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USB 'Dead Drops' Offer Possibilities, Risks
Somewhere along a long, nondescript brick wall, there's a little spot that's different from the rest. Poking out from the rough surface of the wall is the half-inch extension of a USB flash drive. You connect it to your computer, upload or download files, and you're on your way, with no one the wiser.
We learned about "dead drops" (at least, those who didn't know about them already) a few weeks ago with General Petraeus got caught exchanging messages with his mistress by leaving messages in draft form in a shared Gmail account. But there's another kind that offers a lot more possibilities — and risks.
It all started in October, 2010, when Berlin-based media artist Aram Bartholl came up with the idea as an art project: Install a USB flash drive in a wall, and people could freely upload and download art from it. He started out with five USB dead drops in New York, and posted a website with instructions, including an instructional video.
"Dead Drops is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space," reads the Dead Drop Manifesto. "Anyone can access a Dead Drop and everyone may install a Dead Drop in their neighborhood/city. A Dead Drop must be public accessible. A Dead Drop inside closed buildings or private places with limited or temporary access is not a Dead Drop. A real Dead Drop mounts as read and writeable mass storage drive without any custom software. Dead Drops don't need to be synced or connected to each other. Each Dead Drop is singular in its existence. A very beautiful Dead Drop shows only the metal sheath enclosed type-A USB plug and is cemented into walls.You would hardly notice it. Dead Drops don't need any cables or wireless technology. Your knees on the ground or a dirty jacket on the wall is what it takes share files offline. A Dead Drop is a naked piece of passively powered Universal Serial Bus technology embedded into the city, the only true public space. In an era of growing clouds and fancy new devices without access to local files we need to rethink the freedom and distribution of data."
The idea exploded, and soon there were USB flash drives poking out of walls (and dogs) all over the world. Srsly, there's more than 1100 of the things out there, according to the most recent map, ranging from New York to Toronto (where it contains porn and recipes) to New Zealand. (And those are just the public ones.) There's also apps to tell you where Dead Drops are, as well as a Flickr set and a Twitter feed. (In addition, there's wireless ones and DVD ones being set up as well.)
Certainly the serendipity of these little data glory holes is high. It's basically superduper high-tech geocaching. Just think of the data, good and bad, that could be exchanged: Pictures, movies, building plans for terrorists, porn, Anonymous plans, Wikileaks data… They're even being used to generate fiction. Honestly, I'm surprised it hasn't shown up in a Will Smith movie yet.
Needless to say, the whole process, like any USB stick, is fraught. What keeps people from downloading something like a virus (which was raised as a concern almost immediately) or child porn onto their laptops? (I cringe every time I see a picture of someone with their laptop plugged into one of these things, and hope that at least it's a junk laptop devoted to the purpose.)
For that matter, what keeps someone from uploading a virus, and from there spreading it around the world? Recall that the Stuxnut virus was spread through USB flash drives enticingly scattered around. Set up something like this at Burning Man with a virus and you could shut down all of Silicon Valley by mid-September.
On the other hand, in a day and age where governments are shutting down the entire Internet in their countries, the notion of a way for rebels to exchange information in this clandestine way sounds pretty darn cool. What a great way for Mr. Phelps to get information — though of course you'd have to make sure that the government hadn't set up its own USB dead drop to try to catch you. Or for people trapped in a country to get information outside the country — post a code message to Twitter and wait for someone with a tablet and a USB port to come along.
Or maybe I've just seen Red Dawn too many times.
What a Dropbox Acquisition Would Mean
In its list for 2013, IDC has predicted that the cloud file-sharing company Dropbox will be acquired next year.
"Dropbox will be acquired by a major enterprise infrastructure player," the company wrote. "In another sign that "consumerization" doesn't mean mimicking consumer technologies in the enterprise but actually acquiring and/or integrating with widely adopted consumer offerings in the enterprise, IDC predicts that Dropbox will be acquired by a major enterprise infrastructure player in 2013. This will certainly be an expensive acquisition, but it will be one that brings an enormous number of consumers (many of whom are also employees), and a growing number of ecosystem partners, along with Dropbox's technology."
"Expensive" is putting it mildly; a $250 Series B funding round last fall gave the company a $4 billion valuation, which is expected to be even higher now (though GigaOm still thinks the market is small). Only a major enterprise infrastructure player would be able to afford it.
Part of what makes this prediction interesting is that a Dropbox IPO has been rumored — and highly anticipated — since last year. Dropbox founder and CEO Drew Houston had reportedly received a nine-figure acquisition offer from Apple early on, Forbes reported last year, but turned it down because he wanted to run a big company — though he sounded at the end of the article as though he might be reconsidering that.
As he walked out of [Facebook founder Mark] Zuckerberg's relatively modest Palo Alto colonial, clearly enroute to becoming the big company CEO he had told Steve Jobs he would be, Houston noticed the security guard parked outside, presumably all day, every day and pondered the corollaries of the path: "I'm not sure I want to live that life, you know?"
The downside with getting a big funding round is that eventually investors want to see some return on their investment — and typically that means either an IPO or an acquisition. Employees also typically want their big buyout, though Dropbox employee stock has reportedly been available on the secondary market.
The advantage of an acquisition by a major vendor is that it could give Dropbox the credibility and structure it would need to fit into the enterprise. It's not that people aren't using Dropbox. Quite the contrary — a recent survey by storage vendor Nasuni found that 20% of corporate users were using Dropbox.
This is despite the security and governance holes inherent with using a system such as Dropbox, the security holes in Dropbox in particular, and rules that corporations have attempted to put into place to keep people from using it. (Nasuni found that 49% of the people whose companies had rules against it were using it anyway.) As long as people have multiple devices — and they show no signs of stopping — and need access to their files, as well as the ability to send large files to other people, there's going to be a need for the functionality, and all the rules in the world aren't going to stop it, especially when, as Nasuni's survey indicated, some of the worst offenders are executives.
"The most blatant offenders are near the top of the corporate heap — VPs and directors are most likely to use Dropbox despite the documented risks and despite corporate edicts," writes GigaOm's Barb Darrow. "C-level and other execs are the people who brought their personal iPads and iPhones into the office in the first place and demanded they be supported."
So being purchased by a major player offers the opportunity to rein in some of these users, while still giving them the functionality they need. The company itself has also indicated that it plans to address the issue to make the product safer for corporate users — which would also make it more attractive to an acquirer.
The other likely aspect is that, as we've seen with e-discovery and other emerging markets, when the first big vendor goes, many of the smaller vendors quickly follow like dominoes. A Dropbox acquisition would likely presage a whole round of other ones; Wikipedia lists 17 "notable competitors," including Box.Net and YouSendIt, and there are others. Acquisitions would also help simplify the complicated market.
Although major players such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft already offer their own cloud storage solutions, the vendors might want to acquire other ones for their technology, their people, or simply to get them off the market, while other vendors (dare I suggest HP, which doesn't have a great track record on acquisitions these days?) would do so simply to get a toe in the market.
Either way, it seems likely that something will happen to this market next year.
Governments Behaving Badly With Personal Data
There's been a couple of instances recently where government agencies have been careless with data, losing access to personally identifiable information such as Social Security numbers.
First, a NASA laptop that "contained records of sensitive personally identifiable information for a large number of NASA employees, contractors and others" was stolen from a vehicle, and while the laptop itself was password-protected, the data on it was not encrypted. In its memo about the incident, NASA didn't say how many staffers might have been affected.
Second, the state of South Carolina's Department of Revenue determined that hackers had broken into its database, putting the PII of up to 4 million people and 700,000 businesses at risk — again, because data had not been encrypted — in what is said to be the largest breach ever of a state agency. "Hackers also stole 3.3 million bank account numbers and the tax files of 700,000 businesses," wrote Reuters. The Social Security numbers of 1.9 million children on parents' returns were also compromised.
Are you detecting a Trend? Like, maybe, that encrypting PII is a Good Idea?
NASA, which had already lost another laptop in March to a similar theft, is actually in the process of implementing encryption on its systems — the stolen laptop just hadn't gotten through the process yet. However, the agency expects all of its laptops to be encrypted by December 21, a spokeswoman told the New York Times. The agency didn't say how much the breach would cost.
With South Carolina, its encryption plans are less clear. Gov. Nikki Haley — who had reportedly claimed the breach wasn't the state's fault until an investigation by the security company Mandiant proved her wrong — has been blaming the problem on "antiquated state software and outdated IRS security guidelines" that don't require encryption. But while the state has implemented some security measures, such as increased monitoring, reports haven't indicated anything yet about South Carolina installing encryption, though the Republican governor wrote the IRS a Strongly Worded Letter encouraging the federal agency to require states to do so.
"Had I known that IRS compliance meant that our Social Security numbers were not encrypted, I would have been shocked," Haley was quoted as saying on local news.
Haley said the state also hadn't encrypted the data because it was complicated. "But it's highly unlikely that anyone on the security team at the Department of Revenue recommended storing millions of SSNs in plaintext because the alternative–deploying an encryption package–was too complicated," wrote Dennis Fisher of Threatpost in a scathing rebuttal. "More likely, someone looked at his budget, looked at the price of the database encryption package, and made a hard choice. Lots of businesses, government agencies, non-profits and other organizations face the same choice every year and some of them decide that the cost of the encryption outweighs the potential benefit. And that can work out fine. That is, until something like the South Carolina data breach happens. Then things tend to be not fine."
If the goal was to save money, they chose…poorly. "The cost of the state's response has exceeded $14 million," reported the Post. "That includes $12 million to the Experian credit-monitoring agency to cover taxpayers who sign up — half of which is due next month — and nearly $800,000 for the extra security measures ordered last week. The Revenue Department has estimated spending $500,000 for Mandiant, $100,000 for outside attorneys and $150,000 for a public relations firm. But those costs will depend on the total hours those firms eventually spend on the issue. The agency also expects to spend $740,000 to mail letters to an estimated 1.3 million out-of-state taxpayers."
Plus, there's the class action lawsuit, which could amount to $4 billion or more.
Meanwhile, other states such as Georgia and Alabama are hastening to point out that they don't have any problems like this because they encrypt their data. However, most other states don't, said Larry Ponemon, chairman of The Ponemon Institute, which researches privacy and data protection.
Fingerpointing Abounds In HP-Autonomy $8.8 Billion Debacle
Acquisitions are hard.
HP announced this week that it was being forced to write off $8.8 billion of the $9.7 billion cost of its year-old acquisition of Autonomy.
Let the fingerpointing begin.
HP blamed the write-down on what it said were systematic accounting games that made the U.K. company look much more valuable than it was — to which it said it was alerted only when a senior Autonomy official pointed them out.
Autonomy grew through acquisitions, buying everything from storage companies like Iron Mountain to enterprise software firms like Interwoven. They'd then go to customers and offer them a deal they couldn't refuse. Say a customer had $5 million and four years left on a data-storage contract, or "disk," in the trade. Autonomy would offer them, say, the same amount of storage for $4 million but structure it as a $3 million purchase of IDOL software, paid for up front, and $1 million worth of disk. The software sales dropped to the bottom line and burnished Autonomy's reputation for being a fast-growing, cutting-edge software company a la Oracle, while the revenue actually came from the low-margin, commodity storage business.
Mike Lynch, former CEO of Autonomy, who was reportedly fired by HP in April, strenuously denied the allegations, which he said he knew nothing about until the press release came out, and said that HP had mismanaged the company in the year it had run it.
I think what has happened here is that they have got themselves in a mess. They did the acquisition of EDS, they had to write that one down. They had to write Palm down. When Autonomy was acquired it was done by a CEO who wanted to get rid of various divisions of that business and lead with software. He was ousted in an internal coup d'etat. From that point Autonomy was at odds with the divisions that were in power. There was a series of mismanagement steps. They lost hundreds of the talented people at Autonomy. They whole management team basically went out of the door. Sadly they are left with the results of having destroyed all that value.
Analysts blamed HP for spending too much on the acquisition — which they'd said since the initial announcement — and for not doing due diligence.
Even if Autonomy passed the auditors' scrutiny the way it did, how can you pay $10 billion for a company that has $1 billion in revenue and growing at 10% a year only," writes Jean-Baptiste Su in Forbes. "It didn't make sense then, and now H-P is taking an $8.8 billion charge and blaming everyone else for its mistake."
(Oracle's Larry Ellison caused a kerfluffle in September, 2011, when he said that Autonomy had been shopped to Oracle as well — ironically, on April 1 of that year — which Lynch denied at the time until Ellison posted the Powerpoint presentation from the meeting. Ellison said the company was overpriced — but due to the feud between Oracle and HP at the time, this likely sounded like sour grapes.)
HP's Meg Whitman, who'd been CEO for only a few weeks when the acquisition was finalized but who had been on the board at the time, blamed former CEO Leo Apotheker, who was forced out after the acquisition when he also tried to kill HP's PC division, and former chief strategy officer Shane Robison, who has also left the company. She also said that accounting firm Deloitte had vetted the company, and that KPMG had vetted Deloitte.
Apotheker declared he was shocked, shocked, and talked about the due diligence he had done.
Deloitte, for its part, had already come under criticism earlier this year for making mistakes.
There. Have we left anyone out?
HP would have much more credibility about its accusations if the company didn't have such a poor track record of its other acquisitions. Wrote Su:
Unfortunately, Autonomy is just the latest example of the company's dreadful acquisition track record and value destruction that started, in earnest, 10-years ago with Carly Fiorina's decision to acquire Compaq for $25 billion, followed then by Mercury Interactive in 2006 ($4.5B), EDS in 2009 ( $13.9B) and Palm in 2010 ($1.2B).
In what seems like a prescient story, the Wall Street Journal wrote earlier this month about HP's troubles.
Like most big tech companies, H-P has acquired new technologies. But many of its biggest purchases have fizzled, leaving the company with less cash and more debt than its rivals and effectively shutting it out of future deals," the paper wrote. "Neither H-P's buybacks nor acquisitions have panned out. H-P wrote off $8 billion of the $13 billion EDS deal earlier this year. In 2010, H-P also spent $1.2 billion to acquire mobile-device maker Palm, but shut down the unit and wrote it off a year later. Last year, H-P paid more than $10 billion to acquire software maker Autonomy, but has already said sales in that business are declining."
One also wonders, if the tale about HP discovering the issue after performing an internal investigation based on the Autonomy executive's tip in May is true, what took the company so long to have noticed? If it hadn't been for the tip, just when would it have come out?
And if "H-P's internal team was aware of talk about accounting irregularities at the time the deal was struck…[and] was looking for a way to unwind the deal before it closed, but couldn't find any material accounting issues," as the Wall Street Journal writes now, wouldn't the company have studied those irregularities right away? Were Lynch and the other executives supposed to be so diabolically clever that an army of accountants couldn't find the fraud until the former Autonomy executive pointed it out for them? (U.K. laws reportedly make it difficult and expensive to renege on an acquisition.)
And finally, just what sort of due diligence did HP and Deloitte do? Did they actually research the numbers themselves, or just trust the numbers it got from Autonomy?
HP acquired Autonomy in August, 2011, soon after Gartner did its first e-discovery Magic Quadrant, in May, 2011. At the time, Gartner spoke glowingly about the company, which it placed in the Leaders quadrant.
Autonomy is a brand and marketing powerhouse that appears on many clients' shortlists," Gartner said in its earlier report. "Although we have seen little appetite for 'full-service e-discovery platforms' from clients as yet, Autonomy is positioned to seize these opportunities when they do arise — indeed, the overall market may evolve in that direction."
In that report, Gartner also predicted that consolidation would have eliminated one in four enterprise e-Discovery vendors by 2014, with the acquirers likely to be mainstream companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Microsoft, and storage vendors. Autonomy itself acquired Iron Mountain's archiving, e-discovery and online backup business in May 2011 for US$ 380 million in cash.
At the time, HP was thought to be pursuing a similar strategy to that of IBM, which divested itself of its PC business and moved instead to primarily software and services.
Now, HP's strategy, as well as that of Whitman — whom some are, fairly or unfairly, blaming for the whole situation — is going to be finding a way to survive.
Exabyte, Zettabyte, Yottabyte…Then What? Opinions Vary
When I first started this blog almost two years ago, I called it "yottabytes" because that was the term commonly accepted for the biggest size of storage (1000^8, or a 10 followed by 24 zeroes, compared with, say, 1000^4 for a terabyte). But as people are actually starting to refer to petabytes (1000^5) and exabytes (1000^6) of storage, there's starting to be more discussion of what comes next.
No, I'm not changing the name of the blog.
The proximate cause for the discussion now is a presentation by Shantanu Gupta, director of Connected Intelligent Solutions for Intel's Data Center and Connected Systems Group, which showed up in GigaOm the other day. According to this presentation, what comes after yottabyte is brontobyte, or 10 followed by 27 zeroes.
This is not definite; as GigaOm's Stacey Higginbotham points out, it's not an official prefix, though it has been discussed since at least 1991 — though, that far back, it was 10 followed by 15 zeroes. It does, however, appear to be more accepted for the number than does hella-, which had a brief flurry a couple of years ago as people tried to promote it.
Past bronto, to 10 followed by 30 zeroes, it gets more complicated, partly due to what honestly looks like typographical errors.
Gupta refers to "geobyte" in his presentation — but also refers to "bronobyte" as opposed to "brontobyte" for 10 followed by 27 zeroes . Wikianswers also refers to "geobyte."
Higginbotham refers to "gegobyte" for the figure, as does Seagate in a blog posting riffing on the GigaOm post.
On the other hands, answers.yahoo.com uses "geopbyte" for the figure, as does the Urban Dictionary and whatisabyte.com.
Geo-, gego-, or geop-? It kind of doesn't matter, because it's all unofficial anyway, but somebody might want to figure it out at some point.
Beyond what-do-we-call-it, we also have the obligatory how-to-put-it-in-terms-we-puny-humans-can-understand discussion, aka the Flurry of Analogies that came up when IBM announced a 120-petabyte hard drive a year ago. Depending on where you read about it, that drive was:
- 2.4 million Blu-ray disks
- 24 million HD movies
- 24 billion MP3s
- 1 trillion files
- Eight times as largest as the biggest disk array available previously
- More than twice the entire written works of mankind from the beginning of recorded history in all languages
- 6,000 Libraries of Congress (a standard unit of data measure)
- Almost as much data as Google processes every week
- Or, four Facebooks
So, how big are bronto- and geo/gego/geop-?
Well, GigaOm wrote, "Cisco estimates we'll see a 1.3 zettabytes of traffic annually over the internet in 2016." On the other hand, GigaOm cited a piece with the Cisco estimate being 130 exabytes, which would only be .13 zettabytes if I have my math right. Seagate estimates that total storage capacity demand will reach 7 zettabytes in 2020.
Yottabytes is in the realm of CIA and NSA spy data, noted a piece in the Examiner.com, which went on to point out, "As of 2011, no storage system has achieved one zettabyte of information. The combined space of all computer hard drives in the world does not amount to even one yottabyte, but was estimated at approximately 160 exabytes in 2006. As of 2009, the entire Internet was estimated to contain close to 500 exabytes." A yottabyte would also be 250 trillion DVDs, GigaOm wrote.
For brontobyte, which Gupta said would be used primarily for the "Internet of Things" ubiquitous sensors, there are also somewhat fanciful definitions such as "More than the number of all the cells of the human body in each person living in Indiana and then some," and "You would need a brontobyte computer to download everything on the Internet" (though, apparently not, according to Examiner.com).
Of course, once we start talking in terms of trillions of DVDs, obviously we've got to find another unit of measure. Interestingly, Seagate used geographic area.
"If today's 4 terabyte 3.5-inch drive is roughly .16 square feet, you can get approximately 24 terabytes per square foot. That's .0046 square miles of land mass per 4 terabytes. Assuming 1 terabyte per disk was the maximum areal density, and hard drives will not get any thicker than 1 inch:
- An exabyte hard drive would be about the size of Connecticut [or, I would add, Owyhee County in Idaho]
- A zettabyte hard drive would be about the size of Antarctica
- A yottabyte hard drive would cover the earth 23 times
- A brontobyte hard drive would cover the earth 23,000 times
- A gegobyte hard drive would cover the earth 23,000,000 times"
Beyond that? Wikianswers postulated Saganbyte, Jotabyte, and Gatobyte, while Wikipedia referred to a system working backward through the Greek alphabet — though that one wouldn't include brontobyte or geo/gego/geopbyte.
What Hooters Can Teach You About E-Discovery
When one thinks of E-discovery pioneers, one doesn't tend to think of Hooters. But a recent legal case with the, ahem, female-oriented restaurant has ramifications for the E-discovery industry, specifically in the area of predictive coding.
Predictive coding, or predictive technology, is the use of computer-assisted review software to help determine the relevance of documents to be potentially used in a legal case. It wasn't until March that a judge first ruled that predictive coding could be used in a case.
Now, we've gone one step further, with a judge actually *requiring* two parties — one of which is Hooters — to use predictive coding in their case. Well, at least, Strongly Suggesting.
"Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster in Delaware Chancery Court has made e-discovery history, again, with a surprise bench order requiring both sides to use predictive coding and to use the same vendor," writes Ralph Losey for the E-Discovery Team blog. "This appears to be the first time a judge has required both sides of a dispute to use predictive coding when neither has asked for it. It may also be the first time a judge has ordered parties to use the same vendor." If the parties could not agree on a vendor, the judge continued, he would select one.
(What's the case about? It's kind of hard to tell. "A complex multimillion dollar commercial indemnity dispute involving the sale of Hooters, a very well-known restaurant, famous for its chicken and wings, beer, and other things," Losey writes.)
The goal appeared to be to use the case as an example of how to save money. "The problem is that these types of indemnification claims can generate a huge amount of documents," the judge said in his decision. "That's why I would really encourage you all, instead of burning lots of hours with people reviewing, it seems to me this is the type of non-expedited case where we could all benefit from some new technology use."
"Predictive coding used correctly, promises to reduce costs and turn over at least as much responsive ESI and less unresponsive ESI than our current eyeballs-on-every-document approach," agrees Karl Schieneman in E-Discovery Journal.
At this point, the two sides need to determine whether they will go along with the judge's recommendation, or fight it using the Sedona Principles that, basically, leave it up to the participants to determine the best way to proceed. But that might be fraught. "Who wants to tell the judge to butt-out, no matter how politely you say it, or how many Sedona Principles you cite?" Losey writes. "Better to let the other side be the complainer, even if you do not much like it either. Much will depend on who has the heaviest production burden."
The two sides might also object to the suggestion that they use the same vendor, and the judge's motivation for suggesting that isn't clear, Losey continues. Schieneman agrees, noting that it might be difficult to find a neutral vendor and it also isn't clear how the software will be paid for. "There is an argument to be made that this is a well-intentioned, but possibly uneducated bench that is forcing parties to use and pay for an undefined, black box marketing label."
Schieneman went on to write that he hopes judges don't get too enthusiastic about predictive coding and start requiring it willy-nilly. "It could be an unintended disaster if every judge ordered the use of predictive coding," both because of the learning curve required for legal firms and the ability for predictive coding vendors to be able to adequately support all these new potential customers, he says. "While judicial encouragement of predictive coding is great and absolutely necessary, blind encouragement could be dangerous," he says.
Sandy Tests Data Centers' Disaster Recovery Skills
Though there have been a number of data center outages associated with the Sandy megastorm, and it's not over yet, what may be most surprising is how little disruption it actually caused — particularly in comparison to the outages caused by June's thunderstorm.
While several data centers were knocked offline due to flooding — most notably Datagram, which hosts Gawker, Gizmodo, Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post, and Media — many stayed on, often through generators running on diesel fuel. (The New York Times — which criticized data centers just last month about their use of diesel backup generators — was strangely silent on the subject this week.)
The problem then switched to getting fuel delivered, since typically generators would keep only three days' fuel on-site. That time, however, did give users of those data centers time to find other alternatives.
Though data centers went through extensive preparation, the ones that were knocked offline typically had either the data center, or the fuel systems, or both, in the basement, which flooded. Some sites went offline after they weren't able to get fuel delivered to the island of Manhattan.
"The situation shows that in many ways, Lower Manhattan is one terrible place to put a data center," noted Cade Metz in Wired. On the other hand, he said, data centers need to be near where the business action is to provide low-latency data transmission.
In one case, Fog Creek Software and Squarespace — with fuel pumps in the flooded basement and a generator on the 17th floor — employees used a bucket brigade to get fuel up the stairs to run the generator.
Other customers were migrated to cloud services such as Amazon Web Services — ironically, since it has suffered a number of outages over the past few months.
Not only was the Internet relatively resilient to the hurricane itself, but to the increased load of all the East Coast people who stayed at home, watched Netflix, and chatted with their loved ones over Skype.
Numerous other posts over the years have described how data centers have handled earthquakes, wildfires, and other disasters. That said, there's a few other lessons to have been learned from Sandy:
- Don't put data centers, or their diesel backup, in the basement. On the other hand, it's not like you want it up over your head, either — especially if you end up needing to do a bucket brigade to the roof.
- Have data centers, or backup data centers, located in separate geographic regions.
- Plan, plan, plan. And don't wait until an actual emergency to test the plan. "You can't wait 'til folks' hair is on fire to plan these things," Shannon Snowden, a data center professional who is now senior technical marketing architect for Zerto, a company with technology that helps companies move and failover applications, told GigaOm. "What you should be doing from the data center perspective is [always] make sure the power has been tested, that you can fail over to generators, that those those generators are tested to make sure they're functional and that they have enough fuel," he said.
Finally, the vendor I lambasted in April for exploiting natural disasters to promote their product was at it again — press release issued right on schedule on Monday afternoon.
Musical Chairs in the Storage Market
It's been a busy week in the storage market. The biggest player is that Microsoft acquiring cloud storage vendor StorSimple, but in addition, Carbonite, a provider of online backup solutions, acquired open source and SMB cloud backup vendor Zmanda, while Persistent Systems acquired Dovenz, which sells disaster recovery as a service.
The nice thing about three of them happening at once is that this makes it a Trend, so instead of addressing each acquisition individually, we can talk about What It All Means.
From the startup side, there's really only three exit strategies you can have. You can die. You can file an IPO (like Violin also did last week). Or you can get acquired. If either the company isn't strong enough, or the market isn't strong enough, an IPO isn't necessarily a good idea. So that leaves acquisitions. (We'll assume no startup plans to die.)
Being acquired doesn't mean giving up or throwing in the towel. Particularly in the case of the company doing the acquiring, it can be a good idea. It's a quick way to collect a bunch of new people, a new technology, and perhaps some new customers. "The vast majority (over 90 percent) of the successful private company exits in 2011 and 2012 have been through company sale or M&A," writes Jim Price in Business Insider.
The next thing to look at is who's doing the acquiring. Is it two small companies hoping that together they'll be strong enough to survive? I don't want to pick on Carbonite, but given the sort of year they've had, that might be a factor. Or is it a big company looking to add an innovative new technology to its portfolio? Certainly in the case of Microsoft and StorSimple, it's the latter.
As far as what's next, keep in mind that acquisitions tend to run in clumps. A new technology comes along, a bunch of little companies start up to use it, and then some of them die, some of them merge with each other, and some of them get acquired by larger companies — typically with the strongest players going first and the later ones being picked up by latecomers in the market who are desperate to own a piece of it, in sort of a high-tech version of Musical Chairs. For a big company, it can be a much safer way to innovate than trying to develop a new technology yourself.
We saw something similar a year ago, when Gartner did its first Magic Quadrant on E-Discovery, and predicted that 25% of the companies in it would be acquired by 2014 by major vendors. As it happened, Gartner didn't even get the report published before the first acquisition happened, and they've been falling steadily like little dominoes every since — especially after Gartner conveniently provided a shopping list.
"Probably the prime imperative for Fortune 500 managers is to find areas for revenue and profit growth," writes Price. "But the challenge is to do so without endangering the existing franchise. Too often, the dilemma from the helm looks like this: You know you need to get into a promising new space, but it's quite unproven and you suspect running two or three concurrent experiments might bleed cash for years. So in a real sense, you can't afford – on a quarter-to-quarter income statement basis – to run too many such risky projects. But if you let entrepreneurial startups run the experiments with their energy, time and capital – and let them ring out the technology risk and the market risk – then once a winner appears, you can buy that winner with capital off your balance sheet."
Certainly Microsoft and StorSimple would qualify.
Since that's the case, it seems likely that StorSimple competitors like Nasuni and Panzura — which were speaking with a great deal of bravado about the 800-pound gorilla suddenly in their midst — should be expecting to get calls from other large vendors in the next few weeks, and decide which startup exit strategy they plan to follow.
New Looks at Backing Up Oracle
All of a sudden, backing up Oracle databases is big news, with Wikibon and Amazon Web Services each releasing new insights about how to do it.
What makes this a big deal? As Wikibon mentions, nearly 30% of Oracle shops are managing more than 100 TB of data that needs to be backed up. And with 'big data' becoming a buzzword, not only is the data getting bigger, but people are paying more attention to it.
Wikibon points out several trends, including increasing virtualization, more space devoted to backups, and that tape is still around. 45% of customers report that more than half of backup data resides on tape, Wikibon says.
But one of the newer backup choices that Wikibon mentions is RMAN. And the advantage to that is brought up in one of the other big recent developments in Oracle backup, which is RMAN's newer ability to back up to the cloud.
That's where the Amazon Web Services white paper comes in. It describes how Amazon itself started backing up all its Oracle databases to the cloud using RMAN. While such white papers are often pretty self-serving — and now we're talking about one where a vendor is using its own product, or what EMC's Paul Maritz refers to as "eating your own dog food" — this one has some hard numbers behind it.
"The transition to S3-based backup started last year and by summer, 30 percent of backups were on S3; three months later it was 50 percent. The company expects the transition to be done by year's end — except for databases in regions where Amazon s3 is not available," writes Barb Darrow for GigaOm. Moreover, the company is saving $1 million per year for backups that take only half as long, she writes.
Whether you want to go the AWS route for Oracle backups or not, the Wikibon report has some interesting information on the backup subject. Granted, some of them are pretty Mom-and-apple pie — implement redundancy, test your backups, use dedupe — but others are more nuanced.
For example, the company notes, organizations are increasingly virtualizing their Oracle servers — which could have an impact on the speed of backing them up. "The big initial attraction of server virtualization is that it increased average utilization from 15% to about 85%," Wikibon writes. "This means that virtualized environments will see a drastic reduction in overall server capacity, some of which was used to run backups."
How BackBlaze Dealt With the Thai Storage Crisis — and Got Thrown Out of Costco
It was just a year ago that the Thailand flooding — only a few months after the Japan earthquake — devastated the storage industry, causing a temporary shortage of disk drives and increase in prices. But now that it's all over, a funny story is coming out of BackBlaze, which found itself literally thinking outside the box.
The company, which is known for providing low-cost constant backups for its subscribers, is also known for building its cloud out of a whole lot of teeny (well, 3 TB) commodity disk drives rather than a few great big ones. This saves money and helps the company grow more granularly.
The only problem is if you suddenly run out of teeny commodity disk drives — or find that, in a matter of two weeks, that they've tripled in price, as BackBlaze did, when it was adding 50 TB of capacity a day. At the same time, the company wasn't buying enough to be able to get deals from the manufacturers.
In an extremely detailed, hysterically funny blog post, the company is now relating how it dealt with the crisis — basically, by buying them as consumer commodities rather than as parts, and turning them into the parts they needed to build the "storage pods" on which their service was based.
"With our normal channels charging usury prices for the hard drives core to our business, we needed a miracle," writes Andrew Klein, director of product marketing. "We got two: Costco and Best Buy. On Brian [Wilson, CTO]'s whiteboard he listed every Costco and Best Buy in the San Francisco Bay Area and then some. We would go to each location and buy as many 3 TB drives as possible."
While the company then had to "shuck" the drives from their cases, this saved the company $100 per drive over buying them from its usual suppliers. Problem solved.
For a while.
"The "Two Drive Limit" signs started appearing in retail stores in mid-November," Klein writes. "At first we didn't believe them, but we quickly learned otherwise." So workers started making the circuit — circled the San Francisco Bay hitting local Costco and Best Buy stores: 10 stores, 46 disk drives, for 212 miles. It put a lot of miles on the cars, and a lot of time, but it solved that problem.
For a while.
Then BackBlaze employees started getting banned from stores.
At that point, they started hitting up friends and family, and not just in the Bay Area, but nationwide. "It was cheaper to buy external drives at a store in Iowa and have Yev's dad, Boris, ship them to California than it was to buy internal drives through our normal channels," Klein writes.
(The company also apparently considered renting a moving van to drive across the country, hitting stores along the way — a variation on the "bandwidth of a station wagon of tapes" problem — but decided it wouldn't be economical.)
By the time internal drive prices got to their normal level, the company had bought 5.5 petabytes of storage through retail channels — or more than 1800 disk drives. But finally, it could go back to its normal practices.
"On July 25th of this year, Backblaze took $5M in venture funding," Klein writes. "At the same time, Costco was offering 3TB external drives for $129 about $30 less than we could get for internal drives. The limit was five drives per person. Needless to say, it was a deal we couldn't refuse."
Disclosure: I am a BackBlaze customer.


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Pacifica: More Than a Meditation App for Aggies!
Please watch this video for a brief introduction to Pacifica.
The Student Counseling Service at Texas A&M University is proud to partner with Pacifica to help Aggies like you through your personal wellness journey.
Texas A&M students, faculty and staff can get a FREE premium subscription to Pacifica. You must use your Texas A&M (tamu.edu) email address to access the free premium version.
Download Pacifica from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store
Pacifica is more than a meditation app. Pacifica offers a full library of psychologist-designed tools based on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness, including:
- Mood Rating: Rate your mood every day and you'll start to notice patterns.
- Health Tracking: Keep tabs on your health habits like sleep, exercise and caffeine intaketo help you make positive changes.
- Progress Monitoring: Compare your mood to different activities like healthy habits and meditation to help you figure out what affects your mood.
- Meditation: A library of more than 30 meditation exercises can help you destress and relax when you need to.
- Guided Paths: Explain how and why to use a variety of tools and teach you helpful techniques for dealing with stress and anxiety.
- Thoughts: Our though tools help you look at situation in new ways, helping you change the way you think and feel.
- Goals: Goal setting tools help you track and achieve your goals, whether it is to face your fears, get more active in life, or manage day-to-day tasks.
- Hope Board: Post inspirational photos, quotes or completed goals to keep yourself motivated.
- Community and Groups: You are not alone in this. Find support in Pacifica's user community.
Learn more on the Pacifica website or call us at 979-845-4427.

subset: commoncrawl


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So it's on... I have my list of what I'd like to accomplish during this pregnancy and things are a little different this time around. I'll be sharing some of my experience with fitness, fashion, juggling life with a toddler, new recipes for preggo friendly food & green smoothies! And here are my goals!
- Maintain a healthy weight gain...aka... if I want to eat the box of donuts I better have the workout planned to keep it off!
- Keep up with the workouts I didn't stop going to my bootcamp classes once I found out I was preggo with #2. And I'm so glad! It's helped a lot with my sugar levels and energy. I've only recently started to adjust my workouts in terms of weights used and not laying on my back to do the "useless ab" workouts haha.
- Keep a healthy diet Since I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes during my first pregnancy I'm more prone for a second diagnosis. The key to avoid the super sugary foods like fruits!! This time around I'm going at it more proactively. I've read up on some delicious recipes and smoothies that help steady sugar levels!!
- Keep some form of fashion sense! The urge to wear sweatpants and one of Matt's old t-shirts can be strong. My goal is to keep myself looking "put together"...lol. Appearance alone can help with self-esteem and energy levels throughout the day. Plus I plan to use this as an excuse to squeeze in a couple new pairs of shoes!....and a matching purse. :)
- Keep lil A engaged and excited for his upcoming role! Being the eldest sibling carries a lot of responsibility. I would know!! So I want to make sure I spend a lot of time with lil A and help him transition from only child to older (and hopefully helpful) child. He's a great kid though. That's one of the reasons we weren't worried to try for another so soon. He made being 1st parents too easy!
- Give the nursery a face-lift! It's crazy to think of lil A's room being used by another...but once we find out if we're having a boy or girl (OCT 26th!)...we're gearing up to give the nursery a gender-oriented facelift! If we have another boy..I'm thinking about having them share. Otherwise...our lil princess would get a decked out wonderland and lil A would move into the spare room for his new big boy decor!
So stay tuned!! Ask questions... laugh, gawk and follow along as we make this journey!


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Pink Diamond Ring
If you have actually ever before established sights on natural pink diamond wedding ring, after that you have been absolutely been mesmerized by their magic. These diamonds evoke a sense of romance and also deluxe – and also forever factor.
Their scarcity and also magnificent appeal make these colored diamonds amazing enhancements to any type of collection. Not to mention, they are very important. Actually, inning accordance with The Argyle Diamond Mine, a pink diamond could set you back 20 times the rate of its white equivalent (as far as can be compared). It's it's not surprising that style-conscious icons from Queen Elizabeth II to Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Lopez have actually been known to use jewelry with these gems.
Contributing to the intrigue and also value of pink diamonds is that there is minimal gemological information regarding them.
Just what is recognized, nonetheless, is nothing except interesting. Continue reading to find the attraction of pink diamonds.
The Pink Color
As with other colored diamonds, pink diamonds could be graded pale, really light, light, fancy light, fancy extreme, fancy deep and fancy dazzling. And also like other colors, the more powerful the color, the greater the price tag.
Pink Diamond Ring usually feature second tones – an additional customizing color. The most common customizing colors are orange, brown and also purple. These diamonds would certainly be defined in the certificate as orange pink, brown pink as well as purple pink (not that the major color is the last one discussed). And also if the modifier color is very weak it would be orangy, brownish or purple …
While we do know just how tinted diamonds get their color, for instance blue diamonds get their color from traces of the boron, and also the variation of carbon atoms causes the color in green diamonds, to now it is uncertain how pink diamonds obtain theirs. It is believed that while the diamond is forced to the Planet's surface area, the framework of the diamond in some way ends up being modified, creating a contortion. This flaw forces the stone to take in light differently and discharge the pink hue.
Where do Pink Diamonds Originate From?
Natural pink diamonds can be located in Brazil, Russia, Siberia, South Africa, Tanzania as well as Canada. However, the majority of these breathtaking stones come from the Argyle Mine in Australia, which is had by Rio Tinto. The firm's headquarters is likewise in Perth, Western Australia.
Here, the finest high quality pink diamonds from the Argyle mine are reduced and polished before they are marketed using an unique tender. For proportions as well as to recognize the rarity of pink diamonds, out of every 1 million carat weights of harsh diamonds that the mine creates, simply 1 carat appropriates to offer.
Wedding Rings
HAND-CRAFTED WEDDING RINGS, Peach Sapphire Ring wedding rings are genuinely timeless. From vintage wedding rings for females, to males's wedding rings in classic styles, it is simple to find a distinct wedding ring set to fit your tastes.
Peach Sapphire Ring developers craft customized wedding rings with the finest rare-earth elements and shimmering diamonds. Whether you are searching for uncommon cobalt wedding bands for males, or non-traditional rings for pairs, we deal with you to produce the perfect jewelry that shows your love.
Exemplifying timeless layout, our exceptional choice of ladies's wedding rings– from ordinary metal to breathtaking diamond styles– are crafted from the finest platinum, 18k and also 14k gold for a lifetime of parties.
Pink Wedding Ring Sets
Blush as well as glow the happiness of your love with these pink sapphire wedding ring collections which are an expression of feminism as well as with a band including a wedding as well as engagement ring it's perfect to show your love. The pink sapphire wedding collections are delightfully enhanced in smooth steels climbed gold, white gold, yellow gold and platinum, grasping flashing diamonds of total carat weight varying from 1/2 to 3 carats. Amazing designs triad princess collection, infinity set, flair set and other stunning beauties of the pink sapphire diamonds wedding rings collection by Interesting Diamonds beholds the love. The color of global love of oneself as well as of others, these pink sapphire wedding bands are convenience to eyes as well as you could modify the ring according to ease of your pockets with great deals of customizing alternatives readily available.
Pink Heart Diamond Ring is a classic symbol of love as well as devotion, heart-shaped gemstones have actually been wanted as much back as the 18th century. Below, Peach Sapphire Ring exacting design requirements and also measurements cause a dazzling center diamond, the embodiment of romance as well as affection.
Pink Heart Shaped Diamond Ring, In recent years, nevertheless, even more focus has actually been positioned on buying the "perfect" engagement ring: not simply a symbol of love, yet an icon of your love, character, and also partnership.
Pairs are seeking out custom designs and special styles that reflect their individual preferences, producing even more distinctive rings compared to in the past. This preferred trend has lead to the increase of more unique diamond cuts as well as colors, including the pink heart cut diamond.
Heart-shaped diamonds are specifically attractive. Just consider the stunner Nicki Minaj sporting activities or Girl Gaga's ring from previous future husband Taylor Kinney. Colored stones could enhance the elegance as well as whimsy of this unique form. When you love a lady that is as ethereal as she is adorable, you can't fail with a pink heart diamond.
The Meaning of Pink Heart Diamonds
Romantic, feminine and also fancy, an engagement ring with a pink heart diamond is an unconventional selection, but for the best woman it is more than perfect. Pink diamonds symbolize femininity and creativity, but also strength and countless love, which makes this stone a superb choice for the wonderful bride-to-be that marches to a various beat. Recommending with a pink diamond ring is an extremely charming gesture, one that any kind of female would love.
Pink diamonds are additionally considered a "fancy" color, and also are really rare. They are so rare, as a matter of fact, that they are taken into consideration several of one of the most sought-after gemstones worldwide (fun reality: most of the world's natural supply lies in Western Australia). You can find pink diamonds in a variety of tones– from a pale blush to an intense, purplish-pink, as well as several hues in between.


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The ~800 patents that AOL's trying to sell are worth about $290 million, reports the New York post, citing patent advisory firm M-Cam.
That's not nothing, but it's also a far cry from the $1 billion that some AOL shareholders were hoping for.
To put the number in perspective, it's less than half of the $800 million AOL blew buying Bebo shortly before current management took over.
But still, AOL's smart to sell the patent portfolio. If it can get a few hundred million for it without taking the PR hit of becoming a patent troll, that's all good for shareholders.


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Obama's abysmal approval ratings will influence Colorado's elections/
John Frank and Lynn Bartels --- The Denver Post
For years, Pamela Whitt canceled her Republican husband's vote each November.
This election, however, the 63-year-old registered Democrat who considers herself an independent is switching her loyalties. And she blames one person: President Barack Obama.
"I am just totally turned off by Obama and his policies," she said. "In my mind, he's getting his power from the Democrats who are in office, so I'm voting against them."
A new Denver Post poll released Monday suggests Whitt is not alone. And the disillusionment is helping to boost the Republicans at the top of the ticket in two deadlocked campaigns.
In the U.S. Senate race, Republican Cory Gardner holds a 2-point edge against Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, 45 percent to 43 percent, according to a SurveyUSA poll of self-identified likely voters.
In the governor's race, Democratic incumbent John Hickenlooper is holding a 1-point lead against Republican challenger Bob Beauprez, 45 percent to 44 percent, a far closer campaign than many expected.
The poll — taken Thursday through Sunday — puts both races within the margin of error of 4.1 percentage points, but the underlying numbers show Republicans in a good position at a key moment in a crucial election.
A final three-week frenzy begins Tuesday as Colorado begins to send mail ballots to voters ahead of the Nov. 4 election.
The Gardner-Udall race is one of the closest of several races in the nation that may decide which party controls the U.S. Senate. Beauprez is trying to become the first candidate to unseat an incumbent Colorado governor in 52 years.
About two-thirds of likely voters say their opinion of the president is a factor in their decision this November, the Post poll found. Obama's approval rating is 41 percent compared with 56 percent who disapprove.
Of those voters who consider Obama a major factor in their decision, nearly 70 percent plan to vote Republican in Colorado's U.S. Senate and governor's races.
"What you have is an anti-Obama sentiment top of mind, front lobe, for many of the Republicans who are showing up to vote in 2014," said Jay Leve, the Survey-USA pollster. "By contrast, when you ask a Democrat how much the president is affecting or influencing their vote in 2014, they respond, 'Obama who?' "
Gardner's campaign is putting the focus on Obama in its attacks on Udall, emphasizing how he sided with the White House in 99 percent of his votes. Udall counters that Gardner is out of touch when it comes to social issues such as abortion and birth control.


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Massaged kale avocado and millet salad
Today I have some very VERY exciting updates and a salad. A gorgeous salad. And the news, AH the news! Where to begin, how do I chose the right words when what I am feeling is beyond words.
Let's see. For the past few weeks I have been (secretly) planning and preparing for something important which finally happened this Saturday. So, on Saturday, my colourful, beautiful, healthy RawbyChris products were standing proud on display on a supermarket shelf!!! A. Supermarket. Shelf. Gasp! And not just any supermarket, but one of the best. A foodie's heaven of produce. A place where a foodie can spend hours and hours browsing gorgeous produce and products sourced both locally and from all around the world. I am stocked. I am proud. I am beyond words. I still cannot believe myself, but you should definitely believe me. Better yet, don't take my word for it, go see for yourself, and once there, treat yourself with my organic sweets made with fruit and veggies. Or with a slice or two of raw bread made with zucchini and apple.
And there's more! RawbyChris now officially has two operating locations! Wooohoo, jumping up and down with excitement, this commercial kitchen is new and shiny and so perfect for making raw foods. I'll keep you posted on this because I'm just too happy to keep it to myself.
Let's move onto the salad that created waves on Instagram. Who could have guessed that a humble thing like a salad would end up being so popular and in demand? Not me. I was pleasantly surprised by all of you wonderful humans asking me for the recipe. So here it is. It is a humble salad, but it's packed with flavour and is so so nutritious. Whenever I am at my busiest, summer or winter makes no difference, I turn to salads for lunch and even dinner and to smoothies, of course. It's because this allows me to pack as many nutrients in a meal and it is nutrients our bodies need to be able to put up with a crazy busy lifestyle. Especially in winter when it's so easy to catch a cold or any other sort of bug which would then make us want to crawl under the blanket.
My trick to making quick 5 minute salads for lunch is to always have some whole grains already cooked in the fridge. When I cook quinoa, millet, brown rice or what not for dinner, I always (always) make more than what's needed that evening and keep it safe and chilled in the fridge. The following day, all that remains to be done is to wash and chop some veg, make a vinaigrette, mix them together with the whole grains and dig right in, full speed ahead.
- 1 cup millet
- 2 (3) cups water
- 2 kale leaves, stems removed
- juice of 1/2 orange
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 red capsicum, diced
- 1 small carrot, fine strips (grater/peeler works well)
- 1 green onion, finely sliced
- 1 small wedge of red/purple cabbage, shredded (about 2 handfuls)
- a handful of parsley, roughly chopped
- a handful of mint, roughly chopped
- a handful of chives, chopped finely
- 1/2 cup hemp seeds
- To top: 1 avocado and a handful of dry toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds
- 8 TBSP good cold pressed olive oil
- 1 TBSP cold pressed sesame oil
- 2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
- 1 TBSP balsamic vinegar
- pinch of chili flakes
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 tsp mustard (try making your own raw mustard!)
- On medium heat warm up a deep pan (or small pot) and when hot add the millet. Dry toast it for 1-2 minutes, stirring and making sure it doesn't burn. This adds a wonderful nutty flavour to the millet.
- Add 2 cups water to the millet, stir, cover and bring it to a boil. Then lower the heat to a minimum low and let it simmer until all the water is fully absorbed. There are times when I find 2 cups of water are not enough, so I add a bit of extra water at a time towards the end of the cooking time, and continue to simmer covered until the millet is fully cooked.
- While the millet is cooking, chop the kale, place it in a bowl and add the orange and lemon juices. Massage it for 2-3 minutes (at least) until it softens up.
- Prepare the rest of the veggies and add them to the bowl of kale.
- Add all the ingredients for the vinaigrette to a small bowl and mix them until combined.
- When millet is cooked, add it to the veggies, pour the vinaigrette and give it a good mix to cover everything in everything.
- Top with slices of avocado and lots of toasted seeds.
- Oh, and enjoy with a big big fork.


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The Key Elements of Great HousesMonday, March 13th, 2017
Tips On How To Reach Success In Your Real Estate Investing Endeavor
Some say that real estate investing is only meant for the professionals of this field. Even supposing that this is true, there is still a need for you to know that more than a few people tried real estate investing before that is why they understand if the investments they make are properly made, profitable income can be obtained from their investment. For many neophytes in the business of real estate, they will surely encounter a lot of challenges as well as a lot of pitfalls.
Then again, if the neophyte will take the chance and he or she will make sure that they are mentally prepared to put up with the risk, this neophyte will surely learn a lot of valuable things and will surely earn more someday. Then again, in due course, if these beginners will gather a number of experience that will allow them to learn, they will be able to master the art of real estate investing, and surely, they can close many lucrative deals in real estate one day. Given that you would like to be a brilliant player in the real estate investing field, of course, you must learn more than a few useful skills that you can make use of in order for you to be successful in this field.
To begin with, it is important for you to become skilled at how to stumble on the correct sellers. Naturally, locating the serious sellers is what you need to learn for the reason that they are the ones who can aid you in earning good profits in this business. It is also vital that you will ensure that these sellers you will find are of good reputation most especially of you will invest for the first time, you will not want to risk your hard earned money dealing with sellers whose reputation is a bit shady.
It is important as well that you become skilled at becoming a master negotiator when closing any real estate investing deal. Since you are still a neophyte in this business, it is important for you to be trained on how you can successfully deal with many types of issues that may arise on your real estate investing endeavor. Keep in mind, your efforts will be deemed a waste of time if you are not capable of negotiating properly for the reason that you will still wind up with very high prices.
It is also important for you to be skilled in analyzing real estate investment deal correctly. If you have the capability of scrutinizing real estate investment deals, then, knowing where and also how to deal will be much easier for you.


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I am still avoiding going into my studio so more photos today. I love the way that moss has grown on this garden ornament, what wonderful hair. And if you click on the other pic and zoom in, there is a bust of a man hiding in the virginia creeper, I wonder how much work it takes to keep this wall looking like this.
Both pics were taken at Belton House near Grantham in Lincolnshire.


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This beautifully maintained golf course where each hole offers groomed fairways, challenging rough, undulating greens, water traps, grass traps, carefully placed trees and dog-leg fairways to test your golfing ability. If this sounds like the place for you, then The Fox Golf Club should be at the top of your list of golf courses to play this year.
The Fox Golf Club is also a great facility to host your upcoming golf tournament. We offer packages for small group outings and full tournament participation with banquet facilities to feed your hungry golfers.
The Fox is open to the public and offers a great place to unwind from the stress of the day. We try to create a welcoming atmosphere with friendly personable staff. See you on the course.
Dawn to Dusk7 Days a Week
From April 15to November 1
This coupon is in your Greens' Fee Passport, click on the title to get more information about the coupon.


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Scores of people attended Zimbabwe's Mr Ugly 2017 to see William Masvinu clinch the title for the third time in five competitions.
Masvinu, who comes from Epworth, edged off competition from four other contestants including close rivals Fanuel Musekiwa and Maison Sere at the braai fest held at Mutangaz Hideout in Goromonzi on Sunday night.
Read: Mr Ugly Zimbabwe pageant to be held in November
Masvinu walked away with $500 and a cow, with Musekiwa earning $200 and Sere $100 for second and third position respectively.
Masvinu expressed his happiness in winning the title.
"No one can dispute that I am the ugliest person in Zimbabwe. I now want to take my ugliness outside the country. If there is Mr Ugly World, I am confident I will bring the crown to Zimbabwe," he said.
Mr Ugly World will be held in South Africa in 2018.
In 2015, Masvinu lost the title to Sere amid complaints that Sere's ugliness was only based on his missing teeth.
"Last time, complacency cosy me a lot but this time I came well prepared for the contest and I am happy I have reclaimed my trophy," he added.
Read: South Africa crowns Simon Mpuyazi Mr Ugly 2016
However, the crowd was not pleased with his win because they saw it as a monopoly. According to News Day, besides suggesting a protest over Masvinu's monopoly of the title, the crowd also suggested that Masvinu should not be a contestant in the forthcoming pageants so that other contestants get a chance to win.
According to the pageant founder David Machowa, the 2017 event was successful.
"This year's event was bigger and better. It coincided with the braai festival where 14 000kg of meat were eaten," he said.
Among the top entertainers at the event, include Jah Prayzah, Killer T and Suluman Chimbetu.


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We thought our dinning room table where our Thankful Tree we shared with you needed a little something.
Some sort of table runner was in order, but we wanted it homemade with a rustic look...enter
Painted Burlap Table Runner. We got the rustic look we wanted with some gold and black to coordinate with our other decorating touches.
To make a Painted Burlap Table Runner you will need:
A roll of burlap cut to the length of your table. Cut extra if you want the runner to hang over the table length.
Craft paint suitable for fabric. We used some of Martha Stewarts in black and metallic gold.
Round sponge stick application. Or use another sponge design of your liking.
Paint tray or old lid or something to place paint in and dab from.
Old news paper to paint on.
Place newspaper down on work surface either for the entire length of the burlap, or work in sections at a time. Roll out the burlap as needed.
Place paint in tray, dab into paint a dab a little excess off and begin pressing paint onto burlap in your desired fashion.
Allow to completely dry.
And there you have it, a simple painted burlap table runner for Thanksgiving!
We hope you have been inspired to create your own burlap table runner!
It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.
1 Peter 2:15-16
Linking To:


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U.S. Review of Inward Chinese Investment: Reciprocity or Rule of Law?0 Comment
When reviewing Chinese inward investment deals, should the U.S. take into account how American companies are treated in the PRC?
China law, business and economics commentary
When reviewing Chinese inward investment deals, should the U.S. take into account how American companies are treated in the PRC?
At first glance, China's foreign investment landscape has evolved dramatically over the years. But some policy goals remain firmly in place.
The media and the Democrats are now slyly suggesting that foreign investment and the use of special purpose companies is somehow nefarious.
One of the "deliverables" from the Xi Jinping visit to the U.S. Hollywood has been waiting a long time for a big footprint like this in China.
The debate over free trade could use some honesty. Too bad both sides enjoy playing fast and loose with reality.
Lost your job when your employer moved to China? Don't worry, American workers, a Chinese company in the U.S. might be your next boss.
Is there a place for loyalty and patriotism in the Boardroom? You've got to be kidding me.
No foreign investor wants to admit to violations of the law, particularly when the usual excuse of "But officer, I didn't know it was illegal" is readily available. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Not sure what massive forex inflows are doing to the Chinese economy and what impact this may have on foreign investment? This guest post might help.
A new report by the Asia Society on Chinese overseas investment recommends that the US works on image control and depoliticizing the review process while resisting calls for reciprocal protectionism.
The China market holds the key to the future of General Motors, so an equity stake makes a lot of sense. And yet some critics still have reservations.
"The Chinese government treats foreign-funded Internet enterprises the same as it treats domestic ones" — huh?
GE screws over a small town in Virginia by shipping their jobs to China. Great story, but I'm not really sure it's true.
I think I might have a problem repatriating myself.
Are subsidies being used to attract foreign investment? Must be a legal violation there somewhere. Or not.
My comments on a James Mann article in The New Republic on US China relations and the effect of declining corporate support for a policy of engagement.
There will be no giant sucking sound in the near future from manufacturing jobs returning to the U.S. Not going to happen even if wages over here spike dramatically.
Why do U.S. companies invest in China? Contrary to everyone else on the planet, some wizards of Wall Street think that companies are leaving the U.S. in droves because neo-Marxists are running amok in Washington. Idiots.
Why do U.S. companies invest in China? Three seconds with the Google machine will tell you. But some wizards of Wall Street, who don't have three seconds to spare, think that companies are leaving the U.S. in droves because neo-Marxists are running amok in Washington. Idiots.


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Don't forget to check out Part 2 of our guide to Cut The Rope: Holiday Gift
Cut The Rope: Holiday Gift is now available to download from the App Store, and we've already got you covered with a three star walkthrough for the first and second sets of levels. To finish things off, here's a walkthrough for the final five levels of the game. Good luck!
Holiday Gift Level 21
When the candy swings to the left, cut the rope so that it lands on the lowest star and gets a bubble. Float up until you've caught the highest star, then pop the bubble to drop the candy in the stocking. When you emerge in a bubble, wait for the tethered rope to be vertical then cut it. Float up to get the final star, then pop the bubble as soon as you've picked it up.
Holiday Gift Level 22
Cut through both ropes at the same time with two finger-swipes. The candy will fall towards the first star but you need to use the bottom air cushion to stop it falling off the bottom of the screen. Once it's above the second air cushion, tap that one instead until the candy goes through the stocking. Once you've got the second star, let the bubble float up as high as possible before dropping into the red stocking. You need maximum height to make it up towards Om Nom on this stocking teleport.
Holiday Gift Level 23
Swipe the bottom rope to be catapulted into the stocking. You'll acquire a new rope and bubble upon exiting and float up to the second star. Wait for the ropes to go taut, then pop the bubble and cut the left-hand rope. Now cut the second rope to send the candy into the purple stocking. At the other end, the candy will fall into a bubble...
To read more, please visit Modojo


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London 2012 bronze medallist Jonathan Brownlee is targeting revenge when the ITU World Triathlon Series gets under way on Sunday in Auckland.
Brownlee finished as runner-up in last year's series – edged out of top prize by Javier Gomez, after the Spaniard beat him in a memorable sprint finish in London's Hyde Park.
"To lose in a sprint finish was tough. I used it this winter to push harder in sessions because I don't want to be in that same situation again," said Brownlee, who clinched the 2012 world title in Auckland.
"I'd like to make the swim and the bike really hard. My cycling has definitely improved and I'd like to use that."
The women's race is missing world champion, Non Stanford, but it features eight of the remaining top ten. Jodie Stimpson, overall runner-up to Stanford last year, starts the race as number one.
Helen Jenkins returns to Series action following a welcome return to international racing in New Plymouth, where she finished fourth.
Jenkins missed the whole of last season through injury but returns with TeamGB Olympic teammates, Vicky Holland and Lucy Hall, who are both in Auckland.
Auckland is the first of eight rounds, with athletes needing to score points in five rounds and the Grand Final in Edmonton in August in order to be in contention for the ITU world title.


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With HoloLens, Microsoft Aims To Avoid Google's Mistakes
And by mistakes, I'm pretty sure they mean no one wants their early adopter customers to be referred to as Glassholes. Personally, I really like where HoloLens is headed and I could actually see myself using a pair if Microsoft can deliver on its promises.
"They're taking a more measured approach with HoloLens, and it's the right strategy," said Tipatat Chennavasin, general partner at the Venture Reality Fund, which invests in augmented-reality and virtual-reality start-ups. "You don't want to over hype it and get people very disappointed, and that's what happened with Google Glass."


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Some mermaids live life on the edge. : )
Monday, August 12, 2013
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Shark Week Sketches Pt 1
Shark Week sketches (Days 1-4)
Day 1: The Spotted Houndshark
Day 2: The Bull Shark
Day 3: The Epaulette Shark
Day 4: The Wobbegong (or Carpet Shark)
Yay Shark Week!!!
Day 1: The Spotted Houndshark
Day 2: The Bull Shark
Day 3: The Epaulette Shark
Day 4: The Wobbegong (or Carpet Shark)
Yay Shark Week!!!
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
Sunday and Monday's Sharks
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Saturday, August 18, 2012
White Tip Colored
Whale Shark
Friday, August 17, 2012
Angel Shark
Day 1: Business Oceanic White Tip Shark
Day 2: BRAMBLE BRAMBLE BRAMBLE!
Day 3: Tigre Sharks! Oh you get it!
Day 4: Angel Shark, they look like Stingrays. One of us.
Day 5: Whale Shark Wrestling!
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Shark Week
Sorry guys I'm late to the game! Here's my draaawings so far.
Oceanic White Tip Shark
Bramble Shark
The Bramble looked like such a sad, pathetic looking shark. lol
Tiger Shark
playing catch up--oceanic whitetips & one bramble
Day One:
Oceanic Whitetip!
I checked out the wiki entry (you can learn, too!). My favorite fun fact about oceanic whitetips is that it is an "aggressive but slow-moving fish [that] dominates feeding frenzies..." :
(this is how i imagine those going down)
here are some actual sketches
Day Two :
I tried to muster the energy to draw more sharks at the end of the day, and this is what came out. Poor bramble shark.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Bramble Shark
Monday, August 13, 2012
The Shortfin Mako
Oceanic Whitetips
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Appleton Block Stone
Appleton block comes from one of Marshalls' portfolio of British stone quarries. This stone is available in block form; perfect for usage by companies that add value to natural stone.
Marshalls own the largest reserves of dimensional stone in the UK, quarried by its specialist minerals division. Marshalls are able to provide blocks suitable for walling, masonry features, roofing, paving and steps, and also more specialised masonry products. For more information, please call 01422 434534
appleton - diamond sawn


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Read our latest Newsletter
DEMAC Diaspora Humanitarian eLearning
DEMAC has developed a free online training platform to provide diaspora responders with information, tools and guidance for enhancing their humanitarian response.
This course is made up of 3 modules which will take 125 minutes in total and has been designed with diaspora responders in mind but would be beneficial for new humanitarian workers, project managers, managers, volunteers, local responders and anyone seeking entry level insight into the humanitarian sector.
This course has been designed to enhance your knowledge in:
- The Humanitarian Principles
- Needs Assessments
- Safety & Security
- Accountability & Transparency
- Organisational Development
- Advocacy and Policy
- Project Development
- Bid Writing
- Reporting
- Monitoring and Evaluation
To access the training you will have to register on the Kaya platform, it is free and it will only take you 2 minutes to register! Register here!
Link to the Diaspora Humanitarian Training in English
Link to the Diaspora Humanitarian Training in Arabic
NEW DEMAC REPORT: "Creating Opportunities To Work With Diasporas In Humanitarian Settings"
While the contribution of diasporas to development has been widely researched, their input into the humanitarian sphere remains underexplored. This study reviews the work of six Diaspora organisations (DOs) in Syria and Somalia, when emergency and early recovery responses are needed as a result of droughts, terror attacks or active conflict. It provides a critical analysis and a case study approach to advance the understanding of Diaspora organisations' contributions in humanitarian settings.
DEMAC Short introduction film


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Learn about Nutrient Pollution and what you can do at
One of America's most widespread, costly, and challenging environmental problems is excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the air and water.
In and around the home: Fertilizers, yard and pet waste, and certain soaps and detergents contain nitrogen and phosphorous, and can contribute to nutrient pollution if not properly used or disposed of. The amount of hard surfaces and type of landscaping can also increase the runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus during wet weather.
Nitrates, mostly from from lawn fertilizers are the #1 pollutants found in Bull Creek.
In NW Austin the soil does not need fertilizers high in nitrogen and phosphorus.
Do your part by using no fertilizer at all.
If you feel that you may need fertilizer, have a soil sample tested by the County Ag Extension,
1600-B Smith Road Austin, TX, 78721 (512) 854-9600
If you use a landscaper for yard maintenance, please ask them to not use any fertilizer, or any fertilizers high in nitrogen and phosphorus, but rather use organic fertilizer that does not migrate into the karst limestone beneath your soil and into Bull Creek.
Monday, March 12, 2012
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Posting ID : A1068484861
Date Posted : 2015-08-18
Category : Sales
Are you an Accessories-aholic? Would your friends and family say that you are their go to personal shopper? Then it's time to turn your love for handbags, watches, shades, and accessories into a career as we have launched our search for top notch candidates to fill sales positions within our store. Traits that have proven successful in this position include convincing, organized, outgoing, driven, punctual, dedicated and fashionable. We offer very competitive rates and are looking to immediately fill full time and part time openings. Please include name, contact telephone number, email address and resume (preferred but it required) when responding to this job posting.
This is a job posting and any responses will be treated as inquiries. No job offers will be made without candidates having first interviewed for the position.


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The rocking chair was first invented in the 18th century and it has provided millions of people a higher level of relaxation since then. Rocking chairs are pieces of furniture that defy the usual function of a chair. These chairs have legs that are poised over curved pieces of wood which makes it possible for the chair to sway forwards and backwards, setting the one sitting on it in a gentle rocking motion. Rocking chairs provide comfort that is beyond what is usually offered by traditional chairs or seats. The rocking of a rocking chair can provide relaxation and a whole new dimension of comfort for you and your family.
Aside from some certain chairs in our house, most of our chair sitting time is spent on Office Chairs. This is one area of chair design and functionality that has come into its own over the last few years. Manufacturers are realizing that people want office chairs that provide comfort all day long and will not send you home with a back ache. Or perhaps you are concerned about the comfort of your clients that visit your office. Office chairs, although they don't always look like it has been designed with comfort in mind. Even if sitting for 2-3 hours in this chair, your body will love you. A good office chair should not be overlooked as an essential piece of equipment to not only your work but your well being.
Chair sashes come in a variety of colors and fabric textures. You can also mix and match the chair covers with the chair ties as well. For a corporate dinner event, we used ivory linens and chair covers and then burgundy napkins and chair ties.
Matthieu Allais Chair Sunday April 14th, 2019 06:25:22 AM
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A lot of unfulfilled chairs.
Got a bed ready for me. I really could have taken a nap. Even if it would have been a little creepy.
This was the sky after the appointment. I call it popcorn clouds. I don't think people properly look at clouds these days. I find them always interesting.


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Massachusetts photo contest: Get published in Metrowest Magazine & Win $500 gift cert
Kyle and Leslie Mann of Re/Max First Choice have partnered with Community Magazines, LLC, publisher of Metrowest Magazine, to sponsor their first My Hometown Photo Contest. This fun event gives amateur and professional photographers alike an opportunity to show off their hometown. The first prize winner will receive a $500. gift certificate to Hunt Photography, one of the areas largest photo retailers. Winning and finalist photos will be published in the September 2008 issue of Metrowest Magazine and on the Community Tour section of www.positiverelocation.com, an informative, objective source for learning about Metrowest suburbs and the area housing market. p
Entries should reflect the special beauty and character of the Metrowest town of choice. Entrants will be asked to share a 30-word description about what the photo means to them. Images will be judged on originality, technical excellence, composition, artistic merit, and overall impact. The judges will favor scenic views of historic downtowns, natural settings, distinctive architecture, and other areas that make the town special. The contest started today and will run through August 1, 2008. Its free to participate. 300dpi digital photos should be emailed to in JPEG format. The lucky winner will be notified by August 15, 2008.
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Adrenalin multipurpose theme design optimized for all the most popular screen resolutions. When screen is resized, design elements are transformed smoothly on each breakpoints (from 240 to 1680 pixels) in order to adapt to the current resolution.
Adrenalin design beautiful layouts mean your store will look fantastic whatever your business is. Fully integrated with the woocommerce plugin so you have all the tools required to build an incredible store. Adrenalin v 1.9.4 multi-purpose WooCommerce theme free download.


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Collecting Ideas Mass-Collaboration Style
Did you see the way people are trying to improve MS Outlook? The website 'Outlook's broken - let's fix it' is a protest site against the proposals for a future version of Outlook. But it's also a way to share and collect ideas about what Outlook should look like in the future.
This is a great example of collecting ideas for future product development (using mass collaboration for innovation)! I also like the way they visualize all the contributions. It shows the power of Twitter. It also shows contributors they're not alone: lots of people agree with you and we can shape the future together or at least try to influence it. Shouldn't every product have such a site, with a tweet fetcher?
Oh, and my contribution can be found here.
If You Read This and Like It, Tweet This to your Followers:
Collecting Ideas Mass-Collaboration Style http://twurl.nl/dlqkq6


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Our team, which is led by former "Magic Circle" litigators, is experienced in all forms of dispute resolution from commercial litigation in the civil courts to international and domestic arbitrations to sports governing body proceedings.
We have considerable experience acting for high profile clients across the sports, fashion and media sectors on a wide range of contentious matters, from urgent injunctive relief through to multi-million pound contractual, sports rights and agency disputes and from High Court libel proceedings to intellectual property infringement actions. We conduct advocacy on behalf of clients and also have close relationships with some of the leading Counsel in our industries.
In the sports industry, we believe that our familiarity with the processes adopted by many sports governing bodies, combined with our in-depth knowledge of the industry more broadly, enable us to offer real expertise in this sector.
We regularly advise on disputes concerning the application and interpretation of sport governing body rules, as well as the enforcement of those rules, before both first instance panels and the Court of Arbitration for Sport and other appeal bodies. We have recently notably been involved in a number of high profile integrity cases such as the Kaneria and Westfield cricket corruption cases, anti-doping proceedings and prosecutions under the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program, including the case which resulted in the first life ban in tennis. One of our solicitors was also formerly the lead lawyer on integrity and anti-doping at London 2012.
- Advising the governing bodies of tennis on the defence of appeals before the Court of Arbitration for Sport by Kollerer and Krotiouk against the first instance life bans imposed on the players for breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program.
- Advising the England and Wales Cricket Board on its successful prosecution of Danish Kaneria for spot-fixing and its successful defence of appeals before the appeal panel and the Commercial Court.
- Advising a former England football manager on a multi-million pound High Court negligence and breach of duty claim against his former financial advisor, including urgent injunctive relief and associated committal proceedings.
- Advising a leading international model agency on a breach of contract and employment dispute in the High Court, including a successful action for injunctive relief.
- Advising a senior sports executive on the defence of High Court libel proceedings.
- Advising a sports governing body (and coordinating local counsel) on a contract dispute with a kit manufacturer in the Dutch courts.
- Advising a sports governing body on a negligence claim by an official based on an on-field incident.
- Advising a leading golfer, with local counsel, on a contract dispute with a former sponsor in the courts in California.
- Advising governing bodies and sportspeople on selection and licence related disputes, including a recent successful challenge to a governing body's refusal to grant a licence.
- Advising a sports governing body on the prosecution of cases under its anti-doping rules.
- Advising an international golf brand on a "commercial agency/representative" dispute in the Commercial Court in Vienna, Austria.
- Advising footballers, managers, clubs and agents in connection with the FA Agents Regulations and Disciplinary Rules.
For more information on our non-contentious Regulatory, Governance and Risk Management experience click here.


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Ride Concept Competition: WINNERS
We've had a blast hosting our first-ever ride concept competition. Judging was extremely fun yet extremely difficult. A big thanks to our judges (listed below) and a huge thanks to all of our contestants. We are pleased to announce that we liked every entry- no joke! This is a compliment to every concept submitted... we are sometimes hard to impress, ya know. Here we present 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. In upcoming post(s) we will feature additional winners and honorable mentions.
The Villa Tempus
by Mike Schwalm
Intended for Disneyland Paris, Discoveryland or WDW property– situated so it can be accessed by park-goers as well as outside visitors). Based on the Time Machine by H.G. Wells.
Why can't a theme park experience be more like a full blown movie? Of course many are, but they last only five to ten minutes at best. The Villa Tempus is an evening long experience that includes dinner as well as time travel adventure. Because of the specialized nature and limited capacity per evening the villa tempus would be reservation only as well as an additional ticket price. The structure of the evening is broken into three acts much like a movie narrative.
-You have been invited for dinner at the Villa Tempus by its mysterious resident.
Act 1
-Explore the grounds of the Villa and all of its inventions before meeting the Time Traveler.
Act 2
-Travel anywhere in history for a luxurious dinner before heading off again in your time machine.
-Crash land on the villa grounds thousands of years in the future.
Act 3
-Take a boat down a strange river back to the now decrepit villa.
-Race through the villa collecting the pieces needed to create a new time travel device while avoiding the scary Morlocks.
-Complete the device and travel back to the present in the nick of time.
-Bid the Time Traveler farewell and exit through the gift shop.
More info and concept art here: PDF
Mike's blog.
Judges' Thoughts
We were blown away by Mike's work. It's clear he has put tremendous thought into this concept.
"At last a time machine attraction. Yes. I love it. I love it being an entire evening and making the guests feel like they are in a movie. It's totally different and different is just what the parks need." –Lilly
"Disney doesn't have a mystery theatre. That's a pity, really." –Paul, WDW Fan Boys
La Storia di Leonardo Da Vinci (The Story Of Leonardo Da Vinci)
by Nicholas Bulus
Intended for the Italy Pavilion, World Showcase, Epcot. A dark ride with similar track type to Peter Pan's Flight. Ride vehicles would resemble Da Vinci's flying machine. The actual ride carriage would be below the wing and hold 4-6 guests.
The experience would start in the queue showcasing replicas of Leonardo Da Vinci's inventions and some of his other works. each invention would be explained on a plaque below it. The boarding area wall would be a mural showing the schematics of the flying machine. Slowly the schematics would come to life and the flying machine would take off after boarding. The whole basis of the attraction would be to follow the life of Leonardo Da Vinci. It would start out in his hometown of Vinci showing him as a young child and how creative he was from the start. The next few scenes would show Da Vinci in his professional life and also in the renaissance showing him working on the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, and many of his sketches that went onto inspire the helicopter, the tank, etc. The final show scene would be kind of a montage showing how many of Leonardo's ideas and paintings have fit into today's culture. When guests exit the vehicles they enter Da Vinci's lab where they can learn more about Da Vinci and his work and even design their own inventions and paintings. Of course the entire ride would contain sight gags similar to the ones in World Of Motion and the whole attraction would be narrated by someone who really engages the audience.
Judges' Thoughts
We loved this concept for a number of reasons. It fits perfectly in World Showcase where this type of ride would be very welcome by Epcot fans. It has a certain charm, fitting style, and here at the blog we love some good edu-tainment!
"I love the idea of highlighting Da Vinci whom we all know as a genius, but don't always know his background and I love, love that we would travel on his flying machine." –Lilly
We'd like to recognize "Yourfutureleader" who submitted a similar, more thrill-based Da Vinci concept. We loved this one as well.
Halls of Weather
by Jeff Sugar
The Land, The Living Seas and now...The Halls of Weather. The newest pavilion to Epcot Center will take guests on a journey that explores the most influential forces on planet Earth.
Once inside, guests will depart on "The Jet Stream" - a dark ride which soars along the winds of change. They will experience the chill of the arctic, the heat of the desert and the diversity of the seasons across the globe. Next stop is the immersive IMAX theatre show "Up in the Clouds" where guests will follow the life of the water cycle and its effects on man and the environment. Images wrap around the domed interior while the theater comes to life as the seats react to the action. The final stop is the interactive "Weather Port". A fully interactive exhibit hall surrounds the forty foot tall "Tornado Tower" - an ever changing enclosed weather system that is the focal point for this area. Here, guests can participate in live shows, feel the winds of a category five hurricane, become a meteorologist or work individually at interactive kiosks and hands-on
exhibits that detail the variety of weather types.
Judges' Thoughts
We loved the fact that Jeff designed an entire pavilion! It's no secret that we old-school Epcot fans find the Future World of today super lacking compared to that of yesteryear. This concept would have lots to do and could be good time.
"This attraction sounded like something that should have been built back in 1982. I think it would be a great addition to Future World with it's attraction followed by Imax and other post-show activities. The floating cloud ride vehicles also make the attraction look very fun, and the pavilions layout as a whole looks fantastic." –Donnie, I'm a Blogger Dottie... A Rebel
This week Mitch was a guest on an episode of the WDW Fan Boys Podcast to discuss the competition. Check it out.
Hoot Gibson, Mesa Verde Times
Tim Grassey, Brett Bennett, and Paul Miller, WDW Fan Boys
Donnie, I'm a Blogger Dottie... A Rebel
Fritz, Lilly, Mitch, ImagineeringDisney.com
Related Posts:
Ride Concept Competition
Ride Concept Competition: FINAL DAYS
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