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Hollywood has never been shy about using sex to sell its movies, or its movie stars. In fact, in all its guises — from the kiss that inevitably ends a hokey romantic comedy to the sweaty, graphic (and often clumsy) carnality of today's R-rated and NC-17 films — sex has always been the film industry's most trustworthy, enduring commodity. Sure, violence is a perennial favorite, and people will almost always pay to see a good sci-fi or fantasy flick. But in the end, very few movies in any genre manage to hold viewers' attention without at least one unapologetic, unmistakable nod to humanity's mysterious and forever fascinating mating rituals.
In the middle part of the last decade, meanwhile, many Hollywood studios put their faith in photographs of their comeliest stars striking what, in retrospect, were perfectly absurd poses, wearing perfectly absurd outfits. The creation of these "pinup" shots — often referred to by the catchall term "cheesecake" (see below) — was a miniature industry all its own, with stylists, makeup artists, electricians, grips and other behind-the-scenes experts working with photographers and, of course, the actresses themselves to produce publicity stills.
The origin of the term "cheesecake" to characterize these pinup shots is a matter of some contention, although one of the most widely accepted explanations is that men who first saw these sorts of photos in the early pinup days would exclaim that looking at them was "better than [eating] cheesecake."
For our purposes, what's striking about the pictures in this gallery is not just that there are a couple of future stars here among the half-dozen young starlets — including three-time Oscar nominee Piper Laurie and the famous Yvonne De Carlo — but that LIFE's Ed Clark made all these pictures in order to demonstrate the variety of ways that one studio, Universal, tried to sell its own stars to the public.
One of LIFE's west coast correspondents, Virgina Hobbs, wrote at the time that the photos in question feature "cheesecake-wise Universal starlets . . . demonstrating the most prevalent ways and means of girl presentation." In other words, the studio allowed Clark to photograph a number of its most promising young stars, and even lent stagehands and makeup artists, so that LIFE could show its readers how "cheesecake" was made.
The actresses featured in this gallery are: Piper Laurie (born Rosetta Jacobs); Canadian native Yvonne De Carlo (born Margaret Yvonne Middleton); Leslye Banning (born Mary Lousie Welch); Joyce Holden (born Jo Ann Heckert); Peggy, a.k.a., Peggie Castle (born Peggy Blair); and Susan Cabot (born Harriet Shapiro).
Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.


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Just when it seemed things could not get any worse for Stan Kroenke's other soccer team, they got worse.
Arsenal was eliminated from the FA Cup Saturday, losing to Sunderland 2-0, at Sunderland's Stadium of Light.
Now, there's no shame in losing to Sunderland at their home, they have been very good all year and are in ninth in the Premier League. Arsenal needed a last second goal to beat them 2-1 in that league back on Feb. 11.
But that was the last goal Arsenal have scored in 180 minutes of soccer. Today's shutout follows a 4-0 pasting by A.C. Milan in the UEFA Champions League, which all but eliminated the Gunners from that tournament too. Fan anger, directed mostly at manager Arsene Wenger, has now spilled over to Kroenke, who has been accused of failing to spend enough money to right the ship.

subset: commoncrawl


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Sweet Potato Coconut Curry Soup
Healthy vs Not Healthy. Sometimes the answer is obvious. Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes with Maple Frosting? There is no doubt that it is an artery clotting cupcake. Sweet Potato Coconut Curry Soup? Composed up of just a few simple ingredients including sweet potatoes, coconut milk, and a little vegetable stock sounds innocent enough. But you add up the nutrition and find yourself with a soup that isn't exactly on the Ass Friendly side. While the calorie count is low, thanks to the sweet potatoes, the carb count is pretty high. And then add in the coconut milk and the fat grams are not as low as I would like.
But yet all of these ingredients are considered healthy and are from the earth. So I am asking you, should this recipe be in the Ass Friendly section of the blog? Or is this a soup that should be saved for special treats? Because let me tell you, it tasted like it should be in the special treat section! I plan on making this soup all.the.time. It was extremely easy and tasted like it had taken hours. I absolutely loved the flavor profile from the coconut, curry, and sweet potato. But I am still left trying to figure out if this is considered healthy or not?
Sweet Potato Coconut Curry Soup
Recipe Note: I like my soup a little thicker and adjusted it to fit those needs. If you like a thinner soup, just add a little more vegetable stock and coconut milk.
- 2 large sweet potatoes, pricked all over with a fork
- 1/2 cup coconut milk
- 1 cup vegetable stock
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp curry powder
- 1/2 tsp garam masala
- pinch of cayenne pepper
- chopped fresh cilantro for serving
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Bake sweet potatoes for one hour or until very tender. Remove from oven and let cool.
Blend together sweet potato (minus the skin) and all other ingredients. Re-heat soup if necessary and serve with chopped cilantro on top.
Adapted from Eat Live Run


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Definition from Nolo's Plain-English Law Dictionary
The state of mind necessary to prove first-degree murder. The prosecution must prove that the defendant intended to cause death or great bodily harm, or exhibited extreme and reckless indifference to the value of life. Any intentional killing that does not involve justification, excuse, or mitigation is a killing with malice aforethought.


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Oh, it's you! Aren't I lucky. I'm glad you kept scrolling. Here's the deal, ideas (great ones) require a lot of time and effort. You might not find one here on my bio page. They're only for the selected few who send me a note to get my porfolio.
But for now, let's back up. My name is Paul Merisalu and I'm a copywriter. And I'm working my ass off to become a killer creative strategist. Cannes level, no less.
I have gathered a big chunk of work experience for my relatively young age of 29. Wait. Shit. I'm thirty one now. Never mind. Let's keep going. So, I'm not exactly what you'd call green. I've been around the globe a few times as well working in the US, Finland and Estonia.
Work experience
Creative at Bob the Robot
- My current job. I work with major Finnish brands and I'm loving every minute of it. I learn something new every single day. Dream job, anyone?
Freelance creative and web designer
- I got addicted to the web as a kid when I first learned HTML. Now, I offer broader solutions to my clients—I help them plan the content strategy also outside the web and then create a website to match that. I don't do this a lot anymore unless the project is really, really, really interesting.
- I also create concepts, write copy and plan the execution of ads and other content for my clients. Want to see? Send me a quick note and I'll send you my book.
Key account manager at Logia Software Oy
- I managed the account of the company's biggest customer. Using KPIs provided by the customer I developed ways to improve the quality of our service. I was insanely effective at this. Too bad for me the results are classified. Would a reference work for you?
- I also managed the ICT part of a project in which the goal was to implement a new warehouse management system for more than 40 warehouses consisting of a few hundred international clients. This was heavy lifting. Don't worry, I didn't break anything.
Development manager at Itella Logistics Estonia LLC
- I worked with clients to improve their logistics and business processes to work better with a 3rd party logistics partner. I also developed more efficient business processes with the help of technology, and lead the IT department.
- Wait, what? I made it faster (and cheaper) for you to get the stuff that you buy online. Stuff like lubricants, smart phones, tractors and highly flammable industrial chemicals—whatever floats your boat.
Co-founder of Kodinkoneiden Verkkokauppa OÜ
- It started as an experiment to learn more about eCommerce and how to drive conversions. I co-founded an online retail company specializing in kitchen appliances. The company sold products to Finland. We closed it in 2014. I guess we sucked at it or something.
Bachelor's degree in Advertising (ongoing)
- 4-year Bachelor's degree in advertising and marketing, specialization in strategy and copywriting, Turku University of Applied Sciences, Finland, expected to graduate in 2017.
Bachelor's degree in Business Administration
- 3.5-year Bachelor of Business Administration, specialization in International Business, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, Finland, graduated in 2010.
Leadership program
- 6-month leadership program, Dictum Development Company, Estonia, graduated in 2010.


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Position of Provost to be Restructured
Peter Lennie to become Provost and Dean of Faculty of AS&E; Rob Clark to become Interim Senior Vice President for Research
On June 14, the University of Rochester Board of Trustees approved a restructuring of the Provost's position recommended by President Joel Seligman following Provost Ralph Kuncl's appointment as President of the University of Redlands. Read the full text here.
Peter Lennie, currently Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences & Engineering, will become Provost and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences & Engineering, and Robert Clark, currently Dean of the Edmund A. Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, will become interim Senior Vice President for Research, effective with Ralph Kuncl's departure, Seligman said.
"This new structure will more effectively address the Provost's role in our decentralized university governance model as well as the ongoing expansion of the research side of the Office of the Provost," Seligman said. "It will simplify and clarify responsibility, reduce an administrative level, and achieve some synergies by combining the Provost's academic functions and the position of Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences & Engineering and by creating a senior vice president to oversee the expanding responsibilities for research."
The Provost and Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences & Engineering will oversee the School of Arts & Sciences, the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, the College, River Campus Libraries, the Memorial Art Gallery, the Office of University Graduate Studies, and the University of Rochester Press. He will also have responsibility for reaccreditation, institutional research, University Health Service, the University Intercessors, the Deans Council, academic and multidisciplinary awards, and the Deans Committee on Administrative Practices, and he will staff the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees.
"The definition of responsibilities recognizes that the redefined Provost position amplifies the position of Dean of the Faculty of AS&E," Seligman said. "Peter Lennie will continue to have an office in Lattimore Hall, since the majority of his duties will be as dean. He also will have an office in Wallis Hall."
Schools outside of AS&E that currently report to the Provost on formal academic issues such as tenure and promotion (including the Eastman School of Music, Simon School of Business and Warner School of Education) will continue to do so. They will continue to report to the President or to the President, the Provost and the Senior Vice President for Administration & Finance on issues related to budget, strategy, and facilities. The Medical Center CEO will continue to report directly to the President. No changes will occur in the existing reporting relationships of the School of Medicine and Dentistry or the School of Nursing.
In this new model, the deans of the School of Arts & Sciences and of the Hajim School will assume responsibility that had rested with the Dean of the Faculty of AS&E, for tenure, promotion, leave, and related faculty issues in their schools, as well as for student appeals.
The Office of Faculty Development and Diversity will continue to report to both the President and Provost. "This is a University priority and an area where I have a strong personal commitment," Seligman said.
Lennie has been Dean of the Faculty of AS&E since 2006, when he returned to Rochester after serving for seven years as dean for science and a professor of neuroscience at NYU. He is a professor of Brain & Cognitive Sciences and during his previous time at Rochester served as director of the Center for Visual Science, dean of academic resources and planning, and chair of Brain & Cognitive Sciences. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.
The new Senior Vice President for Research will be responsible for the fastest growing segments of the current Provost's position, Seligman said.
Those responsibilities include the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, sponsored research including the Sponsored University Research Group, Office of Research Projects Administration, University Information Technology, Health Science Center for Computational Innovation (HSCCI), Center for Entrepreneurship, Office of Research Alliances, Office of Human Subjects Protection/Research Subjects Review Board, Office of Technology Transfer, online initiatives, and staffing the Research and Innovation Committee of the Board of Trustees.
"Rob Clark's efforts to bridge between University research and the corporate world through cross-school initiatives such as the TEAM program with Simon and the Center for Medical Technology Innovation with the School of Medicine & Dentistry made him a logical choice for the interim Senior Vice President's role," Seligman said.
"During Rob's period as interim, I will expect him to make decisions as if he were the permanent Senior Vice President," Seligman said. "We have time-sensitive projects under way that should not be delayed, including selection of a new director of Tech Transfer, our IBM project (HSCCI), and our online initiative."
Clark will continue as Dean of the Hajim School while serving as interim Senior Vice President for Research. He has been dean since 2008, when he arrived from Duke University, where he had served as senior associate dean and dean of the Pratt School of Engineering. Clark is an expert in the science of acoustics and in bionanomanufacturing. He holds a bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute
Lennie's term will run through June 30, 2016. There will be a national search for the Senior Vice President for Research when the academic year begins, Seligman said.
"I have asked both Peter and Rob to begin the transition to their new positions effective July 1 to ensure an overlap period with Ralph before Ralph departs for California," he said. "I greatly appreciate their willingness to assume these new responsibilities."
Category: University News


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In Battlelog, the list of dog tags is split up into "Basic Dog Tags" and "Advanced Dog Tags".
So far (Rank 13) all dog tags I have unlocked were "Basic Dog Tags". I started out with the BF:BC2, the N7 and the Mass Effect 3 advanced dog tags, like everyone, I guess.
So: What are Advanced Dog Tags, and how do you unlock them?


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Meet Radar, the talking dog. What was he saying when I took that picture? Oh, just the usual. "Hey buddy, you sure take a lot of pictures. Wow! How many pictures are you gonna take? Ok, I think you've got it by now." You would think Radar is a celebrity of CEO going on like that. But seriously, does it not look like he is talking in the first picture!? Such a beautiful, expressive animal. I haven't seen that much expression from any of the humans I have worked with lately.
So who want's the real story? Radar is actually a service dog for a boy with autism. I shot this assignment for VIV Mag, and these are two of my favorite outtakes. I set up a raised platform in studio to photograph Radar, and he was not very excited about being on off the ground. It took several tries, and a lot of patience, but I got some beautiful images as a result. They say you should never work with children or animals, but sometimes it's the most difficult challenges that pay off the most.
Thanks to VIV Mag photo editor Daniel Montoya for working with me on this.
Retouching by Gigantic Squid.


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On April 4, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot to death in Memphis by an escaped convict, James Earl Ray.
Dr. King, the acclaimed civil rights leader, arrived in Memphis on April 3 and delivered what would be the final speech of his life, now known as the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address, in which he spoke of his own mortality.
"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life — longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land."
The next day, while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel reportedly speaking with the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who stood below in the parking lot, Dr. King was shot. As The New York Times described the scene,
"The Rev. Ralph W. Abernathy, perhaps Dr. King's closest friend, was just about to come out of the motel room when the sudden loud noise burst out. Dr. King toppled to the concrete second-floor walkway. Blood gushed from the right jaw and neck area. His necktie had been ripped off by the blast."
An emergency surgery failed to save Dr. King's life. He was declared dead about an hour after being shot.
News of Dr. King's death soon spread throughout the nation. At a campaign rally, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a strong supporter of civil rights and a Democrat running for president, commemorated Dr. King in an address.
"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black," he said.
(Just more than two months later, Mr. Kennedy would also be killed by an assassin's bullet after a campaign appearance in California.)
Read more about how the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. still applies today in
April 4, 1968 | The Assassination of Martin Luther King was originally published on wchbnewsdetroit.com


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- Premier League
Villas-Boas blasts Ancelotti over Bale
Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas has hit out at Real Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti for going public with his desire to sign Gareth Bale.
Villas-Boas was again forced to answer questions surrounding Bale's future after his side's 5-2 friendly loss to Monaco.
Bale was not involved in the match after staying behind in London. Madrid are looking to tie up a word-record transfer deal for the 24-year-old, with Ancelotti revealing the La Liga club were in talks to sign the Welshman earlier in the week.
Asked if Ancelotti had acted improperly, Villas-Boas said: "I think so, in my opinion.
"Carlo is a person I appreciate a lot and we have great respect for each other, but bearing in mind this situation they have decided to make it public.
"Normally in situations like this it is scrutinised by the Football Association with lots of care and attention. We have seen lots of people speak about a player that is not theirs and we are due some respect.
"These rumours of an imminent transfer are not true. The only thing we have communicated with Real Madrid is that he is our player and he is not for sale.
"Gareth is a guy I really like. We are talking with Real Madrid because there is respect between the two clubs following the transfer last season of Luka Modric.
"We are building a great team for next season. We envisage the future with Gareth. But we know that in football anything is possible."


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LauraS wrote:We moved into our house last August and we now have a pretty good sized yard with lots of mature perennials to take care of. I'm only a beginning gardener and I'm worried about ruining everything. Does anyone know of a master gardener who might be willing to come over for a couple of hours to walk me through the yard (paid, of course! )? We are on the border of Evanston and Skokie.I'd like to make sure I know what everything is and the best way to care for them through the season. Thanks!
Jasubar wrote:Just saw this posting today so it may be too late to help you for this year, but there's always 2018...
A couple of years ago I did some social media work for a guy who does exactly what you're looking for. He will do as much or as little as you want, from basic consulting to actually doing all the work for you, while you just enjoy the harvest. As I recall, he also teaches cheese-making classes.
His business is called Green Thumb at Your Service, website: http://www.greenthumbatyourservice.com/


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Sure, Darth Vader has the Force. But Deadpool can break the Fourth Wall, and he's (usually) got a nearly unstoppable healing factor. So if the Dark Lord of the Sith met the Merc with a Mouth, who would prevail?
That's the question we asked yesterday on our Facebook page. And the debate was pretty furious.
Among the notable responses:
Jeremy Oduber:
Deadpool, no contest. Vader is best known for losing fights.
Joel Hooper:
Neither, they would have a teaparty and cuddle.
Jordan Biagomala:
Deadpool would start doing a Jar Jar Binks impersonation and start calling Vader Lil Ani, until his mind snapped.
Leon Widodo:
Vader could, but wouldn't. Deadpool is a mercenary, same as Fett, so he would just offer him more money.
Cory Parrish:
Vader would force choke him then vaporize every last molecule of him with his lightsaber.
Austin Sheehan:
Well, Deadpool is completely fictional, so Darth Vader obviously.
Jyri Astokari:
Vader. Lightsaber would melt Pool's weapons, leaving him unarmed. Then it's just matter of time before Vader would slice him to pieces and freeze the sucker in carbonite, or destroy him with some imperialist super weapon. Also magma could come handy.
But what do you think?
Top image: DadetheThird on Deviant Art.


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Published at Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 - 15:43:58 PM. Wedding Venue. By Adelisa Pohl.
Do your research when it comes to choosing your dream wedding venue to ensure your big day runs smoothly and is just as memorable and magical as you want it to be. Searching the perfect wedding venue for your big day is a huge part of the destination wedding planner process and can leave every bride and groom feeling the pressure, after all the majority of locations have a wide range of wedding venues to choose from. However, ensuring you are prepared with a great set of wedding venue questions when viewing your favorites is the key to sorting the wheat from the chaff and choosing your dream location.
There are a wide range of different styles to choose from, from restaurants to rustic barns or boutique hotels to former palaces. Be warned that unfortunately, as is so often the case, you tend to get what you pay for. Furthermore, peak season Saturdays will usually be booked up 9 months or more in advance, so in order to secure the best venues it is important to either be flexible with the wedding date or start your venue search a year or so in advance. Be warned!
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(Adds context about stimulus program)
By Nichola Groom and Roberta Rampton
LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON, Oct 9 (Reuters) - The Treasury Department's inspector general is investigating a popular stimulus program that allowed rooftop solar panel projects to turn tax credits into cash grants, according to a regulatory filing.
The Treasury's internal watchdog is looking at how the department managed the program and is searching for "possible misrepresentations" about the fair market value of solar systems that received grants, one large installer of solar panels said in its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The inspector general issued subpoenas to SolarCity Corp and other big players in the market, working with the Justice Department's civil division, San Mateo, California-based SolarCity said in its initial public offering (IPO) filing last week.
SolarCity did not say who else received subpoenas, and the reason for the probe was not immediately clear.
The probe could fuel further criticism of President Barack Obama's clean energy initiatives that have come under fire for spending taxpayer money on unproven companies, including Solyndra, a solar panel maker that went bankrupt last year after receiving more than $527 million under a separate government program.
The Solyndra failure has become a stock part of stump speeches leading up the Nov. 6 U.S. elections, including those of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who argues that the government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers.
The Treasury Department's inspector general would not comment on the scope of the probe.
"We do not discuss pending audits and investigations in detail," Rich Delmar, counsel to the inspector general, said in an e-mail. "But generally speaking, we are carrying out our Inspector General Act-mandated duties to monitor the process by which public funds are distributed, to be sure that they are granted properly and used properly, consistent with applicable law, and intended use."
The watchdog has asked for documents dating back to 2007, including communications with other solar development companies and firms that appraised solar energy property for the grants, SolarCity said. A company spokesman was not immediately available for further comment.
The program, known as Section 1603, allowed renewable energy project owners to recover 30 percent of their construction costs in cash. It has been credited with helping boost the solar industry in the aftermath of the financial crisis, when it was difficult to find financing.
As of July 20, the program had helped fund more than 44,000 solar projects and the solar industry had received more than $2.7 billion of the program's $13 billion in funding, according to the Treasury. The 1603 program also extended to biomass, wind and other renewable energy projects.
The cash grant program reverted to a tax credit at the end of last year. Renewable energy project developers have been able to sell such incentives to investors, who finance the projects.
SolarCity said it did not know of specific allegations of misrepresentation. If any were found, the company could face damages, penalties and tax liabilities, it said.
"We anticipate that at least six months will be required to gather all of the requested documents and provide them to the Inspector General, and at least another year following that for the Inspector General to conclude its review of the materials," the company said in its filing.
The disclosure was made in SolarCity's U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission IPO filing. It wants to raise up to $201 million.
SolarCity has expanded rapidly thanks to a business model that allows residential customers to lease solar panels for their roofs. Rather than paying the large upfront costs required for a solar installation, customers pay a monthly fee.
The company faces competition in the solar lease business from start-ups that include: SunRun, Clean Power Finance and Sungevity, as well as solar stalwarts like SunPower .
"It's our policy to keep all communications with the Treasury confidential," a SunRun spokeswoman said in an e-mail.
Clean Power Finance did not receive a subpoena, nor is the IRS auditing any of its funds, a spokeswoman said.
SolarCity said in its filing that the Internal Revenue Service is also auditing two of SolarCity's investment funds and is reviewing the fair market value of the solar power systems receiving grants. The IRS declined to comment.
Companies that have provided funds to finance SolarCity's projects include Google Inc , U.S. Bancorp , Rabobank and Credit Suisse . Such investors use the 30 percent federal tax credit for solar energy systems to reduce their tax liabilities.
Google, U.S. Bank and Credit Suisse were not immediately available for comment. A Rabobank spokeswoman declined to comment.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton, Rachelle Younglai, Patrick Temple-West and Ayesha Rascoe in Washington and Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Dan Grebler and Leslie Gevirtz)
@robertarampton)(+202 898 8390))
Keywords: USA SOLAR/INVESTIGATION


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Next Episode of Rondom Tien is
A discussion show about current events. People from the audience participate with the program, next to the host and the guest(s).
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Wedge prisms can be used individually to deviate a laser beam a set angle, or two wedge prisms can be used together as an anamorphic pair.
Commercial Grade Wedge Prisms offer commercial quality, at an affordable price. Commercial grade optics have standard designs and are available on an ongoing basis. They are recommended for volume buyers or OEMs.


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Chance Loves
Laguna Poncho - White
This Beautiful Off White Poncho has sure been a great hit! Not only does it look super cute as a cover up on the beach or at a pool; you can also use at as a fashionable top with your jeans or shorts! This comes in very handy when you're on vacation!
No need for measuring; One size fits all!
- Chance Loves wants all of our clients to be 100% satisfied with their purchase.
- We offer Full refunds - Minus a $2.50 Restocking Fee Per Swimsuit, IF the item(s) are sent back within 14 days (based on return postmarked date). No returns for full item refund are accepted past this 14 day policy. Any returns received after 14 days will only be applied to a store item exchange*.
- SUITS purchased with a Sale Code CAN ONLY BE EXCHANGED
- We offer Exchanges on ALL items. Exchanges are only allowed IF the item(s) are sent back within 30 days (based on return postmarked date).
- Chance Loves does not offer free return shipping, however we will ship out the requested exchange item free of charge.
- Items can be shipped back to:
- Chance Loves, 31677 Virginia Way #9109, Laguna Beach, Ca 92652
- All items have to be in NEW condition, in the same condition they were sent, with ALL tags and Liners still attached.
- If your item came in a Soft Package or Padded Flat Rate Priority Mail Envelope, you can re-use the package for the return shipping.
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Pssst! Wanna double your money in one day? Yes, the stock of Actis Global Ventures, based in Carlsbad, soared from $0.0001 to $0.0002 on September 2. Officially, the stock's price is still $0.00, according to Yahoo.com, which rounds off share prices for investors' convenience.
A couple of years ago, Actis got a lot of publicity as one of San Diego County's booming multilevel marketing companies. Such firms wring money out of salespeople as well as customers. Distributors make money on products they sell, as well as on products that people they recruited into the scheme sell. That's why multilevel marketing, also known as network marketing, is often called what it is: a pyramid scheme. Over and over, it has been shown that only a small percentage of people in the pyramid make significant money, but the schemes still proliferate.
San Diego, for example, has other publicly traded multilevel marketing companies. The same week Actis rose to $0.0002, the stock of Ethos Environmental, which sells environmentally friendly oil additives, was quoted at all of 2 cents a share, and F.I.T.T. Highway Products, formerly Who's Your Daddy, distributor of energy shots (recently moved to Orange County), was quoted at 9 cents. The aristocrat of the bunch, LifeVantage, which makes antiaging products, was trading hands for a less meager 58 cents a share.
Most of these pyramids don't make it. Consider Actis. As far as I can determine, $0.00 is a very realistic price for its stock because the company no longer has any operations. The company chief executive, Ray Grimm of Rancho Santa Fe, is a darling of pyramid marketers, as well as San Diego Beautiful People. He owned a palatial home that was used for movie sets. He still lives in the tony Ranch, and folks swoon over his collection of Lamborghinis.
He's not so beloved in government circles. He had been a cofounder of Carlsbad's USA Inc., which sold supposed health products. Then the Food and Drug Administration said the products were unapproved and misbranded. USA closed and Grimm moved on to Uni-Vite, which hawked diet food from Carlsbad. The company went public by merging into a Nevada shell company, running afoul of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the process. Grimm then moved to still another Carlsbad multilevel marketer, Body Wise. But the Federal Trade Commission charged that the company made deceitful weight-loss and cholesterol-reducing claims.
In the year 2000, Grimm and his wife set up FemOne to peddle so-called nutritional and skin-care products (also from Carlsbad). FemOne stock initially soared, getting to $1.70. Four years ago, the name was changed to Actis Global Ventures. The multilevel marketing firm kept selling the products for women and added another wrinkle: gizmos to combat electromagnetic radiation.
"Electropollution has been linked to everything from headaches and sleeping problems to tumors and cancer," blared Actis's website. Cell phones, cordless phones, and computers are the villains, declared Actis. It had its multilevel distributors selling the Biopro cell chip, Biopro universal chip, and neck pendants, among other products, that would purportedly mitigate the effects of electromagnetic radiation.
One George Carlo, a controversial character who touted his medical expertise, claimed that cell phone radiation disrupted heart pacemakers, harmed children, caused brain damage, and set off genetic changes leading to cancer. At one point, Carlo backed Actis's products. Later he disavowed his support. My sources say Biopro products were no longer being sold last year.
But while they were on the market, the products generated lots of controversy. According to a story on neurodiversity weblog, a lady in Brentwood, Tennessee, claimed she ran a detoxification clinic. A Louisiana woman sought treatment for suspected mercury toxicity. She faxed information to the lady running the clinic, who stated that the Louisianan suffered from mercury toxicity, liver and kidney dysfunction, precancerous blood morphology, and parasite infestation. Frightened, the Louisiana woman allegedly paid $8900 up front and traveled to Tennessee, where she was told to have her amalgam dental fillings removed so she could go through treatments. The purported clinician told the Louisianan that her problems were caused by electromagnetic radiation, or electropollution. The Louisianan was told she must purchase — you guessed it — a Biopro device. The alleged clinician was — you guessed it again — one of the salespersons in the Actis multilevel marketing chain. Hmmm.
Now, still another Carlsbad multilevel marketing company, privately held Gia Wellness, headed by former Actis top executive Alfred Hanser, is selling products that are similar to the Biopro products. And Gia is using prose similar to that used by Actis: "Electromagnetic radiation is constantly all around us," proclaims Gia in its promotions. "It has been linked to everything from headaches to cancer. Electropollution is emanated by every wired and wireless device you use today."
As Actis was coming apart, Grimm cofounded another multilevel company, Cal Nutrisciences, selling purported weight-loss products. It was based in the same building as Actis, according to my sources. It has just been sold to Utah-based Xyngular, another multilevel outfit. I was able to reach Grimm's home; he was there, but he would not call me back to provide information on Actis. Sigh. The largest outside shareholder, according to the most recent (early 2007) records, Joseph V. Caracciolo, won't get rich on his 1.3 million shares, although he barely paid anything for them. I can't reach Caracciolo, who, working in real estate from Rancho Santa Fe, went through a long and contentious bankruptcy in the 1990s.
Grimm had 66.9 million shares and Hanser 11.4 million in 2007. The company never made money, defaulted on its debt, and had an accumulated deficit of $14.9 million. It stopped reporting its results to the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2007, but one big speculator bought several slugs of stock in 2009, and penny stock gamblers still bat the stock around.
So much for the multilevel-marketing penny stocks. A few such companies have seemingly thrived through the years and have stocks selling in the $25 to $60 range. San Diegan Barry Minkow, the subject of the new movie Minkow, has been exposing the larger multilevel marketing companies through his Fraud Discovery Institute. The rest of his time he serves as senior pastor of Community Bible Church in Mira Mesa. He is a fascinating movie subject because as a young man he perpetrated a huge fraud and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He got religion and got out in 7 years, and he now helps government agencies with fraud detection.
The stocks of three of the four large multilevel marketing firms he has exposed are selling near their 52-week highs: Usana, Herbalife, and Pre-Paid Legal. A fourth, Medifast, is below its yearly high but doing well. Minkow tries to support his institute by shorting the stocks he exposes — that is, betting they will go down. He has generally broken even on that activity, but his adventures have been very expensive because his targets almost invariably throw lawsuits at him, claiming that his shorting activities are reasons for his probes. So he may stop shorting: "We are considering shifting our business model back to uncovering fraud for free as opposed to the whole shorting of public companies," he says. "One can literally be sued into silence."
More from SDReader
- More stories by Don Bauder
- San Diego, haven for pyramids — Feb. 6, 2013
- San Diego's best-known short seller, Barry Minkow — March 24, 2010
- Herbal Life's pyramid scheme — May 14, 2008
- Usana files suit against Barry Minkow for pyramid charges — Sept. 13, 2007
- Crapshoot Park — Oct. 30, 2003
Grimm had 66.9 million shares and Hanser 11.4 million in 2007. The company never made money, defaulted on its debt, and had an accumulated deficit of $14.9 million.
LOL....sounds like the west coast version Warren Buffet!
Response to post #1: Since the stock sells for a fraction of a penny, the market doesn't seem to think much of the company's prospects. Best, Don Bauder
What a generic, hating, vengeful, biased article! I hope this doesn't qualify as 'news reporting' here.
The most important thing is for people to remember it's netWORK marketing.
Sure, the dreams of houses, cars, lifestyle, vacations and swimming pools filled with cash are great... but you don't join and cash starts rolling in.
The person who realizes this takes work, effort, and frequently things you've never done before!
The people who 'fail' and badmouth MLM are those who QUIT and never WORKED to generate the skills they needed. Yes, it has a very high attrition rate, because people are only paid on their successes in marketing. You can make many thousands a month just retailing products. Now, not ALL MLM's are top-notch - anyone with a snazzy website can start an MLM... but there are many dozens of great, ethical companies that allow you opportuntity. But there are whole skill sets you need to develop, and if someone's looking for Get Rich Quick, they'll fail. http://JonRPatrick.com
Response to post #3: I have been badmouthing (your word) MLMs for more than two decades. I have never worked in the industry and never will. Nor have I ever seen a bar of Amway soap in someone's home. Best,, Don Bauder
To post #2 (Jon R Patrick), your bias is built-in since you obviously are a network marketeer. Don Bauder is in fact, one of the most objective, fair, honest, sincere and informed business journalist, I've seen, and I've followed his articles for decades (including those in SDUT). You say he is "generic, hating, vengeful, biased" in his topic article, and I don't see where you come up with that.
I've had many people attempt to involve me over decades into what you call "network marketing" but what is too often pyramid schemes. I will be honest to tell you that only a few trusted people or friends, did I elect to attend perhaps the first introductory meeting to get acquainted with those "network marketing" companies, their products, and people. Though, I have never joined any of them.
The bulk of "network marketers" that I've been approached by, I did not attend their first meeting because of their approaches. One, I don't like being bothered in bookstores, the business section, by someone who pretends to be highly succe$$ful (thus why are they prospecting in a bookstore?), and attempts to befriend you, and then give you some scripted $ales verbiage trying to cast you in like a fish. Second, I think any "network marketing" adventure worth attracting people into, would disclose all facts up-front, versus using the subtle disclosure method of trying to get prospects to the first meeting without ever telling them what is really involved. Third, I don't $ell to my family or friends, period. I don't care how good a product I have been trained to think I represent, I don't want to be using closing techniques on my trusted ring of family/friends.
Years ago when the dot-com boom was just going bust, I was invited to a weekend seminar where they had motivational speakers trying to swindle us into a "network marketing" type opportunity by having a shopping website for your friends/family. The gal that invited me, invested $2,300 that day, in a "training package" that set you up with the website. I walked out. She lost the $2,300 and never made a penny, although she worked hard at it for a while. The company went bust soon after.
Lastly, the only way to win in "network marketing" is to chose a stable and successful company with great products and ethical people. I am not saying they are not out there, but there is a hit & miss rate to be expected, and once you pair with the truly strong platform, one must commit enormous work (time, energy) to make it payoff. Why not do that in your own business?
Response to post #5: There has been a lot of research showing definitively that only a few people make good money in MLMs. You can see it on Barry Minkow's website, www.frauddiscovery.net. Best, Don Bauder
RE "Lastly, the only way to win in 'network marketing' is to chose a stable and successful company with great products and ethical people":
MLM is a good way for large to mega-sized corporations to avoid paying employee taxes. Example: Primerica MLM of mortgage, investment and insurance services door to door before subprimality and other related factors resulted in the Crash of 2008.
MLM pretty much describes the insurance industry today, as if AIG ever wanted to treat insurance agents as anything other than piecework producers of policies. Even after the insurance industry bailout, one can only imagine just how little anyone selling insurance is actually contributing to the tax base, while everyone else picks up the slack.
I know people who made a killing by moving air purifiers during the 2003 and 2007 SDG&E wildfires via MLM... they kept my asthmatic relatives from suffering from the really bad air quality as smoke and ash filled the outdoor air.
Response to post #7: I would certainly resent paying taxes that an MLM is dodging. Best, Don Bauder


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Creates a session.
hcerr_t hc_session_create_ez(char *host, int port, hc_session_t **sessionp);
This function initializes the 5800 system API and must be called before calling any of the other functions in this API. It downloads a copy of the schema for a particular host or port. The schema is used to validate the name-value-type tuples that are added to metadata records.
Both the synchronous and the nonsynchronous C APIs are fully thread-safe and can be used simultaneously in multiple threads from the same process. Each thread must call hc_session_create_ez to create its own session. Sessions must not be shared between threads.
hc_init should be called once per process before any thread calls hc_session_create_ez. If hc_session_create_ez is called before hc_init, an implicit call is made to hc_init from that thread. But that call to hc_init is not interlocked with other threads, and it uses the C API shared library's version of malloc and free, which might be different than the application's version of malloc and free. It is strongly recommended that all applications call hc_init once per process with their own allocator and deallocator.
For more information on hc_init, see Initializing a Global Session
IN: The name or IP address of a 5800 system server.
IN: The port number of the 5800 system server (normally 8080).
OUT: Updated to point to a session object.


text:
Association of Baltimore County Retired Police, Inc
P.O. Box 411
Perry Hall, Maryland 21128-0411
The Association of Baltimore County Retired Police promotes the interests and welfare, as well as fosters the aims and interests of retired Baltimore County Police.
- Policies of the Association
- Officers of the Association
- Meetings and Calendar
- News and Information
- Join the Retired Police (PDF)
- Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act
HR 218 was passed to exempt qualified current and former law enforcement officers from State laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed handguns.
- Healthcare Enhancement for Local Public Safety (HELPS) Retirees Act
HR 4/PL 109-280 Section 845, the Pension Protection Act was enacted in 2007 giving public safety retirees a healthcare tax benefit.
- Retiree Survivor Benefits
Revised May 6, 2016


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- FeatureHot storage technologies for 2010
- FeatureEnergy conservation efforts still anemic
- FeatureVirtual tape libraries in depth
- FeatureSalaries rise as storage grows
- FeatureObject storage gains steam as unstructured data grows
- FeatureDesktop virtualization: Better data protection?
- FeatureCan we survive consolidation?
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Hot storage technologies for 2010
In our annual assessment, we pick five technologies we think will impact your storage operations in 2010. Read how VMware backup, solid-state storage, thin provisioning, 8 Gbps Fibre Channel and data dedupe for primary storage can change how you manage storage.
By Rich Castagna, Todd Erickson, Chris Griffin, Ellen O'Brien, Beth Pariseau, Carol Sliwa, Sue Troy
VMware backup, solid-state storage, thin provisioning, 8 Gbps Fibre Channel and data deduplication for primary storage: Are these on your 2010 storage to-do list? If not, they should be.
"Hot" -- in reference to enterprise data storage technologies -- can be interpreted in many ways. Hot technologies could be the stuff of dreams that engineers are cooking up in research labs -- but that often takes years, if ever, for real products to emerge. You could also define hot as those emerging technologies that may still be on the cusp of maturity but can have a significant impact on current storage environments.
We favor the latter definition because we think you're more likely to be fighting the storage wars than Star Wars, and would like to be armed with the latest technology available. The five technologies we think will be hot in 2010 may be familiar, but they're still cutting edge while being advanced enough to be practical.
Data backup is still one of the toughest chores in most storage shops, and it got even tougher when server virtualization upset the balance of traditional backup practices. We predict virtual machine backup technologies, already in high gear, will shift even higher with enhanced and new products emerging. Borrowing from the backup world, data deduplication for primary storage systems will become more pervasive to help storage admins cope with spiraling disk capacities. And additional disk system efficiencies will be realized as more vendors offer -- and more shops implement -- capacity management tools like thin provisioning.
With solid-state storage, touted by many as the logical evolution from magnetic media, we might be sticking our necks out a bit. But we think the proliferation of new products, dropping prices and intense interest will result in many more deployments in 2010. Our final hot technology is far more evolutionary than revolutionary: 8 Gbps Fibre Channel (FC). Although storage array vendors have some catching up to do with 8 Gig, we think this is the year they'll do it.
Backup for virtual servers
VMware Inc. may rule the data center, but for storage administrators virtual server backup was just an afterthought as many companies embarked on server virtualization implementations. Virtual machine (VM) backup is still in its adolescence but maturing fast, with significant developments that should offer some relief for beleaguered backup admins in 2010.
Traditional backup software vendors were slow to respond to the specialized needs of VM backup. Still, many IT organizations stuck with their traditional backup apps for their VMs, which may have distracted those vendors who saw the prospect of selling multiple agent licenses.
But other technologies have emerged to better address the unique needs of virtual server backup. Source-side deduplication and continuous data protection (CDP) products are well-suited to virtual machine backup because they reduce the volume of backup data and therefore lessen the likelihood of I/O contention.
John Merryman, services director at Framingham, Mass.-based GlassHouse Technologies Inc., sees source-side deduplication in products like CommVault Systems Inc.'s Simpana, EMC Corp.'s Avamar and Symantec Corp.'s NetBackup PureDisk as delivering "some pretty tight integration with the ESX environment from a backup perspective."
W. Curtis Preston, TechTarget's Storage Media Group executive editor and independent backup expert, agrees that both source-side dedupe and CDP are good approaches to VMware backup. They both follow an incremental-forever backup model that produces far less data than traditional backup tools.
VM-specific backup products, such as PHD Virtual Technologies' esXpress, Veeam Software's Backup and Replication, and Vizioncore Inc.'s vRanger Pro were designed from the ground up to handle VMware backup. Their advantages include per-socket rather than per-server licensing fees (though experts and users caution that it doesn't always equate to lower costs); and they enable recovery of the virtual machine disk (VMDK) image for greatly simplified disaster recovery (DR) preparedness, as well as recovery of individual files within the VMDKs. Traditional backup tools operate from within the VM, so they're adept at file-level restore but require multiple steps to restore entire VMDKs. And the VM-specific tools are adding deduplication capabilities.
These products are gaining traction. "[With these VM-specific backup tools] it's faster to recover, it's easier to recover and it's easier to move things around because everything's encapsulated," said Edward Haletky, a virtualization consultant and author of two books about VMware.
Nathan Johnson, manager of IT services at NAI Utah, a commercial real estate company in Salt Lake City, avoided traditional backup tools early on. His company implemented Veeam's Backup and Replication software at the same time it rolled out server virtualization. Johnson said he didn't consider a traditional tool "because of how convoluted VCB [VMware Consolidated Backup] was. It's gotten better, but I want something simple. If I get run over by a bus, I want someone from my company to follow the procedures that I've written so that it can come back up easily." (In vSphere 4, VCB has been superseded by new storage integration capabilities and VMware Data Recovery, which addresses some of VCB's limitations.)
Welch's, the Concord, Mass., grape juice company, took a different route. George Scangas, manager of IT architecture, said the company initially used CommVault's Simpana to back up its VMs. "With traditional backup, if we had to restore files and folders within the virtual machine, that worked great. If we had to restore the entire virtual machine, that was a 50/50 shot," he said. The company now uses vRanger Pro to back up its virtual machines in combination with Simpana on nonvirtual servers. vRanger Pro backs up the VMDKs to disk, and Simpana includes that disk when it backs up physical servers to tape, a practice followed by many IT organizations.
The traditional backup vendors aren't sitting still. Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co. and Symantec, for example, are working on updates that promise to deliver end-to-end backup for VMware environments and nonvirtual servers. "With Symantec [Veritas NetBackup] and HP Data Protector getting into the market as strongly as they are, [PHD Virtual, Veeam and Vizioncore] have to start looking over their shoulder for their backup product," consultant Haletky said.
In 2010, VM backup won't disappear as a chore at many IT organizations, but better tools are emerging. A year from now, simpler and more effective VM backup processes should be within reach for most storage administrators.
Solid-state storage
Flash memory has been around for decades, but it's only been in the last 18 months or so that the persistent solid-state storage medium has made its way into enterprise data storage products.
EMC introduced solid-state drives (SSDs) into its Symmetrix array in January 2008; following that, most major IT vendors, including HP, IBM Corp., Hitachi Data Systems and NetApp Inc., made some form of solid-state storage available in server and storage products. Smaller players like Compellent Technologies Inc. and emerging companies like Atrato Inc. have also incorporated solid state with software that automatically migrates data between flash- and disk drive-based tiers of storage.
Even with that level of activity, there's still substantial work to be done to integrate solid-state storage into the rest of the IT environment, particularly with SSDs, which typically consist of flash memory fronted by a disk interface. Other implementations, such as Fusion-io's PCIe cards, offer an alternative to the disk interface and reside in servers rather than disk arrays.
MySpace is familiar with the pros and cons of solid-state storage. The social networking site recently replaced all of the Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) hard drives in one of the massive server farms that serves its Web portals with solid-state devices from Fusion-io.
Although solid-state storage is generally thought of in terms of high performance, Richard Buckingham, vice president of technical operations at MySpace, said the big benefits were savings in power, cooling and server hardware. "Instead of eight $6,000 servers, we can go with one $2,000 box and the cost of the Fusion-io devices doesn't even make up the difference," he said. "The ROI is immediate."
Buckingham remains open to SSD as well as the PCIe cards, but said the technology hasn't yet proven to be mature enough in his internal tests for production deployments. "It seems like it would be a simple step to pull out one hard drive and put in another that's faster, but under our real-life workload we found that SSDs just didn't perform as well behind a drive interface," he said.
Buckingham also said MySpace won't be replacing its Fibre Channel storage-area network (SAN) infrastructure with solid state anytime soon. "SSDs have a bright future, and flash will almost certainly take over in the future," he said. "But the SAN infrastructure is something we've invested a lot of time and money in and won't be tearing out and replacing for a very long time," he said.
Jeff Boles, senior analyst and director, validation services at Hopkinton, Mass.-based Taneja Group, agrees that SSDs have some way to go before they become a fully integrated part of enterprise storage systems, and that much of that integration work will take place in 2010.
Boles said the market has taken a "massive step forward" in the last six months with systems that intelligently integrate solid state, providing a more efficient way to share solid-state capacity among hosts and automatically move data among multiple pools of storage media. Boles cited IBM's addition of SSDs to its SVC storage virtualization device, new offerings from startups Avere Inc. and StorSpeed that offer granular automated tiered storage, and hints of products to come related to developments such as Texas Memory Systems' acquisition of storage virtualization player Incipient.
"This trend will carry forward in 2010," Boles said, but so far most automated tiered storage and storage virtualization devices handle moving data in and out of solid-state devices at the LUN or volume level, when the most efficient method would be at the block level. "It may be 2011 before we see solid-state storage applied in more unique ways at increased densities," he said.
|Not quite hot … yet
Cloud storage. Truth is, cloud storage was already struggling for clarity in the marketplace before the October mess with Microsoft and Sidekick carrier T-Mobile. Maybe it wasn't as bad as it first seemed, but some users still lost data -- not exactly a boost for the cloud storage cause. Still, cloud storage is getting plenty of good publicity, which has resulted in a lot of buzz, some new fans and a long line of experts predicting eventual success. But all of that hasn't translated to a prime-time slot for cloud storage.
Disaster recovery (DR) testing software.All the DR gurus keep warning us that solid DR strategies -- and regular DR testing -- should be top priorities, but these products just can't seem to get the respect they deserve. These apps have gotten some traction, but they're still viewed as luxury items at a time when storage pros are spending only on necessities. The bottom line is that DR testing software isn't likely to take off until budgets loosen up.
FCoE. Talk about Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and it's easy to get smart people to agree on two things. Yes, it has tangible, proven benefits. No, they don't want to overhaul their data center to accommodate it. Despite all the chatter about FCoE, most storage arrays don't support it yet and most vendors aren't rushing to add it. Experts say FCoE won't heat up until 2011 -- and then the fun will really start, as storage and networking teams duke it out over control of the converged infrastructure.
Tape encryption. If you have tape media going offsite, encryption makes sense, right? Especially with encryption built into LTO-4/5 drives. But key management and the challenges of encrypting at the client remain obstacles. As the security pros like to say, if you lose your keys, you lose your data. Despite hardware and software technology improvements, tape encryption still can't squeeze its way into the spotlight.
8 Gbps Fibre Channel
IT organizations haven't made a mad dash to get to 8 Gbps Fibre Channel, but they'll certainly move steadily in that direction as they refresh or add new host bus adapters (HBAs), switches and storage arrays. The pace will accelerate when the cost of the faster technology nears parity with the price of current 4 Gbps gear.
For instance, when Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) needed to increase the port count of its core switch infrastructure, it found the cost of new 8 Gbps 64-port switches from Brocade Communications Systems Inc. to be close to what it had paid for 4 Gbps switches the prior year.
Simon Galton, manager of IT infrastructure services at the Mississauga, Ont.-based company, said the decision to go to the higher speed switches was opportunistic rather than highly strategic, as AECL has no plans at this time to go to 8 Gbps in its HBAs and disk arrays. Because 8 Gbps FC is compatible with earlier generations of the technology, a forklift upgrade isn't required. You just won't get the full benefit of the higher speed until you have 8 Gbps capability across the board.
Moving to 8 Gbps can improve I/O response time and prove especially useful with bandwidth-intensive applications, such as backup and data warehousing, and for virtualized server environments.
Ryan Perkowski, the SAN manager at a large financial institution, has justified 8 Gbps switch ports only for backups. His company purchased a pair of Brocade 5100 switches with three 8 Gbps ports each to link its disk/tape backups and Brocade DCX core.
But the connections between the host servers and the DCX are still 4 Gbps, as are the links between the DCX and storage arrays. Perkowski said he won't expand the 8 Gbps footprint until the firm's major storage vendor offers native ports. "There's no business need for it," he said. "We're having trouble saturating a 4 Gig link. I'm not going to buy stuff just to have it."
The pace of the shift from 4 Gbps to 8 Gbps has been slower than it was from 2 Gbps to 4 Gbps among the Fortune 1000, according to Robert Stevenson, managing director of storage technology at TheInfoPro Inc., a New York City-based research firm. He attributed the sluggish uptake, in part, to the economy's effect on IT spending.
Other contributing factors include the increasing interest in 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) for file-based network-attached storage (NAS) or iSCSI SANs, as well as curiosity about Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). Any major FCoE adoption, however, will likely happen beyond 2010.
Meanwhile, 8 Gbps technology will likely see a marked uptick as the price gap with 4 Gbps continues to narrow. Seamus Crehan, vice president of network adapters and SAN market research at Dell'Oro Group, noted that 8 Gbps switch-side port shipments grew 50% quarter over quarter and became a majority of total Fibre Channel port shipments for the first time since the technology started shipping.
Also, 8 Gbps HBA port shipments doubled between the first and second quarters to nearly 60,000. Crehan cited the March launch of Intel Corp.'s Xeon 5500 (previously codenamed Nehalem-EP) server platform, which offers substantially higher server I/O throughput, as a major driver.
Robert Passmore, research vice president at Stamford. Conn.-based Gartner Inc., predicted that 2010 will be a big year for 8 Gbps FC when the majority of HBA, switch and storage array purchasers will go for the faster technology. "We're in the beginning of a very rapid transition," he said.
|Click here to view a PDF of "Report Card: Grading our 2009 predictions."
Thin provisioning
Thin provisioning has moved beyond its management and application issues of the past to become a must-have feature on many storage systems, and interest should only intensify in 2010.
Brian Garrett, technical director, ESG Lab at Milford, Mass.-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), said vendors have mostly worked out implementation and management issues related to defining separate logical pools and having to reserve capacity for thin-provisioned volumes. Garrett said thin provisioning works smoothly in most cases and is becoming a "feature check-off item" in the storage systems he evaluates.
The benefits of thin provisioning are evident, especially as tightening budgets bump up against ever-growing capacity demands. Releasing provisioned but unused disk capacity to a virtual storage pool and making it available to other applications can significantly increase utilization rates. John Michaels, chief technology officer at Maxim Group, a New York City brokerage firm, used his thin provisioned FalconStor Software Inc. IPStor and Network Storage System (NSS) units to increase his capacity utilization by 59.87%. Michaels said he "could see a difference right away."
3PAR Inc. was a thin provisioning pioneer, rolling out the technology in 2003. Since then, most major storage vendors have jumped on the bandwagon: EMC's Virtual Provisioning for Clariion, Symmetrix and Celerra systems; HP's StorageWorks XP Thin Provisioning Software; IBM's space-efficient virtual disks for its SAN Volume Controller (SVC); and NetApp's FlexVol. And there are many others, including Compellent Technologies Inc.'s Dynamic Capacity software and DataCore Software Corp.'s SANmelody software, which converts standard servers, blades or VMs into virtualized storage servers. .
User interest in thin provisioning is growing, too. In the 2009 Storage magazine/SearchStorage.com Storage Priorities survey, 14% of respondents said they had already implemented thin provisioning, 21% planned to deploy it by year's end and 35% planned evaluations.
Mark Peters, an ESG senior analyst, noted that thin provisioning will continue to evolve as vendors add the capability to easily convert "fat" storage volumes to thin-provisioned volumes. Last October, 3PAR announced the release of Thin Conversion, a technology the company said will thin previously fat volumes. 3PAR also announced Thin Persistence to reclaim deleted thin capacity, and Thin Copy Reclamation to recapture unused virtual-copy snapshots and remote copy volumes.
Compellent and DataCore already offer fat-to-thin and reclamation technologies with their storage systems. As thin provisioning finds more and more users, other vendors will likely follow suit and upgrade their offerings to compete.
Initially, some storage vendors may have been reluctant to offer a technology like thin provisioning that could conceivably cut into their disk sales. But the successes of early entrants and eager acceptance of users persuaded them to follow suit.
Data deduplication for primary storage
The rate of growth of digitally stored information is putting many storage managers on the defensive as they struggle to address the operational risks and costs associated with unchecked data growth. In 2010, a variety of data-reduction technologies for primary storage, including deduplication, will provide some relief in hard-pressed storage shops.
"Business are finding that it's taking a lot less time to reach that second terabyte or petabyte than it did to reach the first," said Tory Skyers, a senior infrastructure engineer at a leading credit issuer. "Primary dedupe will allow any business to increase the density of data on their existing disks by at least twofold."
A fixture in backup environments, dedupe can also be applied to primary storage, thus helping to cut space, power and cooling costs. But primary dedupe won't yield the dramatic results common with backup dedupe.
Performance is another concern. "With backups, as long as the virtual tape loads and the backup works, everything is fine. With primary storage, performance isn't as cut and dry," said TechTarget's Preston. "If a restore [of a backup system] goes slowly, it's not the same as a system where you have thousands of people accessing files that they expect to open immediately."
The key to primary dedupe may come from finding the right balance between benefits and costs. "I'm looking to reduce my cost for storage and it's all about maximizing it with online compression and online dedupe," said Greg Schulz, founder and analyst at Stillwater, Minn.-based StorageIO Group. "Primary dedupe is not good for data that you're frequently working on, but it's good where you can trade time for money savings."
Both inline and post-processing dedupe can be applied to primary storage. For applications that can afford the performance hit, inline dedupe is perfect. If the data in those systems can be held in cache and then deduped before it hits a disk, fewer disks are required on the back end of the system, which ultimately cuts costs. "While inline is currently the slowest performer, I have a feeling with the advent of [solid-state storage] and larger inline caches, it's eventually going to catch up with post-process," Skyers said.
Some major storage vendors, including EMC and NetApp, are now offering primary data-reduction capabilities. NetApp's dedupe is built into its Ontap operating system. It works by storing the cyclic redundancy code (CRC) of every block written to storage, comparing the CRCs, and then eliminating and replacing any matching blocks with a pointer.
"NetApp is doing real dedupe and they're doing it essentially without a change in performance," Preston said. "When the actual dedupe process is running there's a change in the performance. But once the data has been deduped and you're just running your database or VMware, there's essentially no change in performance."
Ocarina Networks and Storwize Inc. also had early primary data-reduction entries. Ocarina's ECOsystem is an out-of-band appliance with software that's tuned to the data types associated with specific applications. Storwize's STN appliances work with NAS devices to compress and uncompress the data inline. Both of these startups have garnered a lot of attention that has led to partnerships with a variety of storage vendors.


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Modern Terminals Ltd. (MTL) has been a pioneer in the growth of the container terminal industry in Hong Kong and Mainland China since 1972. Now one of the world's recognized leaders, it is an organization heralded for its innovation, its strong customer-oriented focus on developing solutions that match the needs and business initiatives of its customers, and its commitment to continuously improving the efficiency and productivity of its people and processes. A key component of that continuous improvement focus is leadership development. Indeed, a central belief sees leadership behavior as one of the key drivers of company culture, together with people programs, policies, and organizational structure. And for nearly 2 years, MTL has incorporated The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® as a core element of its comprehensive push to create a leader-based culture, bringing together 140 leaders to experience the power of The Leadership Challenge through training, coaching, and follow-up.
Aligning Values and Leadership Behaviors
When it came time to conduct its strategic review a few years ago, the organization took action to revisit its vision, mission, strategies, brand promises, and culture values. Senior management felt that it was very important that the cultural values be the guiding principles and foundation for everything they did, and that the leadership team live by and lead with a set of leadership behaviors that reinforced and embedded those cultural values. According to Theresa Lai, General Manager, Human Resources at MTL, "When we began our search for leadership training for this purpose we found The Leadership Challenge®."
Theresa and her team mapped the organization's core values and corresponding leadership behaviors with the leadership behaviors of each of The Five Practices. There was such close alignment that the decision to embrace and adopt The Leadership Challenge was an easy one. After a successful pilot with the HR leadership team, a full two-day The Leadership Challenge® Workshop offering was launched with the top executive team and rolled out to top leaders in various business units shortly thereafter.
Engaging the HR team in formulating a new vision
The Leadership Challenge training was inspiring for all of MTL's leaders, especially for Theresa Lai. As she considered each of The Five Practices, she saw how the behaviors and principles around Inspire a Shared Vision could be used to create an even more engaged HR team. In particular, she saw how this Practice could be used to enlist her HR team in creating a common vision. And she knew the forum she would use to put this new process to the test.
Each year, the HR team holds annual review meetings to Challenge the Process by asking two key questions: What are we doing right? and What could we do differently to become an even better HR team? Once her three direct reports had all completed their two-day workshop experience, Theresa called them together to prepare for the full department's visioning session to be conducted during their next annual review meeting. Theresa and her managers had their own views about what they wanted the vision to look like and knew they could develop one in short order as a small leadership team. However, rather than developing and refining their vision just among themselves, they committed to making the vision process an inclusive one for the entire team.
"One of the challenges we faced was how to facilitate quality discussion around our team vision with the various levels of people on our team," said Heidi Chow, Manager, Human Resource Development. "We needed to make the process easily understandable so that all team members could participate. And we put a lot of effort into crafting well-thought-out questions for this purpose."
The full HR team visioning session began with important discussions around:
- Emerging trends influencing how the work of the department gets done
- What MTL wanted to be as an employer
- What kind of HR role the team wanted to play
- What kind of an HR team they wanted to be when it came to delivering services to internal and external stakeholders
All participants were asked to think high-level—as a team, as part of the larger organization—rather than focusing on their individual team roles. They were encouraged to consider all areas of their work for their input and ideas and, most importantly, to share their dreams for the future.
"We always believed that people would have a stronger sense of purpose and achievement when they are enlisted in creating a common vision, which is the key reason why we involved all 18 of our HR members in this visioning process," explained Theresa. "The creativity and the quality of new thinking were impressive." And most importantly, the full team felt that they had been heard. "We talked about the kind of employer we wanted to become and the workforce we wanted to build, HR's role in promoting continuous improvement, and how we wanted to function as a team" In the end, these collaborative efforts created a shared vision that today reads:
HR is a strategic partner to the business. We are a committed and professional team which contributes to making MTL an employer of choice.
Leveraging the team's shared vision to create an increasingly engaged team
That very first visioning session served as a catalyst for more brainstorming, more discussions, and more actions that have been instrumental in putting into action the team's common vision. Cheer-Me-Up Stations, for example, started small. They initially were set up as kiosks, once every other month in different MTL work locations where people could come to get healthy snacks and drinks. Staffed by members of the HR Employee Relations team around shift-change times, operations employees (many of whom do not have work computers) could learn about sports and recreational activities, volunteer work opportunities, staff benefits, policy changes, pay adjustments and bonuses, and more. The HR Employee Relations team also took the time to ask employees how they were doing—to provide an opportunity just to talk—and received very useful feedback regarding changes in company policies, ways in which HR could be of more assistance, etc. Six months after the initial launch, Cheer-Me-Up stations now are set up twice each month as a result of suggestions from HR team members during the 'realizing our vision' discussions. Other HR team members outside of the Employee Relations unit now participate as well, welcoming MTL employees to a Cheer-Me-Up station 20 times a year.
Walking the talk of The Five Practices
The Five Practices are now deeply-rooted in the culture of the organization and, specifically, in the behaviors of its HR leaders. As Theresa explains it, "For a while I reviewed The Five Practices every day…then every week…then every month. I don't consciously think about them quite the same way anymore. Now they are just part of my DNA." And as a high-functioning, productive and cohesive team, the deep-rooted nature of The Five Practices is also evidenced in the increased engagement of the larger HR team and the various ways in which they have brought each of the Practices to life:
Model the Way: The HR Leadership Team has consistently followed through on the actions they said were important to build MTL as the employer of choice—including the Cheer-Me-Up initiative. They did what they said they would do (DWYSYWD).
Inspire a Shared Vision: The learning of this Practice inspired Theresa Lai to hold multiple visioning sessions, inviting all team members to participate in crafting the overall vision and providing a forum for all voices to be heard.
Challenge the Process: While regular review meetings are standard as a way of engaging the team in finding new ways to improve their work, incorporating the learnings of The Leadership Challenge has reinforced the importance of Challenging the Process for the team—to take the initiative to innovate and experiment.
Enable Others to Act: Fostering collaboration, building trust, facilitating relationships, actively listening to all points of view. HR leadership did an exemplary job of involving all 18 members of the HR staff in the process of generating ideas on how to achieve the vision.
Encourage the Heart: They recognized team members by agreeing to do what they proposed, and supported the initiatives by actively participating in those activities. HR managers use the monthly meetings of the whole HR team to recognize efforts of team members in projects or for just going the extra mile.
Creativity and innovation have continued to flourish within the HR units at MTL over the past 18 months. In part this is a result of the exemplary leadership the HR Leadership Team modeled so that others could follow. It is also due to how fully the team embraced the Practice of Enabling Others to Act that resulted in the creation of their powerful vision that is driving positive organizational change and engagement.
Terence Yeung, Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge, has led TACSEN Management Consultants Limited, a Global Training Partner of The Leadership Challenge, to become the only training company elected "Hong Kong's Most Valuable Company" in 2012. As Managing Director of TACSEN, he has helped numerous multinational clients in Hong Kong and China enhance their leadership capabilities. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Tom Pearce, a Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge, is a popular facilitator, speaker and team developer whose personal mission is to amplify the greatness of others. He enthusiastically carries out his vision through his coaching, training, and mentoring with clients across the U.S. and in Asia. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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