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Storage Hypervisor integration with VMware
Visits (16992)
Over on the Tivoli Storage Blog, there is an exchange over the concept of a "Storage Hypervisor". This started with fellow IBMer Ron Riffe's blog post [Enabling Private IT for Storage Cloud -- Part I], with a promise to provide parts 2 and 3 in the next few weeks. Here's an excerpt:
Then another IBM blogger, Richard Vining, continued this meme with his post [VMware Data Protection with a Storage Hypervisor]. There are [different meanings for the word "protect"], but Richard's usage relates to protecting against unexpected loss. Here's an excerpt:
At this point, you might scratch your head and ask "Does this Storage Hypervisor exist, or is this just a theoretical exercise?" The answer of course is "Yes, it does exist!" Just like VMware offers vSphere and vCenter, IBM offers block-level disk virtualization through the SAN Volume Controller(SVC) and Storwize V7000 products, with a full management support from Tivoli Storage Productivity Center Standard Edition.
SVC has supported every release of VMware since the 2.5 version. IBM is the leading reseller of VMware, so it makes sense for IBM and VMware development to collaborate and make sure all the products run smoothly together. SVC presents volumes that can be formatted for VMFS file system to hold your VMDK files, accessible via FCP protocol. IBM and VMware have some key synergies:
But unlike tools that work only with VMware, IBM's storage hypervisor works with a variety of server virtualization technologies, including Microsoft Hyper-V, Xen, OracleVM, Linux KVM, PowerVM, z/VM and PR/SM. This is important, as a recent poll on the Hot Aisle blog indicates that [44 percent run 2 or more server hypervisors]!
For a set of best practices combining VMware with SVC, check out this IBM Redpaper titled [VMware Proof of Practice and Performance Guidelines on the SAN Volume Controller].
Join the conversation! The virtual dialogue on this topic will continue in a [live group chat] this Friday, September 23, 2011 from 12 noon to 1pm EDT. Join me and about 20 other top storage bloggers, key industry analysts and IBM Storage subject matter experts to discuss storage hypervisors and get questions answered about improving your private storage environment.
technorati tags: IBM, Ron Riffe, Richard Vining, Storage Hypervisor, Cloud, Heterogeneous, Virtualization, SVC, Tivoli Storage, Productivity Center, TPC, VMware, vSphere, vCenter, ESX, Unified Recovery, Data Protection, EMC, VPLEX
Storage Hypervisor Improves Resource Utilization and Management
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Last week, fellow IBMer Ron Riffe started his three-part series on the Storage Hypervisor. I discussed Part I already in my previous post [Storage Hypervisor Integration with VMware]. We wrapped up the week with a Live Chat with over 30 IT managers, industry analysts, independent bloggers, and IBM storage experts.
This week, Ron continues this meme with his post [Enabling Private IT for Storage Cloud -- Part II (management controls)]. Here's an excerpt:
A storage hypervisor increases the utilization of storage resources, and optimizes what is most scarce in your environment. For Linux, UNIX and Windows servers, you typically see utilization rates of 20 to 35 percent, and this can be raised to 55 to 80 percent with a storage hypervisor. But what is most scarce in your environment? Time! In a competitive world, it is not big animals eating smaller ones as much as fast ones eating the slow.
If this sounds all too familiar, it is similar to the benefits that one gets from a server hypervisor -- better utilization of CPU resources, optimizing the management and administration time, with the agility and flexibility to deploy new technologies in and decommission older ones out.
Arthur Cole disagrees. His blog post asks [
'Storage Virtualization' or 'Vir
Jon Toigo on his DrunkenData blog brings back the sanity with his post [Once More Into the Fray]. Here is an excerpt:
Did you miss out on last Friday's Live Chat? We are doing it again this Friday, covering parts I and II of Ron's posts, so please join the conversation! The virtual dialogue on this topic will continue in another [Live Chat] on September 30, 2011 from 12 noon to 1pm Eastern Time.
technorati tags: IBM, Ron Riffe, Storage Hypervisor, Art Cole, Jon Toigo, DrunkenData, Amazon S3, Nirvanix, Google, VMware, SSD, automated tiering, abstraction layer
United Way Days of Caring 2011
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Every September, IBM Tucson spends a Wednesday or Saturday to help out local non-profit charities. The event is orgnaized the the local United Way. My first one was packing boxes of food for the [Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona] on September 12, 2001, the day after the [tragic events in New York and Washington DC]. The mindless activity of putting a bottle, bag or can into one box after another helped us cope with the shock and awe that week.
So, it seemed fitting on the 10th anniversary of that event to go back to the Community Food Bank and help pack boxes of food. The facility received nearly $200,000 in donations in response to the [shooting of US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords]. Her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, suggested that dontaions go in part to the Tucson Community Food Bank, and with the money they were able to expand operations, dedicating a portion as the [Gabrielle Giffords Family Assistance Center] to bring together food handouts with the [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for food stamps, and the Women with Infant Children (WIC) program. One-stop assistance!
This year, nearly 500 Tucson IBMers to complete 22 projects at 17 nonprofit agencies. We were not alone, we were joined by volunteers from Bank of America, Texas Instruments, Tucson Medical Center, Geico Insurance, University of Arizona, Cox Cable TV, Desert Diamond Casinos, The Westin La Paloma Resort and Spa, the Arizona Lottery, Community Partnership of Southern Arizona (CPSA), Pizza Hut, Arizona Daily Star, 94.9 MixFM Radio, BizTucson, and News 4 Tucson (our local NBC affiliate).
In a bit of competition, our team, Team B, of 14 IBMers, competed against another team, Team A, of 20 people. Despite having fewer people, we were able to pack 746 boxes, representing 20,000 pounds of food, beating out Team A which only packed 18,000 pounds. (I have chosen not to identify anyone on Team A, no need to rub their noses in it. This was all for a good cause.)
Each box contained cereal, canned evaporated milk, canned vegetables and fruits, fruit juice, rice, and dry beans. My job on the assembly line was to put two half-gallon jugs of grape juice in the box and move it down the line.
What lessons can a team of people learn from an activity like this?
This was a great day for a good cause. The Community Food Bank qualifies for the Arizona [Working Poor Tax Credit] program. For every dollar the Community Food Bank receives, they can give 10 dollars of food to someone in need.
Special thanks to Greg Kishi for being our team leader for this event, and to Carol Tribble for taking these photographs.
technorati tags: IBM, United Way, Community Food Bank, Gabrielle Giffords, SNAP, WIC
#IBMandOracle at #OpenWorld - Next week in San Francisco
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Next week, October 2-6, I am in San Francisco to support the IBM exhibition boot at [Oracle OpenWorld 2011] conference. IBM is a Grand Level Sponsor for this event. IBM and Oracle have been partners since 1986, and IBM is a [Diamond Level Partner in the Oracle OpenNetwork], the highest level available. I will be joined by dozens of other subject matter experts from various parts of IBM. Here is my schedule:
I won't have my laptop at the IBM booth, so if you need to reach me, send me an SMS text message to my cell phone, or send me a tweet on my Twitter account: [@az990tony]
IBM will also have experts in the following areas throughout the week:
I arrive Sunday afternoon. If you arrive Sunday, here are some things IBM is featuring:
Download IBM's mobile app for Oracle OpenWorld and receive a Starbucks gift card! (While supplies last!)
Visit [myIBMmobile.com] and get the IBM mobile app—your guide to navigating IBM events at Oracle OpenWorld 2011. Optimized for mobile devices—tablet friendly.
Of course, IBM is going all out on the social media side as well:
Learn more about how IBM and Oracle can help you transform your enterprise at:
technorati tags: IBM, Oracle, OpenWorld, San Francisco
#oow11 Oracle OpenWorld - Day 1
Comments (2) Visits (18281)
I have arrived safely to San Francisco, and was able to check-in at the hotel, pick up my registration badge for Oracle OpenWorld 2011, and attend the first keynote session. This is the largest Oracle OpenWorld event to-date, with over 45,000 attendees from 117 different countries. There are 520,000 square feet of exhibition floor, and over 2,400 educational sessions. The conference is spread across the different buildings of the Moscone center, as well as nearby hotels. On average, attendees will walk seven miles during the week.
Larry Ellison was the keynote speaker for this first kick-off session. He focused almost exclusively on server and storage hardware. He feels that business is all about moving data, not doing integer math.
He also mentioned that Bob Shimp would kick-off the Cloud later in the week. Given that Larry himself thought that Cloud was a stupid, over-marketed term that nobody has deployed over the past few years, to a complete believer, claiming that over 20 live demos will be given this year on Cloud.
Perhaps the funniest quote was his motivation to use Infiniband as the interconnect
"Ethernet was invented by Xerox when I was a child."
Here are some sessions that IBM is featuring on Monday. Note the first two are Solution Spotlight sessions at the IBM Booth #1111 where I will be most of the time.
technorati tags: IBM, Oracle, Larry Ellison, keynote, SPARC-T4, Exadata, Exalogic, Exalytics, POWER7
#oow11 Oracle OpenWorld - Day 2
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Monday morning of the [Oracle OpenWorld 2011] conference had Joe Tucci, CEO of EMC, present the keynote. Joe indicated that I.T. stands for "Industry in Transition". He had a chart that showed the history of IT, from the mainframe and mini-computer, to the PC and client/server era, and now to the Cloud era. He called these "waves of disruption". The catalysts for change are a "Budge Dilemma", "Information Deluge" and "Cyber Security". The keynote was very similar to what EMC presented at [VMworld] conference earlier this summer.
"We have failed our customers. Over the past 10 years, they spend 73% to maintain their existing systems, and only 27% for new."
While many people equate "EMC" and "Failure", I believe Joe was referring not just to his own company, but most of the other IT vendors as well. Analysts predict that from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2019, the world of stored data will grow from 0.9 ZB to 35.2 ZB, which represents a 44x increase. During that same time, IT staff is only expected to grow 50 percent. A staggering 90 percent of this data will be unstructured (non-database) content. Meanwhile, the average company gets cyber-attacked 300 times per week.
The answer is Cloud Computing. A few years ago, EMC was trying to get people to go "private cloud" route instead of "public cloud", they now have a more realistic "hybrid cloud" approach similar to IBM. Of the clients that EMC works with, 35 percent are implementing some form of cloud, and another 30 percent are planning to. The tenents of Hybrid Cloud are "Efficiency", "Control" and "Choice" which equals "Agility".
Joe also mentioned that there is now a new "layering" for IT. Instead of storage, switches and servers, we have a cloud platform of shared resources, mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, and management.
Joe feels there is a massive opportunity where Cloud meets Big Data. A cute video showed a driver wearing a motorcycle helmet so you can't see his face get into an under-powered car with "VNXe" on the license plate. He punches in "Cloud and Big Data" into the GPS navigation system, and starts out on city streets. Then the car transforms to an under-utilized family sedan "VNX" on a highway in the middle of the desert, then transforms to an over-priced sports car labeled "VMAX" as it climbs into the mountains surrounded by fog. The video borrowed the "CARS" theme from the videos IBM developed for its 2008 launch of "Information Infrastructure" initiative.
EMC's Pat Gelsinger (CTO) and fellow blogger Chad Sakac did some demos of VMware vCenter. They called the VMware vSphere "the Datacenter-wide OS" indicating that EMC storage has 75 points of integration with their "partner" (VMware is majority-owned by EMC, so I am not sure if partner is the right term). If you don't count Itanium, SPARC, POWER and IBM Syste z architectures, VMware enjoys over 80 percent marketshare for server virtualization.
(Full disclosure: IBM is the leading reseller of VMware.)
Pat claims that 40 percent of Oracle Apps at EMC run VMware. For the longest time, Oracle refused support its apps on VMware, but they relaxed this restrictive policy back in 2009. Today, nearly 25 percent of Oracle Apps run virtualized. EMC claims that they can support 5 million VMs on a single VMAX, and can generate 1 million IOPS from a single VMware ESX host.
Chad did a demo of vFabric which allows a vCenter plug-in to kick up Database instances of OracleDB, MySQL, Hadoop, PostgreSQL, and GreenPlum (GreenPlum is EMC's version of open-source PostgreSQL).
Chad showed that VMware vMition could move workloads from servers without solid-state, to servers that are flash-enabled. Lightweight workloads can be moved from DAS-enabled servers to compute-enabled storage devices like their EMC Isilon. (EMC acquired Isilon to offer their me-too version of IBM's Scale-Out NAS [SONAS] product.) EMC announced their first "Solid-State on a PCIe card" from their Project Lightning initiative. These are 320 GB capacity, so they sounded like a me-too versino of IBM's [Fusion-io IOdrive] cards that IBM has had available for quite some time now.
Next, Pat and Chad talked about Big Data. The world is transforming from a manual scale-up model to an automated scale-out architecture. Moving from "islands" to "pools". They used a cute example of Car Insurance. Business Analytics were able to review a safe drivers record, including the driver's Facebook and Twitter activity, and give him a discount, and then review the bad driving habits of another driver, and raise the bad driver's rates.
EMC announced their "GreenPlum Analytics Platform" (GAP?). I often tell people that if you want to predict what EMC will announce next, just look at what IBM announced 18 months ago. This new platform sounds like their me-too version of IBM's [Smart Analytics System].
After EMC, Judith Sim from Oracle introduced the Ed Lee, the Mayor of San Francisco which was just named the "Greenest city in North America". He thanked the audience for contributing an estimated $100 million USD to his local economy. Also, he was happy that by eliminating paper-based handouts and conference materials, the audience saved 1,636 trees.
Mark Hurd, formerly CEO of HP, and now president of Oracle, gave some highlights of 2011, and what Oracle's strategy is going forward. He said that Oracle plans to provide complete stacks, complete choice, and have each component of the stack be best-of-breed. In 2011, Oracle introduced the new MySQL 5.5 database, Java 7 programming language, and the Solaris 11 operating system with ZFS file system. Oracle spent $4 Billion in R&D, and gained 20 percent growth in software licenses, which gave them 33 percent growth fiscally for 2011 year. Oracle acquired Larry Ellison's [Pillar Data] storage company. Oracle also launched a [Database Appliance].
Thomas Kurian, another Oracle executive, finished the keynote session. He started with yet another chart showing the historical transition from Mainframe to Tablet. He indicated that leading-edge OracleDB and their Fusion middleware combined with industry standard hardware provides 5-30x faster queries, 4-10x less disk space, and simplifies the data center footprint. Their Exadata provides what he likes to call "Hierarchical Storage Management" between DRAM, Flash Solid-State, and spinning disk.
(Note: I started my career at IBM in 1986 working on a product called DFHSM, the Data Facility Hierarchical Storage Manager! It is now a vibrant component of DFSMS, part of IBM's z/OS mainframe operating system.)
ps this new announcement is to address that deficiency.Finally, Oracle announced their "Exadata Storage Expansion Rack". Many people realized that the Exadata was under-provisioned for storage, which explains why they have only sold a few thousand of them, so perha
If you are attending Oracle OpenWorld, here are sessions for Tuesday that IBM is featuring. Note the first two are Solution Spotlight sessions at the IBM Booth #1111 where I will be most of the time.
technorati tags: IBM, Oracle, Larry Ellison, Mark Hurd, EMC, Joe+Tucci, Pat Gelsinger, Chad Sakac, Isilon, GreenPlum, OpenWorld, SONAS, Fusion-io, Project+Lightning, VMware, vCenter, vMotion, Exadata, Solaris, MySQL, Java7
#oow11 Oracle OpenWorld - Day 3
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Tuesday morning at the [Oracle OpenWorld 2011] conference started with another keynote session. This time, Michael Dell, founder, chairman and CEO of Dell, Inc., presented. Over the past nine years, he feels "the line between business and IT is going away." Michael claims that "Dell is no longer a PC company", and instead is focusing on data center solutions and services to be more like IBM.
John Fowler, Executive VP for Oracle Hardware, claims that Oracle has a single team for hardware development. The SPARC-T4 is their newest chip, with 8 cores and 64 dynamic threads, running at 3.0 GHz. It has on-chip 10GbE ethernet, PCIe, DDR3 Memory controllers and Crypto features. For storage, Oracle now offers four different offerings:
Edward Screven, Chief Corporate Architect at Oracle, indicated that the new Oracle Linux kernel allows for zero downtime patches, meaning that you can update the OS while applications are running without a reboot. The OracleVM (based on open-source XEN) supports both x86 and SPARC-based server hosts. On x86, it can run Linux, Solaris and Windows guests. On SPARC, it can run Linux and Solaris guests.
John Loaiza, Oracle Senior VP, explained the Exadata. It has 168 disk drives and 56 PCIe Flash Cards, connected via 40Gbps Infiniband. The Exadata keeps all data on spinning disk, with "warm data" cached on Flash, and "hot data" cached on DRAM. This is similar to IBM's Easy Tier feature on the DS8000, SVC and Storwize V7000.
Brad Cameron, Senior Director, explained Exalogic, which pre-dates Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The idea was to build an x86 machine for running Java applications on Oracle WebLogic. The Exalogic can connect via Infiniband to an Exadata to access database information, and to 10GbE ethernet for the rest of the servers and clients. Whether you get the quarter, half or full-rack system, you get 40TB of NAS storage.
Ganesh Ramamurthy, Oracle VP of Hardware Engineering, presented the SPARC Supercluster. This combines the storage cells from Exadata, the compute nodes from Exalogic, shared NAS storage using ZFS file system, and Solaris 11 with OracleVM. Taking a cue from IBM's zEnterprise Unified Resource Manager, Oracle is offering centralized management for all the layers in their SPARC Supercluster stack. The SPARC Supercluster is intended as general purpose machine, and can be used to run non-Oracle applications like SAP. From a storage perspective, he claims that the storage in the SPARC Supercluster is 2.5x better than EMC VMAX, which basically puts it comparable to IBM XIV pricing.
For my readers in San Francisco attending Oracle OpenWorld, here are some sessions that IBM is featuring on Wednesday. Note the first two are Solution Spotlight sessions at the IBM Booth #1111 where I will be most of the time.
technorati tags: IBM, Oracle, John Fowler, Exadata, Exalogic, SPARC, SPARC-T4, Supercluster, Easy+Tier
#oow11 Oracle OpenWorld Day 4 Cisco Keynote with John Chambers
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Wednesday morning at the [Oracle OpenWorld 2011] conference started with another keynote session. This time, Safra Catz, CFO and President of Oracle, introduced John Chambers, CEO of Cisco.
John says Cisco is helping to "empower the customer through market transitions." This includes helping customers decide how to deploy new technology, choosing between integrated stacks and interoperable components, scaling the business with a flat IT budget, and how/when to decide on moving to the cloud.
(FTC Disclosure: IBM resells Cisco switches and directors and are considered a partner in this sense. If you are going to buy Cisco switches and directors, please consider buying them through IBM.)
The information economy is transitioning to a networked one. Access to information is not as important as access to expertise. Process and Procedures are not as important as Communities and Relationships. The old style Command-and-Control management is giving way to Collaboration. He showed a chart that showed the evolution from routed/bridged networks to packet/mobile and video. He also had a chart that showed the evolution from Main
High Tech companies must re-invent themselves to stay relevant. Here were Cisco's five "Foundational Priorities":
He gave a demo of Cisco UCS. This is a 4U collection of server blades, with up to 384GB of DRAM using 8GB DIMMs, or 192GB using much-cheaper 4GB DIMMs. There are 2 switches with 8 ports each 10GbE, for a total of 160 Gbps, that can carry both Ethernet and FCoE traffic. The UCS System Manager is similar to IBM's Unified Resource Manager in that it manages the entire box. A "service profile" has 40 to 50 BIOS settings that can be applied to give each x86 blade a specific personality. You can re-provision these by changing their service profile as needed.
The next demo was really cool. They took video that involved people talking, and had it "machine transcribed" so that you can read the words being said in the video. Type in a word like "tolerances" in the search engine, and the video advances exactly to the spot where that word is uttered.
The next demo after that involved a special camera for monitoring High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes in traffic. In an example used in London, UK, the camera can see inside the car and confirm there are enough people to justify HOV usage, and if not, scan the license plate and charge the owner of the vehicle a fine. (In a sense, "Big Data" analytics combined with Cisco's vision of ubiquitous video equals [Big Brother])
In another slam against Oracle, John actually backed up his claims with published benchmarks. He wrapped up his talk with: "If I have done my job well, then you will all leave this room a bit uncomfortable." Not surprisingly, John didn't mention either the vBlock relationship with EMC, or the FlexPod relationship with NetApp.
technorati tags: IBM, Oracle, OpenWorld, Cisco, John Chambers, Keynote
#oow11 Oracle OpenWorld Day 4 Keynote from InfoSys Consulting
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Wednesday afternoon at the [Oracle OpenWorld 2011] conference started with another keynote session. In a last minute substitution, Oracle OpenWorld rescheduled Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff's keynote from Wednesday to a Thursday 8:00am morning general session, to make room for S. D. Shibulal, CEO of InfoSys Consulting.
(Forbes Magazine considers InfoSys the #15 [most innovative company]. To give this some context, Salesforce.com and Amazon.com are #1 and #2, Google and Apple are in the top 10, and Oracle is #77. )
S.D. started out saying that "Today is October 4, a very important day in history!" This was October 6, so everybody was a bit confused, checking their watches and tablets to confirm what day it was. What he was referring to was the first trans-pacific flight that happened October 4 exactly 80 years ago, the pilots were awarded medals and accolades for this tremendous achievement. This year, trans-pacific flights happen every day, and nobody raises an eyebrow. I looked this up, and the first trans-pacific flight happened [June 9, 1928] from California to Australia involved stops in Hawaii and Fiji, but [Clyde Edward Pangborn] is remembered for his October 4, 1931 flight as the first non-stop flight, from Japan to Seattle, Washington. His point, however, is that innovation has a lot of "firsts" that people don't realize until things are commonplace.
If you look at the 1991 list of Fortune 500 companies, only 25 percent of these still are in operation today (IBM is one of them!) The rest failed to stay relevant, to reach and scale as needed for market transitions. He gave examples of travel agencies and the Encyclopedia Brittanica that failed to adapt in the face of [dis
Ming Tsai, Managing Director and Chief Client Office of InfoSys, asked a series of questions:
He showed a product called "Social Edge" from InfoSys that determines "sentiment analysis". Users can co-create their own user experience.
Paul Gottsegen, InfoSys, explained how "Mobility" is challenging existing business models. Their latest product "mConnect" offers to link web applications to any mobile device. This includes healthcare monitoring, cash for the 50 percent of the world that are "unbanked", and even Cable TV on an iPad. He brought on stage Bill Tucker, VP of IT at Nordstrom, a retail outlet of fine clothing.
(I have a collection of Nordstrom jackets that I had bought in San Francisco Union Square throughout the years. Every time that I fly from Tucson to San Francisco, especially in the summer, it is freezing cold, and I need to buy a jacket. This time I was prepared, and brought several of me jackets with me.)
Bill explained that people are not comparing their end-user experience at Nordstrom's with direct competitors like Macy's, but rather with all of their other end-user experiences like that at Starbuck's coffee, or the Apple store. This raises the bar in customer expectations. Nordstrom has been force to make drastic improvements to keep up with these expectations.
Prasad Thirkutam, InfoSys, asked if supply chains are agile and adaptive enough. He mentioned that 40 percent of Flash memory and 60 percent of circuit boards are made in Japan that were recently hit by an earthquake and tsunami. He explained product "Demand-to-Deliver" solution from InfoSys that provides multi-level inventory, identifying the safety stock levels based on various analytics. This reduces waste by 7 percent, and shortens cash from 60 days to 40 days.
Prasad introduced Vin Melvin, CIO of Arrow Electronics. His focus is to get data "correct". To increase end-to-end speed to handle order changes and cancelations, and to optimize and re-balance supply chain as needed.
(FTC Disclosure: Arrow is a distributor of IBM equipment. I have worked with Arrow many years.)
technorati tags: IBM, Oracle, OpenWorld, InfoSys
#oow11 Oracle OpenWorld Day 4 Oracle Announcements
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The last keynote session of the [Oracle OpenWorld 2011] conference was Oracle making a few major announcements.
Steve Miranda, Senior VP for Oracle Applications, explained the new "Fusion 11g Apps" which are now generally available. Basically, they took all the scattered applications they have from acquisitions of PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel and so on, and re-wrote them to industry-standard Java so that they would all run either on-premise or in the Cloud. The Enterprise Apps come in seven categories: Financials like General Ledger and Payroll; Human Capital Management (HCM) formerly known as Human Resources; Supply Chain Management (SCM); Customer Relationship Management (CRM); Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC); Procurement; and Project/Portfolio Management (PPM). Oracle also has "Industry Apps" for specific verticals.
All of these apps have "embedded BI" (business intelligence), such as dashboards, multi-dimensional calculations, decision support, and real-time optimization. This is intended to help the end-user answer four questions:
Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO, said that it took six years to rewrite all the Fusion Apps. They used an "agile" development model with over 200 early adopters to ensure that these applications were successful. They were under a "controlled release program" but now that is over, and the applications are generally available. Larry indicates that these applications were developed under the concepts of Service Oriented Architecture [SOA], which neither Salesforce.com nor SAP R3 have.
(This made me chuckle. SOA was initially developed by IBM and Microsoft, but is now industry standard. There is no reason not to develop software that isn't SOA.)
Following the IBM model, Oracle has built-in the security at the OS, Database and Middleware layer, rather than in each application. As IBM has understood for several decades, a secure infrastructure is the way to go so that all applications are secure.
With all these Fusion Apps now re-written so that they work on industry-standard Java (J2EE, actually), allowing them to run either on-premise or out on the Cloud, Larry Ellison said "I guess we need a Cloud!" This started his announcement of the "Oracle Public Cloud" [OPC]. OPC has both PaaS and SaaS. The PaaS would offer VM instances with support for database and Java services. The SaaS would be all the Fusion Apps rented on the "as-a-service" model. Rather than force everyone to Oracle 11g, you can run any Oracle database on OPC, and you can run any Java or J2EE application on the OPC.
Your data is portable. Larry is pro-choice, and wants people to be able to move from any cloud to any cloud. Since it's based on industry-standard Java, applications can move seamlessly between OPC, Amazon EC2 and IBM SmartCloud. IBM has been a major force behind [Open Cloud Standards], so it is always good that other major vendors follow suit.
He quoted [someone as saying "Beware of False Clouds"] This was Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff's attack against all "Private Cloud" IT vendors. Larry twisted this to say he agrees, "True Clouds" are based on open industry standards, and "False Clouds" are vendor-lockin. OPC is based on Java, J2EE, XML, BPEL and Ruby on Rails, whereas Salesforce.com is based on proprietary Heroku and APEX. He called Salesforce.com the "Roach Motel of Cloud Computing" .. you can check in, but you can't check out.
OPC plans to offer some "data sources", including Dun&Bradstreet news feed, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. It is based on a monthly subscription using a self-service portal. The resources are elastic, with capacity delivered on demand. He claims that Salesforce.com is rate-limited, and cancels long-running jobs if they are consuming too many resources. Larry said OPC would never do that.
Larry said that there are private-only offerings like SAP R3, and public-only offerings like Salesforce.com, Workday, and Taleo, but Oracle instead has adopted the IBM model of supporting choice between private, public and hybrid clouds.
Larry then attacked "Multi-tenancy", specifically, the idea that SaaS providers often use a single database instance, but then create a column to identify which records belong to which tenants. He said this was state-of-the-art 15 years ago, but is a bad idea now. Too risky. Instead, Larry's OPC has unique database instances for each tenant through virtualization.
Larry also announced the Oracle Social Network (OSN). This is a corporate-version of Facebook, that supports collaboration and file-sharing, similar to IBM [LotusLive], Google Docs, or Microsoft Office365. All of the Fusion Apps are written to interface directly with the OSN or any of these other social networks through APIs. This includes navigation and integrated social networking. He also indicated that all Fusion Apps run on mobile devices. He showed the SAP R3 GUI, and said it reminded him of "the fins on a 1968 Cadillac!"
Larry said that other CRM SaaS focus on helping sales managers track their employees, but Oracle's CRM helps sellers sell more.
He then gave an example of a mythical sales manager Bob, and his sales employee Julian, selling two Exadata boxes for $4.8 Million USD. A "safe harbor" statement was shown at the beginning of this keynote, to make sure nobody asks to buy Exadata boxes this cheap.
technorati tags: IBM, SmartCloud, LotusLive, Oracle, OpenWorld, Larry Ellison, Marc Bernioff, Salesforce.com, Workday, Taleo, SAP, Oracle Public Cloud, Oracle Social Network, SaaS, PaaS,
#oow11 Oracle OpenWorld Day 5 Monday and Tuesday Photos
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I took over a hundred pictures at this event. Here are a few of my favorites from Monday and Tuesday.
I want to thank the IBM-Oracle Alliance team, especially Nancy Spurry and Carolann Kohler for having me involved in these events.
technorati tags: IBM, JD Edwards, Oracle, OpenWorld, EoS, Weinstein Gallery, Integer Math, Power 795, EMC, Booth Babes, San Francisco, Moscone, City Hall, Nancy Spurry, Carolann Kohler
#oow11 Oracle OpenWorld Day 5 Final Thoughts
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This post concludes my series of posts on Oracle OpenWorld 2011 conference. Here are some pictures from Wednesday and Thursday.
Despite the sad news about Steve Jobs, I had a great time at this conference. I learned a lot about what other IT vendors are doing, talked to dozens of IBM clients at the booth, and got to make some new friends that work in other parts of IBM.
(FTC Disclosure: I work for IBM. IBM and Apple are technology partners. I proudly own an Apple iPod, several Mac Mini computers and shares of stock in both IBM and Apple, Inc.)
technorati tags: IBM, Violin+Memory, GPFS, Americas+Cup, Netezza, DB2, POWER, HP, Salesforce.com, Steve Jobs, Hilton, Union Square, Standford University, , Treasure Island, Sting, Tom Petty, English Beat
October 2011 Announcements - Part 1
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Well, it's Tuesday, and you know what that means... IBM announcements!
In today's environment, clients expect more from their storage, and from their storage provider. The announcements span the gamut, from helping to use Business Analytics to analyze Big Data for trends, insights and patterns, to managing private, public and hybrid cloud environments, all with systems that are optimized for their particular workloads.
There are over a dozen different announcements, so I will split these up into separate posts. Here is part 1.
I am very excited about all these announcements! It is a good time to be working for IBM, and look forward to sharing these exciting enhancements with clients at the Tucson EBC.
technorati tags: IBM, SONAS, GPFS, SAS, NL-SAS, Active Cloud Engine, Global+Namespace, Storwize+V7000, V7000U, V7000 Unified, block-only, block-and-file, SVC, SSD, Easy Tier, Flash-and-Stash, Texas Memory Systems, Pure Storage, Violin Memory
October 2011 Announcements - Part 2
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This week, IBM made over a dozen announcements related to IBM storage products. Here is part 2 of my overview:
My colleague Curtis Neal refers to these as "B.F.D" announcements, which of course stands for Bigger, Faster, Denser!
technorati tags: IBM, DS8000, DS8700, DS8800, Easy Tier, FICON, zHPF, WLM, DB2, SAS, NL-SAS, , XIV, STN6500, STN6800, EXP2500, Curtis Neal
October 2011 Announcements - Part 3
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IBM had over a dozen storage-related announcements this week. This is my third and final part in my series to provide a quick overview of the announcements.
Whew! I have already heard from some of my readers to slow down, that this is too much information to deal with all at once. IBM has tried everything from having just a few announcements nearly every Tuesday, to having huge launches every two to three years, and settled in the middle with announcements about four to five times per year.
technorati tags: IBM, Tivoli, Storage, TSM, backup, HSM, archive, FlashCopy, FlashCopy hManager, , VE, VMware, vCenter, Cognos, TPC, MRE, TPC Select
Next Week - Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce Technology Thursday
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Last year, I presented "The Future of Storage" in seven cities across Australia and New Zealand. Then, back in August, I presented "The Future of IT Storage" as an [InfoBoom Webinar] from Calgary in Canada.
This was a big success, and triggered the idea from our mid-market events team to have me travel across United States and meet with clients face-to-face in an informal setting. This started with a [Lunch-and-Learn at Indianapolis].
Next week, I will be in Atlanta. I will be presenting "The Future of IT Storage" at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce [Technology Thursday]. Here are the details:
Contact Catherine Pearson (no relation) at (404)586-8429 if you want to register!
technorati tags: IBM, the Future of Storage, Atlanta, InfoBoom, Technology Thursday
Harley Puckett Files his First Patent!
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An exciting day for my colleague Harley Puckett, who filed his first patent! I am no longer the only patent holder in the Tucson EBC.
Our manager Bill Terry presented Harley with a "First Patent" plaque that he will add to his crowded wall of awards. IBM is the [#1 leader in U.S. Patents for the past 18 years in a row], and encourages all engineers to file invention disclosures.
Congratulations Harley!
technorati tags: IBM, Harley Puckett, Bill Terry, patent
Metro Atlanta Chamber - Technology Thursday
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Yesterday, I presented [The Future of Storage] at the [Metro Atlanta Chamber].
The Metro Atlanta Chamber (MAC) is focused on bringing businesses and jobs into the Metro Atalanta area, and to help its members connect with other companies that can help them thrive. The MAC cover the Metropolitan region of Atlanta (5.8 million people) and 28 counties in Georgia.
The event was called "Technology Thursday", where the MAC holds a meeting on the third Thursday of every month, to discuss technology issues. The audience was a mix of business owners, sales executives, and managers. The event allowed for people to network with each other, as well as learn something new from a subject matter expert. This was the last one for 2011, to avoid conflicts with upcoming holidays in November and December.
I spoke for an hour, then we raffled off two copies of my latest book, ["Inside System Storage: Volume II"].
Special thanks to Catherine Pearson, Nancy Whatley, and Jim Beach from the MAC, and Karen Harrison from IBM for their support of this event!
technorati tags: IBM, Metro Atlanta Chamber, MAC, Future, Storage
Upcoming IBM Technical Conferences for November 2011
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Here are upcoming conferences I will be presenting at for November 2011.
Next week, I will be in Auckland, New Zealand for the [IBM System x and System Storage Technical Symposium], similar to the one I attended in Orlando, Florida last July. Here are the sessions I will present:
The week after that, I will be in Melbourne, Australia for the [IBM System x and System Storage Technical Symposium]. Here are the sessions I will present:
In December, I will be going to Gartner's Data Center Conference in Las Vegas, but the agenda has not been finalized, so I will save that for another post.
technorati tags: IBM, Storage Symposium, Auckland, New Zealand, Melbourne, Australia, Storwize V7000, XIV, Storage Strategy, Smarter Computing, Encryption, Information Archive, Tivoli Storage, Productivity Center, TPC, SONAS, SBSC, TS3500, LTFS
IBM and FOX win an Emmy for LTFS
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IBM wins lots of awards, but this time is unique: [IBM and Fox Networks Group have jointly won an Engineering Emmy® Award] for Innovation from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. According to the Academy, by improving the ability of media companies to capture, manage and exploit content in digital form, IBM and Fox have fundamentally changed the way that audio and video content is managed and stored. Here's an excerpt from the IBM Press Release:
Last year, in my posts [Double the Storage Capacity - Double the Fun!], [Happy E.A.R.T.H day!], [Local IBM Team recognized by Arizona Daily Star], and [On Cirago Docking Stations, IBM RDX and LTFS], I had referred to LTFS by its prior name, the Long Term File System. People keep archives on tape because it is a great medium for long term retention.
Unfortunately, people didn't like the name, but they loved the acronym, so it was renamed to Linear Tape File System. IBM offers LTFS single-drive edition on its LTO-5 and TS1140 tape drives, and LTFS library-edition across all of its tape libraries. Since everyone hates proprietary vendor lock-in, IBM has graciously shared LTFS as an open source standard with the rest of the Linear Tape Open consortium.
(Note: I was not there at the awards ceremony. The pictures were taken by Ed Childers, David Pease and Rainer Richter of each other. Additional photos are available on this [Flicr photo album].)
(1) Rainer Richter, Media Technology Market Partners LLC [MTMP], presenting the Emmy to Steve Canepa, IBM General Manager for Media and Entertainment industry. MTMP is an IBM Business Partner that offers integrated solutions for LTO and LTFS, consulting, services, and technology to the media and entertainment industry…
(2) Ed Childers, IBM manager of the Tape Drive Development team, holding the Emmy. Fellow IBM blogger Steve Hamm credits Ed on coming up with the idea for LTFS seven years ago, in his blog post [Coding and Loading in Las Vegas: How a Team of IBM Researchers Helped Transform the Way Video is Stored]. Ed wanted to make tape storage easier to use and to integrate it into the workflow of networks and studios, and suggested using an indexing system that would allow people to write software that would make video more accessible.
(3) David Pease, IBM Senior Technical Staff Member from the IBM Almaden Research Center, holding the Emmy. Along with Lucas Villa Real (IBM Brazil) and Michael Richmond (IBM Almaden), David and his team were able to come up with a working prototype in just four months. Michael discusses this in his posts [Tape? Does anyone care about Tape anymore?"] and [the Emmy goes to... LTFS].
If David and Ed look familiar, it is because I had their picture on my blog back in May when [LTFS won 2011 NAB Show Pick Hits award]. For more from the IBM Almaden Research team, see their blog post [We won an Emmy!]
Of course, Technology is only worthwhile if you put it to use. Our friends at FOX initially partnered with IBM to develop this video archive solution for the National Football League (NFL). If there is one place that "re-purposes" a lot of video footage, it is sports television. The technology proved so useful that FOX has since expanded it to other types of programming.
technorati tags: IBM, FOX, Emmy, Ed Childers, David Pease, Steve Canepa, Michael Richmond, Rainer Richter, MTMP, Almaden Research Center, LTFS, LTO-5, TS1140, Media and Entertainment, Steve Hamm


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Bringing you Breakfast and Lunch 7 Days a week!
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We serve Breakfast and Lunch from 6:30am – 2:00pm 7 Days a week!
Check out our Recent Posts!
Our Twitter Feed
What are guests are saying
Upon ordering Slingers Larry S says - Chef "Mat" from Meadowbrook Country Club crested the fish. Candy Carmel bacon no less. Awesome.
Larry S, via Urban Spoon
We went here today for breakfast and felt the quality of food and service was excellent! It is in the Schnuck's plaza opposite Crazy Bowls & Wraps (Olive/Mason). I had an egg white omelet and my fiance had the biscuits and gravy. Both were great with really excellent. I love the quality of accompaniments (house made apple butter or strawberry vanilla jam) as well as side dishes (low fat cottage cheese, kale salad, roasted mushrooms). I'd love to come back for lunch and try their bison burger or lamb burger. They have a full bar, wait staff service and an outdoor patio. Tom, a co-owner, has amazing restaurant experience and we know this will be a success.
Michele S., via Yelp
I went to Olive Street Cafe with some works friends yesterday. I had no idea what to expect until I sat down and saw the food that was being ordered around me. The location is right around the corner of Crazy Bowls and Wraps where the old Quidoba used to be. The breakfast looks fantastic but we went for lunch. I ordered the Cobb Sandwich and it was delicious. My friend also ordered the same thing as me and loved it. Another person ordered the Steak Sandwich with Garlic Rosemary Asiago Fries and said it was one of the juiciest and enjoyable sandwiches he has had in a long time. Prices are reasonable too! Steak Sandwich- $10.50 Cobb Sandwich- $10.95
Jason K, Yelp
We had breakfast here this morning and it was wonderful! I had a skillet, with eggs, spinach, turkey sausage and the potatoes with sausage gravy and white cheddar cheese on top and it was delicious. You can have it anyway you want it, they have many veggies, meats and cheeses to choose from. My husband had the homemade granola in yogurt and bananas on top, this granola is not your store bought granola, it's a treat! The preserves are house made and so good. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming. This will be a regular stop of ours from now on. It's on Olive at Mason in the outbuilding in the Schnucks parking lot.
Robin O, Yelp
This menu is AMAZING!! So fresh, so local, so inventive. This is our new go-to breakfast and lunch spot. You can taste the difference in the ingredients they use. Every bite was AWESOME. We had a skillet and a yogurt/granola bowl. Everything is house made, including the jellies (strawberry vanilla!!) Seriously. The food is incredible and reasonably priced. Plus they sell booze. Sunday Funday!! It's in the old Qdoba spot near Schnucks. The wait staff is very knowledgeable and friendly. We can't wait to go back.
Sara M, Yelp

subset: commoncrawl


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"Climbing the Riffelberg" is satire at its finest. The story, taken from the travel report "A tramp abroad" from 1881, was written by none other than Mark Twain (1835 - 1910): helmsman on the Mississippi, gold-digger, gossip reporter, travel writer and author of the classics "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".
Twain visited Zermatt on his second European journey through Germany, Switzerland and Italy. He arrived there on the 27th August 1878, at three o'clock in the afternoon, accompanied by his friend, the Reverend Harris Twichell, and initially stayed in the village, probably in the Hotel Monte Rosa, which is mentioned in the story. He must have stayed longer at the Riffelalp or on the Riffelberg, however – which was also scene of the events recorded.
The Riffelberg was not yet accessible by train at the time, and was certainly not an easy stroll. The appeal of the Riffelberg episode, which can be easily read within an hour, arises from the heroic and completely exaggerated presentation of an expedition, with 205 participants, including mules, cows, ironing ladies and pastry chefs – crazily equipped with 22 barrels of whiskey, 154 umbrellas, 27 bottles of opium tincture ... It was Twain's intensive reading of the reports of mountaineers on the first evening of his arrival that led him to take literary action in his typically satirical manner. In this respect, "Climbing the Riffelberg" is also a unique homage to the genus of mountaineering reports, and a piece of world literature.
Twain for gourmets: browse through Twain's books while enjoying the view from the Mark Twain Terrace of the Riffelalp Resort.
Twain for literary hikers: Mark Twain Trail from Riffelberg to the Riffelalp in 50 minutes downhill.
Twain for sturdy hikers: Arvenweg Trail over the Findelbach to the Riffelalp (2 hours), Swiss Topwalk to the Riffelberg (30 min.), uphill.
Twain for the reader with tired feet: "Climbing the Riffelberg/ Riffelberg-Besteigung". Published by Verlag Dorfpresse, in a bound edition, in two languages, with illustrations from the original issue of 1881.
Scenes taken amongst others on Gornergrat in Zermatt. With the 4000ers Monte Rosa, Lyskamm, Breithorn, Castor, Pollux, Klein Matterhorn and Matterhorn, called by Mark Twain "The Napoleon of the Mountain World".
See video link "Mark Twain".


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Seasoned dev on the mobile web
Portland, Oregon
Head First Mobile Web
by Lyza Danger Gardner, Jason Grigsby
December 2011
Webcast: The Mobile Omnivore: A Taste Test of Mobile Website Development
April 03, 2012
The mobile web is a complex place. There are lots of ways to build a mobile website—how do you choose the right tool for the job?
"A great reference if you are considering adapting your Web site for your users phones and tablets, creating mobile Web apps that use offline mode and geolocation, and making your sites future friendly."
--Rhonda Lunemann, Technical Communication, Volume 59, Number 4, November 2012
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Walking in Swansea, Mumbles & Gower
Thinking of stretching your legs around Swansea, Mumbles and Gower? Walking is one of the most popular things to do here. Our survey says so. And we're not surprised – the routes you can take are all pretty special.
Walking Routes
Take an easy stroll along the prom or a more challenging hike across moorland, along the Gower Coast Path or through woodlands, it's your call. And there are plenty of Gower walks with cosy pubs along the way. The perfect setting to stop and drink up the views over a pint of locally brewed beer!
The Great Outdoors
It's great to get outdoors, and there are plenty of great walking routes here. The whole gang can buff up on their history with wonderful ancient buildings and landmarks along the way. Explore the gentle trails around the Lliw Valley reservoir, where you don't need to be at the coast to see water!
In Swansea Bay, you can walk along over 400 miles of public rights of way. Make the climb to Penlle'r Castell and you will find yourself at Swansea's highest point with amazing views, but don't just take our word for it!
Along the trails you can absorb picturesque fishing villages, vibrant towns and villages and even feel like a royal in the occasional unconquered castle. Venturing to the most westernmost point of Gower, you will find "glorious" Rhossili home of award winning walks, impressive hey!
Wales Coast Path
One of Swansea and Gower's biggest walking highlights opened in 2012, and we love it! The Wales Coast Path allows walkers to explore almost the entire Welsh coastline, now that's a lot of coast to conquer! Taking you through the country's heritage, communities and jaw dropping landscapes it's definitely a special place. Financially supported by Government bodies and European funding this spectacular pathway is kept in tip top condition and available for all to enjoy.
Keep those eyes peeled for a café to enjoy some rewarding post hike cake or ice cream!
Whether you are donning your walking boots as an individual or a group, with days to fill or just a few hours, we have organisations and experts who will help you put your best foot forward.
Check out some of our fantastic walking routes in Swansea, Mumbles & Gower.
Useful links
Click the links below for more information. Your options include walking routes, more information about walking in Swansea Bay, Walkers Welcome graded accommodation and our photo gallery of walks in Swansea Bay.


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If you're wondering where heaven on Earth is, it's in China. Surprising, I know. But it's undeniable after you see this ginormous pink and green ball pit found at the Kerry Hotel in Shanghai. It's the world's largest ball pit and stretches over 80 feet long and 40 feet wide. The pit is filled with the amazingness of one million plastic balls.
It'll only be heaven on Earth for a second though because once people start diving into this ball pit, dirt, piss, sweat, spit, tears, blood and every single imaginable bodily fluid will taint the beautiful one million ball oasis. But who cares when you're surrounded by the gravity of plastic orbs.
The ball pit was created by emptying out the Kerry Hotel's pool and was made to help raise awareness for breast cancer in China. Over 300 recovering cancer patients dove in on October 30th to break the Guinness World Records of largest ball pit ever. I got next. You can see more pictures of the ball pit at MyModernMet.


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Election and voter ID claims get examined
Today ends a long -- and often annoying -- season of political ads, robocalls from famous politicians and glossy fliers sitting in your mailbox from someone who wants your vote.
PolitiFact Georgia decided to take a look back at a few claims about voting and elections that have been tested on the Truth-O-Meter this election cycle.
Below are abbreviated versions of these fact checks. Look for the complete versions at the PolitiFact online sites. Want to comment on our Truth-O-Meter rulings? It's easy. Just go to our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/politifact.georgia?fref=ts. Readers can follow us on Twitter at PolitiFactGA.


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LONDON (AP) — Where's Wallace?
A collection of 81 sculptures of ingenious animated dog Gromit has netted more than 2.3 million pounds ($3.7 million) at a charity auction in England.
The 5-foot (1.52-meter) dogs were on display across the city of Bristol over the summer, and had been decorated by artists and designers including Cath Kidston, Paul Smith and Quentin Blake.
The top lot was Gromit Lightyear — designed by Pixar and based on the "Toy Story" character. It sold for 65,000 pounds ($104,000).
The funds raised from Thursday's sale will go toward the expansion of Bristol Children's Hospital.
Bristol is the home city of Aardman Animations, which created the stop-motion comedy series about cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his dog.


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Optimize signal integrity and reduce data-transmission errors in performance-critical applications
Advanced Phase Synchronization Capabiliites with Multiple RF PLLs using TI's LMX2594
Get Your Clocks in Sync: Hardware Setup
Get Your Clocks in Sync: Software Setup
TPS92830-Q1 Automotive LED controller demo
TI Solutions for Clock and Timing
Hercules How to Tutorial: Force a Clock Monitor Failure
Engineer It: How to control synthesizer phase noise
Engineer It: How to design with excellent PLL & VCO noise performance
Engineer It: How to ehance accuracy in radar applications
Engineer It: How to measure additive jitter in fanout buffers
Achieving Ultra-Low Power design in Always-On and Power Cycled applications with Nanopower Op Amps and Nanotimers
LMK03328 ultra low jitter clock generator step by step design-in process
This 3-part video series outlines the design process for the LMK03328 ultra-low-jitter clock generator. The series covers the WEBENCH Clock Architect design and simulation process, using the TICS Pro EVM GUI software with WEBENCH design report to help configure the
Local oscillator and GHz clocks requirements in Radio applications systems with LMX2594
This training series discusses the key requirements of local oscillator in microwave/RF and GHz clocks in radio applications. The topics covered establish the key relationships between the requirements of a signal source and their impact in a radio system. After this training, you will be armed with the ability to understand the system requirements of your customer and how they pertain to a signal source so you can engage with your customer in a very meaningful way.


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Nuclear Power: An Indispensable Climate Change Solution
By Edward Geist
Joe Romm clarifies his position on nuclear power:
Why not more than 1 total wedge of nuclear? Based on a post last year on the Keystone report, to do this by 2050 would require adding globally, an average of 17 plants each year, while building an average of 9 plants a year to replace those that will be retired, for a total of one nuclear plant every two weeks for four decades — plus 10 Yucca Mountains to store the waste. I also doubt it will be among the cheaper options. And the uranium supply and non-proliferation issues for even that scale of deployment are quite serious. See "An introduction to nuclear power."Romm's take on nuclear power is not particularlywell-informed, as I've discussed in the past. But examining its limited role in his proposed solution reveals that Romm has not seriously considered the physical limitations associated with his preferred energy options. For political, geographical, and practical reasons, nuclear power must ultimately play a vastly larger role in our energy future than predicted by Romm.
Note to all: Do I want to build all those nuclear plants. No. Do I think we could do it without all those nuclear plants. Definitely. Therefore, should I be quoted as saying we "must" build all those nuclear plants, as the Drudge Report has, or even that I propose building all those plants? No. Do I think we will have to swallow a bunch of nuclear plants as part of the grand bargain to make this all possible and that other countries will build most of these? I have no doubt. So it stays in "the solution" for now.
Romm describes his preferred future energy mix as follows:
1 of wind for power — one million large (2 MW peak) wind turbinesWhat's wrong with this picture?
1 of wind for vehicles –another 2000 GW wind. Most cars must be plug-in hybrids or pure electric vehicles.
3 of concentrated solar thermal (aka solar baseload)– ~5000 GW peak.
3 of efficiency — one each for buildings, industry, and cogeneration/heat-recovery for a total of 15 to 20 million GW-hrs. A key strategy for reducing direct fossil fuel use for heating buildings (while also reducing air conditioning energy) is geothermal heat pumps.
1 of solar photovoltaics — 2000 GW peak
1/2 wedge of nuclear power– 350 GW
4000 GW wind, 5000 GW solar thermal, 2000 GW solar photovoltaic. This is an increase of two orders of magnitude for wind and three for both types of solar. I notice that the capacity factor assumptions implied by Romm are quite high. Wind turbines are now a fairly mature technology, so its economics are increasingly apparent, but the costs solar thermal and solar photovoltaic are still unclear. But for the sake of argument I'm willing to grant Romm that maybe in 2050 these technologies will be cost-competitive. The important thing is that the qualitative limitations of these sources of energy go far beyond cost. With the possible exception of a handful of exceptionally well-endowed nations, investment in solar and wind can NEVER assure energy security.
Solar and wind generators depends on the ambient energy resources available in the locations where they are installed. There is, of course, no place on earth where the sun shines all the time, and not many where the wind always blows. So these are intermittent resources by nature. But some countries are better-endowed than others. Imagine, if you will, a future world of 2050 with the energy supply specified by Romm. Some nations, such as Russia, would be unable to meet their own generation needs through wind and solar power. They could import electricity from abroad, but they would have to compete with other markets such as India and China for it. Not only would this make energy expensive, but it would also place Russia at the mercy of its energy suppliers. Hostile states could cripple Russia's economy by interrupting its energy supplies. States exporting renewable energy would also have substantial incentive to underproduce to both encourage uncertainty and raise energy prices. There would be little incentive to produce enough energy for the have-nots, especially since electricity transmission would make them largely captive markets, unlike present-day oil importers. Countries without abundant renewable energy resources would therefore have a desperate need for more secure energy supplies.
Hence the reason why nuclear energy is likely to dominate our energy future. Because relatively few nations have the renewable resources needed to support their economies themselves (just how many depends on how these technologies develop), the most logical step for them to take to secure their post-carbon energy security is to invest in nuclear energy infrastructure. They would have every reason to doubt that other countries would build the infrastructure needed to provide them with affordable and reliable energy, as it would be in those states' interest to underfulfill their needs. Even in a world where renewable energy technology could fulfill all of the world's energy needs affordably, geographic realities would make nuclear power more attractive.
I do not actually believe that wind and solar power are cheaper than nuclear, but my point is that the barriers to a world powered by solar and wind are not merely technological, but geographical, political and economic. I do not expect that solar thermal electricity will cost less than nuclear electricity in 2050, but even if it did this would not translate into energy security for most of the world. Only the provision of non-intermittent energy sources with the ability to store months' or years' worth of energy will secure the interests of these nations. And nuclear power fits these requirements.
In 2050, I expect there to be far more than 350-700 GW of new nuclear plants in operation. In fact, I would not be surprised by 5000-6000 GW of new nuclear by this point. Most of this will probably consist of mass-produced Generation IV reactors, including ALMRs, PBMRs, and various kinds of MSRs. Not only can these technologies replace fossil-fuel electrical generation anywhere on earth at reasonable cost, but they also allow nations to stockpile decades or even centuries worth of fuel--meaning that even a war or natural catastrophe could potentially have minimal effect on energy production.
The real-world alternative to this is NOT an idealistic future of cooperation, windmills, and solar panels. It is a dystopian nightmare where most of the world continues to burn coal because they lack the ability to domestically produce or import environmentally benign energy. It is a world wracked by war, catastrophe, and want. Even if the myriad technological problems of renewable energy were solved, the simple geographic fact remains that some nations lack sufficient energy resources, be they oil, gas, sunshine, or wind. For this reason, nuclear power is indispensable for averting climate catastrophe. Those who pretend otherwise, such as Romm, are fooling themselves.
What is most amazing about Joe Romm's plan is his utter disregard for cost. Reported costs for wind installations last year ran from $2200 to $2800 per kW, with 2009 estimates running as high as $3000 per kW. Four million MWs of wind generating capacity would run to $12 trillion. That is without storage.
The current cost of ST facilities without storage runs to $4000 per kW. 5000 GWs of St power would cost $20 trillion, again without storage.
Geothermal heat pumps are too expensive for more householders to afford, but probably would work for industrial and commercial buildings. Air Source heat pumps work better for residences.
God only knows how much the PVs will cost. So we get a price tag on Joe's energy plan of $40 trillion or so dollars, without assured 24 hour a day electrical reliability. Is that crazy or what?


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The dinky Damson Pearl portable speakers are the size of a small can of coke - the ones you get on planes - yet deliver a much bigger sound than you would expect.
Like many other speakers that have come before it, the Damson Pearl has a neat trick hidden inside. It uses the surface on which you placing the speaker to amplify and create a much richer sound - something James Talbot, CEO of Damson Audio, was keen to show us when we recently met up with him to see the new range of speakers due out in the UK in the coming months.
But while quiet a few pocket speakers have been using desks, coffee tables and even walls to enhance the sound experience, Damson believes it has one better: wireless stereo pairing.
It means that if you buy two of the company's Pearl speakers (£99) you'll be able to hear stereo sound up to 10m apart, all via Bluetooth and all connected to your computer, your tablet or - more likely than not - your phone.
The speakers work by resonating the sound through the larger surface they have been placed on and then by first connecting one of the speakers to the phone and then connecting the second speaker to the first speaker.
A digital processor manages the audio to ensure there isn't any lag, and based on a quick 5-minute demo we would have to say they sound really good - certainly enough to fill a hotel room, and certainly enough to impress with the bass - as long as you have a surface to vibrate off.
They won't work at picnics, on the carpet or on your bed.
Completing the package, the Pearl features a microphone so you can talk hands-free as well, although we weren't able to test how effective this is.
Those looking for an even bigger sound will be able opt for the Damson Oyster (£179).
Not to be confused with the travel card for the London Underground, and in fact, looking nothing like an actual oyster, the portable speaker the size of a small rugby ball comes with "3D sound" that tries to convince you that there are more speakers in the room than there actually are.
Sadly not using the same resonating trick, although Talbot and we agree it doesn't need it. Audiophiles will be pleased to hear it has four independent drivers powered by 6 amps and the 3D sound aims to give you a more "stage-like" presence.
Again a brief listen in a noisy room sounded good and the Oyster comes with a promised 12-hour battery life and removable grilles - which, says Talbot, you'll be able to swap out to customise the look and feel of your speaker further.
The two new speakers should be available in the UK before April.


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Hello everybody! This is my first tutorial here, so, I hope you will like my "How to Draw chibi Simba", i tried to do my best. :) Good work, guys!
DragoArt members upload artwork and drawing tutorials! They are also allowed to leave comments on tutorials, profiles, etc. Many more features, as well; it's way better than just being a boring guest! Register Now!


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Fin Garden is located in southwest Kashan, Isfahan province. Its reputation is due to a historic event that happened there.
Qajarid Premier Amir Kabir was murdered in a plot hatched by Nassereddin Shah's men in the Fin Bath-house in 1852.
Fin Garden has all the elements of Irani-an gardens. It is somehow similar to Shaz-deh Garden in Mahan, Kerman, the Persian daily Iran wrote.
Spread over 23,000 square meters, the garden has good water resources. It com-prises a central yard, fortification wall and cylindrical towers.
Cedar trees, dating back to 500 years ago, surround the garden and its ponds. Fin Garden has 579 cedar trees and a number of sycamore trees.
There is a water mill on the left side of the garden, which still works.
Fin Garden dates back to the rule of Safavid King Shah Abbas. Even some documents attribute it to Al-e Bouyeh era.
Since Amir Kabir was killed in the bath-house of Fin Garden, a majority of people consider the garden as a Qajar monument.
Remnants of an old garden exist hundreds of meters from Fin Garden. This garden was built during the Il-khanid Era.
The structure of the current garden pertains to the Sa-favid Era. Soleimanieh Spring supplies water to Fin Gar-den, which has been designed by Ghiaseddin Jamshid Kashani.
Other Safavid kings such as Shah Safi and Shah Ab-bas II also implemented measures that helped expand the garden.
Its gateway and mansion were built during the Safavid Era.
Safavid King Soleiman ordered the construction of a platform around Fin Spring. Therefore, its name was changed to Soleimanieh Spring.
The National Museum of Kashan was established in Fin Garden much later.
The Safavid mansion is located at the center of gar-den. Also, there is Qajarid mansion at another end of the garden.
An alcove was added to the garden's monuments after the end of Safavid Era.
Other Features
There is a two-story building at the en-trance of Fin Garden. The first floor in-cludes an entrance hall. There is a salon on the second floor that offers a good view of the garden.
There are paintings from the Safavid Era depicting hunting grounds and descend-ants of a king.
Fin Garden is well-known for its sev-en ponds. One of the ponds, located in the southern part of the garden, has 160 trenches, 80 of which are for water entry and another 80 are for water exit.
Fin Garden has two bathhouses: a small and a large one. Both of them are located in the southern part of the garden.
The small bathhouse dates back to the Safavid Era and the big one pertains to Qa-jar Era.
The bathhouses in Fin Garden attract the largest number of visitors mainly due to the assassination of Amir Kabir in one of the bathhouses (the small one).
Fin Garden was listed as a national heritage in 1935 and registered on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2011 along with eight other Iranian heritage sites
Location: in Kashan
Days of trip: (Without air plane) 1-2 Days from Tehran to Tehran (Without heavy traffic you need About 4-5 hr driving from Tehran to Fin Garden)
Attention: In holidays there is heavy traffic in all roads around Tehran.
Best time to visit:No limit, Spring is the best time.
Daily time visit: No limit
Difficulty level: Easy
Requirements: (Depend on your plan) Guide or GPS track, water, food, warm and waterproof clothes and tent, waterproof shoes, headlamp
Legal permission need: No
Overall risk: -
Animal risk: No
Lost risk: No
Rescue: Yes, you can call 115
GSM Mobile Antenna: Yes
Hotel: in Kashan Yes
Shop: in Kashan Yes
Gasoline: in Kashan Yes
How to get there:
1- Go to Baihaghi terminal of buses in Tehran (more info
2- Take a bus ticket to Kashan.(Distance between Tehran to Kashan is 245 Km)
3- Take a taxi from Kashan to Fin Garden.(Distance between Kashan to Fin Garden is 9 Km)
Nearest airport: Kashan airport (Commissioning)
Nearest train station: kashan station
Location on map:


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Baccara is a go go bar in a unique and fascinating space in the heart of Soi Cowboy, Bangkok. It is intimate, stylish, eclectic and edgy; and if the interior doesn't take your breath away, the layout of the bar is arguably the best in town, as it utilises two floors dramatically.
The ground floor has a raunchy go go dancing stage where the girls wear regular bikinis, but it is on the second floor, where the girls are dressed up in "schoolgirl" outfits and dance on a transparent floor, that leaves nothing to the imagination. Baccara go go bar is an unusually up-market bar in Soi Cowboy where the girls are risqué and the ambience electric.


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The 2012 Meeting of States Parties was held in the Palais des Nations from 10 to 14 December 2012. The meeting opened at 10:00 on Monday 10 December in Room XVIII.
The Meeting of States Parties was chaired by Ambassador Boujemâa Delmi of Algeria. In accordance with the decision of the Seventh Review Conference, the Meeting of States Parties considered the work of the Meeting of Experts (16-20 July 2012) on the three standing agenda items (cooperation and assistance, with a particular focus on strengthening cooperation and assistance under Article X; review of developments in the field of science and technology related to the Convention; and strengthening national implementation), as well as the biennial item of how to enable fuller participation in the Confidence-building Measures (CBMs).
Report of the Meeting of States Parties - BWC/MSP/2012/5
Official documents
BWC/MSP/2012/1/Rev.1 Revised provisional agenda
BWC/MSP/2012/2 2012 Report of the Implementation Support Unit
BWC/MSP/2012/3 Report on universalization activities
BWC/MSP/2012/4 Provisional programme of work
BWC/MSP/2012/5 Report of the Meeting of States Parties
BWC/MSP/2012/L.1 Synthesis of considerations, lessons, perspectives, recommendations, conclusions and proposals drawn from the presentations, statements, working papers and interventions on the topic under discussion at the Meeting of Experts
BWC/MSP/2012/INF.1 International activities of the Government of Canada related to Article X of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention: Update 2012 - submitted by Canada
BWC/MSP/2012/INF.2 List of participants
BWC/MSP/2012/INF.2/Add.1 List of participants
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.1 Next steps on the CBMs: some key questions for 2013 - submitted by the United Kingdom
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.2 The crucial role of life scientists in the effective implementation of the BTWC - submitted by Poland
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.3 The United States Government's Bio-transparency and Openness Initiative - submitted by the United States of America
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.4 Considerations and recommendations to inculcate awareness of the dual-use challenge into biosafety and biosecurity training and education for life scientists in States Parties - submitted by Canada
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.5 National implementation measures in the Republic of Iraq - submitted by Iraq
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.6 National implementation of the BTWC: compliance assessment: update - submitted by Canada, the Czech Republic and Switzerland
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.7 The intersessional process: comments and proposals - submitted by South Africa
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.8 Regional cooperative efforts to combat biological threats: the ASEAN Regional Forum workshops - submitted by Australia, the Philippines and the United States of America
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.9 "Código de Conducta para Científicos". Presentado por Chile, Colombia, España, Italia y México (informal English translation included)
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.10 International cooperation - Submitted by China (informal English translation included)
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.11 We need to talk about compliance. Submitted by Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Switzerland
BWC/MSP/2012/WP.12 Etude de l'UNIDIR sur la création d'un mécanisme de revue par les pairs dans le cadre de la Convention d'interdiction des armes biologiques et à toxines. Présenté par la France (Body text in English)
Communications from the Chairman
Statements by NGOs
Press Releases
Material provided for the meeting
Side Events
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Then I read a couple articles in the New York Times and I became very concerned. This woman does not believe in global warming. Now it is one thing to debate about how and where oil should be obtained from, but it is another to stare such abundant scientific evidence in the face and make the blanket statement that you don't believe it. What will the future of the planet be in the hands of someone who bases their decisions on belief rather than scientific evidence?
But what is scarier is her interest in banning books. At a Wasilla, AK city council meeting she mentioned a list of books that she was interested in banning. The head librarian said that she would resist any attempts at censorship and Palin had her fired. Please see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/politics/03wasilla.html?scp=10&sq=palin&st=cse for the full story.
I guess it is her single-mindedness that frightens me.
In other news, running has been going well. But I'm getting really nervous about our 10 hour triathlon relay on Saturday. I took the big plunge and bought goggles. I guess I'm getting serious.
Running Song of the Day: Id Engager by Of Montreal


text:
Hardware Supported
Important Notice:
The Software AG product compatibility information contained herein is the result from testing performed at the time of receipt of the software from IBM for the individual releases of a specific operating system or related subsystems. This product compatibility testing is not carried out for all Software AG products, but for those that have dependent code for the specific operating system, or related subsystem, platform, and therefore require such compatibility testing.
We do not go back and carry out regression testing of our products on earlier versions of the operating system or subsystem still supported by IBM.
The information provided herein is only updated for any of the following reasons:
The Software AG product is out of service.
The IBM Operating System is out of service.
There is a critical IBM Correction that affects the product under a certain IBM operating system and/or related subsystem.
There are performance-oriented corrections within Software AG products that relate to the IBM hardware or software.


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Shopping with coupons? Here are five ways to reduce frustrations.
Shopping with coupons can be exhilarating. There is nothing quite like seeing that 80 percent savings on your receipt after a successful shopping trip.
But sometimes along with the excitement, there can be nuisances as shoppers navigate busy stores, confusing coupon policies and difficult cashiers. These things can put a damper on a shopping trip, but fortunately there are some easy steps shoppers can take to reduce couponing frustrations.
1. Prepare before going to the store.
This is something I have had to learn the hard way. When I first started couponing, I would drag every last one of my coupons to the store and hope for the best. It usually resulted in hours of flipping through my binder in the middle of the store. By the time I got up to the register to check-out, I was overwhelmed and exhausted.
What I've learned is that it is much easier to do all of this work before heading off to the store. I look at the write-up for the store that I am planning to visit, select the deals I would like to do, and clip and print all my coupons right in the comfort of my own home. It is much less stressful and I can take a break if I want too.
I do still bring all of my coupons to the store on occasion, when I think there might be some good clearance deals, but it is much easier to pull coupons for a few items rather than my entire shopping list.
2. Do cashier "recon."
Let's face it, some cashiers assist savvy shoppers; others seem to make it their mission to reject any and all coupons. A friendly cashier can make all the difference in the world for coupon users. There is nothing worse than getting up to the register only have every last coupon questioned as you hand them over.
Sometimes there are not many options, like in drugstores. But if you are shopping at Target, WalMart or your local grocery store, there are usually a few different cashiers to choose from. So before you pick a checkout aisle and start unloading, pause and take a good look around. How are the cashiers interacting with other customers? Are they smiling? Do they look happy to be doing their job?
I promise that those 20 seconds that you spend doing "cashier recon" will be well worth it.
After you find a good cashier, make sure to look for that person each time you're shopping and strike up a friendly conversation. A little bit of nice can really help to brighten someone's day, and in return it will help the process of checking out to go much smoother.
3. Be prepared before you get to the register.
You've just spent an hour filling your cart with all your deals and are ready to get out of the store and take them all home? I hear ya! But before you rush up to the register, go through your mental "check-out list" and get organized. It is frustrating for everyone when a single shopper clogs up the line to find that one last coupon. I've been there/done that, and it is no fun.
This is my mental check-list before I approach the check-out lane:
— Are all your coupons in your hand and ready to give to the cashier?
— Did you forget anything?
— Do you have your shopper's card out?
— Is your form of payment easily accessible for when it comes time to pay?
— Do you have your reusable bags ready to give to the bagger?
— Do I know how many coupons I have so I can make sure they all came off?
Once I've gone through that list I can walk up to the check-out line with a calm cool and collected attitude. It's show time! Simply watch that total drop-drop-drop!
4. Keep coupon policies handy.
There are sometimes cashiers who seem to have no clue what their store's coupon policy is. Sometimes this can be nice for couponers since it means a quick and easy check-out. But other times, "Suzy Cashier" might decide to disregard the store's coupon policy altogether and try to enforce the "Suzy Cashier" coupon policy. In order to be prepared for these types of situations, it works to your advantage to have the store coupon policy on hand. That way any confusion or disagreements can be trumped by the policy, which is easier on everyone.
You can find all of the Colorado store coupon policies on my personal blog, BargainBlessings.com.
5. Know when to walk away.
When all else fails, it is so important to be okay about walking away from a deal. After you've been using coupons for a while, you realize that the next big deal is just around the corner. So sometimes it just isn't worth it to go round and round and round with a cashier or manager trying to prove your point. If you do so and get the deal, great. But you really have to consider whether it is worth it if redeeming the coupon is going to stress you out. In my opinion, it just isn't worth it.
It will also help if you are able to keep your original reasons for using coupons in mind. If your goal is to provide for your family it probably isn't accomplishing much if you got that box of cereal for free, but it took you an hour of arguing to do so and it ruins the rest of your day. I use coupons because I have a fun seeing that low total at the register. The moment it starts to be not fun I have to step back and reassess the situation from that point of view. Sometimes that may mean leaving that free product behind, but I'm ok with that.
If you really feel strongly about a deal and are getting nowhere with the cashier or manager I have found that it is easier to leave the store and place a call to the store manager the following day. This will give you some time to gather your thoughts and calmly discuss the situation.
Jennie Sanford is the founder of the popular Colorado frugal living blog, Bargain Blessings, and a frequent contributor to The Denver Post's "Colorado at Home" blog. She devotes her spare time to helping families maximize their budgets. To reach the writer: firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Top Items:
Randall Stross / New York Times:
Digital Domain: Apple's Lesson for Sony's Stores: Just Connect — RETAIL is supposed to be hard. Apple has made it seem ridiculously easy. And yet it must be harder than it appears, or why hasn't the Windows side of the personal computer business figured it out?
Discussion: Apple 2.0, michael parekh on IT, Howard Lindzon, Memex 1.1 and digg
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Facebook users vote for iLike, but what happened to Audio? — (Editor's note: We promised a 24-hour moratorium on Facebook coverage. That is now over.) — Here's the early winner of Facebook's open embrace of third-party applications, announced two days ago: iLike …
Discussion: Publishing 2.0, Paul Kedrosky's …, daily.gigaom and blog.lendingclub.com
Om Malik / daily.gigaom: The Upside of Facebook Overload
Renaud Laplanche / blog.lendingclub.com: Lending Club: Our first day on Facebook!
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life:
Initial Thoughts on the Facebook Platform — Earlier this week, there were a flurry of blog posts about the announcement of the Facebook platform. I've taken a look at the platform and it does seem worthy of the praise that has been heaped on it thus far. — What Facebook has announced is their own version of a widget platform.
Discussion: tins, HipMojo.com, Elliott Back and TechCrunch
Rick Klau / tins: Obama Facebook app
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch: iLike: By Far the Most Popular Facebook Application
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Last.FM Too Slow: Users Create Their Own Facebook Application
Last.FM Too Slow: Users Create Their Own Facebook Application
Discussion: A VC, BuzzMachine, GigaOM, Business Week and MediaCritiq
Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine: That's my boy — My son, Jake, and I were chatting …
Om Malik / GigaOM: The Facebook after effect: Pleasure & Pain
Stephen Baker / Business Week: If the rest of us used Facebook like the Northlanders...
Scott Karp / Publishing 2.0:
User-Generated Content Is Not A Panecea — The Infinite Monkey Theorem (which now has an official name, thanks to Wikipedia) states that given an infinite amount of time, a monkey banging on a typewriter will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare.
Discussion: Digital Markets, Jim Kukral and Global Nerdy
Donna Bogatin / Digital Markets: YouTube: How to win with User Generated Ads
Jim Kukral / Marketing Ideas Online: Can You Buy Customer Evangelism?
Joey deVilla / Global Nerdy: Advertising: Best Left to the Professionals?
Ilya Lichtenstein / Neomeme:
Reddit hacked — Update: Looks like the malicious code on the comments is now being replaced with "i am a terrible person". But it is still possible to submit malformed URLs, and it remains to be seen whether the exploit is completely fixed. — Digg this story if you want to read the comments of gloating Digg fanboys:
Discussion: Mashable!, franticindustries and digg
Stan Schroeder / Mashable!: Reddit Hacked, Fixed
Stan Schroeder / franticindustries: Security vulnerabilities found in Reddit and Pligg
Ionut Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Screenshots of YouTube's New Player — YouTube tests a new version of its player that will improve the way you interact with videos and will create a cinematic experience. — The player will add a feature that was already available in Google Video: jump to any part of the video even if the video isn't fully downloaded.
Discussion: Beet.TV
Andy Plesser / Beet.TV: YouTube Tests New User Interface with Thumbnail Previews …
Don Dodge / Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:
Why 1% of search market share is worth over $1 Billion — ComScore released their April 2007 search market share numbers showing that Google increased its market share lead to about 50%. Yahoo has about 27%, Microsoft 10%, AOL 5%, and Ask.com has 5%. That got me thinking.
Discussion: Mark Evans, HipMojo.com, Read/WriteWeb, WebMetricsGuru, Sadagopan's weblog …, Joe Duck, Guardian Unlimited and comScore
Froosh / HipMojo.com: Search Wars: Lucrative for All?
Emre Sokullu / Read/WriteWeb: Google Making $1 Per Internet User
Marshall Sponder / WebMetricsGuru: Is each 1% of Search Market share is worth at least $1 Billion in market cap?
Jack Schofield / Guardian Unlimited: Make a billion bucks from your search engine
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
Intelliverb: Is It Intelligent Investing in Search? — Maryland based Intelliverb is a full content based search engine with a relevancy model driven by point of operation dependency. — The company founders have designed and implemented an algorithm called PageScale, which ranks pages on an …
Discussion: WebMetricsGuru
Marshall Sponder / WebMetricsGuru: Intelliverb - a review — Read about Intelliverb in TechCrunch today.
Ben Goldacre / Bad Science:
Wi-Fi Wants To Kill Your Children — Won't somebody, please, think of the children? Three weeks ago I received my favourite email of all time, from a science teacher. "I've just had to ask a BBC Panorama film crew not to film in my school or in my class because of the bad science …
Discussion: Wi-Fi Networking News, Technovia and Guardian Unlimited
Glenn Fleishman / Wi-Fi Networking News: "Bad Science" Reporter on BBC's Bad Science
Ian Betteridge / Technovia: BAD SCIENCE » WI-FI WANTS TO KILL YOUR CHILDREN
Jack Schofield / Guardian Unlimited: Bad Science — Wi-Fi Wants To Kill Your Children
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Multiple Police Raids Take Down BitTorrent Tracker — This week, police carried out co-ordinated raids targeting more than 10 locations in Germany following claims from the GVU (German Federation Against Copyright Theft) that movies and software were being traded, including a computer game …
Anne Eisenberg / New York Times:
Novelties: A High-End Remote for a High-Tech Life — COUCH potatoes who don't like the clutter of four or five remote controls can buy a single version to rule the television, cable box, DVD player, stereo and even the lighting system. Most of these devices use clickers or buttons …
Declan McCullagh / CNET News.com:
Brain-eating zombies invade SF Apple store — A horde of decaying zombies invaded San Francisco's downtown Apple store on Friday evening, hunting for brains, terrifying the customers, and gnawing on iMacs. — I've placed some photos here. I'm pleased to report that the zombies ultimately …
Discussion: Web Strategy, Gizmodo, MacDailyNews, Engadget, GracefulFlavor and digg
Jeremiah Owyang / Web Strategy: Witnessing an Internet Flash Mob: Zombie Attack in SF (100s of pics and 3 videos)
Ryan Block / Engadget: Zombies invade Apple store
Jeff Ventura / GracefulFlavor: Zombies invade SF Apple Store. Literally.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Experiments With Non-Yahoo Links On Home Page — The major Internet portals like Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Google, etc. do not place links on their home page that go anywhere except deeper into the properties. Advertising is generally the only exception. — So it surprised us …
Discussion: Search Engine Journal
CarstenCumbrowski / Search Engine Journal: How about a Link from the Yahoo! Homepage
Garett Rogers / Googling Google:
Google Maps "Street View" to be launched at Where 2.0? — Yesterday Google registered several variations of the domain "googlestreetview.com" — normally I would think the feature would be months away, but given Where 2.0 starts on Tuesday, it will likely be available (or at least announced) by the end of the month.
Discussion: parislemon and ResourceShelf


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[Welcome back to the Damn, I Wish I'd Thought of That! newsletter. This is text of the great issue all of our email subscribers just received. Sign yourself up using the handy form on the right.] Like all boys from Milwaukee, many of my best business ideas come from beer. Here are a few to get […]
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Newsletter #825: The "Ideas from Beer" Issue
March 24, 2011
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For the second straight year, Chang earned gold in the Junior Men's Foil (photo courtesy Gil Talbot).
Complete Results
CLEVELAND – A total of ten Harvard fences took to the strip at the USA Fencing November North American Cup, Nov. 8-11. The event, which is a key qualifier for both the 2014 Senior and Junior World Championships, featured the best fencers on the continent, including over 1,000 athletes, and marked the first 2013-14 North American Cup of the year.
Foil fencer Jerry Chang took home the Junior men's foil gold medal to punch his ticket to compete at the Junior Worlds. The sophomore overcame a field of 174 fencers to claim first for the second straight year. In a dramatic gold medal bout, Chang downed Nobuo Bravo of Princeton by a 15-14 margin. The Mountain View, Calif., native also battled in the Division I men's foil where he tied for 11th.
Chang was joined in the foil by junior Brian Kaneshige, classmate Michael Woo, as well as freshman Stephen Mageras. Kaneshige put on an impressive show in the Division I pool where he finished seventh. Also in Division I action, Woo claimed 15th and Mageras turned in a 36th-place performance. Woo, who was seeded fourth in the junior's tournament, was knocked out of juniors elimination draw by Chang, and went on to finish 19th while Mageras finished 34th.
Senior Michael Raynis and Alexander Ryjik, Jr., rounded out Crimson men fencers. Raynis competed in the Division I men's epee while Ryjik fenced in the Division I men's saber.
Harvard was represented in each weapon on the women's side. Adrienne Jarocki paced the Crimson's women performances with a ninth-place finish in the Junior women's saber. The freshman also fenced in the Division I Saber where she took 17th.
In junior women's epee, Nina van Loon had an impressive run, finishing 17th out of 145 junior epee entrants. The sophomore took 57th in the Division I women's epee.
Freshman Hali Nelson turned in Harvard's ninth top-20 finish taking 10th in the Junior women's foil. Classmate Liana Yamin also competed in the event that featured 131 fencers.
Harvard's 2013-14 season will commence with the women at home against Tufts, Thursday, Dec. 5 while the men get underway three days later at the Tradition Tournament in Fairfield, Conn.