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Frame Specifications:
· 8mm solid fiberglass ribs
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· Crank lift, with tilt
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· 7.5' diameter
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Tags covers, acoustic, rock, alternative rock, metal
Artists Staind, Avenged Sevenfold, A Day to Remember
August 25, 2012
Just a few of my favorite covers. There are way more but this shall suffice
Great mix
que buenas versiones!
i really like this playlist and the bands you chose :-D
Feel Good Fall Music by RICKYZ21
Fall Mix, guitars and strong vocals is the reoccurring theme.
rock, guitar solo, vocals, feel good
No Monsters Under The Covers by RICKYZ21
Just a few of my favorite covers.
covers, acoustic, rock, alternative rock, metal
Here's To the Weekend. by RICKYZ21
Upbeat songs, some old, some new, get your weekend started off right.
alternative rock, alternative, pop rock, punk rock, pop punk
God Save Rock-n-Roll by RICKYZ21
just pure, in your face, unapologetic, Rock & Roll .
rocknroll rock, punk rock, metal, classic rock

subset: commoncrawl


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StartUpHire is the place to find Developer jobs in and near Iselin. Review the list below of Developer Iselin jobs. These Developer jobs represent some of the most rewarding careers available. You can refine your job search for Developer jobs in Iselin by adding a job title, company name, or keyword to the search box above … or click the "Advanced Search" link for more options. Don't see the employment opportunity you're looking for? Check back soon for more Developer jobs in Iselin, or sign up for an email alert (link in upper left) to receive periodic updates on new Developer jobs in Iselin, NJ.
Location: Princeton, NJ NIKSUN is a recognized worldwide leader in making the Unknown Known. The company develops and deploys a complete range of award-winning forensics, compliance, security surveillance and performance management solutions for applications ranging from core7/1/2015 Princeton, NJ Save This Job
Location: Princeton, NJ NIKSUN is a recognized worldwide leader in making the Unknown Known. The company develops and deploys a complete range of award-winning forensics, compliance, security surveillance and performance management solutions for applications ranging from core7/1/2015 Princeton, NJ Save This Job
Product Development - New York, NY - Full Time Description We are searching for highly engaged, passionate, top-tier developers with strong critical thinking skills to work on our high performing Scrum team. You will play a critical role on our Scrum team coding features for our6/28/2015 New York, NY Save This Job
About Us: At Handybook we're on a mission to change the way the world buys services. Every day we connect our customers with great home service professionals. By doing this we make our customers lives a little bit easier and we help our service providers earn more money.6/21/2015 New York, NY Save This Job
Job Description At Prism, we help make sense of a visual world. We transform ordinary video cameras into new tools for analyzing, storing, and visualizing data. Want to solve great challenges in big data or computer vision? Interested in creating new types of visual sensors or6/21/2015 New York, NY Save This Job
Overview The Systems Engineer will be responsible for the analysis, design, development, maintenance and support of Oracle database related software applications. Applicant Criteria -3-5 years experience with Oracle databases systems, preferably with most recent versions (11.26/16/2015 Bridgewater, NJ Save This Job
Overview Our solutions help customers acquire, retain and service subscribers quickly, reliably and cost-effectively by simplifying the processes associated with managing the customer experience for activating and synchronizing connected devices and services. With 100+ seminal6/16/2015 Bridgewater, NJ Save This Job
Base $80K - $110K / yearEquity 0.5% - 1.5% As our first systems operations engineer, you are the front line building the necessary technology to help our software engineers ensure the consistent quality of our technology. This is a challenging task as we support several6/13/2015 New York, NY Save This Job
Provide high-level development expertise applied to specific customer goals. Write precise and useful documentation and email support. Develop Java-based extensions to Thinkmap (Plug-ins) for customers and write clear documentation for using such plug-ins. Be a key contributor to6/8/2015 New York, NY Save This Job
Job Location US-NJ-Edison Travel .. Type Regular Full-Time More information about this job: Overview: Do you want to work for a company that seeks to provide green energy and support green initiatives right here in your own backyard? Our client is a leading global technology6/2/2015 Edison, NJ Save This Job
Description We are looking for exceptional software developers to help us take Fitocracy to the next level. Our team is solving really tough problems all set behind an awesome user experience that needs to scale to millions of users. You must kick ass at Python, Django, and6/2/2015 New York City, NY Save This Job
The Senior Director of Platform Services will lead teams of Technical Consultants, Technical Account Managers and Platform Specialists to help clients and partners integrate with the AppNexus platform and innovate on top of it. This person will provide thought leadership on7/7/2015 New York, NY Save This Job
Empyrean?s Regional Business Development role is a very entrepreneurial position. This individual owns the entire sales cycle for health and welfare administration outsourcing services sold to large market employers within their geographic area. Generating Leads and Opportunities7/4/2015 New York, NY Save This Job
Empyrean?s Regional Business Development role is a very entrepreneurial position. This individual owns the entire sales cycle for health and welfare administration outsourcing services sold to large market employers within their geographic area. Generating Leads and Opportunities7/4/2015 New York, NY Save This Job
Digg is looking looking for an experienced, mobile-obsessed Android developer to lead our next round of Android development. A self-driven developer able to work outside his/her comfort zone and learn new technologies is a must. Fluency with Android usage, design patterns and6/29/2015 New York, NY Save This Job
Position Overview The Controls Engineer will be responsible for the implementation and continued development on controls and acquisition systems. These systems are based on the National Instruments cRIO platform, and make heavy use of its communications and data processing6/28/2015 Hatboro, PA Save This Job
Who We Are HowAboutWe is the modern love company. We help people fall in love and stay in love. We're a well-funded ($18.5mm), rapidly-growing startup with headquarters in Brooklyn, NY. We build breathtaking products that transform people?s lives. You can read more about us6/27/2015 Brooklyn, NY Save This Job
Established in 1993, EPAM Systems (NYSE:EPAM) is a leading and growing global provider of Software Engineering, Consulting, QA/Testing, and Support/Maintenance services with delivery centres throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Headquartered in the United States, EPAM spans6/7/2015 Newtown, PA Save This Job
ID 2014-1510 Job Locations US-NY-New York City Category Learning and Development Travel .. Level .. Options: Apply for this job online Refer a friend to this job More information about this job: Overview: We are seeking a Technical Writer to create customer and internal6/2/2015 New York, NY Save This Job


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Check out the latest internship postings from Emanate.
Public relations is a funny game. A former intern recently published an interview with me on a pretty major blog. I got the coverage because of who I knew. But then an even bigger blog called Lifehacker blogged about the article. I got the coverage because of where I had been previously covered. A few days later One Day One Job was mentioned in another Lifehacker article on Top 10 Ways to Get a Better Job (this was just a short mention, but it sent by far the most traffic). I got this coverage because the author was familiar with me and my site. It takes a ton of hard work to run into this kind of luck, which is why most major companies hire PR firms that have solid reputations and great relationships with journalists. But it takes more than that–it takes a focus on action and results, which is exactly what Emanate offers. They're a New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA based PR firm that focuses on consumer marketing, corporate communications, digital & social media, and health & wellness. They've only been around five years, but they've accomplished a lot and have big plans for the next five years.
While Emanate puts a huge emphasis on being action and results oriented, they also call themselves irreverent. Humor is a part of who they are, and the best way to get a feel for it is probably by meeting their team. The next thing you'll want to do is take a look at their client list and read through some of their case studies (in the right hand sidebar of their client list). You'll recognize names like Burger King, Embassy Suites, Sonicare, Bank of America, and Mattel. If you like Emanate's approach and want to work with those kinds of clients, then head over to Emanate's Internship page. Right now they're looking for Paid Summer Interns in their Los Angeles office. It looks like a fantastic opportunity, so check it out (and hopefully they'll post some positions in NYC too).
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
- EmanatePR.com
- Internships at Emanate
- About Emanate
- Emanate's Team
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- Emanate's Clients
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Community Coffee is a cuppa Joe with a Cajun patois, don't you know. Stating that it makes the largest family-owned retail coffee brand (Community Coffee) in the US, the company imports, roasts, and sells its coffee beans to grocery and convenience stores, restaurants, hotels, and offices throughout eight southeastern states. There's more brewing: some 30-plus CC's Community Coffee Houses have sprung up in Louisiana since the original coffee shop opened in New Orleans in 1995. The company also offers whole coffee beans, teas, chicory, and coffee-related gifts and accessories at its coffee houses as well as online. Started in 1919, Community Coffee is owned and led by descendants of founder Henry Norman Saurage.
In addition to CC's Community Coffee House coffeehouse division, Community Coffee generates sales through direct to retail store distribution and distributor networks, as well as through its namesake e-commerce division. The company imports green coffee beans through partnerships with plantations in Brazil, and elsewhere in South America, and Africa. A roasting plant processes and packages the coffee. The company claims that it was the first in the US to introduce a vacuum-sealed coffee package.
Geographically, Community Coffee's distribution is concentrated in Louisiana, and nine other Southern states. Through its website, its products are also shipped worldwide to consumers.
Community Coffee's flagship product is its coffee, however, it aims to stay on pace with changing consumer beverage preferences. In 2012 the company rolled out two new iced tea flavors, Skinny Sweet and Green Tea with Lemon, targeted to restaurant, hotel, office, and other customers. Since its first launch of Community brand iced teas in 1958, the company has won the business of an increasing number of large foodservice operators, including Ruby Tuesday, Taco Bueno, and Another Broken Egg Cafe (franchise).


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The quantified occasional runner
I have a geeky personal long-term project going on: I run to create data. Of course, I run to become a fitter person. Actually I also run to be a more persistent mountain biker and it takes less time to train the endurance by running than by mountain biking. But, as a consequence, I run more or less consistently for about a year by now. (I ran before, but that was about 2003, and I din't collect data back then.)
By now, I have collected data for about 80 runs. Here is when I ran, and how far.
About my data collection
I am wearing a Zephyr HxM heart rate sensor on a chest belt, which also collects cadence data. This data is recorded by the SportsTracker app on my Android phone. This app also records, of course, position over time via the phone's GPS sensor. During the course of my data gathering, two different Android phones have done the job: An HTC Desire and a Samsung Galaxy SII.
Very important to me: after uploading the recorded data to the SportsTrackLive.com website via the app, I can download the data log in GPX and CSV format. The CSV files contain one sample every 10 seconds, with every sample consisting of a time stamp, geo position (latitude, longitude), altitude, cadence (current steps per minute), heart rate (current beats per minute), and current speed.
The SportsTrackLive web platform gives me additional data for a specific run, with three values beeing of special interest to me: overall number of heart beats recorded, temperature and humidity (though I don't know whether for start time, end time or somewhere inbetween). The web interface also displays the total ascend in meters. (Of course, since GPS altitude data is very rough, all altitude data has to be taken with a grain of salt.)
My running
The graph above already tells you a bit about my running and how it has developed. I started in July 2011, slowly but steadily increasing the distance (and duration, of course) from somewhere around 4 kilometers. Invisible to you, but available in my memories: Some of these dots in August 2011 happened in Italy, where I explored parts of Piemonte and Ligurie in running shoes. Hot, slow, gorgeous! One month later, in September 2011, I exceeded 10 kilometers for the first time. The plot above also reveals that I frequently ran about 8 kilometers in September and October of 2011, simply because I had a favourite route and fell into a routine.
Then, in winter 2011/2012, I got lazy. Cold temperatures and a lack of sunlight in the morning tend to make it hard for me to motivate myself. Therefore I almost had to re-start in March 2012. Luckily, it didn't take me as long to reach my 8 kilometers house round as the first time. I kept running throughout summer, sometimes increasing the distances up to 17 kilometers (which feels pretty cool when you feel like it and you can simply do it!).
This plot above again shows all the runs over the course of 15 months. Instead of distance, the vertical position of the dots now reflects the average speed during that run. It's visible that I increased my speed more or less steadily over the two training periods (July-October 2011 and March-September 2012), with one exception: This year, it seems as if I started faster (more than 8 kph) and then became slower on average in May, to become faster again after that. Comparing the two periods visually, it also seems like I increased speed faster last year, while also starting from a lower level.
So my runs became longer and faster. Judging from both speed and distance, one could say that I increased the intensity of my running during the course of the year – which was by far not accidental.
With increased performance, of course, the heart has to pump more oxygene to the muscle fibres. This, not surprisingly, is reflected by the average heart rate of each run.
This looks similar to the speed plot above, doesn't it? Let's draw a scatterplot of heart rate over speed to learn more about their correlation:
This show a pretty high positive correlation between speed and heart rate (r=0.74). As a background for those comparing their own data with mine: My minimum heart rate at rest is about 55 bpm, the highest heart rate I have ever measured on myself was 199 bpm, when I deliberately ran uphill last year to measure my max heart rate. (Be sure to have a napkin with you if you have to puke!)
The aim of my training should, of course, be to gain fitness. Fitness is a complex construct, and I don't know a lot about it, but one thing people say is: If you're fit, you can run the same intensity (=speed) with a lower heart rate than if you're not. So, the research question here is:
Have I become more fit during my 15 months of running?
This question cannot be answered by looking at one single measure within the data. The average heart rate during my runs (and probably during yours as well) is influenced by the running intensity. This again is influenced mostly by my running speed, but also by the degree of ascend, maybe by even more? What about temperature and humidity? Or anything else?
I ran a linear regression with the following predictors, trying to predict the average heart rate:
- Sequence number of the run (first=1 to last=82)
- Length of the run (distance in kilometers)
- Climb (ascend in meters)
- Time of day (hour of the start time, 6 to 21)
- Average speed (in kilometers/hour)
- Temperature (in degrees Celsius)
- Relative Humidity (percentage between 0 and 100)
Here is the result:
4.879 * avg_speed + 0.2939 * timeofday + -0.2124 * temperature + -0.1084 * humidity + 0.0337 * climb + 108.2558
The regression model has been created and tested in Weka, using 10-fold cross-validation as a verification method. More details: The correlation coefficient is 0.7525, the mean absolute error is 3.7692.
What does it mean? It tells us that the variance in my recorded average heart rate can be explained mostly via the running speed, but in addition to a small degree by the hour of day (the earlier, the lower the heart rate), by temperature (the lower the temperature, the higher the heart rate), by humidity (the dryer, the higher my heart rate) and finally by climb (the higher the ascend, the higher the heart rate). Actually, the correlation coefficient is only slightly greater than the one for speed allone (remember, that wa 0.74). This means that four additional variables don't really influence the outcome a whole lot.
Note that two input variables don't seem to have any measurable influence at all, (a) the sequence number (which kind of reflects my training experience up to that run), and (b) the length of the run. They haven't even been included in the model by Weka.
So if it doesn't matter to a linear regression whether I ran zero or a hundred times before, does this mean that my training is worthless? Not quite. Actually, it could mean that my fitness hasn't increased in linear way. Which would be reasonable, since I hardly did anything during the winter months and might have lost some.
A different approach
I want confirmation. I will bend the numbers as long as I need in order to make them tell I'm a fitter person now.
At least, the linear regression shows that running speed is probably the most important variable influencing the heart rate during my runs. What if I create a composite variable that represents the number of heart beats required to run at a certain speed? Lower values would indicate a better fitness.
A composite like that could simply by created by dividing the average heart rate for a run by the average speed during that run. For a heart rate of 147 beats per minute and a speed of 9 kph, this would result in a value of 16.33. Same heart rate but 0.5 kph faster speed would result in a value of 15.47. You get the idea. Let's call this composite the Heart rate over speed (HROS).
Here is the HROS over time plot:
Now this looks like the HROS represents what I have experienced: A first improvement in 2011, which has been neutralized by doing nothing during the winter, and then a second improvement in 2012. It looks like, on average, I now need less heart beats to run at a certain speed than I ever did. Cool! And it tells me that I should try to run more during winter, aiming to at least keep my fitness level.
That was fun! Have you gathered data yourself? Does the HROS work for you? Let me know!
Update Sept. 27, 2012
Although it wasn't my goal to predict my heart rate for future runs, I let R create another linear regression model as I did in Weka. It is quite different at first sight. Here is the output of the summary.lm function in R:
Residuals: Min 1Q Median 3Q Max -8.2261 -3.0338 -0.6747 2.5519 17.8290 Coefficients: Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|) (Intercept) 858.81122 648.53753 1.324 0.1905 avg_speed 6.32242 0.93682 6.749 7.19e-09 *** id 0.23391 0.26434 0.885 0.3798 datetime -0.05003 0.04257 -1.175 0.2446 dayofyear -0.03446 0.01531 -2.251 0.0281 * length_km -0.11381 0.27781 -0.410 0.6835 timeofday 0.24620 0.18753 1.313 0.1943 temperature -0.09219 0.13920 -0.662 0.5104 humidity -0.07576 0.05422 -1.397 0.1676 climb 0.04963 0.01954 2.540 0.0137 * --- Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1 Residual standard error: 4.543 on 59 degrees of freedom Multiple R-squared: 0.709, Adjusted R-squared: 0.6646 F-statistic: 15.97 on 9 and 59 DF, p-value: 7.439e-13
The great thing about this summary is that it tells us how relevant each variable is for the outcome, mainly in the column labeled "Pr(>|t|)". It contains, as far as I understand, the p-Value, which is known from Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST). A low p-Value stands for a high significance of the variable. This is also indicated by the stars on the right side of the table. As we can see, only three variables have a notable significance level (p < 0.05). The average speed stands out in particular, as it already did in the model created by Weka. Also interesting is the selection of the other two variables: Where Weke chose the timeofday, temperature and humidity, R thinks we should instead look at the dayofyear (which is the date of the run as a number between 1 and 366). Note that the coefficient is negative, which implies a negative correlation: The more time passed in the year, the lower my heart rate. How nice, as it suggest the existence of a training effect I am looking for.
As suggested by the german Wikipedia page on linear regression, I eliminated the non-significant variables from the model. The output then is:
Residuals: Min 1Q Median 3Q Max -9.3019 -2.6789 -0.8496 2.9888 15.9475 Coefficients: Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|) (Intercept) 97.889716 4.627295 21.155 < 2e-16 *** avg_speed 5.448352 0.582350 9.356 2.48e-14 *** climb 0.050204 0.014406 3.485 0.000816 *** dayofyear -0.016825 0.007508 -2.241 0.027907 * --- Signif. codes: 0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1 Residual standard error: 4.662 on 77 degrees of freedom Multiple R-squared: 0.6228, Adjusted R-squared: 0.6081 F-statistic: 42.38 on 3 and 77 DF, p-value: 2.797e-16
Boiled down to only four variables, the significance of the remaining ones increases. The most significant one is still the average running speed (avg_speed). The coefficient of ~ 5.5 means that when I run 1 kilometer per hour faster, my average heart rate will be 5.5 beats per minute higher. The second most significant variable is the number of meters ascended (climb). Here, for every 100 meters additional ascend, my average heart rate will increase by 5 beats (0.050204 * 100). The last one means: two months (60 days) from now my average heart rate will be 1 beat lower than today, given the other variables are the same (-0.016825 * 60). Lets note that model in more concise form:
5.448352 * avg_speed + -0.016825 * dayofyear + 0.050204 * climb + 97.889716
Since I originally published the post, I was out for running twice. The first run of the two happened in a mood like "Let's see how fast I can run on my 8 km track." This resulted in me running faster than ever, but ending 1 km ahead of my finish, overpaced. The second run was more recreational. Here are the numbers:
|Day of Year
|Time of Day
|Average Speed
|Average Heart Rate
|7.26 km
|11.05 kph
|60 m
|77 %
|169 bpm
|8.24 km
|8.9 kph
|70 m
|88 %
|143 bpm
Could those two heart rate values have been predicted by the linear models above? Plugging the values into the first model (by Weka), the results would have been 154.5 bpm — off by 14.5 bpm — and 144.0 (off by 1). The simplified model by R would have predicted values of 156.6 (off by 12.4) and 143 (off by 2.3).
While both models are pretty close when predicting the actual result of the slow run, both fail miserably to predict the fast run. That's not a big surprise, considering that the models have been built based on data with a maximum heart rate of 157 bpm and a max average speed of 10.4 kph. Remember that linear-looking scatterplot of heart rate over speed? Here is how it looks now:
The blue line is the regression line, the fast run is marked in red, for your convenience. The slow run blends nicely with the rest and actually resides a bit below the regression line.
To me as a runner, this leads to an interesting conclusion (which others might have come to in different ways): I can't simply expect to be able to run 11 kph over the course of 8 kilometers at a bearable heart rate of 159, only from looking at previous slower runs.
In contrast to what the scatterplot looks like, the relationship between speed and heart rate might very well not be linear, but – for example – quadratic. For a motor vehicle, the relationship between speed and force required is quadratic, due to the effect of air resistance. A source suggests that air resistance would have little influence on slow running like mine, since runners at about 20 kph see only 8 percent influence of air resistance. But what about the relationship beween force required and heart rate? Is it non-linear?
And then there is the concept of the aerobic threshold. It implies that there is a point on the intensity scale where the linear relationship between intensity and heart rate ends.
However, I have a very concrete goal now: to draw a dot into that scatterplot above, at the position of x=11 and y=160. Let's see how close I can get there this year.


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RSU News
April 2, 2013
RSU Cheer Team Qualifies for Nationals; Local Performance Scheduled for April 8
The Rogers State cheerleading team will soon be heading to Daytona Beach, Florida to participate in the National Cheerleader Association's College National Competition. Preliminary competition will be held April 11th with the final competition on April 12th.
A public performance of the routine will be held two times on Monday, April 8 in the Bushyhead Field house on the Claremore campus. The first performance will be at 4:00 p.m. and will be repeated at 7:00 p.m.
Cheer teams qualify for nationals by earning top honors at camp during the summer or by submitting skill videos. For the second year in a row, the RSU squad received a gold bid at camp, which is the highest honor.
The teams perform routines consisting of tumbling, stunting, dance and motions choreographed to music. The routines are two minutes and 15 seconds of fast-paced displays of skill and endurance. Teams are judged on degree of difficulty, perfection of routine and overall impression.
The competition performance is more elaborate than most of the skills that are demonstrated during RSU games, as protective mats are required for many of the high-flying routines.
With hundreds of cheer and dance teams from across the country participating in the prestigious competition, it's an honor for the RSU cheer team participate for the second consecutive year. The team placed 7th overall in last year's competition.
RSU's preliminary performance time is 10:26 a.m. on Thursday, April 11. There will be a live stream for community members who wish to watch it in Conference Room A in the Centennial Center.
The cheer team is currently coached by Matt Hinds under the leadership of the Office of Student Affairs.
-Written by RSU PR Intern Lindsay Bolt


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Sir Michael Rocks releases some vintage visuals for "Alive & High" off his mixtape "Premier Politics 1.5." Things are starting to look up for the Chicago rapper, as he prepares for the release of yet another highly anticipated project titled "Lap Of Lux 1.5." Enjoy!
Check out the video for "Alive & High" below!
Max G. | Elite.
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Home > Sport > Other Sports
Tuesday February 5, 2013 MYT 12:00:00 AM
Wednesday April 17, 2013 MYT 1:33:28 AM
by rajes paul
KUALA LUMPUR: Chan Peng Soon-Goh Liu Ying will be hoping it's third time lucky for them when they compete in the German Open Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament from Feb 26-March 3 in Mulheim.
The world No. 3 mixed doubles pair are the top seeds. Based on the entry list released by the Badminton World Federation (BWF), their other challenges should come from second seeds Robert Mateusiak-Nadiezda Zieba of Poland, Thailand's A. Songphon-V. Kunchala and South Korea's Shin Baek-cheol-Jang Ye-na and Kim Ki-jung-Jung Kyung-eun.
Without any top pairs taking part, Peng Soon-Liu Ying are expected to win. But then, the duo failed to live up to expectations twice this season – at the Korean and Malaysian Opens.
They crashed out in the second round to lowly ranked Markis Kido-Pia Zebadiah Bernadeth of Indonesia in Seoul. At the home tournament, Peng Soon-Liu Ying were the top seeds but let slip a golden chance to become the country's first pair in 50 years to win the title when they lost to second seeds Joachim Fischer Nielsen-Christinna Pedersen of Denmark in the final.
This time though, Peng Soon is determined to get it right.
And he hopes that a short break with his family during Chinese New Year will inspire him and his partner Liu Ying to come back refreshed.
"Most of the top players are not competing in the German Open. Hopefully, we will be able to live up to our top seeding this time," said Peng Soon after a training session yesterday.
"Although the field is weaker, we must not take any of our opponents lightly. We must play well in every match and avoid being inconsistent. It will be great if we can win our first title this year in Mulheim."
Peng Soon-Liu Ying have been given a five-day break for the festive season.
"I will be going home to Penang for Chinese New Year. It will be good to be back with my family as it will take my mind of badminton for a while. But I will make sure that I jog everyday and keep fit," he said.
"Liu Ying and I are in good condition and it is important to maintain it as we have a hectic season ahead of us," added Peng Soon, who has so far won four Open titles with Liu Ying.
Peng Soon-Liu Ying need a good outing in Germany to put them in the right frame of mind as their next assignment is the All-England from March 5-10.
All the top pairs, including world No. 1 Xu Chen-Ma Jin of China and world No. 2 Ahmad Tantowi-Lilyana Natsir of Indonesia, will be competing.
Besides the two European tournaments, Peng Soon-Liu Ying are counted on to make a difference for Malaysia in the Sudirman Cup mixed team competition at the Putra Stadium from May 19-26 and the World Championships in Guangzhou in August.
Tags / Keywords:
Others, Sport, Sport, Sport, Badminton, Chan Peng Soon, German Open
Malaysian badminton great Razif likes what he sees so far
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China media says Beijing can handle any problem for Winter Games
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Mets land Cuban slugger Cespedes at trade deadline
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Rio de Janeiro beefs up security with Olympics a year away
Analysis - IOC in no mood for risks, opts for Beijing's sure bet
High living in the great outdoors
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Full-time MBA
With the establishment of the MBA Alumni Development Office in 2004, the HKUST Business School and the MBA Alumni Association formed a close partnership to strengthen the bonds among EMBA/MBA alumni, faculty and students.
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The MBA Alumni Development Office works closely with the MBA Alumni Association to increase our alumni's sense of belonging to the School community through reunions, international networking with support, and access to resources. Continuous learning is encouraged through attendance at workshops and seminars.
Our alumni also make a vital contribution to the success of future HKUST MBAs by sharing their experiences with current participants in lectures and workshops, acting as mentors, and working through the Advisory Board to further develop the School.


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Block Color Bar Mitzvah Stationery
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CarX Automotive Services is your trusted source for all your auto repair needs, including brakes, mufflers, exhaust systems, oil and lube, alignment and tires, and more.
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Kevin Lyttle: "Turn Me On" — "Soca," a musical concoction of soul and calypso native to the Caribbean, was last heard in the early '80s party hit "Hot, Hot, Hot." Last summer, Sean Paul re-introduced the sounds of dancehall reggae to the mainstream, and it looks like they've paved the way for a soca comeback. A melangé of soca rhythms with a dancehall reggae vibe, "Turn Me On" is the ultimate "boy-meets-girl at the party" song that is fast becoming a staple at the clubs everywhere. Smooth vocals by Kevyn Lyttle sprinkled with heavy R&B and sexy dancehall beats make this the perfect summer hook-up track of '04. The Corrs: "Summer Sunshine"
— Impeccable, upbeat and drenched with smooth light vocals about the obvious by the Irish family quartet, who count Bono as a fan. This could be the song that finally establishes the best-selling Irish band in the United States. "Summer Sunshine" is already receiving the all-important Top 40 radio airplay and the band's upcoming U.S. tour is selling out fast. Expect "Summer Sunshine" to be picked up by at least one television network and/or advertiser for a no-brainer summer campaign. Just keep in mind that the song's shelf life expires on Sept. 22 — the first day of autumn.


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I couldn't bear to call this list the The 20 Best Reality Shows on TV, because so much "Reality" programming represents the lowest common denominator of our culture. (Spoiler alert: You won't find Jersey Shore on this list). But while Reality programming has given us Wife Swap, Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? and The Swan (shudder), the current abundance of non-fiction programming right now has also produced some surprisingly great TV. With a lower cost of entry, even the smallest cable and Internet channels can be laboratories for all kinds of original programming.
We've included all sorts of non-fiction TV, from talk shows to game shows to music shows to those fully embracing the R word. With so many channels and so many programs, we wanted to highlight the best. As always, let us know what we missed in the comments section below.We considered documentary TV, game-shows and yes, even "reality" programming and came up 10 TV shows from 2010 that prove truth can be as entertaining as fiction.
20. Survivor (CBS)
This list wouldn't exist without Survivor—the well crafted desert-island competition started the whole reality TV craze, and 21 seasons later, it's still going strong. Jeff Probst is the perfect host—knowledgeable and entertaining but never intrusive. In Nicaragua, it was the young'uns vs. the geezers with the winner revealed this weekend.
19. The Buried Life (MTV)
It's been a long time since we looked to MTV to discover music—or anything redeeming whatsoever. In fact, we once had an intern watch MTV for 24 hours straight, and he's still muttering to himself in a corner. But amid some of the worst reality programming on TV is this little gem, where four friends tackle their bucket list, while helping strangers live out their own dreams. Sure, the pilot involved a Trojan horse entry into the Playboy mansion, but subsequent episodes have seen them help deliver a baby, help reunite a father and son and provide a new computer for a classroom in need.
18. Work of Art: The Next Great Artist (Bravo)
As Project Runway has started losing some of its magic, Bravo has turned to visual artists to revive its focus on creatives. And it's a winning formula, as we get a glimpse at another kind of creative process—particular that of a gifted art teacher.
17. Food Party (IFC)
Mix one part Rachael Ray's boundless enthusiasm with two parts Pee-Wee's Playhouse and that comes somewhere close to approximating the delicious weirdness of Food Party, masterminded and hosted by art student Thu Tran and friends. Most of their creations aren't quite edible—kitten pie, anyone?—but it'll feed your appetite for unbridled weirdness, that's for certain.
16. Conan (TBS)
Take that, NBC! While the audience for Conan O'Brien's TBS talk show has settled to half of its 4.2 million-viewer premiere, it's beating Leno and Letterman among the under-50 crowd. With Andy Richter back on the Team Coco couch, we can see why.
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A method for managing the power consumed by a disk drive in a portable laptop computer which includes spinning the disk up during period when the computer apparatus is in an active or idle mode, creating a threshold to determine when to spin down the disk as a function of a period of disk inactivity, spinning the disk down when the threshold is exceeded in order to reduce the power consumption of the disk, automatically increasing the threshold when an undesirable spin up of the disk has occurred and automatically decreasing the threshold when an acceptable spin up of the disk occurs. By virtue of this method, the threshold for disk inactivity is continually monitored and adjusted to maintain a balance between energy consumption and undesirable disk spin down.
1. A power conservation method for a computer apparatus that contains a spinnahle disk that exhibits intermittent periods of activity separated by periods of inactivity, the method including the steps of:
spinning the disk up when the computer apparatus is being used;
creating a first time threshold to determine when to spin down the disk as a function of a period of disk inactivity;
creating a second time threshold to determine when to spin up the disk;
spinning the disk down when said first time: threshold is exceeded in order to reduce the power consumption of the disk;
spinning the disk up when requested by a user; and
automatically adjusting the first time threshold a) in a first case when spin up of the disk occurs within said second time threshold, said second time threshold beginning with disk spin down and b) in a second case, opposite to the first case, when spin up of the disk occurs following expiration of said second time threshold in order to reduce power consumption of said computer apparatus.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein the adjustment to the first time threshold in the first case is accomplished by adding a value to said first time threshold.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of automatically adjusting the first time threshold includes increasing the first time threshold only when a predetermined number of spin ups occur within said second time threshold.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the adjustment to the first time threshold in the second case occurs by subtracting a value from said first time threshold.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of automatically adjusting the first time threshold includes decreasing the first time threshold only after a predetermined consecutive nurser of disk spin ups occur outside of said second time threshold.
6. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of
adjusting the first time threshold is accomplished by multiplying said first time threshold by a value at every spin up event.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of adjusting the first time threshold is performed after a predetermined number of disk spin ups occurs.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein said second time threshold is based on a ratio of idle time to spin up delay of said disk.
This application is a continuation in part of U.S. application Ser. No. 08/260,104 filed Jun. 15, 1994, entitled "Method For Managing the Power Distributed to a Disk Drive in a Laptop Computer."
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power distribution scheme in a portable computer and, more specifically to power distributed to a disk drive in a laptop computer.
2. Prior Art
Power consumption in an electronic device is always a significant concern. A power supply must always be designed to adequately power the device, while at the same time take into consideration other related characteristics thereof, such as its heat dissipation, physical size, weight and efficiency. These characteristics are paramount in designing or selecting an appropriate power source and become exceptionally critical when the device the power supply is to support is a self-sufficient portable unit, such as a laptop computer.
In many portable units, a self-supporting power source is used to provide the power when the unit is decoupled from its main or external power source, such as a 110 volt AC current (ordinary house current). Typically, a battery is used to provide this independent and portable power source. In some instances, the battery functions as an auxiliary power source to maintain certain critical circuits active, such as preserving data held in a volatile memory (RAM refreshment). In other instances, the battery functions as the main power source to fully power the device.
In the area of information processing, miniaturization of processing devices has permitted the portability of computing devices. One of the first such portable processing devices developed was a hand-held calculator, wherein the calculator operated from a battery power source and could easily be carried about by the user. The battery would power all of the functions of the calculator, and the user could readily transport the calculator without any attachment to an external power source. The batteries were either replaced or recharged upon being spent. The earliest calculators simply had an on/off state which could be activated on the calculator by a user. Full power was available during the on state, and the power was completely shut off during the off state. Because of the volatile nature of many early semiconductor memories in these calculators, information stored in such volatile memories was lost when the calculator was turned off. Subsequent calculators incorporated non-volatile memory to solve this problem; alternatively, standby power was provided to such a memory when the device was turned off, so that the memory retained whatever information was stored therein. More advanced schemes were devised to monitor various functions, so that power was removed from various elements when those elements were not in use. Further, a time-out scheme was later devised to put the calculator in a standby mode, such as when a key was not depressed after a certain time period, in order to preserve power. All of these features were devised primarily to extend the time period the device could operate from its internal portable power source.
When information processing technology was expanded beyond the simple calculator to encompass personal desk top computers, additional constraints were placed upon power consumption and power management control schemes. Aside from additional circuitry included within these computers that was absent from the aforesaid calculators, additional storage devices in these computers consumed large amounts of power. These memory devices included semiconductor devices, such as read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs) (which include volatile and non-volatile memories), floppy disk drives, hard disk drives and other magnetic media. Also, additional power was required to operate the display unit in these computers which typically includes a viewing screen. Various schemes were devised to monitor and control the power distribution to these peripheral devices of a computer during on/off states.
With the advent of the portability of desk top computer systems referred to as laptops, it became desirable to provide them with fully contained, long lasting power sources. Because of their small physical size and light weight, these laptops were designed to operate only for a certain number of hours from their internal power source, i.e., typically a battery. The additional constraints imposed on desk top computers were also placed upon these laptops which contained additional circuitry, memory, viewing screens and peripheral devices attached thereto. These devices necessarily consumed additional power. In order to extend the self-sustaining time period of these laptops while keeping the battery size and weight to a minimum, a sophisticated power management scheme was essential to provide power only to those circuits and devices which required such power and to remove such power, or at least to make a given device enter a low power consumption mode, when that device was inactive. The management scheme also had to continually monitor the various circuits and devices in order that power could be applied immediately to activate such circuits and devices only when needed.
With the increasing popularity of portable laptop computers, and the industry goal to further miniaturize laptop components while enlarging memory size and laptop functions, power management of laptop system components became increasingly more important and a significant problem in the art. Table 1 below gives a listing of major laptop system components and their power consumption in a typical portable computer as measured by those skilled in the art.
TABLE 1______________________________________Breakdown of power consumption by components. Manufacturer Power PercentComponent & Model (watts) of Total______________________________________Display Compaq mono- 3.5 68% chrome lite25cDisk Drive (105 Mbytes) Maxtor 1.0 20% MLX-105 IIICPU 3.3 V Intel486 0.6 12%Memory (16 Mbytes) Micron 0.024 0.5% MT4CAM4AI/B1______________________________________
At 68%, the display clearly dominates the system power consumption. The disk drive represents 20% of the power consumption in a portable computer. The disk thus became a clear candidate for power management because it is a device, unlike the display, with which the user does not interact directly. With proper management by the operating system, the disk may be spun up when accessed and spun down during long periods of inactivity without the user noticing much difference in performance or reliability of the system.
The recent explosion in the portable computer market enticed disk drive manufacturers to develop a special breed of disk drives especially designed for the portable environment. In addition to high shock tolerances, reduced physical volume and smaller weights, these drives consume less energy and more importantly have a new mode of operation, often called SLEEP mode.
SLEEP mode is when the disk is powered up, but the physical disk platter is not spinning. The SLEEP mode is distinguishable from IDLE mode wherein the disk is spinning but there is an absence of disk activity. ACTIVE mode is different from the SLEEP and IDLE modes in that when the disk platter is spinning, either the disk head is seeking or it is actively reading from or writing onto the disk. OFF mode is when the disk consumes no energy and performs no function except power up. Table 2 shows the power consumed by a typical disk drive as determined by those skilled in the art. Table 3 shows the transition times between disk modes and their power consumptions for a sample disk drive as determined by those skilled in the art.
TABLE 2______________________________________Power consumption of the major disk modesfor the Maxtor MXL-105 III.Mode Power (watts)______________________________________OFF 0.0SLEEP 0.025IDLE 1.0ACTIVE 1.95______________________________________
TABLE 3______________________________________Average transition times between majordisk modes and their power consumptions for theMaxtor MXL-105 III.Transition Time (seconds) Power (watts)______________________________________POWERUP 0.5 0.025SPINUP 2.0 3.0SEEK 0.009 1.95SPINDOWN 1.0 0.025POWERDOWN 0.5 N/A______________________________________
A very significant portion of the energy consumed by a disk drive is spent in preserving the angular momentum of the physical disk platter. A much smaller fraction is spent in powering the electrical components of the drive. By sleeping, a drive can reduce its energy consumption to near zero by allowing the disk platter to spin down to a resting state. This is aptly called spinning down the disk. This substantial energy reduction, however, is not without its costs. An access to a disk while it is sleeping incurs a delay measured in seconds as opposed to the tens of milliseconds required for an access to a spinning disk. If the disk drive is powered up and used with any frequency (multiple accesses), it will have a significant impact on the length of time the computer can operate on a single battery charge.
There is a large difference in power consumption between a disk that is spinning and one that is not. So systems try to keep the disk spinning only when they must. To get some idea of how the disk can affect battery life, power consumption of a disk on a Dell™ 320 SLi, a Toshiba™ T3300SL and a Zenith™ Mastersport SLe was measured by those skilled in the art. This data is shown in Table 4 below.
TABLE 4__________________________________________________________________________Power measurements of three typical laptop computers. CPU Speed Disk Size System Power % of TotalMachine (MHz) (MBytes) Disk State Power (W) Savings (W) System Power__________________________________________________________________________Zenith 25.0 85 Idle 10.5 1.0 9.5Mastersport Stopped 9.5SLe 6.5 Idle 9.2 0.9 9.8 Stopped 8.3Toshiba 25.0 120 Idle 8.1 1.2 14.8T3300SL Stopped 6.9 6.5 Idle 7.3 1.1 15.1 Stopped 6.2Dell 20.0 120 Idle 4.5 0.9 20.0320SLi Stopped 3.6 2.5 Idle 3.2 1.0 31.2 Stopped 2.2__________________________________________________________________________
All three machines were running Mach 3.0 (UX37/MK 77). The machines are listed in the relative order of their age. At the time they were purchased, they represented the state of the art in low power notebook design. All three used the Intel™ SL Superset, which consists of the 386 SL CPU and the 82360 I/O controller. The Zenith™ and Toshiba™ both have a backlit LCD display, while the Dell™ uses a "triple super-twist nematic, reflective LCD" display. The following parameters were varied in these machines: the speed of the CPU, and the state of the disk. These parameters were controlled using hot-key bindings supplied by the system manufacturers. The CPU speed was set at the fastest and slowest speeds available; the disk was set to be either spun up or spun down.
Varying the CPU clock speed was important because the CPU can consume a large amount of power. Reducing its clock speed when there is no work to be done can significantly reduce the amount of power consumed. Mobile computers are likely to be used for highly interactive software (such as mailers, news readers, editors, etc.). So it is reasonable to expect a large amount of CPU idle time. When the CPU clock speed is reduced, a spinning disk will consume proportionally more of the total system power than when clock speed is increased.
Looking at Table 4 above, it is noted that disk densities are increasing, making it possible to carry more data. Machines are now available with even larger disks than the systems noted above. Even though disk densities have increased, the power used by the largest disks has stayed about the same, around 1W for an idle spinning disk. Next, the overall system power cost is dropping. The result is that the amount of power consumed by the disk subsystem on these notebook computers has increased from 9% to 31%. Improved recording densities make it possible to store more data on the same physical device, but they do not affect the physical mass. Drives are becoming more efficient, but cost about the same to spin up and to keep spinning. Theoretically, machines could have smaller disks, but in practice, higher recording densities are used to increase the overall capacity of the storage system instead of decreasing its power consumption. With the exception of the smallest and lightest computers, such as the Hewlett-Packard™ Omnibook, the trend seems to be to carry a larger disk with the same mass rather than a smaller disk with the same number of bytes.
Based on Table 4, proper power management of a disk can not only improve battery life, but can also provide a competitive advantage to one laptop over another. For instance, battery life for the Dell™ 320 could be improved 20 to 31%, the amount that could be saved if the disk were made inactive when not needed. Put another way, a battery that lasts 5 hours could last from 6 to 6.5 hours with proper power management. Of course, turning the disk off can result in increased access latency. After the disk is turned off, additional power will be consumed at start up, i.e. each time the disk is spun up. The system must, therefore, trade off between the power that can be saved by spinning the disk down quickly after each access and the impact on response time (including additional power consumed) from spinning it down and then up again too often.
Current laptop computers implement a number of power reduction techniques to achieve longer battery life. Most, if not all, current mobile computers use a fixed threshold to determine when to spin down the disk: if the disk has been idle for some (predetermined) amount of time, the disk is automatically spun down. The disk is spun up again upon the next access. The fixed threshold is typically on the order of many seconds or minutes to minimize the delay from on demand disk spin ups. The Hewlett-Packard™ Kittyhawk C3014A spins down and up again in about 3 seconds, and its manufacturer recommends spinning it down after about 5 seconds of inactivity; most other disks take several seconds for spin down/spin up and are recommended to spin down only after a period of minutes. In fact, spinning the disk for just a few seconds without accessing it can consume more power than spinning it down and up again upon the next access. Spinning down the disk more aggressively may therefore reduce the power consumption of the disk in exchange for higher latency upon the first access after the disk has been spun down.
In Table 5 below, the last entry, Td is a break even point where the cost to keep the disk spinning equals the cost in spinning it down immediately and then up again just prior to the next access. In other words, if the next access is likely to be more than Td seconds in the future, the disk should be spun down and up again prior to the next access, instead of continually spinning the disk, in order to consume less power and preserve battery life. With future knowledge of disk activity, one can spin down the disk immediately if the next access will take place more than Td seconds in the future. This will result in minimal power consumption and maximum power conservation. There are, of course, complications beyond the simple threshold; for instance, (a) a disk usually has multiple states that consume decreasing amounts of power, but from which it is increasingly costly (in time and power) to return to the active state (for example, when the disk is spinning but the disk head is parked), (b) the time of the next access is usually unpredictable, giving credence to a conservative spin-down approach, and (c) response time (spin up latency) will be adversely affected. Table 5 lists the characteristics of two disk drives for mobile computers, the Hewlett-Packard™ Kittyhawk C3014A and the Quantum™ Go-Drive 120, including values for Td.
TABLE 5______________________________________Disk characteristics of the Kittyhawk C3014Aand Quantum Go-Drive 120. Hewlett-Packard Kittyhawk QuantumCharacteristic C3014A Go-Drive 120______________________________________Capacity (Mbytes) 40 120Power consumed active (W) 1.5 1.7Power consumed idle (W) 0.6 5.5Power consumed spin up (W) 2.2 5.5Normal time to spin up (s) 1.1 2.5Normal time to spin down (s) 0.5 6.0Avg time to read 1 Kbyte (ms) 22.5 28.7Break even interval time Td (s) 5.0 14.8______________________________________
The time to spin up the disk once a new request arrives has a substantial impact on response time. An on-line approach that spins up the disk when a request arrives if the disk has been spun down will cause the requestor to wait until the disk is ready, typically at least one-two seconds. This latency is up to a couple of orders of magnitude greater than normal disk access times, and should be avoided whenever possible. The high spin up overhead is the reason why typical thresholds for spinning down a disk are often on the order of several minutes, even if Td is just a few seconds. If the disk has not been accessed for several minutes;, then the overhead of a couple of extra seconds before a new request can be serviced is neither unexpected nor unreasonable.
Industry has taken the approach of a shutdown of system components as a major power management technique. This approach works well when there are clear periods of system inactivity, but fails on the more typical scattered activity patterns. This invention takes into account these scattered activity patterns and provides power conservation in view thereof.
3. Prior Art References
A number of prior art references are known for controlling the consumption of power to a device or to a portion of a device, including a means of providing a time-out when user interaction has not occurred for a given time period. However, these references fail to disclose the sophisticated disk power management scheme for a laptop computer of the present invention. The references are:
Article entitled "Predictive Power Conservation" by Wilkes. This article describes a disk spin down system which sets a threshold time limit for spin down based on past performance (few immediately prior intervals).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,059, issued Apr. 6, 1993, for a "Method For Reducing Power Consumption Includes Comparing Variance In Number Of Time Microprocessor Tried To React Input In Predefined Period To Predefined Variance" in which a periodic keyboard polling interrupt is monitored to determine whether a computer is idle and my be powered down.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,197,055, issued Mar. 23, 1993, for an "Idle Demount in an Automated Storage Library" which relates to an automated storage library in which a disk is demounted or spun down on a least-recently-used basis, if the drive has been inactive for a minimum threshold time.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,103, issued Jan. 8, 1991, for a "Method for Reading/Writing for a Floppy Disk Drive with Buffer Memory," in which to minimize spin ups of a disk drive, a disk cache stores more information than is requested by a particular access, and then the disk is spun down, not to spin up again until it receives a request for information which is not in the disk buffer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,157,560, issued Oct. 20, 1992, for "Data Recording and Reproducing Device Designed to Reduce Power Consumption," in which the device conserves power by applying it to only one of the spindle motor and the voice coil motor at any given time.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,167,024, issued Nov. 24, 1992, for "Power Management for a Laptop Computer with Slow and Sleep Modes" in which a laptop computer enters a low power activity in SLEEP mode (the system also has an intermediate power mode in which a slow clock speed is used during periods of inactivity before the fixed time has elapsed).
Specification entitled Kittyhawk Technical Information, dated April, 1993, which describes a disk drive which has several power-saving operational modes and which can respond to commands to go from an active mode to a standby mode (electronics are active but disk is spun down) to a sleep mode. A five second threshold is suggested to go from active to standby mode.
Based on the above material, one of the objects of the present invention is to provide a power conservation method for a disk drive in a laptop computer which conserves power while taking into account other related characteristics of the computer device.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an efficient disk power management system for a laptop computer to extend the time the computer can operate on a battery charge by reducing the amount of power used by the disk drive.
A further object of the present invention is to extend the life of a power supply used in a portable computer while keeping the size and weight of such device and power supply to a minimum.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a power supply management scheme which permits monitoring of the threshold used to spin down the disk when said threshold is exceeded.
A still further object of this present invention is to provide an efficient power conservation scheme for a laptop computer which is automatically adaptable to different users and applications.
An object of the present invention is to prevent or minimize a delay in the access time to the disk by a user.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an efficient power conservation scheme for a laptop computer which balances the power that can be saved by spinning a disk down quickly after each access and the impact of spin down on response time when disk access is requested, causing the disk to spin up again.
A still further object of the present invention is to conserve the power in a laptop computer by spinning down the disk immediately when there is inactivity if the next access will likely occur more than Td seconds in the future, i.e. the next access will likely occur far enough in the future for the system to save power by spinning down the disk.
Another object of the present invention is to take into account the following factors in disk power management: spin up latency (the time it takes a user to access a disk that has already been spun down); and predictability of the next access to the disk (the likelihood of when the next disk request will be made by a user).
The present invention relates to a power conservation system for a laptop computer. This power system spins down a hard disk drive when it has not been accessed after a predetermined length of time, i.e. a fixed threshold power conservation scheme. The decision to spin down the disk is made by a computer in response to past history of disk activity. The past history of disk activity is also used to continually adjust the threshold. Threshold adjustment occurs when an undesirable spin up occurs (threshold is adjusted upwardly, i.e. threshold increase), when an acceptable spin up occurs (possible threshold adjustment downward, i.e., threshold decrease) or when other information suggests the need to adjust the threshold. In other words, when an undesirable spin up occurs, the threshold should be increased to make future undesirable spin ups less likely; when an acceptable spin up takes place, the threshold should be adjusted gradually ill a downward direction. Undesriable spin-ups are defined with reference to an inconvenience ratio. This ratio is a maximum ratio between the spin-up delay and the idle time prior to a spin-up before that spin-up would be acceptable. In this invention, threshold adjustment occurs upon every spin up event as well as "close calls" (i.e. when the threshold is barely high enough to avoid the disk spinning down and back up again in a short period of time). Threshold adjustment may be additive, subtractive and/or multiplicative and programmed for a fixed number of spin ups or close calls instead of upon every spin up or close call. By stopping the disk from spinning during times when the disk is not needed, based upon past history of disk activity which has resulted in threshold adjustment, battery power or a single battery charge is conserved, and laptop computer operation time is extended.
This power conservation system may be switched in and out by the user via a "power saver" switch. The switch may be implemented either in hardware or software. The user may even override the system when desired (e.g. when system parameters change).
The inventive method includes the steps of spinning the disk up when the computer apparatus is in operation, creating a threshold value to determine when the disk should be spun down during a period of disk inactivity, spinning the disk down when said threshold value is exceeded, spinning the disk up when the next access occurs and adjusting the threshold if the spin up was undesirable or if the spin up was acceptable but could be more acceptable if the adjustment would not increase the number of undesirable spin ups.
Other objects and a fuller understanding of this invention may be had by referring to the following description and claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings noted below.
FIG. 1 is a diagram of the system components of a laptop computer with disk drive.
FIG. 2 is a diagram of a laptop computer display of a power conservation menu.
FIG. 3 is a graph illustrating spin down threshold as a function of time.
FIG. 1 depicts hardware components used with the subject invention. A laptop computer 40 contains a keyboard 41 for inserting information or commands into the computer. A housing 50 is provided within the computer 40 for housing the disk 51 which is capable of spinning. Connected to the disk 51 is a motor arm 54 for spinning the disk 51. Arm 54 is also connected to a motor 52 which drives the arm 54. Also included within the housing 50 is a power saver switch 53 which may be activated by a user. Switch 53 has an ON and OFF position. The user of the computer need only turn switch 53 to its ON position to activate the power conservation scheme. If switched to it's OFF position, the user is overriding the software driven power conservation scheme.
The laptop computer 40 also includes an operating system 55 and a display 56 housing a screen 60. The operating system 55 contains a routine which automatically implements the power conservation scheme of the present invention. The computer user may also implement this power conservation scheme by typing in a command as shown on screen 60 in FIG. 2. On the first line of the screen appears the title of the routine, called Power Conservation, which the user may activate. The user may key in or override the power conservation scheme by activating on line 2 of the screen, box 62, the OFF instruction, or box 63, the ON instruction. In FIG. 2, line 2, box 63, with an "X" contained therein, indicates that the power conservation scheme is being employed by the user. Line 3 of screen 60 indicates that the disk 51 is to be spun down after the number of seconds indicated on the horizontal time scale 65 shown on line 4 of screen 60. A slider arm 66 is movable along scale 65 to identify the temporal period in seconds after which the disk is to be spun down. This temporal period acts as a manual threshold to spin the disk down. Thus, the manual threshold is adjustable depending on the user's needs and desires. A digital representation of this time period is displayed on line 4 of screen 60 at box 67. In FIG. 2, this time period is set at 5 seconds.
In order to activate the power conservation scheme of the present invention, the user must turn switch 53, shown in FIG. 1, to its ON position or key in the ON instruction in box 63 of FIG. 2. It is assumed that the computer has been turned on and is performing operations for the user. Adaptive spin down used ill the power conservation scheme of the present invention monitors the spin down threshold and continually adjusts it to keep a balance between energy consumption and undesirable spin downs. Accordingly, after the disk is spinning and in operation performing user tasks, the first step in the power conservation scheme of the present invention is to create a threshold value of disk inactivity, which when exceeded, determines when the disk should be spun down.
After the threshold value is established, the next step is to permit adjustment of the threshold value. Threshold adjustment is at the heart of adaptive spin down. The adjustment may take place at various times: when an undesirable spin up occurs, when an acceptable spin up occurs, or when other information suggests the need to change the threshold. Undesirable spin-ups are defined with reference to parameters, including an inconvenience ratio, which may be modified by the user and which are described below. For example, an undesirable spin-up may be identified when the amount of time spinning up the disk is greater than the preceeding idle time. When an undesirable spin-up occurs, the threshold is too short and should be increased. When a spin up is acceptable, the threshold may or may not be long enough. It can possibly be decreased without increasing the number of undesirable delays, i.e. delays that severely inconvenience the user. There may be other times when the threshold value should be changed even though no spin up has occurred. For instance, if the disk is idle I seconds and I<T, then the disk should not be spun down. But a slight variation in the arrival time of the next requested access could cause the disk to be spun down, after being idle for more than T seconds, only to be spun up again immediately. Thus, if there is a "close call" (i.e. when next requested access is near threshold), in which the spin down threshold was barely high enough to avoid a situation in which the disk would be spun down and back up again in a short time, it is appropriate to increase the threshold and thus provide a grace period to ensure that it will be unnecessary to spin the disk back up again in such a short time.
There are many possible approaches to, and enhancements of, adaptive spin down. They include the rate at which the threshold is adjusted. The adjustment could occur after every disk spin up or after a fixed number of disk spin ups, thereby using prior history of disk activity vis-a-vis the existing threshold in the decision to adjust the threshold. A formula for adjusting the threshold after the rate has been determined can be arbitrarily complex. One example is to add two different values, Aa and Ba respectively, to T when undesirable or acceptable spin ups occur. One would expect that Aa >0, Ba <0, and Aa >|Ba |. In other words, when an undesirable spin up occurs, the spin down threshold should be increased by enough, i.e. Aa, to make future undesirable spin ups significantly less likely; when an acceptable spin up takes place, the spin down threshold should be decreased more gradually, i.e. Ba.
Another method is to multiply T by αm and βm respectively when undesirable or acceptable spin ups occur. Here αm >1 and 0<βm <1. This method adjusts the threshold value upon every spin up event, as well as after "close calls." This approach can also be modified, for example, to decrease the spin down threshold only when several spin ups in a row are acceptable. There is a difference between decreasing the threshold T by βa after each acceptable spin up and decreasing it by Nβa after N acceptable spin ups; if spin ups were independent, with a probability p of being acceptable, the likelihood of N spin ups in a row being acceptable is pN. In practice, spin ups are interdependent, so that mathematical relationship does not hold exactly.
Thus far, the inventive method has assumed that either a spin up is acceptable, or it is not. There is in fact a continuum of degrees of acceptance: spinning up the disk just after it has spun down is worse than spinning it up just before the point at which the delay would be deemed acceptable. In fact, the worst type of spin up is one that occurs before the disk has completely spun down, since the delay in spinning it up will be greater than in normal circumstances when the disk has already been spun down(the disk must typically be fully spun down before the order to spin up can be issued). An improvement on the method above, therefore, is to increment the spin down threshold by a greater amount when the delay due to a spin up is especially egregious than when it is barely above the user's threshold.
FIG. 3 illustrates how the spin down threshold can vary over time. It shows both additive and multiplicative modifiers; the multiplicative modifiers have greater effect at high thresholds and lesser effect at low ones. The solid line shows additive modifiers that add a second (1 s) to the threshold upon the occurrence of undesirable spin ups and subtract 250 ms from it upon the occurrence of acceptable ones. The dashed line multiplies the threshold by 1.25 upon undesirable spin ups and by 0.9 upon acceptable ones. In both cases, the inconvenience ratio ρ is 0.2 (the inconvenience ratio is defined in Table 6).
An algorithm for spinning down the disk of a mobile computer using user-specified criteria for the degree of inconvenience of disk spin up consists of the following steps:
1. Initialize the following parameters in Table 6 shown below to the algorithm, using a system default that can be modified under user control. The "possible values" are intended to suggest how the parameters might be set, but are subject to modification based on user performance, experience, hardware configuration and other issues.
TABLE 6__________________________________________________________________________Threshold Adjustment ParametersSymbolParameter Name Description Possible Value__________________________________________________________________________ρinconvenience ratio maximum ratio between the spin up 0.25 delay and the idle time prior to spin- up, before a spin up is undesirable.M adjustment method if M = 0, adjustments are additive, 0 else multiplicativeαthreshold increase value that is added to or multiplied by 1000 msadjustment the current spin down threshold after an undesirable spin upβthreshold decrease value that is added to or multiplied by -250 msadjustment the current spin down threshold after an acceptable spin upTinitinitial 10 svalue for spin downthresholdTminminimum spin- lowest value the threshold T can at- 100 msdown threshold tain, even with no undesirable spin- upsTmaxmaximum spin- highest value the threshold T can at- dependent on ρdown threshold tain, even with only undesirable spin- ups__________________________________________________________________________
2. At any given time, the current spin down threshold is denoted by T. Initialize T=Tinit. Set ##EQU1## where δmax is the maximum time the disk can take to spin down and become active again.
3. Spin down the disk anytime it has not been accessed in T seconds.
4. If the disk is accessed while it is spun down, or in the process of spinning down, spin it up immediately and service the request. Call the delay to spin it up δ, and the time since the last access I.
a. If δ>pI, the spin up is undesirable. If M=0, set T=min(T+α,Tmax), else set T=min(T* α,Tmax).
b. Otherwise, the spin up is acceptable. If M=0, set T=max(T+β,Tmin), else set T=max(T*β, Tmin).
An extension of this algorithm is to adjust the threshold after "close calls". One way to do this would be to adjust T as though an undesirable spin up occurred, any time the idle time was within some constant factor δ of T. Another way would be to use different values to adjust T, depending on whether an actual spin up occurred or whether the disk only came close to spinning down at the wrong time. Another extension is to vary the adjustment based on the severity of the spin up by comparison to idle time.
Although this invention has been described in its preferred form with a certain degree of particularity, it is understood that the present disclosure of the preferred form has been made only by way of example and that numerous changes in the details of construction and the combination and arrangement of parts may be resorted to without departing from the spirit and the scope of the invention as hereinafter claimed.
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I love books!
"excellent, happy and sad all in one book"
This is my second book by English author JoJo Moyes. This is her most popular and crtically accaimed book while all but one of her books are rated above 4.0 on the audible 5.0 scale, so a lot of people like her writing. This book is set outside of London and has a 26 year old gal whose job of 6 years as a waitress just ended when the cafe she worked in closed. She gets hired on to be a caregriver to a quadriplegic accident6 victim who has a death wish. Very well written, and as you might imagine this book really pulls on the heart strings. It was easy to keep reading. This book brings to mind the 1981 movie, "Whose Life is it Anyway", starrinig Richard Dreyfuss for anyone who remembers it. This one is well worth the effort.
"A difficult subject done very well"
Moyes did an amazing job of building a great story out of a very complex subject. I didn't want to stop listening! The complexity of love and loss, relationships,dysfunctional family all delivered with wonderful imagination and grace. This was a wonderful piece of entertainment!
This is the best book I have listened to on audible- beware you will not want to leave the car when you start!. The book itself is lovely and is strongly supported by a talented voice cast that bring the story alive. I feel sad that the book is over and I don't think I have ever felt that except when I listened to the Help. Run don't walk to snap up this gem!
Canadian girl in Kansas, love audible, books on kindle or kindle fire, and old fashioned books! I enjoy fiction most, mostly books with strong female leads. Favourite authors: Diana Gabaldon, Stephen King, Jodi Picoult, Wally Lamb, Pat Conroy, Andre Dubus III, Lisa Genova, many more!
"Old Fashioned Love With a Twist"
I am normally not one for romances or love stories, however I kept getting 'Me Before You, A Novel' recommended to me. It seemed as though every time I turned around another friend was telling my how touching the novel is and how it should be on my 'must read' list. I took advantage of the holiday sale and bought the book at audible, as well as the kindle book. I am the type that likes to listen and read along.
The author, Jojo Moyes, introduces us to Louisa, who lives in a small town in England which has one main tourist area which is an old castle. Louisa has been in an fairly stagnant relationship with her long time boyfriend Patrick. He has recently become obsessed with working out and they really have nothing in common anymore. She figures she'll marry him, and have his babies all the while living in the same five mile radius in which she grew up.
Louisa lives with her mom, dad, grandfather, sister and nephew in a tiny home barely built for all of them and her parents rely on her wages at the 'Buttered Bun' to help make ends meet. When Louisa is told that the owner of the 'Buttered Bun' is closing down his restaurant, she is forced to find another job. Surprisingly, she does find a job as a caretaker for the wealthiest family in town.
Louisa is in charge of looking after Will, who was once a very successful business man and a daredevil. He traveled the world and lived life by the seat of his pants. He was miserable in his state of having to be taken care of around the clock, with little control of his movement and bodily function. When Louisa finds out that the job is a contract position for six months, her suspicions arise and she figures out that Will has given his parents six months to try and convince him to continue to live, but after the six months is over, he will go to a clinic in Switzerland where there are legal procedures for people who wish to die.
Louisa and Will develop a very guarded and intimate relationship, and soon Louisa finds that her sole purpose in life is trying to convince Will that he is indeed a person that is loved and needed in this world, despite his body's failure. Does she convince him to live forever? You'll have to have a listen to find out.
Me Before You is definitely a page turner. The characters are all very earthy and I loved them all. The narration was performed by several different voices (people) and they all added their own point of view on the situation. I enjoyed this as I delved further into the characters and what their thoughts were. My heart ached for Will's mother, who of course under no circumstances wanted her son to die. This is a very emotional book and it deserves to be listened to with full attention. There is so much humanity and ultimate love and sacrifice. It provides hope to the reader that people still do care about others, and it also presents things to people who have no physical ailments. Those of us not suffering with debilitating diseases take advantage of our health, which is something we may want to think twice about.
I am rating this novel 5 stars across the board. This is not a typical romance, but instead a gritty, character building novel with a rich story line and a lot of heart.
I'm an audiobook addict and blog about books at The Reading Date. My favorite genres are YA, New Adult, Fiction & Memoirs.
"Riveting and Emotional"
Every once in a while comes a great crossover book that everyone loves, and Me Before You is one of those books that transcends genre. Me Before You is listed on Goodreads under "Books that had me bawling my eyes out" (it's number 2) so you obviously have to be in a certain mood to read a book like that, and I've owned this audiobook for seven months before playing it.
I'm probably one of the last people to have read Me Before You, but just in case you haven't here are some reasons to give it a try:
The Characters – Louisa (aka Lou/Clark) and Will are two people who would not have ever met except under these circumstances. Before his accident left him a quadriplegic, Will was a successful businessman, traveled the world, loved extreme sports, and was a lady killer type. Lou lives at home, worked at a café, and has a long-term boyfriend. Lou loses her job and doesn't know anything about being a home caregiver but gets the job of looking after Will regardless. Will now lives at home with his parents and is a terrible patient, and Lou's biggest challenge is making Will want to live.
Class distinctions – Will and Lou live in a small town in England with a castle at the center dividing the haves and have-nots. With Lou's new caregiver job, she's earning a bigger salary than she ever has and is the primary breadwinner for her family. Will's life of "privilege" exposed him to literature, music, travel and films that Louisa never had a part of. We see Louisa and Will open each other's minds to new experiences as they get to trust each other.
Lots to discuss, debate, and ponder – Will wants to die. The indignities of his post-accident life are spelled out quite clearly, and there's no chance he will recover. His family loves him and will do anything to make him change his mind. Louisa falls for the man he is now. Is it enough to make a difference in his life?
Heartbreak and Humor – Yes, this is a heavy subject matter- no sugar coating it. But, there are humorous moments and Lou brings lightness to Will's existence. Lou has quite an inventive and colorful wardrobe that brightens up Will's household. The pair brings out the best in each other and their light moments and banter keep the story from being too heavy. But yes there are still plenty of heart-wrenching moments as well that make this book unputdownable.
Smart, witty and eminently readable – I think this story is relatable to everyone. The writing is engaging and smart, and the story is heart wrenching and realistic. Moyes writes about quality of life, love, family, relationships, infidelity, education, careers, and privilege and just a powerful story overall.
The audiobook – There are six narrators listed as readers for this title, but really Susan Lyons reads about 95% of the book. There are a few chapters where we get the point of view of Lou and Will's loved ones to provide some additional insight. I liked those small snippets into Will's mother or Lou's sister's mind, and I think it's appropriate to the story that we don't get Will's pov. Susan Lyons does an outstanding job with the narration and kept me riveted to story. Her character voices and pacing are spot-on. This is a good introductory audiobook to try if you aren't sold on them yet. I was hooked.
Listening to audiobooks is a guilty pleasure. I travel a lot so listen to about four per monthly. Biographies are a favorite.
"Great listen"
Unique story. It's been a long time since an audio book choked me up (last time was The Fault in Our Stars)
Protagonist. I found myself rooting for her.
Yes - I finished this one quickly and found myself looking forward to the time I could plug it back in.
As much as my sentimental self was rooting for the sappy ending, this ending was perfect.
I ignore genre labels. Some of my favorite books are outside my genre comfort zone. Listening to audiobooks is still reading. Not theater.
"A Predictable, Tough but Recommended Read"
It was quickly obvious where this novel was headed. The author could hardly deal with such a serious subject cutely. There could not be a "riding off into the sunset" HEA. I've read other reviews that called it a romance, a love story. I saw it more as a life story. Any romance was really just a potential. A potential that could never develop. About the only part of the book that rang untrue to me was Clark's declaration of love. If I had been on the receiving end of that declaration, right after hearing that the person giving it knew my secret, I would have thought it just another attempt to try and get me to change my mind, a ploy and a ruse.
But life is real and rarely if ever cute. I thought the author did a good job of presenting the dilemma of this particular life in an upfront, even handed way. There was very little preachiness and even after finishing the book, while I am relatively certain where I stand on the issue, the author did a very good job of not passing judgment. I expected her personal opinion on the issue to be evident at the end. It wasn't. At least not to me.
This is one of those novels that deals with an issue that needs to be discussed. As long as we continue to place more value on the quantity of life rather than the quality of it, this issue will not go away. And sometimes it is an issue that simply can't be raised on its own - discussing the plot of a novel is a more benign way to start the conversation.
Several other reviewers I read admitted to weeping through the last hour of the book. I can cry over a sad story, as much as the next guy, but I didn't cry over this one. I think that was partially because I knew where we were headed, so I wasn't caught off guard by the inevitable conclusion. I also don't think of it as a weepy read, because the real sadness, the accident that left Will a quadriplegic, was dealt with quickly in the first 3 minutes of the book. That was the tragedy, not the inevitable after-effects of it. And the tragedy was presented fairly clinically and abruptly at the beginning, before I was emotionally invested in the characters. So it didn't have the emotional punch to start the tears.
This was a better book than I expected it to be. I lost patience with Clark several times. She started out too immaturely. So much so it was a stretch to believe she came so far in such a short amount of time. And her complete lack of relationship skills, with her boyfriend, her family, or anyone else seemed a little extreme. That might be my only character-related complaint. I appreciated that the author didn't make Will a tragic figure. He wasn't a saint before the accident, as a matter of fact, he did not sound particularly likable. Nor was his family. That made it more believable than if he was portrayed as heroic, generous,compassionate or kind.
I usually don't like multiple narrators. Instead of clarifying perspective, they tend to just confuse me. I thought they all did a very good job on this and the periodic switch was helpful.
This was not an easy book to read. I had to put it down several times. I had a lighter, easier read going at the same time. That distraction helped me get through this. But I highly recommend it. It made me pause, made me think, made me dig deeper. And for a novel, that is saying a lot.
"Thank you for a wonderful reading performance!"
The Fault in Our Stars Deals with loving someone who is physically challenged and about to die.
Louisa was simply an amazing person. She starts out as someone who can serve others and enjoy waitressing. When she looks for a job, (parts that are done with absolutely terrific writing and British humor) it becomes obvious that the color of her parachute is one that really just longs to selflessly serve someone else.
Her ability to love someone in a way didn't fit the cultural romantic norms. She loved the quadriplegic, impotent Will in a way that was much more focused on little ordinary everyday things. The way that she loved him had a very important lesson as we love someone who is aging or sick or injured: physical attractiveness in the Hollywood sense falls away. What's left? Louisa showed me that a whole lot is left!
Luisa's character is one that doesn't treat someone with kid gloves-- she dishes it right back! Gradually, her motives for her choices moved away from just needing a job. She allows herself to become changed powerfully by serving and gradually loving Will.
This type of literature is changing me. I know, I know: chick lit. But as a man with a wife and three daughters at home, and many hurting people around me, I need this insight and sensitivity to human emotion. I'd like to thank the author for that. For example, this book gave insight as to why my wife and daughters want my shirts to sleep with when I'm gone.
Being a Christian minister, I had to take away a star for some ethical and worldview issues. Just the other day my dad (74) and his friend Ralph, both of whom are physically struggling with disability and aging had robust joy in the consideration of the resurrection and heaven. They are laughing and confident facing death. That perspective is lacking here. At least it's not considered.
I found the author's writing style to be entertaining and definitely engrossing. Her description of facial expressions and gestures was exquisite.
"Love and Choices"
This audio book kept me enthralled for 3 days. It had humor, sadness but most of all, realistic depiction of characters. I'm not sure what I was expecting or hoping for in the end but the story telling was gripping. Im not sure we needed the other characters POV as they didn't add anything for me, but this story was powerful. I'm impressed with the writing and will check out other work by this author.


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Wrote 2 reports on the Climber.Org Trip Reports page, newest to oldest:
Independence Peak 1 Jul 2000
Alta! Alta! Alta! 5 Jul 1995
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Kat Dennings might strike you as your run-of-the-mill filthy-mouthed, Christina-Hendricks-looking sitcom star (you know, one of those!), but she wants to be clear that, in addition to being really, really, ridiculously good-looking in the new issue of GQ, she is also a weirdo. "I don't think I'm a weirdo in a bad way, there's just a lot going on in my head," the 2 Broke Girls star explained. "Though I think if I could put my finger on my exact weirdness I'd be able to change it."
Oh, so Kat's quirky! We know another sassy brunette who already has the corner on that mark…"I hate that damn word!" Dennings allegedly shouted at her interviewer when the 'Q' word came up. "Quirky is what a guy would call a girl he doesn't understand." Oh, we like her. In all honesty, we even think Kat rocks those bangs just as hard as Zooey Deschanel. Possibly even harder. No one tell Zooey D. that, though, or some day when we least expect it we'll get a ukulele smashed over our skull.