I would try Forums. Please let Roland know that you read this message and then please post a reply to Forums so that Roland won't be given the same message by a whole bunch of people!

Sorry in advance if the vugraph doesn't work out. It will be a real shame as this rates to be a wonderful tournament. I don't think the organizers can be blamed for this and they are doing everything they can to come up with a solution. At this point in time, however, I am not at all optimistic.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[Deanrover]

Have given message to Roland.

[Rain]

Fred, the chinese bridge site has its own vugraph. Will that work? I watched a few other events on it. I have a feeling is 5000 bbo members login to watch from the chinese site it'll crash however.

[fred]

According to the technical people at our hotel there is some kind of problem with the Internet line that connects Hangzhou to Shanghai. Apparently all traffic that leaves Hangzhou is routed through this line and "at busy times" there is no way to have a reliable connection in this city right now. If that is the case then the CCBA vugraph will not work either since their server is not located in Hangzhou.

Of course they are working on fixing this...

Right now (7AM on Sunday here) the Internet connection in my room is great, but probably that is at least partly a function of this not being a "busy time".

Then again, maybe the problem really is fixed now.

The organizers here will try to have vugraph if at all possible, but I am not hopeful.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[hrothgar]

Bridge, Bridge, Bridge...
Vugraph, Vugraph, Vugraph...

What we really want to know about is the food!

Any good meals?

[nickf]

hrothgar, on Apr 16 2005, 11:04 PM, said:

Bridge, Bridge, Bridge...
Vugraph, Vugraph, Vugraph...

What we really want to know about is the food!

Any good meals?

Food? - don't get me started. I was in Shanghai last week and the food ranged from damn delicious to there's no way I'm going near that.

For fun each meal my wife and kids played Fear Factor with the menu items.

Who amongst you would sample any of the following: Ox tongue, Boiled Pig's liver, Goose lips or ox tripe?

To their credit, the Chinese believe all parts of the animal are consumable, which is probably a sobering lesson for most of us.

On the whole, though, eating from some hole in the wall on the street was the most satisfying. Sometimes you're not sure what you've been served but then again, sometimes it's best not to know.

nickf
sydney

[mrdct]

At the Australian Spring Nationals in November last year a similar problem arose whereby the wireless broadband connection was down and the venue didn't have a decent analog phone line that could sustain a dial-up connection.

The work-around was that a person sat at the table and telephoned the bidding and play to a person offsite (logged in as a vugraph operator) who ran the broadcast from there.

This worked reasonably well and might be an option for China if they can get someone on the phone to someone else with a decent internet connection.

My final comment is that when planning to run a vugraph presentation the first three things to check are the quality of the internet connection, the quality of the internet connection and the quality of the internet connetion. The fourth thing to check is the contingency plan just in case 1, 2 or 4 fails.

[hrothgar]

nickf, on Apr 17 2005, 05:59 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Apr 16 2005, 11:04 PM, said:

Bridge, Bridge, Bridge...
Vugraph, Vugraph, Vugraph...

What we really want to know about is the food!

Any good meals?

Food? - don't get me started. I was in Shanghai last week and the food ranged from damn delicious to there's no way I'm going near that.

For fun each meal my wife and kids played Fear Factor with the menu items.

Who amongst you would sample any of the following: Ox tongue, Boiled Pig's liver, Goose lips or ox tripe?

To their credit, the Chinese believe all parts of the animal are consumable, which is probably a sobering lesson for most of us.

On the whole, though, eating from some hole in the wall on the street was the most satisfying. Sometimes you're not sure what you've been served but then again, sometimes it's best not to know.

nickf
sydney

From my own travelling experiences in China, I learned that there is a game called "Feed the Westerner" in which your hosts attempt to find out just what you will (and will not) eat. With this said and done, its all very good natured...

Like you, I had some of the best meals in my entire life in China - the Li Family Resturant in Beijing was absolutely outstanding (note, I beleive that Mr Li's daughter runs a resturant in Syndey with the same name AND the same Recipes from the Imperial court).

I also learned that I cxategorically don't like feet. Doesn't matter how you cook em, feet/hooves just aren't worth the trouble.

Sea cucumber is also very questionable...

[Walddk]

The organisers are still facing serious connectivity problems in Hangzhou, China. As you may have noticed or heard, we haven't had 1 minute of broadcast from the Yeh Brothers Cup so far.

At this point we are not overly optimistic, but if possible we will try to broadcast from "Knockout 4" and "Finals 1&2". For full schedule, please go to

http://online.bridge...ph/schedule.php

No promises. Rest assured that I am as disappointed as you are if we don't get anything at all.

Roland