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Sooner or later, everyone encounters a kentia palm. Its ability to grow in low sunlight has made it one of the world's most traded houseplants.
"If you've been to a wine bar or to Starbucks, there may have been one in there," said William Baker, a botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England.
"Whether you realize it or not, you're familiar with this palm," he said.
As ordinary as this houseplant may be, however, Dr. Baker and colleagues have found that it has an extraordinary story to tell about evolution.
The kentia palm (Howea forsteriana) is found in the wild only on a single remote island in the South Pacific. Based on a recent study, Dr. Baker and his colleagues have concluded that roughly two million years ago, an ancestral species of palm tree living on the island split in two, and one became the kentia palm.
The idea that members of a species living side by side can split into two species is controversial. Some scientists have presented evidence that the process has produced several species of plants and animals, but their ideas have met with intense skepticism.Continue reading the main story
Two new studies in the journal Nature -- one on the kentia palm and a second on fish in a Nicaraguan lake -- are impressing some leading skeptics, however.
One reason for the skepticism is that another way for forming new species is well supported by evidence. When a population becomes isolated by a geographical barrier, it can evolve into a new species.
Birds swept to a remote island, for example, may reproduce only among themselves and not with the rest of their species back on the mainland.
Over generations, the birds can acquire a unique set of mutations. They may evolve to be so different from the mainland birds that the two populations can no longer interbreed. They may sing different courtship songs, for example. They may be able to mate, but their hybrids may prove to be sterile. Based on a vast amount of research, scientists agree that this process -- called allopatric speciation -- drove the evolution of many species.
But some scientists have suggested that some species evolved without geographical barriers and that a new species could emerge from an old one even when all its members were living side by side. The key was for some individuals to begin to mate with one another and not with the rest of the species. If this tendency could be inherited, then two genetically distinct populations could emerge. Ultimately, they would become two separate species.
Mathematical models have suggested this process -- known as sympatric speciation -- can happen under certain conditions. And scientists have discovered a handful of cases in which, they argue, sympatric speciation took place. Fruit flies from a species that originally lived on hawthorns in the United States, for example, have shifted to apples in the past 150 years. Their DNA suggests that they are diverging from the hawthorn population.
But sympatric speciation has drawn fierce criticism. Skeptics have argued that many cases of sympatric speciation could just as easily have been produced by allopatric speciation. Two species sharing an island may well have evolved allopatrically elsewhere, for example, only later moving to the island in two separate invasions.
The two studies published this month in Nature are among the best ever published, in the opinion of some of sympatric speciation's toughest critics.
In one study, Axel Meyer of the University of Konstanz in Germany and his colleagues examined two species of fish that live in Lake Apoyo, a volcanic crater lake in Nicaragua. One species, the Midas cichlid (Amphilophus citrinellus), has a big body and uses powerful jaws to crush snails at the lake bottom. The slender arrow cichlid (A. zaliosus) lives in the open water, where it eats insect larvae.
Lake Apoyo formed less than 23,000 years ago when its volcano became extinct and filled with rain water. Dr. Meyer's team studied the DNA of the two cichlids and compared it to that of fish in neighboring lakes. They concluded that the Midas cichlid originally invaded the lake, perhaps swept in during a hurricane. The arrow cichlids then branched off the Midas cichlids, evolving a distinct body and no longer breeding with their parent species.
The origin of the arrow cichlids did not take long, geologically speaking. "It was less than 10,000 years, but it could be as short as 2,000 years," Dr. Meyer said.
Dr. Meyer suspects that the arrow cichlid evolved from slender Midas cichlids and shifted from a diet of snails to a diet of insect larvae. They enjoyed more reproductive success if they mated with other slender cichlids, because their offspring could swim efficiently in the open water. Over time, the fish may have evolved the mating preferences that now help keep the two populations distinct.
Dr. Baker and his colleagues present a similar picture of the kentia palm. The kentia palm grows only on Lord Howe Island, 350 miles east of Australia. The island is home to a similar species, Howea belmoreana. The kentia palm grows about 50 feet high, while Howea belmoreana reaches only about 20 feet. Kentia palms thrive on exposures of soft sedimentary rock, while Howea belmoreana grows mostly on soils formed from volcanic rock.
By studying the palm's DNA, Dr. Baker and his colleagues found that the two Lord Howe species are much more alike than either is to any other living palm. Based on the mutations accumulated in each species, they estimate that an ancestral palm arrived on the island long after the island formed about seven million years ago.
About two million years ago, the sedimentary outcrops began to be exposed on the island. This was also the time when kentia palm split off from Howea belmoreana. Dr. Baker and his colleagues propose that the kentia palm evolved from palms that colonized the new outcrops. They were still close enough to the other palms to interbreed. But growing on the sedimentary soil may have changed the growth of their flowers.
The scientists have found that the kentia palm flowers seven weeks earlier than Howea belmoreana, making it almost impossible for them to interbreed.
"It's hard to imagine a more watertight case," Dr. Baker said.
Critics have raised a few possible alternative explanations for each study. It is possible, for example, that the palms might have evolved through geographic isolation on other islands. Their descendants then colonized Lord Howe Island, and then the other islands sank underwater. (Lord Howe is expected to disappear in 200,000 years.)
But even these critics consider these alternatives a bit of a stretch.
"I've read these papers fairly carefully, looking for weak points," said Douglas Futuyma of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. "But I can't find any."Continue reading the main story


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Amy Liz Wigton has not received any gifts yet
Posted on May 14, 2012 at 2:00pm 0 Comments 0 Likes
As a mom that produces music from my home studio, I have been known to sport a special hairstyle I call, "headphone hair." It's hard to describe but there's a unique shape the hair takes on from a day of recording. We've all been known to sport that "hat hair" look but when you wear headphones for hours on end it's a special look of it's own. Recording is such a timeless venture. One guitar track can take hours and once I dive into the process I'm usually sucked in for the…Continue
Posted on May 14, 2012 at 9:00am 0 Comments 0 Likes
It was quite an education in the mechanics of licensing a song when I recorded my first children's album and all I can say is "Shame on the Sham!" The "Sham" I am referring to is Sam The Sham who wrote the classic rock & roll tune called "Wooly Bully." Why the shame? Well one day I was inspired by a 4-year-old preschool student who had come in from the play yard filled with excitement because a roly poly (aka "potato bug") had just climbed on his arm! In a magical moment of…Continue
Posted on May 12, 2012 at 9:00am 0 Comments 0 Likes
One of the many hats I wear is "preschool music teacher." In my music classes there are those kids that simply have to be heard. I see that star fire in their eyes and on their faces. They simply need to stand out, shine and share it with everyone!
I understand this. When I was 5, my dad took my brothers and I to a big theater in Cleveland, Ohio to see Captain Kangaroo live and on stage, along with his side kicks, Mr. Green Jeans and the Dancing Bear. It was all very exciting and it…Continue
Posted on May 11, 2012 at 11:00am 0 Comments 0 Likes
My first preschool music gig was at my son's school Miss Sandies when he was 4 years old. I was so excited to be able to sing some fun songs with my son's classmates, and especially with my son! That day we had music time outside since it was a beautiful spring morning. Out comes my son's class all excited and they situate themselves on the picnic tables. We began with a good ol' round of ABC's and their sweet voices filled the air. Pure joy was written all over their faces as they bounced…Continue
Hi Amy Liz! Welcome to the club and feel free to check out my blog: Swanky Baby - swankybaby.net. I'm looking forward to checking yours out too!
Hi there and welcome from The Girlz Korner in upstate New York where you'll find light, witty and rather entertaining articles on every topic imaginable from beauty, health, fashion, parenting, sex and everything else in between. So if you get a chance to kick back and exhale, if only for a brief moment, we'd love to have you. Hope you enjoy your stay :) http://www.thegirlzkorner.com
Welcome to MBC! We are glad to have you here. we look forward connecting more with you here. I'm a Super Mama who has a family friendly blog. I also have a weekday blog hop called Exposure 99%.Come find out for yourself. This weekday blog hop helps you get more dedicated readers and blog followers. Hope you link up weekly. If you have any questions about how to link up do not hesitate to let me know.
Visit me @ One moment in time, I'll sure return the love :-)
Kindly stop by at Giveaway Junkies, on facebook and become a member which you will benefit..
Hope to see you there :-))

subset: commoncrawl


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Yeah Im being lazy today. Big whoop wanna fight about it? Figured I would link some of the blogs I read incase you never actually visit the blogroll on the right side of my blog.
Arioch at Clearcasting is comparing haste to swedish fish. At least she didnt compare it to candy corn....the red headed step child of candy.
Tarsus the Stupid Tank (Scarlet Crusade Represent!!!) wrote about the tanking goodies that Onyxia drops for those of you too lazy to go to WoWHead or dowload Atlas Loot!
The Ancient Gaming Noob recounted his experiences as a pirate at brewfest......pirates....with beer. WHO WOULDA THUNK IT!!!!!
Aggro Junkie is being even lazier than I am!!!!
Doctor Moocow over at WTFspagetti is looking for a new home. Holla back at him.
That will conclude my laziness for today. I am far to busy being delicious!


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- Derek Jeter
- Turn 2 Foundation
- Jeter's Leaders
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Conference recap Watch
Photo gallery
Yankees captain and shortstop, Derek Jeter, hosted a youth summit to promote social change and healthy lifestyles at his Turn 2 Foundation's 2011 Jeter's Leaders Leadership Conference at the University of Tampa. He was joined by former Yankees Tino Martinez and Gerald Williams, Super Bowl champion from the Green Bay Packers, Greg Jennings, Kalamazoo mayor Bobby Hopewell, and best-selling author and activist Sister Souljah in a panel discussion addressing adversity and tenacity in achieving social, academic and career goals.
The bi-annual conference, themed "Social Change: Today's Challenges, Tomorrow's Solutions," brought together approximately 250 high school students from across the country who share a common goal to make a positive change in their schools and communities. The event featured eight workshops created and presented by the New York and Kalamazoo Jeter's Leaders based on topics they feel are most affecting teens in today's ever-changing society. Additionally, the three-day event included a variety of team building activities and special events that were educational, motivational and entertaining for the students as they continue through high school and prepare to enter college. Over the course of the week, the students experienced college life by staying in dorms on campus, eating in the cafeteria, and simulated the academic side of college life by attending workshops.
The event was kicked off in style with a welcoming ceremony featuring Martinez, a recent graduate of the University of Tampa and university president Dr. Ronald L. Vaughn.
A highlight that truly exemplifies the spirit of the conference was the community service project at St. Peter Claver Catholic School, the oldest African-American Catholic school in Florida. The Turn 2 Foundation worked with a local organization, Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful, to till soil, plant flowers, shrubs and trees, install garden fixtures and benches and stain picnic tables. The effort helped to motivate the elementary school's participation in continuing to refurbish the property. The project included a mentoring component: The high school students paired up with the elementary school students from St. Peter Claver to foster a spirit of sharing and community spirit. Each attending group painted a flower pot with motivational messages to inspire incoming students.
The Jeter's Leaders program was designed to promote healthy lifestyles, academic achievement, leadership development and social change activism among high school students. The Jeter's Leaders serve as ambassadors for Derek Jeter in their communities.
Photo gallery
Substance Abuse Fair: 400K
Leadership Conference: 400K
Teen Summit: 400K
Conference Workshops: 400K
The theme for the 2008 Jeter's Leaders Conference was "Social Change: Being Aware of Self and Surroundings." The conference was held at the University of Texas at Arlington from August 2-5. Jeter's Leaders displayed the leadership skills they work on throughout the year by speaking out on topics that affect teens across the country as well as issues that matter to them personally. The Leaders worked for 11 months planning for this event which proved to be a huge success and the highlight of the year.
The pre-conference activities started off with an orientation/team-building activity. The Jeter's Leaders were very anxious to see one another and appreciated the team-building events because they brought everyone together. This activity was a great way for everyone to get reacquainted and to meet the newly inducted Leaders. Here is what some Jeter's Leaders had to say:
"It was a good way to interact and get to know each other. With all the team building, I can truly say the conference workshops turned out great!"
- Teeoncey, Kalamazoo Leader
"We got to mingle with each other and bond as a team. We had a lot of time to get everything together."
- Maria, Kalamazoo Leader
The next activity was a campus tour of the host location, the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). The campus was beautiful in its design and modernity. The tour allowed the Leaders to become educated about the location of buildings and facilities that would be used for the conference as well as gain further insight about UTA's options for higher education.
On Saturday, Aug. 2, the conference officially commenced with the welcome ceremony followed by the kickoff party that evening. During the welcome ceremony, the attending leadership groups and the Jeter's Leaders were greeted by former Leader Jehan Atherton (New York Alumnus), Kalamazoo Jeter's Leaders' President Karaminka Brown and New York Jeter's Leaders' Co-President Darlene Reid. Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Donald R. Bobbitt represented the University of Texas at Arlington and warmly welcomed the entire group to his "educational home."
Excitement was in the air as the group moved on to the kickoff party. The party gave the Leaders a chance to take a break from the workshop preparations and have a little fun with their guests. This was a great way for the Jeter's Leaders to get to know the conference attendees before the workshops began.
The workshop topics chosen for the conference identified areas that the Leaders believe are critical to the youth of today. The topics -- College Readiness, Community Dynamics, Financial Literacy, Global Impact, Healthy Lifestyles, Healthy Relationships, Professional Development and Teens & the Media -- allowed the Leaders to present issues most important and relevant to teens from a teen perspective. Each workshop group included Leaders from Kalamazoo and New York who did extensive research, planning and coordination throughout the year. At times, workshop preparation was challenging due to the distance between group members. The Leaders interacted only by phone and e-mail prior to meeting in Texas. Having two separate groups working on one topic is difficult enough -- having those groups apart for so long makes it an even tougher task. In the end, the Leaders knew they had a job to do and they came together to make sure it was done. Here is what some Jeter's Leaders had to say about the end product:
"I thought it was perfect. We had enough time to work everything out."
- Katie, Kalamazoo Leader
"It worked well. It helped us get together and practice. Because of this prep time, our presentations were wonderful."
- Clifford, Kalamazoo Leader
Aug. 4. was the first day of the workshops, the event which the Jeter's Leaders had been working so diligently on for the past year. At around 9 a.m., all eight workshops kicked off with their first presentation. The visiting groups responded enthusiastically. By the end of the three workshop sessions that afternoon, the Leaders debated who their best audience was, while the visiting groups debated which workshop was the best in regard to content and exhibition.
For almost every Jeter's Leader presenter, his or her first workshop seemed to be unparalleled. This may be due to the high expectations they had set for themselves and finally having the opportunity to demonstrate what their hard work, research, dedication and preparation were meant for -- to reinforce the mission statement of the program and empower their peers to take initiative in making a difference within their communities.
To wind down from the first day of workshops, the conference had an outdoor movie night for the enjoyment of everyone in attendance. The Great Debaters starring Denzel Washington was the movie selected and went perfectly with the social change theme of the conference. The movie really showed what happens when dedicated teens put their minds together to accomplish something big.
The second day of the conference started much like the first. The Leaders presented their eight workshops with the attendees rotating among them to take part in all eight. Following the day's workshops, the attendees were treated to a private screening of the inspiring and educational documentary, I Won't Love You to Death: The Story of Mario and His Mom, starring J Records recording artist Mario Barrett. These documentaries demonstrated how drugs can affect the person taking them as well as the impact drug use has on the user's family and loved ones. Despite Mario's mom, Shawn's, blatant denial of her addiction to heroin in the beginning, her story fortunately resulted in recognition and her getting help. This was the first of two events that day that focused specifically on the detrimental effects of drugs and alcohol, an essential component of the Jeter's Leaders' mission.
The second event was the Substance Abuse Education Fair. The presentations, all under the umbrella of substance abuse, included hands-on, interactive exhibits that dealt with a variety of topics. There were eight exhibits: The Teenage Brain, Drugs and Decision Making: Intersections on the Development Highway; Dangers of Alcohol and Risk-taking Behavior; Peers Influence Peers Partnership/Peers Partnership Filming; Drunken Brain Exhibit; Welcome to Roger's Party; Alcohol Can Harm Your Heart; The Cigarette Smoking Machine; and The Simulated Impaired Driving Experience (SIDNE).
Some exhibits simulated what would happen to a specific body part if one were to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. For example, "The Drunken Brain," an excellent exhibit produced by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's (NIAAA) Dr. Dennis Twombly, described how alcohol affects different areas of the brain. The exhibit, "Dangers of Alcohol and Risk Taking Behavior" showed the reality of the heightened sense of invincibility that can overcome a person under the influence of alcohol. The various graphic images of car accidents and personal experience shared by Eulala Chapman Echols, an injury prevention coordinator at the Trauma Network, hit home and were definitely an eye opener.
The next and final day of the conference brought the culmination of the Leaders' workshop presentations. After an energizing final presentation by each group, all attendees reported to the theater for the conference finale -- the Teen Summit. The Teen Summit began with a candid speech by Josh Hamilton, All-Star center fielder of the Texas Rangers, who has battled a severe addiction to drugs and alcohol throughout his professional career. Hamilton spoke about his life experiences and how they have shaped who he has become. This was a truly inspiring story of struggle and hope. Hamilton then turned it over to the guy that makes this all possible -- the host of the Teen Summit, none other than the captain of the New York Yankees and founder of the Turn 2 Foundation, Derek Jeter.
Derek addressed the group, welcoming and thanking them for coming to the conference. He also told the Leaders how proud he was of them and how important what they were doing was to their communities and those of the attending groups. After handing the duties over to Derek, Josh Hamilton stayed around to take part in the panel discussion. The remainder of the panel was composed of Mayor of Arlington, Dr. Robert Cluck; Vice President for Student Affairs for the University of Texas at Arlington, Dr. Frank Lamas; and Specialty Markets Vice President for AIG Commercial Insurance, Denise Masella. The panel also included members from the New York and Kalamazoo Jeter's Leaders Program. The panelists spoke about the importance of not only refraining from drugs and alcohol and being a leader but also about their inspirations, temptations and ultimate triumph. The audience was free to ask questions and the panel thoughtfully answered them all. The Teen Summit was not only beneficial on an educational level but was a fun experience that everyone truly enjoyed, further increasing its impact.
As the 2008 Jeter's Leaders Leadership Conference came to a close, everyone began to reminisce about the conference events and looked forward to future conferences. "So what was your favorite workshop?" "Did you drive in the drunk-driver car simulation?" "Who was your best crowd?" "Can you believe Mario's mom?!" These were a few among the many questions that one could hear as the invited groups said their goodbyes and departed for home following the Teen Summit.
For the Leaders, however, the day did not end there. After a quick break, the Leaders were off to the Rangers-Yankees game later that night at The Ballpark in Arlington. It was a truly unforgettable experience. The Jeter's Leaders wore their jerseys proudly and marched through the halls of the Rangers' stadium rooting for the Yankees all night.
The conference was a tremendous success. The Leaders worked extremely hard, and it showed. The topics, presentations and discussions got everyone thinking and talking, and definitely achieved the goal of creating awareness while empowering youth to make a difference in their communities. It was a tremendous learning and growing experience for all involved. The Leaders would like to congratulate each other on a job well done and thank the staff for guiding them and showing them the true meaning of teamwork.
The week spent in Texas turned out to be the hottest week of the summer in Arlington. Some said it was so hot because the Jeter's Leaders set it on fire!
Since its launch in 1996, the Turn 2 Foundation has awarded more than $23 million to create and support signature programs that motivate young people to turn away from drugs and alcohol and "Turn 2" healthy lifestyles. Learn more »
Social Change Project
The Project is an event created to share one of the Foundation's principles with communities. Learn more »


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American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915
From the colonial period to the present, Americans have been inventing characters and plots, settings and situations to give meaning to our everyday lives. American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915 includes seventy-five paintings, from before the Revolution to the start of World War I, that tell these stories in scenes of family life and courting, work and leisure, comic mishaps and disasters. These daily experiences were all subject to the artist's searching and revealing eye and many of the works on view are famous images known to almost every American. Major artists such as Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer, John Singleton Copley and George Caleb Bingham, John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt, are included in this important survey, the first of its kind in over thirty years.
The Los Angeles presentation is made possible through a generous gift from LACMA's Art Museum Council. In-kind media support provided by KCRW.
The exhibition was organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Image: John Singleton Copley, Watson and the Shark, 1778, oil on canvas, 71 3/4 x 90 1/2 in. (182.2 x 229.9 cm), National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ferdinand Belin Fund (1963.6.1), image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.


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Tuesday, October 07, 2014
For the past few days, I've been working on a stored procedure that was the top offender for CPU usage. I tried various index changes, played around with index hints, etc. Everything I tried either made very little improvement or no improvement.
I was ready to throw in the towel, but then I decided to give the code one last look. I don't have the business knowledge for this particular system, so I had been avoiding the complex stored procedure that has over 200 lines of code. One of the queries has 8 joins, and 2 of those are to views that also contain joins. My head about exploded when I first looked at it.
But then I took a step back and narrowed down where the performance problem was. It was a view that was using SUM, MIN, MAX and ROW_NUMBER functions. It was performing those functions on a large data set, and then the stored procedure filtered it using the input parameters.
My code change was to remove the functions from the view and instead calculate those in the stored procedure.
This is a very simple example:
CREATE VIEW View1
SUM(Column3) OVER(PARTITION BY Column6, Column7) AS SumColumn3,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY Column6, Column7) AS ViewRowNumber,
MIN(Column4) OVER(PARTITION BY Column8) AS MinColumn4,
MAX(Column4) OVER(PARTITION BY Column8) AS MaxColumn4
FROM Table1
WHERE Column5 = 'SomeValue' AND Column9 = 0
CREATE PROC Proc1 (@var1 varchar(10), @var2 varchar(10))
SELECT SumColumn3, ViewRowNumber, MinColumn4, MaxColumn4
FROM View1
WHERE Column1 = @var1 AND Column2 = @var2
CREATE VIEW View1
SELECT Column3, Column4, Column6, Column7, Column8
FROM Table1
WHERE Column5 = 'SomeValue' AND Column9 = 0
CREATE PROC Proc1 (@var1 varchar(10), @var2 varchar(10))
SUM(Column3) OVER(PARTITION BY Column6, Column7) AS SumColumn3,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY Column6, Column7) AS ViewRowNumber,
MIN(Column4) OVER(PARTITION BY Column8) AS MinColumn4,
MAX(Column4) OVER(PARTITION BY Column8) AS MaxColumn4
FROM View1
WHERE Column1 = @var1 AND Column2 = @var2
Here are my actual results:
posted @ Tuesday, October 07, 2014 11:48 AM | Feedback (5) |
Friday, November 11, 2011
This is the final blog for my PASS Summit 2011 series. Well okay, a mini-series, I guess.
On the last day of the conference, I attended Keith Elmore' and Boris Baryshnikov's (both from Microsoft) "Introducing the Microsoft SQL Server Code Named "Denali" Performance Dashboard Reports, Jeremiah Peschka's (blog|twitter) "Rewrite your T-SQL for Great Good!", and Kimberly Tripp's (blog|twitter) "Isolated Disasters in VLDBs".
Keith and Boris talked about the lifecycle of a session, figuring out the running time and the waiting time. They pointed out the transient nature of the reports. You could be drilling into it to uncover a problem, but the session may have ended by the time you've drilled all of the way down. Also, the reports are for troubleshooting live problems and not historical ones. You can use Management Data Warehouse for historical troubleshooting. The reports provide similar benefits to the Activity Monitor, however Activity Monitor doesn't provide context sensitive drill through.
One thing I learned in Keith's and Boris' session was that the buffer cache hit ratio should really never be below 87% due to the read-ahead mechanism in SQL Server. When a page is read, it will read the entire extent. So for every page read, you get 7 more read. If you need any of those 7 extra pages, well they are already in cache.
I had a lot of fun in Jeremiah's session about refactoring code plus I learned a lot. His slides were visually presented in a fun way, which just made for a more upbeat presentation. Jeremiah says that before you start refactoring, you should look at your system. Investigate missing or too many indexes, out-of-date statistics, and other areas that could be leading to your code running slow. He talked about code standards. He suggested using common abbreviations for aliases instead of one-letter aliases. I'm a big offender of one-letter aliases, but he makes a good point. He said that join order does not matter to the optimizer, but it does matter to those who have to read your code. Now let's get into refactoring!
Last, but certainly not least, was Kimberly's session. Kimberly is my favorite speaker. I attended her two-day pre-conference seminar at PASS Summit 2005 as well as a SQL Immersion Event last December. Did I mention she's my favorite speaker? Okay, enough of that.
Kimberly's session was packed with demos. I had seen some of it in the SQL Immersion Event, but it was very nice to get a refresher on these, especially since I've got a VLDB with some growing pains. One key takeaway from her session is the idea to use a log shipping solution with a load delay, such as 6, 8, or 24 hours behind the primary. In the case of say an accidentally dropped table in a VLDB, we could retrieve it from the secondary database rather than waiting an eternity for a restore to complete. Kimberly let us know that in SQL Server 2012 (it finally has a name!), online rebuilds are supported even if there are LOB columns in your table. This will simplify custom code that intelligently figures out if an online rebuild is possible.
There was actually one last time slot for sessions that day, but I had an airplane to catch and my kids to see!
posted @ Friday, November 11, 2011 2:04 PM | Feedback (2) |
Filed Under [
SQL Server - Database Administration
SQL Server - PASS
Well we're about a month past PASS Summit 2011, and yet I haven't finished blogging my notes! Between work and home life, I haven't been able to come up for air in a bit. Now on to my notes…
On Thursday of the PASS Summit 2011, I attended Klaus Aschenbrenner's (blog|twitter) "Advanced SQL Server 2008 Troubleshooting", Joe Webb's (blog|twitter) "SQL Server Locking & Blocking Made Simple", Kalen Delaney's (blog|twitter) "What Happened? Exploring the Plan Cache", and Paul Randal's (blog|twitter) "More DBA Mythbusters". I think my head grew two times in size from the Thursday sessions. Just WOW!
I took a ton of notes in Klaus' session. He took a deep dive into how to troubleshoot performance problems. Here is how he goes about solving a performance problem:
I normally start with blocking and then hit the wait stats. Here's the wait stat query (Paul Randal's) that I use when working on a performance problem. He highlighted a few waits to be aware of such as WRITELOG (indicates IO subsystem problem), SOS_SCHEDULER_YIELD (indicates CPU problem), and PAGEIOLATCH_XX (indicates an IO subsystem problem or a buffer pool problem).
Regarding memory issues, Klaus recommended that as a bare minimum, one should set the "max server memory (MB)" in sp_configure to 2GB or 10% reserved for the OS (whichever comes first). This is just a starting point though!
Regarding I/O issues, Klaus talked about disk partition alignment, which can improve SQL I/O performance by up to 100%. You should use 64kb for NTFS cluster, and it's automatic in Windows 2008 R2.
Joe's locking and blocking presentation was a good session to really clear up the fog in my mind about locking. One takeaway that I had no idea could be done was that you can set a timeout in T-SQL code view LOCK_TIMEOUT. If you do this via the application, you should trap error 1222.
Kalen's session went into execution plans. The minimum size of a plan is 24k. This adds up fast especially if you have a lot of plans that don't get reused much. You can use sys.dm_exec_cached_plans to check how often a plan is being reused by checking the usecounts column. She said that we can use DBCC FLUSHPROCINDB to clear out the stored procedure cache for a specific database. I didn't know we had this available, so this was great to hear. This will be less intrusive when an emergency comes up where I've needed to run DBCC FREEPROCCACHE.
Kalen said one should enable "optimize for ad hoc workloads" if you have an adhoc loc. This stores only a 300-byte stub of the first plan, and if it gets run again, it'll store the whole thing. This helps with plan cache bloat.
I have a lot of systems that use prepared statements, and Kalen says we simulate those calls by using sp_executesql. Cool!
Paul did a series of posts last year to debunk various myths and misconceptions around SQL Server. He continues to debunk things via "DBA Mythbusters". You can get a PDF of a bunch of these here. One of the myths he went over is the number of tempdb data files that you should have. Back in 2000, the recommendation was to have as many tempdb data files as there are CPU cores on your server. This no longer holds true due to the numerous cores we have on our servers. Paul says you should start out with 1/4 to 1/2 the number of cores and work your way up from there. BUT! Paul likes what Bob Ward (twitter) says on this topic:
One common myth out there is to set your MAXDOP to 1 for an OLTP workload with high CXPACKET waits. Instead of that, dig deeper first. Look for missing indexes, out-of-date statistics, increase the "cost threshold for parallelism" setting, and perhaps set MAXDOP at the query level.
Paul stressed that you should not plan a backup strategy but instead plan a restore strategy. What are your recoverability requirements? Once you know that, now plan out your backups.
As Paul always does, he talked about DBCC CHECKDB. He said how fabulous it is. I didn't want to interrupt the presentation, so after his session had ended, I asked Paul about the need to run DBCC CHECKDB on your mirror systems. You could have data corruption occur at the mirror and not at the principal server. If you aren't checking for data corruption on your mirror systems, you could be failing over to a corrupt database in the case of a disaster or even a planned failover. You can't run DBCC CHECKDB against the mirrored database, but you can run it against a snapshot off the mirrored database.
posted @ Friday, November 11, 2011 12:22 PM | Feedback (1) |
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SQL Server - Database Administration
SQL Server - PASS
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
I arrived in Seattle last Monday afternoon to attend PASS Summit 2011. I had really wanted to attend Gail Shaw's (blog|twitter) and Grant Fritchey's (blog|twitter) pre-conference seminar "All About Execution Plans" on Monday, but that would have meant flying out on Sunday which I couldn't do.
On Tuesday, I attended Allan Hirt's (blog|twitter) pre-conference seminar entitled "A Deep Dive into AlwaysOn: Failover Clustering and Availability Groups". Allan is a great speaker, and his seminar was packed with demos and information about AlwaysOn in SQL Server 2012. Unfortunately, I have lost my notes from this seminar and the presentation materials are only available on the pre-con DVD. Hmpf!
On Wednesday, I attended Gail Shaw's "Bad Plan! Sit!", Andrew Kelly's (blog|twitter) "SQL 2008 Query Statistics", Dan Jones' (blog|twitter) "Improving your PowerShell Productivity", and Brent Ozar's (blog|twitter) "BLITZ! The SQL – More One Hour SQL Server Takeovers".
In Gail's session, she went over how to fix bad plans and bad query patterns. Update your stale statistics!
She also went into "last resort" and "very last resort" options, but those are risky unless you know what you are doing. For the average Joe, she wouldn't recommend these. Examples are query hints and plan guides.
While I enjoyed Andrew's session, I didn't take any notes as it was familiar material. Andrew is a great speaker though, and I'd highly recommend attending his sessions in the future.
Next up was Dan's PowerShell session. I need to look into profiles, manifests, function modules, and function import scripts more as I just didn't quite grasp these concepts. I am attending a PowerShell training class at the end of November, so maybe that'll help clear it up. I really enjoyed the Excel integration demo. It was very cool watching PowerShell build the spreadsheet in real-time. I must look into this more! On a side note, I am jealous of Dan's hair. Fabulous hair!
Brent's session showed us how to quickly gather information about a server that you will be taking over database administration duties for. He wrote a script to do a fast health check and then later wrapped it into a stored procedure, sp_Blitz. I can't wait to use this at my work even on systems where I've been the primary DBA for years, maybe there's something I've overlooked. We are using EPM to help standardize our environment and uncover problems, but sp_Blitz will definitely still help us out. He even provides a cloud-based update feature, sp_BlitzUpdate, for sp_Blitz so you don't have to constantly update it when he makes a change. I think I'll utilize his update code for some other challenges that we face at my work.
posted @ Tuesday, October 18, 2011 8:54 PM | Feedback (1) |
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SQL Server - PASS
What an amazing week I had at PASS Summit 2011 in Seattle, WA! I hadn't attended a PASS conference since September of 2005 when it was in Grapevine, Texas. It has grown so much since then. I am not sure how many people attended back then, but I'd guesstimate about 1500. They announced that at this year's conference there were 4000 attendees. WOW!
Here are my favorite aspects of this conference:
I will definitely be able to do my job better due to attending this conference. The return on investment is HUGE!
posted @ Tuesday, October 18, 2011 10:34 AM | Feedback (0) |
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SQL Server - PASS
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Today I renamed the sa account on 23 SQL Server 2005/2008 instances. I used the CMS to assist with this task.
Later we realized all of the SQL Agent jobs were failing on these instances with the following error: "The job failed. The owner (sa) of job XYZ does not have server access."
We use sa as the job owner, and it had correctly changed the owner to our new name as the sids had not changed. We were at first confused why the jobs were failing but then realized restarting the SQL Agent service might help. The restart corrected the problem.
If you plan on renaming your sa account (best practice), make sure you restart the SQL Agent service afterwards to avoid failing jobs. This is perhaps common knowledge, but it was something new learned by me today.
posted @ Wednesday, August 24, 2011 2:16 PM | Feedback (2) |
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SQL Server - Database Administration
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
If you use RDP to remotely connect to your servers, you've probably encountered a clipboard issue where copy/paste stops working. A quick Google search on the problem indicates you can easily fix the problem by logging out/logging back in or killing/restarting rdpclip.exe on the remote server. Here's an article which covers this topic.
But what do you do when copy/paste is intermittent? It works one second, stops working for 5-30 seconds, and then on its own starts working again. This is what's occurring in our new non-production environment. The DBA team is setting up 16 new physical servers and 5 new virtual machines. I haven't found a server where this ISN'T happening. This intermittent copy/paste issue is driving me crazy!
posted @ Wednesday, August 17, 2011 11:36 AM | Feedback (4) |
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Friday, June 17, 2011
It never occurred to me that the way SSMS handles tabs could be changed, and it's just that the default settings suck. In this blog post, Brent Ozar shows us how to fix SSMS so that the tabs are actually usable and not annoying anymore.
I can't love his post enough. It has really helped me become more efficient. I'm always flipping between tabs and can't quickly find the one I need at some critical time, but now I can easily find it!
posted @ Friday, June 17, 2011 11:55 AM | Feedback (2) |
Monday, March 07, 2011
Twice a year, we move our production systems to our disaster recovery site. Last Saturday night was one of those days. There are about 50 SQL Server databases to be moved to the DR site, which is done via database mirroring. It takes only a few seconds to failover, but some databases have a bit more involved work such as setting up replication.
Everything went relatively smooth, but we encountered a weird bug on our most mission critical system. After everything was successfully failed over to the DR site, it was noticed that mirroring was in a suspended state on one of the databases. We thought we had run into a SQL Server 2005 bug that we had been encountering and were working with Microsoft on a fix. Microsoft did fix it in both SQL Server 2005 service pack 3 cumulative update package 13 and service pack 4 cumulative update package 2, however SP3 CU13 and SP4 both recently failed on this system so we were not patched yet with the bug fix.
As the suspended state was causing us issues with replication, we dropped mirroring. We then noticed we had 10MB of free disk space on the mount point where the principal's data files are stored. I knew something went amiss as this system should have at least 150GB free on that mount point. I immediately checked the main database's data file and was shocked to see an autgrowth size of 65536%. The data file autogrew right before mirroring went into the suspended state.
I didn't have a lot of time to research if this autgrowth problem was a known SQL Server bug, so I deferred that research to today. A quick Google search yielded no results but emphasis on "quick".
I checked our performance system, which was recently restored with a copy of the affected production database, and found the autogrowth setting to be 512MB. So this autogrowth bug was encountered sometime in the last two weeks. On February 26th, we had attempted to install SQL 2005 SP4 on production, however it had failed (PSS case open with Microsoft). I suspected that the SP4 failure was somehow related to this autgrowth bug although that turned out not to be the case.
I then tweeted (@TaraKizer) about this problem to see if the SQL Server community (#sqlhelp) had any insights. It seems several people have either heard of this bug or encountered it. Aaron Bertrand (blog|twitter) referred me to this Connect item.
Our affected database originated on SQL Server 2000 and was upgraded to SQL Server 2005 in 2007. Back on SQL Server 2000, we were using the default file growth setting which was a percentage. Sometime after the 2005 upgrade is when we changed it to 512MB. Our situation seemed to fit the bug Aaron referred to me, so now the question was whether Microsoft had fixed it yet.
I received a reply to my tweet from Amit Banerjee (twitter) that it had been fixed in SP3 CU1 (KB958004). My affected system is SP3 CU8, so I was initially confused why we had encountered the bug. Because I don't read things fully, I had missed that there are additional steps you have to follow after applying the bug fix. Amit set me straight.
Although you can read this information in the KB article, I will also copy it here in case you are as lazy as me and miss the most important section of it (although if you are as lazy as me, you won't have read this far down my blog post):
This hotfix will prevent only future occurrences of this problem. For example, if you restore a database from SQL Server 2000 to a SQL Server 2005 instance that contains this hotfix, this problem will not occur. However, if you already have a database that is affected by this problem, you must follow these steps to resolve this problem manually: Apply this hotfix. Set the file growth settings for the affected files to percentage settings, and then set the settings back to megabyte settings. Take the database offline, and then bring it back online. Verify that the values of the is_percent_growth column are correct in the sys.database_files system table and in the sys.master_files system table.
This hotfix will prevent only future occurrences of this problem. For example, if you restore a database from SQL Server 2000 to a SQL Server 2005 instance that contains this hotfix, this problem will not occur. However, if you already have a database that is affected by this problem, you must follow these steps to resolve this problem manually:
posted @ Monday, March 07, 2011 11:19 AM | Feedback (0) |
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SQL Server - Database Administration
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
I've been thinking about submitting my "Performance Tuning With Traces" topic for SQL Saturday #73, but I think I'm burnt out on that topic. I've only presented it twice (#55|#47), and I am passionate about that subject, however I need something new.
If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear from you. You can leave me a comment or send me a direct email via the Contact page.
posted @ Tuesday, March 01, 2011 9:57 AM | Feedback (0) |
Thursday, February 24, 2011
This past Saturday, I presented "Performance Tuning with Traces" at SQL Saturday #47 in Phoenix, Arizona. You can download my slide deck and supporting files here.
This is the same presentation that I did in September at SQL Saturday #55 in San Diego, however I focused less on my custom server-side trace tool and more on the steps that I take to troubleshoot a production performance problem which often includes server-side tracing.
If any of my blog readers attended the presentation, I'd love to hear your feedback. I'm specifically interested in hearing constructive criticism. Speaking in front of people is not something that comes naturally to me. I plan on presenting in the future, so feedback on how I can do a better job would be very helpful. My number one problem is I talk too fast!
posted @ Thursday, February 24, 2011 10:50 AM | Feedback (4) |
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
We've been having some major performance issues with one of the applications that I support. The database is on SQL Server 2005 and is about 150GB in size. We've identified a couple of issues already on the database side.
The first issue is that some query (or maybe several queries) is getting a bad execution plan at some point in time during the day. When it occurs, database performance comes to a grinding halt. We know it's a bad execution plan as running DBCC FREEPROCCACHE immediately resolves the problem system-wide. As we have not yet identified the problematic query, we've put a temporary solution in place that frees the procedure cache on an hourly basis via a SQL Agent job. This is not ideal, but it is getting us through the day without a major problem. We are actively working on identifying the problematic query and hope to disable the SQL Agent job soon.
Earlier this week, we had a major slowdown for one of the processes of this application. I was unable to find any database performance issues, but I continued to investigate it. One of things that I typically do when investigating database performance issues is run the "Missing Indexes DMV Report" (that's what I call it at least). When analyzing the output of that report, I immediately dismiss anything under 1 million "Impact" as I want to target the "low-hanging fruit" initially. When I ran the report earlier this week, I was shocked to find a suggested index with an impact of over 3 billion!
Do I win a prize for the highest impact? Has anyone seen a value higher than mine? My exact value was 3154284120.67765.
The performance issue from earlier this week ended up being an application problem, but it also brought to light a much needed index. I had previously seen this index come up in that report but always with a much lower impact. I had never considered it as the index's selectivity is very low. It's a composite index with three columns. The first column is not selective, the first two columns are not selective, and the three columns together are not selective. In fact, no matter how I order it, the index will not be selective at all. I briefly discussed this with Kimberly Tripp, and she said that this was okay for covering indexes. Selectivity is irrelevant for a covering index. She indicated that she's even created indexes with gender as the first column in the index. I've got lots to learn still!
posted @ Wednesday, December 15, 2010 11:12 AM | Feedback (3) |
Monday, November 08, 2010
Recently I opened a case with Microsoft PSS to help us through a severe performance problem on a new system. As part of that case, the PSS engineer checked our "max degree of parallelism" server-side setting. It is our standard to use 4 on our production systems that have 16 CPUs (2 sockets, quad-core, hyper-threaded). The PSS engineer had me run the below query to get Microsoft's recommended value of "max degree of parallelism" server-side setting for our 16-CPU system:
when cpu_count / hyperthread_ratio > 8 then 8
else cpu_count / hyperthread_ratio
end as optimal_maxdop_setting
from sys.dm_os_sys_info;
The query returned 2. I made the change using sp_configure, and it did not resolve our issue. We have decided to leave it in place for now.
Do you agree with this query? What are your thoughts on this?
If you decide to change your setting to reflect the output of this query, please test it first to ensure there are no negative side effects.
posted @ Monday, November 08, 2010 12:47 PM | Feedback (5) |
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SQL Server - Database Administration
Monday, October 18, 2010
SQL Saturday is coming to Phoenix, Arizona on February 19th, 2011. I have submitted my session for this event. If my session gets approved, it'll be the same presentation that I gave recently at SQL Saturday #55. Although my recent presentation was well received, I will be reworking it to make it even better.
Hope to see you there!
posted @ Monday, October 18, 2010 11:58 PM | Feedback (1) |
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SQL Server - General
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
I started my IT career as a student worker in the database team at the County of San Diego. Although I worked on many different things in that group, it launched my career as a Database Administrator. You can get an overview of my career here.
It seems I picked the right career for a good job in America. According to CNNMoney and PayScale, a database administrator job is ranked number 7 for the best job in America in 2010. Check it out here.
There are quite a few IT jobs on the list. You can check out the full list here.
Do you agree with this ranking?
posted @ Tuesday, October 12, 2010 9:50 AM | Feedback (5) |
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SQL Server - General
SQL Server - Database Administration
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text:
Here at Android and Me, we are no strangers to poking fun at the names behind Android devices. Some of them are absolutely ridiculous, and with a fresh batch of phones being delivered several times a year, there's always room for them to get worse. Fortunately, several companies, like HTC for example, are trying their hardest to do away with the crazy names to simplify things. Unfortunately, much of the damage has already been done, as shown in this "Is it a condom, or is it an Android?" chart from The Intercom Blog.
When I say Desire, Sensation, Touch and Cruise, do you automatically think of an Android phone or condom? How about Vitality, Wildfire, Indulge and Intensity? Either answer wouldn't really be surprising, as both Android phones and condoms happen to share those names. Yes, really.
The folks over at The Intercom Blog have put together a chart that takes 20 different product names, and shows which ones are Android phones, which ones are condoms, and which ones are both. Out of the 20, 8 names are shared by both a condom and phone. The rest of the names chosen, like Hero, Electrify and Ultra Thin could go either way. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised to see them make the jump at some point in the future.
Of course, there's a ton of condom names that would never make for good Android handsets, and some Android phones would make terrible condom names (Trojan Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD?), but there's no denying the hilarity of the products that do share names. Which is your favorite?


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CHARLOTTE - Duke senior and pre season Player of the Year selection Kyle Singler chatted up media members during ACC Operation Basketball. BDN was there to get his thoughts and we have over one hour total of audio with him. Here is part 1 where my pal Barry Jacobs asks several questions to start it off.
Tag Archives: Kyle Singler Duke
Duke (16-3, 4-2) vs. Florida State (15-4, 3-2) Preview
Duke looks to build upon the huge win at Clemson when Florida State comes to Cameron Indoor Stadium for a nationally televised game on ESPN. It would take a heck of a game to compete with the last 3 visits to Cameron for the Seminoles. We all remember last year's March war with Duke holding off Toney Douglas (27 Pts) 84-81. The teams didn't play in Durham the year before that, but in February 2007 Florida State pulled out a 68-67 slugfest. And the year before that was the best of them all. In February 2006, Duke prevailed in OT 97-96. JJ had 36 and Al Thornton 37 in that epic battle.
Here's a preview of this season's Seminole team:
As usual under Leonard Hamilton, FSU is much better defensively than on offense. The Seminoles shoot fairly well on 2-point field goals (53%), but not so well from 3 (34%) or from the free throw line (65%). They are very good at getting offensive rebounds. Ironically, they give up a lot of them too, a trend they share with Duke, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Boston College, and Wake Forest – maybe it's just an ACC thing to have a bunch of offensive rebounds at both ends. Anyway, the main reason for FSU's offensive struggles is their proclivity for turning the ball over. With a 25% turnover rate (1 out of every 4 possessions is offensive suicide) they rank #328 out of 347 Division I teams. Only one other BCS conference team, Oregon State, is in the bottom 60 in this stat.
Florida State is one of the top defensive teams in the nation this year. They are #1 in Opponents 2-point field goal percentage (37%) due in large part to their great length and shot-blocking big men. Even though they give up offensive rebounds, opponents have a hard time converting inside. FSU also forces a high number of turnovers, which means the perimeter defenders can be aggressive knowing that the backline of the defense is always there to erase mistakes. If there is a chink in their armor, it may be their 3-point defense. FSU is last in the ACC with opponents' 3-point percentage in conference games at 43% and they allow quite a few of them.
C- Solomon Alabi (7'1" Redshirt So- 13 ppg, 7 rpg, 3 bpg) is the main reason for the great interior defensive stats for FSU. Although he is still considered a developing player with a bright NBA future, almost all his numbers are better this year than last. For example, he's improved his field goal percentage from 54% to 59% and, most impressively, his free throw percentage from 68% to 83%. In fact, Alabi has made 25 of his last 28 free throws. Also, he has been able to avoid foul trouble in most games (only 2 games with 4, none with 5). However, he only averages 26 minutes a game, so either he still has some strength/stamina issues or Coach Hamilton is living up to his reputation for over-substituting.
F- Chris Singleton (6'9" So- 11 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 3 apg has been an inconsistent player but has shown flashes lately of the breakout year many predicted (me included). He is very active on defense, averaging 2 blocks and 2 steals a game. Offensively, he has not shot well (43%) and he is the main culprit in the Seminoles' turnover woes, with 4 per game. The last 3 games kind of sum up Singleton's season: 22 points in 36 minutes vs. NCSU, 2 points in 36 minuts vs. Va.Tech, and 23 points in 30 minutes vs. Ga.Tech. The fact that FSU won the Va.Tech game shows they don't have to have a big game from Singleton to win, but Duke in Durham is not Va.Tech in Tallahassee.
G- Devidas Dulkys (6'5" So- 10.5 Pts, 44% 3pt) has moved into the starting lineup and has been the Seminoles' main outside threat. He has made at least three 3-point field goals in 11 out of 19 games.
G- Derwin Kitchen (6'4" Jr- 8 ppg, 4 apg) is the primary ball handler and a very good defender but, like his team, he has struggled on offense, shooting 41% from the 2 and 22% from 3-point land.
F- Ryan Reid (6'8" Sr- 7 ppg, 4 rpg) is still around, believe it or not, and along with Chas McFarland from Wake is the biggest agitator in the league. He does the dirty work and hustles for offensive rebounds and will probably make the hardest foul in the game.
Bench- Xavier Gibson (6'11" So) gives good size and rebounding. Jordan Demercy (6'7" So) provides good defense from the forward spot. Michael Snaer (6'5" Fr) provides 8 points per game and is the second best 3-point shooter at 37%. Luke Loucks (6'5" So) gives FSU another guard with good size. The main problem with Florida State's reserves is they are all pretty bad ball handlers. For example, Loucks (backup PG) has 30 turnovers in 356 minutes this year. Jon Scheyer has 29 in 684 minutes.
No rest for these Blue Devils as we can expect another intense physical ACC battle. Of course, Coach K wouldn't have it any other way. Duke must show they can respond to a big emotional win with another energetic performance. Don't be surprised if we have another defensive battle with points hard to come by in the half court for both teams. Duke may be due for a breakout shooting game and that would mean bad news for Florida State. Duke needs to get the kind of effort out of the big guys that we did against Wake Forest and neutralize them on the inside. Another key will be for Duke to force the kind of turnovers that they can convert. Anytime you get transition points you don't have to face that size (#1 average height in NCAA) in the half court.
After a seesaw first half, I see Duke making a big second half run. Projected score: Duke 73, FSU 58


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Every week we ask you a different question. Hear what people in London say, then join the conversation! This week, you can have three wishes. What will you wish for?
Click here to listen to what some people in London told us, and see the words:
Join the conversation, what three things will you wish for? Use the form below.
The Express English team
In London, some people wished for world peace and an end to greed. Others wished for something for themselves, like to travel round the world or to own an expensive sports car.
One man wished for health, happiness and love.
We hope their wishes come true.
Did you know?
- Fact
In Northumberland, England, around 16,000 coins were found in an ancient Roman wishing well, dedicated to the goddess Coventina.
- Language tip
Say 'I wish I could' not 'I wish I can.'
- Cultural tip
In Britain the Middle-Eastern story of Aladdin and the genie who grants three wishes is so popular, that it's now part of traditional Christmas plays called 'pantos'.
This Express English was originally published in 2011.
End of Section


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Emma Rainey leads Writing My Way Back Home, workshops hosted around the country for veterans that focus on catharsis by documenting war experiences.
Emma Rainey leads Writing My Way Back Home, workshops hosted around the country for veterans that focus on catharsis by documenting war experiences.
Upcoming workshops are scheduled for 5-7 p.m. April 25 and 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. April 26 at The Writers Place, 3607 Pennsylvania Ave., in Kansas City, Mo.
It is open to all veterans, as well as spouses, partners and teenage children.
1.What made you want to get involved in Writing My Way Back Home?
"I started Writing My Way Back Home five years ago while attending the University of Iowa. I'm well versed in what goes on with military life: my father was a naval officer in the Korean War and my sister a pilot in the Coast Guard.
"My news comes from listening to NPR, reading the New York Times online, and The New Yorker, all of which began chronicling the physical devastation of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. … I could handle this news — sad news, of course — but I could go on with my day.
"What I could not handle were the news reports about soldiers committing suicide upon their return home. After struggling with depression, often with subsequent addiction to drugs and alcohol, soldiers found themselves unable to deal with civilian life, and then, despite surviving the harrowing conflicts abroad, they ended their lives.
"It was during a morning commute to UI, driving along stubble-faced soybean and cornfields recently harvested, I heard one NPR report too many. The irony of soldiers serving tours overseas, surviving, then killing themselves, overwhelmed me. I understood the irresistible craving for death these soldiers sought and found. I understood, too, that writing heals, it's a means to honor pain and loss and grief and move beyond that craving to end your life."
2. How does the workshop serve as a catharsis and healing exercise for military members who have experienced the worst — and best — of humanity in war?
"Humans are inherently storytellers — we love telling stories and we love hearing them. The reason we read books, listen to the words in songs and go to movies is because we resonate with what the storyteller is saying.
"Growing up in a military family, I fully understand the significance of the military lifestyle and all that goes on for each member of the family. Soldiers are trained to not express their emotions … and this is necessary for soldiers to maintain order and take direction under the extreme circumstances they find themselves in during war. These soldiers don't suddenly come home and begin expressing the confusion and doubt and fears inside. Rather, they continue to hold them inside as they were trained to do.
"Writing about trauma offers a harbor between holding trauma in, and talking about it. I have witnessed veterans unable to express their emotions because they were trained to take orders. Writing about extraordinary experiences opens the sealed-off armored compartments veterans often carry inside.
"At workshops I often offer index cards and pens beside a locked box with a slot, and then I invite the veterans to write the unspeakable, the one thing they cannot say aloud that gnaws inside. Just that action — writing the unutterable — offers relief.
"I think the one thing that always amazes me more than anything else is the visceral joy at these workshops. Yes, there are tears sometimes when a memory long buried emerges. But, mostly there is just plain relief. Being with other veterans — the camaraderie is off-the charts, doesn't matter the war or branch of service — and the fact that someone wants to hear their story.
"Readers benefit from hearing the veterans stories because we have no clue what they have been through. … As we all are well aware of now, the devastation of war on the human psyche remains mysterious."
3. Can you tell us about veterans who have attended your workshops and how the writing experience helped them navigate their more troubling emotions from war?
"One veteran described the process as "fast." With sections so full of painful content there was hardly time to stop the full effect — powerful concepts being laid out. He said, 'Time passed so quickly. Need more time. Need more life.' "Another veteran said, 'When I wrote down the first word that comes to mind, I wrote down "memory" as my mapping. From that word memory I wrote down other words relating to it: lost, pain, help, feeling, therapy, etc. this really set my mind as to where I wanted and needed to go as a veteran with PTSD.'
"I remember one veteran from Iraq who was afraid he didn't deserve to attend the workshop because he hadn't seen combat. I kept him on the phone for a bit and learned that as soon as he arrived in Iraq, an extremely heavy piece of equipment fell on his foot.
"Rather than complain, he kept on with the project they were constructing even though he was in unbearable pain. He completed the part of the mission he was a part of during the next two weeks, however he couldn't keep his broken foot a secret any longer. They had to amputate his leg.
"For some unknown reason, excruciating pain continued to plague him upon his return home. He is now wheelchair-bound, unable to drive since he never knows when the pain — literally blinding — incapacitates him, despite numerous operations. His wife wanted him to attend.
"Another time, I kept getting phone calls from Chicago, but I couldn't understand what the person was saying. Finally, at 6 a.m., she called — 'before I take my meds.' She asked if I could register her since she had no access to the online form.
"She also mentioned she was bringing a sleeping bag, and was there a corner she could sleep in for the three-day workshop? We got free rooms from a local hotel, and they shuttled the vets back and forth every day.
"Before hanging up, she mentioned that she was taking the bus with two other friends and, oh, she was in a wheelchair.
"I have tons of such stories, (like) the grammar school principle who was fired when they discovered he had PTSD."
4. What would you say to veterans who might be unwilling to try the workshop because they're afraid to relive many of their experiences?
"We are extremely careful about creating a place of safety and compassion for the vet during the workshop. We always have counselors on hand.
"But the biggest reason to join us is we are offering a chance for the veteran to begin sharing their stories and expressing feelings and insights, instead of internalizing them. The workshop is but a means to help them begin to tell their story and — hopefully — to create balance in their lives.
"Even keeping a journal is life changing, allowing room for transformation through writing.
"I have experienced the healing power of writing myself, and witnessed this transformative power innumerable times in workshops.
"Will writing alone heal a person? Probably not.
"But, neither will drugs or drinking or stuffing the pain inside so deep no one knows. Writing is a tool to help veterans write about the rage, the humor, the fear and helplessness.
"It's been proven that the act of writing and revision, not the quality of what is produced, helps the soldier develop healthy coping strategies. And honestly, once the story is out, the power of pain's destruction inside the mind and heart is greatly diminished."
5. What have been the most rewarding aspects in helping veterans find a voice to share their experiences, and do you think most of them find some resolution and peace after sharing their stories?
"Many of our workshop attendees have gone on to publish novels and poems, they are represented in anthologies, and many blogs. This is all fabulous and validating.
"What I see at the workshops is immense delight in being surrounded by other people like themselves that they don't have to explain themselves to — there is a peace in that. I also see enormous relief that someone wants to hear their story.
"I have also seen vets overwhelmed and still not ready to process their experiences, but this is rare.
"For me, the most rewarding moments are when I see a poet and vet passionately discussing a piece of writing and skipping lunch.
"For me, it's seeing a disabled vet defying the loss they've incurred and stepping outside their comfort zone by sharing a piece of their work in a room full of strangers.
"For me, it's the Vietnam vets finally coming to terms with the horror that plagues them every night by attending our workshop. … It's watching the women vets — sometimes blind, sometimes raped multiple times and then dishonorably discharged — courageous enough to tell their story. Finally.
"It's receiving an email from a vet who wrote his story and then read it aloud to an audience, describing his 'Ah-Ha' moment.
"But, the most rewarding of all was immediately following our very first workshop.
"I had been telling my dad, who was retired in Sacramento, about getting the workshop together.
"I was surprised when, a week before the workshop, he phoned and asked, 'Want to hear a story from this old Korean War veteran?'
"He promised to email it.
"As it turned out, he couldn't attach his story, and in the flush of organizing meetings with writers, therapists, raising funds, printing name tags, buying cases of water, tissues, journals and pencils, I forgot about my father and the story he promised to send.
"His story, which he had never told anyone, was the most horrific war narrative I have — to date — ever heard. When I first read my father's 1½ page story about the war, I thought, 'Too late.'
"The revelation of my father's secret war narrative … felt twisted, a paradox. But, he now volunteers for Make A Wish Foundation, working to fulfill the dreams of children with life-threatening medical conditions. I'm proud of him.
"And he now sets aside his armor and mentions April 21, 1952, aboard the Saint Paul with odd details I could not conjure up.
For instance, how he inventoried and packed up the personal belongings from the 30 lockers of the young men who blew up in the gun room moments after he left. He wrote 30 letters. The unintended fallout my father suffered in silence left him little more than an "unwritten code" to deal with it: "It was war, after all," he tells me. And though I cannot say 'Writing broke the silence, Dad. Welcome home'—I can write it."
— Rimsie McConiga


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We have all heard about the new products that were developed from research for space exploration. This is another exciting discovery that has been adapted to the equine world. "Zoombang" looks and feels like "Silly Putty," but it is less clay-like and more foam-like. It's a polymer that is soft at rest, hard on impact, and then returns to its fluid state. It won't wear out, dry out, freeze or melt. It absorbs 80% of impact forces and thus reduces injury and stress to the horse wearing a "Zone Series Pad."
I know Zoombang works because two cowboys from Classic Equine showed up at Valley Vet Supply to demonstrate it for us in a product educational meeting. It turned out more hands-on than we expected.
First, one of them covered the back of their hand with a fistful of the gray polymer and let the other one hit him on the spot with a metal tool (a large stapler to be exact). Then one of us braver women took a turn and got their hand knocked, with no ill effects. Then we notched it up a bit. Cowboys are tough guys, and so I teased one to take it on the face. We all laughed, but next thing I know, he had removed his ten-gallon hat and had the Zoombang plastered on his forehead and was handing me the stapler. I am embarrassed to say what happened next. I think I hit him far harder than I meant to. I scared the both of us. He said it didn't hurt him, but I scared him so badly he was going to need to find a bathroom and stand in the back for the rest of the hour. However, it proved that Zoombang works. Really. After he peeled the polymer off, he didn't even have a mark on his forehead. I was very relieved. He could have been cross-eyed the rest of his life. I'm a believer!
These "Made-in-the-USA" Zone Series Pads are really cool. The Zoombang insert is placed inside the pad on both sides along the shoulder area and along the width of the pad. They come in four styles of pad. The first level is a Felt Top Felt Bottom Pad. It comes in a barrel racing size of 30" x 32" and then the 31" x 32" for everyone else. The second level is a Felt Top Fleece Bottom for those who prefer felt and fleece. My favorite is the Suede Top Felt Bottom Pad. It is really a beautiful pad in the chocolate suede leather. It looks like a work of art to me. Finally, they have the pad with a blanket attached at the top of the pad. The Blanket Top comes in seven different colors and is a total of 1 1/4" thick.
I have this feeling that Classic Equine's Zoombang technology is going to be a big "hit" in the saddle pad world. It sure was at our meeting! Ellen


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Even though the Nexus 4 was released just some five months ago, the rumor mill is quick at work, spinning tales of new hardware set to be announced at Google I/O. Among the rumors that a new Nexus 7 will be announced, there is a recently surfaced rumor that Google is working on an updated Nexus 4 with LTE and 32GB of storage.
When Google released the Nexus 4, it was made perfectly clear that a lot of the things missing from the device were intentional. The lack of LTE and limited storage being the two most prominent issues picked at by practically everyone talking about it. Andy Rubin, then the head of Android, was quoted as saying the absence of LTE was, "tactical."
The LTE situation across the globe is complex. To access GSM/HSPA+ speeds all over the globe, only a handful of frequencies need to be accessible to a device. The issue changes greatly with LTE, and even more so with America's CDMA/LTE hybrid networks. If Google were to release an LTE device, how would it work?
Any LTE enabled Nexus device would most likely only work on one or two LTE networks. The most likely scenario would be Google releasing a revised Nexus 4 that works on AT&T and T-Mobile LTE. Rumors that an LTE enabled Nexus 4 would work on other carriers, or that it would include CDMA, seem far fetched.
While there is a sizable user base to be captured with CDMA devices in the US, the amount of negotiating, update hassles and AOSP headache needed outweigh the benefits. Right now, there's simply no easy way to craft one device, and have it work everywhere.
The rumored Nexus 5, on the other hand, could be a totally different story. At Mobile World Congress this year, Qualcomm announced the RF360; A single chip capable of working on a staggering amount of networks. Everything from GSM, to EV-DO, to LTE. Unfortunately, it won't be ready until the second half of the year. Or, right around the time when the Nexus 5 is rumored to launch.
If you were hoping to see the Nexus 5 at Google I/O, you shouldn't hold your breath. Rumors on the Nexus 5 have been swirling for over a month now, but the timing is a bit off. Google still has a lot of life left in the Nexus 4, especially if this latest rumor comes true, and it's updated with access to AT&T and T-Mobile LTE.
As for the Motorola X Phone, it's hard to imagine it being tacked onto Google I/O. It's totally possible, but if the Nexus 7 and an updated Nexus 4 with LTE are announced, along with Key Lime Pie, it's highly unlikely Google would stuff the X Phone in there as well. Even more so if it really has been pushed back to August for release.
So, to answer the question, is Google really working on a 32GB Nexus 4 with LTE for Google I/O? It's very possible. There was a refreshed Nexus 7 released, once Google had access to cheaper radios and storage, so that may be the case with a refreshed Nexus 4. Just keep in mind, the more you add to the rumor, the less reasonable it becomes. Supporting Sprint and Verizon CDMA and LTE, along with T-Mobile, who is the only official launch partner right now, and AT&T LTE doesn't seem feasible. And releasing more than one new device, mid-cycle, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.


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Java Draw Created Dec 07, 2012 460 x 640px Unless noted Copyright 2012 jeanette474.
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it gives a lovely feeling..5/5..
great place!
looks like a cowboy town....
I love the feeling in this one, so peaceful, well done! 5/5h fave
Love the fresh feel of this piece,, so clean and inviting,,, Love your tree,,, so festive,,
I want to sit on that bench and admire the scene! Beautiful 5h
i like how it looks quite n serene in da night, tho looks bit lonely ;p good thing theres a christmas tree 2 light da place up-- fav


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no they r making a ps4. ........ pretty sure.... look it up..
Staying Humble
yup should be coming in late 2012 or 2013
I don't think so. PS3 is still selling, same with xbox360. Sony would be shooting themselves in the foot to announce a new system now.
At earliest maybe 2014?
Catching up on the latest news on Crunchyroll.
Well, that's what researching is for. Go on the homepage of psn, and find out.
Ⓢⓐⓛⓛⓨ : wooot! got me a new dragon c:
Sony is not coming out with the PS4, at least not for a while.
They're currently working on VITA, the newest handheld console from Sony. (In stores 2/22/12.)
It's similar to the PSP, however there is no UMD Slot, it's touch screen on both the front and has a touch back, has augmented reality features, and various new things that are going to make this possibly Sony's biggest seller.
Until people see the price.
There will be two drops for the Vita, one with 3G capabilities and one with only WIFI.
Last I read, 3G Vita will be a whopping $299.99 and WIFI will be a slightly nicer price drop of $249.99.
Now, that seems like quite a steep price, but still worth it if you have the money for 3G or are willing to look for WIFI for a cheaper price.
Until you realize you have to buy some form of memory storage for it, which were given price values of $30-$90. So at the least, we're looking at a $280-$330 out of your pocket. That's not SO bad is it? Unless you take in account that Vita can only play for about 3 hours to about 5 at the max. So forget about playing it on road trips, flights, or anywhere you won't be able to charge the battery. Unless, of course, you buy the very expensive external battery that will extend it by another 10 hours. I'm unsure at the present on the price of this but I can only imagine it will not be cheap.
And don't forget about all of the games you love for PSP that you'll have to download and buy off of the library because Vita is not backwards compatible.
There are things I am forgetting that are all sorts of kicks in the teeth with this console, but in all honesty, of course I'll buy it as I've done before. Only when they've lowered the price of course, and included the memory card with it.
I would guess the new Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft consoles will be announced at E32012 and we may see releases 2013. as for Nintendo there next console is probably going to suck, they will probably be using last years tech just like wii did and I'm not interested. wii isn't for serious gaming its just a gimmick. The need to start just making there ips like Zelda for ps3 and 360. I dont like how Microsoft just dropped the xbox when the 360 came out, i know for a fact im not going to buy any of the next gen consoles right away and thats why im glad sony will probably keep releasing ps3 titles even though they have a new console just like they did with ps2, i think they still are releaseing titles for ps2 which i think is pretty cool even though i dont have one.
atm i would rank the consoles:
#2 Xbox360
#3 Wii (only because im not including the ps2 here)
Apple most likely wouldn't enter the console market, especially after it failed to do so with their Pippin. For a new player to enter the field these days, it's rather hard and I'd say near impossible unless the newcomer has some kind of innovation that will attract people. It had a $600 pricetag, terrible looking controllers, and little support. The PS3 can still see improvements in game quality as developers make better use of the Cell processor. If anything, the PS3 still has a few years at least in its life before a new Playstation pops up.
Looking at the start, hope to see a finish


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Kerry Flies to Asia to Avert North Korea Crisis
Secretary of State John Kerry will press China to more aggressively muscle North Korea on his inaugural trip to the region as America's top diplomat. Robert Ourlian reports.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the the ... read State John Kerry heading to Asia Friday to help ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula with details on The ... will Street dolls probably and joins us now from all euro in Washington ... um well thanks for being now ... come the what can you tell us of ... little more about the trip and what exactly decipher is a contrarian ... one to achieve ... well ... John Kerry's on his way right now to South Korea ... he's leaving one dead ... Hickey he should be landing in South Korea tomorrow ... from there it is going on to ... Beijing and Tokyo so this is his ... first tour of Asia as Secretary of State ... and it's coming at ... a fairly amazing time ... and ... and Dom ... what will be watching closely to see what transpires while he's there ... um ... we have we have the North Koreans moving missile parts around ... and then ... South Koreans ... and even the Japanese talking somewhat definetely oh well ... what North has been doing ... um ... Kerry wants to calm things down ... but he also wants to ensure the its allies the U S trading partners if you well ... that ... the US has their back and that they don't they'll have to worry of all that much about the North Koreans ... the same time he ... assumes the role but I mean one of one of warnings that fraud falls South Korea and Japan notably ... is that the US is looking increasingly strapped for cash aam and and and doesn't have the capability ... is that is that what he's gonna talk time about they get gas with baguettes we brought you back ... he is he's going he's going to assure them that that the ... so-called U S pivot to Asia that that that ... began under his predecessor Hillary Clinton is going to continue ... I that that the ... that the ... budget cuts are not going to have any effect on the overall U S strategy that the US is fully capable of ... taking care of its allies in the region and that's all part of trying not to get them to do anything rash of or perhaps ... make the midst of them and is calculated in the region just as the prime they're hoping the north coast ... does also say ... not now part of this farm as planned and I understand it is to set about to trying get the ... the Chinese to tool from the North Koreans into service standing down that's a very delicate thing to to try to do is not ... it's it's delicate and aunts tennis usually ... fuel ... and that that that the Chinese ... I think that that the US over estimates ... their influence with the North Koreans that the Chinese have an interest in ... instability in North Korea so that they don't have waves of refugees coming into their country but they don't necessarily ... by keeping things called in North Korea they don't necessarily have any particular influence over all of the regime ... conducts itself ... so far John Kerry will get an average artists is on clear ... God ... said so there's an assortment of security and diplomatic challenge and challenges he says ... they saw its first trip there ... while home will be checking back in with you to find out what he's been doing over the next few days thank you Grandma probably emptor ...


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String Art Projects for Children to Try
Who hasn't done string art in some form or another when they were kids? How fun was that, right? I used to love it, and I was recently reminded that I hadn't done it yet with my own kids.
So I went online to find some inspiration for string art projects for us to try. Here are some ideas:
• Make Grow Gather shares a simple heart string craft that they used for Valentine's Day, though it's simple enough to use with smaller kids any time.
• Pinterest user Alison Bergman has a great photo, showing a free style board with nails randomly set up so that kids can just go up and improvise a string art piece.
• One Crafty Mumma had her child do a beautiful blue string board.
• Lines Across brings up the name style of string art on a corkboard.
• Ruthie Mayes shows how to make a Christmas Tree string art piece, although a little late, it not only can be done next year, but it also fits families like mine who don't mind having Christmas all year 'round.
• Make a Simple String Solar System
• Seriously Stunning Super-Sized String Art
(Images as linked above)


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"59. STROPHIA EURYSTOMA Novo.
Wide-mouthed Strophia,
Plate II fig. 3, front, fig. 4, side view of type.
SP. CH. Size rather large, shell quite thick and heavy. Striations, present. Whirls, 11. Examined 21 specimens. Form of shell pointed cylinder, with the first and second whirls the largest, then the third whirl is a little smaller, and from this, the shell slopes gradually to a point, forming an angle of fifty-five degrees. There are sixteen striations to the first whirl; they are not prominent, are rather irregular, not arranged in lines, nor furrowed, but rounded and polished, are narrow, the interspaces being twice as wide as they, and slightly inclined from left to right.
Aperture large and open, about as wide as high, not at all contracted at the entrance. The lower tooth is small, about .07 long, and about half as high as long; it is set well back about twice its length from the frontal bar; it is about central in position. The upper tooth is about the same height but extends backward around the column.
Margin not produced forward beyond the diameter of the shell, but is somewhat inclined to the right beyond the side of shell. It is thin, (about .03) considerably flanging, projecting outward about .10, and somewhat rolled over, but the edge is smooth. The frontal bar is not well developed and the striations appear quite prominently within it, extending backward into the shell.
Size of typical specimen, 1.35 by .40. Largest specimen, 1.36 by .47; smallest, 1.27 by .35. Greatest diameter, .48; smallest, 35. . Longest specimen, 1.38 ; shortest, 1.25.
There is some individual variation in the inclination of the margin; some specimens having this about straight. There is one developed form.
Form No. 1. More slender in form, and rather more acutely pointed, and while the striations are more numerous above, twenty-five to the first whirl, they are nearly or quite absent on the lower whirls. I found two of this form in the museum collection, but I find that out of seven shells received from another source, also labeled Havanna, that all, with a single exception, are of this form. Thus it may be possible that this will prove to be a sub-species, inhabiting a locality apart from the typical form.
This species may be distinguished from all of the other flangingmouthed Cuban shells, yet mentioned, by the open mouth, large size, and white, unflecked color. For comparison with S. infanda of Shuttleworth, see that species.
I found these shells bearing the label" Pupa mumia, Havanna
The color of the shell of S. eurystoma is yellowish white, externally, with the apex flesh color. Internally, pale brownish or flesh, fading into yellowish white on the teeth and margin. It is worthy of note that shells of the typical form, show stainings ofared ochraceous earth, while those which I have mentioned as form No.1, are either stained with a brown earth or are without staining, hence it is reasonable to suppose the forms do not occur together. Should this prove true, form No.1 must take subspecific rank, in which case it may be called Strophia eurystoma ignota."


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If you are interested in using this image, please consult Acknowledging the Website.
Image Reference
Thomas Staunton St. Clair, A Residence in the West Indies and America (London, 1834), vol. 2, facing p. 187. (Copy in Library Company of Philadelphia)
Caption, "Mibiri Creek, Demerara River. Mr. Edmonstone's Wood Cutting Establishment." The author sketched this scene while visiting this place. In left foreground, two male slaves are cutting wood, next to them are "their wives and children." In the very lower right hand corner is the boat-house, above it the main dwelling house, "and on the top of the hill were the Negro huts, with some cocoa-nut trees" (pp. 187-188).


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