text:
Emergency notification systems: Best practices for specifying in schools
The installation of fire alarm and ECS can have a significant impact in preserving life safety within schools and campuses. Here are the portions of NFPA 72 to watch.
Learning objectives
- Understand which building and fire codes are required for notification in schools.
- Learn about emergency communication and mass notification systems in the context of NFPA 72.
- Determine how design considerations, funding restrictions, and operational needs affect the design and installation of ECS.
The events over the past several years have reminded communities of the necessity to be able to broadcast rapidly changing information to countless occupants, families, and employees. The tragedies at Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook Elementary, Hurricane Sandy, and the tornadoes in Joplin, Mo., and Moore, Okla., are just a few reminders of catastrophic events where emergency communication systems (ECS) can have a significant impact on saving lives. With the multitude of potential emergency situations that could be encountered, fire alarm and ECS that give specific directions depending on the type of emergency help provide a higher degree of awareness in responding to these events.
Whether it is an elementary, middle, or a high school, the 2012 International Building Code (IBC) and 2012 International Fire Code (IFC) require a manual fire alarm system with emergency voice/alarm communication systems in all new educational occupancies. Similarly, many colleges and universities have incorporated requirements for voice systems into their campus/owner standards or are voluntarily incorporating voice communication as part of ongoing upgrades. These voice fire alarm notification systems can serve as a platform to provide instructions during an emergency.
What is an ECS?
As jurisdictions adopt the latest building and fire codes or owners voluntarily install an ECS, designers should continue to familiarize themselves with the provisions of NFPA 72: National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code. ECS are "systems for the protection of life by indicating the existence of an emergency situation and communicating information necessary to facilitate an appropriate response and action." Table 1 shows the types of ECS that are identified by the code.
Presently, select building and fire codes within the United States require an emergency voice/alarm communication system to be provided in new construction educational (Group "E") occupancies. The 2012 IBC, 2012 IFC, and 8th Edition of the Massachusetts State Building Code are some examples. As local jurisdictions begin to adopt the 2012 IBC/IFC, there will be a move toward ECS in schools. Existing educational occupancies are not required to upgrade their existing fire alarm system to incorporate ECS unless a new fire alarm system is being installed.
Whether an ECS is required or being installed as a voluntarily system, the design and installation must comply with all of the applicable requirements of NFPA 72 and shall also incorporate the client/owner requirements, objectives, and goals.
NFPA 72 requirements
The NFPA 72 requirements on mass notification systems are based on the U.S. Dept. of Defense Uniform Facilities Criteria. Within NFPA 72, Chapter 24 on ECS is the primary reference for the design of ECS in educational occupancies in addition to the other applicable sections of the National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code. ECS are intended to account for anticipated risks and deliver information specific in nature to the respective parties in response to an emergency situation. The system must also incorporate the requirements of the owner as well as the items outlined in the risk analysis.
NFPA 72 defines a risk analysis as "a process to characterize the likelihood, vulnerability, and magnitude of incidents associated with natural, technological, and manmade disasters and other emergencies that address scenarios of concern, their probability, and their potential consequences." Typically a designer performs a risk analysis for the mass notification system to tailor a design to a specific facility and includes the following:
- Maximum occupant load for all occupiable spaces
- Type of occupancy
- Perceived danger
- Effects on occupant behavior
- Rate of hazard escalation
- Types of emergency hazards/events
- Occupant notification for given events.
If the ECS is expected to be used for mass notification, a risk analysis should be developed as part of the design process. Identified risks would then be incorporated into the emergency response plan for the facility in order to plan for a smoother future expansion of the system. For example, the identified potential risks could impact the locations of system equipment. Modifications to address these concerns after a fire alarm system is installed could be very costly.
Creating an emergency response plan
Following the identification of the potential risks for a facility, the designer, owner, and/or various other stakeholders will need to collaborate in developing/updating the strategy for responding to each of the incidents identified in the risk analysis. Requirements for the emergency planning and preparedness (including fire safety and evacuation plans, lockdown plans, drills, and training) as outlined in the IFC will also need to be adhered to.
The plan should not only identify required actions in response to an emergency, but shall address emergency message content, the process to initiate notification, priority of activities/ announcements/ messages, level of security, response personnel, response equipment, and training/ drills. This is an essential piece of implementing an ECS such that appropriate instructions, directions, and information are provided to respective parties at the appropriate time.
As part of the emergency response plan, an approach for incorporating parties not directly intimate with the emergency situation must also be included into the strategy. As an example, in the Sandy Hook Elementary School incident, the neighboring fire station was used as an assembly point for parents, children, and first responders, which helped authorities manage the various parties who attempted to respond to the scene during the active emergency situation. Additional resources related to emergency response/management plans for schools are provided by the U.S. Dept. of Education.
Log in or create an account to submit your comment for this article.


text:
Main Site - :: Why Won't God Heal Amputees? ::
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
But how does that apply to a three year old girl trapped at the bottom of a well, suffering a long painful death over many days, no witnesses, no one to have their character built by witnessing it?
To use the father analogy; yes I can understand letting an adult child make a mistake and learn from it; but an infant?
I think I get what you're trying to say JWB; as a father you let your adult child make their mistakes and live by them; fair enough. But you also allow your three year old granddaughter to suffer without limit because your feckless son has become, say, a heroin addict. As a non-believer, I genuinely cannot understand how or why theists would try to defend their god when the god takes this position.
So if suffering is so good for us, why is it distributed so unevenly by your god? Why did my friend Judy, very very religious, loose one son via a bee sting and anaphylactic shock, her daughter in a car wreck, have her brother shoot her parents to death over a girlfriend issue (a girl that she introduced her brother to). And she is one of the most religious people I know, and was religious before any of this happened. While little old me, denier of any god whatsoever, with my healthy kids and my non-trauma filled life, have had none of that.
When the Bible says "he makes their (his servants) path straight", it does not mean nothing bad will ever happen. It means they do not have to guess about what is good and what is bad. That path is straight.
But what about the dead people? The ones that died to make someone else's "path straight"? Where is their prematurely cut short path leading?
This whole idea does not make sense. It makes God repulsive in the extreme. That God would engineer a death to create a mere hint
when He could appear in person like he used to in the OT, or send a fucking Angel or something.
Today he has given us something different. He has given us the Bible, which is in itself a miracle and worth more than the appearance of an angel and it is something people of old did not possess. One must only make proper use of it. In those pages he has promised to fill us with his spirit. There is nothing worth more than that. Instead of complaining about what he has not given us, we should first make use of what he has given us.
To eternal life.
Deuteronomy 7 When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;2 And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
If I led you to believe that then my answer was not sufficient. God does not engineer the death of anyone. It is man that chooses to live seperate from God.
What was the result of him appearing in person or sending angels? A few benefitted, but the majority did not. Israel's worship itself was eventually wholly rejected when they killed God's very own son, who came working many miracles.
Is it the case that theists cannot accept that any event without a human cause can happen without intelligent planning? They have to ascribe a cause to everything, the easiest one being a god? And are atheists simply people that are able to comprehend that events not caused by human beings do not require intelligent planning?I genuinely cannot understand why theists, including some of my family, cannot understand that a girl falling down a well is simply a tragic accident. The 2004 tsunami was simply an undersea earthquake, nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with human beings not believing in an invisible supernatural being.
Ahh, yet another person hypnotized by a book. One book. I respectfully suggest that you take some time to look at the bible in a different fashion (you know - critically). Please spend some time here, and then tell me if this is the best that a deity can do. Please don't look at it for 8 seconds as I suspect you might, but really do some reading.
If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.What kind of lunatic would make a rape victim marry her attacker? Answer: God.
Wow, so everyone God killed directly or whom God instructed others to kill goes to heaven? How cool is that as a shortcut to heaven!
Is the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New Testament? If not, what was it about God that changed?
Quote from: WilliamWow, so everyone God killed directly or whom God instructed others to kill goes to heaven? How cool is that as a shortcut to heaven! I apologize. I misunderstood what you are asking. I thought you were asking about those that may have died as martyrs. Everyone that God killed directy has no future.
Quote from: WilliamIs the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New Testament? If not, what was it about God that changed?God is the same. The only difference is that we are bound by the new covenant and not the old covenant. For example, we do not practice eye for eye justice. We practice mercy.
Matthew 5:17-1817 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Some of these things I have already been over in my own studies. Before considering what is said one must first sift through what is and isn't true. Here is an example.QuoteIf a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.What kind of lunatic would make a rape victim marry her attacker? Answer: God.All translations do not render this scripture that way. A more accurate translation reads, "If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found......" (ASV)The fact that it is not talking about rape is more evident in Exodus 22:16 where the same law is restated. "If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife." (NIV)I recommend you approach such web sites with the same critical analysis as you use to approach the Bible.
Bugger! Okay then.Oh wait. "No future" sounds attractive. So nobody bothers them after they are dead. Just total peace and quiet? Sounds like heaven to me.
Mmmmm. God is the same but changed His mind about His Terms of Business. So He became wiser? Isn't that a change? Or was it just the legal team in heaven that persuaded God to change His covenant? God stayed the same but His legal advice changed?As an aside - God/Jesus seems to have changed their MO a bit. Fewer appearances and miracles compared to the OT. Okay, maybe a few carefully selected miracles via dead Catholics contending for Sainthood. But I digress - back to the Bible as I promised: Matthew 5:17-1817 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.I don't see where a "New Covenant" fits into that quite definitive legal framework - till the end of the universe!?!?!
Are the pages & pages of primitive, barbaric, tribal, patriarchal nonsense really what we should expect from the creator of the universe in his one & only communication to mankind? Gimme a feekin' break!
That is all you see because you are stuck at the surface and prefer to believe any slander leveled against it.
Truth lies beneath the surface, and unlike human reasoning that is here today and different tomorrow, truth does not change.
The Bible is true because all of it's principles are infallible, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Quote from: ParkingPlacesSo if suffering is so good for us, why is it distributed so unevenly by your god? Why did my friend Judy, very very religious, loose one son via a bee sting and anaphylactic shock, her daughter in a car wreck, have her brother shoot her parents to death over a girlfriend issue (a girl that she introduced her brother to). And she is one of the most religious people I know, and was religious before any of this happened. While little old me, denier of any god whatsoever, with my healthy kids and my non-trauma filled life, have had none of that.The book of Ecclesiastes contains the answer. "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." (Ecc 9:11 ASV)
I really cannot answer it better than that and this is somewhat what affected the child that fell into a well. We are all in the same boat, the good and the bad. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. When the Bible says "he makes their (his servants) path straight", it does not mean nothing bad will ever happen. It means they do not have to guess about what is good and what is bad. That path is straight.The whole moral of the story is that man thinks he does not need God. Rather than doing something else God is allowing us to test our "theory". To an extent God has abandoned us. Not completely or we would all be without life. But he is allowing us to fully experience life without his protection. Man's theory cannot be tested if he places a hedge of protection around us, or even some of us, so that nothing bad happens. That would corrupt our experiment.
Who can protect us from "time and chance"? Only God, but man is not in a place where God will offer his protection. If man wants his protection then man must return to God as the Prodigal Son returned to his father. The fact that the good suffer in this manner because of the bad only fills up his judgment that is coming upon the earth -- when mankind finally realizes it's folly. Unfortunately, the Bible shows this will not occur until it is too late and man is on the brink of extinction. This is when he will step in and seperate the good from the bad so that the good do not suffer the same fate and save us from extinction.
Those that are left will then fully experience his protection along with the multitudes he resurrects upon the earth that have died in the past, including the child that died in the well. Man will then have a demonstration of life under God's rule instead of man's. At the end of this 1000 demonstration, after mankind has been lifted to perfection, final judgment will be rendered and the issue will never be raised again.
Hi folks. A good few years ago I started to really look into the idea of Christian Bible god as maybe something I should get into (social life seemed quite full, free wine and I'm really interested how everything came to be). Although I read the bible and talked with Christians, I also read Dawkins and Hitchens, plus sites like this, and rather quickly agreed fully with the atheist point of view.My question to you is about evil and the responses to theists as to why it exists.
Am I correct in thinking that Christians are split into those that believe the bible literally, that therefore if you believe in Genesis all evil in the world resulted from Adam and Eve's fall from grace […] Therefore evil does not have to exist?
...... truth does not change. The Bible is true because all of it's principles are infallible, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
24:27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 24:28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 24:30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 24:31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. 24:32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: 24:33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. 24:36 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. 24:37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 24:38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 24:39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 24:40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 24:41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
It really seems to me that if this god existed, he's little more than a cruel monster.
Hi Nebula. In your hypothetical example, waking up a dreamer who has managed to create sentient self aware independent beings within his dream would result in their destruction.
But you see, your question alone demonstrates to me the poison that religion and belief in imaginary beings brings to humanity. I hear similar sentiments from my family about this nonsense; "Don't put faith in mankind, put it in god" and the odious and sad "Jesus, empty me of me and fill me with you." When you read these type of statements, try replacing an imaginary being with another to see how this sounds in reality; "Don't put faith in mankind, put it in Wizard Gandalf" " Easter Bunny, empty me of me and fill me with you".The worlds that believers create in their heads don't exist except as wishes. THIS is your one life. Your one and only life. Enjoy it to the full, learn about nature and everything you can, go to pubs, drink beer, travel, don't add suffering or hardship to your fellow creatures, please don't live your life according to a set of rules dreamt up by bronze aged Arabs that didn't know any better. Don't waste your one life!
No, I don't get that from the Bible. At the time of Eden, man was allegedly no more than an automaton built for the amusement of God and in His image. Adam was immortal but with no knowledge of good and evil. Man was like a child including a child's experiences and education.
While it is true that certain types of suffering can build character, that is not why God allows evil. God allows evil because mankind chooses not to obey him and he is allowing it to be demonstrated that mankind has need of him.
I have a different POV.
I believe it is allowed because God loves us.
The only way to get rid of it would be Armageddon.
I believe God has hope that mankind can make good prevail over that evil and everyday is a new opportunity to make that happen.
Evil is not a myth it is part of human reality. It is not a supernatural power that we can not defeat. It will take Love and Compassion to eliminate it.
I believe as long as God sees our potential God must allow us to continue.
We must fight the battle for ourselves in order to have honor.
I believe creating us w/o freewill would have been immoral for a god to do.
God did not take freewill from any of the examples provided on this thread a human did.
Your explanation represents an egotistical God. I do not except that God allows suffering so that we will need God. We would need God w/o suffering, IMO.
To need belief that badly displays a god with a very low self esteem. IMO, I have no doubt that God's self esteem is stronger than that.
Mark Twain's words say it better than I ever can;Gods do nothing. Not one thing. To claim they 'work through men' is an insult to the people that study and research and toil to alleviate suffering, disease, poverty and hunger. Gods do nothing because they can't; they are imaginary.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people, or one in eight people in the world, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries, representing 15 percent of the population of developing counties. There are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries.http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm
It is very difficult to determine how many homeless people there are in the world because countries have different legal definitions for homelessness. Natural disasters and sudden civil unrest also complicate the picture. The best we have is a conservative estimate from the United Nations in 2005, which puts the number of homeless at 100 million.http://www.shelter20.com/homeless-statistics/By its very nature, homelessness is impossible to measure with 100% accuracy. More important than knowing the precise number of people who experience homelessness is our progress in ending it. Recent studies suggest that the United States generates homelessness at a much higher rate than previously thought.http://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/How_Many.html
Politics, greed, weather, terrain, religious differences, mental illness in the homeless, the list of causes is huge. But nowhere in there is a space for 'because we don't love Thor/Odin/Marduk/Osiris/Biblegod/Ganesh/Vishnu enough'. Because saying that would be precisely, and I mean precisely, the same as saying 'because we don't love Santa Claus enough'.
So how can the problems be fixed?
Quote from: Jstwebbrowsing on July 07, 2013, 02:49:27 PMSo how can the problems be fixed?Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Summit, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.99
Available on VOD beginning Tuesday
For those with the stomach and patience for yet another zombie saga, writer-director Jonathan Levine's adaptation of Isaac Marion's novel offers a different take on the genre, with Nicholas Hoult playing a walking corpse with a sensitive side, who regains his humanity when he meets a pretty survivor played by Teresa Palmer. The movie was sold as a wacky spin on "Twilight" when it came out this year, but it's really more like a heartfelt indie dramedy, exploring both what it means to be "alive" and how it feels to be a young person in love. The DVD and Blu-ray add a commentary track by Levine, Hoult and Palmer, plus deleted scenes and featurettes.
Breaking Bad: The Fifth Season
Sony, $55.99; Blu-ray, $65.99
The last eight episodes of TV's best drama will begin airing in August on AMC, leaving fans plenty of time to refamiliarize themselves with the intense, shock-filled run of episodes that set up the big finish. The fifth-season DVD and Blu-ray come with hours of behind-the-scenes material and commentaries, capturing what goes into making this story of a science teacher turned drug kingpin so entertaining and artful. More than anything, it's a pleasure just to rewatch these eight episodes, in which Bryan Cranston's Walter White expands his criminal empire at devastating cost.
Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie
Available on VOD beginning Friday
For someone who wielded such enormous cultural influence, talk show host Morton Downey Jr. has been largely forgotten, replaced by the shock jocks and political commentators who've taken his place as America's premier loudmouthed moralists. This documentary reminds even those who lived through the '80s just how crazy Downey's TV show could be, with the chain-smoking conservative openly insulting guests while whipping his audience into a frenzy. The doc hears from people who knew Downey when he was a wannabe pop idol (trying to escape the shadow of a famous father) as well as those who worked to make his TV show so wildly popular before it rapidly flamed out. "Évocateur" tries to understand what drove both Downey and his viewers and is a fascinating, unsettling look at how people with a big enough platform can monetize outrage.
The Law in These Parts
Cinema Guild, $29.95
Ra'anan Alexandrowicz's documentary attempts to understand the legality of Israelis' seizing Palestinian-occupied territory. Mixing archival footage and new interviews with lawyers and judges who've been involved with Israeli politics since the 1960s, Alexandrowicz documents the slippery slope of "security measures," as laws originally drafted to protect the citizenry ended up denying people of their internationally recognized human rights. "The Law In These Parts" puts its subjects on trial, and though Alexandrowicz's acknowledgment of the artificiality of this whole exercise ultimately weakens his case, he still gets people on the record, explaining how they took a position first and then legally justified it later.
PHOTOS: Celebrities by The Times
And …
Escape From Planet Earth
Starz/Anchor Bay, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.99
Available on VOD beginning Tuesday
A Good Day to Die Hard
20th Century Fox, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.99
Available on VOD beginning Tuesday
Identity Thief
Universal, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.98
Available on VOD beginning Tuesday
PHOTOS: Faces to watch 2014 | Movies
ENVELOPE: The latest awards buzz
DOCUMENTARIES: 10 best of 2013, and a new crop in 2014


text:
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, OH (FOX19) - We now know the names of two young adults who were badly injured when a multi-family home caught fire near UC's campus.
Three people were hurt after a fire broke out in a University Heights home, near the University of Cincinnati.
Fire crews were called to a house in the 2800 block of Digby Street around 6:50 a.m. on Tuesday.
Officials say the fire started in the second floor bedroom of a three multi-family floor home.
A neighbor woke up to the early morning commotion, who found the street filled with emergency vehicles.
"When I looked across the street then I seen the fire department trying to get into the house and started to get the ladders and everything else." said Alex Fodor, who lives across the street. "Some kids came out barefoot. No shoes. No nothing. They were standing over here on my sidewalk."
Ellen Garner, 20 and Chad Kohls, 21, were sleeping on the third floor when the fire broke out; they were trapped by the smoke.
The pair suffered smoke inhalation. As of Thursday afternoon, they are still in critical condition at UC Medical Center (UCMC).
A third person suffered some minor burns.
Fodor did not know the victims personally, but said they were cordial whenever he encountered them.
"I hope they're going to pull through, and I feel sorry for their parents too. They're going to go through a lot of problems. A lot of trouble." said Fodor.
There were a total of seven people in the house at the time of the fire.
Crews at the scene told our reporter that there were working smoke detectors in the home.
It was caused by an electric space heater sitting too close to a bed. Damage to the home is estimated at $20,000.
Copyright 2012 WXIX. All rights reserved.


text:
Next Meetup
What we're about
Since 2005, we continue to host Unique and a Variety of Photography Photo Shoot Out Style workshops for many to grow and network with each other. We work with ages 5 to 85. Our speciality is Event Photography for schools, Marketing Photography and hosting Texas Photo Shoot Workshops.
Join not only Marc and Robin Binder, at one of their inspirational workshops in photography, but learn to take your photography to the next level from one of the 12 Mentors and Instructors that share their knowledge while having lots of fun. Learn tricks of the trade from shooting side by side with some of the best in Texas. These are designed to be creative, fun and safe for all.
There workshops are different from each other as they aim to provide you with different concept, different types of photography from location shooting to studio shooting. Above all else we love taking people with us and seeing the joy they get out of capturing amazing images that you only see on Americans Next Top Model shows. If you just purchased your first camera or have been shooting for years, we aim to help you get to the another level. The Binders are certified in Teaching Leaders, Certified in Toastmasters, Marketing, Advertizing Designer, Graphic Design and Photography we found it's awesome watching even the mentors and photographers grow. Note that these workshops are not a sit down instructional class. We introduce and start you out shooting. Hands on with Mentors available will teach you the fastest. We have workshops that let you bring your own equipment or come to our studio workshops and test out what the professionals shoot first hand.
Why attend Photography Workshops?
They are the best stimulus of new work, feul personal growth, and motivates by opening your range of insight and criticism, but from a caring group of piers. Choose your workshops based on location, cost, and concept. The cost is equivalent or less than having your own photo shoot with 10 models and 4 makeup artists. Know that the cost is low because of the volumn of people attending. If you want to network this is the best place to start. If you want a smaller group, attending the weekend workshops is best. Growth is not guarenteed as well as learning new techniques at our workshops and know this should not be the reasons for attending. We are creatures of habit and personal grown can kill your creative vision. It is good to be humled by seeing someones work with both very accoplished and very different than our own. This alone can open a door. Workshops can be very helpful in expanding ones knowledge and current ideas. Attend to experiment something you are not use to doing or would never do with a client. Imitate, listen, socialize and network. We are the exception to the rule, we set up the atmosphere to focus intensely on creating your best creative work. Use your time to observe, experiment, ask, probe, make friends, develop contacts and resources.


text:
New Delhi, Dec 19: Samajawadi Party (SP) leader Yashvir Singh Wednesday snatched a copy of the bill on quota in promotions from Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V. Narayanasamy in the Lok Sabha, leading to the house being adjourned for the day.
Yashvir Singh snatched the copy as Narayanasamy was about to table it in the house for its consideration and passing after repeated adjournments over the bill.
However, this did not go down well with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who immediately tried to grab the document from Yashvir Singh's hand.
Sensing trouble, Congress member Vilas Muttemvar immediately got up and pushed the SP member aside thinking Yashvir Singh could harm Gandhi.
As other Congress members gathered around Yashvir Singh, Speaker Meira Kumar, visibly surprised with the suddenness of the act, immediately adjourned the house for the day.
Government sources said an angry Sonia Gandhi accompanied the speaker to her chamber and discussed the issue with her.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath said the government would urge the speaker to take strong action against the Samajwadi Party member.
Kamal Nath said that in his 32 years, he had never seen such an incident which "disrespects parliament".
"It's a sad day for parliamentary democracy. A section of the house will disrupt the proceeding and not allow debate to be taken up. They may have a different view but they can debate and vote against it. If you don't allow the house to function, how will parliament work," he said.
Amid uncertainty over the bill's fate, the government said it would bring it again Thursday, the last day of the winter session which started Nov 22.
"The government will bring the bill to the Lok Sabha tomorrow (Thursday). Adamancy of a party has to be reflected in the debate. This is frustrating parliamentary democracy," Kamal Nath said.
The Constitution (One Hundred Seventeenth Amendment) Bill, 2012, was passed in the Rajya Sabha Monday.
SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said the government's move to table the bill was "unconstitutional".
"We will continue to oppose the bill. Juniors will become seniors (if it is passed). Who will tolerate this? We will go to the people on this," Yadav told reporters after the house was adjourned.
The Congress chose not to attack Yadav, who supports the ruling United Progressive Alliance government from outside and helped it in defeating a vote against foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail in parliament two weeks ago.
But the party said the snatching of the bill was unfortunate.
"How can we tell Mulayam Singh to react to this bill? We wish he would come on board with us. We are sad that such an episode happened inside the house," Congress spokesperson Renuka Chowdhury told reporters.
"We never make enemies with anyone. We are a larger party. We try to keep good relations with everyone," she said.
Both SP and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), who have diametrically opposite views on the bill, have been disrupting both the houses of parliament over it.
Anxious over a delay, BSP chief Mayawati had even taken on Rajya Sabha chairman Hamid Ansari saying running the house was his responsibility.
Mayawati, whose party supported the government in the upper house of parliament in the vote on FDI in retail, said she wanted the government to pass the quota bill early.


text:
The One Lap of America, the legendary 24/7 cross-country automobile endurance event, is being broadcasted live on Ustream, having started on May 3 and ending on May 10.
The One Lap guys will be live streaming their trek, straight from their on-the-road, in-car camcorder setup, all from their Ustream channel page here. Forgive them the occasional streaming drop-outs, as they are dependent to the internet connection of their ever-changing area. And, aren't we all dependent on the internet? I knew you'd understand.
Started in the early 1970's by legendary Car and Driver editor Brock Yates, the Cannonball Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash was a flat out, no-holds-barred race from New York City to Redondo Beach, California. The race drew a cult subculture following, especially given the main cause of the event: to protest the federally mandated 55 MPH speed limit. And haven't we all pushed nudged just a wee bit past the legal speed limit? I knew you'd understand.
The race became the stuff of legends, created a legend, and even received several treatments from Hollywood, including one starring David Carradine and a remake starring Burt Reynolds.
The 2008 edition of the CannonBall Run builds upon the tradition set forth from the legendary run, running at legal speeds with daily time trials at designated race tracks along the way. Go to One Lap's site to get more info on the event's illustrious, twisting history.
Here are the remaining track dates on the tour (all times Central):
May 5: Lonestar Motorsports Park
1830 – 2000 (6:30pm to 8:00pm)
May 6: No Problem Raceway
0830 – 1530 (8:30am to 3:30pm)
May 7: Carolina Motorsports Park
0830 – 15:30 (8:30am to 3:30pm)
May 7: BMW Performance Center
1630 – 1930 (4:30pm to 7:30pm)
May 8: Virginia International Raceway
0830 – 1600 (8:30am to 4:00pm)
May 9: BeaveRun
0900 – 1700 (9:00am to 5:00pm)
May 10: Tire Rack Testing Center
0900 – 1200 (9:00am to 12:00pm)


text:
I've started a post-doc at Brown University, working with Shriram Krishnamurthi. I finished my Ph.D. this summer at the University of Washington, studying programming languages and techniques with Dan Grossman, and learning about systems with Steve Gribble. I earned my undergraduate degree at Yale University, where I worked with with Paul Hudak and Zhong Shao, in particular on domain-specific languages and their properties.
Overall my research interests cover most of the programming pipeline, from designing more expressive languages, through improving the compilers, to certifiably proving code correct. The overarching goal is to make it easier to write programs correctly the first time, and to improve confidence in the resulting products. Currently, I am focusing on developing principled approaches to web-application extensibility, which requires a novel mix of the challenges of language design, software engineering, and systems architecture.
Research interests and papers
- Semantics for Web Programming: Modern web programs mix rich data structures, subtle event-based execution, third-party data, and powerful but small-scale APIs. Understanding and analyzing these programs requires first building testable and executable semantics for each of these pieces, and then using these semantics to drive program analyses.
- Web browser extension compatibility: Firefox's rise in popularity can be largely attributed to its much-touted extensions, which offer versatility, convenience and relatively-low learning curves to amateur and expert coders alike. But with such customizability comes problems: many extensions fail to work properly when installed simultaneously. This project aims to provide a better programming model for extensions that can detect and perhaps correct these conflicts before they happen.
More information can be found on the following page.
- Email (essential):
- (first initial + last name) {at} cs.brown.edu
- Location (likely):
- Department of Computer Science, Office 309
- Post (possible):
- work Post-Doctoral Research Associate Brown University / Department of Computer Science / 115 Waterman Street, 4th floor / Providence, RI 02912-1910


text:
Park Information
Petroglyphs, quaint hiking shelters and incredible Ozark overlooks define the Washington State Park experience. Easy access to the Big River makes the park great for swimming or fishing and the park's three hiking trails address every type of hike, from easy strolls to power hikes. Buildings constructed by African-American Civilian Conservation Corps stonemasons complement the park and add to its sense of history.


text:
Write a News Story
Meet a Pioneer Pilot
Amelia Earhart Home
Back to
Story List
Amelia's First Trip Around the World
By: Monika P.
Latvia, Age 8
In 1937, Amelia started her eventful trip around the world! Amelia started from California then she went to Miami. Then she went to Brazil, Africa, India and New Guinea. She wanted to fly around the world because Amelia wanted to make a world record. She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world. When she started flying from New Guinea, she had little gasoline left and the people couldn't make any contact with Amelia. So they sent out boats and helicopters, but they couldn't find Amelia because she was lost. She has never been found.
Back to
Story List


text:
A winter snowcap adorned the massive peak of Mt. Graham near Safford, Ariz. in early April as a dozen agricultural folks excitedly scampered at ground level on a 40-acre parcel of land below.
"I'm a bit of a risk taker. I like to do what others are afraid to," said farmer Rick Motes as he walked to the freshly dug retention pond next to the field. He surveyed the empty pit, turned around, and watched as workers installed sub-surface irrigation tape in the field.
Sub-surface drip irrigation is an increasingly popular conservation practice across the West. The benefits are substantial – conserving water and soil while directly spoon-feeding water and nutrients directly to the plant roots.
Though in this part of the Gila Valley near Safford, not a single sub-surface irrigation system exist. The reasons might vary from initial costs to heavily silt-laden surface water that left untreated can clog drip emitters. A sub-surface system was tried in the mid-90s but why it was abandoned is unknown.
Rick, and his wife, Rachel, operate Rick Motes Farms, a 1,000-acre farm including 100 acres of alfalfa and where 900 acres of upland cotton will be planted this spring. Of the acreage, the couple rent 650 to 700 acres from the mining company Phelps-Dodge.
The 40-acre parcel, the Motes experimental area for sub-surface drip, is marginal land in water efficiency with a steep slope. Over the past five years a green manure crop was grown to keep the water decreed. Cotton was grown before but with poor yields.
"The ground slopes about 4 to 6 inches every 100 feet. It's a very steep field," explained Eddie Foster, who has worked closely with Motes on conserving precious natural resources on the farm. Foster is a soil conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Safford, Ariz. "Furrow irrigation on the field is horrible," he said.
Rare floodwaters last year covered the field ruining the irrigation ditches. Replacing the conventional irrigation system would have cost almost as much as the drip. So Motes opted to pursue the sub-surface system, expand his profit potential, and practice conservation.
"I expect the sub-surface drip system will reduce my water needs by about one-third, and increase yields hopefully next year," Motes said.
On this mid-90 degree day, Arizona Drip Systems, Inc. of Coolidge, Ariz. installed the system.
Another reason Motes pursued the sub-surface drip system was because of current and potential future water limitations. Normally he draws a six acre-foot allotment from the nearby Gila River for his farm ground. About 75 percent of his water for agriculture is from surface water while the remaining 25 percent is well water.
The problem with the Gila water is its flow is unreliable. Simply put the river sometimes dries up. Motes' crops have been at a critical growth stage and surface water was unavailable.
"How can you economically farm without water?" he asked. "You can't. With water, you need to have an ace in the hole that works."
Federal legislation called the Gila River Water Settlement is also on Motes' mind. The agreement if finalized by years-end could by law give the rights of nearly 50 percent of the Central Arizona Project's water supply to Native Americans. For farmers like Motes and others the agreement could reduce available surface water, possibly groundwater, and jack up water prices.
Sub-surface drip is Motes' ace in the whole, a method to provide him with a better water guarantee to remain farming the parcel.
Conservation funding
The sub-surface drip system cost about $1,200 to $1,500 per acre or $48,000 to $60,000 for the 40-acre tract.
Motes' qualified for a beginning farmer contract (under 10 years of farming) under the NRCS' environmental quality incentives program (EQIP). The nationally available program addresses locally identified natural resource problems such as water conservation, erosion control, animal waste management, and other conservation practices and has various financial benefits for many growers.
Under the NRCS/Motes' contract, NRCS will cost-share 90 percent of the costs. Motes picks up 10 percent of the tab, not the landowner Phelps-Dodge.
Sub-surface drip details
As he eagle-eyed the drip tape installation, Howard Wuertz, an owner of Arizona Drip Systems, walked the fields providing input to the crew.
Wuertz explained that the 7/8-inch drip tape manufactured by Netafim of Fresno, Calif. was buried 10 to 12 inches under the bed and equivalent to the row bottom. The emitters, located every 12 inches, would release .24 gallons per hour each. Spacing was 16 inches. Four, 10-acre systems were planned.
Surface and well water would collect in the collection pond where most sediment would settle within 24-hours, he said. The water would then flow into the filtration system featuring 48-inch Netafim sand medium barrels for further cleaning.
Added chlorine would flush the system at 3 to 5 parts per million. The goal was a PH value of 7 (neutral), Wuertz said. Once pressurized, the water mix would be sent to the filed tape.
"The idea of sub-surface irrigation is to meet the needs of the plant when it needs it," Wuertz said. "This (particular) system will run every two to three days."
While Motes and Foster hope the system will cut water use by a third, Wuertz's loftier opinion is an estimated 50 percent reduction in water savings and a 25 to 30 percent yield increase.
"The neighbors (around the farm) are watching us install the system today," Wuertz noted.
Wuertz' also farms 3,200 acres on Sundance Farms in Coolidge, Ariz. including watermelons, Durum wheat, and cotton. Sub-surface drip was installed on all but 250 acres. He said sub-surface drip doubled watermelon production from 20 to 40 tons per acre while using half the water.
Arizona Drip Systems has installed sub-surface drip in Arizona, California, and Nevada.
Management changes
One of the hardest changes for farmers in sub-surface drip versus conventional irrigation systems is changing the required management.
"With sub-surface drip, management changes include how often the crop is watered, for what duration, and how nutrients are applied," Foster said. In addition, tillage changes drastically from conventional till to minimum till including the need for new equipment. But with the changes comes savings on fuel and labor, he added.
"The less you are in the field then the more you can improve the soil," Foster said.
Arizona Drip Systems, Foster, and University of Arizona regional extension specialist Randy Norton will offer management input to Motes.
Rented ground
Jerry Sako, Phelps-Dodge's farm manager, said the mining company owns farm land in southeastern Arizona for water rights for mitigation. The company owns 6,000-acres of farm land including 4,000 with decreed water rights.
About 75 percent of the land is in the Gila Valley between Geronimo and Solomon, Ariz. About 25 percent is owned in the Duncan, Ariz. area.
Phelps-Dodge has 13 farm leasees, soon to increase to 15. Motes' lease is the company's second largest, Sako said.
Motes, Foster, and Sako speak highly of each other. Each complements the other for working to the sub-surface installation experiment to fruition.
If for some reason Phelps-Dodge cancelled the lease with Motes on the 40-acre parcel, Foster said Motes would be responsible to payback the 10-percent of the NRCS contract since the dollars are public funds.
email: [email protected]


text:
The upcoming 2.6.20 Linux kernel is bringing a nice virtualization framework for all virtualization fans out there. It's called KVM, short for Kernel-based Virtual Machine. Not only is it user-friendly, but also of high performance and very stable, even though it's not yet officialy released. This article tries to explain how it all works, in theory and practice, together with some simple benchmarks.
A little bit of theory
There are several approaches to virtualization, today. One of them is a so called paravirtualization, where the guest OS must be slightly modified in order to run virtualized. The other method is called "full virtualization", where the guest OS can run as it is, unmodified. It has been said that full virtualization trades performance for compatibility, because it's harder to accomplish good performance without guest OS assisting in the process of virtualization. On the other hand, recent processor developments tend to narrow that gap. Both Intel (VT) and AMD (AMD-V) latest processors have hardware support for virtualization, tending to make paravirtualization not necessary. This is exactly what KVM is all about, by adding virtualization capabilities to a standard Linux kernel, we can enjoy all the fine-tuning work that has gone (and is going) into the kernel, and bring that benefit into a virtualized environment.
Under KVM's model, every virtual machine is a regular Linux process scheduled by the standard Linux scheduler. A normal Linux process has two modes of execution: kernel and user. KVM adds a third mode: guest mode (which has its own kernel and user modes).
KVM consists of two components:
QEMU is a well known processor emulator written by French computer wizard Fabrice Bellard.
KVM in practice: Windows XP as a guest OS
Although KVM is still in development, I decided to play a little bit with it. I used 2.6.20-rc2 kernel, together with already available Debian packages: kvm and qemu. So, after I have recompiled the kernel and installed packages, everything was ready. I suppose that this, together with the fact than no proprietary software or binary kernel modules is needed, explains why I call it user-friendly.
But, there's more, see how easy it's to install (proprietary!) guest OS:
qemu-img create hda.img -f qcow 6G
kvm -no-acpi -m 256 -cdrom winxpsp2.iso -hda hda.img -boot d
First step was to create a virtual disk drive (a simple file on the host OS). I have chosen QEMU's copy-on-write format. This means the file will grow as needed, not taking much disk space, unless it's really needed (up to maximum 6GB). With the virtual drive ready, the installation could begin. Actually, I did one more (non-mandatory) step before those two, I dumped the installation CD on the disk so that the installation goes faster because disk can seek much faster than CD/DVD device (a simple
cp /dev/cdrom image.iso should do the job). I used the
-no-acpi switch, because ACPI support in QEMU is still experimental and there were some problems with the Windows installer.
And that's it, I suppose it doesn't get simpler than that, in short time I had Windows installed and running. Why Windows, some of you may ask? Well, I couldn't find a reason to have another Linux virtualized under this one, at the moment. Also, I always wanted to have a handy virtualized Windows environment for some experimental purposes. Not dual-booting it, which is PITA for everyday use, but something that could be easily started from time to time. For example to see how this web page looks in IE7, and stuff like that...
Some benchmarking
OK, so with Windows XP installed in no time, I had plenty of time left to do some simple benchmarks. Nothing comprehensive or scientific, I remind you, just a few quick tests so that you have rough idea how KVM works in practice. I've also included few other interesting cases, because it was easy to do. Once I had installed Windows OS, it could be run even under unmodified QEMU, no problem. And with a little additional effort I also compiled kqemu, QEMU accelerator module written by QEMU's original author, unfortunately a closed-source product. Finally, the choice of the applications that I ran has fallen to only two of them, PCMark2002 and Super PI (ver 1.1e) with the sole reason that I had numbers from those two applications from the times when I had Windows XP installed natively (but that was few months ago, and I have since deleted it). Before I forget, the tests were run on an Intel E6600 processor.
[img_assist|nid=793|title=|desc=|link=none|align=none|width=260|height=250] [img_assist|nid=794|title=|desc=|link=none|align=none|width=260|height=250]
I think it's pretty obvious how much improvement both kqemu and KVM bring over QEMU emulator alone. Also, it seems that kqemu still commands a slight lead over KVM, but I'm sure that KVM performance will only improve over time, it's really young compared to all other virtualization products.
Running Super PI is another story, KVM is the fastest one here, running at 84% of the native speed, which is a great result. Stock QEMU is so slow at this task, that graph above is hard to decipher, so I'll list all the results here (time to generate first million digits of pi, less is better): QEMU: 492.5 sec, kqemu: 28.5 sec, KVM: 25.5 sec, native: 21.5 sec.
While still in the early development stages, KVM shows a real potential. It's fun working with it, and I suppose we'll hear more and more good news about it in the following months. At the time when this technology gets incorporated in the mainstream Linux distributions (in not so distant future) virtualization will become a real commodity. And not only for data centers and server consolidation purposes, but also on Linux desktops everywhere. Mostly thanks to a really great work on behalf of QEMU & KVM developers. But, you can start playing with it today...
KVM: Kernel-based Virtual Machine for Linux
QEMU: open source processor emulator
QEMU Accelerator Module
KVM: the original announcement on the linux-kernel list
Wed, 2006-12-27 18:38
Since you're obviously running a system with Vanderpool/Pacifica capabilities, I'd have loved it if you had installed Xen and compared performance of Windows under Xen with KVM.
Oh, and can we have the specifications of the hardware on which you performed the test ?
Thu, 2006-12-28 07:04
Well I encourage you to try out Xen as soon as possible, and to post a performance comparison. Debian already has Xen packages, as well as Debian specific tools and graphical Xen management tools
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 10:27
Fedora is much better and its graphical management tool is the best you can get
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 15:09
Quoted from the link your provided:
What is the install location? This is the path to a Fedora Core 6 installation tree in the format used by anaconda. NFS, FTP, and HTTP locations are all supported. Examples include:
Installation must be a network type. It is not possible to install from a local disk or CDROM. It is possible, however, to set up an installation tree on the host OS and then export it as an NFS share.
This is not what I can call easy to use, most people use ISO to install VM ...
At the moment Xen is not very users friendly, and the virt tools are very basics. That's certainly why it is not included or planned to be included in the Linux Kernel at the moment.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 19:10
"This is not what I can call easy to use, most people use ISO to install VM ..."
Where is your stats for that? You can very well use ISO's to install a VM, only within a vm in the graphical console is currently not supported. Do you have anything better than Fedora's virt-manager on Xen for any distribution? If not, my assertion earlier is perfectly correct.
Sunny (not verified)
Fri, 2010-01-15 07:25
I'm trying to share the virtual disks assigned between two guests.
Can anybody know how to share disks between guests.
Any doc or steps ??
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2010-06-03 18:19
I found some posts about things like this, but they can be out of date, so i post it again.
I'm planning to use virtualization on my server (i have Intel-VT capable cpu), and i would be happy to get out of as much 3D acceleration as can be.
If anyone tried to do the same thing, please help me out with your experiences. I have read so many articles about virtualization softwares, my first try would be KVM,
but there are so many of them...
Thank you,
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2007-02-03 21:43
I installed xen on FC6. Actually it is not that difficult. If any one of you wants to do the job - I can provide a small info on it!
Dario (not verified)
Tue, 2007-04-03 19:03
I try to install a Windows OS in paravirtualized fedora core 6 with xen, but I have a problem:
How I can install Windows guest OS from dvd?
Isaac Clerencia (not verified)
Tue, 2007-01-02 09:29
Enabling Xen in Debian is damn easy and straightforward.
You only need to run:
apt-get install xen-linux-system-2.6.18-3-xen-686
and reboot.
The xen entry is already added to Grub and selected by default, so your system will be boot under the Xen hypervisor.
Then it's really easy to create new images using the "xen-tools" package.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 16:36
Plus, you can accelerate that CPU up to 3.8 Ghz with no problem. E6600 architecture allow it. For example, i've e6400 accelerated to 3.0Ghz with standard cooler
L Mulder (not verified)
Fri, 2006-12-29 05:41
Yes... I ran on a 366@550 dual celeron BP6 for quite a few years and only last year retired this board in my linux server in favor of a P-4 2.4 Ghz based intel board. A lot of fun and was cool to show my friends SMP system before any of them knew how to build it or could afford it.
Thanks for the article on KVM. Screenshots please!?
-L Mulder
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 00:05
What about VMware benchmarks? Anyone got any of those?
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2006-12-31 17:08
that would be really nice
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2007-03-04 16:07
line number is 21 not 31
Jade (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 02:41
It would be nice to know which AMD processors are "SVM capable processors".
Jonathon Conte (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 08:02
Thanks for that clear and concise introduction to KVM--I can't wait to try it out!
I would appreciate it if you could provide some clarification about hardware. You mentioned that some newer processors feature hardware support for virtualization. Is this hardware support a requirement for using KVM?
Again, kudos to you for the great article.
Martin Espinoza (not verified)
Tue, 2007-04-03 17:38
Dor Laor (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 13:56
You need either a processor with virtualization support (any of svm (AMD) or vt (Intel).
Except that the virtualization needs to be enabled by BIOS. Note that there are BIOS version that do not support it.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 09:30
please provide some screen shots. Is it possible to tell us the diff b/n Xen and KVM for regular users i.e can we switch b/n the Oses by ALT+TAB etc.
Zukero (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 10:23
Hi, thanks for that article, it covers up many things I wanted to know about KVM.
How are handled storage devices in the guest OS ?
Like, do you configure /mnt/drive from the host to be represented as D: in the guest ?
>This means the file will grow as needed, not taking much disk space, >unless it's really needed (up to maximum 6GB)
Is this only for the OS partition, or is it the whole storage space available while using guest OS ?
Last one, how does windows handle hardware drivers while being a guest OS. For example, if I use a wifi dongle handled by the host OS as a module, how will it be handled by the guest OS (immediate use ? drivers installation required in guest OS ? unavailability ?) ?
Jade (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 11:46
I forgot to say, THANK YOU very much.
Ameet Gandhare (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 13:10
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 15:28
Xen does support virtualization using the same instruction sets that KVM uses. In fact, it also uses a modified version of Qemu to emulate the rest of the system hardware.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 14:09
Very nice article, unfourtunately my CPU does not support KVM.
How is the hardware virtualized ?, I mean, how does your M$ XP see your ethernet card ? or your pendrive/floppy ? are these devices supported ?
Thanks for any comment.
Zukero (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 16:34
So basically, I can't get all the power from my GeForce 6600 in the guest OS. It will always think I'm using the Video Card described.
That sucks... I was thinking of using KVM to be able to play WinXP games without needing to reboot... guess i'll wait.
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 16:58
Unfortunately not!
Having D3D or OpenGL apps virtualized is still a wet dream. :(
From what I hear, some kind of 3D proxy between host & guest would be needed to have your games run in the virtualized environment.
Zukero (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 18:39
Actually I guess this kind of virtualization is not what I am looking for.
What I'm dreaming about is a dedicated (and very light) Host OS that just manage hardware ressources distribution between its guests, so that each Guest uses its own drivers to access to hardware, while the Host just makes sure all of its guests are served with their respective needs as far as possible.
Do you think of this a feasable ?
Anonymous (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 21:25
That's called a Playstation3, I suppose: a machine with a lot of processor and graphics power that runs a hypervisor. This hypervisor can run a lightweight environment that runs games (regular PS3), or another OS compiled for the PowerPC architecture (such as Fedora for PPC). This OS will see virtualized hardware, but will still have access to the Cell processors that can do the heavyweight lifting that graphics need.
Martin Espinoza (not verified)
Tue, 2007-04-03 17:35
Linux, with minimal X windows (all you need is the server; your basic clients like xterm, xkill, etc; and your chosen virtualization program) and your very basic applications (say, busybox, various fsck programs, fdisk, and maybe the md tools) would get you a platform for virtualization. You could use vmware server if you don't have VT or equivalent, it would be the best option and it is is also free. But if you do, then kvm is or will be the best option. IIRC you can use raw filesystems with vmware so you could use vmware now and kvm later as it matures (I'm doing a windows 2000 installation in kvm right now and it hangs without the -no-kvm switch - I've read that it will work with VT after the install.) This is pretty much the approach taken with vmware ESX server...
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-12 00:09
Somewhat ironically, some of the higher-end VMWare products do more of this, although you'll be a little disappointed with two applications trying to manage the hardware at the same time. It's usually better to have one 'real' OS per PC.
More useful and interesting would be to write device drivers that can be called from a variety of operating systems,
such as a Linux or *BSD Kernel, GNU Hurd Kernel (user mode?), and Windows.
Anonymous (not verified)
Wed, 2008-06-04 11:03
At one time in the distant past I was responsible for maintaining VM/370 on all machines
at an IBM Lab.
I have been contemplating writing my own X86-64 light weight hypervisor.
The following is a cut and paste of a small portion of my notes that seem to
address what you are asking about.
The Section from my notes follows.
Dedicate a sub set of the physical hardware to a virtual machine.
As an example let us consider the following physical machine:
* Dual core AMD 64
* 2 Giga-bytes main memory
* Two network cards
* 2 Hard Disks:
o Windows-XP (i.e. 32-bit OS) installed (and functioning) on disk 1.
o Linux 32-bit installed on disk 2.
Booting Windows or Linux is determined by the boot drive as defined by the BIOS i.e. to boot the non active OS the machine has to be restarted, BIOS entered and the active boot disk changed.
A Hypervisor (using SVM) can be booted (from a USB memory stick or CD/DVD rom) In the hypervisor virtual machines can be defined:
* Virtual machine one
o Main memory is 1st Giga-byte of physical memory.
o physical disk 1 is virtual disk 1.
o physical network card 1 is virtual network card 1.
* Virtual machine two
o Main memory is 2nd Giga-byte of physical memory.
o physical disk 2 is virtual disk 1.
o physical network card 2 is virtual network card 1.
The hypervisor can then be told to boot first one and then (while the 1st virtual machine is still running) told to boot the second virtual machine.
The hypervisor allows the kernels of the virtual machines to run at ring-0 privilege level (which is not the norm).
Refinement (Assumptions)
For the above to (stand a chance of) work(ing) some additional requirements have to be met:
* The network cards have to be given unique (i.e. different) IP numbers e.g:
o Windows uses 192.168.0.2
o Linux uses 192.168.0.3
* Linux has to be configured to NOT use the graphics card (nor the system console).
Using this environment
The performance hit incurred by virtualization is almost nothing in this scenario.
There is however a performance hit:
* Each virtual machine believes that only 1 CPU exists in the machine. i.e. performance is only that of a single core machine.
* Each virtual machine believes that main memory is half the size that it actually is (thus there probably will be more paging).
Everything should work the same as it does on the dedicated machine with the above mentioned performance reservations.
To be able to work at all on linux we have to make a connection to it. This could be achieved by using telnet on the Windows virtual machine
Although the above is only theory for the AMD 64 the equivalent on IBM-370 hardware functioned on VM/370:
* There was no virtual tape drive a physical tape drive had to be attached to ONE virtual machine and that virtual machine could then use directly (i.e. without hypervisor intervention) that physical tape drive.
* Hypervisor intervention in the above scenario is ZERO. This is revelant for more than one reason:
o Performance hit (from the SVM) is ZERO
o Probably more important is that the amount of code in at the SVM level is minimal.
* There are a number of issues that have intentionally not been addressed by the above scenario because:
o It only works in theory (as a next step we need a proof of concept - or to see why the theory does not work or bring the advantages expected of it.
o The goal was to keep the definition of the theory as simple as possible.
o It is believed that resolving the issues not yet addressed can be achieved with little additional effort at the SVM level. The section Shortcommings below deals with the foreseen issues (and during a proof of concept may be extended).
The hypervisor/SVM requires a few resources:
* Some main memory
* A share of a CPU
USB subsystem requires a hypervisor level functionality i.e.
An example of what needs to be prevented is;
a USB device is plugged in and that information is passed on (unfiltered by the hypervisor) to one or more of the virtual machines.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2007-02-03 21:35
Just slightly off-topic -- but I installed xen under FC6 and it works w/ windows xp. As far as I know, xen could (theoretically) pass pte pci card directly into the virtual machine. So I bought a motherboard w/ 2 PCE-e slots (SLI) and plan to install a second pci-e adapter and see if it works. Not now though.
Pierre Lefranc (not verified)
Sun, 2007-02-11 05:00
3D in a VMware virtual machine has been available for Linux and Windows for 2 years, and will soon be available for Mac OS as shown in this video: 3D Graphics in VMware Fusion for Mac OS X
seb (not verified)
Mon, 2007-03-19 17:07
In response to getting 3d acceleration in virtual machines (VMWare & others) I've stumbled on this driver from opengl.org which does just this. Browse on their page to find it but apparently one may get full opengl driver level acceleration which in theory would make it possible to play those windoze games, at least the ones that support opengl. There is a link there to a video of just this. It appears to be Unreal2 OR UT2k4.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2007-05-22 21:57
Both of which have native linux binaries.
Jade (not verified)
Thu, 2006-12-28 23:27
One reason to use the Raw disk image format (the default) is that it can then be mounted with the command:
mount -o loop,offset=32256 your-disk-images-name.img /mnt
This allows you to easily copy files from your system into (and out of) the disk image (the offset is so that the boot sector of the image is not mounted).
Using the raw disk image format does not result in larger files than the other formats (except cloop which is a compressed format) as the reserved space is simply recored as "next follows a string of x million zeros" rather than actually writing x million zeros. This is true for Reiserfs, ext2, ext3 and other Linux filesystems, but apparently not true for Windows.
Pierre Lefranc (not verified)
Fri, 2006-12-29 00:05
"Finally user-friendly virtualization for Linux"
Weird title. Virtualization for Linux has been fast and user-friendly since 1999, with VMware Workstation for Linux. OK, it was not free-as-in-beer. But VMware remedied that in 2006 when they announced VMware Player and VMware Server for Linux.
VMware is a very good Linux citizen, who contributes patches to the Linux kernel, X, GTK+, and open source their UI libraries (libview, ...). They have an easy-to-use kick-ass product. Not even mentionning them in your article shows an incredible bias.
You should at least give credit where credit is due: KVM copies the VMware hosted virtualization architecture, except that unlike VMware, it only works on very recent hardware. User-friendly indeed...
waldo (not verified)
Wed, 2007-01-03 00:22
Anonymous (not verified)
Mon, 2007-01-08 15:31
You know, a vendor can write an EULA for their product stating you have to give them your firstborn child if they wish, but that doesn't mean it's a legally binding contract. You can't sign away your basic rights, and I think performing and publishing benchmarks would definitely be something they have no legal authority to prohibit you from doing.
Pierre Lefranc (not verified)
Sun, 2007-02-11 04:56
Pierre Lefranc (not verified)
Sun, 2007-02-11 04:55
"KVM is a completely different project (AFAIK, not connected in ANY way to VMware)"
This is true. But it uses the same desigas VMware as been ing for 9 years in their hosted products. Talking about this design at length without even mentioning VMware is weird.
"If VMware was *that* user-friendly, than this page wouldn't exist. That page represents a heroic effort of people who were unable to install or run VMware out of the box. I'm quite sure that page is very popular even today, timestamps on the files in that directory reveal that fact."
Do you realize that this page is maintained by Petr Vandrovec, who is a VMware employee wing at their headquarters in Palo Alto?
Oh the irony...
Fri, 2009-01-16 06:40
Load of turd. I could also say that you copied me because you can walk. The concept of virtualization and emulation has been around a long long time. Remember the... wait a second. How old are you?
bartman (not verified)
Wed, 2007-01-03 06:15
Last week I tried KVM. I got 60x slower performance then native. I was so disenchanted.
But, it now looks like KVM has gained a massive performance boost.
Check out this thread...
Here is a snippit...
Here are some quick numbers. Context-switch overhead with lmbench lat_ctx -s 0 [zero memory footprint]:
#tasks native kvm-r4204 kvm-r4232(mmu)
2: 2.02 180.91 9.19
20: 4.04 183.21 10.01
50: 4.30 185.95 11.27
so here it's a /massive/, almost 20 times speedup!
Context-switch overhead with -s 1000 (1MB memory footprint):
#tasks native kvm-r4204 kvm-r4232(mmu)
2: 150.5 1032.97 295.16
20: 216.6 1020.34 393.01
50: 218.1 1015.58 2335.99[*]
the speedup is nice here too. Note the outlier at 50 tasks: it's consistently reproducable. Could KVM be thrashing the pagetable cache due to some sort of internal limit? It's not due to guest size
The -mmu FC6 guest is visibly faster, so it's not just microbenchmarks that benefit from this change. KVM got /massively/ faster in every aspect, kudos Avi! (Note that r4204 already included the interactivity IRQ fixes so the improvements are i think purely due to pagetable caching speedups.)
Mon, 2007-08-13 09:57
I am lucky enough to have the QX6700 Core 2 Quad Extreme overclocked to 3.0 GHz. After fussing with the networking for three days, I got Windows XP SP2 (32 bit) running under Qemu/KVM on 64 bit Feisty. With the VT emulation support on the Core 2 Quad Extreme, Windows XP runs very fast indeed.
I loaded Rhapsody and am playing tunes while doing development on Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2005. This is about as badly as I can beat this. It is running just fine. I gave it 1 GB of memory and a 100 GB disk.
The improvements that I would like to see in hardware and software are more support for devices. I think this will require an IO memory management unit in the CPU's but I am not sure. I do not have access to the fancy graphics card or the fancy sound card. I have an SB 16 and some generic video card in XP.
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2007-03-27 22:00
I don't get it. If I want user friendly VT-based virtualization, I use parallels. KVM is a waste of time.
sims (not verified)
Fri, 2009-01-16 06:32
I don't get it. If people don't want to pay for software, why don't they just steal it instead of using FOSS.
I recommend anyone using FOSS because it doesn't cost them money to just steal software and stop complaining about FOSS.
Do as I do, not as I say.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2010-06-26 10:05
Its easy to steal software, but it feels better to not have to. I'm literally happier using FOSS.
I understand why no one else replied to your comment, but I give my opinion freely.
Anonymous (not verified)
Sun, 2009-04-19 16:15
We are trying to make the world a better place and you down us. You discuss me. Most of the software (proprietary) are knock offs of FOSS, just as well, have fun when you have a problem, see how fast it gets fixed.
G01den Angles (not verified)
Sat, 2008-05-31 18:07
Thx, Great Article.
KVM and JeOS rocks in my machine :)
Anonymous (not verified)
Tue, 2009-02-24 07:56
Can someone provide me some scripts to get the benchmarks of KVM guest?
Thanks in advance,


text:
product description
Related Products:
Henry, William
William Henry Knives
Chef's Knife Sets
Artisan Made
Blade Style - San Mai
Carbon Fiber
Culinary Knife Sets
Stainless - ZDP189 (PM)
Stainless Steel
Kitchen Knives
Maker: William Henry (click to see more by this maker)
Item num: 86054
Item weight: 47.20 oz.Blade: San mai ZDP-189 PM stainless steel (Hrc 65-67)Handle: Carbon fiber
Description: William Henry's Carbon Fiber Collection is built to the most rigorous standards of the commercial kitchen. The knives feature a laminated blade made from multiple layers of steel surrounding a core material of the finest alloy in cutlery. The core (edge material) is pure ZDP-189, a super-stainless powder metal die steel created by Hitachi Metals of Japan. This alloy achieves a hardness of RC 65-67, which translates to superior sharpness and edge retention (note that most kitchen cutlery, even fine cutlery, rarely reaches a hardness above RC 57). The exterior layers are 420 stainless steel. These supportive layers creates a blade that is superb in terms of sharpness and flexibility.
Each blade is completely ground and honed by hand to an edge that measures an incredibly sharp edge. With proper maintenance, these knives will maintain a good working edge 5-6 times longer than typical high-grade cutlery, and can be resharpened in seconds, rather than minutes.
The carbon fiber handled are secured with seven stainless pins and set on a full tang for durability and strength -- a perfect choice for the rigorous demands of either a home or commercial kitchen. Carbon fiber is one of the strongest and lightest materials on the planet.
The set includes an arch maple display stand inlaid with magnets along with five knives. The knives include:


text:
Montoya runs out of gas on last lap at Sonoma
SONOMA, California (AP) — So many things have gone wrong for Juan Pablo Montoya this season that he's come to expect the unexpected at the most inopportune time.
It came Sunday with one lap to go at Sonoma Raceway, where Montoya was desperately hoping to bank a bunch of points.
Instead, he ran out of fuel while running second and had to coast to the finish line. He wound up 34th in a race he expected to contend for the victory.
"This is what we've been doing all year. We all work together and we're trying to work the best we can, and then days like this, we throw them away," Montoya said. "A disappointing day was going to be second but we took a second and made it into a 30-something finish again."
Montoya was miffed because his Chip Ganassi Racing crew never warned him to save fuel, which he could have easily done when he no longer had a shot to catch race-winner Martin Truex Jr. Instead, his gas tank suddenly went dry and he had to coast his way around the massive 1.99-mile (3.2-kilometer) road course.
He wound up inching toward the finish line, where he parked his car, climbed out and made the long walk back to the garage.
"They were telling me to go hard and telling me to go after (Truex) as hard as I could," Montoya said. "We were in the good. They said 'Keep going, go hard,' and that's what I was doing.
"Then when I came through (turn) 10 coming to the white, the fuel pressure just dropped and I knew I was dead meat."
Crew chief Chris Heroy was perplexed about the shortage.
"We don't know what happened — we were on the same strategy as (Truex)," Heroy said through a team spokeswoman. "We're going to go back to the shop and figure it out."
Montoya said the team possibly didn't get the tank full on his final stop, or that the fuel calculations were off based on a number of variables that could have included his pace while in traffic versus his pace in clean air.
"I think we missed it by a lap," he said.
Montoya has been inching closer to snapping his 101-race winless streak that dates back to Watkins Glen in 2010. After a rough start to the season that saw him stymied by mechanical failures and poor pit stops, he's rebounded and contended for wins on the ovals at Richmond and Dover.
The road course at Sonoma is always a place he's considered a contender, and he thought Sunday would be no different. At minimum, he said all weekend, was that his team would get a strong finish that would help him crack the top-20 in points.
"Effort don't give you points," he said. "We ran good and threw away a bunch of points again."


text:
Review | Author Bio | Read an Excerpt | Interview
Ray Comfort's Bio:
Ray Comfort co-hosts (with Kirk Cameron) and produces The Way of the Master television show, winner of the NRB's 2005 Best Program Award and 2004 & 2005 Peoples Choice Awards. The program airs weekly on nine Christian networks to over 6,000 stations in 74 nations. He is the founder of Living Waters, a ministry that has been equipping Christians across the world for more than 30 years, teaching them to witness the way Jesus did. As a seasoned evangelist, his ministry has been commended by Franklin Graham, Josh McDowell, D. James Kennedy, John MacArthur, Woodrow Kroll, Ravi Zacharias, David Jeremiah, George Barna, Joni Eareckson Tada, and many other Christian leaders.
Ray is the author of more than 40 books, including The Evidence Bible (a 2002 Gold Medallion Award finalist), Hells Best Kept Secret, The Way of the Master, and 101 Things Husbands Do to Annoy Their Wives. He has also written for Billy Graham's Decision magazine and Bill Bright's Worldwide Challenge. Ray and his wife, Sue, live in Bellflower, California, where they have three grown children.
Visit Ray's website at www.LivingWaters.org


text:
Ex-Mountain Biking Champion Arrested in Alleged 200-Pound Pot Bust
WILTON, N.Y. – Former mountain biking world champion Melissa "Missy" Giove was in custody Thursday on federal drug charges after authorities said they seized more than 200 pounds of marijuana from a truck she was driving in upstate New York.
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials said Wednesday that the 37-year-old Giove, of Chesapeake, Va., and 30-year-old Eric Canori of Wilton were charged Tuesday with conspiring to possess and distribute more than 100 kilograms of marijuana.
Authorities said they seized nearly 400 pounds of pot from the truck and from Canori's home outside Saratoga Springs, 25 miles north of Albany.
Giove and Canori were in the custody of U.S. Marshals pending detention hearings Thursday afternoon in Albany.
DEA spokeswoman Erin Mulvey said authorities learned of Giove and Canori's plans last weekend when Illinois State Police pulled over a woman driving a truck and trailer loaded with about 220 pounds of marijuana. Authorities completed the delivery to the Albany area, where Mulvey said Giove picked up the vehicle and trailer.
Officials said Giove then drove north and followed Canori to his home, where some of the trailer's contents were unloaded.
Giove was later arrested at nearby Saratoga Lake, authorities said. A search of Canori's home turned up more than 150 pounds of pot and more than $1 million in cash stashed in a closet and the basement, the DEA said.
It couldn't be immediately determined Thursday morning if Giove and Canori had lawyers.
Giove, nicknamed "The Missile" for her aggressive riding style, was the downhill world champion in 1994 and won World Cup season titles in '97 and '98, then captured national titles from 1999-2001. One of the sport's first mainstream female stars, she retired from downhill racing in 2003.


text:
January 4th, 2013 at 5:20 PM ^
this win was following the dissappointment of the bowl game. Not sure how many beat-downs like this we will administer in away games this Big Ten season, but ecouraging to see that we didn't let up even when the game was well in hand against a decimated Wildcat team.
On a sidenote- what color would you call that on the court? YIKES! NU is probably looking forward to road games this season.
January 4th, 2013 at 6:06 PM ^
I call that color blueberry yogurt. I thought our offense was great this game aside from some uncharacteristic, sloppy turnovers. I wasn't overly impressed with our defense, especially considering we were facing a bad team without its two best players. They got way too many easy looks and every time a short, slow white guy drove to the basket and got an easy layup I was confused. This is nitpicking of course, during the game I was thinking, 'when was the last time we were this good? When was the last time we were highly ranked for a long time and it was deserved?' And I was thinking about how when Bama was thrashing us in football how nice it must be to be a fan of such a dominant team. Then I realized we are just such a dominant team right now, this happens so rarely, and who knows how long it will last. I need to soak this in and enjoy it and thats just what I did with a big smile on my face like a Hardaway. I love this team.
January 4th, 2013 at 8:06 PM ^
eeek, long commercial followed by a very grainy video clip.....neg away, but I know I'm not the only one thinking it.
Disregard completely if MGoBlog is benefitting from using it.
January 4th, 2013 at 10:01 PM ^
They get paid to post those highlights. Too bad they don't work on iPhone or Android.
Full game:
January 4th, 2013 at 11:47 PM ^
Don't need to neg for tellin the truth man. The issues are well known. They're getting a new server soon that is supposed to be fixing this. Also they're supposed to be 15-second commercials only. If you knew...well you can guess how many LandoCalrissian.gif's have been flying over this thing.
January 4th, 2013 at 11:47 PM ^
Rest in Peace Pete Elliot, A Great Wolverine from the 1945 -1948 Michigan football teams And also the younger brother of coach Bump Elliot.


text:
MBA Award Established to Honor Beard Institute Leader James Byrne
Lennox International Inc. and the Duquesne University John F. Donahue Graduate School of Business have partnered to establish a new award named in honor of the executive director of the Beard Institute, James J. Byrne.
The new James J. Byrne Award for Responsible Leadership will honor Byrne's two decades of leadership on the Lennox International board of directors and his significant contributions to the Palumbo-Donahue School of Business, according to Dean Alan R. Miciak.
The annual $4,000 award, funded by Lennox International, will be presented every April to a working, part-time student in Duquesne's Master of Business Administration program. Candidates will demonstrate commitment to contributing to business and society through responsible leadership, as well as academic distinction and leadership in their company and community. At a recent ceremony in Dallas, Lennox presented Byrne with a plaque commemorating this award and adopted a resolution that chronicled his many contributions to the company.
Under Byrne's direction, the Beard Institute has served as the outreach arm of the business school's focus on business ethics, sustainability and responsible financial management, reflecting the changing landscape of American and international business.
Byrne, having spent most of his adult life in New York and Dallas, has recently moved back to Pittsburgh with his wife, Margaret. In his impressive career, he has held senior management positions with General Electric, United Technologies and Harris Corp. In addition, he has served on the boards of three American public companies, seven international boards and several not for profit boards. He currently serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), Pittsburgh.
Duquesne University
Founded in 1878, Duquesne is consistently ranked among the nation's top Catholic universities for its award-winning faculty and tradition of academic excellence. Duquesne, a campus of nearly 9,500 graduate and undergraduate students, has been nationally recognized for its academic programs, community service and commitment to sustainability. Follow Duquesne University on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.


text: On Thu, 7 Jun 2001, Horatio B. Bogbindero wrote: > > there are a good number of products out there that have two or more ports > on a single NIC. what about performance? i remember someone posting about > it while back during a discussion about FNN which i participated in. i do > not recall when that post was and the list archives return a large amount > of results. i think is was rgb who posted a long a comprehensive response > to it. Not me. Maybe Don Becker? I vaguely remember the discussion you're referring to, but I have no personal experience with multiport NICs and don't know of any performance testing. rgb -- Robert G. Brown http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/ Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305 Durham, N.C. 27708-0305 Phone: 1-919-660-2567 Fax: 919-660-2525 email:rgb at phy.duke.edu


text:
Value Line is regarded as the best independent research available. More than just recommendations, Value Line provides the rationale behind its picks for greater understanding.
Consolidation continues to wash away the number of brewing companies in the global beer market as the largest brewers in the world have adopted the mindset that bigger is better over the past decade. As a result, four megabreweries (Anheuser Busch InBev (BUD), SAB Miller, Heineken International, and Molson Coors (TAP)) have emerged and account for roughly half of the world's beer sales. Certain developments have spurred this consolidation and, consequently, the rise of these four goliaths. Most notably, the infiltration of small-batch craft beers into local markets and the rising popularity of wine and spirits have led the megabreweries to search for ways to increase their volumes. What's more, by tacking on smaller operations, these brewers create economies of scale, which offer cost advantages (costs go down as scale increase) that are tough for their craft competitors to replicate.
The best way to understand how consolidation has affected the beer business is to take a look at some of the largest acquisitions in recent years. One of the best examples is the creation of Anheuser-Busch InBev. It started with Belgian brewer Interbrew which gained control of the Latin American outfit AmBev to form InBev in 2004. The combined entity was the world's largest brewing operation. Over the next few years, InBev continued to add other smaller breweries to its business. Then, in 2008, it made headlines with its acquisition of one of America's most renowned businesses, Anheuser Busch. This deal created Anheuser Busch InBev, which further cemented this entity's position as the worldwide market leader.
Another powerhouse, Molson Coors, was also created via mergers. In 2005, the strong Canadian company, Molson, teamed up with the prominent American operation, Coors, to form an entity with more clout in the North America beer market. Two years after these businesses joined forces, the North American operation decided it needed to further bolster its capabilities in order to better compete with domestic-leader (then) Anheuser Busch. Consequently, Molson Coors combined its U.S. assets with rival SAB Miller in 2007 to create MillerCoors. Most recently, rumors of Molson Coors potentially buying Foster's beer business have intensified. The potential deal would bolster the North American brewer's presence Down Under and help it better compete with its global competitors.
European giant Heineken International's transformation into one of the world's largest brewers through two acquisitions is another example. In 2008, it purchased, with Carlsberg, British brewer Scottish & Newcastle. Heineken then followed that purchase with a takeover of Formento Economico Mexicano, which is commonly known as FEMSA, giving it a strong foothold in the Western Hemisphere. This resulted in a global brewing operation that can compete with the likes of SAB Miller and Anheuser Busch InBev.
The pace of the mergers and acquisitions in recent years suggests that the four largest brewing companies have entered into something of an arms race. Indeed, these global breweries continue to search for new markets to enter and breweries to add to their ever-expanding businesses. As a result, emerging markets have increasingly become a focus due to their enticing growth potential. Strong sales in Asia, Africa and Latin America have helped these businesses offset weakening volumes in their primary markets. Small breweries that have strong brand loyalty in their home market are the most likely targets. Large-scale brewers can take these relatively unknown brands and use their vast distribution and marketing networks to give the small brands greater reach in the hopes of driving up sales.
The primary example of this trend has been in the Chinese beer industry. China, the world's largest beer market, remains fragmented, which has piqued the interest of the aforementioned global beer titans. For example, Molson Coors is hoping to build on its success in China by expanding its footprint via a joint venture with Hebei Si'hai Beer Co. Looking ahead, we expect merger and acquisition activity to pick up in China over the coming years as the larger brewers try to further tap this lucrative market. Moreover, the world's largest brewers will likely continue to search for acquisition targets in other promising markets around the globe, such as India and South America, for the foreseeable future.
Indeed, this industry has been moving from a slew of national oligopolies to a few global conglomerates. In fact, the most recent wave of mergers has swallowed the majority of the publicly traded breweries. Accordingly, the number of publicly traded takeover targets has declined. What's more, many of the remaining brewers have complex organizational structures (trusts, poison pills, etc.), which often include the founding families, which would further complicate any purchase. Still, while consumers tend to identify with their local beer brands, which traces back to the days when beer couldn't travel long-distances, a new trend is emerging where beer drinkers are more willing to abandon their local allegiance and try different brews. These megabreweries will likely continue to try to take advantage of this trend by focusing on expanding their diverse portfolio of suds.
While the giants continue to focus on extending their portfolios and extending their reach into new markets, small-batch craft brewers have found a profitable niche focusing on quality over quantity. The beer business remains, on a certain level, a local business. As the big guys work on growing their volumes worldwide, an opportunity for smaller players to come in and find a geographic region to which they can appeal and call their own is created. This strategy appears to be working as the craft beer industry continues to register healthy growth. Most recently, it saw sales rise 7% in 2009, while overall beer sales in North America declined 2%.
Boston Beer (SAM) remains one of the most well known success stories in this growing segment. It has grown from a small New England brewery in the 1980s to the largest American Brewer (the recent wave of international consolidation had a heavy hand in eliminating its previous competition, thereby pushing it up to the top spot domestically). The company continues to work to expand its operations as demand for its wide slate of beers remains strong. This success has not gone unnoticed and, as a result, some people on Wall Street believe Boston Beer could become part of the very acquisition trend it has benefited from. However, founder Jim Koch retains a strong voting interest, which should help him fend off any unwanted offers.
The craft beer segment has not been immune to the effects of the beer industry's consolidation, though. In 2008, Widmer Brothers Brewing Company and publicly traded Redhook Ale Brewery joined forces to create the Craft Brewers Alliance (HOOK) under Redhook's symbol, HOOK. Since then, the company purchased Kona Brewing, which was based in Hawaii, and Goose Island Beer Company, which started its business in Chicago. Anheuser-Busch InBev distributes the outfits' beer nationally and owns a minority stake. Craft Brewer's Alliance hopes combining four established regional beer brands that are known for quality into one business will help strengthen its marketability and reputation in the domestic beer market.
This industry's consolidation trend will likely continue in the near term, as the economies of scale from building a global operation are far too great to ignore. Some challenges along the way will include a constantly evolving landscape and a more difficult deal environment. Still, megabreweries will be sure to find a way to tap new markets despite these hiccups. Accordingly, we would not be surprised to see another big deal go down in the not-so-distant future – but it may take place on foreign shores.


text:
Ball State names Whitford hoops coach
Muncie, IN – Ball State University named James Whitford, the associate head coach at Arizona, as its new head men's basketball coach.
Whitford replaces Billy Taylor, who was fired last month after six seasons. He will be introduced as the 19th head coach in program history during a Wednesday press conference.
Whitford has been on Sean Miller's staff at Arizona for four years, including the past two as the associate head coach. He has been with Miller for eight seasons, dating back to Miller's days guiding the Xavier program.
"I want to thank President Gora and Bill Scholl for giving me this incredible opportunity at Ball State," Whitford said. "In my mind, Ball State offers the best combination of academic excellence, basketball tradition, outstanding arena and fan support of any school in the Mid-American Conference. When you add the unparalleled recruiting base in the state of Indiana and the great teaching those high school players receive from their various coaches, this job became one I targeted over the last few weeks."
The 41-year-old Whitford served on the staff at Miami University under Charlie Coles for 11 seasons before joining Miller at Xavier.
The Cardinals were 15-15 this season, including an 8-8 mark in conference play. Taylor compiled an 84-99 record in his six years guiding the program.


text:
HPD Latest News
Ask HPD: Towing a vehicle illegally parked
Q: What is the protocol to tow a car that is illegally parked?
A. If the vehicle is in violation, such as blocking driveways, fire hydrants or parking in a tow-away zone, call 911. An officer will be sent to analyze the situation. If the vehicle is in violation, the officer will inform dispatchers and cite the vehicle. If the vehicle is parked in such a manner as to fit the criteria for towing then the city contracted tow company will be notified. Not all vehicles parked illegally are towed.
Q: Whom do I call if I think my car has been towed?
A: Call 911 and ask if your car is listed on the tow log. If not, your car may have been stolen, in which case, meet with an officer and make a police report.
Don't forget to email us: firstname.lastname@example.com
Or visit our web site and social media pages:
Visit our website
Send us a message on Facebook
Send us a message on Twitter
Check out our video on YouTube
Message us on Google+
Ask HPD will also air on KHON2 News morning show, Wake Up 2Day.