text:
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Spanish cancer treatment was a success
The treatment, called CyberKnife, involves a high dose of radiotherapy applied to a small area and it has a very high success rate but costs up to £30,000.
There are currently 35 CyberKnife treatment areas in the United States and 26 internationally and discussions are now underway as to whether it should be bought to the UK.
Liam Hyland of Penkhull near Stoke on Trent had two intensive CyberKnife sessions in Turkey last month. The 63 year old was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in July last year but the NHS could not offer him anything so he paid for the treatment himself.
The State of the Content Delivery Market
Just quoting here a few highlights, while we raccomend that your read the full article:
>>To those who are new to the online video industry, it may seem like the content delivery market has been around for only a few years. But amazingly, 2008 marks the 13th year since some of the first content delivery networks (CDNs)...
There are more than 50 video delivery networks now in the industry (see www.cdnlist.com), including those that are P2P-based, and the vast majority of them are competing for the same business in a market that is still small in the U.S.
Based on my calculations of vendors' revenue, the market size for outsourced video delivery services in the U.S. was $450 million to $500 million last year and has the potential to grow to about $800 million this year (see www.cdnmarket.com)
At the same time, in the past 18 months, more than 15 video delivery vendors, including P2P-based providers, have raised almost $300 million in capital. CDNetworks, EdgeCast Networks, Panther Express, GridNetworks, Highwinds Network Group, Velocix, ITIVA, Move Networks, Pando Networks, Conviva (formerly Rinera), BitTorrent, ChinaCache, RawFlow, and Oversi Networks combined raised $282.85 million in 2007 and 2008, and that number does not take into account other CDNs that have already raised money but have not yet made it public or those that are out in the market raising another round. When all is said and done, I expect close to another $100 million will be raised in the next 12 months. Combine this much money being raised with a market that's not as big as some think and one has to worry that, in the next 18 months, the number of video delivery networks in the industry will fall considerably. The market can't support 50 providers, and not every company will be acquired and make back their investors' money.
History has a way of repeating itself, and we have gone through this before. In 2000, before the bubble burst, we had nearly 50 CDN providers in the market. Two years later, we had less than 10. Five years later, we're back to 50, but for how long? At some point, investors are going to want to see some return on their money, and with fewer video delivery networks focusing on doing more than just delivering bits, it's going to be hard to get acquired unless they can show a lot of revenue, which most don't have.
Back in December, AT&T announced that it would spend $70 million to $80 million this year to build out its CDN offering and focus on the video delivery business. But while financial analysts have been quick to downgrade Akamai every time a telco says it is going to enter the CDN market, even AT&T won't make a big dent any time soon. You can't build a CDN overnight, even if you are a telco and own the pipes, and while placing servers and turning up capacity is not hard, it's all the other pieces around the CDN offering you need to have in place that make it difficult. Without reporting, content management, transcoding, etc., no CDN offering can get very big, and AT&T is aiming to have only 400Gbps of capacity for all of its CDN services by year's end, which is only 20% or less of the capacity that some larger players have in the market.
While many don't give telcos a shot at being real competitors in the CDN market, most are underestimating Level 3. I expect that by the end of this year, the company will be the No. 3 provider in the U.S., based on CDN revenue, and it will quickly become the No. 2 provider behind Akamai next year.
While AT&T and Level 3 are the only telcos in the market today, additional telcos have confirmed that they will be entering the market shortly. The real question is whether they will have the mentality of wanting to build everything themselves, like most telcos do, or of acquiring smaller players in the industry to get to market faster. Either way, one thing is for sure: The CDN market has yet to peak, and new providers will continue to enter the market in the second half of this year.
Some say HD is going to be the biggest factor for CDN growth, but HD viewing adoption in large numbers is years off. HD will have some impact this year, but most content owners are not encoding content in this format and are focusing on a bitrate around 700Kbps. But even with HD having a small impact this year, it still adds to the growth that CDNs are going to see in the next few quarters. Content owners are putting up more content in more platforms and at higher bitrates, and much of that content is longer in length. This all amounts to a huge increase in the number of bits being delivered via the CDNs.
In the next 12 months, we should see a clear indication of who the top five or six providers are going to be based on revenue. The market for CDN services shows no signs of slowing down, and the demand for video delivery services will only continue to grow as longer form, higher quality content is played back more often and on more devices. Once online video advertising gets its act together and content owners truly are able to make money from their content, more content will be produced for the web and will be delivered by the CDNs.
While I expect the number of CDN providers to drop dramatically in the next 18 months, that's not a sign of a downturn. The reality is that there are more providers today than the market can bear, and the market will not grow fast enough in the next 18 months to support them all. When this happens, some will try to take it as a sign that the CDN market is slowing down, that customers are going to build out CDNs themselves, or that it's too hard for the CDNs to operate profitability. This is not the case.
Level 3 - 6 CDN nodes in Asia, including mainland China
Rob Powell, at Telecom rumblings, is underlining that Level 3 will be expanding its CDN reach in Asia with 3 additional nodes in China, a very interesting selling tool for multinational customers, IMHO.Here is the link to the full article:
>>According to the Level 3 CDN Newsletter for Q3 2008, the company will have at least 6 CDN nodes in the region:
In Asia alone, Level 3 plans to expand its caching capacity tenfold. In Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong, capacity will be increased exponentially. In Mainland China, Level 3 will add three locations in order to serve the most populous areas and optimize content delivery within China.
DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc. Q2 2008 Earnings Call Transcript
Just highlighting one section of the Q&A, about demand in different locations and the customer mix. Transcripts from Seeking Alpha.
Sri Anantha with Oppenheimer has our next question.
Sri Anantha - Oppenheimer
Good morning. Hey Hossein, I just had a quick question, as you look at the demand outlook for there for data center space. Could you just give us like some sense today, if you look at your sales pipeline what percentage of that pipeline comprises about and comprises as suppose to internet-centric businesses? And also if you could just give us a little bit of color on how your customer mix has evolved over the years, I know the initial demand for data center space was driven by the internet-centric businesses, but I would imagine that your customer mix is lot more diversified today then it what it was like three or four years ago?
Hossein Fateh
I think you are absolutely right on that, but however, it is more market centric and each market is different. Virginia is a round number its perhaps 60% to 80% internet based. Santa Clara, I would put at the same percentages perhaps even higher. Chicago is lower because Chicago being in the middle of country that's tenants required data centric space and they want one data center. Chicago is the perfect location for that, and they want it in the middle of the country due to license fee issues. And it's a perfect market for that. Chicago will be non-internet based.
New York will be mostly around the banking sector and we actually feel very good about the banking outsource data center business and that perhaps a year ago or 18 months ago significant bank may not outsource data centers due to perhaps one thing to build their own data centers now many of the banks they are under stress and we feel outsourcing will be a fabulous option for them. So, we feel very good about our demand in New Jersey. I think to answer your question it depends on each market -- each market will be different.
Sri Anantha - Oppenheimer
Okay, but just if you look at your sales pipeline today where do you think the incremental demand is coming from, do you think it's still skewed towards internet businesses or it's now more a logic portion is coming from big traditional enterprise companies?
Hossein Fateh
Well I think Virginia and Santa Clara will be more skewed towards internet businesses in fact the large portion which we feel that Chicago when you look at our sales pipeline is probably 60%, 65% non-internet and 30%, 35% internet business. New Jersey will probably we guess is going to be probably in the same as Chicago 60%, 65% non-internet but we feel good about New Jersey in that many of the banks -- we want to expand there and have data center presence that's outsourced and also the size of the tenants in New Jersey will be significantly larger than in Chicago.
Sri Anantha - Oppenheimer
Well the last question I have is, could you talk about demand from your existing customers they have existing customer base, do you think that the demand from them is still increasing at a pace --?
Hossein Fateh
In a [hysteretic] way, in a very good way we trench power loads of our tenants and we would not want to disclose them publicly but we see the loads increasing and that's the very big way and we are tracking many of our existing customers and we believe not only they will expand in Virginia but they will expand with us in other markets.
the likes of Equinix, Savvis and Switch & Data
>>T1R has been closely watching the run of Q208 earnings for the Internet infrastructure sector and the results have been encouraging as the likes of Equinix, Savvis and Switch & Data have already turned in solid quarters.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Equinix becomes a default choice
Investor's Business Daily
Satisfying A Need For Speed
Friday August 8, 6:04 pm ET
Pete Barlas
Internet networking solutions firms serve as the tech industry's information backbone, helping the customers push data across the ever-expanding Internet.
The group comprises a hodgepodge of 20 public companies. Most don't compete with each other. But all are working to solve various bottlenecks in the Internet infrastructure.
Akamai Technologies (NasdaqGS:AKAM - News) sells a content and application delivery service for pushing video and other Web content online. AsiaInfo Holdings (NasdaqGM:ASIA - News) sells back-office software support services while Equinix (NasdaqGS:EQIX - News) provides data center and interconnection services.
The emergence of social network sites such as Facebook and of Internet-based "cloud computing" services from Amazon and others should help generate more revenue for companies like Equinix that sell interconnection data services, says Trip Chowdhry, an analyst for Global Equities Research.
"They need to put their data centers somewhere, so Equinix becomes a default choice," he said.
Outsourcing data center services to a company such as Equinix reduces headaches and costs, Chowdhry said.
"People don't want to be worried about hiring and firing various administrators," he said. "The costs of operating a data center is dramatically reduced if they put it in Equinix."
Upside: Network solutions providers should benefit as more companies grow to rely on the Internet.
Slide, Inc.
|Company Information
|Company Name
|Slide, Inc.
|Also Known As
|Company Website
|Primary ASN
|IRR Record
|Network Type
|Approx Prefixes
|Traffic Levels
|Traffic Ratios
|Mostly Outbound
|Geographic Scope
|Public Peering Exchange Points
|Exchange Point Name
|IP Address
|Equinix Ashburn
|Equinix Los Angeles
|Private Peering Facilities
|Facility Name
|Equinix Ashburn
Gayle Guyardo explores breakthrough cancer fighting technology
United States of America (Press Release) August 7, 2008 -- It's a revolutionary cancer treatment and Tampa is one of about 40 places in the U.S. to have this new technology. News Channel 8's Gayle Guyardo tells you about the CyberKnife.
CyberKnife technology involves no cuts or incisions. It works by targeting tissue with multiple beams of high-energy radiation on the tumor site. It is specifically designed for treating the most complex and difficult tumors – cancers of the lung, spine, pancreas or brain.
News Channel 8's Gayle Guyardo talks to patients undergoing the treatment - they tell her it's painless. There are no incisions, no blood, no anesthesia, and most deal with now recovery time.
Tune in to News Channel 8's Morning Edition and look for Gayle Guyardo's reports on the latest technology now available in the Tampa Bay area.
DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT)
A nice summary at Data Center Knowledge:
>>DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT) said today that leasing at its data centers has slowed slightly due to a longer sales cycle for enterprise companies, who are the primary customers for the company's newly-opened Chicago data center. DuPont Fabros executives said they remain highly confident about demand for the company's facilities, and expect to have no trouble meeting their revenue projections.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Cyberknife Less Invasive, More Responsive Cancer Treatment, Doctors Say
>>Doctors said a new option for treating cancer can destroy tumors without invasive surgery and many patients said recovery is immediate.Reports are that actor Patrick Swayze had it to treat his pancreatic cancer. Cher claims in published reports that her good friend Farrah Fawcett had the treatment as well.
NBC 10 asked Lamond if Cyberknife has helped Patrick Swayze's cancer. Lamond said he has not seen him as a patient and doesn't know about his personal case but said the Cyberknife has not had the same success with pancreatic cancer as with other cancers.But he said Cyberknife is very good at reducing the side effects of pancreatic cancer by reducing tumor size and giving patients a better quality of life.
Internap, acquisition target?
Internap - Akam reseller agreement
>>Internap Network Services Corporation and VitalStream Holdings, Inc Conference
Jim DeBlasio - Internap - President, CEO
We at Internap are very familiar with VitalStream's CDN technology and business
offering as we are the second largest reseller of Akamai product, and Akamai
offers a strong set of complementary products in this area.
Eric Vancoff - Morgan Joseph - Analyst
Good afternoon and congratulations on both sides. A couple of quick questions. First of all, mechanics of the transaction. Are there any collars in place to sort of ensure the outcome and the value on the VitalStream side? Number two is kind of a multiple-part question in terms of -- what percentage of Internap's revenues today are generated from reselling Akamai, and how much of that can potentially be migrated over to, say, the VitalStream platform?
Jim DeBlasio - Internap - President, CEO
I will answer that second first, Eric, and then I will turn over to Jack and to Dave Buckel to respond
as well to the first part about the collars and the mathematics of the deal.
But with regard to the Akamai revenue that we currently have in the Internet
business, it's relatively small, and less than 5% of our revenue stream. We are,
in fact, the second-largest reseller of Akamai equipment and have a very good
relationship with Akamai. We resell for them, they resell for us, and it works
very well. And, I do believe that that relationship can, and I expect it to
continue to work very well because of the relationship we have and what we offer
each other. I also think that the VitalStream acquisition offers a set of
products that are complementary to the Akamai suite of products, and it does
nothing but builds out our solution that we can offer customers, and -- which is
another one of the exciting things about this acquisition and where it positions
us, Eric, in the future. Jack, I'd like to turn it over to you, if you can add
something to that.
Jennifer Adams - Cowen & Company - Analyst
This is Jennifer Adams on behalf of Tom Watts. Congratulations on the deal. YouJim DeBlasio - Internap - President, CEO
touched on this earlier, Jim, but if you could give us a little bit more flavor
what your relationship with Akamai will be like going forward. And specifically,
now that you are potentially competing with them directly, do you see any threat
of them withdrawing business from Internap? And if so, what kind of an impact
could that have on you in the short term?
As I mentioned before, the Akamai revenue in the Internap business model is relatively small. Aside from that, we are enjoying a very good relationship with Akamai. As I mentioned before, we resell their products, we are the second-largest reseller of their CDM products. They resell our product. They give us leads with their customers, we provide the same to that, and the relationship is working very well. And they have a very good product and a very strong product that is complementary to many of the products that we have acquired through the VitalStream acquisition.
Rod Ratliff - Stanford Group - Analyst
Okay. Jack, how big is the VitalStream physical footprint, in terms of the number of servers?
Jack Waterman - VitalStream Holdings Inc. - Chairman, CEO
We don't actually quote that number publicly. Clearly, Akamai is the largest in the world and they don't quote their number publicly.
Rod Ratliff - Stanford Group - Analyst
Actually, they do.
SHAPIRO CAPITAL MANAGEMENT CO INC filed this Form SC 13G on 08/06/08
Schedule 13G Additional Information
Item #
1. (a) Name of Issuer: ACCURAY, INC.
(b) Address of Issuer's Principal Executive Offices:
2. (a) Name of Person Filing:
(b) Address of Principal Business Office for Each of the Above:
(c) Citizenship:
SHAPIRO CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC -- Delaware Limited Liability Company
(d) Title of Class of Securities:
(e) CUSIP Number:
3. If this statement is filed pursuant to Rule 13d-1(b), or 13d-2(b). The
person filing is a:
4. Ownership:
(a) Amount Beneficially Owned: 6,204,064
(b) Percent of Class: 11.40%
Shapiro started buying in Q1 of 2008 and had accumulated about three million shares or so by the time I contacted them in April. My pitch to them was the same as with all the large shareholders which was to ask them to take a more active role in terms of getting some leadership out of our Board of Directors. I don't know what sort of conversations they have been having with Accuray, but I do know they have been talking and now we know that they have more or less doubled their position.
Shapiro's general modus operandi is that of a long-term value investor. They are probably not looking to either initiate or participate in a buy out of Accuray nor is it likely that they would mount a charge, at least not as the leader, of an activist shareholder revolt. But they do now hold a large block of shares and my take is that they are well aware of what is going on at Accuray both the good as well as the not so good.
I see their involvement as nothing but positive. It's a good indicator that our research and analysis of this company is on track. It's a good stabilizing force for the share price and it does tend to put the right sort of pressure on management. If we do have issues coming up for a shareholder vote, like last year's management compensation bonanza, I see Shapiro as a natural ally of the shareholders. And if we find that we do we need to round up a majority, at least we now know where to find better than a fifth of the votes required.
As far as the specifics of what I was trying to get across back in April, most of you already know my agenda but for anyone new to the conversation, I'll recap it for you below exactly as I communicated it to the Accuray Board of Directors and large investors:
1. Take a more aggressive and effective approach to technology explanation and differentiation.
We're in the SRS business. Most analysts still don't even know that. They think we're in the radiotherapy business. Verbal explanations are not getting it done. We need a compelling animated video now followed up with Dr. Thomson's presence and participation at any and all credible investor conferences that will have us. Sending in the CFO without the CEO sends the wrong message. We need our best spokesperson to work this problem aggressively and persistently until the market gets the difference between CyberKnife SRS and gantry-mounted SRS pretenders. As CEO, Dr. Thomson needs to take personal responsibility to get this done now.
2. Take a more transparent approach to financial disclosures.
We need to disclose all orders and their status. We need to answer any and all questions concerning revenues, margins, orders, etc. We have nothing to hide. We gain nothing by acting like we do. Wall Street needs to know exactly what is going on with orders and backlog. Management's antagonistic approach to working with the analyst community has not produced a positive result. We need to clear the air and get off to a fresh start. And in order to do that, we must also address the following…
3. Take a hard look at and have a come-to-Jesus talk with your CFO Robert McNamara.
He may (or may not) be the greatest boardroom CFO in history but if he can't handle an earnings call without shuffling through his notes, sounding evasive and irresponsive and in general doing everything humanly possible to scare off every analyst in attendance, he's not getting the job done.
Sentiment : Strong Buy
Tier 1 Research comment on Internap
>>Internap continues to struggle with flat Q2
Internap had a tough second quarter, which followed a tough first quarter. At the same time, it downwardly revised revenue and EBITDA guidance for the rest of the year. Internap's stock price took an unsurprising stumble, and now the top questions on T1R's lips are – is an acquisition in .....
DLR conference call
>>The sales team currently is engaged with well over 4 million square feet of new customer prospects, representing over 420 megawatts of data center demand. We continue to see a significant lack of supply necessary to meet this demand and DLR is one of the few data center provider to actively billing speculative Turn-Key space across our major markets. The depth and experience of our technical team makes DLR a preferred infrastructure solution provider for many large corporations and system integrators.
On last quarter's call, I discussed results of a study we commissioned that focused on the current drivers demand for datacenters in the U.S., including immediate and longer term growth prospects. Consistent with these results, and despite the challenging economic environment, Fortune 1000 companies, Internet enterprises, and the system integrators continue to make significant investments in IT infrastructure. And this reflects the critical nature of these assets to today's corporations. Our teams are experiencing strong demand in the major markets in the U.S. and Europe especially for our Turn-key product.
I would now like to return to our – like to turn to our revised guidance for 2008. With better visibility towards our full year 2008 results, we are raising FFO guidance by $0.05 to a range of $2.40 to $2.50 per diluted share in unit. The new guidance reflects a shift in our leasing mix towards our Turn-Key Datacenter solution
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Great. Okay. And then, general thoughts, Will, on the rate side of things. Are rates continuing to go up for datacenter space in general and along the same lines, I've heard that in Silicon Valley there's basically – or San Francisco south, there's very little, if any, datacenter space available. Can you comment on that?
Bill Stein
Sure. We're seeing – we really sell out pricing in almost all of our markets today. It varies – our rates that we're quoting on our per square foot basis vary by quarter-by-quarter, especially for the Turn-Key because of different utilizations and the way the spaces are laid out. On a kilowatt – per kilowatt basis, rates have gone up for us over the last four quarters. On an accumulative basis, about 30%. Now we don't see that trend continuing quite that same pace, but what we're seeing good trending and pricing on a kilowatt basis, and we think we'll continue to see good returns.
On Silicon Valley, going to your question there, right now there's not much space at all available and we're actually working on a couple of buildings on our Space Park Drive site that will be coming on online here in the next nine months – six to nine months or so. – So, we're hoping to get ahead of the market there for that. There are some large projects that are on the planning side that I will be coming online second-half of '09 and 2010, but right now there's definitely a lack of supply.
Jordan Sadler – KeyBanc Capital Markets
Okay. And then, could you talk about markets and where you're seeing the most significant dislocations in terms of demand outweighing supply? Just give maybe your – give it a rank currently.
Michael Foust
I mean this isn't exactly in exact rank order but we're seeing Silicon Valley and these are all kind of favorable from our perspective in terms of high demand and lack of supply right now. Chicago certainly. We're seeing it in – well, even more in Dallas now is starting to turn. But even more so, Northern Virginia, a very strong market for us. New Jersey and Northern New Jersey, and then Paris and London. So, those markets are probably the ones that have kind of the strongest supply-demand imbalance in our favor.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
DeGheest Anne - Immersion
| 1.Title of Security
(Instr. 3)
|2. Trans. Date
|2A. Deemed Execution Date, if any
| 3. Trans. Code
(Instr. 8)
| 4. Securities Acquired (A) or Disposed of (D)
(Instr. 3, 4 and 5)
| 5. Amount of Securities Beneficially Owned Following Reported Transaction(s)
(Instr. 3 and 4)
|6. Ownership Form: Direct (D) or Indirect (I) (Instr. 4)
|7. Nature of Indirect Beneficial Ownership (Instr. 4)
|(A) or (D)
|Common Stock
Stereotactic body radiation therapy w. CyberKnife is an effective treatment for patients with medically inoperable recurrent or metastatic lung cancer
|Fractionated stereotactic body radiation therapy in the treatment of primary, recurrent, and metastatic lung tumors: the role of positron emission tomography/computed tomography-based treatment planning.
|Coon D, Gokhale AS, Burton SA, Heron DE, Ozhasoglu C, Christie N
|Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Pittsburgh, PA.
|Clin Lung Cancer 2008 Jul; 9(4):217-21.
|Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess the outcomes of patients treated with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) in patients with primary, recurrent, or metastatic lung lesions, with a focus on positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT)-based management. Patients and
Methods: Fifty-one patients with primary stage I non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC; n = 26), recurrent lung cancer after definitive treatment (n = 12), or solitary lung metastases (n = 13) were treated with SBRT between 2005 and 2007. Patients were treated with the CyberKnife(R) Robotic Radiosurgery System with Synchronytrade mark respiratory tracking. A dose of 60 Gy was delivered in 3 fractions. All patients had CT or PET/CT performed at approximately 3-month intervals after treatment.
Results: The median follow-up was 12 months. Local control at median follow-up was 85% in patients with stage I NSCLC, 92% in patients with recurrent lung cancer, and 62% in the patients with solitary lung metastasis. Analysis of the 28 patients with pre- and post-treatment PET/CT scans demonstrated that those with stable disease (n = 4) had a mean standardized uptake value (SUV) decrease of 28%, partial responders (n = 11) had a decrease of 48%, and patients with a complete response (n = 11) had a decrease of 94%. Patients with progressive disease (n = 2) had an SUV decrease of only 0.4%. Only 2 patients (7%) who had reduced fluorodeoxyglucose avidity later progressed locally. No correlations were found between pretreatment SUV and tumor response, disease progression, or survival. Overall 1-year survival rates were 81%, 67%, and 85% among the patients with primary NSCLC, recurrent lung cancer, and solitary lung metastases, respectively.
Conclusion: Stereotactic body radiation therapy with CyberKnife(R) is an effective treatment for patients with medically inoperable recurrent or metastatic lung cancer. Positron emission tomography/CT is valuable in staging, planning, and evaluating treatment response and might predict long-term outcome.
Richardson Clent, CEO, buying shares
General Transaction Codes
- P – Open market or private purchase of securities
| 1.Title of Security
(Instr. 3)
|2. Trans. Date
|2A. Deemed Execution Date, if any
| 3. Trans. Code
(Instr. 8)
| 4. Securities Acquired (A) or Disposed of (D)
(Instr. 3, 4 and 5)
| 5. Amount of Securities Beneficially Owned Following Reported Transaction(s)
(Instr. 3 and 4)
|6. Ownership Form: Direct (D) or Indirect (I) (Instr. 4)
|7. Nature of Indirect Beneficial Ownership (Instr. 4)
|(A) or (D)
|Common Stock
Secret servers: Where is our digital data stored?
>>Sean McAvan is one such person. As managing director of NaviSite Europe, he's responsible for storing data for a wide range of customers – from internet start-ups running cutting-edge web applications, to mid-size corporates backing up their data, to e-commerce sites processing thousands of our credit card transactions each day. NaviSite is just one of around 40 such companies within this one facility in the heart of London's Docklands – a building that used to house the Financial Times's printing presses – and whether you're a geek or not, it's an awesome spectacle. "If you consider the amount of electromechanical engineering in here," says McAvan, "and the number of machines, the amount of software they hold, and then extrapolate that across thousands of facilities like this one, it makes your head spin."
Internap 2Q 2008 results
Lack of execution, as usual (blaming the economic climate: couldn't you see it coming?)
>>George E. Kilguss, III
The other challenge is the economy. We are seeing sales cycles elongate. We are seeing customers taking longer decision timelines to close these transactions and those are also giving us some pause in putting our forecast together. <<
(transcripts from Seeking Alpha, as usual)
Lack of strategic vision. The missed completely the priorities. While other competitors were doing the right moves (SVVS, NAVI. Selling or de-enphasizing CDN. Building or adding colo).
I'll just quote a few things, for fun:
>>Thomas Watts – Cowen and Company
So the additional operating costs, pre-opening that you talked about, what are those primarily and what sort of fill do you need to offset those?
George E. Kilguss, III
As we take possession of the facility, as we're building it out, we have to incur and record the rent costs. <<
From the Equinix 10Q:
>>In addition, the Company has negotiated rent expense abatement periods for certain properties to better match the phased build-out of its centers.
>>George E. Kilguss, III
With regard to your question on margins data center really has two components to the margin. One is the new facilities coming on line. For example Boston, our expansion in New York, those facilities while we're building them out we've taken possession of those and we have to include that rental expense in our cost of goods sold line.<<
I don't believe that's true for New York, you are already in that facility, and paying the rent. I can accept Boston... that's a brand new center, although something could have been done to mitigate the effect (like paying next to nothing now and more after the opening. we're talking very long term contracts... there's room for some negotiation).
>>James P. DeBlasio
In the area of CDN it's a much easier sale to leave the way the CDN is more discretionary and someone can have CDN service with us for several months, a month or two and then decide to leave and switch off to someone else.
Wow, what a surprise... you've decided to invest in a very sticky business... ;-)
>>James P. DeBlasio
The strength of the market in the data center business is very strong, it's very strong, very robust. We're seeing some real good growth, no delay in the sales cycles there. The sales are difficult sales because they're very complex with the attach that we have for IP and CDN but nothing out of the ordinary.<<
Let me get it: the bundle is making the sale more difficult? ;-)
I will just end with a note on colo margins:
>>George E. Kilguss, III
At the present time while we're waiting for some of those factories to come on line we have continued to expand in our partner sites. As I think you know our partner sites' gross margin is less than our company controlled sites so as we are continuing to sell under the partner sites that also has a natural downward pressure on our gross margins.<<
Take it easy, don't rush up investing in colo... it's not about right timing...
Internap to Invest in Expanded Colocation Facilities
Business Wire, June 12, 2007
Internap Meets Increasing Customer Demand for Premier Data Center Services
ATLANTA -- Internap Network Services Corporation (NASDAQ: INAP), a global provider of optimized, reliable end-to-end Internet business solutions, today announced that it has approved an investment of up to 40 million dollars to fund the expansion of its colocation facilities in several key markets. The company anticipates implementing the expansion over the next three to four calendar quarters, with any potential funding to be provided under standard commercial financing arrangements.
>>James P. DeBlasio
In Boston we're planning on a fourth quarter 08 build and opening and in New York mid-fourth quarter 08. 8,000 square feet in New York, 15,000 square feet in Boston. As you know our plans are that as we are building out the facilities we are pre-selling into those facilities along the way and the demand has been strong, Tom. It's too early to say at this point how much of it gets filled up and when but we're seeing some very positive signs in our data center business driven by the market.
Even Terremark gave a number (20% filled) for their new Virginia facility...
The more Reliance waits, the cheaper a potential acquisition might be. If there's any value left, I'm just afraid to think what they can do with their strategy of opening new pnaps. Watch for Flag getting in the bandwidth mix?
Linkedin grows with Equinix in Chicago
>>Linkedin has expanded its relationship with Equinix, taking down an undisclosed amount of space at a Chicago-area Equinix facility. Although Linkedin was keeping a low profile on the precise location, T1R believes it to be Equinix's newer Chicago 3 (CH3) facility in Elk Grove, which is rapidly becoming a hotbed .....
World's only next-gen CyberKnife installed in Tulsa medical facility
TULSA – The next-generation CyberKnife can be found in only one place.
The CyberKnife has been around five years and to date about 130 systems have been installed treating more than 40,000 patients. Other hospitals in the Tulsa area have a CyberKnife system, but Heaton said other hospitals have the older model.
Three months ago the doctors moved into their 5,000-square-foot facility and have seen about 20 patients since opening in early July.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Better for typists
Apple made every smart phone on the planet look like a wonky old typewriter when the iPhone transcended buttons and introduced its swanky multi-touch screen, but Blackberry is making the same leap and using an even more advanced interface. It'll use both an on-screen QWERTY in landscape mode, as well as BlackBerry's own SureType keyboard for text entry when held vertically, and that's on top of its next-generation hepatic feedback, which will make each virtual key vibrate individually. It's set to seriously improve text entry.
Five hundred patients later, CyberKnife is more effective than ever
>>Overlook Hospital in Summit has been a pioneer in the field.
In 2004, Overlook became the first facility in the Northeast to offer CyberKnife treatment, a noninvasive robotic radiosurgical device that treats inoperable brain tumors. In the past four years, CyberKnife has grown by leaps and bounds to include treatments for spine, lung, liver, pancreas and prostate tumors.
Five hundred patients later, CyberKnife is more effective than ever.
Overlook Hospital
The CyberKnife machine at Overlook Hospital in Summit has treated more than 500 patients since its inception in 2004.
AT&T's Cloud Offering Is Foggy
>The key advantage to AT&T's service is that it controls not just the servers and the cloud, but it also owns the network that those bits of data must traverse to get from the cloud to your computer. That's a powerful proposition because it gives AT&T one more potential point of failure that it can guarantee and control. It also could lead the way for some interesting pricing options given that AT&T will know exactly how much it costs for each byte of storage and each compute cycle, but it also has the wholesale costs of bandwidth.
My life was saved by the same knife-wielding robot that treated Patrick Swayze
>>Just over a year ago Alan Bowley was a dying man. Diagnosed with an inoperable tumour on his pancreas, Alan's only option was palliative radiotherapy to buy him a few more months of life.
But after Alan's wife stumbled across a treatment on the internet - just a few weeks after this fateful diagnosis - he was soon in a hospital in Washington DC having Cyberknife therapy.
Dr Gregory Gagnon, of the Department of Radiation Medicine at Georgetown University Hospital, who treated Alan, says: 'This has opened up a whole new wave of cancers for treatment which were previously considered inoperable. For example, we have been collating data on treatment of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer over the past three years.
'Usually this condition has a survival rate of 30 per cent over three years. Patients who have undergone Cyberknife have a survival rate of around 90 per cent over the same period.
'We have treated spinal cancers without damaging the spinal cord and the vital nerves that surround the spine, and can even use it to treat multiple secondary tumours.'
In other aggressive cancers, such as pancreatic, Dr Gagnon claims it has a 100 per cent success rate of holding the treated tumour at the same size.
The NHS has so far baulked at introducing this facility, but in January 2009 the private Harley Street Clinic will open its £15 million Cyberknife centre, the first in the UK. It estimates that the cost of treatment will be upwards of £12,000, although those with private health insurance should be covered.
Touchscreen-Equipped Mobile Handset Shipments to Exceed 230 Mn by 2012, Says IMS Research
>>Touchscreen-equipped mobile handsets sales have been building steadily for over a year now. A report from IMS Research forecasts that growth will become even stronger. Although there were fewer than 30 million touchscreen phones sold in 2007, the research firm expects that number to increase to over 230 million by 2012.
In July, LG revealed that it had sold 7 million touchscreen handsets. This announcement came just five quarters after LG launched its very first touchscreen mobile phone. Showing similar success, Samsung recently released the Instinct, a full touchscreen handset, through Sprint. Just one week after the launch, Sprint announced that the Instinct had already become the best selling EV-DO device in Sprint's history.
The research firm predicts that the growth will not simply driven by the smartphone segment. Rather, touchscreens will increasingly penetrate the much larger feature phone segment. In fact, Nokia just announced that its initial foray into the touchscreen market will be targeted at the "volume market" because that segment of the population is the largest consumer of mobile phones.
Revenue per employee metric - colo arena
link to Google spreadsheet
Revenue per employee metric
|Quarterly Revenue Per Employee
|$ 172
|Level 3
|$ 1,072
|Global Crossing, Limited
|$ 630
|$ 52
|Time Warner Telecom
|$ 318
|$ 404
|$ 24,124
|$ 30,866
|$ 99,568
|$ 361
|$ 81,748
Note: For companies on this list other than Level 3, AT&T, Verizon, Paetec and Equinix, revenue is from the first quarter because the companies had not yet announced actual second quarter earnings yet. I did use Paetec's estimated 2nd quarter revenue range from their announcement last week to estimate revenue per employee for Paetec.
AT&T to Be Provider Of 'Cloud Computing'
>>AT&T Inc. is unveiling a service that provides computer networking and storage services for business customers, making the telecommunications giant the latest company to invest in what is known as "cloud computing."
One of AT&T's first customers is the U.S. Olympic Committee. The organization, which runs teamusa.org and other Olympics Web sites, knows traffic will leap this month as fans watch videos and look up event results and then drop sharply as soon as the games are over. It plans to use the AT&T service to increase its network bandwidth temporarily.
Jim Paterson, a vice president of product development at AT&T, said another type of business that could benefit from cloud computing would be an e-commerce retailer that sees a spike in activity on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Mr. Paterson said companies can cut networking and storage costs by as much as 30% with a cloud-based service.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Mercedes-Benz, others nibbling at haptic lure
>>IMMR partner SMK has a fantastic looking automotive haptic touch screen. The demo screen shows the implementation for dual climate control. The article claims Daimler AG, makers of Mercedes-Benz, and others, are interested.
[SMK Exhibits Force Feedback Touch Panel
Jul 25, 2008 19:00
Motohiko Hamada, Nikkei Automotive Technology
SMK Corp showcased the "Force Feedback Panel," a touch panel that vibrates in response to a touch on the screen to give the user a sensation of clicking a button.
The panel was exhibited at AT International 2008, which took place from July 23 to 25, 2008, at Makuhari Messe in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. A number of auto makers, including Daimler AG of Germany, are considering employing this panel.
As the number of operation items is increasing, many switch functions must be mounted in a limited area on displays and touch panels. However, when operating a touch panel, drivers have to direct their eyes to the panel, because buttons can't be located by touch. Touch panels are not convenient for drivers, because they have to take their eyes off the road for operation.
The newly developed panel vibrates responding to the operation, allowing the drivers to confirm that the buttons are correctly pushed without looking at the panel. However, users still have to look at the panel to locate the buttons.
It is driven by a piezo element mounted on the back of the long side of the panel. When the switch is pushed, actually the "entire panel" vibrates. However, because the user only touches the button he/she presses, he/she thinks only the pressed button is vibrating. The vibration feeling can be selected from "trembling," "ticking," etc.
It is compatible to sizes between 2.5-15 inches. The operating load is 0.05-2N, while the driving voltage is 5V DC. The power consumption during vibration is 300mA, while that of idling is 300μA.]
Beautiful picture, button functions very clear (click pic to enlarge). Also, you can see a tiny Immersion logo in the upper right of the picture!
pdf file from SMK's website which shows the simplified design for their "Force Feedback Touch Panel."
Text line 3 reads: "Development with lmmersion co. Ltd, able to make user expected touch feelings in a short time."
CyberKnife® Patient Support Group
Sunday, August 3, 2008
St. Ansgar man has new kind of cancer surgery
>>A robotic arm delivers a high dose of radiation that will kill or control cancerous cells without harming surrounding healthy tissue. Previously unreachable tumors can now be treated with the new method.
Patients for the surgery lie on a table with a soft pad. Generally no sedation or anesthesia is required because the procedure is painless. Radiation sessions last from 1 to 2 hours.
If all goes well, patients undergo the treatment and can immediately resume their normal activities.
On Aug. 8, he had his first radiation surgery treatment which lasted 2½ hours. Separate treatments the next two days lasted about two hours each.
"After my last two-hour sessions, I could have gotten up off the table and driven home," said Libersky. "It was truly that painless."
Libersky has been back to Des Moines for check-ups several times.
"They showed me my CT scan and it shows nothing but scar tissue where the cancerous spot was," he said. "I went back at three months, then another four months, then it will be six months, then a year," he said.
"So far the prognosis has been excellent. The results look good and I'm feeling good and gaining weight."
Reliance Globalcom, Internap forge Strategic Alliance
If we look at the P/R issued by Reliance, it sounds like Internap will be establishing a CDN PoP in a Reliance data center, that will be then run by Reliance - something like the professional services sold to QTS recently? Hopefully (if this is the case...) the accounting of this installation service will be considered non-recurring, to avoid a jump in CDN revenues (followed by a decline the next quarter). How will the two Companies share revenues? There are more questions than answers, as no economic term has really been disclosed.
As long as no further detail is given about the agreement, all the above is pure speculation on our side.
>>Under the alliance, Internap would set up a new Point-of-Presence in India which would be integrated with its Global Delivery Infrastructure spanning 7 countries(Australia, China, Singapore, Japan, US, UK and Netherlands). The Point-of-Presence in India would be established and managed by Reliance Globalcom.
The alliance provides Reliance Globalcom the required expertise to integrate media servers, enhance storage, accelerate its network and optimize routes to deliver, manage, and monetize media content. The global infrastructure includes Internap's patented MIRO (Managed Internet Routing Optimizer™) and ADN technologies. MIRO monitors the performance of Internet backbones and automatically selects the best path to global destinations, thus providing faster content delivery.
Let's see what Tier 1 Research said about the deal back on July 28:
>>Internap delivering from Atlanta to Mumbai with help of Reliance
Internap will expand into India's telecom market with CDN services through a new alliance with Reliance Communications' Reliance Telecom. Rather than implement a standard reseller partnership, Internap is going to help Reliance build and operate CDN services in selected regions in India. <<
A comment to the deal, from Telecom rumblings:
>>I've been a skeptic about carriers entering the CDN market directly, but partnerships like this make a great deal of sense. Internap and Reliance Globalcom are not competitors. Reliance did buy Yipes which used to sell IP Transit, but they have since de-emphasized the product almost completely in favor of ethernet and VPLS. Internap doesn't sell ethernet or VPLS. So if an aggressive carrier like Reliance wants to enter the CDN space but doesn't really have the assets to do it directly, a partnership with Internap's CDN in which India gets hooked up is a case where nobody loses and everyone stands to gain.<<
and a comment to the article:
>>By the way, the 'partnering' deal with Internap smells a lot more like someone is gearing up to go steady, given RG's growth strategy and its recent history of acquisitions.Frank A. Coluccio
A few months ago, Bit Gravity and Tata had signed a similar agreement:
>>MUMBAI, India and BURLINGAME, Calif., March 5, 2008 –
Tata Communications, (NYSE: TCL) a leading provider of the new world of communications, and BitGravity, Inc., the pioneer in Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) for interactive broadcasting, announced today a strategic partnership. Tata Communications will co-brand, resell and jointly market BitGravity's technology platform worldwide as part of a value-added services offering on top of Tata Global Network. As part of the arrangement, Tata Communications, with a global presence in more than 200 countries across 300 PoPs will provide tight integration with BitGravity's platform and their carrier-grade infrastructure, including collocation and IP-network capacity, and local sales presence in each region for the CDN offering. BitGravity will provide technology and manage the content delivery operation. The service will be sold in Europe and Asia and branded as Tata Communications' CDN Powered by BitGravity.
Several Reliance managers have an Internap experience in their C.V., and this might have helped finalize the deal:
John Scanlon, Chief Executive Officer
John Scanlon became CEO of the Company in September 2004 and is a20-year veteran of the telecommunications and data services industry. Before joining the Company he held a variety of senior positions at Internap, a network services provider of high-performance IP solutions. Most recently, he was Internap's Vice President of International and Corporate Development, but also served as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Service Planning during his five years there. Prior to Internap, Scanlon co-founded international telecommunication services provider Flat Rate Communications. He served as CEO of FlatRate from 1996 to 1998, when he sold the company to European telecom provider Viatel and became General Manager of the new Viatel subsidiary. Scanlon also spent over a decade at MCI in a variety of finance, business development and marketing roles.
Scanlon holds an M.B.A. from St. Mary's College of California and a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Oregon State University.
Keao Caindec, Chief Marketing Officer
Keao Caindec is responsible for Reliance Globalcom's marketing strategy and operations, including product marketing and management, business development, and marketing communications and programs. Caindec is a seasoned executive with deep marketing and business development experience in data communications, network optimization and acceleration, content distribution, IP route-control, VoIP, ATM, MPLS internetworking and network security. Prior to joining the Company in 2005, Caindec was a Principal and Founder of Farallon TechnologyResources, a solutions provider for advanced network services andtechnologies. Prior, he was Executive Director of Alliance Development at Internap, a network services provider of high performance IP solutions. Caindec has also held senior management positions in marketing at CyberCash (acquired by Verisign), MCI Communications, ATMnet (acquired by Verio) and British Telecom North America (Tymnet), the early pioneer of packet-switched networking.
Caindechas a bachelor's degree in Economics with a Concentration in Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Richard Cotton, Vice President, Operations
Richard Cotton is a seasoned executive with over 20 years experience in telecommunications, technology, and law. Prior to joining the Company, Cotton was with Internap Network Services Corporation, a leading provider of managed IP services, from 1999 through 2006 holding several senior positions including Vice President of Carrier Relations, Business Operations and Data Center Services.
Prior to Internap, Cotton was with Winstar Communication as a Senior VicePresident of Operations. He began his career with Winstar in 1996 as Vice President and General Counsel for the telecommunications subsidiaries. From 1993 to 1996 Cotton was in-house counsel for MCI Telecommunications Corporation. As Director, Law and Public Policy, Cotton was Lead Counsel for MCI's National Account/Global Accountmarket segment generating revenues of approximately $2 Billion annually. Prior to MCI, Cotton was in private legal practice from 1985 through 1993 with the New York law firm of Brown, Raysman & Millstein specializing in High Technology and Telecommunications matters.
Reliance is a great partner for Internap, for their strong presence in India, but also a very interesting Company worldwide.
Let's have a look at their recent Investor Presentation (thanks to VG for the heads up, and the comments in RED have been added to the slides):
They are already claiming to be among the top 3 data center operators...
Equinix mention (for EBIDTA results)
Landing in markets where Internap has data centers
Claiming 1 million sq. ft. of data center space, 260.000 in India, the rest internationally (with a few locations in the East Coast)
Leading position in the Indian market (over 60%...)
A strong Company, financially, pursuing M&A to achieve its goals.
A look at Reliance Flag peering policy and presence:
|Company Information
|Company Name
|FLAG Telecom
|Also Known As
|Company Website
|Primary ASN
|IRR Record
|Network Type
|Approx Prefixes
|Traffic Levels
|20-50 Gbps
|Traffic Ratios
|Geographic Scope
|Looking Glass URL
|Route Server URL
|Protocols Supported
|Unicast IPv4 Multicast IPv6
|Date Last Updated
|Peering Policy Information
|Peering Policy URL
|General Policy
|Multiple Locations
|Not Required
|Ratio Requirement
|Contract Requirement
|Private Only
Public Peering Exchange Points
|Exchange Point Name
|IP Address
|Any2 LAX and SJC
|Equinix Ashburn
|Equinix Tokyo
|JPNAP Tokyo
|JPNAP Tokyo
|PAIX Palo Alto
|PAIX Palo Alto
|Terremark NAP de las Madrid
Private Peering Facilities
|Facility Name
|Equinix Singapore
|FiberNet Telecom Group - 60 Hudson St
|New York
|FiberNet Telecom Group New York (111 Eighth Ave)
|New York
|KINX IX Center
|MEGA iAdvantage Hong Kong
|Hong Kong
|One Wilshire Los Angeles
|Los Angeles
|PAIX Palo Alto
|Palo Alto
|SARA Amsterdam
|Telehouse London (Docklands East)
|Terremark Madrid
At first sight, they are peering at Equinix Ashburn and Singapore, where Internap has a pnap, and at 111 8th Avenue, where Internap has one of its own data centers (New York). Plus the main places where you would expect to find them.
Recently, Flag experienced a disruption in services due to same damaged cables (this link is from Network World, Inc) :
>>Breaks last week in the Flag Telecom Europe-Asia cable, owned by India's Reliance Communications, and on the South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) cable, owned by a consortium, disrupted Internet and other communications to the Middle East and India.
Indian service providers were able to avoid a major crisis by diverting traffic from the Mediterranean routes to links in the Asia-Pacific region. Increased latency of traffic on account of the new routing however resulted in slower Internet access and poor quality of voice communications, according to the Internet Service Providers' Association of India (ISPAI).
Large Indian outsourcers, who depend on communications and the Internet for their business, said the impact on their business was marginal, as they already have enough of redundancy in their communications infrastructure. Smaller operations were however hit. Some call centers in India have privately reported frequent drops in calls from customers.<<
In spite of these comments, some Indian Companies suffered a serious problem from the outage, and Reliance might now see an added value from the implementation of Internap's IP Technology. No doubt the Internap data center business may also represent an interesting value for Reliance, too.
Akam described the event in its State of the Internet - 1Q 2008 report:
>>Perhaps the most noteworthy Internet outage in the first quarter of 2008 resulted from
several undersea cables in the Mediterranean Sea being severed. Two cables were severed
in late January, and two more went out of service in early February. These cable cuts
significantly impacted Internet connectivity into and out of countries in the Middle East.
The two cables account for the majority of international communications capacity between
Europe and the Middle East, and the cuts reduced bandwidth between the region and
Europe by 75%, according to TeleGeography.15
According to data collected by Renesys,16 Egypt, Pakistan, Kuwait, and India had the most
networks impacted by the cable cut. Data posted to the Renesys blog showed that over
1,000 customer networks in Egypt were impacted, with over 900 customer networks in
Pakistan seeing problems; nearly 500 in India and almost 300 in Kuwait.
Data collected by Akamai's measurement systems showed the impact of these cable cuts on
network latency in the region. A visualization available at http://www.akamai.com/mideastoutage
shows the degradation in network latency between measurement points to 1.5x, 2x,
and 3x or more beyond normal average latency. Data collected by in-region measurement
agents showed that delivery of content for Akamai customers was not impacted by the
cable cuts. Akamai's dynamic mapping system ensured that end-user requests were routed
to available edge servers, which could deliver content from cache, and Akamai's optimized
routing technology ensured that those Akamai servers chose the fastest, most available path
when it was necessary for them to retrieve content from a customer's origin server.<<
Reliance Globalcom Video: Global Reach and Ethernet Scalability
1. About Reliance Globalcom
2. Synergy of recent international acquisitions
3. Market presence and service offering
4. Network architecture
5. Expansion strategy, $2 billion network upgrade and key technology partners
6. Bandwidth pricing trends per region


text:
One evening, last week I sat down and I read this book. It probably took me about four hours to finish – so probably about five or six hours in total. I was fascinated by the history of the circus together with the present day adventures of the old man narrating the story. Usually I dislike books that have two stories being told concurrently, but not this time. The sections about the old man helped form an image of the young man and vice versa. I'm not old, but Sara Gruen describes the indignities that I dread with being old, especially the loss of independence and privacy:
She pops a disposable cone on a thermometer and sticks it in my ear. I get poked and prodded like this every morning. I'm like a piece of meat unearthed from the back of the fridge, suspect until proven otherwise.
Young Jacob runs away from Cornell during his final exams and ends up jumping on a train that belongs to the Benzini Brothers' circus. Fortunately, they do not turn him off before finding out that he was almost a vet and so has skills they need. At the circus, he makes friends with Marlena, the horse shower and her husband, August, who turns out to be manic depressive if not schizophrenic too. Not forgetting the animals. Jacob's relationship with animals is one of respect and sympathy. He considers them his equals; equal but different. He did not know true animal love until the circus adopted Rosie, the elephant. The relationship between Jacob, Marlena, August, and Rosie forms the crux of the historical story. At one point, having decided that he hated August because of his abuse of the animals especially of Rosie, Jacob finds it hard to maintain his hatred because:
It's only when I catch Rosie actually purring under August's loving ministrations that my conviction starts to crumble. and what I'm left looking at in its place is a terrible thing.
Maybe it was me. Maybe I wanted to hate him because I'm in love with his wife, and if that's the case, what kind of man does that make me?
The historical part of the novel is set in the heart of the 1930s Depression. Initially, the Depression appears and disappears. It only affects circus life on the periphery, for example pay day when everyone is worried about who will get paid. Gradually, it seeps into everyday life and starts taking over. Men disappear, with the fear that they were red-lighted which means they were kicked of the moving train in the middle of the night. This adds to the tension in the book, playing with some of the subplots.
The book, on the whole, is positive and forward looking; probably because the present day Jacob is remembering his past, so you know he survives. That also gives the impression that the book will end bittersweet, but with clever twists in the tale, the novel really ends mostly happily.
A great touch is archival photographs of circus life before each chapter.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Course Director
"These hands on courses allow you to learn and apply your knowledge immediately into your private practice. In addition, you are providing a service to the people of the Dominican Republic, who otherwise have no opportunity to rehabilitate their oral health. You are changing lives, one tooth at a time."
Medical Director – Implants in Paradise
a division of Impact Health International
Dr. Daniel Brunner was born and raised in Huntington Beach, CA. He attended the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Dentistry where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and received his Doctorate of Dental Surgery. He then returned to Southern California where he attended the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine and received his Medical Degree. Dr. Brunner completed his residency in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University of Southern California. He had the privilege of serving as Chief Resident of the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department at Los Angeles County Hospital, the largest Trauma Hospital in the country, from 2001-2002. Following his Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residency, Dr. Brunner went on to pursue an additional year of medical training in General Surgery at St. Joseph Hospital in Denver, CO.
Dr. Brunner moved to Atlanta, GA in 2003, where he established his Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery practice, East Cobb Oral Surgery. In his private practice Dr. Brunner specializes in Dento-Alveolar Surgery, Dental Implant Surgery and Bone Grafting Surgery. In 2007, Dr. Brunner founded Impact Health International, a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization bringing dental education and services to the Dominican Republic. Since 2007 Impact Health International has donated over $5,000,000 in dental services to the people of the Dominican Republic. Dr. Brunner is a strong advocate of continuing dental education both personally, as well as professionally. He not only considers himself a life long student by attending numerous hours of continuing dental and medical education a year, performing personal research and keeping current on the latest advancement in dental implant and bone reconstructive surgery, he also advocates to others the importance of continuing advanced dental education. Dr. Brunner created a Hands-On Dental Implant Training program, Implants in Paradise, where he teaches dentists hands-on training of dental implant placement, sinus augmentation and bone grafting techniques on live patients in the Dominican Republic.
Dr. Brunner is a highly esteemed lecturer and has had the privilege to lecture both domestically and internationally. He currently lecturers for MIS Implants at their Dental Implant Training Centers (DITC) located in New Jersey and California, as well as, for the Academy of General Dentistry Mastertrack continuing dental education program. Most recently Dr. Brunner was a guest lecturer for the American Academy of Implant Dentistry (AAID) for their 2013 Annual Convention. He was also the keynote speaker for the Latin American Academy of Osseointegrated Dental Implants (LAODI) annual conference. Dr. Brunner has also published research articles in various dental journals.
Dr. Brunner has been married to his wife Melissa for 22 years and they have 4 children, Daniel Jr., Hannah, Rachel, and Paul. In his spare time Dr. Brunner enjoys Surfing, Wake Boarding, English Fox Hunting and Organic Farming.


text: In 2015, I paired up with PanCan, the leading pancreatic cancer charity and information center, Meals to Heal, and pharmaceutical company, Celgene, to create a nutrition program that fits the dietary needs of a patient battling pancreatic cancer. The campaign is called Cooking Comfort Care. This program is very special to me in many ways. Not only can I help people facing this disease now, but it also enabled me to tell my personal story how my mother and family were affected by this cancer.


text:
Lesley Abravanel
Paris Hilton sings, Melissa Joan Hart tans, Molly Sims parties
Say what you will about Paris Hilton, but the former reality star sensation, the one who launched a thousand Kardashians (with the help of Ryan Seacrest, of course), is persistent. Despite a lackluster debut as a singer years ago with a performance at the now-defunct Pawn Shop in Miami, Hilton is back at it as not only a DJ but a singer signed to Cash Money Records, debuting a single Saturday at Wall Lounge. High Off My Love is Hilton's song, produced by Mr. Beatz and featuring a verse from rapper Birdman. For a preview of what may come, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGnKkgzVpCe
Melissa Joan Hart was spotted poolside Friday at the Delano Beach Club "looking stylish," says our spy, in an emerald green strapless one piece bathing suit with an ivory Panama hat. She, her mom and a group of her girlfriends were lounging poolside drinking mojitos and watermelon coolers and snacking on cheeseburgers while enjoying the sun, music and pool before heading to Bianca for dinner.
Model Molly Sims was seen Friday night on the rooftop at the 1 Hotel South Beach for the bachelorette party of best friend and publicist Lauren Kucerak. After putting her newborn baby girl Scarlett and son Brooks to bed with hubby Scott Stuber, Sims joined the beaming bachelorette and friends with champagne toasts and celebratory selfies. The group of 14 enjoyed dinner in one of the hotel's private cabanas decked out in festive bachelorette decor. On Sunday, they lounged by the rooftop pool at a private cabana and Instagrammed up a storm.
Miami celeb photog Seth Browarnik celebrated his company World Red Eye.com's five-year anniversary Friday with a party at the 1 Hotel, as well. Among those spotted in the crowd: Timbaland, Rico Love, Janice Combs and Dennis Rodman. Browarnik was presented with a special custom-engraved World Red Eye three-liter Moet & Chandon bottle, while more than 500 guests raised their glasses to cheer and take a picture of the man responsible for capturing so many of their moments throughout the years. Timbaland and Rico Love were also seen Sunday night at The Forge for its weekly "Remastered Party."
Among those spotted at a socialite-y, big hat lunch Friday hosted by NBA wife Larsa Pippen at Tamarina Friday afternoon: Dawn Wilkerson, wife of so-called celebrity pastor Rich Wilkerson.


text:
In my younger years, before I started reading about the general cruelty and nastiness involved in intensively reared meat, before thinking about food in such a way had even crossed my mind, I was extremely partial to a box of fried chicken and chips. It was my go-to drunk food. So crispy! So salty! So naughty!
These days, you might think that my love affair with fried chicken must be over. Most takeaway joints wouldn't dream of sourcing free range or organic chickens for their buckets of grease, after all.
Thankfully, in wonderful London, you can find just about anything. So here's my round up of eateries in the capital where the only cruel part of the food is the amount of squats you'll have to pull to burn off the delicious calories…
1. Mother Clucker
Based in their mobile van, the boys at Mother Clucker London serve mouthwatering southern, twice fried, free-range chicken, marinated in a sweet tea brine for over 12 hours, coated in buttermilk and a secret blend of spices. Make sure you follow them on Twitter to find out where they're parked at the moment.
2. Wishbone
I am yet to try this place, but it's at the top of my wishlist for a number of reasons; the free-range Cotswold white chickens, the craft beers, the soul music and hip-hop playlist, and not least of all, the scathing review at the beginning of the year from The Observer's Jay Rayner. Four wings from here will set you back £4.50, so for that price, your best bet is to head down and judge it for yourself.
3. Clutch
All of the chicken here is 100% free range and from rare breeds, and cooked in finest grade groundnut oil. The interior is modern but comfy and dimly lit, and the brunch menu sounds amazing – The veggie 'Clutch it Up' comes with chilli scrambled eggs, halloumi, roast tomato and guacamole. Oh, and the soundtrack is stricly R'nB. Winner!
4. Bird
With four branches across London, BIRD promises "free range fried chicken, the way it's meant to be" – which for them means smothered in buffalo blue cheese or Nashville hot sauce and accompanied by a fat stack of fries with chicken fat gravy. Oh, and there's hot fresh donuts too. Need I say more?
5. Chicken Town
Chicken Town breaks the mould that has been carved out by thousands of other fast food outlets across the country, by serving high quality, free range chicken meals at the same price as the inferior alternatives. The project is the culmination two years of research on the causes of obesity on young people in London; Tottenham has some of the highest childhood obesity rates in the UK, with over 40% of 11-year-olds classified as obese. By providing better versions of the most popular form of fast food in the area, Chicken Town aims to improve kids diets by introducing attractive, tasty – yet healthier – alternatives. It's the future of fast food – I hope!
6. Hook
Posh fish 'n' chips and gourmet dipping sauces are the order of the day at Hook, a simple trendy space with communal tables and a hip hop playlist. Their free range fried chicken strips in cajun panko breadcrumbs are fab, as is the fact that they sell bottles of beer from Welsh brewery Otley too!


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Its been a busy few days with corporate editing and reading of a fabulous book. Been collecting beer and watch TV with my lovely daughter.
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Nebraska ruled rounds 4 and 5 for the Redskins. All three players picked during those rounds were Cornhuskers teammates.
Who are these cornfed boys?
Roy Helu, running back
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 220
College: Nebraska
He learned much of his running game by watching tapes of his dad, a former captain of the U.S. national rugby team.
He's a bit particular about his last name. "They said, 'HAY-lu'?' My name's 'HEL-ooo,'" said Helu. "It's OK, but you can call me 'HAY-lu.' It's Roy 'HEL-ooo,' Jr."
He was the first 300 yard rusher in the history of Nebraska football.
Dejon Gomes, defensive back
Height: 6"0"
Weight: 200
College: Nebraska
He also plays basketball – sort of. Gomes said, "Probably my biggest thing I do to not think about football is just get together with my teammates and play NBA 2K11. It's a relaxing thing, and it's still involving sports, but not real life."
He donates his time to the Down Syndrome Association and the Madonna Hospital Wheelchair Football workshop. "Just going out there and seeing all the kids and seeing how ultimately happy they are even though they face a lot of challenges in life, you just appreciate life that much more," he said.
Niles Paul, wide receiver
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 220
College: Nebraska
Twitter: @Niles_Paul
Like his teammate, Ryan Kerrigan, Paul could have a backup career in modeling.
He will not pay a cover charge to hang out with you:
Questions, comments or tips? Email Sarah at email@example.com. You can also follow her on Twitter (@sarahschorno).


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It is great to be home and I had a great half day birding on one of my 'local' patches today- Achnahaird beach/salt marsh/dunes- a 25 mile drive north of Ullapool. I had planned a trip to the hebrides and although the rooms were booked the ferry was full. Plan B- check out the recently reported 'white-billed diver' - one of two reported, with another further up the coast at Lochinver. As is so often the case with WBD reports in the north and west, this one turned out to be a waste of time- either the birds in this part of the world are incredibly mobile and have moved on by the time I arrive or visiting birders are often duped by pale-billed great northerns- unfortunately an annual occurrence . Of course, with a number of experienced birders visiting this part of the world too, some birds turn out to be genuine white-bills, but unfortunately nowhere near as many as the various reports on the bird news services suggest. On arrival I saw a nice Iceland gull sitting on the loch alongside the approach road. From the car park I scoped 5 great northern divers- four with black bills and a lone pale-billed individual. A single black-throated diver was a nice bonus. The bay also held cormorants, black guillemots and a couple of razorbills. On the beach with the common, herring and great black-backed gulls was a magnificent glaucous gull- this bird allowed for some of the best views I have ever had of this species in Britain. Other notable birds included a splendid snow bunting- my first record at this site since November 2010 and a pair of shelduck- another unusual record for the north-west coast. Two sand martins were my first true spring migrants of this year. Singing skylarks and calling lapwings and snipe coupled with displaying ringed plovers made for a very enjoyable birding session- and it was so refreshing to have to wear a beanie and gloves! ;)
|glaucous gull
|glaucous gull
|Iceland gull
|common gull
|snow bunting


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Enter keywords, ISBN, author, or book title
Home > Resources: Author Profiles > Author Profile
For more than a century, L. Frank Baum's kingdom of Oz and its delightful denizens have enchanted readers of all ages. In this illustrated Modern Library edition, the bestselling novelist and children's book writer Gregory Maguire takes readers on a guided tour of Oz, gathering and introducing us to three of... Read more
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Advice on unformatted disks
If you decide at times to use unformatted partitions, this tip offers some useful advice on what to watch out for.
Although most Windows storage is formatted using the Windows file system, this isn't always the case. For some applications you leave one or more partitions or disks unformatted.
The most notable examples are DBMSs such as Oracle. Since they have their own file systems tuned to the needs of the database, they can run on unformatted partitions.
The decision to format or not format usually comes down to whether performance or manageability is more important in your application. Applications that don't go through Windows will have better I/O performance, but they are considerably harder to manage. For example, the partitions usually won't autoextend the way a Windows partition can. (The exception would be for an application that has its own autoextend function.)
In this era of low-cost hardware and high-cost expertise, it generally only makes sense to use raw partitions in extreme cases.
If you decide to use unformatted partitions, Microsoft provides methods to name unformatted partitions so they can be used by applications through Windows.
- Windows names raw devices using the physical drive number and an optional partition identifier. The disk identified as Disk 3 in the Disk Administrator can be accessed as \\.\PhysicalDrive3, for example. If there is more than one partition on the raw disk, the partitions are accessed in the format \\.\PhysicalDrive3\Partition1.
- If you assign drive letters to the raw partitions using the Disk Administrator, they can be accessed using the format \\.\ {drive letter}.
- You can use the DOSDEV.EXE utility in the Windows Resource Kit to assign symbolic link names to unformatted partitions. Thus, \\.\PhysicalDrive3\Partition1 can be named \\.\transactions.
- Before you decide to use raw partitions, read the applicable sections of the application's documentation and make sure you understand any limits or requirements the application may impose. Remember, the application will be providing the file system for the partition and it may not do things exactly the Windows way.
If you are not going to use raw partitions for an application like Oracle, you should format the partitions in NTFS, the Windows standard file system, for better performance and manageability.
About the Author:
Rick Cook has been writing about mass storage since the days when the term meant an 80 K floppy disk. The computers he learned on used ferrite cores and magnetic drums. For the last 20 years he has been a freelance writer specializing in storage and other computer issues.


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+ When do we engage Fortis?
We are generally approached by investors, management, counsel or advisors prior to the execution of the transaction documents. Our engagement becomes effective upon signing, but no fees are due until closing. On occasion we are engaged post-closing to replace a representative when issues arise and/or the person is unwilling, unable or lacks the experience to handle the burden and responsibilities of the job.
+ How does the relationship work?
In our engagements a small group of selling shareholders is appointed as our advisory group for purposes of important decision-making during the post-closing period. We advise, consult with, and report to the advisory group when issues arise. The advisory group though has final authority on all material decisions affecting the shareholders' economic interests, such as resolution of purchase price adjustments and settlement of indemnification claims or earn-out disputes..
+ How will Fortis assign resources to my deal?
We assign at least two members of our executive team to every transaction, ensuring that clients receive immediate senior-level attention to every important matter. We also assign experienced client service personnel to respond to any and all shareholder questions.
+ How are we compensated?
We offer flexible fee structures to meet the particular needs and interests of our clients. The fee is negotiated at the time of engagement and is based on the duration and complexity of the post-closing period and the anticipated scope of our responsibilities. In most cases, clients select a flat fee payable at closing. The fee covers all of our advisory and administrative services. The fee is borne ratably by all shareholders, which tends to make it cost-effective to each shareholder on an individual basis.


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Go Back
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To get the current article, - See Below (at the bottom of the page) -.
For top news titles, see below.
Web sites and videos listed in this page are frequently updated.
If you find that this page is useful (quality of web sites, images and videos, ...), you can add it to your favorites.
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Using Forums in South-East Asian Disasters
When the Internet was invented, it was looked upon as a way to find information in online encyclopaedia, or to advertise marketing material, or to find basic information. In other words, everyone expected it to be a glorified, easily accessible encyclopaedia, with maybe a few experts easily accessible online.
About the Author: Danny Wirken owns and runs http://www.tsunami.ws which is part of the 1000 strong online Community of http://www.444.net that critically reviews and rates millions of products in 11 countries and services for the benefit of other consumers. Available free of charge to consumers in local-language versions in major western European markets, more than 1.5 million consumers visit the 444 Network every month, making it one of the largest Blog Portals in Europe. The 444 Network also has far reaching charitable outlets from educating underprivileged children in South America to Disaster Relief in South East Asia.


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Started this discussion. Last reply by beryl etanah Jun 1. 3 Replies 0 Likes
the Hebrew Gospels and the Language of the Gospels? Shalom and a blessing to all brethren.Ok, this discussion is kind of technical, and I apologize if it is hard to understand for some who might be…Continue
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Year of publication
- 1999 (2) (remove)
A map for an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) in an indoor environment for the purpose ofcontinuous position and orientation estimation is discussed. Unlike many other approaches, this map is not based on geometrical primitives like lines and polygons. An algorithm is shown , where the sensordata of a laser range finder can be used to establish this map without a geometrical interpretation of the data. This is done by converting single laser radar scans to statistical representations of the environ-ment, so that a crosscorrelation of an actu al converted scan and this representative results into the actual position and orientation in a global coordinate system. The map itsel f is build of representative scansfor the positions where the AMR has been, so that it is able to find its position and orientation by c omparing the actual scan with a scan stored in the map.
Keeping Track of Position and Orientation of Moving Indoor Systems by Correlation of Range-Finder Scans (1999)
One of the problems of autonomous mobile systems is the continuous tracking of position and orientation. In most cases, this problem is solved by dead reckoning, based on measurement of wheel rotations or step counts and step width. Unfortunately dead reckoning leads to accumulation of drift errors and is very sensitive against slippery. In this paper an algorithm for tracking position and orientation is presented being nearly independent from odometry and its problems with slippery. To achieve this results, a rotating range-finder is used, delivering scans of the environmental structure. The properties of this structure are used to match the scans from different locations in order to find their translational and rotational displacement. For this purpose derivatives of range-finder scans are calculated which can be used to find position and orientation by crosscorrelation.


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by Ronnie Charrier
Whether your old man fancies himself a cowboy who strikes matches against his stubble and wrestles with wild bears, or drives a minivan and hasn't been camping since he was in Boy Scouts, we've got a gift guide for him that's sure to get him excited for a little outdoors adventure!
Few items can make you feel as outdoorsy as an axe. When your dad carries this Zippo axe into camp, he'll be set with a bow saw that cuts oak up to 4" in diameter, a mallet, a stake puller, and a hatchet with a 5" blade. Call it a handy camp tool or a survival tool; it's one tool that let's him leave three others at home.
For the outdoorsman who wants to travel light, but still stay warm, meet the Rumpl blanket. Made from the same technical fabrics as your favorite sleeping bag, a Rumpl blanket will keep you warm and comfortable while out in the wild. Packing down to the size of softball, these blankets are portable, water repellent and with rip-stop material, they'll last longer than your average blanket!
Is your dad thinking of taking up running? Iffley Road is a British based running wear brand producing technical running wear with a stylish, old-school look. For it was at this Oxford running track in 1954 that Sir Roger Bannister broke the seemingly impossible 4 minute barrier for the mile. Everything about these kits feel high quality and if your dad lives somewhere a bit colder, their merino line is perfect!
Every dad will have an occasion or two that requires traveling with a suit, but that doesn't mean they have to substitute style. A leather garment duffle bag like the ones from Floto allows for packing a suit AND any other clothing and shoes in one bag. The inside has 2 multi-function pockets for shoes, tablets, and bulky charges. Uni-zipper design provides easy access to inside storage when traveling through TSA.
Shirts are an essential item in every man's wardrobe. But cotton shirts are high maintenance, especially for the active guy with a mobile lifestyle. Every guy should experience what it feels like to wear a Hardvark Tailored Performance shirt. Made from superfine woven merino wool, this shirt is designed for climbing mountains, cycling and skiing, but is stylish enough to wear to the pub or, more likely, to the playground. The technical fabric regulates temperature, wicks moisture, stretches, and is naturally odor and crease resistant, so it doesn't even need ironing.
Zerogram RACEK Tent
Every man should have a tent, but your dad should have the BEST tent. Zerogram tents were designed for through-hikers and are light, roomy, and quick to set up, with both putting up and taking down taking less than 5 minutes. The whole tent, including stakes and footprint, packs into a compression sack and weighs about 4 pounds.
Nothing says "I'm a man of the outdoors" quite like this rugged sweater that was inspired by a jumper worn by Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men in the Antarctic, as seen in photographs taken a century ago. From its basket weave pattern to its insulating roll neck, the Signature Sweater is a solid sweater that offers warmth, comfort and style in equal measure, imparting a quietly rugged look.


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Price: $85 USD
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Cubana Stirring Glass 1L - Urban Bar
Material: Sticla HAND MADE
Capacitate: 600 ml
Dimensiuni: 14 x 14 x 19 cm
Greutate: 565 g
Producator: Urban Bar
Se recomanda spalare manuala
Disponibilitate: In stoc
Handmade Stemmed Cubana Mixing Glass
Introduce a new aspect to your mixology with the Cubana Mixing Glass. This stemmed mixing glass borrows the benefits of a brandy glass and allows you to swirl your cocktail.
By picking up the Cubana Mixing Glass you remove the need for a bar spoon, and give yourself a gentle interaction with your drink. This lessens the contact of bar tools and ice cubes, for minimal dilution.
Each mixing glass is handmade with its origins coming from skilled craftsmanship. This glass continues the trend by allowing you to have a more intimate mixology process to produce your own creations.
Product Features:


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What's happening folks? It's been another wild week in the world of Hip Hop. Hit the jump for audio and highlights.
Camp Lo are back in the studio working on a new album called Stone & Rob: Caught on Tape. The album is named after two characters in the movie Cooley High. Be on the lookout of the album droppin' later this year, it should be pretty dope.
No Limit artist C-Murder violated his house arrest order and has been sent back to jail. C-Murder is currently awaiting trial for the murder charges against him for the murder of a 16 year old outside of a night club in Louisiana.
The Republican Party is working hard to get young hip voters, and they are starting to reach out to the Hip Hop community and work on improving relations with groups that normally are not favorable to their party. No comment on this!!!!!
Coolio was busted at LAX with crack cocaine, after going through a security check before boarding a flight. Note from Cee: The man was also robbed of his jewelery and kicks at his recent Melbourne show. Dude is on fire.
Nick Cannon has been appointed to the position of Honorary Chair and Development Consultant for TEENick, a spinoff of Nickeloden. His job will be to work on broadening the range of the TEENick audience. Shouts to Nick for making some serious moves.
'Til next week,


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Oliver Holmes
June 15, 2013
Syrian artillery and warplanes pounded rebel areas in Damascus on Saturday as President Bashar al-Assad's foes pleaded for advanced weapons from the United States, which has promised them unspecified military aid.
Western powers have been reluctant in the past to arm Syrian insurgents, let alone give them sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles that might fall into the hands of Sunni Islamist insurgents in rebel ranks who have pledged loyalty to al Qaeda.
Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander Salim Idriss told Reuters on Friday that rebels, who have suffered setbacks at the hands of Assad's forces in recent weeks, urgently needed anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, as well as a protective no-fly zone.


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Duluth, a four-season city with 11,000 acres of green space alongside the greatest lake in the world, has miles and miles of trails that allow for travel on foot, skis, bike or snowmobile.Read more...
Check out the City Calendar of Events for information on activities, meetings and more.Event Listing...
• Population: 86,211
• Land area in square miles: 67.79
• Persons per square mile: 1,272
• Sister Cities: Petrozavodsk, Russia; Thunder Bay, Canada; Isumi-City, Japan; Växjö, Sweden; and Rania, Iraqi-Kurdistan.
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Find information about individual properties, assessment changes, and boards of appeal and equalization. Property Details Search
Report a snow related issue, find resources and more regarding the winter season. Winter Watch
Emily was elected Mayor of Duluth in November 2015 with 72% of the vote. She was inaugurated on January 4th, 2016.More info...
Western Port Area Neighborhood Plan:
Through a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Western Port Area Neighborhood (WPAN) will undergo an Area Wide Planning process to asses infrastructure, urban design, and economic factors to support future investment and development in this area.
The City of Business Development team is working in partnership with Community Planning staff on this project which will also entail public participation.
Additional information on the project is available at,
Board of Trade Technical Memorandum
View Director of Planning & Economic Development Job Posting


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Health Care
Flip-flops: the season's cutest health hazard?
Sam Hobert, 19, has suffered for his flip-flops. A few years ago, he broke his right big toe after slamming his foot into a rock while hiking in New Hampshire in his favorite summertime footwear. On a warm day a few weeks ago, the George Washington University freshman was nursing foot blisters, courtesy of a pair of new brown leather 'flops from the Gap.
"It's looks over comfort," he said. "But I'm regretting it a little bit, I'm not going to lie."
It's springtime and flip-flops -- the airy sandal with the distinctive thwack-thwack soundtrack -- are back, much to the frustration of podiatrists. Wearing flip-flops can cause problems ranging from stubbed toes and cuts to overuse injuries such as foot stress fractures.
Now that the weather is warm, said Howard Osterman, a podiatrist who has practiced in Washington for 20 years, he will see at least one patient with a flip-flop injury every day through September.
The No. 1 problem Osterman sees from the shoes are overuse injuries such as stress fractures of the metatarsals, the five long bones that reach out to the toes. A stress fracture happens after constant, repetitive stress to a bone and is generally treated with rest, more-supportive shoes and perhaps a walking boot.
Many of the less-expensive flip-flop styles consist of just a flat piece of rubber and the toe thong. The lack of arch support can cause another common foot injury -- plantar fasciitis, inflammation of the thick band of tissue along the bottom of the foot that causes a stabbing pain, especially in the heel. People with flatter arches are more prone to such overuse injuries because they need more support for their muscles and ligaments, Osterman said.
Flip-flops also leave the feet unprotected and exposed to the elements, which can mean cold toes, sunburns, cuts and bruises.
Very few studies have looked at the pros and cons of flip-flops. In 2008, Justin Shroyer, a biomechanics graduate student at Auburn University in Alabama, studied 39 college-age men and women to see how they walked when wearing flip-flops compared with sneakers. A native Floridian and a lifelong fan of flip-flops, Shroyer was inspired to study the shoes when he noticed how many fellow students wore them all day long and when he realized that it was a practically untouched area of research in biomechanics.
Shroyer, now an assistant professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, found that while wearing flip-flops, participants in his study took shorter steps. He hypothesized that this was because the wearer was trying to get his or her foot on the ground faster, to prevent the shoe from flying off. Also, flip-flop wearers did not bring their toes up as much during the leg's swing phase because they tended to grip the sandals with their toes.
"Your toe flexors are fighting what you're naturally trying to do," Shroyer said. "It's kind of an antagonistic push-pull, tug-of-war going on, and it's not happening in running shoes or bare feet."
The researchers speculated that the altered gait could result in pain from the foot up into the hips and lower back.
A 2010 study by Rush University Medical Center in Chicago found that flip-flops and sneakers with flexible soles were easier on knees than clogs or special stability shoes. The researchers analyzed the gaits of 31 people with osteoarthritis of the knee while they wore the various types of footwear.
Osterman doesn't suggest avoiding flip-flops entirely, but he said that people should wear them in moderation -- for a few hours on the beach or at the movies, for example.
Shoppers should look for flip-flops with a stable sole, he said. Brands such as Reef, Rainbow, FitFlops, Teva and Merrell make models that throw more of the weight into the heel and out of the forefoot, he said.