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Following the amendments to the Companies Law (2007 Revision) ("Companies Law") changing the provisions of that law relating to the winding up of companies, further amendments have been enacted, introducing new provisions for mergers and consolidations of companies. These amendments, contained in the Companies (Amendment) Law, 2009 are expected to come into effect before the end of April 2009.
Prior to these amendments, mergers of Cayman Islands companies had to be effected by means of schemes of arrangement and ancillary orders under sections 86 and 87 of the Companies Law. These sections, which required such a scheme to be approved by majorities of the shareholders (or classes of them) of the relevant companies and by the court, were designed to make a scheme which had been so approved binding upon a dissenting minority. There was some uncertainty as to the application of these sections where a merger was consensual, and there was no dissenting minority. Where those sections were not applicable, no means existed to vest the assets and liabilities of one company in another company by operation of law. Such assets and liabilities had to be transferred and novated contractually, with the necessary notices being given and consents obtained. Similarly, there was no means of terminating the existence of the transferor company, other than by normal winding up or administrative dissolution. As a result, the merger procedure, where available, was time consuming and costly.
The Companies (Amendment) Law 2009 will introduce new provisions which permit contractual mergers and consolidations, with no requirement for court approval, and a procedure whereby the assets and liabilities of a company can, by operation of law, vest in another company upon such a consolidation or merger.
Mergers And Consolidations
A merger is the merging of two or more constituent companies, the vesting of their undertakings, property and liabilities in one of those companies as the continuing company and the dissolution, without formal winding up, of the constituent companies other than the continuing company. A consolidation is the combination of two or more constituent companies into a consolidated company, the vesting of the undertaking, property and liabilities of the constituent companies into the consolidated company and the dissolution, without formal winding up, of all the constituent companies. The difference, therefore, is that a merger results in one constituent company continuing to exist as the continuing company, whereas consolidation results in a new consolidated company.
Constituent Companies
Any company limited by shares incorporated under the Companies Law (other than an exempted segregated portfolio company) may participate in a merger or consolidation as a constituent company. A foreign company may similarly participate, provided that the continuing company, in the case of a merger, or the consolidated company, in the case of a consolidation, is established under the Companies Law.
Plan Of Merger Or Consolidation
A written plan of merger or consolidation ("Plan") must be approved on behalf of each constituent company by its board of directors. The Plan must contain the following particulars:
- the name of each constituent company, the name of the continuing or consolidated company and the registered office of each such company;
- in relation to each constituent company, the designation and number of each class of shares;
- the date on which it is intended that the merger or consolidation is to take effect, if it is to take effect otherwise than on the date of registration of the Plan;
- the terms and conditions of the proposed merger or consolidation, including the manner and basis of converting shares in each constituent company into securities (which may be shares, debt obligations or other securities) in the consolidated or surviving company, or into other property (which may be money or other property, or a combination of money, other property and such securities);
- the rights and restrictions attaching to the shares in the consolidated or continuing company;
- in the case of a merger, any proposed amendment to the memorandum and articles of association of the continuing company, or, if none is proposed, a statement to that effect, or, in the case of a consolidation, the proposed new memorandum and articles of association of the consolidated company;
- any amount or benefit paid or payable to any director of a constituent company, consolidated company or continuing company, upon the consolidation or merger;
- the name and address of any secured creditor of a constituent company and the nature of the secured interest; and
- the names and addresses of the directors of the surviving or consolidated company.
A Plan may contain a provision that, at any time prior to the date that it becomes effective, it may be terminated by the directors of any constituent company, or amended by the directors of all the constituent companies to change the name of the consolidated company, change the effective date of the merger or consolidation, or effect such other changes to the Plan as the Plan may expressly authorise the directors to effect in their discretion.
Approvals And Consents
A Plan is required to be approved by shareholders' resolution of each constituent company, passed by a majority in number representing 75% in value of all shareholders voting together as a single class. Further, if the shares to be issued to each shareholder in the consolidated or continuing company have the same rights and economic value as the shares held in the constituent companies, the Plan must be approved by special resolution of those shareholders, voting together as a single class.
Note that, in relation to each of the above resolutions, a shareholder is entitled to vote, regardless of whether his shares are voting shares or non-voting shares under the relevant constituent company's articles of association.
However, where the Plan relates to a merger of a parent company incorporated under the Companies Law with one or more of its subsidiaries incorporated under that law, no approvals by shareholder resolution are required, but a copy of the Plan is required to be given to every shareholder of each subsidiary company to be merged, unless that shareholder waives his right to receive a copy of the Plan. For these purposes, a parent company is a company that owns at least 90% of the issued shares of each class in a subsidiary that are entitled to vote, and the subsidiary company is a company at least 90% of the issued shares of which (of one or more classes) that are entitled to vote are owned by a parent company.
The consent of each holder of a fixed or floating security interest of a constituent company in a proposed merger or consolidation is also required to be obtained, but if a secured creditor does not grant his consent then the constituent company that granted the security may apply to the Grand Court to waive the requirement for that secured creditor's consent, and the Grand Court may grant such a waiver upon such terms as the security to be granted by the consolidated or continuing company or otherwise, as the Grand Court considers reasonable.
In practice, documents for both secured and unsecured facilities are likely to contain covenants against merger or consolidation without the consent of the lenders, and secured lenders are likely to require specific arrangements as to priorities as a condition of that consent.
Where any constituent company is licensed or regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority ("CIMA"), the consent of CIMA will have to be obtained for the merger or consolidation and, if any constituent company is licensed by CIMA the continuing company (if not the licensed company) or the consolidated company, will require an equivalent licence.
Filing And Registration
Once the authorisations and approvals described above have been obtained, the Plan must be signed by a director of each constituent company on that company's behalf, and filed with the registrar of companies ("Registrar") together with, in relation to each constituent company, a certificate of good standing and a director's declaration that:
- the constituent company is, and the consolidated or continuing company will be, immediately after the merger or consolidation, able to pay its debts as they fall due;
- the merger or consolidation is bone fide and not intended to defraud unsecured creditors of the constituent companies;
- no petition or other similar proceeding has been filed and remains outstanding, and no order has been made or resolution adopted to wind up the constituent company in any jurisdiction;
- no receiver, trustee, administrator or other similar person has been appointed in any jurisdiction and is acting in respect of the constituent company, its affairs, its property or any part thereof;
- no scheme, order, compromise or other similar arrangement has been entered into or made in any jurisdiction whereby the rights of creditors of the constituent company are, and continue to be, suspended or restricted;
- the assets and liabilities of the constituent company as at to the latest practicable date before the making of the declaration;
- in the case of a constituent company which is not the continuing company, the constituent company has retired from any fiduciary office held immediately prior to the merger or consolidation;
- a copy of the certificate of merger or consolidation will be given to the members and creditors of the constituent company and published in the Cayman Gazette;
- where relevant, the constituent company has complied with any applicable requirements under the regulatory laws.
Where a constituent company is a foreign company, the form of declaration differs slightly, and is required to include a statement that the foreign company will, upon the merger or consolidation becoming effective, cease to be incorporated, registered or exist under the laws of the jurisdiction of its incorporation. Also, in the case of a foreign company, the Registrar is required to be satisfied that there is no reason why it would be against the public interest to permit the merger or consolidation.
Effective Date And Effect Of Registration
A merger or consolidation is effective upon registration of the Plan by the Registrar, unless the Plan provides that it will take effect on a future specified date or on the date of the occurrence of a future specified event after registration, but no such date may be later than the 90th day after the date of registration. As soon as the merger or consolidation becomes effective, the following consequences ensue:
- in the case of consolidation, the memorandum and articles of association of the consolidated company filed with the Plan immediately become the memorandum and articles of association of the company;
- the rights, property of every description of the business, undertaking, goodwill, benefits, immunities and privileges of each constituent company immediately vest in the continuing or consolidated company;
- subject to any specific arrangements entered into by the relevant parties (for example in relation to priorities), the continuing or consolidated company is liable for and subject to, in the same manner as the constituent company, to all mortgages, charges or security interests and all contracts, obligations, claims, and other liabilities of each of the constituent companies;
- every existing claim, or proceeding, whether civil (including arbitration) or criminal, pending at the time of the merger or consolidation by or against a constituent company, is continued by or against the surviving or consolidated company;
- a conviction, judgement, ruling, order or claim, due or to become due, against a constituent company applies to the continuing or consolidated company instead of that constituent company;
- the Registrar strikes from the register of companies any constituent company that is not the continuing company in a merger or each constituent company that participates in a consolidation and such a striking off, notice of which is required to be published in the Cayman Gazette, is not a winding up within Part V of the Companies Law.
If a Plan is terminated or amended after it has been filed with the Registrar but before it has come effective, notice of such termination or amendment must be filed with the Registrar, and a copy of the notice of amendment or termination so filed must be sent to any person entitled to vote on, consent to, or be notified of the Plan.
Rights Of Dissenting Shareholders
A shareholder of a constituent company incorporated under the Companies Law is entitled to payment of the fair value of his shares upon dissenting from a merger or consolidation, in accordance with, and subject to the procedures provided in, the Companies Law.
To exercise this entitlement, a dissentient shareholder must give to the constituent company notice of his objection before the shareholder vote to authorise the merger or consolidation. That objection must state that the shareholder proposes to demand payment for his shares if the merger or consolidation is authorised by shareholder vote.
A constituent company is required, within 20 days after the date of the shareholder vote authorising the merger or consolidation is made, give written notice of the authorisation to each shareholder who has made a written objection and, within 20 days from the date on which that notice is given, each shareholder who elected to do so must give written notice to the constituent company of his decision to dissent stating his name and address, the number and class of shares in respect of which he dissents, and a demand for payment of the fair value of his shares. A shareholder who dissents, must do so in respect of all of the shares that he holds in the relevant constituent company, and upon giving notice of dissent, the shareholder ceases to have any of the rights of a shareholder of the company except the right to be paid the fair value of his shares and certain related rights in connection with the determination of the fair value.
Within seven days after the expiry of the period within which notices of dissent must be filed or, if later, the date on which the Plan is filed, the constituent company, the surviving company or the consolidated company, as applicable, must make a written offer to each dissenting shareholder to purchase his shares at a specified price that the company determines to be their fair value and if, within 30 days following the date on which the offer is made, the offering company and the dissenting shareholder agree the price to be paid for the shares, then that company must pay the agreed price, in money, to the dissenting member. If the offering company and the dissenting member fail to agree on the price within that 30 day period, then the company is required to apply to the Grand Court for determination of the fair value of the shares of all dissenting shareholders. Dissenting shareholders are permitted to make such a petition.
Limits On Rights Of Dissenting Shareholders
The above rights are not available to a shareholder of a constituent company whose shares in the company are shares of a class for which an open market exists on a recognised stock exchange or recognised interdealer quotation system at the expiry date of the period allowed for written notice of an election to dissent expires.
Similarly, these rights are not available in respect of any class of shares of a constituent company if the holders of those shares are required, by the terms of the Plan, to accept in exchange for the shares any of the following:
- shares of a consolidated company, or depository receipts in respect of such shares;
- shares of any other company, or depository receipts in respect of such shares, which at the effective date of the merger or consolidation are listed on a national securities exchange or designated as a national system security on a recognised interdealer quotation system or held of record by more than two thousand holders;
- cash in lieu of fractional shares or fractional depository receipts described above; or
- any combination of the shares, depository receipts and cash in lieu of fractional shares or depository receipts described above.
These new provisions introduce a more efficient and cost effective means of merging or consolidating companies under the Companies Law without recourse to the courts (except in limited circumstances), whilst preserving protections for secured creditors and dissenting minority shareholders.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.


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Flash and Hadoop
Over the last several months I have been running hundreds of jobs on various small scale Hadoop clusters. I have compiled the results, come up with some conclusions, and will have more details posted here. If you have time available, on Tuesday Sept 11, you can get a sneak peek of the testing in a webinar (registration required) on big data and capital markets here.
Solid State Storage and the Mainstream
In 2008 I was on a panel at WinHEC alongside other SSD and disk industry participants. The question came up – When would SSDs become the default option rather than a premium? Most answers came in a form of – there are places where both disks and SSDs make sense. When my opportunity to comment came, I replied simply "five to ten years," which added a bit of levity to the panel where the question had been skirted.
Now that several years have passed, I can look back at how the industry has moved forward and I decided that I was ready to update my prediction. In a part of the market there is an unrelenting demand for additional capacity. There are enough applications where capacity beats out the gains in performance, form factor, and power consumption that come with SSDs to give products that optimize price per capacity a bright future. With disk manufacture's single focus on optimizing cost per capacity, performance optimization has been left to SSDs. In applications that support business processes where performance and capacity are both important, this is a profound shift that has really only begun. SSDs are not going to replace disks wholesale, but using some SSD capacity will become the norm.
One of the aspects of a market that moves from niche to mainstream is that the focus has to shift towards designing for mass markets with a focus on price points and ease-of-use. After looking at the market directions I reached the following conclusion: the biggest winners will be the companies that make it easiest to effective use SSD across the widest range of applications. I conducted a wide survey of the SSD industry, weighed some personal factors, and moved from Texas to Colorado to join LSI in the Accelerated Solutions Division.
Today LSI announced an application acceleration product family that fully embraces the vision of enabling the broadest number of applications to benefit from solid state technology, from DAS to SAN, to 100% flash solutions. The problems that SSDs solve and the way that they solve them (eliminating the time that is spent waiting on disks) has not really changed, but the capacity and entry level prices points have, allowing for much broader adoption.
Using SSDs still requires sophisticated flash management (which is still highly variable from SSD to SSD), data protection from component failures, and integration to use the SSD capacity effectively with existing storage – so there is still plenty of room to add value to the raw flash. In the next wave of flash adoptions, expect to see a much higher attach rate of SSDs to servers. A shift is taking place from trying to explain why SSDs would be justified, to explaining why SSDs are not justified. In this next phase reducing the friction to enable deployment of flash far and wide is the key.
ZFS Tuning for SSDs
Update – Some of the suggestions below have been questioned for a typical ZFS setup. To clarify, these setting should not be implemented on most ZFS installations. The L2ARC is designed to ensure that by default it will never hurt performance. Some of the changes below can have a negative impact on workloads that are not using the L2ARC and accepts the possibility of worse performance in some workloads for better performance with cache friendly workloads. These suggestions are intended for ZFS implementations where the flash cache is one of the main motivating factors for deploying ZFS – think high SSD to disk ratios. In particular, these changes were tested with an Oracle database on ZFS
In 2008 Sun Microsystems announced the availability of a feature in ZFS that could use SSDs as a read or write cache to accelerate ZFS. A good write-up on the implementation of the level 2 adaptive read cache (L2ARC) by a member of the fishworks team is available here. In 2008, flash SSDs were just starting to penetrate the enterprise storage market and this cache was written with many of early flash SSD issues in mind. First, it warms quite slowly, defaulting to a maximum setting of 8 MB/s cache load rate. Second, to avoid being in a write heavy path, it is explicitly set outside of the data eviction path from the ZFS memory cache (ARC). This prevents it from behaving like a traditional level 2 cache and causes it fill more slowly with mainly static data. Finally, the default record size of the file system is rather big (128KB) and the default assumption is that for sequential scans it is better to just read from the disk and skip the SSD cache.
Many of the assumptions about SSD don't line up with current generation SSD products. An enterprise class SSD can write quickly, has high capacity, higher sequential bandwidth than the disk storage systems, and has a long life span even under a heavy write load. There are a few parameters that can be changed as a best practice when enterprises SSDs are being used for the L2ARC in ZFS:
Record Size
Change the Record Size to a much lower value than 128 KB. The L2ARC fetches the full record on a read and 128 KB IO size to an SSD uses up device bandwidth increases the response time.
This can be set dynamically (for new files) with:
# zfs set recordsize <record size> <filesystem>
Change the l2arc_write_max to a higher value. Most SSDs specify a device life in terms of full device write cycles per day. For instance, say you have 700 GBs of SSDs that support 10 device cycles per day for 5 years. This equates to a max write rate of 7000 GBs/day or 83 MB/s. As the setting is the maximum write rate, I would suggest at least doubling the speced drive max rate. As the L2ARC is a read only cache that can abruptly fail without impacting the file system availability, the risk of too high of a write rate is only that of wearing out the drive ealier. This throttle was put in place as when early SSDs with unsophisticated controllers were the norm. Early SSDs could experience significant performance problems during writes that would limit the performance of the reads the cache was meant to accelerate. Modern enterprise SSDs are orders of magnitude better at handling writes so this is not a major concern.
On Solaris, this parameter is set by adding the following line to the /etc/system file:
set zfs:l2arc_write_max= <maximum bytes per second>
Set the l2arc_noprefetch=0. By default this is set to one, skipping the L2ARC for prefetch reads that are used for sequential reading. The idea here is that the disks are good at sequential so just read from them. With PCIe SSDs readily available with multiple GB/s of bandwidth even sequential workloads can get a significant performance boost. Changing this parameter will put the L2ARC in the prefetch read path and can make a big difference for workloads that have a sequential component.
On Solaris, this parameter is set by adding the following line to the /etc/system file:
set zfs:l2arc_noprefetch=0
SSSI Performance Test Specification
I recently joined the governing board of SNIA's Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI), an organization designed to promote solid state storage and standards around the technology. One of the biggest points of contention in the SSD space is comparing various devices' performance claims. The reason this is fairly contentious is that test parameters can have a dramatic impact on the achievable performance. Different flash controllers have been implemented in ways where the amount of over provisioning (see my post on this), the compressibility of the data, and how full the device is can have a dramatic performance impact. To help standardize the testing process and methodology for SSDs the SSSI developed the Performance Test Specification (PTS).
This specification outlines the requirements for a test tool and defines the methodologies to use to test an SSD and the data the needs to be reported. The SSSI is actively working to promote this standard. One of the hurdles to adoption is that many vendors are using their own testing methodology and tools internally and don't want to modify their processes. There is also hesitation to present numbers that don't have the best case assumptions that may be compared to the competition under different circumstances. This can make life more difficult for end users, as there is a gap between having a specification and having an easy way to run the test.
I spent some time over the past week making a bash script that uses the Flexible I/O utility (you will need to download this utility to use the script) to implement my reading of the IOPS section of the test. I also made an Excel template to paste the results from the script into. You can use this to select the right measurement window and create an IOPS chart for various block sizes. There are still a few parameters that you need to edit in the script and you will have to do some manual editing of the charts to meet the reporting requirements, but I hope that this will help as a starting point for users that want to get an idea of what the spec does and run tests according to its methodology.
Script (Copy and Paste):
#!/bin/bash #This Script Runs through part of the SSSI PTS using fio as the test tool for section 7 IOPS #By Jamon Bowen #THIS IS PROVIDED AS IS WITH NO WARRANTIES #THIS SCRIPT OVERWRITES DATA AND CAN CONTRIBUTE TO SSD WEAR OUT #check to see if right number of parameters. if [ $# -ne 1 ] then echo "Usage: $0 /dev/<device to test>" exit fi #The output from a test run is placed in the ./results folder. #This folder is recreated after every run. rm -f results/* > /dev/null rmdir results > /dev/null mkdir results # Section 7 IOPS test echo "Running on SSSI PTS 1.0 Section 7 - IOPS on device: $1" echo "Device information:" fdisk -l $1 #7.1 Purge device echo echo "****Prior to running the test, Purge the SSS to be in compliance with PTS 1.0" #These variables need to be set the test operator choice of SIZE, outstanding IO per thread and number of threads #To test the full device use fdisk -l to get the device size and update the values below. SIZE=901939986432 OIO=64; THREADS=16; echo echo "Test range 0 to $SIZE" echo "OIO/thread = $OIO, Threads = $THREADS" echo "Test Start time: `date`" echo #7.2(b) Workload independent preconditioning #Write 2x device user capacity with 128 KiB sequential writes. echo "****Preconditioning" ./fio --name=precondition --filename=$1 --size=$SIZE --iodepth=$OIO --numjobs=1 --bs=128k --ioengine=libaio --invalidate=1 --rw=write --group_reporting -eta never --direct=1 --thread --refill_buffers echo echo "****50% complete: `date`" ./fio --name=precondition --filename=$1 --size=$SIZE --iodepth=$OIO --numjobs=1 --bs=128k --ioengine=libaio --invalidate=1 --rw=write --group_reporting -eta never --direct=1 --thread --refill_buffers echo echo "****Precondition complete:`date`" echo #IOPS test 7.5 echo "****Random IOPS TEST" echo "================" echo "Pass, BS, %R, IOPS" >> "results/datapoints.csv" for PASS in `seq 1 25`; do echo "Pass, BS, %R, IOPS, Time" for i in 512 4096 8192 16384 32768 65536 131072 1048576 ; do for j in 0 5 35 50 65 95 100; do IOPS=`./fio --name=job --filename=$1 --size=$SIZE --iodepth=$OIO --numjobs=$THREADS --bs=$i --ioengine=libaio --invalidate=1 --rw=randrw --rwmixread=$j --group_reporting --eta never --runtime=60 --direct=1 --norandommap --thread --refill_buffers | grep iops | gawk 'BEGIN{FS = "="}; {print $4}' | gawk '{total = total +$1}; END {print total}'` echo "$PASS, $i, $j, $IOPS, `date`" echo "$PASS, $i, $j, $IOPS" >> "results/datapoints.csv" done done done exit
Is There Room for Solid State Disks in the Hadoop Framework?
The MapReduce framework developed by Google has led to a revolution in computing. This revolution has accelerated as the open source Apache Hadoop framework has become widely deployed. The Hadoop framework includes important elements that leverage hardware layout, new recovery models, and help developers easily write parallel programs. A big part of the framework is a distributed parallel file system (HDFS) that uses local commodity disks to keep the data close to the processing, offers lots of managed capacity, and triple mirrors for redundancy. One of the big efficiencies in Hadoop for "Big Data" style workloads is that it moves the process to the data rather than the data to the process. Knowledge and use of the storage layout is part of the framework that makes it effective.
On the surface, this is not an environment that screams for SSDs due to the focus on effectively leveraging commodity disks. Some of the concepts of the framework can be applied to other areas that impact SSDs. However, one of the major impacts of Hadoop is that it enables software developers without a background in parallel programming to write highly parallel applications that can process large datasets with ease. This aspect of Hadoop is very important and I wanted to see if there was a place for SSDs in production Hadoop installations.
I worked with some partners and ran through a few workloads in the lab to get a better understanding of the storage workload and see where SSDs can fit in. I still have a lot of work to do on this but I am ready to draw a few conclusions. First, I'll attempt to describe how Hadoop uses storage using a minimum of technical Hadoop terminology.
There is one part of the framework that is critical to understand: All input data is interpreted in a <key, value> form. The framework is very flexible in what these can be – for instance, one can be an array – but this format is required. Some common examples of <key, value> pairs are <word, frequency>, <word, location>, and <sources web address, destination web address>. These example <key, value> pairs are very useful in searching and indexing. More complex implementations can use the output of one MapReduce run as the input to additional runs.
To understand the full framework see the Hadoop tutorial: http://hadoop.apache.org/common/docs/current/mapred_tutorial.html
Here is my simplified overview, highlighting the storage use:
Map: Input data is broken into shards and placed on the local disks of many machines. In the Map phase this data is processed into an intermediate state (the data is "Mapped") on a cluster of machines, each of which is working only on its shard of the data. Doing this allows the input data in this phase to be fetched from local disks. Limiting what you can do to only local operations on a piece of the data within a local machine allows Hadoop to turn simple functional code into a massively parallel operation. The intermediate data can be bigger or smaller than the input, and it is sorted locally and grouped by key. The intermediate data sorts that are too large to fit in memory take place on local disk (outside of the parallel file system).
Reduce: In this phase the data from all the different map processes are passed over the network to the reduce process that has been assigned to work on a particular key. Many reduce process run in parallel, each on separate keys. Each reduce process runs through all of the values associated with the key and outputs a final value. This output is placed locally in the parallel distributed file system. Since the output of one map-reduce run is often the input to a second one this pre-shards the input data to subsequent map-reduce passes.
Over a run there are a few storage/ data intensive components:
- Streaming the data in from local disk to the local processor.
- Sorting on a temporary space when the intermediate data is too large to sort in memory.
- Moving the smaller chunks of data across the network to be grouped by key for processing.
- Streaming the output data to local disk.
There are two places that SSDs can plug into this framework easily and a third place that SSDs and non-commodity servers can be used to tackle certain problems more effectively.
First, the easy ones:
- Using SSDs for storage within the parallel distributed file system. SSDs can be used to deliver a lower cost per MB/s than disks (this is highly manufacture design dependent), although the SSD has a higher cost per MB. For workloads where the dataset is small and processing time requirements are high, SSDs can be used in place of disks. Right now with most Hadoop problems focusing on large data sets, I don't expect this to be the normal deployment, but this will grow as the price per MB difference between SSDs and HDDs compresses.
- Using SSDs for the temporary space. The temporary space is used for sorting that is I/O intensive, and it is also accessed randomly as the reduce processes fetch the data for the keys that they need to work with. This in an obvious place for SSDs as it can be much smaller than the disks used for the distributed file system, and bigger than the memory in each node. If the jobs that are running result in lots of disk sorts, using SSDs here makes sense.
The final use case is of the most interest to enterprise SSD suppliers and is based on changing the cluster architecture to impact one of the fundamental limitations of the MapReduce framework (from the Google Labs paper):
"Network bandwidth is a relatively scarce resource in our computing environment. We conserve network bandwidth by taking advantage of the fact that the input data (managed by GFS [8]) is stored on the local disks of the machines that make up our cluster."
The key here is that "Network Bandwidth" is scarce because the number of nodes in the cluster is large. This inherently limits the network performance due to cost concerns. The CPU resources are actually quite cheap in commodity servers. So this setup works well with many workloads that are CPU intensive but where the intermediate data that needs to be passed around is small. However, this is really an attribute of the cluster setup more than of the Hadoop framework itself. Rather than using commodity machines you can use a more limited number of larger nodes in the cluster and a high performance network. Instead of using lots of 1 CPU machines with GigE networking, you can use quad socket servers with many cores and QDR Infiniband. With 4x the CPU resources and 40x the node to node bandwidth, you now have a cluster that is geared towards jobs that require lots of intermediate data sharing. You also now need the local storage to be much faster to keep the processors busy.
High bandwidth/high capacity enterprise SSDs, particularly PCIe SSDs, fit well into this framework as you want to have higher local storage bandwidth than node-to-node. This is in effect a smaller cluster of "fat" nodes. The processing power in this setup is more expensive, so this isn't the best setup for CPU intensive jobs.
Hadoop is a powerful framework. One of its key advantages is that it enables highly parallel programs to be written by software engineers without a background in computer science. This is one reason it has grown so popular and why it is important for hardware vendors to see where they fit in. There is a lot of flexibility in the hardware layout, and different cluster configurations make sense for tackling different types of problems.
eMLC Part 2: It's About Price per GB
I have had the chance to meet with several analysts over the past couple of weeks and have raised the position that with eMLC the long awaited price parity of Tier-1 disks and SSDs is virtually upon us. I had a mixed set of reactions, from "nope, not yet" to "sorry if I don't act surprised, but I agree." For the skeptics I promised that I would compile some data to back up my claim.
For years the mantra of the SSD vendor was to look at the price per IOPS rather than the price per GB. The Storage Performance Council provides an excellent source of data that facilitates that comparison in an audited forum with their flagship SPC-1 benchmark. The SPC requires quite a bit of additional information to be reported for the result to be accepted, which provides an excellent data source when you want to examine the enterprise storage market. If you bear with me I will walk through a few ways that I look through the data, and I promise that this is not a rehash of the cost per IOPS argument.
First, if you dig through the reports you can see how many disks are included in each solution as well as the total cost. The chart below is an aggregation of the HDD based SPC-1 submissions showing the reported Total Tested Storage Configuration Price (including three-year maintenance) divided by the number of HDDs reported in the "priced storage configuration components" description. It covers data from 12/1/2002 to 8/25/2011:
Now, let's take it as a given that SSD can deliver much higher IOPS than an HDD of equivalent capacity, and price per GB is the only advantage disks bring to the table. The historical way to get higher IOPS from HDDs was to use lots of drives and short stroke them. The modern day equivalent is using low capacity, high performance HDDs rather than cheaper high capacity HDDs. With the total cost of enterprise disk at close to $2,000 per HDD, the $/ GB of enterprise SSDs determines the minimum logical capacity of an HDD. Here is an example of various SSD $/GB levels and the associated minimum disk capacity points:
Enterprise SSD $/ GB
Minimum HDD capacity
$ 30
$ 20
$ 10
To get to the point that 300 GB HDD no longer make sense, the enterprise price per GB just needs to be around $7/GB and 146 GB HDDs are gone at around $14/GB. Keep in mind that this is the price of the SSD capacity before redundancy and overhead to make it comparable to the HDD case.
It's not fair (or permitted use) to compare audited SPC-1 data with data that has not gone through the same rigorous process, so I won't make any comparisons here. However, I think that when looking at the trends, it is clear that the low capacity HDDs that are used for Tier-1 one storage are going away sooner rather than later.
About the Storage Performance Council (SPC)
The SPC is a non-profit corporation founded to define, standardize and promote storage benchmarks and to disseminate objective, verifiable storage performance data to the computer industry and its customers. The organization's strategic objectives are to empower storage vendors to build better products as well as to stimulate the IT community to more rapidly trust and deploy multi-vendor storage technology.
The SPC membership consists of a broad cross-section of the storage industry. A complete SPC membership roster is available at http://www.storageperformance.org/about/roster/.
A complete list of SPC Results is available at http://www.storageperformance.org/results.
SPC, SPC-1, SPC-1 IOPS, SPC-1 Price-Performance, SPC-1 Results, are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Storage Performance Council (SPC)
Part 1: eMLC – It's Not Just Marketing
Until recently, the model for Flash implementation has been to use SLC for the enterprise and MLC for the consumer. MLC solutions traded endurance, performance, and reliability for a lower cost while SLC solutions didn't. The tradeoff of 10x the endurance for 2x the price led most enterprise applications to adopt SLC.
But there is a shift taking place in the industry as SSD prices start to align with the prices enterprise customers have been paying for tier 1 HDD storage (which is much higher than the cost of consumer drives). If the per-GB pricing is similar, you can add so much more capacity that endurance becomes less of a concern. Rather than only having highly transactional OLTP systems on SSDs, you can move virtually every application using tier 1 HDD storage to SSD. The biggest concern for tier 1 storage has been that the most critical datasets that reside on them cannot risk a full 10x drop in endurance.
Closing the gap: eMLC
At first glance, enterprise MLC (eMLC) sounds like Marketing is trying to pull a fast one. If there was a simple way to make MLC have higher endurance, why bother restricting it from consumer applications? eMLC sports endurance levels of 30,000 write cycles, whereas some of the newest MLC only has 3,000 write cycles (SLC endurance is generally 100,000 write cycles). There is a big reason for this restriction: eMLC makes a tradeoff to enable this endurance – retention.
It's not commonly understood that although Flash is considered persistent, the data is slowly lost over time. For most Flash chips the retention is around 10 years – longer than most use cases. With eMLC, longer program and erase times are used with different voltage levels than MLC to increase the endurance. These changes reduce the retention to as low as three months for eMLC. This is plenty of retention for an enterprise storage system that can manage the Flash behind the scenes, but it makes eMLC impractical for consumer applications. Imagine if you didn't get around to copying photos from your camera within a three month window and lost all the pictures!
Today, Texas Memory Systems announced its first eMLC RamSan product: the RamSan-810. This is a major announcement as we have investigated eMLC for some time (I have briefed analysts on eMLC for almost a year; here is a discussion of eMLC from Silverton Consulting, and a recent one from Storage Switzerland). TMS was not the first company to introduce an eMLC product as the RamSan's extremely high performance backplane and interfaces make endurance concerns more palpable. However, with the latest eMLC chips, we aggregate enough capacity to be comfortable introducing an eMLC product that bears the RamSan name.
10 TB of capacity multiplied by 30,000 write cycles equates to 300 PB of lifetime writes. This amount of total writes is difficult to achieve during the lifetime of a storage device, even at the high bandwidth the RamSan-810 can support. Applications that demand the highest performance and those with more limited capacity requirements will still be served best by an SLC solution, but very high capacity SSD deployments will shift to eMLC. With a density of 10 TB per rack unit, petabyte scale SSD deployments are now a realistic deployment option.
We're just getting warmed up discussing eMLC. Stay tuned for another post soon on tier 1 disk pricing vs. eMLC.

subset: commoncrawl


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For the foreseeable future, developers are going to have to get used to coding for slower hardware. Leaving aside the headline slowdowns seen by some systems with applied, the longer-lasting problem is . As its prescient namers realized, this flaw will haunt the IT world for years to come.
Spectre is the gift that keeps on giving. To mitigate against it requires recompiling applications with new instructions that work around speculative execution vulnerabilities. But that's just putting a sticking plaster on a festering wound. Fundamentally we need new processor designs, ones that work differently, since what we have now just isn't secure. Unfortunately, new CPU designs aren't likely to appear any time soon.
For many development projects, the lack of total security may not matter too much. The risk of compromise is fairly low and not proven to be present in the wild, at least not yet. But mission-critical applications require a higher level of data security than "It's probably OK."
There are some , but they tend to be slow or old or both. The is one and I'm writing this article on another, a pre-2013 Intel Atom box. It doesn't do out-of-order (OoO) execution, but therefore it doesn't do anything particularly quickly. This is now the choice facing everyone who cares about security: fast and flawed or slow and safe (or at least safer).
Until that changes, until a new generation of chips somehow circumvents the flaws and gives us full-speed computing without speculative execution vulnerabilities, software developers must step up and make a difference. Yes, efficient coding is suddenly back in fashion, because developers can no longer assume that tomorrow's hardware will be faster than today's. But what does this mean in development terms?


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Swim Meet Software
Simplify Swim Club and Meet Management with Active NetworkActive Network powers 98% of the swimming world with it's Hy-Tek Meet Manager product. HY-TEK Swim Software products are used by thousands of swim meets and swim clubs worldwide to streamline all of the workload that comes along with building a successful swim organisation. Active can provide the most comprehensive swimming software solutions available for any organisation, large or small. From online participant registration to club membership management to detailed reporting and communication tools, the Active Network HY-TEK system can be your complete solution to swimming event management.
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"Our recent move to using Active as an online registration solution is going to save us about 60% of the time we normally spend administering our events."
Richard, Event Organiser, Charityadventure
Richard, Event Organiser, Charityadventure


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So it's the end of the year! What!? Happy New Year everyone!
For my last post of the year I decided to end it with my goals from last year, and the ones for this year.
So this year I'm sticking with my goal of 100 books, with wishful thoughts of going past that. This year I'm not going to care whether they're shorts, comics, manga, or what. This year was busy-busy, and I just didn't have the energy to read as much. I think I put too much pressure on reading the "right kind" of books. Sometimes you need a little short something, or pretty pictures, to perk up your read pile.
I feel pretty accomplished on this goal, and I'm gonna push into the New Year. My main goal though is to finally push past book one of the Cal Leandros! To push past my fear that nothing can compare to the first book Nightlife!
I read one Steampunk series, a little sci-fi/dystopian series , dabbled in a few erotica titles, Paranormal Romance, some high fantasy, and lots of Urban Fantasy. Not too bad. Considering how little I read, I feel accomplished.
So my goal is more Steampunk! I really have been enjoying the Steampunk Chronicles. I'm going to try and mix some more genre in there as well.
Still I'm very happy! Every time I read a book I promptly write my review, or some basic thoughts, so that I can at least keep up that way. Even if I can't get things to work out to upload posts!!
I think the format I was trying to do was too much. I've always been a random reader. So now I'd still like to read adult and YA, but I'm not going to force it. Instead my new goal is:
Actually I did really good in 2014! I didn't put them on my list for last year, but I went for it! I do really bad at challenges so I thought by not putting them on as a resolution I wouldn't jinx myself.
While I didn't complete every challenge, I still did great. Even finishing my very first A to Z challenge!
This year I'm going to push just to do about the same. What can I say, I'm a no pressure kind of reader.
Honestly I didn't have to do it too much this year. But when I did it saved me from having a bad reading year, along with a low number of books read. Some of them I wasn't in the mood for and I might go back.
However, as I'm reading an ARC of a certain book I'm battling with my need—compulsion—to finish the nice free book I got. With the fact that if I had bought this book I'd be pissed at the waste of money. I feel bad if I don't give a book a chance. I feel even worse if it's an Advanced Readers Copy that I requested! Makes me feel even worse then if I bought it.
Crazy right?
But that's the life of a reader.
What? You're joking Shera. Reading is always so much fun.
Thing is when you blog and review it can become a chore. I've found myself feeling guilty for not keeping up with a series, not keeping up on ARCs, feeling like I should be reading more, and on-and-on. And with some trouble with plagiarism it can be tiring!
Especially when real life can compound on it. But hey! Reading is fun! I know it's why I've been rereading a lot of books. Because before I felt guilty for taking the time to reread books I'd already read. (See the pattern?)
Another thing that has helped is getting back more on Goodreads and chatting with other readers about books. Doing buddy reads!!


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Italian journalist, author and essayist Roberto Saviano is best known outside of his country for his 2006 book Gomorrah, a detailed investigation exposing the activities of the Neapolitan mafia. It earned him worldwide acclaim, both for his journalism and his considerable courage, while the Camorra crime syndicate placed a price on his head. He has lived under permanent police protection ever since. But Saviano, 38, has also become a thorn in the side of Italy's far-right interior minister (and deputy prime minister), Matteo Salvini, whose xenophobic, anti-migrant policies he regularly denounces – which alarmingly prompted Salvini to threaten to remove Saviano's police protection. In this interview with Mediapart, Saviano details his appraisal of the Italian political scene and of Salvini, and slams European Union policies on immigration which he says has fuelled the rise to power of extremists.
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Designed to provide privacy and security to a variety of residential entrances the traditional appearance of the Royale Grange Wrought Iron Style Estate Gates enable them to make a magnificent statement to any driveway at an affordable price. Handmade in the UK to industry leading standards these high strength steel gates feature an attractive arch top, solid metal infill bars and wrought iron style scroll work to ensure high levels of aesthetic appeal without compromising on performance making them a great option for any domestic environment.
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Hello Readers!
I LOVE the fall. I live in a pretty hot climate, and when the fall comes it is sooooo welcome! Today's post pulls a bit of that in, along with my love of reading.
I am spotlighting a few of my sponsors in today's post and I love how it came together. It all started with the Harry Potter themed scarf from Kit Jefes of A Touch of Whimsy. I got to meet this designer personally and it is clear she enjoys what she does. I even posed for her ad, though I doubt any would recognize me! I personally adore Harry Potter and think it is superb children's literature. As a role player I was thrilled to role play on a Harry Potter themed sim for a time. I even wrote about it for AVENUE! (See my Writing Portfolio page and the Mischief Managed link.)
My idea behind this look was the cozy feel of fall curled up with a favorite book…or books. Kit's scarf was perfect with this comfy top from Tee*Fy, and some awesome new skinny jeans from Romy Dash of Marshmallows. She offers the jeans in three styles…birdy, flower, and star. Oh and I of course had to sport my Slink hands and feet. Thanks to Shanty Bookmite of {MUA} I rarely take them off! I am decked out in Hufflepuff yellow of course, the house I played a part of when I role played in Mischief Managed.
::ATOW:: Hoggies Closet Scarf [Four Houses] *SECRET RARE* (@ The Fantasy Gacha Carnival)
::Marshmallows::Star Skinny Jeans
{MUA} – Slink Nails HUD – Matte Intense Colors
other items:
hair > >TRUTH< Enisa w/Roots – chocolate
top > Tee*fy Turtle Neck Basic Sweater Grey (@ September Collabor88)
hands & feet > Slink
scene > W. Winx & Flair – WinxBox – FIMA back wall (@Flowers in my Attic)
A Touch of Whimsy has soooo much gacha goodness at the carnival! This ad below is only a sampling! Kit is offering quite the array of scarves as well.
And here is a better look at the colors {MUA} has to offer in their Matte Intense color nail appliers.
As always thank you for reading! Be sure to put the Fantasy Gacha Carnival on your SL calendar, you really won't want to miss it! It runs October 1 through October 31st.
Prisilla (aka Silly Avro)
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets


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By Devin Anderson – Many organizations begin researching print management solutions because they want to eliminate (or avoid) print servers and introduce greater efficiency and simplicity into their print environment. That could be through features such as centralized administration, user self-service, comprehensive auditing tools—or better still, a combination of all of the above, which network print management software like PrinterLogic is uniquely able to deliver.
The best print management software is capable of leveraging these features in a synergistic way so that they reduce printing costs and increase return on investment (ROI) too. What often goes unrecognized is that it takes a holistic system to generate maximum cost savings. A piecemeal approach through one or two discrete print management solutions that are limited in scope and function will only result in piecemeal cost reductions—not counting the fact that each solution also requires a separate investment.
In multiple case studies conducted by the independent research firm TechValidate, PrinterLogic has been shown to be a print management solution that reduces printing costs and commonly generates ROI of close to 200% or more. More than a few organizations have actually reported ROI as high as 500%. This comes down to both the breadth and depth of PrinterLogic as a print management solution. Not only does it span the entire enterprise, it achieves optimal efficiency in multiple areas:
- Centralized administration: Effortlessly manage, edit, create and remove printers across the enterprise—no matter how distributed the print environment—through a single pane of glass. PrinterLogic is true network print management software that gives you full visibility into and control over every printer in the organization, ultimately saving countless hours previously spent grappling with the finer points of printer management.
Click here to read the rest
Fortune 500 Computer Services Company Reduces Remote Server Infrastructure by 90% with PrinterLogic


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Thursday, November 22, 2012
Jack Passion's beard (clerihew)
The beard of Jack Passion
transcends conventional fashion.
But I doubt his hirsute ways
includes hair shirts these days.
Posted by A Secular Franciscan at 11:15 AM No comments:
Monday, November 05, 2012
Shaken not stired
I was wondering if i should go see the new Bond movie, Skyfall, or wait for the DVD. well... since the Vatican has given it's supernatural praise to this film I will go and see it on the BIG screen. Personally I can't remember such a glowing review of any secular movie from the "red hats".
My favorite review of the review was by Darren Franich
Can we get an 'Amen'? The Vatican loves 'Skyfall'
Providing further evidence that the modern Catholic Church ain't your mama's Catholic Church, the Vatican's film critic has written a full-throated support of Skyfall, praising the film's "adrenalin pumping action, amazing hyper-realistic chases, exotic locations, extremely beautiful Bond girls, the usual super villain, and the essential vodka martini" — all things much enjoyed by the population of the Vatican. (They took a vow of chastity… but nothing wrong with a little window-shopping, amiright boys?)
But it's not all fun and games: Vatican film critic Gaetano Vallini praises how in Skyfall, James Bond is "less attracted to the pleasures of life, darker and more introspective… more human, even able to be moved and to cry." You could say that Bond is experiencing a crushing sensation of guilt, which makes it impossible for him to experience joy in a meaningful way. If only there could be a whole belief system built on all-encompassing guilt!
The Skyfall review was actually just one of five Bond-related articles in this week'sL'Osservatore Romano, which also included a profile of Bond creator Ian Fleming, a retrospective of Bond music, and a think piece by Pope Benedict explaining that everyone is wrong about Timothy Dalton — he was just Daniel Craig 20 years before the world was ready for Daniel Craig. Just kidding, the Pope didn't write that: He gave up on the series after You Only Live Twice.
Posted by Alan Capasso at 11:36 AM No comments:
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Saints On Point in Win Over the Panthers
Brock Kappelmann - November 7, 2016 6:27 am
The Seward County Saints won their second straight game in decisive fashion Saturday night in the Greenhouse, topping visiting On Point Prep 100-72 to improve to 2-1 in the early season.
Seward looked good early on, taking a 9-5 lead to begin the game, but the Panthers hung around for most of the first half, trailing the Saints by just two, 23-21 as the period neared the midway point. Back to back buckets from Charles Beauregard pushed the Saints in front by six and it remained a six point game until Jeromie Simmons canned a three from the wing to put Seward in front by nine 34-25. The Saints eventually stretched their lead to 14 before a pair of late baskets by On Point cut the lead to an even 10 before the break at 52-42. On Point actually outshot the Saints in the first half 48% to 44%, but Seward forced 16 first half Panther turnovers, turning them into 16 points for the 10 point halftime lead. Kevin Sims led the Saints with 11 points in the half while Beauregard chipped in eight and the Seward bench did their part with 24 first half points.
The Saints came out ready to go in the second half and on the shoulders of Sims, quickly extended their lead to 19 at 63-44. A bucket on the inside by big man Martavious Wilson gave the Saints their first 20 point lead of the night and a putback dunk from Ernest Carter added onto that. Seward continued to pile the points on the Panthers who offered little defensive resistance. Spencer Franklin's dirty work on the inside gave the Saints a 90-62 lead with 6:00 to go and a drive and score from Malik Brown in the final minute gave Seward triple digits which is where they finished in a 100-72 victory.
Seward shot 66% in the second half to finish the game at 53% overall. Five Saints reached double figures in the win led by Sims with a game high 23 and Beauregard who had 16. Simmons and Brown each had 10 off the Seward bench and Carter who also entered the game as a reserve finished with eight points and a game high 10 rebounds.
The Saints improve to 2-1 on the year while On Point drops their first official contest to fall to 2-1.
Up next for Seward is their final non-conference tuneup of the season on Tuesday when they will take on Frank Phillips in the Greenhouse at 8:00. Free tickets are available courtesy of our buyout sponsor Pizza Hut at either of their Liberal locations.
SEWARD COUNTY/ON POINT PREP BOX SCORE<http://www.sewardsaints.com/sports/mbkb/2016-17/boxscores/20161105_f71f.xml?view=boxscore>


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About 2 years ago I think I played Pixelmon and could remember there were some pretty epic tracks that came with the mod.
Here is one of the tracks that played: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2Mh1ek5Eo0
Now I installed Pixelmon again but noticed the tracks weren't playing, just the vanilla minecraft tracks. Are they removed? Can I install them?
I have...
Pixelmon 7.0.6
Forge 1.12.2


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Trae Tha Truth Feat. Krayzie Bone & Roscoe Dash - Stay Trill Stay Trill (Mr. Bill Collector)
Directed by Philly Fly Boy
Posted by Jay
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
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About Pinnacle Marketing, Inc.
Our Experience
P.M.I. personnel possess a unique combination of marketing & sales experience working with a variety of components, computer peripherals, and sub-systems. In addition, the majority of P.M.I.'s personnel have held key sales & management positions and know how to be held accountable for results. This vast background of experience is especially important to both principals and customers who desire to do business with a no-nonsense manufacturers' representative. We accept the responsibility of being honest with both parties and work diligently to make every sale a win-win-win proposition. Our focus is towards synergistic lines that offer quality, service, and a long term commitment to the marketplace. Our sales people concentrate on our customers' engineering departments to gain acceptance of products and to insure the involvement of our principals in future programs. We rely on our contact with purchasing departments to assure that P.M.I. receives every opportunity for our principals.
Our Thoughts on Distribution
Likewise, distribution plays a very important part in our sales strategy as it adds another avenue of support for our customers. Conversely, distribution offers our principals assurance that all orders, both small & large, are being given equal attention. P.M.I. is fully aware that cumulative small orders through a strong "Disty Program" is big business. We are also in-tune to the consideration that is taking place with today's distributors. As we approach the next millennium the world of distribution is more dynamic than ever. For this reason, we have a full time distributor coordinator on our staff. The charter of this position is to keep our distributors focused on our lines as well as keep the Pinnacle Sales Team alert to the needs of our distributors. In short, we support our distributors and encourage our principals to do the same.
Lead Follow-up
We at P.M.I. also recognize the importance of product advertising to both enhance a company's image and attract new customers and applications. We recognize that an investment in such programs is both expensive and time consuming for our principals. As a result of that recognition, we believe it is paramount to follow-up on those leads generated by that investment. We believe it is equally important to report our findings back to the principal, so that concrete applications can be tracked by the principal for his dollar investment in advertising. Our lead and tracking system called Pin Track has successfully met this challenge.
In summary, the P.M.I. management has worked on both sides of the rep/principal fence. We fully understand and appreciate what a principal requires from a rep and how to deliver the results. Pinnacle Marketing Inc. pledges to professionally represent your company and to enhance your sales position in our territory. We recognize you are "outsourcing" your sales program to us and take this responsibility seriously.


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SICB Annual Meeting 2019
Hotel & Travel
Hotel Reservations
IMPORTANT - HOTEL SCAM ALERTThe meeting hotel this year is:
SICB has learned that a variety of travel companies are contacting our attendees and exhibitors to assist with hotel reservations for the SICB Annual Meeting. These companies ARE NOT affiliated with SICB in any capacity. If you are contacted by travel booking agencies, we strongly urge you NOT to utilize their services. Please only book hotel accommodations through this web page or contact the hotel directly.
SICB has learned that a variety of travel companies are contacting our attendees and exhibitors to assist with hotel reservations for the SICB Annual Meeting. These companies ARE NOT affiliated with SICB in any capacity. If you are contacted by travel booking agencies, we strongly urge you NOT to utilize their services. Please only book hotel accommodations through this web page or contact the hotel directly.
Marriott Tampa Waterside Hotel & Marina
700 S Florida Av., Tampa FL, 33602
Phone: +1 813-221-4900
IMPORTANT: The Marriott Hotel is SOLD OUT at the group rate!
For hotel information, directions, etc., visit the hotel's website.
Overflow Hotels
IMPORTANT: The Embassy Suites Hotel is SOLD OUT at the group rate!
Embassy Suites by Hilton Tampa Downtown Convention Center
513 South Florida Avenue, Tampa, FL, 33602
Phone: +1 813-769-8300
Room rate is single $140 and double $150.
Follow this link to book.
Group Code: SIB
Aloft Hotel Tampa
IMPORTANT: The Aloft Hotel is SOLD OUT at the group rate!
Rate: $149
Reservation link SICB Annual Meeting 2019 Aloft Tampa
Or call 813-898-8000 or 877-GO-ALOFT and mention Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology
Sheraton Tampa Riverwalk – 5 minute walk to the convention center
Rate $139 IMPORTANT: The Sheraton is SOLD OUT at the group rate!
200 North Ashley Drive Tampa, Florida 33602
Reservation link SICB Annual Meeting 2019 Sheraton Tampa Riverwalk
or call 1-888-627-8105 for reservations and mention Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
NEW Overflow Hotels A block of rooms has been secured at the following hotels since the above are sold out.
Westin Tampa Waterside
Rate $149
725 S Harbour Island Blvd, Tampa, FL 33602
(813) 229-5000
Book your group rate for Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology
If you are having trouble getting a reservation at the overflow hotels, please contact Lori Strong at email@example.com.
Child CareThis year the child care at the annual meeting will be free and provided by Preferred Sitters, the same group that has provided care at SICB since 2015. They are fully insured, and dedicated to providing an enjoyable environment for your child. Registration by December 4th is required to participate. To register your child or children, please email: email@example.com. Questions? Please contact email@example.com.
Ground TransportationSuperShuttle/ExecuCar offers attendees of the SICB 2019 Annual Meeting the lowest SuperShuttle airport transportation rate of $12.00 1-way and $20.00 round trip from Tampa International Airport to the Marriott Waterside meeting hotel and nearby downtown hotels. Additionally, they provide a group discount offering up to $10.00 off their ExecuCar private black sedan/SUV airport transportation - either with curbside pick-up or including airport meet and greet service. The 5-digit discount code, WBGVE, can be used on their website, or on their mobile app.
Go! Running Tours TampaCome see Tampa Bay the healthy way! Go! Running Tours Tampa shows you Tampa Bay on the move, with your own local guide, and at your pace! Enjoy endless opportunities for breathtaking photos of Tampa, with four customized tours ranging from historic Ybor, the Island Hopper, downtown and Riverwalk and the Hidden Brewery tour which ends with a free craft brew!
Enjoy 15% off through January 8th, 2019 with promo code: SICBTAMPA15
Booking link: https://gorunningtours.com/tampa-bay
Tampa Bay Food ToursThis tour discovers downtown Tampa and the Riverfront. As the sun sets the Riverwalk comes alive as a hub for art, leisure, performances, fitness and more. We visit 4 to 5 amazing restaurants who showcase their finest tastings and three feature a wine pairing. Tampa's Downtown and Riverwalk is alive with energy, art and history. The tour starts at Oxford Exchange with a VIP tour and champagne. Wine and food pairings at Malios, Mise en Place and Riversedge. Crepe making demo at TamPiz and dessert and French roast coffee at Anise Global Gastrobar.
To make reservations and learn more go to www.tampabayfoodtours.com
Lowry Park Zoo Discounted Tickets1. Click the link to access our ticketing page: ZooTampa at Lowry Park Convention Tickets
2. Select the number of each ticket type (general admission and youth). Then add to your cart.
3. Enter the promo code WCCNTR in the box.


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- Down By The Bay
- Jingle Bells
- I've Been Working On The Railroad
- Take Me Out To The Ball Game
- Farmer In The Dell
- Green Grass Grew All Around
- Little Red Hen
- Emperor's New Clothes
- Ugly Duckling
- Tale Of Peter Rabbit
- Duck Duck Goose
- The Tortoise And The Hare
- Golden Goose
- Chicken Little
- Boy Who Cried Wolf
- Mouse And The Lion
- Paul Bunyan
- Johnny Appleseed And The Bear
- Casey At The Bat
- Annie Oakley
- Amelia Earhart
- Betsy Ross
- Benjamin Franklin: Inventor
- Paul Revere
- Romeo And Juliet
- Tom Sawyer Paints The Fence
- Treasure Island
- Hunchback Of Notre Dame
- The Prince And The Pauper
- Frankenstein
- Dracula
- Legend Of Sleepy Hollow
- Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde
- Little Red Riding Hood
- Hansel And Gretel
- Noah's Ark
- David and Goliath
- Daniel In The Lion's Den
- Judah And The Maccabees
- The Three Kings
- Thor's Magic Hammer
- Hercules And The Hound
- A Christmas Carol
- The Nutcracker Prince
- Twas The Night Before Christmas
- Krishna Lifts A Mountain
- Ramayana: Ram's First Battle
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Three large-scale renewable energy projects have been approved for construction on public lands in California and Nevada, federal and state officials announced on Wednesday.
In a joint press conference in San Francisco, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Gov. Jerry Brown announced that the final regulatory approvals were given for two solar projects in Southern California and a wind farm in Nevada.
Once built, the three projects would produce enough energy to power 340,000 typical homes and were expected to create hundreds of jobs, the Interior Department said.
Brown said the project approvals were important because they show state and federal governments can work together to "do something significant."
"Climate change is on the way and we've got to do something about it," Brown said.
The McCoy Solar Energy Project and Desert Harvest Solar Farm were proposed in 2011 in California's Riverside County. The Searchlight Wind Energy Project was first proposed in 2008 on land in Nevada's Clark County.
These projects would help California achieve goals set under its global warming law, AB 32, which requires utilities to derive a third of the energy delivered to consumers from renewable sources by 2020.
All told, Interior said it had now approved 37 renewable projects on public lands that have the potential to power nearly 4 million homes at full capacity.
"California is not just leading the United States of America, but leading the entire world today in what we are doing with renewable energy," Salazar said.


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Written by Sierra Bullets Chief Ballistician Tommy Todd
I have shot several disciplines of shooting competitions over the years and have learned a few things regarding ammunition and bullet function during this time. Below I will describe a few of the things I have seen and benefited from. Hopefully if you find your situation to be similar you can make changes before experiencing some of these effects.
Gun Cleaning
Frequently the matches I shoot require 40 to 100 shots before a person gets a chance to clean their rifle. Just as frequently, a good shooting match rifle will still shoot very good scores and groups with that many rounds fired through them. However, those guns do not deliver the same accuracy as when they were clean, but the drop-off in accuracy is not a huge change unless a set of accumulative issues arise.
I witnessed a set of problems that occurred with a fellow competitor's rifle at a recent F-Class match. He was using a large case capacity cartridge for the bore diameter and he was shooting a powder that was burning extremely dirty. As the match progressed, the carbon buildup caused most likely a carbon ring in the throat of the rifle and pressures kept increasing to the point that the cases were hard to extract, bolt lift was excessive, and eventually he quit shooting the rifle due to these issues. Accuracy also suffered as could be evidenced by the gun's performance on target. This load looked fine when he was developing it, none of the excessive pressure signs appeared when he worked the load up, but he was cleaning the gun every ten shots. When he was shooting multiple 20 shot strings during the match is when the issues appeared. He was able to give the gun a thorough cleaning and the issues went away, for several rounds and then the pressures started appearing again. These pressure signs were not due to ambient temperatures as it was a cool spring morning and the temperature was in the low 40° range.
Accuracy Issues
A couple of years ago, I attended a match early in the shooting season and it was unusually hot for that time period. I heard a competitor worrying before the match about his gun "blowing up". At first I was concerned, but after thinking about what he had said I realized that he meant his "accuracy" blowing up, meaning he knowingly had loaded his ammunition at the top end of an accuracy tune that he established via a ladder test. The next day I asked him how his scores were and he said the gun was not shooting very well initially, but he had found enough equipment from friends that were at the match and had pulled the bullets, reduced the powder charge by a few tenths of a grain and re-seated the bullets and his gun was now shooting normally. The temperature difference between his home range the weekend before when he established his load and the match conditions was about 30 degrees and that was enough to cause an accuracy change at 1000 yards.
Cartridge Case Variation
I recently shot some 9mm pistol loads in the Sierra underground tunnel. I was shooting an XP-100 return-to-battery test gun for this evaluation. The testing was conducted with all components as consistent as possible with the exception of the cartridge case brand. My intention was to show a fellow employee what can happen when you change a component without testing to see if it has an effect on pressures, function, or accuracy. I was shooting five-shot groups at 50 yards and reloading the same five cases, without exception every time we fired a particular case made by a different manufacturer than the other four that bullet went out of the group, and it moved a significant amount (approximately 2 inches from the center of the other four rounds). I then loaded that individual case four times and fired a four-shot group that was comparable to the groups achieved with the other four cases. Even though the cases were sized with the same die you could feel resistance with the bolt when the odd case was chambered and its' point of impact was different than that of the others.
The point of these observations is to suggest that when accuracy counts, you must take into consideration the conditions you will be shooting in and adjust if necessary. Some conditions you can manage, like barrel cleaning. Other things like temperature you cannot control but you can make adjustments based on the differences between your testing and utilization of the load.


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Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are infections which are transmitted during vaginal, anal or oral sex. STIs are serious and painful and can cause major health problems. Some STIs infect the sexual and reproductive organs; others (such as HIV and syphilis) can be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy and child birth. Most STIs can be cured if you get treated early. Sometimes, you can have STIs with no signs or symptoms. At other times the symptoms will go away without treatment but you still have the STIs and you must get treatment in order to get rid of the STIs.
The following common symptoms may occur in infected men and women:
A drip or unusual discharge from the sex organ
Sores, bumps or blisters on or near the sex organs anus or mouth
Burning pain when you urinate (pee) or have a bowel movement
A swelling or redness in your throat
Swelling in your groin, the area around your sex organs.
Additionally, women may have the following symptoms:
Pain in the area between your belly bottom and sex organs
Burning or itching around your vagina
Vaginal bleeding between periods
Pain deep inside the vagina when you have sex
If you think you have an STI, please visit a health care provider. Most health centres, clinics, private doctors and hospitals treat STIs. No matter where you get treated, your condition will be kept confidential. Remember to follow your health care provider's instructions carefully and do not share or take medication from other persons.
STIs that cause discharge
The following STIs may cause genital discharge:
Bacterial Vaginosis
Trichomoniasis is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by a small organism called Trichomonas vaginalis. Women are most often affected by this disease, although men can become infected and pass the infection to their partners through sexual contact.
How Common Is Trichomoniasis?
Trichomoniasis is the most common curable STD in young, sexually active women. An estimated 7.4 million new cases occur each year in women and men.
How Do I Know If I Have Trichomoniasis?
Men often do not have symptoms of trichomoniasis and usually do not know they are infected until their partners need treatment. But when symptoms do occur, they include:
Irritation inside the penis
Mild discharge
Slight burning after urination or ejaculation
Many women do have signs or symptoms of infection. Symptoms in women can include:
Greenish-yellow, frothy vaginal discharge with a strong odor
Painful urination
Vaginal itching and irritation
Discomfort during intercourse
Lower abdominal pain (rare)
Symptoms usually appear within five to 28 days of exposure in women.
How Is Trichomoniasis Diagnosed?
To diagnose trichomoniasis, a doctor must perform a physical exam and lab test. Lab tests are performed on a sample of vaginal fluid or urethral fluid to look for the disease-causing parasite. The parasite is harder to detect in men than in women.
How Is Trichomoniasis Treated?
Usually an oral antibiotic called metronidazole (Flagyl) is given to treat trichomoniasis. Before taking this drug, it is very important to let your doctor know if there is any chance that you could be pregnant, because the drug could harm the baby.
Your partner should also be treated at the same time to prevent reinfection and further spread of the disease. In addition, persons being treated for trichomoniasis should avoid sex until they and their sex partners complete treatment and have no symptoms. It is important to take all of your antibiotics, even if you feel better.
What Happens If I Don't Get Treated for Trichomoniasis?
Trichomoniasis in pregnant women may cause premature rupture of the membranes that protect the baby, and early delivery. The genital inflammation caused by trichomoniasis might also increase a woman's risk of acquiring HIV infection if she is exposed to HIV. Trichomoniasis in a woman who is also infected with HIV can increase the chances of transmitting HIV infection to a sex partner.
How Can I Prevent Trichomoniasis Infection?
To reduce your risk of trichomoniasis infection:
Use condoms correctly every time you have sex.
Limit the number of sex partners, and do not go back and forth between partners.
Practice sexual abstinence, or limit sexual contact to one uninfected partner.
If you think you are infected, avoid sexual contact and see a doctor.
Any genital symptoms such as discharge or burning during urination or an unusual sore or rash should be a signal to stop having sex and to consult a doctor immediately. If you are told you have trichomoniasis or any other STD and receive treatment, you should notify all of your recent sex partners so that they can see a doctor and be treated.


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HappyMoment brauchte ein neues Button oder Icon Design und hat einen Wettbewerb auf 99designs gestartet.
Aus 32 Designs von 11 Designern wurde eine Gewinner gewählt.
Hello design people out there :-)
I run a company called "HappyMoment" which is a Webshop for products incense (sticks, herbs, etc.). We now want to launch a website, that includes a blog and web-tv.
We need a character which we can use in all the articles about happiness, humanity and the rules of life. Our customers, are people who are interested in Ayurveda, Yoga, Massage, Esoteric, alternative ways of life, spirituality and all that kinds of subjects.
We came down to the decision, that the character should be a unique monk. But not a monk that you would identify to any religion. We want a universal monk.
Please also note, that we dont want some kind of fat monk, as people could think he is catholic. He should have an aura of inner peace, calmness, happiness. That means no over-the-top smiling but kind of a always happy smile. He should have an likeable and trustful effect on people.
The designer should provide us viarity of 5 simple expressions. If somebody creates all 10 for us, the chance to win is, of course, higher.
1. Neutral, without any situation, frontside.
2. Meditating position
3. Both hands up (will be used to act like the monk would hold photos)
4. The monk points to left or right with his finger (not middle-finger) ;-)
5. The monk enjoys the smoke of an incense stick
6. The monk holds a microphone in his hand (like he interviews someone)
7. The monk looks like he would deliver a parcel to somebody (holding it)
8. Laying and relaxing
9. Walking on a way
10. The monk hugs somebody (ordinary man)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please start with the neutral monk. We dont want you to waste your time unnecessary (in case the neutral monk isnt our taste).
ALSO NOTE: The winning designer will most likely get further jobs from us.
PS: In the end, we need a vector file for each of the expressions.


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It's probably no surprise that I like big-idea science fiction. But this is not to say that big ideas are essential for me to enjoy a science fiction movie. I loved both the original Tron and its sequel, and while neither one is all that deep, they're both gorgeous. The design is a huge part of Andrew Niccol films like In Time, and the only thing I enjoyed about The Host. Besides, half of what passes for big ideas in sci-fi are awkwardly-executed clichés — The Matrix is a serial offender — and if big ideas are really essential you've gotta hate Star Wars.
So no, Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion is not really a big-idea movie. It is, however, a gorgeous film. And, in the absence of any howlers that fundamentally derail the plot, it's not particularly stupid either. A decent story — if not a very original one — strung through beautifully glossy production design makes for a couple hours of solid entertainment.
As to the story, there's been a war with an alien invader, and Earth has won a Pyrrhic victory; the enemy has been largely defeated, but the planet has been left all but uninhabitable. Most of humanity has evacuated to Titan, with just a small mop-up crew left to tend to the massive fusion reactors turning seawater into energy to be sent to the colony. The operation is run out of a giant tetrahedral space station called "the Tet", with actual hands-on work being handled by the married team of Jack (Tom Cruise) and Victoria (Andrea Riseborough). Victoria stays in their tower base, coordinating communications with their mission commander, Sally (Melissa Leo), while Jack flies down to service malfunctioning guard drones.
But there are still "scavs" — enemy forces living on the scorched Earth and causing trouble. Jack and Victoria have had their memories wiped to provide operational security, though Jack finds dreams of the old Earth he's only seen in pictures leaking through. He is, you might say, saturnine about the prospect of leaving Earth for Titan. But it's not until he discovers a scav homing beacon that brings down an old Earth spaceship that things really come apart. For in the wreckage of the ship he finds Julia (Olga Kuryalenko), who he recognizes from his dreams.
The story does basically hang together, though it's not the tightest out there. There are a lot of loose ends that get explained away in an infodump near the climax, and even after that some of the setup doesn't quite make physical sense. The main thrust is pretty straightforward, and the one big twist is all but lifted wholesale from an admittedly better movie which even naming here would constitute a spoiler. This is not intellectually challenging fare.
But what Oblivion lacks in originality it more than makes up for in design. Kosinski works with two of his Tron: Legacy crew: production designer Darren Gilford and cinematographer Claudio Miranda, who just won the Academy Award for Life of Pi. Jack and Victoria's quarters, Jack's ship, and their drones are all slick and clean, while the scavs provide a wonderfully gritty contrast. The team has taken and remixed the best parts of many other visually brilliant sci-fi films, not least of which is Kubrick's 2001. Then it's all shot in the middle of the Icelandic summer for some of the best and brightest scenery in the whole post-apocalypse genre, not to mention the fjords made up to look like the buried remains of Manhattan skyscraper canyons. And I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the score produced by M83, which takes clear inspiration from Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy soundtrack with more than a little Vangelis in the mix.
I suppose the upshot is this: Joseph Kosinski makes gorgeous, slickly-produced sci-fi with mostly solid but not particularly original or inventive scripts. If you really want deep thoughts there are better films out there. If you want more action there are plenty of others that will deliver. But there are few others quite so pretty as what Kosinski and his team are turning out.
Worth It: yes.
Bechdel Test: fail.


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So, I'm going to post some more snippets this week, starting with today. With any luck, by week's end, we'll be ready for publication. *crosses fingers*
On other notes, I was chatting on FB with my sister this weekend and actor Victor Webster's name was mentioned in conversation. She said she pictured him as Rob, which is close but no cigar. Darling Henry Cavill is Rob, not the least of which is because of those gorgeous blue eyes and the panty dropping smile - didn't that make you believe he was ladies man Charles Brandon? It made me believe! She said she keeps seeing Charles Brandon and not Superman, but to me, that's just hair and costume, and Rob would change his hair with every role. His eyes and his smile would always be the same, and that's what makes Henry Cavill Rob for me (it was just the Man of Steel promos that helped me see it; personally, I love shaved-head Henry). In part, that's because I really didn't know who Henry Cavill was before that. But he's Rob. He just is. That's who I saw in my head when I wrote the character originally. I had no idea a person like that really existed and was also famous.
Victor Webster, however, could easily be Sergeant Owen Nichols, who will feature in book #5 and will play a bit part in book #3 of this series. Owen is movie star handsome like Rob, but he's in the Army not the movies and he's also part Native American - thus the dark hair and eyes. At this point in his career, I'm not sure he'd be young enough to play Owen, but you never know. And I loved him as Coop on Charmed, so I know he could pull off the confident, smart-assed, sentimental Owen. Couple that with his soon to be turn in The Scorpion King and yeah, he could play ass-kicking soldier, too, I bet. *sigh* I think all romance authors must fall a little in love with their heroes. Or is that just me?
Okay, back to the real writing. Here's today's snippet. Emily has just had a conversation with her sister. It's Christmas Eve and she's on emotional overload.
Mo opened the door for her and Emily climbed inside the limo. Rob was sitting across from her and suddenly, nothing else mattered. Not her call with Charlie, not her mother's opinion, not Josh or his feelings, not even the small sliver of nagging doubt that was plaguing her. He smiled, and that was it. Her eyes watered.
"Hey. Are you okay?" he said so sweetly it almost made her cry. He moved to sit next to her, even though they were still in visible range of the photographers. And she let him.
She shed a tear. "I am now." He pulled her into his arms and just held her. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed her back in slow, rhythmic circles. The tears kept coming.
After a few minutes of silence, except for her sniffles, she pulled away so she could look at him. "Thanks. I needed that."


text:
Mercer, Neil; Gillen, Julia; Littleton, Karen and Kleine Staarman, Judith
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Interactive whiteboards have been rapidly introduced into all primary schools under UK Government initiatives. These large, touch-sensitive screens, which control a computer connected to a digital projector, seem to be the first type of educational technology particularly suited for whole-class teaching and learning. Strong claims are made for their value by manufacturers and policy makers, but there has been little research on how, if at all, they influence established pedagogic practices, communicative processes and educational goals. This study has been designed to examine this issue, using observations in primary school classrooms. It is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and builds on the authors' previous research on ICT in educational dialogues and collaborative activities.
|Item Type:
|Conference or Workshop Item
|Copyright Holders:
|2006 American Educational Research Association
|Academic Unit/School:
|Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (WELS)
|Research Group:
|Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET)
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|Date Deposited:
|25 Aug 2010 08:16
|Last Modified:
|07 Dec 2018 09:37
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TASTE Jr is another new addition to the RIVSALT family and is the perfect way to explore the tastes of different rock salts from around the world. This special taster-pack consists of six gemstone-like salt rocks, each of which has its own distinctive taste suited to different food types and dishes. Taste all the flavours and decide which are your favorites for use with our
NOTE Blue salt has sold out globally and Taste Jr will include 5 salts from around the world until further notice. The rocks are bigger so the weight of the pack is still the same, 150gr


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The Interrupters (2011)
Critic Consensus: Impeccably crafted and edited, The Interrupters is a tough and honest documentary about street violence that truly has the power to inspire change.
The Interrupters Photos
Movie Info
Watch it now
as Ricardo Williams
as Tio Hardiman
as Gary Slutkin
News & Interviews for The Interrupters
Critic Reviews for The Interrupters
All Critics (92) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (91) | Rotten (1) | DVD (2)
Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra used to instigate Chicago street violence. Now they live for nipping it in the bud, block by treacherous block.
Where James's film excels is as direct experiential cinema -- without narration, onscreen interviews or acknowledgment of the presence of the camera -- it is an intensely dramatic window into a world.
A sobering but not hopeless look at how the Windy City is attempting to turn around a rising tide of street shooting, through the work of a unique group called CeaseFire.
There's no doubt The Interrupters do some good; but there's also no doubt the problem they're facing is enormous.
Realistically inspiring and, thankfully, not overly dramatized.
The immediacy and caprice of violence in "The Interrupters'' are just as strong as in nearly every documentary I've seen about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Audience Reviews for The Interrupters
Even with the precarious message of hope that the heartrending documentary "The Interrupters" delivers, from watching the news it is painfully clear that violence is still a huge problem plaguing the youth of Chicago since the release of this potent film. Take away those news cameras and wait for the police presence to retreat(who in the documentary are best viewed as outsiders by people in the neighborhood), life goes on and people die which is where the interrupters of Cease Fire Illinois come in, as we get a streel level view over the period of a year in Chicago. They are all former convicts and reformed gangbangers who speak from experience in their role as mediator, counselor, mentor and referee, as an added form of penance, with otherwise their lives being back on track. The focus in the documentary is on Eddie Bocanegra, Ameena Matthews and Cobe Williams who ironically lives out in the country. Basically, aside from directly intervening in violent acts(one scene involves a fight outside of a Cease Fire office with people too aggravated to notice they are being filmed), they seek to stop violence from happening before it has a chance to escalate and most admirably to change the way people think, starting with speaking to students who often feel they do not have a future with Bocanegra going one step further by sharing his artwork with them.
Super Reviewer
A powerful look at the epidemic of violence in Chicago. Director Steve James is right on the front lines of a war that Americans do their best to ignore. There are no gimmicks to be found here. Just a raw look at those doing their best to make a difference in a city beset by bedlam.
Super Reviewer
A deeply depressing, saddening documentary concerning the violence on the streets of Chicago, and how a group of former gang-members give their best efforts to destroy the "disease" that infects the culture they were once apart of. Steve James, no stranger to creating relentlessly nihilistic backdrops that his characters do not realize they can not get out of (seen also in the devastating "Hoop Dreams"), paints a vivid, somber portrait here. It is definitely difficult not to be in awe in this group of individuals trying to stop the chaos, as the genuine concern and sympathy to stop others from going down the same road they did is shown in outstanding detail. Quite simply, this is one of the better documentaries put out in quite some time, matching up against 2010's "Exit at the Gift Shop". It is a very tough watch though, as life on the street is not fun to see and the senseless, arrogant, misinformed young people that throw their lives away for what they confuse to be for a good cause (loyalty, vengeance, etc...) is downright sickening. But it is a story that needs to be seen, heard, and talked about, and James impeccably crafts this - it will not leave you quickly.
Super Reviewer
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