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Ocean 9 Construction, Inc filed as a Domestic for Profit Corporation in the State of Florida on Thursday, May 14, 2009 and is approximately six years old, as recorded in documents filed with Florida Department of State. The filing is currently active as of the last data refresh which occured on Sunday, June 7, 2015.
Harry Seaman serves as the President and has interests in other corporate entities including Goodland Construction, Inc. located in Goodland, FL
The registered agent for the company is Daniel G. Gass. Also known as a statutory or resident agent, the registered agent is responsible for receiving legal notifications regarding court summons, lawsuits, and other legal actions involving the corporate entity.
Key roles for Ocean 9 Construction, Inc
Harry Seaman
|Filing Type:
|Domestic for Profit Corporation
|State ID:
|Date Filed:
|Thursday, May 14, 2009
|Registered Agent
|Daniel G. Gass
Comprehensive Insight Plus Report
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|The D&B Comprehensive Insight Plus Report for Ocean 9 Construction, Inc combines D&B's proprietary statistical scoring with business, payment and financial information all in one report.
US Company Profile Report
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|The D&B U.S. Company Profile contains basic information such as address and telephone number, executive names and titles, line of business and SIC codes, D-U-N-S Numbers, organization status, and year and location of incorporation for Ocean 9 Construction, Inc.


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ConceiveAbilities provides third party reproductive services for an international clientele of intended parents. These services include a world-class egg donation program and a growing surrogacy program. Potential egg donor recipients can search our egg donor database and browse our site to find egg donor information on the egg donation process, egg donor costs, prices, payments and more. ConceiveAbilities is also here to assist you with your surrogate mother search, working closely with the clinic or fertility center of your choosing. Our gestational surrogacy program openly details costs and surrogate mother fees. International clients are offered unique options through our international surrogacy program. We are headquartered in Chicago, Illinois; with a second location in Colorado
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Walmart not cutting statements
I have been trying to control my UTI and Walmart is not cooperating!
I use the card heavily through the month, pay the balance down a few days before the due date to $11 and they don't generate a new statement. What gives with that? Next month is 4 months since I've had the card and I was hoping for a good CLI and not, "Not enough experience at the current CL." message.
Why didn't they generate a statement when I clearly should have a minimum payment due of $11?
Starting Score: EQ 658 6/18/12
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The number of Shinto shrines in Japan is estimated to be around 100 000.
The term "Shinto shrine" is used in opposition to Buddhist temple to mirror in English the distinction made in Japanese between Shinto and Buddhist religious structures. This single English word however translates several non equivalent Japanese words, including as in Yasukuni Jinja, as in Tsubaki Ōkami Yashiro, as in Watarai no Miya, as in Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū, as in Meiji Jingū, as in Izumo Taisha, , and .
Shrine names are descriptive, and a difficult problem in dealing with them is understanding exactly what they mean. Although there is a lot of variation in their composition, it is usually possible to identify in them two parts. The first is the shrine's name proper, or . The second is the so-called , or "title".
A shrine may include within its grounds several structures, each destined to a different purpose. Among them are the or sanctuary, where the kami are enshrined, the or hall of offerings, where offers and prayers are presented, and the haiden (拝殿) or hall of worship, where there may be seats for worshipers. The honden is the building that contains the goshintai (御神体), literally, "the sacred body of the kami". The goshintai is actually a temporary repository of the enshrined kami. Of these, only the haiden is open to the laity. The honden is located behind the haiden and is much smaller and unadorned. Other notable shrine features are the torii, or sacred gates, that delimit the sacred grounds and have become the symbol of Japan, the temizuya (手水舎), the fountain where visitors cleanse their hands and mouth, and the shamusho (社務所), the office that administrates the shrine.
It was not uncommon for a Buddhist temple to be built inside or next to a shrine, or viceversa for a shrine to include Buddhist subtemples. If a shrine housed a Buddhist temple, it was called a jinguji (神宮寺). Analogously, temples in the entire country adopted tutelary kami (and built temple shrines to house them. After the forcible separation of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines (shinbutsu bunri) ordered by the new government in the Meiji period, the connection between the two religions was officially severed, but continued nonetheless in practice.
Other structures they may be present within the grounds of a shrine are:
Village council sessions were held in a quiet spot in the mountains or in a forest near a great tree or other natural object that served as a yorishiro. These sacred places and their yorishiro gradually evolved into the shrines of a religion that did not have yet a name for itself. The origin of shrines can be still seen in the Japanese words for "mountain" and "forest", which can also mean "shrine".
The very first buildings at shrines were surely huts built to house some yorishiro. A trace of this origin can be found in the term , literally meaning "deity storehouse", which evolved into hokora (also written with the character 神庫), one of the first words for shrine. Many shrines have on their grounds one of the original great yorishiro: a big tree, surrounded by a sacred rope called and now itself an object of worship. Analogously, many other sacred objects we find today in shrines (mirrors, swords, comma-shaped jewels) were originally yorishiro, and only later became kami themselves by association. Some time in their evolution, the word meaning "palace" came into use, indicating that shrines had by then become the imposing structures of today.
Today's Shinto shrines, with their main hall (and prominent religious images, came into being under the strong influence of Buddhism, but hints of what the first shrines were like can still be found. Ōmiwa Shrine in Nara, for example, contains no images because it serves the mountain on which it stands. For the same reason, it has a worship hall (a ), but no place to house the deity ().
The or is a priest responsible for the shrine's maintenance and for officiating ceremonies. He generally does not proselitize. Traditionally, most shrines did not have a Kannushi and were maintained by a committee of parishioners called Ujiko (氏子). In a jinguji, a Buddhist monk had of course to maintain both his shrine and his temple.


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Emerald Empire: Fourth Edition
Lyle H.
Verified Purchaser
Date Added: 08/29/2011 16:54:37
This product is extremely useful for anyone playing Legend of the Five Rings in the canon setting or a near-canon setting, in that it is full of information and details relating to the Rokugan setting. It is also a document of high production values, with attractive layout and well done illustrations. Due to the somewhat idiosyncratic game engine upon which the Legend of the Five Rings has been constructed, the game-mechanics portions of this text would be difficult to translate to other game systems, but the narrative portions would still be useful for ideas and tone for any historic asian setting.
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Click to show product description
Legend of the Five Rings: The Great Clans
Sean H.
[Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/22/2011 13:38:24
The Great Clans is an amazingly useful sourcebook for Legends of the Five Rings, while not quite a necessity to own to run or play the game it comes close. It expands on both the Great Clans and the world they have made, providing a wealth of information and even some useful new mechanics.
The Great Clans, a sourcebook for the Legends of the Five Rings RPG (3rd edition) is a 306-page PDF (304 pages if you remove the cover), written by Shawn Carman, Rob Hobart, Brian Yoon, Kevin Blake, Nancy Sauer, Ryan Reese, Jacob Ross, Max Lemaire, Dave Laderoute, Rusty Priske, Mike Brodu, and Daniel Briscoe and published by AEG.
The layout is a straightforward design taken directly from the print version of the book, with a 2-column layout (and occasional one column commentary). The Great Class is lavishly illustrated with full color art throughout. The table of contents is complete and there is an index as well, so finding what you are looking for should be easy but you have to use that as the PDF book-marking only takes you to the start of each chapter.
As it says, this book is full of information on the nine Great Clans of the Empire of Rokugan. Primary, it is all general information, history of the clan, background of the families, useful cultural notes and roleplaying hooks. However, each family gets some new schools, new paths, new kata and additional ancestors for those who like mechanics to spice up things.
The background information on the clans is amazingly useful for both players and game masters, expanding on the very brief sections in the core book. In each clan's section there is cultural information, such as courtly affairs in the Crane section and additional information on the tradition of ancestor worship in the Lion section.
Appendices handle the new(ish) Spider Clan, the various Vassal families of the great clans and the return of the heritage tables. Heritage tables are a way to give a character an additional roleplaying hook that may be positive, negative or a mixture of the two expressed as the character's linage (such as an ancestor was a famous poet or a well-known coward). Each Clan gets its own table, there are some slight imbalances between the clans until you come to the Spider, who get two tables of bonuses and one of mixed good and bad things, but even then the good side far outweighs the bad. The Spider tables should not be used as written, as they are just a guaranteed mechanic bonus for the character, unlike all of the other heritage tables.
Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review. Also, I am friends with several of the authors, but I hope that has not shaded my opinion of the product.
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Legend of the Five Rings: The Great Clans
Adrian S.
[Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 08/17/2011 22:32:54
The recent AEG L5R products have shown a dedication to consistent excellence that would make a Crane proud. They are clearly working on conceptualising the game from a players perspective and offering titles that really flesh out the world of Rokugan and add to the immersion in their game.
'The Great Clans' is truly staggering in scope and also in the amount of flavour information they offer. The book is predominantly narrative, and general information, with each Clan given a single chapter.
The information presented in each chapter really goes a long way to making each Clan a very distinct entity and showcasing the diversity possible within the scope of each Clan. It generally avoids stereotypes, but does so in a manner that makes NPCs and ancestors more human whilst adhering to the distinct flavour of the Clan. Every Clan is treated to a historical overview of its roots, major achievements and conflicts throughout the history of Rokugan to give players an appreciation for how the Clan grew into its 'present day' format. There is strong attention to detail here with a solid internal consistency, but presented in a manner which is easy to read. Most of the history is presented as stories, with sidebars and additional boxed text providing clarifications or interesting facts. On this note, whoever was responsible for the layout needs to be congratulated. The text is easily broken up by high-quality art, and the text boxes provide something else to draw the eye to snippets of information.
In addition to this, you can expect to find some Alternate Paths for each Clan (I quite liked the Kitsune Ranger), new Schools (like the Daidoji Scout which is currently vying to be my favourite), Ancestors and NPCs (with full stat blocks which could be used for nay range of purposes), new Techniques and even new rules (such as Rural Traps, in the Crane section, which will be really useful).
In summary, excellent content, high quality production values and a book that should be on every L5R table.
[4 of 5 Stars!]
7th Sea: Game Master's Guide
Salith T.
Verified Purchaser
Date Added: 07/12/2011 10:46:54
A much under-rated game that is full of swashbuckling action.
The mechanics and styling take a lot of lessons from Legend of the Five Rings, but with it's own twist using a "Drama" mechanic.
The setting is a little bit of a let-down though, being mainly a copy of Europe but with random alterations to the maps and such to make it look different for difference sake.
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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7th Sea: Players' Guide
Salith T.
Verified Purchaser
Date Added: 07/12/2011 10:46:50
A much under-rated game that is full of swashbuckling action.
The mechanics and styling take a lot of lessons from Legend of the Five Rings, but with it's own twist using a "Drama" mechanic.
The setting is a little bit of a let-down though, being mainly a copy of Europe but with random alterations to the maps and such to make it look different for difference sake.
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Legend of the Five Rings: 3rd Edition Revised
Nicolas P.
Verified Purchaser
Date Added: 07/11/2011 03:27:30
Extremely expensive for a badly scanned document.
Très cher pour un maivais scan.
[1 of 5 Stars!]
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L5R Encyclopedia:The comprehensive L5R CCG compendium
David R.
Verified Purchaser
Date Added: 07/07/2011 15:14:11
The bad rating is not a judgement on the book itself but rather on the PDF.
It is a scan of the book, which unfortunately means there is a significant downgrade of the quality of the text and pictures.
It is serviceable, but I wouldn't recommend to anyone other than die-hard L5R fans.
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Legacy of Disaster
Diogo S.
Verified Purchaser
Date Added: 07/05/2011 14:26:27
Nice introductory adventure to bring new players to the complex setting of L5R.
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Secrets of the Crane
Diogo S.
Verified Purchaser
Date Added: 07/05/2011 14:22:23
I didn't like this book so much as the older "Way of" books of first edition, the fact that this was during the time AEG decided to turn the game into a D20 didn't help either.
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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7th Sea: Players' Guide
Arkham D.
Verified Purchaser
Date Added: 07/04/2011 01:49:26
BIG Book - lot's of detail - the ship building section is awesome... Different than D&D - takes a little getting used to... Not "historical" - the game world parallels 17th century colonialism and piracy, but the world itself is it's own "thing"... Overall, I like it quite a bit...
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Legend of the Five Rings 4th Edition
Jay S. A.
[Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 06/22/2011 08:41:31
Legend of the Five Rings is one of the most complex and elegant pseudo-Japanese fantasy settings in the market today. It boasts of a reputation of being one of those games that plays up the importance of social and cultural aspects of life in the setting of Rokugan. This comes from the focus on Honor and Duty, which weigh very heavily in the lives of the player characters.
The Roll and Keep system has been improved and streamlined from the 3rd Edition of the game, resulting in a faster, easier to learn incarnation in 4th Edition. The book goes to great lengths to provide a wealth of character options that allow for a massive array of character types.
The setting itself is very vivid, and while some might complain about the overload of information and detail, the 4th edition actually tries it's best to be as friendly to newcomers as possible The book covers all the Major Clans of the setting in a fashion that plays up their unique cultures, beliefs and strengths in a manner that anyone can understand without having to be a long time fan or a player of their CCG.
The book itself looks absolutely gorgeous, with a stunning layout and excellent artwork. The presentation is top notch and leaves very little to be desired. Definitely a must have in any RPG collection.
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Brave New World
Michael T.
[Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/15/2011 09:02:03
Quick, what superhero setting features JFK, nascent superheroes just discovering their powers, and the mutant struggle for equality juxtaposed over American civil rights? No, not X-Men: First Class…Brave New World! No, not the novel by Aldous Huxley…the role-playing game by Matt Forbeck!
Brave New World features a superhero-infested America gone mad. When an evil mutant organization fails to assassinate John F. Kennedy, he transforms the United States into a fascist dictatorship under military rule where every mutant must be registered. If this sounds familiar, it's because the X-Men comics featured mutant oppression in 1984 when Senator Kelly passed the Mutant Registration Act. Brave New World takes this conflict between the superpowered and the government to its logical conclusion – the act grows in scope until it comes to define world policy: mutants change the outcome of wars, destroy entire cities, and usher in a new age with Kennedy extending his term as president indefinitely. It takes over 20 pages to outline this background, which is summarized just as effectively on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World_%28role-playing-
Brave New World is the last gasp of old school design, complete with "how to role-play," random full color plates, and long dramatic fiction introducing the setting. Throughout, what would normally be color glossy pictures are converted here in black-and-white for economic printing purposes. Sans color, much of the artwork is considerably less impressive.
In Brave New World superheroes are "Deltas" either for or against this new world order, a tool of the Man or a desperate fugitive using their powers for justice. Complicating matters is the disappearance of the ultra-powerful superheroes known as Alphas. In this world, nobody is multi-classed or high-level.
And that's the problem. Brave New World is obsessed with creating a superhero genre that's sharply defined by its world, which by its very nature means the heroes can't be so powerful that they can trounce government agents. Players can choose only from 10 archetypes: bargainer, blaster, bouncer, flyer, gadgeteer, goliath, gunner, healer, scrapper, and speedster. They can be slightly customized, but their powers, skills, and attributes are predefined. This is a role-playing game where "role" is something of a straitjacket.
The narrow focus applies to the game master too. Forbeck is uninterested in providing much of a toolkit for game mastering the campaign. Throughout the book, any information that would further the campaign (Where are the alphas? How does one become an alpha? What's up with JFK?) are deferred to other supplements. In essence, if you want to know more you have to pay up for future supplements…and since Brave New World came out in 1999 we now know that some of the books were never published. In short, even if you were to buy into what amounts to over a hundred dollars in books, you still wouldn't have the complete setting.
Brave New World does one thing very well: low-level class-based underdog superheroes battling against the government and each other. In that regard it has much in common with the Basic Dungeons & Dragons set. The superhero role-playing game in particular has been changed forever by Champions; players expect to be able to create whatever character they want. That's more a comment on the evolution of game design than Brave New World. It might surprise modern players expecting a more flexible system, but for gamers who want to recapture the feel of X-Men: First Class, Brave New World might be just what they're looking for.
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Legacy of Disaster
Adrian S.
[Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/12/2011 01:05:29
This is actually quite a good introduction to L5R for a group that has very little (or no) experience with the game. It does present a heavily cut-down version of the rules (and a small grimoire-worth of spells for the shugenja) that makes getting to play a swift experience. There are enough rules to play out the entire module, and they capture the flavour of the system very well. Groups wanting to continue will need to purchase the rulebook.
The story in the module is, on the surface, very simple, but in true L5R style, there are many layers to peel back. It is possible to cruise through the module in a linear fashion, but there are a wealth of opportunities to engage with the social structure, etiquette and customs that make Rokugan such a rich setting. There are political and face-saving schemes afoot in the background, with plenty of clues and opportunities for characters to chase down leads (in a respectful manner, of course). There are a number of ways that the plot can be resolved, all with their own ramifications and enough meaty choices for philosophical souls to mull over.
The only detraction in this was the way in which the pregenerated characters are set out. they simply run on from page to page, and cutting them out to hand to players is a nightmare. I would strongly suggest that AEG take a look at how Catalyst handle their quick-play characters. Catalyst presents double-sided half-page characters with a small illustration; with the sheets easily cut, or torn out and distributed. Not so with this AEG product.
that said, this issue isn't insurmountable (more an annoyance), and the quality of the module more than makes up for it. I'd highly recommend this to absolutely anyone who has ever looked at L5R and thought 'it looks interesting...' It is indeed, and this module showcases why.
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Enemies of the Empire (4th Ed)
Adrian S.
[Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/03/2011 20:24:31
This is the type of book that you want to read through in its' entirety and then let the ideas clatter about inside your head. The sheer diversity of the adversaries covered makes this a remarkably appealing addition to any L5R GM's bookshelf (virtual or otherwise). The designers have excelled in concentrating on a wide breadth of thematically different races and organisations so there is very little repetition throughout the book.
Included is a widespread conspiracy that most think of as a folktale (the Kolat), the monsters of the Shadowlands and the Undead, the Bloodspeaker Cults, Ronin, Nezumi, Naga and my personal favourite – the Nothing (an unknowable, implacable elemental force beyond human comprehension). The choice of 'evil' for your campaign is a huge strength to the book, but it goes far beyond simply providing a horde of stats and new powers. Whilst these are present, the real gold lies within the descriptions. Comprised of legends, half-truth, rumour, advice and 'behind the curtain' designers sidebars, each chapter fulsomely covers the enemy, gives advice for scaling character interaction with it, and even foreshadowing its arrival. There is plenty of fodder to flesh out a campaign centred on only a single chapter, providing rich story information, as well as the much-needed stat blocks.
The writing style shifts from conversational to storyteller to informative as required and makes the text easier to read, and the artwork is brilliant. I especially liked the quasi-Japanese watercolours set behind the pages (although the artistic values for the chapter on The Nothing are superbly executed).
I had no complaints about this book save the fact that I don't have the free time to launch into an L5R campaign immediately after purchasing this book. That's probably for the best though – it will give the seeds of adventure a little more time to take root. For those of you with the time (and I am deeply envious of you), this represents a solid addition to a long line of good L5R books.
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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World's Largest City
Malcolm M.
Verified Purchaser
Date Added: 03/28/2011 23:59:08
The World's Largest City does deliver on the promise of its title. The problem here is the quality of the PDF scan.
What you see in the Full-Size Preview section of the listing? That's the quality of the scan throughout. Useable, but not crisp or as clear as it ought to be.
The scan was not made from the original book layout; in fact this PDF looks like a hand-scan. Some of the pages are slightly askew, the contrast and crispness of the scan could be so much better than it is, and the book's cover image isn't even included as part of the scan.
Again, it's all usable (see the preview) but it's disappointing -- even slightly insulting -- that a $40 PDF couldn't be created with better quality, or more care for the customer.
Still, publisher AEG appears to have essentially abandoned D&D gaming as of this writing, and the book is generally out-of-print as far as I can tell. Unless one wants to pay $80 to buy a physical copy of The World's Largest City from AEG's website store, this is your best bet for owning a copy.
Short version: the book delivers on its promise, but the scan quality as of this writing is mediocre. Functional, but far from professional.
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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The Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) - formerly known as Military Affiliate Radio System - is a Department of Defense (DOD) sponsored program, established as separate managed and operated programs by the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The program consists of licensed amateur radio operators who are interested in military communications. They contribute to the MARS mission providing auxiliary or emergency communications on a local, national, and international basis as an adjunct to normal communications. The MARS program is authorized under DOD Instruction 4650.02.
In November 1925, the Army Amateur Radio System (AARS) was formed by a few dedicated pioneers in the United States Army Signal Corps. This organization continued until the start of World War II when operations were suspended. Army amateur radio was authorized to resume operations in 1946 and the Army Amateur Radio System was reactivated and functioned as such until 1948 when the Army and Air Force established the Military Amateur Radio System, later renamed the Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS). In 1962, the Navy-Marine Corps MARS program was launched making MARS a joint service program. In 2009 the program was renamed to the Military Auxiliary Radio Service retaining the MARS acronym.
The applicant must:
MARS members must agree to operate in accordance with the rules and regulations governing MARS as follow:
MARS members stations meet periodically in scheduled networks on military frequencies outside of the amateur bands. There are various types of networks and each accomplishes a specific goal. For example, administrative networks to take care of much of the day-to-day management of the program; traffic networks which exist solely to pass third party traffic; and of course, emergency networks which are established to provide for communication needs during periods of emergency. There are also technical nets and training nets. MARS nets operate in different modes. Although high frequency (HF) single sideband (SSB) voice is predominant, there are PSK31, VHF, PACKET, other digital modes and even slow scan TV nets.
MARS networks operate on frequencies assigned to the U.S. military. These frequencies are often far removed from the Amateur bands. Most commercially available equipment must be modified to transmit on these frequencies. Information and guidance on making modifications to many commercially available units is available to licensed MARS operators. North Central Area MARS activities are normally conducted on frequencies near 3.3 MHz, 4.5 MHz and 7.3 MHz. The primary operating mode will be USB. Various digital modes such as MFSK16, MT63 and Olivia will also be used.
To join USAF MARS in North Central Area complete the electronic application form or send a request for application forms to:
E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Friday, March 8, 2013
10 Things I'd Tell My 16 Year Old Self
But, because I have lived and learned, there are a few things I'd like to share with my 16 year old self.
1. Body glitter is not makeup and should be avoided unless your occupation requires clear heels and poles. People find it very hard to take you seriously when part of your makeup catches the light and temporarily blinds them. The same advice goes for black lipstick. Just . . . don't.
2. Saving money is important. Develop a plan for doing this and you'll fare much better in life. You simply don't have to spend every last penny of your paycheck. Saving for a rainy day will help you immensely. The rain is definitely going to come, now it's just a question of whether you are prepared for it.
3. Never do for others what you're sure they won't do for you. At almost30, I'm just now really getting this. I would stick my neck out to help someone, and then, I'd need something and simple as a pickup from the airport and they'd put me through the ringer. Not cool. Not that I was this completely altruistic Mother Theresa in my younger days -- I was just dumb. I thought you had to be a doormat to have friends. You don't.
4. You won't keep the same friends throughout life, and that's ok. The girls you were sure were going to be your bridesmaids and aunties to your kids will be nowhere around when it comes time. This is ok. Don't be mad at them or yourself. People grow and change, because that's what they're supposed to do. Sometimes they just grow apart.
5. Life isn't all black and white. There is typically a grey area. People aren't either for or against you. They can be neutral. Things aren't either amazing or horrid. Sometimes they just . . . are. That false dichotomy is what gets folks in trouble and causes unhappiness, I'm convinced. Find a middle ground in life.
6. Floss. Floss with reckless abandon. Half of my dental issues would have never happened had I flossed consistently. Oh the money and pain I could have saved and avoided!
7. It's fine to march to the beat of your own drum. Be true to yourself. If something doesn't feel right, reject it. There have been plenty of times I said "no" to going out and partying, only to later hear that the party was some BS or that something bad happened at the gathering. Intuition is major. Peer pressure is minor.
I have mistakenly dated guys because I was trying to be nice, only to be horribly displeased later. I dated one guy because he called me "stuck up". I should have said, "Fine, I'll be that" and continued about my day. But no, I went on to actually commit time and money to him trying to prove that I was not, indeed, stuck up.
8. Always be gracious. Get nice stationary and always thank people. They'll remember you fondly, instead of as a needy, snot-nosed kid. I've been pretty good about being gracious, but I could have always done better.
9. Be diplomatic, but have a backbone. Don't just tell people what they want to hear. Be very honest with them and you'll never have to cover your tracks. Or have them go out with you looking foolish because you lied and told them you liked a particularly hideous outfit. Not all people like honesty. Some prefer a pretty lie rather than the ugly truth. In that case, just be extra tactful.
Some would say that I've cultivated this "devil-may-care" attitude about myself. That's not true. I just figure instead of pussy-footing or walking on eggshells, I'm going to call out the obvious pink elephant in the room. That's earned me fans and foes.
10. Don't allow anyone to make you feel bad or disrespect you. No one has the right to take joy in your misery. My grandmother has a habit/pastime of telling people how much weight they gained. I know what you're thinking. "All old people do that." "Old people say anything." "She's old, she's allowed to be mouthy." I would disagree with all of those. I don't care who you are or how old you are, etc -- you CANNOT take joy in tearing me down. I have no problem respectfully telling you that you hurt my feelings. Truer to myself though would be hurling an insult back, depending upon who it is doling out the trash-talk. "My, you've put on weight!" can get a response of "My, you've lost your mind!" or "If you worried about the numbers in your bank account like you worry about the numbers on my scale, you might be in a better position. Good day."
My 16 year old self was a bit of a people-pleaser. I can't go back and change the past, and I wouldn't want to. All in all, I'd say everything I was and all that I experienced has made me who I am today. I'm pretty satisfied with who I am. I do look for ways to improve, as I know I'm not done growing and changing, but I think I'm in a place where I know where to stand firm on some things and waver on others.
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Asus U36SD-RX114V
SpecificationsNotebook: Asus U36SD-RX114V (U36 Series)
Processor: Intel Core i5 2410M
Graphics Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M 1024 MB
Display: 13.3 inch, 16:9, 1366x768 pixels, glossy: yes
Weight: 1.67kg
Price: 1200 euro
Average of 4 scores (from 6 reviews)
Reviews for the Asus U36SD-RX114V
Slim and sexy. Though it's not the manufacturer's ultrabook, it convinces with its slim silhouette, its velvety yet hard aluminum case, its battery life and, above all, its swiftness via SSD.
Source: Digital Versus
Quite nice to look at with its matte black shell, this laptop retains all the strengths of the U30SD (powerful processor, decent gaming capacity and battery life). Removing the DVD player has allowed Asus to bring the price down and make this model an attractive buy for those looking for a powerful ultra without paying an arm and a leg.
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 09/16/2011
Rating: Total score: 100%
Foreign Reviews
Source: nDevil DE→EN
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 10/30/2011
Source: Notebookcheck DE→EN
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 10/11/2011
Rating: Total score: 86% performance: 83% display: 63% mobility: 91% workmanship: 91% ergonomy: 89% emissions: 86%
Source: Notebookinfo DE→EN
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 09/15/2011
Rating: Total score: 90% performance: 95% display: 80% mobility: 95% ergonomy: 90% emissions: 87%
Source: 3DNews.ru RU→EN
robust case, satisfying price, bad battery runtime
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 09/27/2011
Source: Notegear KO→EN
Single Review, online available, Very Long, Date: 09/14/2011
Series: In many reviews, the display is described and valuated negatively It is characterized dark and very glossy. Especially positively mentioned are the mobility features, the combination of thin construction, low weight and long battery runtime. Optimally, use these models in trains, buses or public buildings or when you have to switch between several rooms with the laptop. Not suited are bright gardens.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M: Entry level graphics card based on the new GF119 chip with a 64 Bit memory bus or on the GF108 with 128 Bit memory bus but lower clock rates.
Non demanding games should be playable with these graphics cards.
» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.
Dual-core processor based on the Sandy Bridge architecture with an integrated graphics card and dual-channel DDR3 memory controller. The CPU is clocked at 2.3 GHz (Turbo Boost 2.6-2.9 GHz) and the GPU at 650 (1200 MHz Turbo).
» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.
13.3": This is a common display format for subnotebooks. Netbooks, UMPC and some subnotebooks have tinier displays. Nevertheless, the majority of standard laptops has a higher format. The advantage of a small display is, that the subnotebook can be small dimensioned and can be carried easily. Further the small display needs few energy, which improves the battery runtime and in consequence the mobility. The disadvantage is that the reading of texts is a bit exhausting for the eyes, especially with high resolutions.» To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.
1.67 kg: This sub-notebook weighs less than the average of all notebooks and represents a medium class of weight among the sub-notebooks. 11 inch displays are normal for this class of weight.
Asus: ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated, a Taiwanese multinational company, produces motherboards, graphics cards, optical drives, PDAs, computer monitors, notebook computers, servers, networking products, mobile phones, computer cases, computer components, and computer cooling systems. The company's 2007 revenues reached US$6.9 billion. ASUS also produces components for other manufacturers. The Eee PC initiated the netbook boom in 2008.
90.5%: There do not exist many models, which are rated better. The most ratings get ratings, which are a bit worse.
» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.


text: I have a brand new (well few weeks old but unused) Salaxy S4 (GT-I9505) that I got on upgrade (it is unlocked) that I don't want. How much should I be looking to sell it for. O2 Recycle will give £257 but they always low ball, however they are nice and simple.


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SXSW 2011 Q&A: Jim EnglandRachel Lovinger March 8, 2011
The Breakdown: SXSW is just a few days away. As we pull into the final stretch, we spoke with Jim England (@JimEngland), co-founder of Keepstream about his panel "Humans Versus Robots: Who Curates the Real-Time Web?"
S/G: What inspired the creation of Keepstream?
Jim: Keepstream evolved from the development of another web app (CorkShare) we built while in college at Case Western Reserve University. Starting with no professional contacts outside of our university, we used Twitter to connect with developers, marketers, and other startup founders and built a group of important advisers and mentors. On Twitter, we saw meaningful conversations and important resources being shared, but did not find an easy and effective way to save or archive these interactions.
The turning point for the ideation of Keepstream was at last year's SXSW. While we did not attend in person, we were able to follow a number of panels simply by reading the official hashtag of the event. These hashtags were great live, but it was difficult to find these relevant tweets in the future and there was no place to store or archive a curated list of these tweets.
We felt that there needed to be a website which would help in the saving of social media, so we built Keepstream to preserve and share these collective experiences within our social media streams.
S/G: What interesting uses of Keepstream have you seen so far?
Jim: We have purposely built Keepstream to be a flexible, open-ended platform and have been excited by the collections our users have built so far. Some of my personal favorites include a Twitter Q&A with Entourage actor Adrian Grenier, highlights from the Austin City Limits Music Festival, and a recap of articles on a new product launch.
S/G: Your panel is described as "an old fashioned smackdown between human and semantic-powered curation." Can you tell us about the panelists, and what each of them brings to the debate?
Jim: I believe that curation applications should provide powerful tools for manual curation, keeping the content personal and relevant to the curator and to their audience.
Xavier Damman is a web entrepreneur from Belgium and co-founder of Storify. Xavier previously founded Publitweet, a platform to publish tweets on news sites such as European news outlets LeMonde.fr and EuropeanVoice. He believes that social media turns everyone into a reporter with curation as a manual process to turn bits of data in the cloud into meaningful information (stories) that can be used to inform the world in a better way.
Hank Nothhaft is the co-founder of Trapit, a virtual personal assistant for web content incubated out of SRI and in the same AI project (CALO) as Siri (acquired by APPL in May after their SXSW Accelerator win). Hank's company comes at the problem from the "robot" side of the equation, creating a "Pandora for web content" based on advanced machine-based curation.
After spending five years as Chief Marketing Officer for Bazaarvoice, Sam Decker is now focused on aggregating, curating and displaying social content as CEO of Mass Relevance. Sam believes that automation has to be a part of the curation process in order for the appeal to scale beyond the most hardcore digital enthusiasts.
Our moderator for the panel is Megan McCarthy, founding editor of Mediagazer and the first human editor at Techmeme. Megan has been described as the "Borg Queen of the Blogosphere" in an interview with American Journalism Review, so she has experience with both "robotic" and "human" forms of curation.
S/G: Do you think humans and robots can ever learn to get along? What do you think it would take to make that happen?
Jim: Each of the four startups on our panel are a blend of both manual and automatic processes, with variations on the percentages in the mix. Robots and humans will learn to get along if we use algorithmically curated content as a starting point for human curation. In addition to a robotically curated base of content, it is necessary for humans to provide the finishing touches by removing some content and adding beneficial pieces that algorithms may have missed.
S/G: What are you looking forward to seeing at SXSW?
Jim: As a co-founder of a curation startup, I can't wait to hear from an expert in the field: Steve Rosenbaum in "Curation Nation: A Model for Makers and Gatherers".
I am also looking forward to supporting local Austin panels including Jason Cohen's "A Bootstrapped Geek Sifts Through the Bullshit" and Josh William's "Beyond the Check-In: Location and the Social Web"
As for keynotes, Christopher Poole (canvas) and Seth Priebatsch (SCVNGR) are going to absolutely crush it!
Explore the rest of the SXSW 2011 Q&A Series.


text:
|August 18-25, 2014
|M from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM, 2 sessions
|Georgette Ray-Johnson
|HBR Guide to Better Business Writing. Bryan A. Garner.
|Flash Drive Optional.
Sorry, this course is inactive. Please contact our office to see if it will be reinstated, or if alternative classes are available.
Business Writing Basics, basic business, Business verbage, Business verbiage, business skills, how to run a business, business basics for dummies, business for beginners, beginning business, what basics are need for running a business, starting a business, business documents, professional writing, technical writing, writing in business terminology, business memos, formal writing, Executive Administrative Assistant Certificate, Administrative certification, certifying an assistant, certifying an executive administrative assistant, certify administrative assistant, assistants certified, professional executive administrative assistant, where can I get certified to be an assistant, how can I be a professional assistant, executive administration professionally, ministration assistant, business certificate, professional certificates, information on how to become certified, requirements for executively administrating, administrative assistant certification at the executive level, improving my administrative skills, classes for administrators, courses for assistants, I want to become an executive administrative assistant, customer service certifications, customer service skills, getting better with human resources, hr certified, classes at a university, classes at uta, uta ce classes, fun classes, project learning classes


text:
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday increased the pressure on the federal government to act on the state's request for a $10 billion Medicaid waiver, joining Gov. Andrew Cuomo to highlight the plight of hospitals in Brooklyn and across the state. De Blasio and Cuomo said the… Read More ?
The post Cuomo, de Blasio pressure feds on Medicaid waiver appeared first on Politics on the Hudson.More »


text: Prev Purchase this photo The Herald-Dispatch file photo Joe Estep and Frank Dickey apply a center divider for the new Criuse Avenue in downtown Huntington in this 1987 file photo. Gallery: Cruise Avenue Jul. 08, 2013 @ 10:23 AM The Herald-Dispatch / 2015 Here is a look back at Huntington's Cruise Avenue. ()


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Miracle girl is mother's daily gift
At Cecily's two-week checkup, Ackerly's suspicions were confirmed. Doctors agreed that something wasn't right, and after months of evaluations and visits to specialists, a neurologist told Rachel and Brien that Cecily was suffering from infantile spasms. He thought it was probably a form of epilepsy, and the prognosis wasn't good.
For a few minutes in that room in Rady Children's Hospital, Ackerly's heart was in a very dark place. And then it went somewhere else.
"I remember thinking how bad it was and having a pity party for myself, which I hate to admit," she said. "But then I heard a helicopter and a call for a Code Blue, and I saw the trauma team taking off to another room and I thought, 'She's fine. She's not going to do everything that everyone else does, but I can pick her up and I can take her home.' And that's where the pity party ended."
Ask her how she takes care of three kids, works part time (she does marketing for the Websense data-security company) and runs Cecily's Closet, Ackerly is quick to give credit to the Team Cecily support system. To Brien's business skills and furniture-hauling acumen. To her parents, Mervyn and Cecily, who take care of the kids three days a week. To PaintGreen and artist Emily Dolton and the other businesses that donate makeover supplies and to the many volunteers who do the grunt work.
Ask Brien Ackerly how she does it, and he just looks at the tired woman on the other end of the couch and smiles.
"First and foremost, she has really strong parents. They never sit still. The whole family is always in motion," said the 37-year-old Brien, who is director of knowledge management for Scripps Health. "It's also that having kids has been so meaningful, and this is a way for her to create an even better environment for them. This is her opportunity to make connections and to be an advocate."
Oh, and there's one more thing.
"We're both deeply competitive," Brien added. "When people told us we couldn't start an organization with everything we had going on, that set a fire under us."
Since 2010, Cecily's Closet has completed 32 room makeovers and distributed more than 200 belly bands. The organization just received a grant from the UPS Store and won a "Community Champions Award" from Molina Healthcare Inc. And in August, Ackerly is launching "Mission of Giving — Sweet Dream Makeovers," an ambitious project that will have eight teams making over eight rooms in eight days.
It's a big load for one family with three kids, two working parents and one demanding nonprofit organization. But when you feel like every day is Mother's Day, Rachel Ackerly believes you should spread the wealth.
"This is something I can do. It's an outlet and a passion and I get so much out of it. Anytime you can help somebody, it makes you feel better. This is therapy for me. I could pay money to talk to someone, but I would rather do this."


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Romero Returns to NY with Apprentice Arboleda
by Karen Johnson
Bell managed Jara's business in Florida over the winter and at Keeneland during the spring meet. He soon parted ways with the jockey, however, who returned to New York and obtained the services of Roger Sutton for Saratoga's summer season.
Copyright © 2015 The Blood-Horse, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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July 5, 2015
Saturday, April 12, 2014
MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (AP) -- Lawmakers in state capitals and in Washington are working to see that consumers are getting what they think they are getting when buying seafood.
More than 90 percent of America's seafood is imported and mislabeling is rife.
The conservation group Oceana reported last year that 33 percent of the more than 1,200 seafood samples it purchased and tested nationwide were mislabeled. Only seven of the 120 samples of fish purported to be red snapper really were red snapper based on DNA testing.
Lawmakers in states including Maryland and South Carolina have introduced truth in labeling bills.
And the Safety and Fraud Enforcement for Seafood Act has been introduced in both chambers of Congress. It would require information, such as where and when seafood was caught, to follow seafood through final sale.
Click Here to access the online Public Inspection File
Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
Douglas Blonsky
President & CEO
Central Park Administrator
Reporting to the Board of Trustees, Mr. Blonsky directs the overall strategic planning, park operations, capital programming, public programming, development and marketing and communication strategies for the organization. He works with the Board of Trustees on all governance issues, board development and on financial planning and budgeting strategy to ensure a strong stable organization. He is responsible for fostering relationships with donors at all levels, park users, senior Parks Department officials and other public officials. Mr. Blonsky directly supervises area VPs as well as provides leadership to all levels of the organization. As Administrator of the Park, he is directly responsible for all day to day operations and strategic matters concerning all aspects of park maintenance, operations and management.
Strategy Development and Execution
Mr. Blonsky partners with the Board on all operational and strategic issues as they arise. He provides strategic recommendations to the Board based on the direction from the Strategic Planning Committee. He engages the Committee around issues, trends, and changes that would affect the operational model and delivery of the strategic plan.
Conditions of the Park
Mr. Blonsky partners with the Board, the VP for Planning, Design, and Construction, the VP for Operations, and the senior development team in creating an appropriate capital and operational program that meets the needs of the restoration, management and operation of the Park, while taking advantage of the Conservancy's strong fundraising capabilities. He partners with all senior operations managers to increase the use of environmentally friendly and sustainable management, operational and horticultural practices that promote environmental stewardship and best practices, while continuing the high level of maintenance standards that the Conservancy is renowned for. Mr. Blonsky supports and increases the use of technology to create greater efficiencies while increasing standards.
Building a Great Organization
Mr. Blonsky provides leadership, clear vision and mission priorities to the organization. He identifies, retains and develops talented staff, Board members and future leaders of the Conservancy. He creates and implements sound management practices and performance measures that facilitate effective decision- making, a cohesive and effective structure as well as a healthy organizational structure. Mr. Blonsky develops a strong senior management team that is capable of creating and implementing organizational objectives.
He encourages cross-departmental collaboration that supports the Conservancy's mission and strategic plan. He provides leadership to all levels of the organization, seeking out and encouraging individuals who exhibit qualities that position them for future organizational leadership. He is continually seeking out and cultivating potential external candidates that exemplify the culture and mission of the Conservancy.
Relationship with the City of New York
Mr. Blonsky develops and manages relationships with the Parks Department and City government (e.g. regulatory agencies / commissions, City Council, etc.) to ensure the public / private partnership between the Conservancy and the City is effective and adaptive to changes in the political landscape. He meets and cultivates relationships with City officials to ensure that the partnership between the City and the Conservancy remains strong, and that the Conservancy is viewed as a leader in the world of public / private partnerships.
Mr. Blonsky oversees a staff of more than 250 and over 3,000 volunteers who contribute 52,000 hours of service each year. As a result of the proven track record of the Conservancy in renovation and supervision, the Conservancy assumed responsibility as general contractor and project manager for all Central Park capital projects, including those that are City-funded. Mr. Blonsky has been directly responsible for the effective management of $350 million in capital projects, including a number that have received prestigious design awards.
Under Mr. Blonsky's leadership, the Conservancy has completed such noteworthy restoration projects as the Great Lawn, the Harlem Meer, the Merchants' Gate, the Mall, the Conservatory Water, the Pond, the Pool, and the Reservoir fence. He has developed several innovative Park management and preservation practices, which have set the standard for park management nationwide. The zone management system, for example, divides Central Park into 49 zones, each with a dedicated gardener who provides a uniformed presence and is held accountable for his or her zone. This system creates accountability for cleanliness and productivity improvements throughout the Park. In addition, Mr. Blonsky developed and implemented a program to train and mentor NYC Parks Department gardeners from underserved parks in all five boroughs (Neighborhood Parks Initiative). These individuals are trained by Conservancy staff in Central Park in horticulture, maintenance, and management.
During his tenure, Mr. Blonsky has also managed the operational logistics of some of the largest events in the Park, including The Gates; September 11th first anniversary remembrance; New York City Marathon; annual performances by the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera; concerts by Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Sting, and Dave Matthews; the premiere of Disney's Pocahontas; and a Mass given by Pope John Paul II.
A graduate of the University of Delaware and Cook College at Rutgers University, Mr. Blonsky holds Bachelor of Science degrees in both Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, and is a registered landscape architect in New York State.


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Software-defined datacenters (SDDC) and software-defined storage (SDS) are big movements in the industry right now. Just read the trade press or attend any conference and you'll see that – it's a big deal. We're seeing for-pay vendors providing solutions, as well as strong ecosystems evolving around open source solutions. It's not surprising why – there is a need for enterprises to deploy large scale compute clusters, and that takes either deep expertise that's very rare, or orchestration tools that have not existed in the past. It's the "necessity being the mother of invention" thing…
So datacenters are being forced to deploy large-scale clusters to handle the scale of compute needed, and the amount of data that is being captured, analyzed and stored. As an industry then, we're being forced to simplify applications as well as the management and deployment of these large scale clusters. That's great for datacenters. It's even better that we're figuring out how to provide those expanded resources and manage them for less money, and with fewer people to manage them. (well, it's probably good for everyone but the sys admins…)
These new technologies are the key enabler. This blog, the second in my three-part series (based on interesting questions I was asked by CEO & CIO, a Chinese business magazine) examines how SDDC and SDS are helping enterprises get more out of their datacenter gear. You can read part 1 here.
CEO & CIO: What are your views on software-defined storage? What's the development roadmap of LSI in achieving software-defined storage?
We see SDS as one of a number of vital changes underway in the datacenter. SDS promises to span some or all of file, object, key-value and block in order to pool resources and to simplify the infrastructure required in a datacenter, as well as to smooth the migration to object or key-value storage over time. Great examples of these SDS solutions are: Ceph, Swift, Cinder, Gluster, VSAN / VVOLs …. The model brings great benefits in datacenter management, resource pooling and allocation and usability. The main problem is performance – and by that I do not mean extreme performance. I mean poor performance that damages TCO, reduces efficiency of infrastructure and increases costs. Much worse than you would get otherwise. These solutions work, but compromise resource efficiency. Many require flash integrated in the system to simply maintain existing performance. However, this is a permanent change in how storage is used and deployed, and it's a good change.
While block is what underlies most storage and will continue to for some time, the system and application level view is changing. We view SDS as having great synergy with LSI's architectural direction – shared DAS infrastructure and ability to add "above the block" capability like quality of service (QoS), direct key/value hardware, etc, and bring improved performance and resource efficiency. Together, SDS + LSI innovation = resource pooling and allocation, including flash and cool/cold storage, management and virtual machine (VM) agility, performance and resource efficiency.
As a result, there has been tremendous interest from SDS vendors to work with us, to demonstrate prototype systems, and to make solutions better. We are working with many SDS partners to provide complete solutions. This is not a one-size-fits-all world, so there will be several solutions. Those solutions are not ready yet, but they're coming, and will probably displace the older file and block storage systems we know and love.
CEO & CIO: Industry giants such as Intel have outlined their visions for software-defined datacenters. Chinese Internet giants have also put forward similar plans. What views does LSI have on software-defined datacenter?
If you view the AIS keynote, you'll see we believe this is a critical part of the future datacenter. But just one critical part. Interestingly, we had Intel present as well during AIS.
SDDC creates a critical control plane for the datacenter. It is the software abstraction model that enables resource pooling. Resource pooling of compute, storage and network, with memory in the near future. It enables the automation and allocation of tasks and resources in the datacenter. The leading models are VMware® SDDC and OpenStack® software, but there are others that are important too. They're just a little less public right now. Anyway – it's way too early to predict which will be dominant. Just like SDS, SDDC exchanges simplified control and abstraction for performance and efficiency. As a result, it's not a very useful concept, at least not at hyperscale levels, without hardware that really, truly supports and enables it. As the datacenter has changed from a compute-centric model to a dataflow model, the storage and network and, soon, memory become very important. They dictate the useful work that can be gotten from the datacenter.
I believe we are, as an industry, at the start of the hardware transition to support these. We are building hardware solutions for storage and network that are being designed into products today. We are working very closely with three of the largest datacenters in the US, and two in China to build not just the SDDC, but the pooled hardware infrastructure that is needed to make it work.
It's critical to understand that SDDC solutions really work, but often the performance and efficiency is – well – terrible. That's been the evolution in computer science and computer architecture since the beginning. You raise the abstraction level, which simplifies development and support, but either causes poor performance or requires more hardware capability that is architected to support those abstractions.
As a result, it's really difficult to talk about SDDCs without a rack-scale architecture to support them. So we are working closely with the key SDDC software solutions/vendors, even the ones I didn't list, to integrate and optimize the solutions to make the SDDC actually work. We have been working very closely with VMware and the OpenStack community, and we are changing the way the software plane interacts with the pooled resources. Again, there has been so much interest in our shared DAS, incorporating flash in the same architecture and management, and our Axxia® SDN control plane processor for networks.
I talk about rack-scale architectures to support SDS in the second half of this keynote and in my blog "China: A lot of talk about resource pooling, a better name for disaggregation."
Summary: So I believe SDS is a big movement, it's a good thing, and it's here to stay. But… the performance is poor today. Very poor. That's where we come in, with hardware that enables SDS and not only makes performance acceptable, but helps make it excellent, and improves efficiency and cost too. And SDDC is also a massive movement that will define the future datacenter. But it is intertwined with the rack-level concepts of pooling or disaggregation to make it really compelling. Again – that's where we come in.
These were good questions that were interesting to answer. I hope it's interesting to you too. I'll post some more soon about how the Chinese Internet giants differ from other customers, and about forward-looking technologies.
Restructuring the datacenter ecosystem (Part 1)
Tags: AIS, Axxia, CEO & CIO Magazine, Ceph, China, Cinder, cold storage, cool storage, datacenter, direct attached storage, disaggregation, ecosystem, Gluster, hyperscale datacenter, key-value storage, object storage, OpenStack, pooling, QoS, quality of service, rack scale architecture, SDDC, SDS, shared DAS, software-defined datacenter, software-defined storage, Swift, virtual machine, VM, VMware, VSAN, VVOL
Views: (3270)
Deploying a mix of datacenter resources in a preconfigured server – compute, storage, network, and memory – in a way that they are fixed, can't be tuned to a use case, and must be replaced entirely for an upgrade is how the IT industry has been working for years. Each server is an island.
This is an inefficient path when you deploy more than a few servers. That's why there is an architectural movement in hyperscale datacenters (and it's sure to be emulated by enterprise in a few years) to "disaggregate" – or, the term I prefer, "pool" – these resources. That allows deployments to be "configured" in the field, creating tailored platforms depending on needs. And it enables more efficient life-cycle management of subsystems. Ultimately this enables more work/$, and that's almost everyone's goal. One hyperscale CTO I know told me over dinner he views this pooling and allocating as "hardware-based virtualization," which is sort of true.
In this AIS interview I talk about the concept, the rational, and show how costly forklift upgrades will be behind us once this small movement becomes common practice.
Keeping up with the flood of global data with network acceleration
It's hardly a secret that the growth of PC, mobile, and intelligent media devices and their related applications worldwide is exploding. It also no secret that they are driving an equivalent increase in global network traffic. The mystery for many datacenter network managers is how to keep up, as the flood of data traffic saturates networks, drags down network performance, and frustrates users with waiting.
Here, LSI's Troy Bailey discusses how networks will become smarter to deliver the data you need, in the priority you need, when you need it.
Tags: disaggregation, hyperscale datacenters, network acceleration, pooling
Views: (2939)
I am sitting in the terminal waiting for my flight home from – yes, you guessed it – China. I am definitely racking up frequent flier miles this year.
This trip ended up centering on resource pooling in the datacenter. Sure, you might hear a lot about disaggregation, but the consensus seems to be: that's the wrong name (unless you happen to make standalone servers). For anyone else, it's about a much more flexible infrastructure, simplified platforms, better lifecycle management, and higher efficiency. I call it "resource pooling," which is descriptive, but others simply call it rack scale architecture.
It's been a long week, but very interesting. I was asked to keynote at the SACC conference (Systems Architect Conference China) in Beijing. It was also a great chance to meet 1-on-1 with the CTOs and chief architects from the big datacenters, and visit for a few hours with other acquaintances. I even had the chance to have dinner with the CEO /CIO China Magazine editor in chief, and CIO's from around Beijing. As always in life, if you're willing to listen, you can learn a lot. And I did.
Thinking on disaggregation aligns
With CTOs, there was a lot of discussion about disaggregation in the datacenter. There is a lot of aligned thinking on the topic, and it's one of those occasions where you had to laugh because I think anyone of the CTOs keynoting could have given anyone else's presentation. So what's the big deal? Resource pooling and rack scale architecture.
I'll use this trip as an excuse to dig a little deeper into my view on what this means.
First – you need to understand where these large datacenters are in their evolution. They usually have 4 to 6 platforms and2 or 3 generations of each in the datacenter. That can be 18 different platforms to manage, maintain, and tune. Worse – they have to plan 6 to 9 months in advance to deploy equipment. If you guess wrong, you've got a bunch of useless equipment, and you spent a bunch of money – the size of mistake that will get you fired… And even if you get it right, you're left with the problem – Do I upgrade servers when the CPU is new? Or at, say, 18 months? Or do I wait until the biggest cost item – the drives – need to be replaced in 4 or 5 years? That's difficult math. So resource pooling is about lifecycle management of different types of components and sub-systems. You can optimally replace each resource on its own schedule.
Increasing resource utilization and efficiency
But it's also about resource utilization and efficiency. Datacenters have multiple platforms because each platform needs a different configuration of resources. I use the term configuration on purpose. If you have storage in your server, it's in some standard configuration – say, 6 3 TByte drives or 18 raw TBytes. Do you use all that capacity? Or do you leave some space so databases can grow? Of course you leave empty space. You might not even have any use for that much storage in that particular server – maybe you just use half the capacity. After all, it's a standard configuration. What about disk bandwidth? Can your Hadoop node saturate 6 drives? Probably. It could probably use 12 or maybe even 24. But sorry – it's a standard configuration. What about latency-sensitive databases? Sure, I can plug a PCIe card in, but I only have 1.6 TByte PCIe cards as my standard configuration. My database is 1.8 TBytes and growing. Sorry – you have to refactor and put on 2 servers. Or my database is only 1 TByte. I'm wasting 600 GBytes of really expensive resource.
For network resources – the standard configuration gets maybe exactly 1 10GE port. You need more? Can't have it. You don't need that much? Sorry – wasted bandwidth capacity. What about standard memory? You either waste DRAM you don't use, or you starve for more DRAM you can't get.
But if I have pools of rack scale resources that I can allocate to a standard compute platform – well – that's a different story. I can configure exactly the amount of network bandwidth, memory, flash high- performance storage, and disk bulk storage. I can even add more configured storage if a database grows, instead of being forced to refactor a database into shards across multiple standard configurations.
Pooling resources = simplified operations
So the desire to pool resources is really as much about simplified operations as anything else. I can have standardized modules that are all "the same" to manage, but can be resource configured into a well-tailored platform that can even change over time.
But pooling is also about accommodating how the application architectures have changed, and how much more important dataflow is than compute for so much of the datacenter. As a result there is a lot of uncertainty about how parts of these rack scale architectures and interconnect will evolve, even as there is a lot of certainty that they will evolve, and they will include pooled resource "modules." Whatever the overall case, we're pretty sure we understand how the storage will evolve. And at a high level, that's what I presented in my keynote. (Hey – I'm not going to publicly share all our magic!)
One storage architecture of pooled resources at the rack scale level. One storage architecture that combines boot management, flash storage for performance, and disk storage for efficient bandwidth and capacity. And those resources can be allocated however and whenever the datacenter manager needs them. And the existing software model doesn't need to change. Existing apps, OS's, file systems, and drivers are all supported, meaning a change to pooled resource rack scale deployments is de-risked dramatically. Overall, this one architecture simplifies the number of platforms, simplifies the management of platforms, utilizes the resources very efficiently, and simplifies image and boot management. I'm pretty sure it even reduces datacenter-level CapEx. I know it dramatically reduces OpEx.
Yea – I know what you're thinking – it's awesome ! (That's what you thought – right?)
Oh – what about those CIO meetings? Well, there is tremendous pressure to not buy American IT equipment in China because of all the news from the Snowden NSA leaks. As most of the CIO's pointed out, though, in today's global sourcing market, it's pretty hard to not buy US IT equipment. So they're feeling a bit trapped. In a no-risk profession, I suspect that means they just won't buy anything for a year or so and hope it blows over.
But in general, yep, I think this trip was centered on resource pooling in the datacenter. Sure, you might hear about disaggregation, but there's a lot of agreement that's the wrong name. It's much more about resource pooling for flexible infrastructure, simplified platforms, better lifecycle management, and higher efficiency. And we aim to be right in the middle. Literally.
Tags: Baidu, China, datacenter, disaggregation, enterprise IT, keynote, rack scale, resource pooling, SACC
Views: (3254)
I was lucky enough to get together for dinner and beer with old friends a few weeks ago. Between the 4 of us, we've been involved in or responsible for a lot of stuff you use every day, or at least know about.
Supercomputers, minicomputers, PCs, Macs, Newton, smart phones, game consoles, automotive engine controllers and safety systems, secure passport chips, DRAM interfaces, netbooks, and a bunch of processor architectures: Alpha, PowerPC, Sparc, MIPS, StrongARM/XScale, x86 64-bit, and a bunch of other ones you haven't heard of (um – most of those are mine, like TriCore). Basically if you drive a European car, travel internationally, use the Internet , if you play video games, or use a smart phone, well… you're welcome.
Why do I tell you this? Well – first I'm name dropping – I'm always stunned I can call these guys friends and be their peers. But more importantly, we've all been in this industry as architects for about 30 years. Of course our talk went to what's going on today. And we all agree that we've never seen more changes – inflexions – than the raft unfolding right now. Maybe its pressure from the recession, or maybe un-naturally pent up need for change in the ecosystem, but change there is.
Changes in who drives innovation, what's needed, the companies on top and on bottom at every point in the food chain, who competes with whom, how workloads have changed from compute to dataflow, software has moved to opensource, how abstracted code is now from processor architecture, how individual and enterprise customers have been revolting against the "old" ways, old vendors, old business models, and what the architectures look like, how processors communicate, and how systems are purchased, and what fundamental system architectures look like. But not much besides that…
Ok – so if you're an architect, that's as exciting as it gets (you hear it in my voice – right ?), and it makes for a lot of opportunities to innovate and create new or changed businesses. Because innovation is so often at the intersection of changing ways of doing things. We're at a point where the changes are definitely not done yet. We're just at the start. (OK – now try to imagine a really animated 4-way conversation over beers at the Britannia Arms in Cupertino… Yea – exciting.)
I'm going to focus on just one sliver of the market – but it's important to me – and that's enterprise IT. I think the changes are as much about business models as technology.
Hyperscale datacenters drive innovation
I'll start in a strange place. Hyperscale datacenters (think social media, search, etc.) and the scale of deployment changes the optimization point. Most of us starting to get comfortable with rack as the new purchase quantum. And some of us are comfortable with the pod or container as the new purchase quantum. But the hyperscale dataenters work more at the datacenter as the quantum. By looking at it that way, they can trade off the cost of power, real estate, bent sheet metal, network bandwidth, disk drives, flash, processor type and quantity, memory amount, where work gets done, and what applications are optimized for. In other words, we shifted from looking at local optima to looking for global optima. I don't know about you, but when I took operations research in university, I learned there was an unbelievable difference between the two – and global optima was the one you wanted…
Hyperscale datacenters buy enough (top 6 are probably more than 10% of the market today) that 1) they need to determine what they deploy very carefully on their own, and 2) vendors work hard to give them what they need.
That means innovation used to be driven by OEMs, but now it's driven by hyperscale datacenters and it's driven hard. That global optimum? It's work/$ spent. That's global work, and global spend. It's OK to spend more, even way more on one thing if over-all you get more done for the $'s you spend.
That's why the 3 biggest consumers of flash in servers are Facebook, Google, and Apple, with some of the others not far behind. You want stuff, they want to provide it, and flash makes it happen efficiently. So efficiently they can often give that service away for free.
Hyperscale datacenters have started to publish their cost metrics, and open up their architectures (like OpenCompute), and open up their software (like Hadoop and derivatives). More to the point, services like Amazon have put a very clear $ value on services. And it's shockingly low.
Enterprises are paying attention
Enterprises have looked at those numbers. Hard. That's catalyzed a customer revolt against the old way of doing things – the old way of buy and billing. OEMs and ISVs are creating lots of value for enterprise, but not that much. They've been innovating around "stickiness" and "lock-in" (yea – those really are industry terms) for too long, while hyperscale datacenters have been focused on getting stuff done efficiently. The money they save per unit just means they can deploy more units and provide better services.
That revolt is manifesting itself in 2 ways. The first is seen in the quarterly reports of OEMs and ISVs. Rumors of IBM selling its X-series to Lenovo, Dell going private, Oracle trying to shift business, HP talking of the "new style of IT"… The second is enterprises are looking to emulate hyperscale datacenters as much as possible, and deploy private cloud infrastructure. And often as not, those will be running some of the same open source applications and file systems as the big hyperscale datacenters use.
Where are the hyperscale datacenters leading them? It's a big list of changes, and they're all over the place.
But they're also looking at a few different things. For example, global name space NAS file systems. Personally? I think this one's a mistake. I like the idea of file systems/object stores, but the network interconnect seems like a bottleneck. Storage traffic is shared with network traffic, creates some network spine bottlenecks, creates consistency performance bottlenecks between the NAS heads, and – let's face it – people usually skimp on the number of 10GE ports on the server and in the top of rack switch. A typical SAS storage card now has 8 x 12G ports – that's 96G of bandwidth. Will servers have 10 x 10G ports? Yea. I didn't think so either.
Anyway – all this is not academic. One Wall Street bank shared with me that – hold your breath – it could save 70% of its spend going this route. It was shocked. I wasn't shocked, because at first blush this seems absurd – not possible. That's how I reacted. I laughed. But… The systems are simpler and less costly to make. There is simply less there to make or ship than OEMs force into the machines for uniqueness and "value." They are purchased from much lower margin manufacturers. They have massively reduced maintenance costs (there's less to service, and, well, no OEM service contracts). And also important – some of the incredibly expensive software licenses are flipped to open source equivalents. Net savings of 70%. Easy. Stop laughing.
Disaggregation: Or in other words, Pooled Resources
But probably the most important trend from all of this is what server manufacturers are calling "disaggregation" (hey – you're ripping apart my server!) but architects are more descriptively calling pooled resources.
First – the intent of disaggregation is not to rip the parts of a server to pieces to get lowest pricing on the components. No. If you're buying by the rack anyway – why not package so you can put like with like. Each part has its own life cycle after all. CPUs are 18 months. DRAM is several years. Flash might be 3 years. Disks can be 5 to 7 years. Networks are 5 to 10 years. Power supplies are… forever? Why not replace each on its own natural failure/upgrade cycle? Why not make enclosures appropriate to the technology they hold? Disk drives need solid vibration-free mechanical enclosures of heavy metal. Processors need strong cooling. Flash wants to run hot. DRAM cool.
Second – pooling allows really efficient use of resources. Systems need slush resources. What happens to a systems that uses 100% of physical memory? It slows down a lot. If a database runs out of storage? It blue screens. If you don't have enough network bandwidth? The result is, every server is over provisioned for its task. Extra DRAM, extra network bandwidth, extra flash, extra disk drive spindles.. If you have 1,000 nodes you can easily strand TBytes of DRAM, TBytes of flash, a TByte/s of network bandwidth of wasted capacity, and all that always burning power. Worse, if you plan wrong and deploy servers with too little disk or flash or DRAM, there's not much you can do about it. Now think 10,000 or 100,000 nodes… Ouch.
If you pool those things across 30 to 100 servers, you can allocate as needed to individual servers. Just as importantly, you can configure systems logically, not physically. That means you don't have to be perfect in planning ahead what configurations and how many of each you'll need. You have sub-assemblies you slap into a rack, and hook up by configuration scripts, and get efficient resource allocation that can change over time. You need a lot of storage? A little? Higher performance flash? Extra network bandwidth? Just configure them.
That's a big deal.
And of course, this sets the stage for immense pooled main memory – once the next generation non-volatile memories are ready – probably starting around 2015.
You can't underestimate the operational problems associated with different platforms at scale. Many hyperscale datacenters today have around 6 platforms. If you think they are rolling out new versions of those before old ones are retired they often have 3 generations of each. That's 18 distinct platforms, with multiple software revisions of each. That starts to get crazy when you may have 200,000 to 400,000 servers to manage and maintain in a lights out environment. Pooling resources and allocating them in the field goes a huge way to simplifying operations.
Alternate Processor Architecture
It didn't always used to be Intel x86. There was a time when Intel was an upstart in the server business. It was Power, MIPs, Alpha, SPARC… (and before that IBM mainframes and minis, etc). Each of the changes was brought on by changing the cost structure. Mainframes got displaced by multi-processor RISC, which gave way to x86.
Today, we have Oracle saying they're getting out of x86 commodity servers and doubling down on SPARC. IBM is selling off its x86 business and doubling down on Power (hey – don't confuse that with PowerPC – which started as an architectural cut-down of Power – I was there…). And of course there is a rash of 64-bit ARM server SOCs coming – with HP and Dell already dabbling in it. What's important to realize is that all of these offerings are focusing on the platform architecture, and how applications really perform in total, not just the processor.
Another view
Let me warp up with an email thread cut/paste from a smart friend – Wayne Nation. I think he summed up some of what's going on well, in a sobering way most people don't even consider.
"Does this remind you of a time, long ago, when the market was exploding with companies that started to make servers out of those cheap little desktop x86 CPUs? What is different this time? Cost reduction and disaggregation? No, cost and disagg are important still, but not new.
A new CPU architecture? No, x86 was "new" before. ARM promises to reduce cost, as did Intel.
Disaggregation enables hyperscale datacenters to leverage vanity-free, but consistent delivery will determine the winning supplier. There is the potential for another Intel to rise from these other companies. "
Tags: Amazon, Apple, datacenter, Dell, disaggregation, enterprise IT, Facebook, Google, Hadoop, HP, hyperscale, IBM, Lenovo, Open Compute, Oracle
Views: (8213)


text:
Sexual Violence (SV) refers to sexual activity where consent is not obtained or freely given. Anyone can experience SV, but most victims are female. The person responsible for the violence is typically male and is usually someone known to the victim. The person can be, but is not limited to, a friend, coworker, neighbor, or family member.
There are many types of SV. Not all include physical contact between the victim and the perpetrator (person who harms someone else) for example, sexual harassment, threats, and peeping. Other SV, including unwanted touching and rape, includes physical contact. www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention
Our Philosophy
In order to address complex behaviors with multiple causes, such as rape and other sexual violence, we have to address many factors, including:
- Individual attitudes and behaviors
- Group attitudes and behaviors
- Institutional cultures, rules and regulations
- Community factors
- Public policy
The Importance of Consent
Consent for any sexual activity is the centerpiece for preventing sexual coercion and unwanted sexual behavior. Please read our brochure (PDF (254KB) | Word (155KB)) for more information.
UB Partnerships for Violence Prevention
Crisis Services' Advocate Program is made up of people who extend understanding and support to survivors of sexual assault. A 24-hour hotline is available at 716.834.3131. Call anytime day or night for live support, or learn more at www.crisisservices.org
Opportunities for Faculty/Staff
Staff Protocol
In an effort to provide an appropriate and coordinated response to campus victims of sexual assault, this protocol, resource listing, and proxy reporting process have been established. Developed in consultation with various university units, this protocol provides staff persons, to whom an assault may be reported, an opportunity to respond in a manner designed to best serve victim's needs and meet institutional responsibilities. This protocol should be used in conjunction with campus sexual assault policy and individual unit procedures.
Faculty Guide
Finding a way to integrate violence prevention into your course curriculum or lesson plans this semester just got easier with this handy toolkit: PDF (155KB) | Word (73KB)
We offer workshops for students, including:
- Relationship Jeopardy
- Gender Matters
- Telling Our Story
- Bystander Intervention Training
- How to Help a Sexual Assault Survivor
Bring a workshop to your class or student group! Use our online program request form.
The more individuals are informed and involved the closer we can come to a violence free campus. Each of our programs is provided by the Violence Prevention Specialist and/or highly trained Health & Wellness Educators (Men's Group or Alliance).
Opportunities for Students
There is no single thing that any one of us can do to prevent rape and sexual assault, but by each of us taking a small step we can bring about a big change.
Getting involved is the best way possible to be a part of a massive social change effort to make our campus safer! We need every student at UB to be a part of this movement. Learn ways that you can make a difference:
- Small steps you can do
- Student Violence Prevention Groups are for men and women students at UB working together to end sexual violence. Get involved with one or both of our groups today!
- The Men's Group - The Men's Group provides training, presentations, and awareness raising events with a focus on men as allies in preventing sexual violence.
- The Student Survivor Advocacy Alliance - The Alliance unites survivors of sexual assault with allies at UB to take a stand against rape, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence.
- UB Resources
- Counseling Services - Coercion, Rape, and Surviving
- Student Health Services - Women's Health Clinic: Emergency contraception
- University Police - State University of New York at Buffalo Response to Victims of Campus Sexual Assault, Staff Protocol and Proxy Reporting
- Campus services and resources - UB Violence Prevention Team
- Other Resources
- The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) is the nation's largest anti-sexual assault organization. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1.800.656.HOPE, as well as an online hotline . Inside, you'll find statistics, counseling resources, prevention tips, news and more.
- Sexual Violence Information - on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention website.
- Emergency contraception - on the federal government's site for women's health information. Remember: Plan B is over-the-counter and is available at Wellness Education Services in the Student Union and through the Sub Board 1 pharmacy at Michael Hall on South Campus.
- Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER) Campus - All students have the right to a safe campus, free of sexual violence. SAFER empowers students to hold their universities accountable for having strong campus sexual assault policies and programming. We're here to help you organize for change.
- Men Can Stop Rape - empowers male youth and the institutions that serve them to work as allies with women in preventing rape and other forms of men's violence. Through awareness-to-action education and community organizing, we promote gender equity and build men's capacity to be strong without being violent.
Background Information
While sexual assault primarily affects young women (1 in 4), they are not the only targets. Men (1 in 6), individuals with disabilities, members of cultural and religious minority groups, and lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered individuals also experience sexual and other violent assaults and face increased barriers to reporting their victimization.
National statistics have estimated that one-in-four college women are sexually assaulted. Even though many institutions officially report zero sexual assault crimes each year; sexual assault is known to be an underreported crime. Studies have consistently shown that most perpetrators are friends, acquaintances, or someone known to the victim.
Because of the known prevalence of sexual violence among college students, it is essential that we establish a comprehensive rape and other violence prevention program. In order to build a campus wide effort the following principles will be utilized:
- Work to change campus norms that might contribute to the acceptability of acquaintance rape
- Work to challenge rape-myths
- Provide comprehensive services for victims of sexual violence
- Use a variety of approaches to reach as many students as possible with education and services
- Reduce high risk student drinking
- Involve stakeholders from the entire campus community
- Work with female and male students, in gender specific and mixed groups, to educate peers about rape and sexual assault prevention
- Tailor our efforts to the evolving needs of UB students
Campus Violence White Paper
A position paper approved by the American College Health Association, on February 5, 2005. This document discusses the scope of the problem, consequences of campus violence, approaches to campus violence prevention, recommendations for legal mandates and policies, and resources. A PDF of the document is available: PDF (135KB)