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Iowa State Fair: The Fair SquaresUPDATED 5:35 PM CDT Aug 14, 2013
One State Fair food helps rebuild the fairgrounds.Video Transcript
There are lots of champions at the Iowa State Fair! But there's one you can eat and benefit a good cause! The "Graham" Champion is the new Fair Square Flavor this year! Joining us to explain is Allison Krull. - TELL US ABOUT THE GRAHAM CHAMPION FLAVOR AND WHERE THE NAME CAME FROM? - WHAT OTHER FLAVORS DO YOU HAVE? - THEY COST $2 BUT THE MONEY GOES TO A GOOD CAUSE, TELL US ABOUT THAT?
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Element Beads, its Founder Marie Jones, her Creations
browse these categories for related items...
All Items: Gifts & Home Decor:Jewelry and Accessories: Contemporary: item # 1124412
Please refer to our stock # MEB.A when inquiring.
PO Box 22082
Denver, CO 80222
Guest Book
See Each Photo For Price
Element Beads was long one of the more favored bead shops (now closed but shown on this opening page) in the Denver Metro area, located at 427 Sable Boulevard, Aurora in the Hobby Lobby Shopping Center. This first page of two that illustrate only unique, one-of-a-kind beaded items made by the talented and artistic Marie Jones who is the founder and owner of Element Beads. Marie now has a 'store' on the second floor of the Aurora Mall and is there most of the week where she offers a broad selection of fine quality beads and pearls, her own beautifully designed creations, and a number of additional items taken in on consignment. Marie's one-of-a kind creations offered on pages MEB.A (this page) and MEB.B can only be ordered through this catalog, but many others are available in her mall shop. Select or ask any question by referring FIRST to the Trocadero ITEM # (MEB.A) and SECONDLY to the item's bracketed inventory number prefixed with MEB as shown on its unique photo. A purchase comes with a biographical sketch of Marie Jones telling of her interesting background and her fascinating relationship to Pearl, the historic family member of the Qing Dynasty. NOTE: if you would like to view a large number of our various listings, and at the same time limit your browsing time, try our popular TWELVE different items on a single page format by simply spelling out the word TWELVE in the search box. That will quickly bring up all of our listings that have up to twelve different items on a page, each individually priced! And if you want to further refine your search, add one or two additional modifiers at the same time such as Indian, Precolumbian, Stone, Pot, Gold, etc. Any item that has been sold will either be so noted on its photograph or no longer shown in that listed group.

subset: commoncrawl


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The August Interim Committee Meetings in Bridgeport this past week included a few tidbits that didn't make it into earlier stories:
The state Division of Corrections wants to create a short-term loan program to help those on parole find housing and employment.
Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein briefly spoke on the topic during a presentation Monday to the Joint Standing Committee on the Judiciary.
The loans are made possible through Senate Bill 371 which passed in 2013. Rubenstein said often the conditions of parole include finding housing, and often to find employment individuals must show an address of residence. Securing an apartment usually requires a deposit or a first month's rent payment up front.
Sometimes parolees violate their parole simply by not being able to achieve these steps, he said.
"A lot of time it is absolutely critical for them to find adequate housing and employment," Rubenstein said. "If we could provide these short-term loans, maybe $200-300 for an apartment, it could go a long way to helping them meet the terms of their parole."
During a tour of Heston Farms Winery in Fairmont, members of the state Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on the Judiciary met a former soldier with an interesting background. While owner Mickey Heston was describing the wine-making process, Jade, a 14-year-old German shepherd, made her way through the legislators, stopping only briefly at each person before moving on to the next.
Heston said Jade was a bomb sniffing dog who had been stationed in Iraq, and after several years of service was retired and came to West Virginia.
As Heston spoke, Jade finished weaving in and out of the group and walked outside.
"You think she was being friendly," Heston said, "but she actually was checking your shoes and pockets for explosives."
Heston said he has seen the dog "alert" to people before, so apparently that day everyone was clean.
What is the best holiday for buying a gun?
According to officials at the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services division in Clarksburg, background check requests for gun purchases spike every year on Valentine's Day.
"Nothing says love like an AR-15," said Stephen Morris, assistant director of CJIS.
Every time a person attempts to legally purchase a firearm, they are processed through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. Morris said in the past 11 months the department has processed more than 18 million background checks for gun purchases. Of those, only 1 percent, about 1,800, have been rejected, and in some instances led to local law enforcement being contacted due to someone with an outstanding warrant for a violent offense attempting to purchase a firearm.
Morris said the department often sees an increase in firearm purchases following national gun tragedies, such as school shootings, and said he believes that is due to fears over the possibility of increased gun legislation and restrictions. Officials said they do not know why Feb. 14 annually sees the most gun purchases. The division tracks purchases by date and by state, but not by motivation.
Many legislators left Monday's interim session in Bridgeport a little early to prepare for a party. E. Gordon Gee, the new president of West Virginia University, held a legislative reception Monday evening at the president's home in Morgantown.
Officials said hundreds of people attended the event at Gee's residence, and by all accounts it was a great party.
Gee's reception wasn't the only festive event attended by legislators during the interim session. A reception also was held Tuesday evening at Heston Farms Winery in Fairmont after the tour earlier in the day.


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Rain showers washed out qualifying Saturday at Iowa Speedway, handing the pole for Sunday's Iowa Corn 250 to 2008 IndyCar Series points leader Scott Dixon.
Rain arrived in central Iowa after only two drivers – Ryan Briscoe and Dan Wheldon – had completed qualifying attempts. As a result, the starting lineup was set according to team entrant point standings.
Helio Castroneves will start second, followed by Wheldon and Tony Kanaan.
Sunday's 250-lap event starts at 1:30 p.m. EDT with live television coverage on ABC. Two drivers in the 26-car field will not start on Sunday, as the cars of both team owner/driver Marty Roth and Dale Coyne Racing's Bruno Junqueira were withdrawn after separate crashes during practice Saturday morning.
Neither driver was injured, but both cars were damaged beyond immediate repair.
Scott Dixon (#9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Honda) pole starter, based on championship points standings, 13th career IndyCar pole:
"You never want to sit on the pole like this. Everybody wants a proper qualifying. It's actually been a tough day for us. We didn't really have the speed [for pole] in practice, so with the rain we're actually starting better than we ought to be. But in a way, it is a reward for all the work the team has done leading up to this weekend."
Honda Worldwide site
Home | Site Map | Site Index | About this Site
Copyright, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and its subsidiaries and affiliates. All Rights Reserved.


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A hackers' search engine that retrieves stolen addresses, birth dates and private information has been launched. The search engine, Indexeus, can be accessed by criminals as easily as it can by the people whose information has been taken.
In the same way that Google connects people to information on the internet, Indexeus connects its users to more than 100 databases that contain information stolen in hacking attacks. One of the databases is believed to contain more than 150 million records, including encrypted credit card details stolen from Adobe, the software company.
The search engine could be used by individuals worried


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JW Marriott Indianapolis
|JW Marriott Indianapolis
JW Marriott Indianapolis
|General information
|Indianapolis, Indiana
|39°46′0″N 86°10′05.5″W / 39.76667°N 86.168194°WCoordinates: 39°46′0″N 86°10′05.5″W / 39.76667°N 86.168194°W
|Construction started
|May 29, 2008
|February 4th, 2011
|$450,000,000 for Marriott Complex[1]
|White Lodging
|White Lodging
|376 ft (115 m)
|Technical details
|Floor count
|Design and construction
|HOK Chicago (Design Architect and AOR Hotel Tower) and CSO Architects (AOR Podium)
|White Properties
|Structural engineer
|Magnusson Klemencic Associates
|Main contractor
|Hunt Construction Group
JW Marriott Indianapolis is a hotel in downtown Indianapolis, adjacent to the Indiana Convention Center. The new JW Marriott Indianapolis is part of the $450 million Marriott Place, consisting of five Marriott hotels all connected to the Indiana Convention Center. The hotel is 34 floors and 376 feet (115 m) tall, making it the 7th-tallest building in Indianapolis and tallest hotel in Indiana.[1][2][3] The hotel has 1,005 guest rooms. The facility also has a 950 space underground parking garage.[1] It is the largest JW Marriott hotel in the world based on its 1,005 guest rooms, and is owned and managed by White Lodging.[4]
The JW Marriott has 637 double rooms, 343 "lavish king rooms", and 25 luxury suites. The hotel features 54 meeting rooms with a total of 104,000 square feet, three restaurants and the largest ballroom of any hotel in the Midwest and also one of the largest Marriott ballrooms in the world.[5] The JW Marriott Indianapolis features three of its own restaurants, as well as easy access to nearly 200 nearby restaurants.[6]
Window displays[edit]
Since its opening in 2011, the JW Marriott Indianapolis has displayed three "jumbo" graphics on its east-facing concave curtain wall. Indianapolis-based Sports Graphics has partnered with the hotel in 2012, 2015, and 2016 for the displays, which have included the Vince Lombardi Trophy (commemorating Super Bowl XLVI), an NCAA bracket (commemorating the 2015 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship Game), and the Borg-Warner Trophy (commemorating the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500).[7]
- ^ a b c "A work in progress". Indianapolis Star. Retrieved 2008-10-05.
- ^ "JW Marriott Indianapolis". Emporis.com. Retrieved 2008-06-30.
- ^ "Work Set To Begin On $425 Million Indy Hotel". WRTV. Retrieved 2008-06-30.
- ^ "World's Largest JW Marriott". hotelonline.com. Retrieved 2011-02-10.
- ^ "JW Marriott Indianapolis Website". Marriott.com.
- ^ "About JW Indy". jwindy.com. Retrieved 2011-02-10.
- ^ Lindquist, David (April 18, 2016). "Borg-Warner Trophy to rise over Downtown". The Indianapolis Star. Retrieved April 27, 2016.
External links[edit]
|This article about a hotel or resort in the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
|This article about a building or structure in Indiana is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
|This Indianapolis, Indiana-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.


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The smoke was back in Carson Valley this morning with readings in the unhealthy range and higher as the prevailing southwest wind returned.
Coming from the Rim fire burning into western Yosemite about 75 miles south of Gardnerville, the smoke prompted National Weather Service forecasters to predict it will continue through this week.
The densest smoke is expected in Alpine and northern Mono counties in the afternoons and evenings, when visibility could be less than a mile at times.
Prevailing southwest winds are expected to continue through Thursday.
The Rim fire grew to 228,670 acres overnight with lines around 60 percent. But the fire continues to burn in the north and the south and southeast flanks into Yosemite National Park.
Southwest winds are expected to increase burning to the north today. The Rim fire is the largest fire burning in the United States this year and is the fourth largest California wildfire in 80 years. More than a quarter of the fire is burning in Yosemite National Park which represents 8 percent of the park's total area. Containment is expected by Sept. 20.


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LEAGUE CITY - Joshua Alan Coombes, 30, died Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007.
Services will be at 2 p.m. today in Dignity Memorial Bay Area Chapel. Burial will be Wednesday in Memorial Park Cemetery in Amarillo by Rector Funeral Home, 2800 S. Osage St., in Amarillo.
Mr. Coombes was born in Amarillo.
He was preceded in death by a brother, David J. Coombes.
Survivors include his parents, Pete and Theresa Coombes; two brothers, Terry Coombes and wife Patsy of Lefors and Tony Coombes and special friend Brittany Hansen of Arlington; his girlfriend, Heidi Wittenmyer of Katy; and his grandfather, A.P. Coombes of Pampa.
Visitation will be from noon to 2 p.m. today at the funeral home in League City.
Amarillo Globe-News, Oct. 29, 2007
© 2016. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us


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Shop our great selection of Birkenstock, Chaco, Dansko, Keen, Merrell, and More!
Shop Now
Shop By Use
Shop By Department
Shop our great selection of Birkenstock sandals!
Shop By Brands
The women's Dansko Pearl features Dansko's signature contoured footbed and a new slimmer shape - this little gem is the perfect combination of comfort and style. Pearl's unique sling back design is open and closed at the same time – making it a great way to transition from season to season.
- High quality veg leather upper
- Shock absorption comparable with athletic footwear - the shoe takes the pounding, not your body
- Anti-fatigue rocker bottom propels the foot while walking, protecting feet, legs and back during long hours on your feet
- Roomy toe box allows toes to wiggle freely for a healthier, more comfy fit.
- Trimmed and sculpted clog for a sleeker look
- Leather socklining that wicks away moisture for a comfortable wearing experience
- Odor resistant, antimicrobial, antibacterial footbed to improve the wearing experience
- Easy to wear 2" heel height
- Color(s): Tan
Veg is a glove-soft leather that has been finished to a rich luster. It has a lightweight, buttery softness that easily conforms to the shape of your foot and has great everyday fashion appeal.
Clean with a soft damp cloth. To maintain, use Dansko Leather Cream and a soft clean cloth.
Regular Price:
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Enjoy life. Take a walk.


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DUMAS - Maria Petra Mares, 98, died Sunday, Nov. 10, 2002.
Services will be at 2 p.m. today in Templo Bethel Asambleas de Dios with the Rev. Jose I. Contreras, pastor of Templo Elim de Las Asambleas de Dios, officiating. Burial will be in Dumas Cemetery by Morrison Funeral Directors.
Mrs. Mares was born Nov. 18, 1903, in Santa Cruz de Durango, Mexico. She was a homemaker and a Dumas resident since 1977.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Victor Mares Sr. in 1959; a daughter, Velia Mares Salinas in 1992; and a son, Victor Mares in 2001.
Survivors include two sons, Samuel Mares and Aurelio Avila, both of Dumas; two daughters, Bertha Mendoza and Esther Calderon, both of Dumas; a brother, Severeano Avila of El Paso; a sister, Antonia Avila of Mexico; 23 grandchildren; and 22 great-grandchildren.
The family suggests memorials be to Templo Bethel Asambleas de Dios Building Fund, P.O. Box 2057, Dumas, TX 79029.
The family will be at 225 N. Meredith St.
Amarillo Globe-News, Nov. 11, 2002
© 2016. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us


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Each week in this space we'll take a look at the Jets' upcoming opponent. Conor Orr does a great job with the Jets' film review, this is an attempt to give you a condensed peak at what their foe did the past week. Last Sunday, the Houston Texans defeated the Tennessee Titans 38-14 to run their record to a perfect 4-0.
These three players deserve kudos for their work
J.J. Watt. See that photo up there? The one of him rushing by Titans' lineman David Stewart? The Titans saw a lot of that. And if we could, we'd follow it up by showing a photo of Watt bringing QB Matt Hasselbeck to the ground or doing the same to RB Chris Johnson. The Texans' defensive end was excellent Sunday. He had five tackles, two sacks, three tackles for a loss and two QB hits. And somehow that doesn't do him justice. On arguably the best team in the NFL, Watt has been their best player. His first sack was just dominant as he set up Titans right guard Leroy Harris with a bull rush then used a swim move to get to the quarterback. He made a backside tackle on Johnson for a one-yard loss in the first quarter and then was in there for a six-yard loss a little later on. There's a reason why he's the leader in the clubhouse for the league's Defensive Player of the Year. After the Jets had to deal with Justin Smith last week, they somehow have to deal with an even better player Monday night.
Matt Schaub. The Texans QB was efficient and proficient against Tennessee. He finished 20-of-28 for 202 yards and two touchdowns and looked comfortable in the pocket all day with the offensive line providing superb protection. Schaub didn't have to make a lot of difficult throws but he was the catalyst for the offense on a day the running game wasn't its usual excellent self. He hit seven different receivers, and carved up the Titans' defense with short and intermediate passes. His only glaring miscue may have been in the fourth quarter when he overthrew Andre Johnson, who was wide open 30+ yards downfield after using a stop and go move that fooled the cornerback. But no one is perfect and Schaub won't get dinged for it here.
Kareem Jackson. Pretty good day for the Texans' corner. The most eye-popping thing he did was return an interception 63 yards for a touchdown -- one of two the Texans had on the day. But in addition to that, Jackson was also commendable, Jackson was targeted seven times and allowed three receptions for 33 yards -- good for a 17.9 QB rating against him.
These players might get a rebuke
Brian Cushing and Bradie James. The Titans' running game and Chris Johnson had a rejuvenation Sunday as he ran for 141 yards on 25 carries. Cushing and James share some of the blame for that. They were repeatedly out of position or had trouble getting off of their blocks. Those errors get magnified when a running back with the speed and talent of Johnson is the one toting the ball.
The running game. At some point it's nitpicking when it's a 24-point victory, so here is that point. Arian Foster and the running game didn't quite live up to their expectations. The Texans rushed for 95 yards on 31 carries. Foster had 86 of those yards on 3.6 yards per carry. It wasn't a glaring issue but a microcosm of their bigger troubles. They've run the ball a league-best 148 times this year but have just a 3.7 ypc -- which is 22nd best in the NFL.
Mike Vorkunov: email@example.com; Twitter: @Mike_Vorkunov
NJ.com has free mobile phone apps for Giants, Jets and Rutgers football. Download today for iPhone or Android.


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Systemwide Events Calendar
Open Access Policy for FACULTYOctober 25, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Manoa Campus, Kuykendall 106 Events Room & Gallery
Open Access ensures access to scholarship that is digital, free of charge to the user, free of most copyright restrictions, and is disseminated over the Internet.
What does this mean for your research? What about your data? What do you need to know to comply with the policy? This session will help you formulate different approaches to future research.
Sara Rutter, librarian and data management specialist, and Beth Tillinghast, librarian and manager for UHM's institutional repositories, will help to clarify the Open Access Policy and outline the steps and support for assisting UHM researchers comply with the policy.
Light lunchtime snacks will be served.
Special thanks to UHM Library for providing light refreshments.
Ticket Information
Event Sponsor
The Center for Teaching Excellence, UH Manoa Graduate Division & UHM Library, Manoa Campus
More Information
Meiko Arai, 956-6978, email@example.com, http://www.cte.hawaii.edu/OnlineReg.html
|Thursday, October 25
|The Wellness Center - Fitness Class Schedule
Maui Campus, Pilina Bldg., Wellness Center
|USFWS's PEIS: A Potential Tool
Manoa Campus, Moot Court Room
|Scholarships for Student Parents
Manoa Campus, QLC #411
|"Hawaiians' Input to Hawai'i's Future: A Matter of Survival"
Manoa Campus, Halau o Haumea, Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies
|Open Access Policy for FACULTY
Manoa Campus, Kuykendall 106 Events Room & Gallery
|Linguistics Final Oral
Manoa Campus, Moore Hall 575
|ZUMBA: A Halloween Costume Themed Party!
Manoa Campus, Campus Center Ballroom
|Puppet-Making and ECE Club Meeting
Honolulu Campus, 2-208
|Protecting the Nest Egg: Detecting Fraud in Hawaii
Manoa Campus, Webster Hall 203
|Introductory to Natural Farming
Windward Campus, Hale Kuhina 115
|Tast of Manoa Fall 2012 at Campus Center
Manoa Campus, Campus Center
|Intro to Fundamentals of PV Training
Honolulu Campus, Building 2, Room 508
|Family Happy Hour
Manoa Campus, Manoa Gardens and Bale Restaurant
|Celebrate! 2012
Honolulu Campus, 874 Dillingham Blvd. Courtyard 5
|From Local to Global: Dance & Music from Aceh, Indonesia
Manoa Campus, East-West Center , Imin Center-Jefferson Hall (opposite UHM Kennedy Theatre)
- Highlighted dates have scheduled events.
- Select the date to view all events for that day.


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Following are the highest-scoring players in the area bridge games reported to the Sun-Gazette:
Williamsport Bridge Club
May 26 - Virginia Marshall and Marty Hodrick, 49; Ann Day and Judy Stein, 47; David Lovcik and Doris Plotts, 46; Mary Ann Churba and Sandy Gilbert, 45; Sarabelle Leuthner and Helen Shaffer, 42.
May 27 - Don Dascher and Luba Ostrovsky, 24; Jim Mather and Ruth Lamade, 22; Joanne Hester and Molly Beatty, 21.
May 28 - Mary Ann Churba and Sandy Gilbert, 30; Judy Stein and Marty Hodrick, 26.5; Mitchell Marcello and Dave Hall, 26; David Marcello and Helen Shaffer, 23.
May 29 - Craig Netzley and Joy Proctor, 30; Vince and Diane Bardsley, 22.
May 30 - Arlene Andrews and Connie Bamer, 80; Susan Greenleaf and Judy Stein, 76; Michael Anesko and Sarah Soster, 75; Fred and Sandy Gilbert, 74.5; Dave Hall and Mary Ann Churba, 74; Barbara Mateer and David Hoover, 72; Doris Plotts and Joyce Morgan, 70; Lois Wentzler and Vera Peters, 66.
All bridge results must be in writing and received by the Sun-Gazette Lifestyle editor at least five days in advance of the day of publication. None will be accepted by telephone. Emailed results will be accepted at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Nathan A. Good
Nathan A. Good lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. He is a contractor with Alliance of Computer Professionals in Bloomington. When he isn't writing software, Nathan enjoys building PCs and servers, reading about and working with new technologies, and trying to get all his friends to make the move to open source software. When he's not at a computer (which he admits is not often), he spends time with his family, at his church, and at the movies.
Nathan A. Good's Books
Foundations of PEAR
- Publication Date: November 20, 2006
- Price: $31.99
Foundations of PEAR: Rapid PHP Development is your one-stop resource for locating the PEAR package you need. Learn More …
PHP 5 Recipes
- Publication Date: October 3, 2005
- Price: $31.99
PHP 5 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach supplies you with complete code for all of the common coding problems you are likely to face when using PHP in your day-to-day work. This invaluable guide includes over 200 recipes and covers numerous topics. Learn More …
Regular Expression Recipes for Windows Developers
- Publication Date: May 25, 2005
- Price: $27.99
Regular Expression Recipes for Windows Developers is the only book of its kind that presents material in a functional, concise manner. It contains over 100 of the most popular regular expressions, along with explanations of how to use each one. It also covers all of the major development languages, including JavaScript, VB, VB .NET, and C#. Learn More …
Regular Expression Recipes
- Publication Date: December 7, 2004
- Price: $24.99
Regular Expression Recipes provides you with all the open-source regular expressions you'll ever need, and explains how to use each one. Thus, you'll learn by example, instead of muddling through countless pages of explanatory syntax. Languages covered include Perl, PHP, grep, vim, Python, and shell. Learn More …


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High: 76°F ~ Low: 56°F
Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016
People are weird about love.Posted Tuesday, May 11, 2010, at 12:42 PM
People are weird about love.
Everybody wants to be loved, but nobody wants to talk about it.
We'll tell a stranger how much we love our iPod. Yet we find it difficult to look into the eyes of our parent, spouse or child and proclaim the same thing.
One place we're really weird about love is at work.
We want our customers to love our products, we want our employees to love their jobs, and we want the market to love our stock. But bring up the "L word" in a management meeting, and people will start to get uncomfortable.
I used to be weird about love.
I make my living as a sales and leadership expert. I speak at a lot of big meetings, and clients often call upon me to help get their people more enthused and inspired.
I used to use code words like passion and motivation. Then I realized, this is stupid.
The subject we're really dancing around is love, and we need to be brave enough to just come right out and say it - not in a meaningless manner, but for real.
Think about it. How weird is it that companies want their employees and customers to love them, yet they're reluctant to talk about how they, as an organization, can be more loving?
How strange is it that, when someone says, "I love my job," or "I love my boss," it is a compliment to the organization, yet very few bosses are willing to stand up at a meeting and express their love for their team?
The truth is, expecting to get love back from your job, or the market or your staff, without being willing to put any love in is just as silly as expecting your kids to love you when you rarely treat them lovingly.
Or expecting your spouse to love you when all you do is complain about the fact that they don't.
Oh, right, we do that, too. Like I said, we're weird about love.
The problem is that we tend think of love as a noun. It's something we want to get, and we're reluctant to give any away until someone gives it to us first.
But love doesn't work that way. It's a verb, and the way you create it is by putting it into action.
We may be more comfortable throwing around the "L word" in inconsequential way, as in, "You're gonna love our new double-stack burger," or "Wow, I love these new computers."
But if we truly want to generate passion and enthusiasm, we have to be willing to show up with it. And that means not only talking about love, but also demonstrating it.
Showing up with love for coworkers, your boss or your customers isn't really any different than showing up with love for your family. It's about listening, it's about caring, it's about making time for them, and above all, it's about deciding that you give a damn about their feelings, even when it's not convenient for you.
Love isn't some wimpy, woo-woo emotion. It's the most powerful motivator on this planet, and when you bring it into the workplace, amazing things happen.
I used to be weird about love at work. But I'm not anymore.
I love my people. I love the work that we do, and I love our clients.
And I'm not the least bit embarrassed about it.
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I can't take any more. The economy is tanking, the election is endless, and now it looks like I might have to sell my blood if I want to keep my kids in mac 'n cheese. Oh, and did I mention that, thanks to falling house prices, I probably owe more on my home than it's actually worth? I want to go back to bed, pull the covers over my head and have somebody wake me up when my 401(k) bounces back. I don't know about you, but I'm finding myself so jittery about, well everything, that it's all I can do to surf the net. Kind of ironic, isn't it? I should be working more, but I'm so anxious about my finances that I'm actually working less. Alas, such is the world of grown-ups - stress, anxiety, depression. And to think that I wasted much of my childhood wishing I could be in charge of my own life. Why in the heck did I ever think that was a good idea? Give me a few cookies, a blankey and a nice place to lie down and I swear I'll never complain about an early bedtime again. These are tough times indeed. Even if you're still OK, you'd have to be one cold, hard, rich person to stay immune to all the angst in the air. So how do you cope? How do you get through today when you're so worried about tomorrow that you can't see straight? I overheard a news commentator say that people are thinking twice before they go out to eat or buy new clothes. I'm guessing that those are the people who still have jobs. Because the people without jobs aren't spending a nickel on anything except cheap carbs and keeping a roof over their heads. Yet as depressing as our collective and individual situations may be, the last thing we need to do is let our fear get the best of us. If you spend all day quaking and anxious, guess who wins? The fear. Yes, I know FDR had a roof over his head when he said "we have nothing to fear but fear itself," but he was right. Every moment you waste paralyzed with fear is a moment you could be doing something, or resting up so that you can do something tomorrow. It's been said that there are only two emotions, love and fear, and all the other emotions are derivatives of those. So I'd like to make a suggestion. Let's chose love. Let's decide to love each other and to love ourselves, no matter what happens. And if you're really a Pollyanna, perhaps you'll join me in deciding to love the fact that this crisis is serving as a call for us to become our better selves; a call for us to look within and rid ourselves of consumerism, greed and the need to keep up with the Jones; and a call for us to have more empathy for those who are struggling. Maybe this is a chance for all of us - and I include myself - to decide that we love our country and we love our fellow human beings more than we love our stuff. Yeah, I know it sounds hokey. But you don't change your circumstances until you change the thoughts that created them. Cowering under the covers in fear may feel safer. But in a crisis, the truly powerful response is love. (c) Copyright 2008, by Lisa Earle McLeod. All rights reserved. Lisa Earle McLeod is a keynote speaker, author and nationally syndicated columnist. Her books include "Forget Perfect" and "Finding Grace When You Can't Even Find Clean Underwear." Contact her at www.ForgetPerfect.com.
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Arika Okrent was studying languages at the University of Chicago. The languages people use and how they work. The rules, the changes, the charts. She was in the library, poking around.
"And then," says Okrent, relaxing in her Germantown home recently, "I drifted down to the shelves with all the books on invented languages. It was a sad little collection. I felt sorry for it."
But something called to her. Tales of made-up languages and their makers. Esperanto, the most widely spoken of all; Volapük, once the most popular; Klingon, the bark of space invaders.
She learned artificial tongues, then wrote about going to a 2003 Esperanto conference for the American Scholar - and the seed of a book was planted.


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From the Massachusetts General Hospital Diabetes Unit, Boston, MA 02114, and American College of Physicians, Philadelphia, PA 19106.
Potential Financial Conflicts of Interest: Honoraria: D.M. Nathan (GlaxoSmithKline).
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Despite the growing number of options for treating type 2 diabetes, clinicians wanting to prevent the disease in high-risk patients have few good choices. Lifestyle changes that lead to weight loss can prevent diabetes (1–2) but are difficult to adopt and maintain (3). Drugs used to treat diabetes are often expensive, and testing has only recently begun on their efficacy as primary preventive agents. Two large trials in 2002 showed that metformin (1) and acarbose (4) effectively prevent diabetes in participants with impaired glucose tolerance, but neither drug has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for prevention and their use has not become part of routine practice.
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|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Nov 30, 1999
|Filing date
|Nov 2, 1995
|Priority date
|Nov 2, 1995
|Fee status
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Vladimir Matena
|Original Assignee
|Sun Microsystems, Inc.
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (14), Referenced by (96), Classifications (13), Legal Events (6)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
The present invention relates to a system for reliable disk fencing of shared disks in a multi-computer system, e.g. a cluster, wherein multiple computers (nodes) have concurrent access to the shared disks. In particular, the system is directed to a high availability system with shared access disks.
In clustered computer systems, a given node may "fail", i.e. be unavailable according to some predefined criteria which are followed by the other nodes. Typically, for instance, the given node may have failed to respond to a request in less than some predetermined amount of time. Thus, a node that is executing unusually slowly may be considered to have failed, and the other nodes will respond accordingly.
When a node (or more than one node) fails, the remaining nodes must perform a system reconfiguration to remove the failed node(s) from the system, and the remaining nodes preferably then provide the services that the failed node(s) had been providing.
It is important to isolate the failed node from any shared disks as quickly as possible. Otherwise, if the failed (or slowly executing) node is not isolated by the time system reconfiguration is complete, then it could, e.g., continue to make read and write requests to the shared disks, thereby corrupting data on the shared disks.
Disk fencing protocols have been developed to address this type of problem. For instance, in the VAXcluster system, a "deadman brake" mechanism is used. See Davis, R. J., VAXcluster Priniciples (Digital Press 1993), incorporated herein by reference. In the VAXcluster system, a failed node is isolated from the new configuration, and the nodes in the new configuration are required to wait a certain predetermined timeout period before they are allowed to access the disks. The deadman brake mechanism on the isolated node guarantees that the isolated node becomes "idle" by the end of the timeout period.
The deadman brake mechanism on the isolated node in the VAXcluster system involves both hardware and software. The software on the isolated node is required to periodically tell the cluster interconnect adaptor (CI), which is coupled between the shared disks and the cluster interconnect, that the node is "sane". The software can detect in a bounded time that the node is not a part of the new configuration. If this condition is detected, the software will block any disk I/O, thus setting up a software "fence" preventing any access of the shared disks by the failed node. A disadvantage presented by the software fence is that the software must be reliable; failure of (or a bug in) the "fence" software results in failure to block access of the shared disks by the ostensibly isolated node.
If the software executes too slowly and thus does not set up the software fence in a timely fashion, the CI hardware shuts off the node from the interconnect, thereby setting up a hardware fence, i.e. a hardware obstacle disallowing the failed node from accessing the shared disks. This hardware fence is implemented through a sanity timer on the CI host adaptor. The software must periodically tell the CI hardware that the software is "sane". A failure to do so within a certain time-out period will trigger the sanity timer in CI. This is the "deadman brake" mechanism.
Other disadvantages of this node isolation system are that:
it requires an interconnect adaptor utilizing an internal timer to implement the hardware fence.
the solution does not work if the interconnect between the nodes and disks includes switches or any other buffering devices. A disk request from an isolated node could otherwise be delayed by such a switch or buffer, and sent to the disk after the new configuration is already accessing the disks. Such a delayed request would corrupt files or databases.
depending on the various time-out values, the time that the members of the new configuration have to wait before they can access the disk may be too long, resulting in decreased performance of the entire system and contrary to high-availability principles.
From an architectural level perspective, a serious disadvantage of the foregoing node isolation methodology is that it does not have end-to-end properties; the fence is set up on the node rather than on the disk controller.
It would be advantageous to have a system that presented high availability while rapidly setting up isolation of failed disks at the disk controller.
Other UNIX-based clustered systems use SCSI (small computer systems interface) "disk reservation" to prevent undesired subsets of clustered nodes from accessing shared disks. See, e.g., the ANSI SCSI-2 Proposed Standard for information systems (Mar. 9, 1990, distributed by Global Engineering Documents), which is incorporated herein by reference. Disk reservation has a number of disadvantages; for instance, the disk reservation protocol is applicable only to systems having two nodes, since only one node can reserve a disk at a time (i.e. no other nodes can access that disk at the same time). Another is that in a SCSI system, the SCSI bus reset operation removes any disk reservations, and it is possible for the software disk drivers to issue a SCSI bus reset at any time. Therefore, SCSI disk reservation is not a reliable disk fencing technique.
Another node isolation methodology involves a "poison pill"; when a node is removed from the system during reconfiguration, one of the remaining nodes sends a "poison pill", i.e. a request to shut down, to the failed node. If the failed node is in an active state (e.g. executing slowly), it takes the pill and becomes idle within some predetermined time.
The poison pill is processed either by the host adaptor card of the failed node, or by an interrupt handler on the failed node. If it is processed by the host adaptor card, the disadvantage is presented that the system requires a specially designed host adaptor card to implement the methodology. If it is processed by an interrupt handler on the failed node, there is the disadvantage that the node isolation is not reliable; for instance, as with the VAXcluster discussed above, the software at the node may itself by unreliable, time-out delays are presented, and again the isolation is at the node rather than at the shared disks.
A system is therefore needed that prevents shared disk access at the disk sites, using a mechanism that both rapidly and reliably blocks an isolated node from accessing the shared disks, and does not rely upon the isolated node itself to support the disk access prevention.
The present invention utilizes a method and apparatus for quickly and reliably isolating failed resources, including I/O devices such as shared disks, and is applicable to a virtually any shared resource on a computer system or network. The system of the invention maintains a membership list of all the active shared resources, and with each new configuration, such as when a resource is added or fails (and thus should be functionally removed), the system generates a new epoch number or other value that uniquely identifies that configuration at that time. Thus, identity memberships occurring at different times will have different epoch numbers, particularly if a different membership set has occurred in between.
Each time a new epoch number is generated, a control key value is derived from it and is sent to the nodes in the system, each of which stores the control key locally as its own node key. The controllers for the resources (such as disk controllers) also store the control key locally. Thereafter, whenever a shared resource access request is sent to a resource controller, the node key is sent with it. The controller then checks whether the node key matches the controller's stored version of the control key, and allows the resource access request only if the two keys match.
When a resource fails, e.g. does not respond to a request within some predetermined period of time (indicating a possible hardware or software defect), the membership of the system is determined anew, eliminating the failed resource. A new epoch number is generated, and therefrom a new control key is generated and is transmitted to the all the resource controllers and nodes on the system. If an access request arrives at a resource controller after the new control key is generated, the access request will bear a node key that is different from the current control key, and thus the request will not be executed. This, coupled with preventing nodes from issuing access requests to resources that are not in the current membership set, ensures that failed resources are quickly eliminated from access, by requiring that all node requests, in order to be processed, have current control key (and hence membership) information.
The nodes each store program modules to carry out the functions of the invention--e.g., a disk (or resource) manager module, a distributed lock manager module, and a membership module. The distribution of these modules allows any node to identify a resource as failed and to communicate that to the other nodes, and to generate new membership lists, epoch numbers and control keys.
The foregoing system therefore does not rely upon the functioning of a failed resource's hardware or software, and provides fast end-to-end (i.e. at the resource) resource fencing.
FIG. 1 is a top-level block diagram showing several nodes provided with access to a set of shared discs.
FIG. 2 is a more detailed block diagram of a system similar to that of FIG. 1, but showing elements of the system of the invention that interact to achieve disk fencing.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating elements of the structure of each node of FIG. 2 or FIG. 3 before and after reconfiguration upon the unavailability of node D.
FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a system of the invention wherein the nodes access more than one set of shared disks.
FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrating the method of the invention.
The system of the invention is applicable generally to clustered systems, such as system 10 shown in FIG. 1, including multiple nodes 20-40 (Nodes 1-3 in this example) and one or more sets of shared disks 50. Each of nodes 20-40 may be a conventional processor-based system having one or more processors and including memory, mass storage, and user I/O devices (such as monitors, keyboards, mouse, etc.), and other conventional computer system elements (not all shown in FIG. 1), and configured for operation in a clustered environment.
Disks 50 will be accessed and controlled via a disk controller 60, which may include conventional disk controller hardware and software, and includes a processor and memory (not separately shown) for carrying out disk control functions, in addition to the features described below.
The system of the invention may in general be implemented by software modules stored in the memories of the nodes 20-40 and of the disk controller. The software modules may be constructed by conventional software engineering, given the following teaching of suitable elements for implementing the disk fencing system of the invention. Thus, in general in the course of the following description, each described function may be implemented by a separate program module stored at a node and/or at a resource (e.g. disk) controller as appropriate, or several such functions may be implemented effectively by a single multipurpose module.
FIG. 2 illustrates in greater detail a clustered system 70 implementing the invention. The system 70 includes four nodes 80-110 (Nodes A-D) and at least one shared disk system 120. The nodes 80-110 may be any conventional cluster nodes (such as workstations, personal computers or other processor-based systems like nodes 20-40 or any other appropriate cluster nodes), and the disk system may be any appropriate shared disk assembly, including a disk system 50 as discussed in connection with FIG. 1.
Each node 80-110 includes at least the following software modules: disk manager (DM), an optional distributed lock manager (DLM), and membership monitor (MM). These modules may be for the most part conventional as in the art of clustered computing, with modifications as desired to implement the features of the present invention. The four MM modules MMA-MMD are connected in communication with one another as illustrated in FIG. 2, and each of the disk manager modules DMA-DMD is coupled to the disk controller (not separately shown) of the disk system 120.
Nodes in a conventional clustered system participate in a "membership protocol", such as that described in the VAXcluster Principles cited above. The membership protocol is used to establish an agreement on the set of nodes that form a new configuration when a given node is dropped due to a perceived failure. Use of the membership protocol results in an output including (a) a subset of nodes that are considered to be the current members of the system, and (b) an "epoch number" (EN) reflecting the current status of the system. Alternatives to the EN include any time or status value uniquely reflecting the status of the system for a given time. Such a membership protocol may be used in the present system.
According to membership protocol, whenever the membership set changes a new unique epoch number is generated and is associated with the new membership set. For example, if a system begins with a membership of four nodes A-D (as in FIG. 2), and an epoch number 100 has been assigned to the current configuration, this may be represented as <A, B, C, D; #100> or <MEM=A, B, C, D; EN=100>, where MEM stands for "membership". This is the configuration represented in FIG. 3(a), where all four nodes are active, participating nodes in the cluster.
If node D crashes or is detected as malfunctioning, the new membership becomes <MEM=A, B, C; EN=101>; that is, node D is eliminated from the membership list and the epoch number is incremented to 101, indicating that the epoch wherein D was most recently a member is over. While all the nodes that participate in the new membership store the new membership list and new epoch number, failed node D (and another other failed node) maintains the old membership list and the old epoch number. This is as illustrated in FIG. 3(b), wherein the memories of nodes A-C all store <M=A, B, C; EN=101>, while failed and isolated node D stores <MEM=A, B, C, D; EN=100>.
The present invention takes utilzes this fact--i.e. that the current information is stored by active nodes while outdated information is stored by the isolated node(s)--to achieve disk fencing. This is done by utilizing the value of a "control key" (CK) variable stored by the nodes and the shared disk system's controller (e.g. in volatile memory of the disk controller).
FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a four-node clustered system 400 including nodes 410-440 and two shared disk systems 450-460 including disks 452-456 (system 450) and 462-466 (system 460). Disk systems 450 and 460 are controlled, respectively, by disk controllers 470 and 480 coupled between the respective disk controllers and a cluster interconnect 490.
The nodes 410-440 may be processor-based systems as described above, and the disk controllers are also as described above, and thus the nodes, shared disk systems (with controllers) and cluster interconnect may be conventional in the art, with the addition of the features described herein.
Each node stores both a "node key" (NK) variable and the membership information. The NK value is calculated from the current membership by one of several alternative functions, described below as Methods 1-3. FIG. 4 shows the generalized situation, taking into account the possibility that any of the nodes may have a different CK number than the rest, if that node has failed and been excluded from the membership set.
As a rule, however, when all nodes are active, their respective stored values of NK and the value of CK stored at the disk controllers will all be equal.
NodelDisk Controller Operations Using Node Key and Control Key Values
Each read and write request by a node for accessing a disk controller includes the NK value; that is, whenever a node requests read or write access to a shared disk, the NK value is passed as part of the request. This inclusion of the NK value in read and write requests thus constitutes part of the protocol between the nodes and the controller(s).
The protocol between the nodes and disk controller also includes two operations to manipulate the CK value on the controller: GetKey to read the current CK value, and SetKey to set the value of CK to a new value. GetKey does not need to provide an NK value, a CK value, or an EN value, while the SetKey protocol uses the NK value as an input and additionally provides a new CK value "new.CK" to be adopted by the controller.
The four foregoing requests and their input/output arguments may be represented and summarized as follows:
______________________________________Read(NK, ...)Write(NK, ...)GetKey(...)SetKey(NK, new.CK)______________________________________
The GetKey(. . .) operation returns the current value of CK. This operation is never rejected by the controller.
The SetKey(NK, new.CK) operation first checks if the NK field in the request matches the current CK value in the controller. In the case of a match, the CK value in the controller is set equal to the value in the "new.CK" field (in the SetKey request). If NK from the requesting node doesn't match the current CK value stored at the controller, the operation is rejected and the requesting node is sent an error indication.
The Read(NK, . . . ) and Write(NK, . . . ) operations are allowed to access the disk only if the NK field in the packet matches the current value of CK. Otherwise, the operation is rejected by the controller and the requesting node is sent an error indication.
When a controller is started, the CK value is preferably initialized to 0.
Procedure Upon Failure of a Node
When the membership changes because one or more failed nodes are being removed from the system, the remaining nodes calculate a new value of CK from the new membership information (in a manner to be described below). One of the nodes communicates the new CK value to the disk controller using the SetKey(NK, new.CK) operation. After the new CK value is set, all member (active) nodes of the new configuration set their NK value to this new CK value.
If a node is not a part of the new configuration (e.g. a failed node), it is not allowed to change its NK. If such a node attempts to read or write to a disk, the controller finds a mismatch between the new CK value and the old NK value.
When a node is started, its NK is initialized to a 0 value.
Procedures for Calculating Values of the Control Kea (CK)
The control key CK may be set in a number of different ways. The selected calculation will be reflected in a software or firmware module stored and/or mounted at least at the controller. In general, the calculation of the CK value should take into account the membership information:
CK=func(MEM, EN)
where: MEM includes information about the active membership list;
and EN is the epoch number.
Method 1. Ideally, the CK value would explicitly include both a list of the new membership set (an encoded set of nodes) and the epoch number. This may not be desired if the number of nodes is high, however, because the value of CK would have to include at least a bit of information for each node. That is, in a four-node configuration at least a four-bit sequence BBBB (where B=0 or 1) would need to be used, each bit B indicating whether a given associated node is active or inactive (failed). In addition, several bits are necessary for the epoch number EN, so the total length of the variable CK may be quite long.
Method 2 and 3 below are designed to compress the membership information when calculating the CK value.
Method 2 uses only the epoch number EN and ignores the membership list MEM. For example, the CK value is set to equal the epoch number EN.
Method 2 is most practical if the membership protocol prevents network partitioning (e.g., by majority quorum voting). If membership partitioning is allowed, e.g. in the case of a hardware failure, the use of the CK value without reflecting the actual membership of the cluster could lead to conflicts between the nodes on either side of the partition.
Method 3 solves the challenge of Method 2 with respect to partitions. In this method, the CK value is encoded with an identification of the highest node in the new configuration. For example, the CK value may be a concatenation of a node identifier (a number assigned to the highest node) and the epoch number. This method provides safe disk fencing even if the membership monitor itself does not prevent network partitioning, since the number of the highest node in a given partition will be different from that of another partition; hence, there cannot be a conflict between requests from nodes in different partitions, even if the EN's for the different subclusters happen to be the same.
Of the foregoing, with a small number of nodes Method 1 is preferred, since it contains the most explicit information on the state of the clustered system. However, with numerous nodes Method 3 becomes preferable. If the system prevents network partitioning, then Method 2 is suitable.
The Method of the Invention
Given the foregoing structures and functions, and appropriate modules to implement them, the disk fencing system of the invention is achieved by following the method 510 illustrated in the flow chart of FIG. 5. At box (step) 520, the membership of the clustered system is determined in a conventional manner, and the value of the membership set (or list) is stored as the value of MEM. An epoch number EN (or other unique state identifier) is generated at box 530. These two functions are carried out by the membership monitor (MM) module, which is implemented among the member nodes to determine which nodes are present in the system and then to assign a value of EN to that configuration. An example of a system that uses an MM module in this way is applicant Sun Microsystems, Imc.'s SparcCluster PDB (parallel database).
In current systems, the epoch numbers are used so that a node can determine whether a given message or data packet is stale; if the epoch number is out of date then the message is known to be have been created during an older, different configuration of the cluster. (See, for instance, T. Mann et al., "An Algorithm for Data Replication", DEC SRC Research Report, June 1989, incorporated herein by reference, wherein epoch numbers are described as being used in stamping file replicas in a distributed system.)
The present system uses the epoch number in an entirely new way, which is unrelated to prior systems' usage of the epoch number. For an example of a preferred manner of using a cluster membership monitor in Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s systems, see Appendix A attached hereto, in which the reconfiguration sequence numbers are analogous to epoch numbers. Thus, the distinct advantage is presented that the current invention solves a long-standing problem, that of quickly and reliably eliminating failed nodes from a cluster membership and preventing them from continuing to access shared disks, without requiring new procedures to generate new outputs to control the process; rather, the types of information that is already generated may be used in conjunction with modules according to the invention to accomplish the desired functions, resulting in a reliable high-availability system.
Proceeding to box 540, the node key NK (for active nodes) and control key CK are generated by one of the Methods 1-3 described above or by another suitable method.
At box 550, it is determined whether a node has become unavailable. This step is carried out virtually continuously (or at least with relatively high frequency, e.g. higher than the frequency of I/O requests); for instance, at almost any time a given node may determine that another node has exceeded the allowable time to respond to a request, and decide that the latter node has failed and should be removed from the cluster's membership set. Thus, the step in box 550 may take place almost anywhere during the execution of the method.
Box 560 represents an event where one of the nodes connected to the cluster generates an request (such as a disk access request). If so, then at box 570 the current value of NK from the requesting node is sent with the I/O access request, and at box 580 it is determined whether this matches the value of CK stored by the controller. If not, the method proceeds to step 600, where the request is rejected (which may mean merely dropped by the controller with no action), and proceeds then back to box 520.
If the node's NK value matches the controller's CK value, then the request is carried out at box 590.
If a node has failed, then the method proceeds from box 550 back to box 520, where the failed node is eliminated in a conventional fashion from the membership set, and thus the value of MEM changes to reflect this. At this time, a new epoch number EN is generated (at box 530) and stored, to reflect the newly revised membership list. In addition, at box 540 a new control key value CK is generated, the active nodes' NK values take on the value of the new CK value, and the method proceeds again to boxes 550-560 for further disk accesses.
It will be seen from the foregoing that the failure of a given node in a clustered system results both in the removal of that node from the cluster membership and, importantly, the reliable prevention of any further disk accesses to shared disks by the failed node. The invalidating of the failed node from shared disk accesses does not rely upon either hardware or software of the failed node to operate properly, but rather is entirely independent of the failed node.
Since the CK values are stored at the disk controllers and are used by an access control module to prevent failed nodes from gaining shared disk access, the disk fencing system of the invention is as reliable as the disk management software itself. Thus, the clustered system can rapidly and reliably eliminate the failed node with minimal risk of compromising the integrity of data stored on its shared disks.
The described invention has the important advantage over prior systems that its end-to-end properties make it independent of disk interconnect network or bus configuration; thus, the node configuration alone is taken into account in determining the epoch number or other unique status value, i.e. independent of any low-level mechanisms (such as transport mechanisms).
Note that the system of the invention may be applied to other peripheral devices accessed by multiple nodes in a multiprocessor system. For instance, other I/O or memory devices may be substituted in place of the shared disks discussed above; a controller corresponding to the disk controllers 470 and 480 would be used, and equipped with software modules to carry out the fencing operation.
In addition, the nodes, i.e. processor-based systems, that are members of the cluster can be any of a variety of processor-based devices, and in particular need not specifically be personal computers or workstations, but may be other processor-driven devices capable of issuing access requests to peripheral devices such as shared disks.
|Cited Patent
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|International Business Machines Corporation
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|U.S. Classification
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|Nov 2, 1995
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text:
• Windows 8.1
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• HDMI output for rich multimedia entertainment
• MSI Exclusive ECO Engine power management technology provides greater flexibility for battery
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• Latest & fastest data transfer technology USB 3.0(optional)
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text:
The Fat Boys
Have these rapping pranksters gone serious? It certainly seems so when you drop the needle down on the title (and first) track of the Boys' new album. There's nothing cartoonish here. The song is a tonal juggernaut, with all the grim rock firepower of Run-D.M.C. That is followed by Protect Yourself, a sermonette to "all the homeboys out there" on safe sex. Just when you think the Fat Boys have lost their vaunted sense of humor, however, they segue into My Nuts, an outrageous, if cryptic, meditation on the male anatomy. That sudden transition from solemn to salacious is among the most jarring and schizophrenic in modern music and kicks this record into high gear. More and more, rap groups are using a full musical complement rather than just percussion to back their doggerel. The Fat Boys strike up the band on several tracks, including Boys Will Be Boys, on which Darren "The Human Beat Box" Robinson gets a workout and the guys poke fun at Cameo's vocal tricks. In Westerns one cowboy will say to another, "There ain't room enough in these here parts for the two of us." The Boys prove the validity of that displacement concept in re-creating the Surfaris' Wipeout. The song was recorded with the Beach Boys, but the rappers' rambunctiousness steals the day. Wipeout, which has more Brooklyn in it than Malibu, proves the Fat Boys are overweight dominators. The rest of the album proves they have charm—an eccentric, chubby kind of charm, anyway. (Tin Pan Apple/Polygram)
Picks and Pans Review: Crushin'
updated 07/13/1987 AT 01:00 AM EDT
•originally published 07/13/1987 AT 01:00 AM EDT


text:
STOCKTON — Rachel Cassens of Stockton received her first varsity letter for her contributions to the Central College women's golf team.
The Dutch were runners-up in the Iowa Conference tournament. Cassens is a sophomore with a fall average of 90.6. Her season-best round score was 86 in Cedar Falls on Sept. 28.
For information: central.edu/athletics.
Location, ST | website.com


text:
Is "regime change" in Ukraine the bridge too far for the neoconservative "regime changers" of Official Washington and their sophomoric "responsibility-to-protect" (R2P) allies in the Obama administration? Have they dangerously over-reached by pushing the putsch that removed duly-elected Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has given an unmistakable "yes" to those questions - in deeds, not words. His message is clear: "Back off our near-frontier!"
Moscow announced on Saturday that Russia's parliament has approved Putin's request for permission to use Russia's armed forces "on the territory of the Ukraine pending the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country."
Putin described this move as necessary to protect ethnic Russians and military personnel stationed in Crimea in southern Ukraine, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet and other key military installations are located. But there is no indication that the Russian parliament has restricted the use of Russian armed forces to the Crimea.
Unless Obama is completely bereft of advisers who know something about Russia, it should have been a "known-known" (pardon the Rumsfeldian mal mot) that the Russians would react this way to a putsch removing Yanukovych. It would have been a no-brainer that Russia would use military force, if necessary, to counter attempts to use economic enticement and subversive incitement to slide Ukraine into the orbit of the West and eventually NATO.
This was all the more predictable in the case of Ukraine, where Putin - although the bête noire in corporate Western media - holds very high strategic cards geographically, militarily, economically and politically.
Unlike "Prague Spring" 1968
Moscow's advantage was not nearly as clear during the short-lived "Prague Spring" of 1968 when knee-jerk, non-thinking euphoria reigned in Washington and West European capitals. The cognoscenti were, by and large, smugly convinced that reformer Alexander Dubcek could break Czechoslovakia away from the USSR's embrace and still keep the Russian bear at bay.
My CIA analyst portfolio at the time included Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe, and I was amazed to see analysts of Eastern Europe caught up in the euphoria that typically ended with, "And the Soviets can't do a damned thing about it!"
That summer a new posting found me advising Radio Free Europe Director Ralph Walter who, virtually alone among his similarly euphoric colleagues, shared my view that Russian tanks would inevitably roll onto Prague's Wenceslaus Square, which they did in late August.
Past is not always prologue. But it is easy for me to imagine the Russian Army cartographic agency busily preparing maps of the best routes for tanks into Independence Square in Kiev, and that before too many months have gone by, Russian tank commanders may be given orders to invade, if those stoking the fires of violent dissent in the western parts of Ukraine keep pushing too far.
That said, Putin has many other cards to play and time to play them. These include sitting back and doing nothing, cutting off Russia's subsidies to Ukraine, making it ever more difficult for Yanukovich's successors to cope with the harsh realities. And Moscow has ways to remind the rest of Europe of its dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Another interference
There is one huge difference between Prague in 1968 and Kiev 2014. The "Prague Spring" revolution led by Dubcek enjoyed such widespread spontaneous popular support that it was difficult for Russian leaders Leonid Brezhnev and Aleksey Kosygin to argue plausibly that it was spurred by subversion from the West.
Not so 45-plus years later. In early February, as violent protests raged in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev and the White House professed neutrality, U.S. State Department officials were, in the words of NYU professor emeritus of Russian studies Stephen Cohen, "plotting a coup d'état against the elected president of Ukraine."
We know that thanks to neocon prima donna Victoria Nuland, now assistant secretary of state for European affairs, who seemed intent on giving new dimension to the "cookie-pushing" role of U.S. diplomats. Recall the photo showing Nuland in a metaphor of over-reach, as she reached deep into a large plastic bag to give each anti-government demonstrator on the square a cookie before the putsch.
More important, recall her amateurish, boorish use of an open telephone to plot regime change in Ukraine with a fellow neocon, U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. Crass U.S. interference in Ukrainian affairs can be seen (actually, better, heard) in an intercepted conversation posted on YouTube in early February.
Yikes! It's Yats!
Nuland was recorded as saying: "Yats is the guy. He's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the guy you know. ... Yats will need all the help he can get to stave off collapse in the ex-Soviet state. He has warned there is an urgent need for unpopular cutting of subsidies and social payments before Ukraine can improve."
And guess what. The stopgap government formed after the coup designated Nuland's guy Yats, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, prime minister! What luck! Yats is 39 and has served as head of the central bank, foreign minister and economic minister. And, as designated pinch-hitter-prime-minister, he has already talked about the overriding need for "responsible government," one willing to commit "political suicide," as he put it, by taking unpopular social measures.
U.S. meddling has been so obvious that at President Barack Obama's hastily scheduled Friday press conference on Ukraine, Yats's name seemed to get stuck in Obama's throat. Toward the end of his scripted remarks, which he read verbatim, the President said: "Vice President Biden just spoke with Prime Minister [pause] - the prime minister of Ukraine to assure him that in this difficult moment the United States supports his government's efforts and stands for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and democratic future of Ukraine."
Obama doesn't usually stumble like that - especially when reading a text, and is normally quite good at pronouncing foreign names. Perhaps he worried that one of the White House stenographic corps might shout out, "You mean our man, Yats?" Obama departed right after reading his prepared remarks, leaving no opportunity for such an outburst.
Western media was abuzz with the big question: Will the Russians apply military force? The answer came quickly, though President Obama chose the subjunctive mood in addressing the question on Friday.
Throwing down a hanky
There was a surreal quality to President Obama's remarks, several hours after Russian (or pro-Russian) troops took control of key airports and other key installations in the Crimea, which is part of Ukraine, and home to a large Russian naval base and other key Russian military installations.
Obama referred merely to "reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine" and warned piously that "any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing."
That Obama chose the subjunctive mood - when the indicative was, well, indicated - will not be lost on the Russians. Here was Obama, in his typically lawyerly way, trying to square the circle, giving a sop to his administration's neocon holdovers and R2P courtiers, with a Milquetoasty expression of support for the new-Nuland-approved government (citing Biden's assurances to old whatshisname/yatshisname).
While Obama stuck to the subjunctive tense, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk appealed to Russia to recall its forces and "stop provoking civil and military resistance in Ukraine."
Obama's comments seemed almost designed to sound condescending - paternalistic, even - to the Russians. Already into his second paragraph of his scripted remarks, the President took a line larded with words likely to be regarded as a gratuitous insult by Moscow, post-putsch.
"We've made clear that they [Russian officials] can be part of an international community's effort to support the stability of a united Ukraine going forward, which is not only in the interest of the people of Ukraine and the international community, but also in Russia's interest."
By now, Russian President Vladimir Putin is accustomed to Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, et al. telling the Kremlin where its interests lie, and I am sure he is appropriately grateful. Putin is likely to read more significance into these words of Obama:
"The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine ... and we will continue to coordinate closely with our European allies."
Fissures in Atlantic alliance
There are bound to be fissures in the international community and in the Western alliance on whether further provocation in Ukraine is advisable. Many countries have much to lose if Moscow uses its considerable economic leverage over natural gas supplies, for example.
And, aspiring diplomat though she may be, Victoria Nuland presumably has not endeared herself to the EC by her expressed "Fuck the EC" attitude.
Aside from the most servile allies of the U.S. there may be a growing caucus of Europeans who would like to return the compliment to Nuland. After all does anyone other than the most extreme neocon ideologue think that instigating a civil war on the border of nuclear-armed Russia is a good idea? Or that it makes sense to dump another economic basket case, which Ukraine surely is, on the EU's doorstep while it's still struggling to get its own economic house in order?
Europe has other reasons to feel annoyed about the overreach of U.S. power and arrogance. The NSA spying revelations - that continue, just like the eavesdropping itself does - seem to have done some permanent damage to transatlantic relationships.
In any case, Obama presumably knows by now that he pleased no one on Friday by reading that flaccid statement on Ukraine. And, more generally, the sooner he realizes that - without doing dumb and costly things - he can placate neither the neocons nor the R2P folks (naively well meaning though the latter may be), the better for everyone.
In sum, the Nulands of this world have bit off far more than they can chew; they need to be reined in before they cause even more dangerous harm. Broader issues than Ukraine are at stake. Like it or not, the United States can benefit from a cooperative relationship with Putin's Russia - the kind of relationship that caused Putin to see merit last summer in pulling Obama's chestnuts out of the fire on Syria, for example, and in helping address thorny issues with Iran.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His academic degrees are in Russian and he was an analyst of Russian foreign policy for the first decade of his 27-year career with the CIA. He is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This article originally appeared at consortiumnews.com and is reposted with permission of the author.
Photo: President Obama discusses Ukraine during a meeting with members of his National Security Staff in the Oval Office, Feb. 28, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)