For Ugandan soldiers tasked with catching Joseph Kony, the real threat is not the elusive Central Africa warlord and his brutal gang. Encounters between Ugandan troops and Lord's Resistance Army rebels are so rare that the Kony hunters worry about other things when they walk the jungle: Armed poachers, wild beasts and honey bees.
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By Reuters
OBO, Central African Republic - In a bare concrete room in a far-flung corner of Central African Republic, U.S. special forces and Ugandan soldiers map out the hunt for one of Africa's most wanted rebel leaders hiding in an area the size of California.
The building belonged to the town of Obo's doctor until he was murdered last year by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) while transporting medicines by road. Now it serves as an operational center in one of America's latest military ventures in Africa.
The mission is clear.
"(The) focus is the removal of Joseph Kony and senior Lord's Resistance Army leadership from the battlefield," said Captain Ken Wright, a navy SEAL in command of the roughly 100-strong force which deployed in October.
Africa24 Media / Reuters
Lord Resistance Army's Major General Joseph Kony poses at peace negotiations between the LRA and Ugandan religious and cultural leaders in Ri-Kwangba, in southern Sudan, in November 2008.
Kony has evaded capture for nearly three decades, kidnapping tens of thousands of children to fill his militia's ranks and serve as sex slaves as he moves through the bush. Thousands more have died in the wake of his brutal army.
The deployment of elite American forces to help track Kony and his senior commanders in the dense equatorial jungle across a region that spans several countries has raised hopes the sadistic warlord's days are numbered.
The troops are armed but do not patrol the surrounding forests and are allowed to engage the LRA only in self-defense.
Instead, their focus is on improving intelligence on LRA positions gathered both electronically and from tips.
By meshing stories from hunters and nomadic cattle herders of encounters with the rebels together with sophisticated surveillance imagery, allied forces chart suspected rebel activity and coordinate the regional armies' pursuit of Kony.
"You look at patterns to see where LRA might be moving, historic areas where they might operate, so we can predict where they're going and try and head them off and most effectively use the forces on the ground," Captain Gregory, a 29-year-old Texan hidden behind sunglasses and a wide brimmed hat told Reuters.
For many of the U.S. troops who have recently served in Afghanistan and Iraq, the humid jungles of central Africa are unfamiliar territory.
Their deployment raised expectations locally that U.S. drones would be unearthing Kony. They are not, and this hostile environment is throwing up unforeseen challenges.
"Some of the gear we have here is affected by the vegetation ... and acts differently from in the desert. Vegetation absorbs signals and sounds," Gregory said.
International bad guy Kony, a self-styled mystic leader who at one time was bent on ruling Uganda by the Ten Commandments, fled his native northern Uganda in 2005, roaming first the lawless expanses of South Sudan and then the isolated northeastern tip of Congo.
In December 2008, after last-ditch peace talks failed, Ugandan paratroopers and fighter jets struck the LRA's Congo hideouts. Kony slipped through the net, raising suspicions he had been tipped off. He and many of his combatants moved north into the Central African Republic.
Kony was thrust back into the spotlight earlier this year when a video, "Kony 2012," highlighting the chilling mutilations, rapes and murders carried out by his spell-bound fighters went viral on the Internet.
Bruce Wharton, deputy assistant secretary in the Department of State's Africa bureau said the deployment of special forces was in part a response to legislation in 2010 calling on the Obama administration to do more to tackle Kony.
"I think Kony, for lack of an ideology, for lack of a political agenda, for lack of an intellectually identifiable cause, and for the brutality with which he operates, is at the top of the list of international bad guys," Wharton said.
Asked whether hunting Kony offered a convenient way of expanding the U.S. military footprint in Africa, Wharton told Reuters: "I absolutely think that as soon as this mission is accomplished the roughly 100 troops will go away."
Facing war crimes charges, Kony has transformed himself from a one-time altar boy to a master of jungle survival and evasion. His fighters have become increasingly savvy in concealing their movements, wading through crocodile-infested rivers and walking backwards and in loops to disguise their tracks.
The vicious and often drugged rebels first struck Obo in the early hours of March 6, 2009. They targeted the town's Catholic mission, abducting 76 people.
"We were told they were coming but we didn't believe they would attack the town," said Obo resident Ricardo Dimanche who runs a community radio project urging LRA fighters to give up their weapons.
"The next year they started attacking the small villages around us. Displaced people started flooding in," said Dimanche.
Underscoring the challenge facing the American and regional troops, the LRA launched almost as many attacks in the first three months of this year in CAR as in all of last year, according to U.N. data.
"Nobody has peace of mind now," said Dimanche.
U.S. military officials are reluctant to bet on if and when they might snare Kony.
"The global effort to try to find Osama bin Laden took 10 years with an extraordinary level of effort ... the highest priority for the international intelligence community, and it still took 10 years to find him," General Carter Ham, commander of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) told a media briefing in Germany ahead of the tightly controlled trip.
"So this is a tough mission."
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Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A top White House aide on Sunday said President Barack Obama wants to strike an "appropriate balance" between advancing human rights and maintaining U.S. relations with China, the first public comments by the administration on its potential involvement in harboring a Chinese activist on the eve of diplomatic talks between the two world powers.
John Brennan, Obama's counterterrorism adviser, declined to provide details on the incident or say whether the activist, Chen Guangcheng, might be hiding in the U.S. embassy in Beijing as reported.
Chen, who has exposed forced abortions and sterilizations in villages as a result of China's one-child policy, escaped house arrest a week ago in Shandong province in eastern China. Chinese-based activists say he was driven away by supporters and then handed over to others who brought him to Beijing.
"I think in all instances the president tries to balance our commitment to human rights, making sure that the people throughout the world have the ability to express themselves freely and openly, but also that we can continue to carry out our relationships with key countries overseas," Brennan told "Fox News Sunday."
The U.S. relationship with China is "very important," he added, "so we're going to make sure that we do this in the appropriate way and the appropriate balance is struck."
Chen's escape comes at a politically sensitive time for the U.S. This week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner head to Beijing for long-planned strategic and economic talks. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell began a hurried mission to Beijing on Sunday to smooth the way for the annual talks involving Clinton and Geithner.
The U.S. has been looking to China for help on trying to curb the suspected nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, and to push Syria toward a cease-fire with anti-government protesters. Bilateral disputes over trade, China's currency and U.S. relations with Taiwan also were expected to surface during the talks.
While the White House has remained mostly mum on the incident ? and how much it might factor into the upcoming discussions in Beijing ? Brennan suggested that the diplomatic dance with China isn't new.
"I think it would be fair to say the president has faced similar situations in the past in terms of this balancing requirement and so I'm confident that the president and others within the U.S. government will be able to find the right way forward," Brennan said.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney expressed his concern Sunday for the safety of Chen and his family, urging U.S. government officials to offer the dissident and his family protection.
"My hope is that U.S. officials will take every measure to ensure that Chen and his family members are protected from further persecution," Romney said early Sunday in a statement. "Our country must play a strong role in urging reform in China and supporting those fighting for the freedoms we enjoy."
Romney said the incident involving Chen points toward the broader issues of human rights in China.
"Any serious U.S. policy toward China," said Romney, "must confront the facts of the Chinese government's denial of political liberties, its one-child policy and other violations of human rights."
While Chen escaped a week ago from Dongshigu village and made it 370 miles (595 kilometers) northwest to Beijing, his wife and 6-year-old daughter were left behind. The whereabouts of several other relatives, including Chen's mother and brother, are unknown.
Seven lawyers have volunteered to defend Chen's nephew, Chen Kegui, who allegedly confronted and stabbed local officials who stormed his house in the middle of the night on Thursday in apparent retribution for the activist's escape.
Shares of Barnes & Noble (BKS) soared Monday morning after the book retailer announced that it would spin off its digital and college businesses into a new subsidiary. Microsoft (MSFT) will invest $300 million in the new division, giving it a 17.6 percent stake in the venture. The Daily Ticker's Daniel Gross and Henry Blodget discuss the deal in the accompanying video, and both are dubious that the new business will be successful.
"The desperate got married to the hopeless," Dan quips.
"My guess is that this is rearranging deck chairs," Henry notes.
The past few years have been tough ones for bookstores. Borders closed hundreds of stores last year as the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Cheaper book prices from online competitor Amazon.com have significantly cut into Barnes & Noble's profits. The company's Nook reader, which debuted in 2009, is not as popular as Amazon's Kindle. The company's college-texts unit has shown signs of growth but that model has the potential to become anachronistic as more students buy and rent textbooks on e-readers and tablets.
Barnes & Noble values the new venture, which has yet to be named, at $1.7 billion ? far more than the company's $791 million market capitalization. As part of the deal, a Nook application will be included in the Windows 8 operating system, which is expected to hit store shelves this summer. As Henry and Dan point out, the staid bookstore separated its most attractive and lucrative part from its aging and suffering brick-and-mortar business. Wall Street seemed to approve of the deal but whether the new subsidiary can compete in the increasingly cutthroat digital world remains unclear. Amazon's Kindle tablet maintains a firm grip in the e-book sphere, controlling 60 percent of the U.S. market versus Barnes & Noble's 30 percent share.
"Wall Street loves new things," Dan says. "This is larger theme of financial engineering for big box retailers."
George Zimmerman's Legal Team Rolls Out New Social Media Sites - NBC 6 Miami
Globe and MailGeorge Zimmerman's Legal Team Rolls Out New Social Media SitesNBC 6 MiamiHis legal defense team has in recent days established a robust social media presence for Zimmerman, 28, with Twitter and Facebook accounts tied to a new website, www.gzlegalcase.com. His legal team acknowledges it is an unusual move, but says ?this is ...George Zimmer [?]
Ex-aide's wife: Edwards said donations for mistress's expenses were legal - CNN
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Texas Roadhouse weighed down by legal settlement - CBS News
Texas Roadhouse weighed down by legal settlementCBS NewsTexas Roadhouse Inc.'s first-quarter profit fell 5 percent on costs for a legal settlement, while sales at its restaurants improved. The restaurant chain operator earned $18.9 million, or 27 cents per share, for the quarter that ended March 27.Texas Roadhouse, Inc. Announces First Quarter 2012 Resu [?]
Developments in Oracle vs Google legal case - BusinessWeek
Developments in Oracle vs Google legal caseBusinessWeekBy AP Oracle Corp. has accused Google Inc. of patent and copyright infringement. Much of the dispute is over Google's Android, the mobile operating system that now powers more than 300 million smartphones and tablet computers. Jan.and more?? [?]
Microsoft, financial services groups pursued Zeus network as part of ... - Washington Post
Microsoft, financial services groups pursued Zeus network as part of ...Washington PostA senior attorney from Microsoft's digital crimes unit, Richard Boscovich, said the companies used a creative legal strategy as part of a civil lawsuit that targeted a network of computers suffering from an infection known as ?Zeus.and more?? [?]
Montreal artist fights legal battle over 'obscene' make-believe horrors - Globe and Mail
Globe and MailMontreal artist fights legal battle over 'obscene' make-believe horrorsGlobe and Mail10, stretching his legal ordeal further. Mr. Couture appeared in court on Monday wearing a T-shirt that read ?ART IS NOT A CRIME? ? a theme central to his own legal defence and one of the central reasons for his battle. ?It's very stressful,? Mr. [?]
Canyon Gate Real Estate Services Holds Complimentary Legal SeminarMarketWatch (press release)WHAT/WHO: Canyon Gate Real Estate Services, an Associa company, hosts a complimentary legal seminar Monday, May 7 with Lastrapes, Spangler & Pacheco, PA Open to the public, the legal seminar will be at the Sheraton Uptown Hotel at 6 pm Christopher ...and more?? [?]
Sierra Club continues Kemper coal-plant legal battle - Reuters
Sierra Club continues Kemper coal-plant legal battleReutersSupreme Court in March * PSC re-issues certificate in April with $2.88 bln cost cap By Eileen O'Grady April 30 (Reuters) - Sierra Club officials in Mississippi are continuing a legal fight to stop construction of a $2.88 billion coal-gasification power ...Sierra Club extends Kemper coal-plant le [?]
Dopey Brits get legal slap in face - Chicago Tribune
The GuardianDopey Brits get legal slap in faceChicago Tribune... last fall that the International Olympic Committee could not play by its own rules to keep reigning Olympic 400-meter champion LaShawn Merritt of the United States from running in London, it was apparent the Brits had no legal leg to stand on.British Olympic Association loses appeal at Court of [?]
White House: US drone killings legal to combat threats - Reuters
AFPWhite House: US drone killings legal to combat threatsReutersBy Tabassum Zakaria | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The US campaign of drone strikes to kill militants in other countries is legal under international law, President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser insisted on Monday in a rare public admission and ...Top US Official: Drone Strikes 'Le [?]
It will be another battleground for S&P 500 index next week. Will the bears finally give up and let the bulls have their way?
The S&P 500, the market's broadest measure, managed to close out the week above the psychologically important 1,400 mark for the first time since early April. But the index is still down 0.4 percent for the month so far even after gaining 1.8 percent for the week, with only one trading day left in April.
Brian Lazorishak, senior quantitative analyst and portfolio manager at Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia, said a close above 1,400 is positive, but the recent high, near 1,422, is a more important technical level.
"That's what we're looking for on the upside as confirmation there's room to move higher," Lazorishak said.
"A close above that would open the window to testing highs back to early 2008. The next natural area you'd see is a run to at least 1,440, the May 2008 high.
Next week's release of a slew of economic data on the U.S. labor market and the beginning of the latter half of corporate earnings will be keenly watched to see if they are enough to allow stocks to break above the recent trading range.
The S&P 500, up 11.6 percent for the year, jumped 4.4 percent in January, 4.1 percent in February and 3.1 percent in March, but is down 0.4 percent so far this month.
"The sideways action we have seen over the past few weeks was enough to alleviate any overbought conditions that existed in the market a month ago," said Larry McMillan, president of options research firm McMillan Analysis Corp in a report on Friday.
"Thus, the market has the potential for another leg higher in this longer term uptrend, one that began early October 2011," he said.??
At the top of investors' radar screen next week will be the government's closely watched monthly jobs report for April, to be released on Friday. Jobs growth in March slowed to 120,000, the smallest increase since October, disappointing investors even though the unemployment rate fell to a three-year low of 8.2 percent.
Ahead of the government's payrolls report, investors will be watching the ADP Employment Report due on Wednesday and weekly jobless claims data due on Thursday for indications of whether the labor market is gaining momentum.
Corporate earnings, which drove gains in stocks last week, will also be in focus.
As of Friday, 57 percent of the S&P 500 companies had reported first-quarter results. Of those 287 in the S&P 500 that had reported earnings, 72.8 percent posted results that topped analysts' expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Companies due to report earnings next week include Chesapeake Energy and Pfizer Inc on Tuesday; Prudential Financial, Time Warner and Visa Inc on Wednesday; and Kraft Foods and Viacom Inc on Thursday.
Also on agenda next week, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co, has organized a meeting of major bank chief executives with Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo, the central bank's point man on regulation, according to The Wall Street Journal on Friday.
The meeting, slated for Wednesday in New York, is expected to focus on a Fed proposal to limit banks' exposure to other firms and governments, though other regulatory concerns likely will be discussed.
CNBC's Tyler Mathisen looks ahead to what are likely to be next week's top business and financial stories. It's all about the economy, next week.
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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'We did training just before the shoot, speeding the boat, turning, learning how to shoot and handle the weapon,' singer-turned-actress tells MTV. By Kara Warner, with reporting by MTV UK
Rihanna in "Battleship" Photo: Universal Pictures
There are only a few more hours until Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgård, Rihanna and Brooklyn Decker will hit our airwaves for "MTV First: 'Battleship' " to premiere an exclusive clip from their buzzworthy summer blockbuster. In the meantime, we are happy to hold you eager fans over with a snippet from our interview with Rihanna about the film.
"I wanted to do something badass but I didn't imagine it would be grungy, like straight Navy soldier, no makeup," Rihanna said of her expectations for her first movie role. "I enjoyed it. We did training just before the shoot, speeding the boat, turning, learning how to shoot and handle the weapon, and two hours later we were shooting that scene."
The "Talk That Talk" singer has received nothing but rave reviews for her work in the film.
"She was great," director Peter Berg told MTV News of Rihanna's acting chops. "She has a very strong part. I was surprised no one had ever thought to hire Rihanna," he added. "I was a huge fan of her videos. Obviously she's sexy, but she had this real intensity. I'm like, 'Someone's going to get her.'
"When I met with her, she came in a T-shirt and jeans, no makeup, very natural," Berg recalled. "She was like, 'Look, I want to be an actress. Don't kiss my ass. Don't lie to me. Push me. Treat me as you would any other actor. Help make me good.' She is really, really good in 'Battleship.' "
Don't forget to tune in to MTV on MTV tonight at 7:56 p.m. ET to watch the premiere of the exclusive "Battleship" clip, followed by 30 minutes of Q&A with the film's stars on MTV.com, hosted by MTV News' Josh Horowitz. Fans can get in on the action by submitting video or text questions via MTV.com or via Twitter using @MTVNews, hashtag #MTVFirst or #AskBattleship.
A 100-gigbit highway for sciencePublic release date: 30-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Linda Vu lvu@lbl.gov 510-495-2402 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Researchers take a 'test drive' on ANI testbed
Climate researchers are producing some of the fastest growing datasets in science. Five years ago, the amount of information generated for the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report was 35 terabytesequivalent to the amount of text in 35 million books, occupying a bookshelf 248 miles (399 km) long. By 2014, when the next IPCC report is published, experts predict that 2 petabytes of data will have been generated for itthat's a 580 percent increase in data production.
Because thousands of researchers around the world contribute to the generation and analysis of this data, a reliable, high-speed network is needed to transport the torrent of information. Fortunately, the Department of Energy's (DOE) ESnet (Energy Sciences Network) has laid the foundation for such a networknot just for climate research, but for all data-intensive science.
"There is a data revolution occurring in science," says Greg Bell, acting director of ESnet, which is managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "Over the last decade, the amount of scientific data transferred over our network has increased at a rate of about 72 percent per year, and we see that trend potentially accelerating."
In an effort to spur U.S. scientific competitiveness, as well as accelerate development and widespread deployment of 100-gigabit technology, the Advanced Networking Initiative (ANI) was created with $62 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and implemented by ESnet. ANI was established to build a 100 Gbps national prototype network and a wide-area network testbed.
To cost-effectively deploy ANI, ESnet partnered with Internet2a consortium that provides high-performance network connections to universities across Americawhich also received a stimulus grant from the Department of Commerce's Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program.
Researchers Take a "Test Drive" on ANI
So far more than 25 groups have taken advantage of ESnet's wide-area testbed, which is open to researchers from government agencies and private industry to test new, potentially disruptive technologies without interfering with production science network traffic. The testbed currently connects three unclassified DOE supercomputing facilities: the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) in Oakland, Calif., the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) in Argonne, Ill., and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
"No other networking organization has a 100-gigabit network testbed that is available to researchers in this way," says Brian Tierney, who heads ESnet's Advanced Networking Technologies Group. "Our 100G testbed has been about 80 percent booked since it became available in January, which just goes to show that there are a lot of researchers hungry for a resource like this."
Climate 100
To ensure that researchers will use future 100-gigabit effectively, another ARRA-funded project called Climate 100 brought together middleware and network engineers to develop tools and techniques for moving unprecedentedly massive amounts of climate data.
"Increasing network bandwidth is an important step toward tackling ever-growing scientific datasets, but it is not sufficient by itself; next-generation high-bandwidth networks need to be evaluated carefully from the applications perspective as well," says Mehmet Balman of Berkeley Lab's Scientific Data Management group, a member of the Climate 100 collaboration.
According to Balman, climate simulation data consists of a mix of relatively small and large files with irregular file size distribution in each dataset. This requires advanced middleware tools to move data efficiently on long-distance high-bandwidth networks.
"The ANI testbed essentially allowed us to 'test drive' on a 100-gigabit network to determine what kind of middleware tools we needed to build to transport climate data," says Balman. "Once the development was done, we used the testbed to optimize and tune."
At the 2011 Supercomputing Conference in Seattle, Wash., the Climate 100 team used their tool and the ANI testbed to transport 35 terabytes of climate data from NERSC's data storage to compute nodes at ALCF and OLCF.
"It took us approximately 30 minutes to move 35 terabytes of climate data over a wide-area 100 Gbps network. This is a great accomplishment," says Balman. "On a 10 Gbps network, it would have taken five hours to move this much data across the country."
Space Exploration
In 2024, the most powerful radio telescope ever constructed will go online. Comprising 3,000 satellite dishes spread over 250 acres, this instrument will generate more data in a single day than the entire Internet carries today. Optical fibers will connect each of these 15-meter-wide (50 ft.) satellite dishes to a central high performance computing system, which will combine all of the signals to create a detailed "big picture."
"Given the immense sensor payload, optical fiber interconnects are critical both at the central site and from remote stations to a single correlation facility," says William Ivancic, a senior research engineer at NASA's Glenn Research Center. "Future radio astronomy networks need to incorporate next generation network technologies like 100 Gbps long-range Ethernet links, or better, into their designs."
In anticipation of these future networks, Ivancic and his colleagues are utilizing a popular high-speed transfer protocol, called Saratoga, to effectively carry data over 100-gigabit long-range Ethernet links. But because it was cost-prohibitive to upgrade their local network with 100-gigabit hardware, the team could not determine how their software would perform in a real-world scenariothat is, until they got access to the ANI testbed.
"Quite frankly, we would not be doing these speed tests without the ANI testbed," says David Stewart, an engineer at Verizon Federal Systems and Ivancic's colleague. "We are currently in the development and debugging phase, and have several implementations of our code. With the ANI testbed, we were able to optimize and scale our basic PERL implementation to far higher speeds than our NASA testbed."
End-to-End Delivery
Meanwhile, Dantong Yu, who leads the Computer Science Group at Brookhaven National Laboratory, used the ANI testbed to design an ultra-high-speed, end-to-end file transfer protocol tool to move science data at 100 gigabits per second across a national network.
"A network like ANI may be able to move data at 100 Gbps, but at each end of that connection there is a host server that either uploads or downloads data from the network," says Yu. "While the host servers may be capable of feeding data into the network and downloading it at 100 Gbps, the current software running on these systems is a bottleneck."
According to Yu, the bottlenecks are primarily caused by the number of times the current software forces the computer to make copies of the data before uploading it to the network.
"Initially I was testing this protocol at a very local lab level. In this scenario transfers happen in a split-second, which is far from reality," says Yu. "ANI allowed me to see how long it really takes to move data across the country, from East-to West Coast, with my software, which in turn helped me optimize the code."
The Next Steps
Within the next few months, the official ANI project will be coming to an end, but the community will continue to benefit for decades to come from its investments. The 100-gigabit prototype network will be converted into ESnet's fifth-generation production infrastructure, one that will be scale to 44 times its current. ESnet will also seek new sources of funding for the 100-gigabit testbed to ensure that it will be available to network researchers on a sustained basis.
"Since its inception, ESnet has delivered the advanced capabilities required by DOE science. Many of these capabilities are cost-prohibitive, or simply unavailable, on the commercial market," says Bell. "Because our network is optimized for the needs of DOE science, we're always looking for efficient ways to manage our large science flows. ESnet's new 100-Gigabit network will allow us to do that more flexibly and morecost-effectively than ever."
###
About ESnet
ESnet provides the high-bandwidth, reliable connections that link scientists at national laboratories, universities and other research institutions, enabling them to work together on some of the world's most important scientific challenges including energy, climate science, and the origins of the universe. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, and managed and operated by the ESnet team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), ESnet provides scientists with access to unique DOE research facilities and computing resources, as well as to scientific collaborators including research and education networks around the world.
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A 100-gigbit highway for sciencePublic release date: 30-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Linda Vu lvu@lbl.gov 510-495-2402 DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Researchers take a 'test drive' on ANI testbed
Climate researchers are producing some of the fastest growing datasets in science. Five years ago, the amount of information generated for the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report was 35 terabytesequivalent to the amount of text in 35 million books, occupying a bookshelf 248 miles (399 km) long. By 2014, when the next IPCC report is published, experts predict that 2 petabytes of data will have been generated for itthat's a 580 percent increase in data production.
Because thousands of researchers around the world contribute to the generation and analysis of this data, a reliable, high-speed network is needed to transport the torrent of information. Fortunately, the Department of Energy's (DOE) ESnet (Energy Sciences Network) has laid the foundation for such a networknot just for climate research, but for all data-intensive science.
"There is a data revolution occurring in science," says Greg Bell, acting director of ESnet, which is managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "Over the last decade, the amount of scientific data transferred over our network has increased at a rate of about 72 percent per year, and we see that trend potentially accelerating."
In an effort to spur U.S. scientific competitiveness, as well as accelerate development and widespread deployment of 100-gigabit technology, the Advanced Networking Initiative (ANI) was created with $62 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and implemented by ESnet. ANI was established to build a 100 Gbps national prototype network and a wide-area network testbed.
To cost-effectively deploy ANI, ESnet partnered with Internet2a consortium that provides high-performance network connections to universities across Americawhich also received a stimulus grant from the Department of Commerce's Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program.
Researchers Take a "Test Drive" on ANI
So far more than 25 groups have taken advantage of ESnet's wide-area testbed, which is open to researchers from government agencies and private industry to test new, potentially disruptive technologies without interfering with production science network traffic. The testbed currently connects three unclassified DOE supercomputing facilities: the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) in Oakland, Calif., the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) in Argonne, Ill., and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
"No other networking organization has a 100-gigabit network testbed that is available to researchers in this way," says Brian Tierney, who heads ESnet's Advanced Networking Technologies Group. "Our 100G testbed has been about 80 percent booked since it became available in January, which just goes to show that there are a lot of researchers hungry for a resource like this."
Climate 100
To ensure that researchers will use future 100-gigabit effectively, another ARRA-funded project called Climate 100 brought together middleware and network engineers to develop tools and techniques for moving unprecedentedly massive amounts of climate data.
"Increasing network bandwidth is an important step toward tackling ever-growing scientific datasets, but it is not sufficient by itself; next-generation high-bandwidth networks need to be evaluated carefully from the applications perspective as well," says Mehmet Balman of Berkeley Lab's Scientific Data Management group, a member of the Climate 100 collaboration.
According to Balman, climate simulation data consists of a mix of relatively small and large files with irregular file size distribution in each dataset. This requires advanced middleware tools to move data efficiently on long-distance high-bandwidth networks.
"The ANI testbed essentially allowed us to 'test drive' on a 100-gigabit network to determine what kind of middleware tools we needed to build to transport climate data," says Balman. "Once the development was done, we used the testbed to optimize and tune."
At the 2011 Supercomputing Conference in Seattle, Wash., the Climate 100 team used their tool and the ANI testbed to transport 35 terabytes of climate data from NERSC's data storage to compute nodes at ALCF and OLCF.
"It took us approximately 30 minutes to move 35 terabytes of climate data over a wide-area 100 Gbps network. This is a great accomplishment," says Balman. "On a 10 Gbps network, it would have taken five hours to move this much data across the country."
Space Exploration
In 2024, the most powerful radio telescope ever constructed will go online. Comprising 3,000 satellite dishes spread over 250 acres, this instrument will generate more data in a single day than the entire Internet carries today. Optical fibers will connect each of these 15-meter-wide (50 ft.) satellite dishes to a central high performance computing system, which will combine all of the signals to create a detailed "big picture."
"Given the immense sensor payload, optical fiber interconnects are critical both at the central site and from remote stations to a single correlation facility," says William Ivancic, a senior research engineer at NASA's Glenn Research Center. "Future radio astronomy networks need to incorporate next generation network technologies like 100 Gbps long-range Ethernet links, or better, into their designs."
In anticipation of these future networks, Ivancic and his colleagues are utilizing a popular high-speed transfer protocol, called Saratoga, to effectively carry data over 100-gigabit long-range Ethernet links. But because it was cost-prohibitive to upgrade their local network with 100-gigabit hardware, the team could not determine how their software would perform in a real-world scenariothat is, until they got access to the ANI testbed.
"Quite frankly, we would not be doing these speed tests without the ANI testbed," says David Stewart, an engineer at Verizon Federal Systems and Ivancic's colleague. "We are currently in the development and debugging phase, and have several implementations of our code. With the ANI testbed, we were able to optimize and scale our basic PERL implementation to far higher speeds than our NASA testbed."
End-to-End Delivery
Meanwhile, Dantong Yu, who leads the Computer Science Group at Brookhaven National Laboratory, used the ANI testbed to design an ultra-high-speed, end-to-end file transfer protocol tool to move science data at 100 gigabits per second across a national network.
"A network like ANI may be able to move data at 100 Gbps, but at each end of that connection there is a host server that either uploads or downloads data from the network," says Yu. "While the host servers may be capable of feeding data into the network and downloading it at 100 Gbps, the current software running on these systems is a bottleneck."
According to Yu, the bottlenecks are primarily caused by the number of times the current software forces the computer to make copies of the data before uploading it to the network.
"Initially I was testing this protocol at a very local lab level. In this scenario transfers happen in a split-second, which is far from reality," says Yu. "ANI allowed me to see how long it really takes to move data across the country, from East-to West Coast, with my software, which in turn helped me optimize the code."
The Next Steps
Within the next few months, the official ANI project will be coming to an end, but the community will continue to benefit for decades to come from its investments. The 100-gigabit prototype network will be converted into ESnet's fifth-generation production infrastructure, one that will be scale to 44 times its current. ESnet will also seek new sources of funding for the 100-gigabit testbed to ensure that it will be available to network researchers on a sustained basis.
"Since its inception, ESnet has delivered the advanced capabilities required by DOE science. Many of these capabilities are cost-prohibitive, or simply unavailable, on the commercial market," says Bell. "Because our network is optimized for the needs of DOE science, we're always looking for efficient ways to manage our large science flows. ESnet's new 100-Gigabit network will allow us to do that more flexibly and morecost-effectively than ever."
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About ESnet
ESnet provides the high-bandwidth, reliable connections that link scientists at national laboratories, universities and other research institutions, enabling them to work together on some of the world's most important scientific challenges including energy, climate science, and the origins of the universe. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, and managed and operated by the ESnet team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), ESnet provides scientists with access to unique DOE research facilities and computing resources, as well as to scientific collaborators including research and education networks around the world.
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Last week may have drawn to a close, but the march of Clevo news continues. On the heels of Maingear announcing an 11-inch gaming notebook, Origin PC is throwing its own ultraportable into the ring: the EON 11-S. Though this is a new model for the company (the smallest laptop it's ever sold, in fact), it's not quite fresh to us: this is the same exact Clevo-made notebook Maingear unveiled two days ago, only re-badged under Origin PC's brand and available in a wider range of colors. As far as performance goes, then, that means you can expect Ivy Bridge processors, a 2GB NVIDIA GT 650M GPU, Optimus graphics-switching technology and a battery rated for 6.5 hours of runtime. In Origin PC's case, the laptop starts at $999 (compared with $1,099 for Maingear), though you'll have to head over to Origin's site for a breakdown of what specs you'll be getting at that lower price.
Q: what to eat good food to dysmenorrhea? Each menstrual pain I can?t stand, heard through the conditioning diet, eat what kind of food does dysmenorrhoea good? The expert Q & A: dysmenorrhea, eat what kind of food is many female friends are very concerned about the problem, dysmenorrhea women should try to avoid eating excitant food, should eat more fruits and vegetables with regulating qi and activating blood circulation effect of dysmenorrhea. What to eat good food? Chinese medicine dysmenorrhea due to Qi and blood running or poor blood caused by deficiency. Clinical common with stagnation of Qi and blood stasis, Hanning uterus, Qi and blood deficiency, damp and other disorders. Diet can play a better role in prevention and treatment. Dysmenorrhea in patients with menstrual cramps before 3 ~ 5 days, catering mainly to light Yixiaohua. Should eat easy to digest and absorb the food, not eating too raise, especially should avoid eating raw food, because cold food can stimulate the uterus, fallopian tube constriction. Thus induce or aggravate dysmenorrhea. Have menstrual cramps, is more should avoid all cold and not easy to digest and excitant food, such as chili, raw onions, raw garlic, pepper, wine and so on. During this period, the patient may be appropriate to eat something sour foods, such as vegetables, vinegar, sour foods are pain relief effect. In addition, painBy both in premenstrual or after, should maintain defecate unobstructed. As far as possible, eat honey, bananas, celery, sweet potato. Because constipation can be induced dysmenorrhea and increased pain. Some people think, dysmenorrhea patients appropriate to drink wine ? the active, dilation of blood vessels, smooth muscle relaxation, dysmenorrhea prevention and treatment effect. If the output can be appropriate to drink some wine, can relieve symptoms, to a certain extent, can play a role in the treatment. Wine because of containing alcohol on the human body are excited. Emotional depression caused dysmenorrhea timely appropriate drink wine, can play a comfortable feeling, Shugan spirits role, so that the gas engine and benefit. In addition, wine spicy Gan Wen, Xin Neng powder can, on cold-damp stagnation of dysmenorrhea, can be cold dampness, activating blood flow; Gan Wen Neng s can be slow, weak blood due to dysmenorrhea, and can play a warm yang and blood, relieve pain of dysmenorrhea patients. Usually the diet should be diversified, not a partial eclipse, should often eat some with regulating qi and activating blood circulation effects of vegetables and fruits, such as shepherd?s purse, cattleya root, parsley, carrot, orange, bergamot, ginger and so on. Physical weakness, lack of Qi and blood, invigorating Qi, enriching blood, should eat the food of nourishing liver and kidneyMaterial, such as chicken, duck, fish, eggs, milk, animal liver, fish, beans and so on. Vitamin E can maintain the normal function of the reproductive organs, dysmenorrhea women should eat more foods rich in vitamin E, such as cereal germ, wheat germ, egg yolk, vertical type, nuts, wheat germ oil.
By James O. GrundvigCreated: April 29, 2012Last Updated: April 29, 2012
Haggling over money ignited political firestorms that are changing the way two large governments function and operate. How are China and a branch of the U.S. federal government doing in the wake of serious rifts of public trust and worse?
In the case of the Secret Service scandal in Columbia, the sticking point came down to a few dollars for sex. In China?s Politburo?s once rising star Bo Xilai, his wife Gu Kailai?s failed negotiation with Neil Heywood over the price to traffic ?black money??bribes, political favors, extortion?out of China came back to haunt the fallen politician with Mr. Heywood?s death by poisoning a wrecking ball to his lust for fame, power, and fortune.
With damage done to careers and reputations, corporations large and small can learn lessons that go beyond the folly of Shakespearian tragedy.
In the new era of cloud computing, mobility, and social media vulnerability points have proliferated. With the recent data breach of credit cards at Global Payments, it?s clear that most companies aren?t investing enough money in cybersecurity; they don?t understand all the layers they need to protect their networks, data, and intellectual property.
Losing the Security Arms Race
These problems aren?t confined to the corporate world. In a scathing March 12 report on Computer Security by the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, it found: ?The Computer Security Incident Response Center?s (CSIRC) host-based intrusion detection system is not monitoring 34 percent of IRS servers, which puts the IRS network and data at risk. In addition, the CSIRC is not reporting all computer security incidents to the Department of the Treasury, as required. Finally, incident response policies, plans, and procedures are either nonexistent or are inaccurate and incomplete.?
Are American companies investing enough in IT security? Do they have procedures in place to prevent the 11 percent data theft carried out by insiders? Do they allocate enough money in their budgets for security or treat it as an afterthought?
If they are haggling over cost the way the Secret Service and the Bo-Gu did, they are asking for trouble. The consequences are more dire than public embarrassment. They include loss revenue, stock selloff, rise of insurance premiums, disruption to business, and defection of key personnel, to name a few.
With changing technologies, hackers are gaining the upper hand in the cyber war.
Cloud Offers New Defense
In a recent blogpost by Sourya Biswar of CloudTweaks on how cloud technology could improve the vulnerabilities of the 2.4 million bank ATMs worldwide, she wrote: ?Diebold?s solution is to move confidential information from the ATM hard drive to the cloud. Now, information stored in the cloud can actually reside in heavily-guarded server farms with state-of-the-art motion sensors and 24/7 secured access, camera surveillance and security breach alarms. As is obvious, security would be much better than in the neighborhood ATM.?
Not everyone agrees. But defending a few fortified remote structures than millions of machines in highly trafficked areas seems a logical next step.
At a U.S. House of Representatives hearing last fall??Cyber Threats and Ongoing Efforts to Protect the Nation??Kevin Mandia, CEO of Mandiant Corp., stated: ?Many American corporations may have been compliant and diligent, but they were not prepared for advanced threats.?
He went on to testify that 96 percent of the 50 companies that his firm forensically surveyed didn?t know their businesses had been penetrated until informed by the FBI.
The problem is pervasive and widespread, with the types of sophisticated attacks are on the rise, tailored to industries, shifting focus from government to business.
Interview with Security Evangelists
James Grundvig (JG) caught up via email with security consultant, Peter Simon (PS) of One Force Technologies, Inc., and George Waller (GW), executive VP and founder of StrikeForce Technologies, Inc.
StrikeForce is the inventor and patent holder for ?Out-of-Band? authentication, and has a patent pending on its ?Anti-keylogging keystroke encryption? technology.
JG: How many layers of security are needed in today?s multi-device, social world?
GW: The default standard is Two-Factor Authentication. A social website can utilize any of the following Out-of-Band methodologies:
? Entering a # sign when phone rings ? Entering a fixed PIN into mobile phone ? OTP is delivered on-screen, phone rings, user inputs OTP into phone ? OTP is sent to a phone via SMS, OTP is entered online ? OTP is delivered to phone via text to speech, OTP is entered online ? OTP is sent via email, OTP is entered online ? Voice Verification ? imminent release ? IM Client Two-Factor Authentication
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There are also hard tokens, such as devices with built-in OTP generators.
JG: Is a cloud service provider better at IT security than on-premise businesses?
GW: Cloud datacenters are useful when they do not have access to customer information. There have been many datacenter breaches recently. With that said, they do add good value and enable companies? access to technology that a smaller firm would generally not be able to afford.
JG: How does security differ between Fortune 500 and small companies?
PS: Large organizations have access to anomaly detection tools that are priced out of a small business? security budget.
GW: Larger organizations have far more breach points and databases, which make them more attractive to hackers. Based on the recent Verizon report, larger organizations were breached just as easily as smaller ones.
JG: Are we losing the arms race in cyberattacks to hackers, China, and Eastern European countries?
GW: Data breaches and identity have surpassed drug trafficking (for the second year in the row). Many analysts have said that the costs now exceed two trillion dollars a year with the majority of all breaches initiated outside the U.S.
JG: What are the vulnerabilities that hackers like to exploit?
PS: A hactivist?s goal is to bring awareness to an issue, but in the process end up doing more harm than good. A cyber-criminal?s goal is to monetize what they steal. Both have shifted their tactics from technical as defenses have improved, to an exploit that can never be patched? that of human curiosity.
GW: Additionally, hackers like to exploit anti-virus software, browsers, social networking websites, servers (SQL Injections), and humans.
JG: What?s being down to solve these problems from an IT Security point?
GW: Out-of-Band Authentication is now one of the leading methods to prevent unwanted access; keystroke encryption protects data, better IPS?s & IDS?s.
JG: Why aren?t American businesses more up to speed with online security threats?
GW: Companies are trying to get better, but the big issue is cost. However, the real driver is compliance. We need to do a better job of enforcing regulations.
PS: The prevailing attitude among some smaller firms is if companies like RSA and Sony got breached, then what chance do we have. Security has to be a part of the corporate culture from the top down. It cannot be passed off to the IT department.
JG: What?s your number one recommendation for firms to secure sensitive data?
PS: Segregate and isolate it from web facing computers. That?s harder to do now with so many mobile devices and people?s need to work away from the office. Encryption of the files and keystrokes is a major step in securing the sensitive data from prying eyes and keyloggers.
James O. Grundvig is a writer and columnist residing in New York.
OBO, Central African Republic (AP) ? Deep in the jungle, this small, remote Central African village is farther from the coast than any point on the continent. It's also where three international armies have zeroed in on Joseph Kony, one of the world's most wanted warlords.
Obo was the first place in the Central African Republic that Kony's Lord's Resistance Army attacked in 2008; today, it's one of four forward operating locations where U.S. special forces have paired up with local troops and Ugandan soldiers to seek out Kony, who is believed likely to be hiding out in the rugged terrain northwest of the town. For seven years he has been wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity after his forces cut a wide and bloody swath across several central African nations with rapes, abductions and killings.
Part of the LRA's success in eluding government forces has been its ability to slip back and forth over the porous borders of the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Congo. But since late last year, U.S. forces have been providing intelligence, looking at patterns of movement, and setting up better communications to link the countries' forces together so that they can better track the guerrilla force.
Sent by President Barack Obama at the end of 2011, the 100 U.S. soldiers are split up about 15 to 30 per base, bringing in American technology and experience to assist local forces.
Exact details on specific improvements that the American forces have brought to the table, however, are classified, to avoid giving Kony the ability to take countermeasures.
"We don't necessarily go and track into the bush but what we do is we incorporate our experiences with the partner nation's experiences to come up with the right solution to go out and hopefully solve this LRA problem," said Gregory, a 29-year-old captain from Texas, who would only give his first name in accordance with security guidelines.
The U.S. troops also receive reports from local hunters and others that they help analyze together with surveillance information.
"It's very easy to blame everything on the LRA but there are other players in the region ? there are poachers, there are bandits, and we have to sift that to filter what is LRA," he said.
Central African Republic soldiers largely conduct security operations in and around the town, while Ugandan soldiers, who have been in the country since 2010, conduct longer-range patrols looking for Kony and his men.
Since January, they have killed seven LRA fighters in the area and captured one, while rescuing 15 people abducted by the group including five children, said their local commander, Col. Joseph Balikuddembe.
There has been no contact with the LRA since March, however, according to Ugandan Army spokesman Col. Felix Kulayigye, who said the LRA now is in survival mode. The LRA is thought to today number only around 150 to 300 die-hard fighters.
"They're hiding," he said. "They are not capable of doing."
But with Kony still around, there are wide ranging-fears that the LRA will be able to rebuild.
"There's periods of time when the LRA will lie low when the military pressure is too high or where there's a threat that they don't understand such as the American intervention," said Matthew Brubacher, a political affairs officer with the U.N.'s mission in Congo, who was also an International Criminal Court investigator on the Kony case for five years.
"But then after a while after they figure it out, if they have the opportunity they'll try to come back, so it's just a matter of time they'll try to come back. Kony always said 'if I have only 10 men, I can always rebuild the force."
Right now, expectations are high of the Americans serving in Obo and Djema in the Central African Republic, as well as those in Dungu in Congo and Nzara in South Sudan.
"For all the communities, the U.S. bases in Obo and Djema means one, Kony will be arrested, and two, there will be a lot of money for programs, humanitarian programs," said Sabine Jiekak of the Italian humanitarian aid agency Coopi.
Central African Republic Deputy Defense Minister Jean Francis Bozize said it's been difficult for the poor country's small military to deal with Kony in the southeast as well as several other militant groups in the north.
An African Union mission expected to begin later this year should help expedite the cross-border pursuit of the LRA.
In the meantime, Bozize said the American forces could make a big difference.
"The involvement of U.S. forces with their assistance in providing information and intelligence will allow for all forces to operate from the same base-level of intelligence ... (giving) better coordination with better results," he told reporters in the capital, Bangui.
But the military mission is not a simple one.
How do you find small groups of seasoned fighters hidden deep in the jungle, who have eluded authorities for decades? How do you prevent brutal reprisal attacks on civilians? How can you bring together several countries' troops to cooperate on cross-border pursuits?
The LRA usually attacks late at night, then melts back away into the jungle. Seasoned bush fighters, they employ many techniques to elude pursuit ? walking along rocks or along streams to avoid leaving tracks, for example, and sometimes even marching backward to fool trackers.
Kony has reportedly stopped using radios and satellite phones for communications, instead relying on an elaborate system involving runners and multiple rendezvous points.
Key to his capture is good information from local residents ? which they will only give when they can be sure of their own safety, according to American commanders.
"The population have to believe that they are secure and once they believe they are secure from the LRA, you start to deny the LRA the opportunity to attack villages to get people, to get food, to get medicine," Gen. Carter Ham, the head of U.S. Africa Command, told reporters in Stuttgart.
That may take some time in Obo, a town of some 15,000 where around 3,500 people have sought refuge to escape LRA violence in the area.
Rural farmers and others stick to within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of the village for safety ? originally the area that Central African Republic soldiers were able to patrol but now more a rule of thumb followed by the locals.
They've started recently to venture out farther, emboldened by the presence of the Ugandans and Americans to help the government forces, but are too nervous to stray too wide from the safety of the village.
"They're still scared, they're still wary because Joseph Kony is still out there," said Mayor Joseph Kpioyssrani, looking at the jungle behind him.
Kony's LRA sprung up in 1986 as a rebel movement among the Acholi people in northern Uganda to fight against the Kampala government, but has for decades been leading its violent campaign without any clear political ideology.
Emmanuel Daba, 33, was one of 76 people abducted in the first LRA raid on Obo in 2008 and forced to fight for the guerrillas for two years before managing to escape.
"We were trained to kill ? forced to kill ? otherwise we'd be killed ourselves," he said outside the tiny radio station where he now works broadcasting messages to try and encourage others with the LRA to defect or escape. "I still have dreams ? nightmares."
This year, the U.S. Defense Department is committing $35 million to efforts to find and fight Kony.
Since 2008, the U.S. State Department has sent some $50 million in funds to support the Ugandan military's logistics and non-lethal operations against the LRA, including contracting two transport helicopters to ferry troops and supplies. Another $500 million has been given over that time for the broader northern Uganda recovery effort in the aftermath of Kony's presence there.
In Stuttgart, Ham keeps a "Kony 2012" poster hanging on his office door.
Though he isn't committing to the goal of the viral YouTube campaign to see Kony neutralized by the end of the year, he does define success as either capturing or killing the LRA leader eventually.
"I'm confident that the mission will be successful, but I can't give you a timeline when that's going to occur..." Ham said. "It is one of those organizations that if you remove the senior leader and the small number of those who surround him, I believe this is one of those organizations that will not be able to regenerate."
The Denver Broncos added depth to their defensive line, taking Malik Jackson of Tennessee in the fifth round of the NFL draft.
Jackson began his college career at USC as a defensive end, before transferring to Tennessee after sanctions were imposed on the Trojans.
He played defensive tackle for Tennessee last season, turning in a career-high 56 tackles and 11 tackles for loss. He also had 2.5 sacks.
Jackson watched the draft at the home of his grandmother Amy Bynum, who lives in Victorville. While Jackson is not from the High Desert, he said it was important for him to have his moment at his grandmothers home with about 15 of his friends and relatives.
?My grandma has always been there for me,? Jackson said. ?I just thought it?d be a special time to come up here to Victorville and have a chance for everybody to come out here and watch it and be with the family.?
Jackson admitted he was getting a bit nervous after not being selected during the first two days of the draft, but his grandmother was confident all along he would be picked.
?I had faith,? Bynum said. ?The best come last, that?s what I told him, and whatever time (it happens), you?re the best because you strived to do what you wanted to do.?
There are many people that are attempting do it yourself these days when it comes to Home Improvement Projects.? This concept is trending not only in the U.S. alone, but also even spreading around the world.
A new program in Britain is going to center around DIY Home Improvement projects.? Also Ireland seems to be jumping on the band wagon.? However, officials warn the Irish may not be as DIY savy as they might like to think.
?Setting fire to the patio, flooding the kitchen, making home appliances explode ? when it comes to DIY disasters, Irish people know how to shoot for the top.
A new survey lays bare just how much of a menace we pose upon being let loose with drills, spirit-levels and step ladders.
A study by AA Ireland reveals a catalogue of home-improvement disasters, including hair-raising, eyebrow-singeing forays into amateur pyrotechnics, impromptu demolition and at least one attempt to recreate the closing 20 minutes of James Cameron?s Titanic, complete with soaked carpets and furniture bobbing in the water.?
Read More Here : http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/smart-consumer/smart-consumer-step-away-from-the-drill-3092460.html
Communities Find Solutions to Sports Field Shortages
(May 2012 - Emily Attwood) A dedicated push by communities across the country to get youths off the couch and out playing appears to be paying off.
2.
Live Streaming of Prep Sporting Events Makes Slow But Sure Progress
(May 2012 - Michael Popke) Locals in southeastern Louisiana call it the ?Battle on the River,? the annual football rivalry between Destrehan and Hahnville high schools.
3.
Athletic Departments Navigate Nepotism Policy
(May 2012 - Paul Steinbach) Confusion over who actually hired Brian Ferentz in February to serve as an assistant football coach at the University of Iowa resulted in more than one headline punctuated with a question mark.
4.
Gaps in Glass Walls Allow for Movement of Air and Sound
(April 2012 - Andrew Cohen) Noise is something that most facility owners would prefer to keep from escaping the fitness center and affecting other facility users. Not so at Missouri Southern State University's Beimdiek Recreation Center.
5.
New Projects: University at Albany; Le Moyne College; Marlins Park
(April 2012 - Emily Attwood) The University at Albany (above) plans to break ground this month on a new athletic and recreation complex.
6.
Former Wrestler Hudson Taylor Champions Tolerance
(April 2012 - Paul Steinbach) As a member of the nation's top-ranked high school wrestling team, Hudson Taylor was subjected to homophobic taunts as a teen.
7.
Sprint Football is Witnessing a Growth Spurt
(April 2012 - Paul Steinbach) Bruce Kirsh has been associated with Franklin Pierce University for more than four decades as a student-athlete, coach and administrator.
8.
Exercise Intervention Policies in Campus Fitness Centers
(April 2012 - Emily Attwood) Today's generation of incoming college freshmen expect a college to deliver the full package ? not just a good education, but the latest technology, luxurious dorms, state-of-the art buildings, an elite athletic program and of course, an extensive offering of recreational activities to keep them busy outside of class.
9.
Club Chains Should Level with Potential Franchisees
(April 2012 - Rob Bishop and Barry Klein) We must be in the wrong business. If we owned a fitness franchise, rather than our privately owned facilities, we'd be wildly successful while rarely going to work.
10.
Stadium Security Professionals Urged to Remain Diligent
(April 2012 - Paul Steinbach) It hasn't happened. By due diligence or pure luck, no major outdoor spectator venue in the United States has experienced a significant security breach ? much less an act of premeditated, catastrophic terrorism ? in the decade since the Sept. 11 attacks.
11.
Building Sponsors into the Design of Spectator Facilities
(April 2012 - Andrew Cohen) Few professional venues have enjoyed as smooth and quick a route to success as MetLife Stadium.
12.
School Districts Embrace Monolithic Domes as Gymnasiums
(April 2012 - Michael Popke) Ninety minutes before tipoff of the first basketball games scheduled in the Archie (Mo.) R-V School District?s new gymnasium on Jan. 20, staff members were still cleaning up from its seven-month construction.
13.
How to Weed Out Trouble-making High School Sports Fans
(April 2012 - Michael Popke) In a brief but volatile confrontation with a referee officiating his daughter's basketball game at Albuquerque, N.M.'s Volcano Vista High School in January, Paul Alfaro flung a vulgarity the official's way.
14.
Adopt-a-Park Programs Improve Community Green Spaces
(April 2012 - Emily Attwood) "Great parks make great neighborhoods," says Alex Moroz, quoting the simple philosophy driving the adopt-a-park program in Hamilton, Ont.
15.
Underwater Chaise Lounge a Draw at Texas Tech
(February 2012 - Andrew Cohen) To the underwater bench and conversation pit, you can add the underwater chaise lounge as a method of encouraging socializing in college leisure pools.
16.
New Projects: Rice University; Utah State; University of Connecticut
(February 2012 - Emily Attwood) Demolition crews are clearing the way for a new arena in Allentown, Pa. The $157 million arena will feature seating for 8,500 hockey fans and serve as home to the Phantoms, a minor-league affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers.
17.
Properly Cleaning and Disinfecting Fitness Equipment
(February 2012 - Emily Attwood) A health club's top-of-the-line fitness equipment, complete with interactive workout monitoring and web access, can be a draw for new members.
18.
Why Health Club Members Are Not Always Right
(February 2012 - Rob Bishop and Barry Klein) The customer is always right." How many times have you said this to your staff ? or when you were the customer, felt this yourself?
19.
High School Sports Teams Stretch Out with Yoga
(February 2012 - Michael Popke) When baseball practice begins next month at Jeffersonville (Ind.) High School, Matt Rigsby will find out whether the optional once-a-week yoga classes he has been offering his players since September have paid off.
20.
Exacting Design Standards Spur Quality Track Construction
(February 2012 - Paul Steinbach) It starts with a dotted line. Not the kind that stretches a short distance across the bottom of a contract, but one drawn to represent a closed circuit covering 400 meters.
21.
Recreation Departments Restructure to Maximize Efficiency
(February 2012 - Emily Attwood) Cities and recreation departments have been slashing services and staff, struggling to operate within their budgets without sacrificing programs.
22.
Sports and Recreation Facilities Boost Small-College Enrollment
(February 2012 - Andrew Cohen) Rick Creehan has been here before. Not here, exactly. When he started out in higher education in 1984, it was as the baseball coach at Allegheny College ? a relatively well-known school, where he was given a relatively straightforward charge of producing winning baseball teams.
23.
Football Visionary Kurt Bryan Looks to Launch New Pro League
(February 2012 - Paul Steinbach) During his first 21 years as a head football coach and offensive coordinator, Kurt Bryan ran exactly one play out of the shotgun formation.
24.
How to Make the Most of Limited Pool Deck Space
(February 2012 - Michael Popke) As both a professional pool designer and the parent of two competitive swimmers, Matt Freeby attends several swim meets every year and keeps a mental list of competition venues he prefers to avoid.
25.
College Coaches on the Front Lines of Crisis Management
(February 2012 - Paul Steinbach) Penn State replaced Joe Paterno, but Jerry Sandusky has been harder to shake. His name seems to appear whenever the university makes news lately.
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Public release date: 30-Apr-2012
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