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Estranged husband snuck into wife's home and 'lay in wait' before killing her
Posted on October 16, 2021 October 15, 2021 Author altoreyorg Comments Off on Estranged husband snuck into wife's home and 'lay in wait' before killing her
An estranged husband snuck into his wife's home and 'lay in wait' before stabbing her to death in her bed.
Heartless Aubrey Pule Padi, 46, told an ambulance control centre call operator that his wife Tamara Padi, 43, 'deserved it'.
The monster murdered Mrs Padi while one of their two children was sleeping in the next bedroom, the Manchester Evening News reports.
He has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 23 years for the horrific murder in Stalybridge, near Manchester.
Padi's calculated attack involved him setting the alarm on his mobile phone so he could nap and ensure his wife was asleep before he set upon her.
Mrs Padi – described as a 'lovely, bubbly, outgoing, professional woman' – worked as a carer and was out on a late-night care visit.
Manchester Crown Court heard she returned home to Stalybridge, at 1.30am on July 7 with a work colleague, and both went to sleep.
By then Padi had 'concealed himself' in her house after letting himself in armed with knives, a hammer, gloves and a length of cord, the court was told.
The court heard that at 3.30am, after his alarm went off, he 'set about' her with a metal 'pull up exercise bar'.
Then, after leaving her in the bedroom, he returned to stab her eight times with one of two kitchen knives he had brought with him.
Mrs Padi was pronounced dead later in hospital after her work colleague found her seriously injured.
The court heard that 'mercifully', their daughter slept through the horror.
The family watched in court as Padi, of Carrfield, Hyde, pleaded guilty to one count of murder.
He sobbed and looked away from his children as judge Elizabeth Nicholls passed sentence on Tuesday.
The court heard the couple separated in early 2021 after 14 years of marriage and 'several years together' before that.
The relationship is said to have broken down and divorce proceedings were 'imminent'.
Richard Pratt QC, prosecuting, said on July 6, Padi punched Mrs Padi in the face when she wouldn't let him use her mobile phone in her car.
Two weeks earlier, she had caught him going through her voicemails on her phone.
And she had earlier described, in voicemail messages intercepted by police, his conduct towards her as 'creepy' – adding that he was 'driving her away'.
On the night, after the punch, he sent her 'apologetic and threatening' text messages' – with one ending: "This is the last time you have disrespected me."
Sentencing, Judge Nicholls said of the murder: "In that moment the defendant effectively deprived their children of both parents, one through death, the other by the annihilation of trust in their father, who up until that moment they believed they knew and loved."
Judge Nicholls said Mrs Padi was scared of him.
"You waited in the house for your wife to return from a late-night care visit, knowing that your daughter slept in the adjoining bedroom," she said. "So clear and considered were your intentions, you even set your phone alarm giving yourself a chance to sleep and ensuring that your wife would be asleep before you attacked her."
The court heard Padi ran away but rang 999 and confessed to an ambulance control centre call operator, adding that he was going to kill himself.
"I am sorry for what I have done, but she deserved it," he said to the operator, the court heard.
Padi was arrested later after he told officers where he was. He had drunk whisky and taken paracetamol.
Their other daughter, who was asleep at his house, was unhurt.
Judge Nicholls said of Padi's 999 call: "Your conversation is full of self-pity, justification for your conduct.
"Like so much violence against women, you tried to place the blame upon the victim, suggesting that she had wronged you and that you were driven to this conduct. Even going so far as to say she 'deserved it'.
"And what type of parental love is it that lies alongside your child while waiting to murder her mother?
"There are no excuses and no fault lies with the victim, Tamara. This offence is entirely your responsibility. No woman should have to endure at the hands of a man what Tamara did in her final hours."
The court heard the couple came to the UK from South Africa to work. Mrs Padi had a Masters qualification in law.
After the split, they remained in regular contact and launched a business together called Green Leaf Health and Social Care Ltd, a care provision company for adults.
Prosecutor Mr Pratt said the attack on Mrs Padi took place in two bedrooms and she fought to protect herself.
"He effectively lay in wait for his wife to return," he said.
"He must have realised that his daughter was in the house also.
"The defendant left the room believing her dead, but returned when he heard a noise and stabbed her some eight times. There were numerous, defensive-type injuries."
Stephen Meadowcroft QC, defending, said it was 'undoubtedly a shocking, tragic and very sad case'.
"Those who knew Tamara and the defendant were shocked by what happened," he said.
Padi, the court heard, was described by friends as having a 'calm and caring nature' and as a 'loving father'.
He had no previous convictions.
Addressing him, Judge Nicholls said the offence was 'beyond any of your friend's and family's comprehension'.
But she added: "Some suggest that you must have suffered a breakdown, however no medical evidence, nor any evidence has been presented to suggest that mental health issues had any part to play in this offence.
"You may have been stressed and distressed by your work and or divorce, but neither explain the brutality displayed."
Detective Inspector Lee Shaw, of GMP's Major Incident Team, said outside court: "My thoughts go out to the victim's family, especially her two daughters who have been through a tremendous amount of trauma and upset over the past few months.
"They've shown an enormous amount of strength and courage throughout the process of this investigation, and for that, I thank them.
"The actions of Aubrey Padi are incomprehensible."
altoreyorg
https://altorey.org
Inside the £1k-a-month London flat that's so small the bed nearly touches kitchen
Posted on October 20, 2021 October 15, 2021 Author altoreyorg
A one-bedroom flat in Earl's Court, Kensington, London, is on the market for £1,083, although this does not cover all the bills and any future tenants will have to sleep inches away from the oven A central London flat which is so small the bed almost touches the kitchen is on the market for more […]
Man shaves off hair but leaves ring around head – and gets mistaken for hipster
Stu Turner, from Cardiff, buzzed everything but a narrow strip of hair off to support the Little Princess Trust, a charity that provides real hair wigs, free of charge, to children and young people who have lost their own hair from cancer treatment or other conditions A man is being called "ring head" after shaving […]
Husband's 'heart has been ripped out' as wife tragically dies five days after wedding
David Reader and Amanda Littleton had been due to tie the knot on October 10 but after the 58-year-old was diagnosed with terminal cancer they brought their wedding forward A grieving husband says his "whole heart has been ripped out" after his terminally-ill wife died just five days after their hospital wedding. David Reader and […]
Robinson, Leach and Malan awarded new-look England central contracts
After Epic v. Apple, a small developer is challenging Apple's in-app payment system
Forge Your Own Path Through Life With These Helpful Leadership Tips
Grand Final stage set for Catalans Dragons history or St Helens hat-trick
Second most common malaria parasite takes unrealized toll on human health
Russia's Gazprom feels the heat over Europe's red-hot gas prices
Apple CarPlay could control more parts of your vehicle in the future
2018 mantranews | Mantranews by Mantrabrain.


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Virgiliu N. Drăghiceanu (n. 18 mai 1879, Râmnicu-Vâlcea - d. 19 decembrie 1964, București) a fost un arheolog și istoric român, membru corespondent al Academiei Române (la propunerea savantului Nicolae Iorga, începând din 1926).

Virgiliu N. Drăghiceanu era născut într-o familie care-și avea originile în fostul județ Romanați, dar care se stabilise la Târgoviște odată cu bunicul său, învățătorul Mihalache Drăghiceanu, primul profesor al Școlii Naționale din Târgoviște, căsătorit cu o membră a uneia dintre familiile târgoviștene însemnate, Elisabeta Fusea. Tatăl său, Nicolae Drăghiceanu, căsătorit cu Maria Davidescu, a ridicat casa familiei situată în apropierea Curții Domnești din localitate.

Virgiliu N. Drăghiceanu a urmat studiile preuniversitare la Târgoviște, pe care le-a continuat la Universitatea din București, unde a obținut o licență în Litere și Filosofie. Și-a început activitatea de cercetare în anul 1907, primele sale cercetări vizând situația patrimonială din județul Dâmbovița și colectarea de materiale în vederea constituirii unui muzeu de istorie al vechii capitale domnești. Urmând acestei călătorii de cercetare, a publicat Călăuza monumentelor istorice din județul Dâmbovița (Raport extras din Expunerea situațiunei județului Dâmbovița), Târgoviște, septembrie 1907, 34 p. A fost, pe rând, bibliotecar al Casei Bisericii, secretar și apoi secretar-director al Comisiunii Monumentelor Istorice, unde s-a făcut remarcat cu deosebire. A fost, alături de Nicolae Iorga, Nicolae Ghica-Budești, Alexandru I. Lapedatu, unul dintre cei mai fecunzi redactori ai Buletinului Comisiunii Monumentelor Istorice, unde a publicat articole însemnate cu privire la domeniile sale de expertiză: începuturile Evului Mediu românesc, monumentele istorice medievale și moderne sau epoca lui Constantin Brâncoveanu. Reținem, dintre articolele și notele sale:

Curțile domnești brâncovenești: Doicești, în BCMI, an II, 1909, pp. 101-112.

Curțile domnești brâncovenești: Mogoșoaia, în BCMI, an II, octombrie - decembrie1909, pp. 149-164.

Noi pietre de la Doicești, în BCMI, an III, 1910, p. 48.

Curțile domnești brâncovenești: Potlogi, în BCMI, an III, 1910, pp. 50-70.

Vechia biserică de lemn din Grămeștii Vâlcei , în BCMI, an III, 1910, pp. 110-114.

Ruina Sfinții Împărați din Târgoviște. Note istorice, BCMI, an III, 1910, pp. 125-133.

Curțile domnești brâncovenești. Curți și conace fărâmate, BCMI, an IV, 1911, pp. 49-78.

Lămuriri asupra Buzeștilor (după pisaniile fundațiunilor lor), BCMI, an IV, 1911, pp. 119-124.

O ctitorie mitropolitană. Biserica din Râmeștii-Vâlcei, BCMI, an IV, 1911, pp. 130-132.

O tocmeală a lui Matei Basarab, BCMI, an IV, 1911, p. 148.

O Biserică Domnească, BCMI, an IV, 1911, p. 149.

Mormintele din Biserica Precista, Bacău. Raport adresat Comisiunii Monumentelor Istorice, BCMI, an IV, 1911, p. 152-159.

Inscripțiile bisericii Sf. Nicolae Domnesc din Curtea de Argeș,în BCMI, V, 1912, p. 95.

Inscripții: Biserica domnească din Ocnele Mari, Vâlcea, în BCMI, V, 1912, p. 132.

Biserica din Corbii Mari (Vlașca),în BCMI, VI, 1913, p. 74 -77.

Mormântul lui Constantin Brâncoveanu Basarab Voievod, în BCMI, VII, 1914, p. 111-125.

Palatul lui Bibescu de la Băneasa, în BCMI, VII, 1914, p. 174-178.

Mănăstire Hurezi în 1731, în BCMI, VIII, 1915, p. 88-90.

Morminte domnești. Matei Basarab, Doamna Elena și fiul lor Mateiaș. Ultimele zile, meșteri și stil, în BCMI, VIII, 1915, p. 170-175.

A efectuat săpături arheologice esențiale pentru cunoașterea trecutului medieval al Țării Românești, de o mare însemnătate fiind acelea de la Curtea de Argeș, Câmpulung și Târgoviște, care au reușit să retușeze istoria începutului Evului Mediu românesc, unele dintre aceste descoperiri fiind încă mult discutate în cercurile științifice.

A reușit să identifice mormântul domnitorului Constantin Brâncoveanu la Biserica Sfântul Gheorghe Nou din București, în data de 7 iulie 1914, pornind de la candela așezată de soția voievodului deasupra mormântului.

A avut o mare pasiune pentru monumentele istorice, realizând și o operă de conservator și muzeograf și contribuind la protejarea și salvarea a numeroase mărturii ale trecutului.

Legături externe

 Membrii Academiei Române din 1866 până în prezent – D

Istorici români
Membri corespondenți ai Academiei Române
Nașteri în 1879
Decese în 1964

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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A byte of data has been stored in a number of different ways as newer, better, and faster mediums of storage are introduced. A byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly refers to eight bits. A bit is a unit of information that can be expressed as 0 or 1, representing a logical state.
In the case of paper cards, a bit was stored as the presence or absence of a hole in the card at a specific place. If we go even further back in time to Babbage's Analytical Engine, a bit was stored as the position of a mechanical gear or lever. For magnetic storage devices, such as tapes and disks, a bit is represented by the polarity of a certain area of the magnetic film. In modern dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), a bit is often represented as two levels of electrical charge stored in a capacitor, a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field.
In June 1956, Werner Buchholz1 coined the word byte2 to refer to a group of bits used to encode a single character of text3. Let's go over a bit about character encoding. We will start with the American Standard Code for Information Interchange or ASCII. ASCII was based on the English alphabet, therefore every letter, digit, and symbol (a-z, A-Z, 0–9, +, -, /, ", ! etc) were represented as a 7 bit integer between 32 and 127. This wasn't very friendly to other languages. In order to support other languages, Unicode extended ASCII. With Unicode, each character is represented as a code-point, or character, for example, a lower case j is U+006A, where the U stands for Unicode and after that is a hexadecimal number.
UTF-8 is the standard for representing characters as eight bits, allowing every code-point between 0-127 to be stored in a single byte. If we think back to ASCII this is fine for English characters, but other language characters are often expressed as two or more bytes. UTF-16 is the standard for representing characters as 16 bits and UTF-32 is the standard for representing characters as 32 bits. In ASCII every character is a byte, and in Unicode, that's often not true, a character can be 1, 2, 3, or more bytes. Throughout this article, there will be different sized groupings of bits. The number of bits in a byte varies based on the design of the storage medium in the past.
Worldwide byte shipments by storage media type
This article is going to travel in time through various mediums of storage as an exercise of diving into how we have stored data through history. By no means will this include every single storage medium ever manufactured, sold, or distributed. This article is meant to be fun and informative while not being encyclopedic. Let's get started. Let's assume we have a byte of data to be stored: the letter j, or as an encoded byte 6a or in binary 01001010. As we travel through time, our data byte will come into play in some of the storage technologies we cover.
Our story starts in 1951 with the UNIVAC UNISERVO tape drive for the UNIVAC 1 computer. This was the first tape drive made for a commercial computer. The tape was three pounds of ½ inch wide thin strip of nickel-plated phosphor bronze, called Vicalloy, which was 1,200 feet long. Our data byte could be stored at a rate of 7,200 characters per second4 on tape moving at 100 inches per second. At this point in history, you could measure the speed of a storage algorithm by the distance the tape traveled.
Let's fast forward a year to May 21st, 1952 when IBM announced its first magnetic tape unit, the IBM 726. Our data byte could now be moved off UNISERVO metal tape onto IBM's magnetic tape. This new home would be super cozy for our very small data byte since the tape could store up to 2 million digits. This magnetic 7 track tape moved at 75 inches per second with a transfer rate of 12,500 digits5 or 7,500 characters6 (called copy groups at the time) per second. For reference, this article has 34,128 characters.
7 track tapes had six tracks for data and one to maintain parity by ensuring that the total number of 1-bits in the string was even or odd. Data were recorded at 100 bits per linear inch. This system used a "vacuum channel" method of keeping a loop of tape circulating between two points. This allowed the tape drive to start and stop the tape in a split second. This was done by placing long vacuum columns between the tape reels and the read/write heads to absorb sudden increases in tension in the tape, without which the tape would have typically broken. A removable plastic ring in the back of the tape reel provided write protection. About 1.1 megabytes could be stored on one reel of tape7.
If you think back to VHS tapes, what was required before returning a movie to Blockbuster? Rewinding the tape! The same could be said for tape used for computers. Programs could not hop around a tape, or randomly access data, they had to read and write in sequential order.
If we move ahead a few years to 1956, the era of magnetic disk storage began with IBM's completion of a RAMAC 305 computer system to deliver to Zellerbach Paper in San Francisco8. This computer was the first to use a moving-head hard disk drive. The RAMAC disk drive consisted of fifty magnetically coated 24-inch diameter metal platters capable of storing about five million characters of data, 7 bits per character, and spinning at 1,200 revolutions per minute. The storage capacity was about 3.75 megabytes.
RAMAC allowed real-time random access memory to large amounts of data, unlike magnetic tape or punch cards. IBM advertised the RAMAC as being able to store the equivalent of 64,000 punched cards9. Previously to the RAMAC, transactions were held until a group of data was accumulated and batch processed. The RAMRAC introduced the concept of continuously processing transactions as they occurred so data could be retrieved immediately when it was fresh. Our data byte could now be accessed in the RAMAC at 100,000 bits per second10. Prior to this, with tapes, we had to write and read sequential data and could not randomly jump to various parts of the tape. Real-time random access to data was truly revolutionary at this time.
How a magnetic disk looks like
Let's fast forward to 1963 when DECtape was introduced. Its namesake stemmed from the Digital Equipment Corporation, known as DEC for short. DECtape was inexpensive and reliable so it was used in many generations of the DEC computers. It was a ¾ inch tape that was laminated and sandwiched between two layers of mylar on a four-inch reel.
DECtape could be carried by hand, as opposed to its weighty and large predecessors, making it great for personal computers. In contrast to 7 track tape, DECtape had 6 data tracks, 2 mark tracks, and two clock tracks. Data was recorded at 350 bits per inch. Our data byte, which is 8 bits but could be expanded to 12, could be transferred to DECtape at 8,325 12-bit words per second with a tape speed of 93 +/-12 inches per second11. This is 8% more digits per second than the UNISERVO metal tape in 1952.
Four years later in 1967, a small team at IBM started working on the IBM floppy disk drive, codenamed Minnow12. At the time, the team was tasked with developing a reliable and inexpensive way to load microcode into the IBM System/370 mainframes13. The project then got reassigned and repurposed to load microcode into the controller for the IBM 3330 Direct Access Storage Facility, codenamed Merlin.
Our data byte could now be stored on read-only 8-inch flexible Mylar disks coated with magnetic material, which are today known as floppy disks. At the time of release, the result of the project was named the IBM 23FD Floppy Disk Drive System. The disks could hold 80 kilobytes of data. Unlike hard drives, a user could easily transfer a floppy in its protective jacket from one drive to another. Later in 1973, IBM released a read/write floppy disk drive, which then became an industry standard14.
In 1969, the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) read-only rope memory was launched into space aboard the Apollo 11 mission, which carried American astronauts to the Moon and back. This rope memory was made by hand and could hold 72 kilobytes of data. Manufacturing rope memory was laborious, slow, and required skills analogous to textile work; it could take months to weave a program into the rope memory15. But it was the right tool for the job at the time to resist the harsh rigors of space. When a wire went through one of the circular cores it represented a 1. Wires that went around a core represented a 0. Our data byte would take a human a few minutes (estimated) to weave into the rope.
The Apollo Guidance Computer
Let's fast forward to 1977 when the Commodore PET, the first (successful) mass-market personal computer, was released. Built-in to the PET was a Commodore 1530 Datasette, meaning data plus cassette. The PET converted data into analog sound signals that were then stored on cassettes16. This made for a cost-effective and reliable storage solution, albeit very slow. Our small data byte could be transferred at a rate of around 60-70 bytes per second17. The cassettes could hold about 100 kilobytes per 30-minute side, with 2 sides per tape. For example, you could fit about 2 of these 55 KB images18 on one side of the cassette. The datasette also appeared in the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore 64.
Let's jump ahead a year to 1978 when the LaserDisc was introduced as "Discovision" by MCA and Philips. "Jaws" was the first film sold on a LaserDisc in North America. The audio and video quality on a LaserDisc was far better than the competitors but too expensive for most consumers. As opposed to the VHS tape which consumers could use to record TV programs, the LaserDisc could not be written to. LaserDiscs used analog video with analog FM stereo sound and pulse-code modulation19, or PCM, digital audio. The disks were 12 inches in diameter and composed of two single-sided aluminum discs layered in plastic. The LaserDisc is remembered today as being the foundation CDs and DVDs were built upon.
A year later in 1979, Alan Shugart and Finis Conner founded the company Seagate Technology with the idea of scaling down a hard disk drive to be the same size as a 5 ¼ inch floppy disk, which at the time was the standard. Their first product, in 1980, was the Seagate ST506 hard disk drive, the first hard disk drive for microcomputers. The disk held five megabytes of data, which at the time was five times more than the standard floppy disk. The founders succeeded in their goal of scaling down the drive to the size of a floppy disk drive at 5 ¼ inches. It was a rigid, metallic platter coated on both sides with a thin layer of magnetic material to store data. Our data byte could be transferred at a speed of 625 kilobytes per second20 onto the disk. That's about a 625KB animated gif21 per second.
Let's fast forward a couple of years to 1981 when Sony introduced the first 3 ½ inch floppy drives. Hewlett-Packard was the first adopter of the technology in 1982 with their HP-150. This put the 3 ½ inch floppy disk on the map and gave it wide distribution in the industry22. The disks were single-sided with a formatted capacity of 161.2 kilobytes and an unformatted capacity of 218.8 kilobytes. In 1982, the double-sided version was made available and the Micro floppy Industry Committee (MIC), a consortium of 23 media companies, based a spec for a 3 ½ inch floppy on Sony's original designs cementing the format into history as we know it23. Our data byte could now be stored on the early version of one of the most widely distributed storage mediums: the 3 ½ inch floppy disk. Later a couple of 3 ½ inch floppy disks holding the contents of The Oregon Trail would be paramount to my childhood.
3 1/2 floppy disks
Shortly thereafter in 1984, the compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM), holding 550 megabytes of pre-recorded data, was announced from Sony and Philips. This format grew out of compact disks digital audio, or CD-DAs, which were used for distributing music. The CD-DA was developed by Sony and Philips in 1982, which has a capacity of 74 minutes. When Sony and Philips were negotiating the standard for a CD-DA, legend has it that one of the four people insisted it is able to hold all of the Ninth Symphony24. The first product released on a CD-ROM was Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia, which came out in 1985. The encyclopedia contained nine million words which only took up 12% of the disk space available, which was 553 mebibytes25. We would have more than enough room for the encyclopedia and our data byte. Shortly thereafter in 1985, computer and electronics companies worked together to create a standard for the disks so any computer would be able to access the information.
In 1984, Fujio Masuoka invented a new type of floating-gate memory, called flash memory, that was capable of being erased and reprogrammed multiple times.
Let's go over a bit about floating-gate memory. Transistors are electrical gates that can be switched on and off individually. Since each transistor can be in two distinct states (on or off), it can store two different numbers: 0 and 1. Floating-gate refers to the second gate added to the middle transistor. This second gate is insulated by a thin oxide layer. These transistors use a small voltage, applied to the gate of the transistor, to denote whether it is on or off, which in turn translates to a 0 or 1.
With a floating gate, when a suitable voltage is applied across the oxide layer, the electrons tunnel through it and get stuck on the floating gate. Therefore even if the power is disconnected, the electrons remain present on the floating gate. When no electrons are on the floating gate it represents a 1, and when electrons are trapped on the floating gate it represents a 0. Reversing this process and applying a suitable voltage across the oxide layer in the opposite direction causes the electrons to tunnel off the floating gate and restore the transistor back to its original state. Therefore, the cells are made programmable and non-volatile26. Our data byte could be programmed into the transistors as 01001010, with electrons trapped in the floating gates to represent the zeros.
Masuoka's design was a bit more affordable but less flexible than electrically erasable PROM (EEPROM) since it required multiple groups of cells to be erased together, but this also accounted for its speed. At the time, Masuoka was working for Toshiba. He ended up quitting Toshiba shortly after to become a professor at Tohoku University because he was displeased with the company not rewarding him for his work. He sued Toshiba, demanding compensation for his work, which settled in 2006 with a one-time payment of ¥87m, equivalent to $758,000. This still seems light given how impactful flash memory has been on the industry.
While we are on the topic of flash memory, we might as well cover the difference between NOR and NAND flash. We know by now from Masuoka that flash stores information in memory cells made up of floating gate transistors. The names of the technologies are tied directly to the way the memory cells are organized.
In NOR flash, individual memory cells are connected in parallel allowing random access. This architecture enables the short read times required for the random access of microprocessor instructions. NOR Flash is ideal for lower-density applications that are mostly read-only. This is why most CPUs load their firmware, typically, from NOR flash. Masuoka and colleagues presented the invention of NOR flash in 1984 and NAND flash in 198727.
In contrast, NAND Flash designers gave up the ability for random access in a tradeoff to gain a smaller memory cell size. This also has the benefits of smaller chip size and lower cost-per-bit. NAND flash's architecture consists of an array of eight memory transistors connected in a series. This leads to high storage density, smaller memory cell size, and faster write and erase since it can program blocks of data at a time. This comes at the cost of having to overwrite data when it is not sequentially written and data already exists in a block28.
Let's jump ahead to 1991 when a prototype solid-state disk (SSD) module was made for evaluation by IBM from SanDisk, at the time known as SunDisk29. This design combined a flash storage array, non-volatile memory chips, with an intelligent controller to automatically detect and correct defective cells. The disk was 20 megabytes in a 2 ½ inch form factor and sold for around $1,00030. This wound up being used by IBM in the ThinkPad pen computer31.
How an SSD looks like
One of my personal favorite storage mediums from my childhood was Zip Disks. In 1994, Iomega released the Zip Disk, a 100-megabyte cartridge in a 3 ½ inch form factor, roughly a bit thicker than a standard 3 ½ inch disk. Later versions of the disks could store up to 2 gigabytes. These disks had the convenience of being as small as a floppy disk but with the ability to hold a larger amount of data, which made them compelling. Our data byte could be written onto a Zip disk at 1.4 megabytes per second. At the time, a 1.44 megabyte 3 ½ inch floppy would write at about 16 kilobytes per second. In a Zip drive, heads are non-contact read/write and fly above the surface, which is similar to a hard drive but unlike other floppies. Due to reliability problems and the affordability of CDs, Zip disks eventually became obsolete.
Also in 1994, SanDisk introduced CompactFlash, which was widely adopted into consumer devices like digital and video cameras. Like CD-ROMs, CompactFlash speed is based on "x"-ratings, such as 8x, 20x, 133x, etc. The maximum transfer rate is calculated based on the original audio CD transfer rate of 150 kilobytes per second. This winds up looking like R = K ⨉ 150 kB/s, where R is the transfer rate and K is the speed rating. So for 133x CompactFlash, our data byte would be written at 133 ⨉ 150 kB/s or around 19,950 kB/s or 19.95 MB/s. The CompactFlash Association was founded in 1995 to create an industry standard for flash-based memory cards32.
A few years later in 1997, the compact disc rewritable (CD-RW) was introduced. This optical disc was used for data storage, as well as backing up and transferring files to various devices. CD-RWs can only be rewritten about 1,000 times, which, at the time, was not a limiting factor since users rarely overwrote data that often on one disc.
CD-RWs are based on phase-change technology. During a phase change of a given medium, certain properties of the medium change. In the case of CD-RWs, phase shifts in a special compound, composed of silver, tellurium, and indium, cause "reflecting lands" and "non-reflecting bumps", each representing a 0 or 1. When the compound is in a crystalline state, it is translucent, which indicates a 1. When the compound is melted into an amorphous state, it becomes opaque and non-reflective, which indicates a 033. We could write our data byte 01001010 as "non-reflecting bumps" and "reflecting lands" this way.
DVDs eventually overtook much of the market share from CD-RWs.
A CD-RW from the Verbatim company
Let's fast forward to 1999 when IBM introduced the smallest hard drives in the world at the time: the IBM microdrive in 170 MB and 340 MB capacities. These were small hard disks, 1 inch in size, designed to fit into CompactFlash Type II slots. The intent was to create a device to be used like CompactFlash but with more storage capacity. However, these were soon replaced by USB flash drives, covered next, and larger CompactFlash cards once they become available. Like other hard drives, microdrives were mechanical and contained small, spinning disk platters.
A year later in 2000, USB flash drives were introduced. These drives consisted of flash memory encased in a small form factor with a USB interface. Depending on the version of the USB interface used the speed varies. USB 1.1 is limited to 1.5 megabits per second, whereas USB 2.0 can handle 35 megabits per second, and USB 3.0 can handle 625 megabits per second34. The first USB 3.1 type-C drives were announced in March 2015 and had read/write speeds of 530 megabits per second35. Unlike floppy and optical disks, USB devices are harder to scratch but still deliver the same use cases of data storage and transferring and backing up files. Because of this, drives for floppy and optical disks have since faded out of existence in favor of USB ports.
In 2005, hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturers started shipping products using a perpendicular magnetic recording, or PMR. Quite interestingly, this happened at the same time the iPod Nano announced using flash as opposed to the 1 inch hard drives in the iPod Mini, causing a bit of an industry hoohaw36.
A typical hard drive contains one or more rigid disks coated with a magnetically sensitive film consisting of tiny magnetic grains. Data is recorded when a magnetic write-head flies just above the spinning disk, much like a record player and a record except a record needle is in physical contact with the record. As the platters spin, the air in contact with them creates a slight breeze. Just like air on an airplane wing generates lift, the air generates lift on the head's airfoil37. The write-head rapidly flips the magnetization of one magnetic region of grains so that its magnetic pole points up or down, to denote a 1 or a 0.
The predecessor to PMR was longitudinal magnetic recording or LMR. PMR can deliver more than three times the storage density of LMR. The key difference of PMR versus LMR is that the grain structure and the magnetic orientation of the stored data of PMR media is columnar instead of longitudinal. PMR has better thermal stability and improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) due to better grain separation and uniformity. It also benefits from better writability due to stronger head fields and better magnetic alignment of the media. Like LMR, PMR's fundamental limitations are based on the thermal stability of magnetically written bits of data and the need to have sufficient SNR to read back written information.
Let's jump ahead to 2007 when the first 1 TB hard disk drive from Hitachi Global Storage Technologies was announced. The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 used five 3.5 inches 200 gigabytes platters and rotated at 7,200 RPM. This is in stark contrast to the world's first HDD, the IBM RAMAC 350, which had a storage capacity that was approximately 3.75 megabytes. Oh how far we have come in 51 years! But wait, there's more.
The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000
In 2009, technical work was beginning on non-volatile memory express or NVMe38. Non-volatile memory (NVM) is a type of memory that has persistence, in contrast to volatile memory which needs constant power to retain data. NVMe filled a need for a scalable host controller interface for peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) based solid-state drives39, hence the name NVMe. Over 90 companies were a part of the working group to develop the design. This was all based on prior work to define the non-volatile memory host controller interface specification (NVMHCIS). Opening up a modern server would likely result in finding some NVMe drives. The best NVMe drives today can do about 3,500 megabytes per second read and 3,300 megabytes per second write40. For the data byte we started with, the character j, that is extremely fast compared to a couple of minutes to hand weave rope memory for the Apollo Guidance Computer.
Today and the future
Storage class memory (SCM)
Now that we have traveled through time a bit (ha!), let's take a look at the state of the art for storage-class memory (SCM) today. SCM, like NVM, is persistent, but SCM goes further by also providing performance better than or comparable to primary memory as well as byte addressability41. SCM aims to address some of the problems faced by caches today such as the low density of static random access memory (SRAM). With dynamic random access memory (DRAM)42, we can get better density, but this comes at a cost of slower access times. DRAM also suffers from requiring constant power to refresh memory. Let's break this down a bit. Power is required since the electric charge on the capacitors leaks off little by little, meaning without intervention, the data on the chip would soon be lost. To prevent this leakage, DRAM requires an external memory refresh circuit which periodically rewrites the data in the capacitors, restoring them to their original charge.
To solve the problems with density and power leakage, there are a few SCM technologies developing: phase-change memory (PCM), spin-transfer torque random access memory (STT-RAM), and resistive random access memory (ReRAM). One thing that is nice about all these technologies is their ability to function as multi-level cells, or MLCs. This means they can store more than one bit of information, compared to single-level cells (SLCs) which can store only one bit per memory cell, or element. Typically, a memory cell consists of one metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). MLCs reduce the number of MOSFETs required to store the same amount of data as SLCs, making them more dense or smaller to deliver the same amount of storage as technologies using SLCs. Let's go over how each of these SCM technologies works.
Phase change memory (PCM)
Earlier we went over how phase change works for CD-RWs. PCM is similar. Its phase change material is typically Ge-Sb-Te, also known as GST, which can exist in two different states: amorphous and crystalline. The amorphous state has a higher resistance, denoting a 0, than the crystalline state denoting a 1. By assigning data values to intermediate resistances, PCM can be used to store multiple states as an MLC.
Schematic cross section of a phase-change memory celll
Spin-transfer torque random access memory (STT-RAM)
STT-RAM consists of two ferromagnetic, permanent magnetic, layers separated by a dielectric, meaning an insulator that can transmit electric force without conduction. It stores bits of data based on differences in magnetic directions. One magnetic layer, called the reference layer, has a fixed magnetic direction while the other magnetic layer, called the free layer, has a magnetic direction that is controlled by passing current. For a 1, the magnetization direction of the two layers is aligned. For a 0, the two layers have opposing magnetic directions.
Resistive random access memory (ReRAM)
A ReRAM cell consists of two metal electrodes separated by a metal oxide layer. We can think of this as slightly similar to Masuoka's original flash memory design, where electrons would tunnel through the oxide layer and get stuck in the floating gate or vice-versa. However, with ReRAM, the state of the cell is determined based on the concentration of the oxygen vacancy in the metal oxide layer.
While these technologies are promising, they still have downsides. PCM and STT-RAM have high write latencies. PCMs latencies are ten times that of DRAM, while STT-RAM has ten times the latencies of SRAM. PCM and ReRAM have a limit on write endurance before a hard error occurs, meaning a memory element gets stuck at a particular value44.
In August 2015, Intel announced Optane, their product build on 3DXPoint, pronounced 3D cross-point45. Optane claims performance 1,000 faster than NAND SSDs with 1,000 times the performance while being four to five times the price of flash memory. Optane is proof that storage class memory is not just experimental. It will be interesting to watch how these technologies evolve.
Hard disk drives (HDDs)
Helium hard disk drive (HHDD)
A helium drive is a high capacity hard disk drive (HDD) that is helium-filled and hermetically sealed during manufacturing. Like other hard disks, as we covered earlier, it looks much like a record player with a magnetic-coated platter rotating. Typical hard disk drives would just have air inside the cavity, however, that air is causing an amount of drag on the spin of the platters.
Helium balloons float so we know helium is lighter than air. Helium is, in fact, 1/7th the density of air, therefore reducing the amount of drag on the spin of the platters, causing a reduction in the amount of energy required for the disks to spin. However, this was actually a secondary feature, the primary feature of helium was to allow for packing 7 platters in the same form factor that would typically only hold 5. When trying to attempt this with air-filled drives, it would cause turbulence. If we remember back to our airplane wing analogy from earlier this ties in perfectly. Since helium reduces drag, this eliminates the turbulence.
What we also know about balloons is that after a few days, helium-filled balloons start to sink because helium is escaping the balloons. The same could be said for these drives. It took years before manufacturers had created a container that prevented the helium from escaping the form factor for the life of the drive. Backblaze experimented and found that while helium hard drives had a lower annualized error rate of 1.03%, while standard hard drives resulted in 1.06%. Of course, that is so small a difference it is hard to conclude much from it46.
A helium-filled form factor can have a hard disk drive encapsulated that uses PMR, which we went over above, or could contain a microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR) or heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) drive. You can pair any magnetic storage technology with helium instead of air. In 2014, HGST combined two cutting edge technologies into their 10TB helium hard disk that used host-managed shingled magnetic recording, or SMR. Let's go over a bit about SMR then we can cover MAMR and HAMR.
How an HDD looks like
Shingled magnetic recording (SMR)
We went over perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) earlier which was SMR's predecessor. In contrast to PMR, SMR writes new tracks that overlap part of the previously written magnetic track, which in turn makes the previous track narrower, allowing for higher track density. The technology's namesake stems from the fact that the overlapping tracks are much like that of roof shingles.
SMR results in a much more complex writing process since writing to one track winds up overwriting an adjacent track. This doesn't come into play when a disk platter is empty and data is sequential. But once you are writing to a series of tracks that already contain data, this process is destructive to existing adjacent data. If an adjacent track contains valid data it must be rewritten. This is quite similar to NAND flash as we covered earlier.
Device-managed SMR devices hide this complexity by having the device firmware manage it resulting in an interface like any other hard disk you might encounter. On the other hand, host-managed SMR devices rely on the operating system to know how to handle the complexity of the drive.
Seagate started shipping SMR drives in 2013 claiming a 25% greater density than PMR47.
Microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR)
MAMR is an energy-assisted magnetic storage technology, like HAMR which we will cover next, that uses 20-40GHz frequencies to bombard the disk platter with a circular microwave field, lowering its coercivity, meaning the platter has a lower resistance of its magnetic material to changes in magnetization. We learned above that changes in the magnetization of a region of the platter are used to denote a 0 or a 1 so this allows the data to be written much more densely on the disk since it has a lower resistance to changes in magnetization. The core of this new technology is the spin torque oscillator used to generate the microwave field without sacrificing reliability.
Western Digital, also known as WD, unveiled this technology in 201748. Toshiba followed shortly after in 201849. While WD and Toshiba are busy pursuing MAMR, Seagate is betting on HAMR.
Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR)
HAMR is an energy-assisted magnetic storage technology for greatly increasing the amount of data that can be stored on a magnetic device, such as a hard disk drive, by using heat delivered by a laser to help write data onto the surface of a hard disk platter. The heat causes the data bits to be much closer together on the disk platter, which allows greater data density and capacity.
This technology is quite difficult to achieve. A 200mW laser heats a teeny area of the region to 750 °F (400 °C) quickly before writing the data, while also not interfering with or corrupting the rest of the data on the disk50. The process of heating, writing the data, and cooling must be completed in less than a nanosecond. These challenges required the development of nano-scale surface plasmons, also known as a surface guided laser, instead of direct laser-based heating, as well as new types of glass platters and heat-control coatings to tolerate rapid spot-heating without damaging the recording head or any nearby data, and various other technical challenges that needed to be overcome51.
Seagate first demonstrated this technology, despite many skeptics, in 201352. They started shipping the first drives in 201853.
Heat-assisted magnetic recording
End of tape, rewind
We started this article in 1951 and are concluding after looking at the future of storage technology. Storage has changed a lot over time, from paper tape, to metal tape, magnetic tape, rope memory, spinning disks, optical disks, flash, and others. Progress has led to faster, smaller, and more performant devices for storing data.
If we compare NVMe to the 1951 UNISERVO metal tape, NVMe can read 486,111% more digits per second. If we compare NVMe to my childhood favorite in 1994, Zip disks, NVMe can read 213,623% more digits per second.
One thing that remains true is the storing of 0s and 1s. The means by which we do that vary greatly. I hope the next time you burn a CD-RW with a mix of songs for a friend or store home videos in an Optical Disc Archive54, you think about how the non-reflective bumps translate to a 0 and the reflective lands of the disk translate to a 1. Or if you are creating a mixtape on a cassette, remember that those are very closely related to the Datasette used in the Commodore PET. Lastly, remember to be kind and rewind55.
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Schlaglicht Number 15/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, August 1 – August 15, 2015
"Schlaglicht Israel" offers an insight into internal Israeli debates and reflects selected, political events that affect daily life in Israel. It appears every two weeks and summarizes articles that appeared in the Israeli daily press. ⇒Download the latest "Schlaglicht Israel" … [Read more...] about Schlaglicht Number 15/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, August 1 – August 15, 2015
Schlaglicht Number 14/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, July 16 – July 31, 2015
"Schlaglicht Israel" offers an insight into internal Israeli debates and reflects selected, political events that affect daily life in Israel. It appears every two weeks and summarizes articles that appeared in the Israeli daily press. ⇒Download the latest "Schlaglicht Israel" … [Read more...] about Schlaglicht Number 14/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, July 16 – July 31, 2015
Schlaglicht Number 13/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, July 1 – July 15, 2015
"Schlaglicht Israel" offers an insight into internal Israeli debates and reflects selected, political events that affect daily life in Israel. It appears every two weeks and summarizes articles that appeared in the Israeli daily press. ⇒Download the latest "Schlaglicht Israel" Publication! The … [Read more...] about Schlaglicht Number 13/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, July 1 – July 15, 2015
Schlaglicht Number 12/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, June 16 – June 30, 2015
Schlaglicht Israel offers an insight into internal Israeli debates and reflects selected, political events that affect daily life in Israel. It appears every two weeks and summarizes articles that appeared in the Israeli daily press. ⇒Download the latest "Schlaglicht Israel" Publication! Blood … [Read more...] about Schlaglicht Number 12/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, June 16 – June 30, 2015
Schlaglicht Number 11/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, May 25 – June 15, 2015
Schlaglicht Israel offers an insight into internal Israeli debates and reflects selected, political events that affect daily life in Israel. It appears every two weeks and summarizes articles that appeared in the Israeli daily press. Download the"Schlaglicht Israel" Publication! 1. Calls for … [Read more...] about Schlaglicht Number 11/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, May 25 – June 15, 2015
Schlaglicht Number 10/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, May 1 – 24, 2015
Schlaglicht Israel offers an insight into internal Israeli debates and reflects selected, political events that affect daily life in Israel. It appears every two weeks and summarizes articles that appeared in the Israeli daily press. Download the "Schlaglicht Israel" … [Read more...] about Schlaglicht Number 10/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, May 1 – 24, 2015
Schlaglicht Number 09/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, April 15 – 30, 2015
Schlaglicht Israel offers an insight into internal Israeli debates and reflects selected, political events that affect daily life in Israel. It appears every two weeks and summarizes articles that appeared in the Israeli daily press. Download the "Schlaglicht Israel" Publication! Northern … [Read more...] about Schlaglicht Number 09/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, April 15 – 30, 2015
Schlaglicht Number 08/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, April 1 – 15, 2015.
"Schlaglicht Israel" offers an insight into internal Israeli debates and reflects selected, political events, that affect daily life in Israel. It appears every two weeks and summarizes articles that appeared in the Israeli daily press. Download the "Schlaglicht Israel" Publication! 1. The … [Read more...] about Schlaglicht Number 08/15, Latest News from the Israeli Press, April 1 – 15, 2015.


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About Trent
Taking Care Of Our Canyons
Salt Lake County is blessed to have a number of beautiful canyons in our mountain landscape. These canyons are enjoyed by millions of residents and tourists alike. We must take care of them.
Unfortunately, our canyons are at extreme risk for catastrophic wildfires, avalanches, and mudslides. To make matters worse, there is only one way out of the canyons and the roads are often filled with congestion and not enough space for cars to get out quickly.
The official plan to take care of these issues has not been updated in decades.
People live there. They have their homes there. It cannot be understated how imperative it is that we mitigate and solve these issues as soon as possible. It will take leadership from the county mayor to work closely with the state to acquire the funding and find the solutions that will make our canyons safe and keep the pristine for decades to come.
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Psychology Community
Computers Excel Over Humans in Reading Expressions...
Computers Excel Over Humans in Reading Expressions of Pain
michael_oberlin
This piece was originally published on April 28, 2014
How well can computers interact with humans? Certainly computers play a mean game of chess, which requires strategy and logic, and "Jeopardy!," in which they must process language to understand the clues read by Alex Trebek (and buzz in with the correct question).
But in recent years, scientists have striven for an even more complex goal: programming computers to read human facial expressions.
The practical applications could be profound. Computers could supplement or even replace lie detectors. They could be installed at border crossings and airport security checks. They could serve as diagnostic aids for doctors.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have written software that not only detected whether a person's face revealed genuine or faked pain, but did so far more accurately than human observers.
While other scientists have already refined a computer's ability to identify nuances of smiles and grimaces, this may be the first time a computer has triumphed over humans at reading their own species.
"A particular success like this has been elusive," said Matthew A. Turk, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "It's one of several recent examples of how the field is now producing useful technologies rather than research that only stays in the lab. We're affecting the real world."
People generally excel at using nonverbal cues, including facial expressions, to deceive others (hence the poker face). They are good at mimicking pain, instinctively knowing how to contort their features to convey physical discomfort.
And other people, studies show, typically do poorly at detecting those deceptions.
In a new study, in Current Biology, by researchers at San Diego, the University of Toronto and the State University of New York at Buffalo, humans and a computer were shown videos of people in real pain or pretending. The computer differentiated suffering from faking with greater accuracy by tracking subtle muscle movement patterns in the subjects' faces.
"We have a fair amount of evidence to show that humans are paying attention to the wrong cues," said Marian S. Bartlett, a research professor at the Institute for Neural Computation at San Diego and the lead author of the study.
For the study, researchers used a standard protocol to produce pain, with individuals plunging an arm in ice water for a minute (the pain is immediate and genuine but neither harmful nor protracted). Researchers also asked the subjects to dip an arm in warm water for a moment and to fake an expression of pain.
Observers watched one-minute silent videos of those faces, trying to identify who was in pain and who was pretending. Only about half the answers were correct, a rate comparable to guessing.
Then researchers provided an hour of training to a new group of observers. They were shown videos, asked to guess who was really in pain, and told immediately whom they had identified correctly. Then the observers were shown more videos and again asked to judge. But the training made little difference: The rate of accuracy scarcely improved, to 55 percent.
Then a computer took on the challenge. Using a program that the San Diego researchers have named CERT, for computer expression recognition toolbox, it measured the presence, absence and frequency of 20 facial muscle movements in each of the 1,800 frames of one-minute videos. The computer assessed the same 50 videos that had been shown to the original, untrained human observers.
The computer learned to identify cues that were so small and swift that they eluded the human eye. Although the same muscles were often engaged by fakers and those in real pain, the computer could detect speed, smoothness and duration of the muscle contractions that pointed toward or away from deception. When the person was experiencing real pain, for instance, the length of time the mouth was open varied; when the person faked pain, the time the mouth opened was regular and consistent. Other combinations of muscle movements were the furrowing between eyebrows, the tightening of the orbital muscles around the eyes, and the deepening of the furrows on either side of the nose.
The computer's accuracy: about 85 percent.
Jeffrey Cohn, a University of Pittsburgh professor of psychology who also conducts research on computers and facial expressions, said the CERT study addressed "an important problem, medically and socially," referring to the difficulty of assessing patients who claim to be in pain. But he noted that the study's observers were university students, not pain specialists.
Dr. Bartlett said she didn't mean to imply that doctors or nurses do not perceive pain accurately. But "we shouldn't assume human perception is better than it is," she said. "There are signals in nonverbal behavior that our perceptual system may not detect or we don't attend to them."
Dr. Turk said that among the study's limitations were that all the faces had the same frontal view and lighting. "No one is wearing sunglasses or hasn't shaved for five days," he said.
Dr. Bartlett and Dr. Cohn are working on applying facial expression technology to health care. Dr. Bartlett is working with a San Diego hospital to refine a program that will detect pain intensity in children.
"Kids don't realize they can ask for pain medication, and the younger ones can't communicate," she said. A child could sit in front of a computer camera, she said, referring to a current project, and "the computer could sample the child's facial expression and get estimates of pain. The prognosis is better for the patient if the pain is managed well and early."
Dr. Cohn noted that his colleagues have been working with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's psychiatry department, focusing on severe depression. One project is for a computer to identify changing patterns in vocal sounds and facial expressionsthroughout a patient's therapy as an objective aid to the therapist.
"We have found that depression in the facial muscles serves the function of keeping others away, of signaling, 'Leave me alone,' " Dr. Cohn said. The tight-lipped smiles of the severely depressed, he said, were tinged with contempt or disgust, keeping others at bay.
"As they become less depressed, their faces show more sadness," he said. Those expressions reveal that the patient is implicitly asking for solace and help, he added. That is one way the computer can signal to the therapist that the patient is getting better.
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Dr. Michael Oberlin earned a Ph.D in Behavioral Psychology from Western Michigan University. He has taught undergraduate and graduate psychology courses for several colleges and universities, including Northwestern Michigan College, University of Minnesota, and the University of St. Thomas. In addition to teaching courses via traditional lectures he has taken an active role in the development of online courses. He has been a content provider and consultant for Worth/Macmillan's online Psychology components for over fifteen years. This work has included working with the award winning group developing materials for Myers Introduction to Psychology and also the TLC Faculty Lounge. In addition to his teaching, he worked as a Human Factors Consultant for Honeywell. He conducted requirements analysis, conceptual design and prototyping of next generation process control systems. Several advanced technologies were evaluated during prototype development, including speech recognition and eye-controlled input. Michael has also worked as a Training and Human Factors Specialist for the Florida Naval Training Systems Center. He was responsible for the design development and support of naval simulators and trainers. This prestigious organization applied state of the art techniques in developing the huge variety of simulators and embedded trainers required to meet the Navy's immense training needs. When he's not teaching or writing, he and his wife are traveling the world, having been to over 100 countries.
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Q: Android : Gradle build while running the app taking too long on Ubuntu 16.04 I have recently updated ubuntu from 14.04 to 16.04.
I have installed the latest version of android studio, 2.1.3. When I build the first app that is "Hello world" app, it is taking around 4 minutes to build.
I have enabled the offline work option in gradle settings and also the parallel execution in compiler settings.
studio64.vmoptions
-Xms256m
-Xmx1280m
-XX:MaxPermSize=350m
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=240m
-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
-XX:SoftRefLRUPolicyMSPerMB=50
-da
-Djna.nosys=true
-Djna.boot.library.path=

-Djna.debug_load=true
-Djna.debug_load.jna=true
-Dsun.io.useCanonCaches=false
-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true
-XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError
-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=lcd

I am on a 64-bit machine with 4GB RAM and 250GB HDD.

A: Gradle have recently published a great guide called Improving the performance of Gradle builds. The chapter that you'll find useful is about profiling. Run the build, notice any performance bottlenecks and act accordingly. It's hard to tell what exactly is slowing down your build.

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Vancouver Island singer/songwriter Beverley McKeen will launch her second CD, Poetic Wax, at 8 pm on Saturday, April 18, 2009, at the Duncan Garage Showroom, 330 Duncan Street, Duncan. The Duncan Garage is an everyone welcome venue with incredible acoustics and very comfortable soft seating for around 85 people. It ranked among the top 20 venues in the CBC's recent contest for live entertainment spots in Canada. With so many great places to chose from, Vancouver Islanders can be proud that one of their own achieved this high ranking.
Poetic Wax was produced and mixed on Vancouver Island and mastered at Metalworks, Toronto. The sounds of many players are heard on this original 11-song album and an awesome band has been lined up for the launch. Joining Beverley will be Martyn Jones (Refugee, Michael Fury) on bass and guitars, Moritz Behm on violin and mandolin, and Thomas Kinzel on keyboard. Moritz just finished years of touring with Will Millar of the Irish Rovers and a submission from Thomas was in the top 10 for the new Hockey Night in Canada theme. Beverley herself has been playing music since she was a child, first the piano and then the guitar, which she picked up at age 17. She have been a songwriter for over 30 years and is also a published poet in the American Poetry Anthology of 1989. Recently she has performed with Art Napoleon.
McKeen sings about local issues as well as the bigger picture, and three songs on Poetic Wax could be considered social issue themed. One is about water and keeping it safe, clean, and free. David Suzuki really liked the song and sent Beverley a letter with ideas on how to use it. Another is about women elsewhere in the world, who are not nearly as free as they are in Canada. The third social justice song deals with the dangers of the mining industry. Says Beverley, "I was considering Joseph Mairs and Ginger Goodwin in the early stages of the songwriting process on that one. There's a lot of Vancouver Island history in it." The rest of the album is really cool, with varied songs and styles. Children of all ages just love her song about a cat that gets stuck up a tree for six days. Beverley McKeen often plays in Nanaimo, so watch for her.


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Big Little Lies Book Club
admin June 4, 2019 June 4, 2019 Comments Off on Big Little Lies Book Club
Since the Big Little Lies mini-series on HBO ended last week, we have been in major withdrawal! If you're in the same boat, check out this list of books below that we know you'll love if you're a fan of Big Little Lies.These books each have scintillating intrigue, memorable characters, and twisty plots.
Welcome to Book Club Chat! I'm Heather Caliendo and I absolutely love to read! I hope you enjoy my previews, reviews, and book club questions. If you would like to contact or request a review of a specific book (with book club questions), email [email protected]
His book talks about how Mane released mixtapes from. Josh Bratman lobbied her to bring it to the screen. Jean Marc Vallée.
Book Discussion Questions: Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. Posted November 23, 2016 by Jenny, Readers' Advisor. Big Little Lies book cover Title: Big Little.
Liane Moriarty's latest bestseller, Big Little Lies, is set in an elementary school. As the novel opens, we witness the loosening of the aging Peter's grasp: he will.
Personal Details About William Shakespeare We made it about an hour into the conversation before I finally asked Matthew Jockers if he could figure out who wrote William Shakespeare's plays. But I don't have much
She earned an Oscar nod for "Wild"; Matthew McConaughey made the circuit in "Dallas Buyers' Club." Renowned showrunner. You can't just shoot a book." At first glance, "Big Little Lies" seems like a.
Jan 12, 2015. When I launched the Peanut Blossom Book Club for Recovering Readers, I thought maybe I'd get a handful of friends to join me in an online.
Apr 19, 2017. Between the book and the show, Big Little Lies had even more hidden. However, Madeline does start a Book Club (unfairly nicknamed as.
Feb 8, 2019. This post discusses the plot of Big Little Lies. a miniseries, one that was based on a novel that doesn't have a sequel and starred some of the.
Welcome to a special edition of Burg Book Club — just think of it as a crossover between the book. Shailene Woodley and Reese Witherspoon in "Big Little Lies," HBO's adaptation of Liane.
Big Little Lies book. Read 40082 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads:Mad.
Also Read: 'Big Little Lies' Finale: Who Died, Who's the Killer? (SPOILERS) This ambiguous ending leaves the show open for a possible second season, but as this was only picked up as a limited series,
Reese's Book Club x Hello Sunshine Good choice if: You're a modern woman who bends and snaps in order to pick up a book. Book cred: Turned "Big Little Lies" into an HBO series; wrote the upcoming.
Let there be no mistake: Big Little Lies is a great book, and the HBO show was a fantastic adaptation that deserves all the attention and buzz. These five missteps just show that even when you put Reese Witherspoon, David E. Kelley, and all the other amazing actors and writers in.
Kelley, but Big Little Lies season 2 is getting a new director with American Honey helmer Andrea Arnold stepping in to direct all seven episodes. Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club) helmed the first.
May 11, 2019 · Big Little Lies, a miniseries based on a book of the same name, follows a group of close-knit friends in Monterey Bay, California as secrets unravel.
Mar 26, 2019. 'Big Little Lies' is perfect book club choice: it's fun, fast, and gives you a lot to discuss. Use these questions to keep the conversation going.
God Of Wisdom Greek Mythology That's Greek Mythology. Apollo was also hella petty towards women. of the guys" and wonders why other women don't like her. Despite being the goddess of wisdom and a champion
Mar 14, 2017 · The murder is still a mystery but the motivations between characters continue to build in the latest installment of Big Little Lies.Once again, the children's teacher notices some tension between Ziggy and Amabella, encouraging Jane to take her son to a child psychologist.
Apr 04, 2017 · Celeste, Jane, and Madeline in "Big Little Lies." HBO. This post includes spoilers for the HBO show "Big Little Lies." HBO's "Big Little Lies" ended with a series of twists that tied the entire show together. And while it all works out neatly in the show, there are some differences from the Liane Moriarty book it adapts.
But 20 years after Oprah launched her wildly successful book club, a new generation of celebrities is using. Other Witherspoon recommendations, including Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty and.
Yet while the sudden plethora of great books available is certainly fantastic, it also means that it's easy for many of them to accidentally slip through the cracks. Such might've been the case for.
Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive. Amazon website This site and post contains affiliate links and if you click on a link and purchase a product from that website I will earn a small fee (which will go.
Whether it's hours spent waiting in an airport terminal due to an unexpected (but really, expected) delay or hours under the.
Signing huge movie stars to eight or 10-episode stories has now become the norm, and HBO launched yet another high-profile limited series earlier this year with Big Little Lies. While the.
The issue is that Big Little Lies was based on Lianne Moriarty's book, and there is no existing source material. perfect lives unravel to the point of murder. Dallas Buyers Club Oscar nominee.
The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta Teaching human sexuality from a perspective that information and pleasure are top priorities, divorced mom Ruth.
The Paperback of the Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty at Barnes & Noble. I don' t belong to a book club but I would guess it would be a good choice.
Both the HBO series and the book, 'Big Little Lies,' include many many mysteries, but at the forefront it's who killed who at the fundraiser/parents party. So, we're here to tell you what went.
Jun 06, 2016 · June's book for the Facebook book club is Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. What It's About. Description from Goodreads:. Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads:. Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She's funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one.
They've joined a club that you've already been a part of. READ MORE: 'Big Little Lies': Shailene Woodley on American Repression, Violence and Why 'Every Parent Is Afraid of Their Kid' The Delicious.
You can't go wrong with any of Reese Witherspoon's book club picks. Whether she's on-screen in Big Little Lies, posting #shelfies on Instagram, or producing.
Nov 12, 2018. We just finished reading Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty for this month's Mystery Lovers Book Club. What a good book! Who knew that.
If you're not ready for the complete set, you can begin with a set of wine glasses and some small bowls for snacking, which.
In order to plan a proper vacation à la Big Little Lies, you must first find a fire pit—and ideally. as inky reds are lobbed into the wee hours of the night. Even the Spanish Bay Club is a place to.
Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads: Madeline is a force to be. Great read and it will make a great book club selection! Lots to discuss!
As we previously reported, HBO is adapting the 2014 book Big Little Lies into a miniseries set to star Reese Witherspoon. Now, according to Deadline, HBO has announced that Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas.
Ng described celebrity book clubs as "miracle workers" and noted several occasions. but which titles will become cultural revolutions on screen. Yes, it's Big Little Lies again. Celeste Ng will.
Our Reading Guide for Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty includes Book Club Discussion Questions, Book Reviews, Plot Summary-Synopsis and Author Bio.
Foxes In Celtic Mythology 2200BC-2000BC -3000BC: A problem of global climatic change: Regarding an SBS documentary screened in Australia on Ancient Apocalypse on 17 March 2002, on the Egypt of 5000 years ago. The
Whether you're reading current bestsellers like "Big Little Lies", "Black Book", These awesome book club food ideas will also work for a casual dinner party.
Seniors Program Chicago – Book Club: Big Little Lies. Book Club – Big Little Lies Tuesday, 4/23 11 a.m. – noon. New to town, Jane–single mother of kindergartener Ziggy–becomes friends with Celeste and Madeline, who each have children in Ziggy's class.
The Big Little Book Club. The Big Little Book Club began in January of 1982. In that year, six issues of The Big Little Times, the club's bimonthly newsletter, were published by John Stallknecht.All issues from 1983 through December 2013 were published by Larry Lowery, the President of the BLB Club and Editor of The Big Little Times newsletter.When Larry took over the Club in 1983, he.
A few thoughts on the finale to Big Little Lies coming up just as soon as I dress up like Audrey Hepburn in the jazz club scene from Funny Face… Early. I gather is faithful to Liane Moriarty's book.
Apr 03, 2017 · Avoiding spoilers for a TV show becomes a whole different process when a book already exists, and if you managed to make it to last night's Big Little Lies finale without spoiling yourself on.
READERS GUIDE. Questions and Topics for Discussion. INTRODUCTION Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She's funny and biting, passionate, she.
When HBO revealed they were definitely moving ahead with Big Little Lies season 2, even the most excited of Monterey. Arnold took over from previously very grumpy Dallas Buyers Club auteur.
Big Little Lies unravels the events leading up to a death at Pirriwee Primary School's. The novel presents the reader with many different types of families, from.
Big Little Lies fans, there may be hope yet. and based on the 2014 novel by Liane Moriarty. But Lies was always intended to be a one-off and covered the entirety of Moriarty's book in its.
With season two of Big Little Lies hitting screens in spring. which includes 16 species of whale. Book a boat trip and look out for humpbacks, killers or a mighty blue, £37 for three hours.
Not My Business The Poem It is a straightforward statement of resilience in the face of death, or, as Henley puts it, "the Horror of the shade": "I thank whatever gods may be / For
Topics For M Phil Thesis In English Literature
Gender Roles In Shakespeare Time


all I care about is My own experience.
I will take orders from nobody but Myself.
I will make all of My own decisions.
I want My life to be plentiful, beautiful, long.
I want more of things that I like.
I like Myself. I like other people too.
I want to be happy. I want other people to be happy with me.
I can make Myself happier by giving myself what I need, what I want.
I can help other people to be happier by being kind to them.
I will never sacrifice Myself for another.
by My own standard, and nobody else's!


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text:
Why Caleb Porter isn't the man for the USMNT
By Nicholas MendolaNov 17, 2017, 11:09 AM EST
Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images
The Portland Timbers are a cherry club in Major League Soccer.
Owner Merritt Paulson is as dedicated as any in the game and the supporters make 21,000-seat Providence Park one of the most intoxicating venues in the league.
So it's a safe bet, much like the United States men's national team, that the Timbers will be in fine shape when they find the replacement for their current departed combustible coach.
[ PST SURVEY: Who should be next USMNT coach? ]
In Portland's case, it's Caleb Porter. The former University of Akron mastermind left the club on Friday, fueling speculation that he must be in talks to be the next USMNT coach.
Please, no.
Porter's name has been raised for some time as a successor to Jurgen Klinsmann or Bruce Arena and, at the risk of becoming a Cold Takes Exposed case, there are myriad reasons to dismiss him from consideration for the gig (which isn't to say he shouldn't be a risk-reward hire for another MLS side).
Porter has an MLS Cup Final win as Portland boss, though it should be noted it came in a season the Timbers had to rally to make the playoffs. He's led the Timbers to two No. 1 seeds in the West, and won a national championship at Akron.
Those are all incredibly positive, but the reasons he's a risk for a program in disarray are many.
His previous experience with the U.S., leading the Olympic qualifying team, saw a fairly-loaded U-23 fail to escape the group stage of qualifying.
For all their successes, the Timbers twice missed the MLS Cup Playoffs during his five seasons in charge.
Despite it's low profile prior to its national championship, Akron, was very good before he arrived under Ken Lolla, now with Louisville, and has been quite good since he left under Jared Embick.
This isn't to say the 42-year-old Porter is not a good coach. That would be foolish, and it would be interesting to see how he'd fare leading an overseas club or other national team.
But his record simply isn't strong enough to take the reins of the USMNT. As silly as this sounds, perhaps he could've been a name to consider should the Yanks have squeaked into the World Cup with Arena. But they didn't, and risk is not the name of the game right now.
Let's start with his Portland tenure.
Timbers under Porter
2013* – 1st place, West; 3rd overall; 6 clear of 6th
2014 – 6th place, West; 11th overall;
2015* – 3rd place, West; 5th overall; 6 clear of 7th, MLS Cup champions
2016 – 7th place, West; 12th overall
2017* – 1st place, West; 6th overall; 7 pts clear of 7th
The Timbers may still be alive this season had Diego Chara not been injured in this season's playoffs, and that should be noted. It should also be mentioned that Portland did not fire Porter, according to all accounts.
Yet it's difficult to look past that, and it's not the only argument against the Porter risk.
Let's not overlook the failure to qualify for the Olympics in 2012, when Porter led a massively talented U.S. roster to third place in Group A behind El Salvador and Canada.
After beating Cuba 6-0, the U.S. lost 2-0 to Canada before drawing El Salvador 3-3. For those wanting to argue it was a weak American cycle of players, the U.S. had the following in the squad: Bill Hamid, Juan Agudelo, Mix Diskerud, Brek Shea, Joe Corona, Perry Kitchen, Ike Opara, Joe Gyau, Terrence Boyd, Amobi Okugo, Teal Bunbury, and Jorge Villafana.
Then there's Akron, where Porter barely lost and recruited a treasure trove of MLS SuperDraft picks en route to his national title. It's the least point of the bunch, but to hang a hat on that acumen is to ignore that Akron's been a relative national contender, given its size, for decades, and that Lolla has Louisville humming while Embick has not booting possession since taking over.
There's a further point to be made regarding personality and Porter's penchant for touchline drama. Goodness knows half the duty of a national team coach is massaging big egos, and Porter's self-impression is significant in stature.
Now the U.S. may well hire Porter, and he may right the ship and lead them to a Confederations Cup-clinching Gold Cup win, a Copa America semifinal, and a 2022 World Cup quarterfinal under a potentially Golden Generation.
That's great. I'll be very happy to be wrong. But let's hope the Yanks call upon any number of safer options with international experience or a safer and more tested domestic resume.


DARK SYMPHONIES / THE CRYPT is honored to announce our cooperation with Denmark based Sci-Fi Death metal act DETEST to reissue their 1994 debut and only album "Dorval" as a deluxe double CD set.
For the first time ever on CD, we will be including their "DeathBreed" Demo 1992, as well as a high quality soundboard recording of the band's 1993 live performance at the Roskilde Festival as bonus tracks.
This CD will be designed after the original 1994 Progress Red release, taking elements from the original layout with attention to detail, even down to the logo and typeface for a touch of nostalgia. Also included are classic, unpublished band photos and brand new liner notes from original founding member John Petersen.


text:
/*
   Copyright 2008 Olivier Chafik

   Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the License);
   you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
   You may obtain a copy of the License at

       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

   Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
   distributed under the License is distributed on an AS IS BASIS,
   WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
   See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
   limitations under the License.

   This file comes from the Jalico project (Java Listenable Collections)

       http://jalico.googlecode.com/.
*/
package com.ochafik.util.listenable;

import java.util.EventListener;

/**
 * Post-modification collection event listener.
 * @author Olivier Chafik
 *
 * @param <T> Type of the elements of the collections that are listened to by the listener.
 */
public interface CollectionListener<T> extends EventListener {
	public void collectionChanged(CollectionEvent<T> e);
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Toni Gonzaga reveals that she and boyfriend Paul Soriano have talked about the issue involving Maja Salvador.
Toni Gonzaga claimed that she wasn't bothered by the rumors linking her boyfriend of four years Paul Soriano to Maja Salvador. Apparently, Paul immediately told Toni about the incident wherein Maja burst into tears during the press con of their movie, Thelma. "He talked to me after the interview. Sabi niya, 'I feel bad.' Sabi ko, 'Bakit?' 'Kasi Maja cried.' 'Oh why did she cry?' 'I think she was too hurt and too overwhelmed with all the negative issues na natatanggap niya, 'di niya ata kinaya.' Siyempre bata pa si Maja, hindi niya naman talaga kaya yung sunod-sunod na pambubugbog na ganon," related Toni during the thanksgiving press con of Wedding Tayo, Wedding Hindi last September 1.


For a success in business, its foundation and pillar is a business strategy. A business strategy determines the health conditions of a business (success in terms of profits, market share and performance). Though the company, which imports and sells motor vehicles makes profits, there is much more to be done so as to improve on its profitability and general performance (Burkhart & Reuss, 1993).
From what the owner of the business or company told me during the interview, the company has strategies that have helped it achieve its profit targets each year and they have been able to maintain it for the last five years. One strategic plan, which the business needed to change, is to transform its scope of business from local to ensuring that their services commute to different nations and states. Having heard and seen the organization of the company, I found out that, the marketing strategy is giving a better hand to the profitability and market domineering. Business strategic models used by the company must be concerned about the future and should have a concrete management but it should be like a political /speech, which is meant to influence people for the sake of other people's political mileage (Allison & Kaye, 2005).
The CEO talked about a plan for expansion. He saw the concern for the owner of the business to provide services, which would serve 90% of its local prisoners, who are often sent to the Federal Institute that is 100miles away. In order to achieve this strategy, the owner is suppose to assign all employees their roles and tasks that they should achieved within a certain periods of time. This will ensure that, everybody will accountable for his or her deeds so as to avoid blame game and conflicts arising (Burkhart & Reuss, 1993).
The CEO asserted that the owners' responsibility is getting the customers to their destination in a timely and safely manner. In order to perform this task effectively, there was need to address issues and challenges which were facing the business (Burkhart & Reuss, 1993). One of the challenges that the organization faced was keeping a consistent schedule so as to maintain stability and obtain profits, which would cover expenses. Another challenge was misuse of the rewards in gratitude from family and love ones and being able to tackle a market that is continuously growing.
These issues according to the owner and my own anaysis have been of great importance to the organization's success. The company's reputation and image has improved not only locally but also internationally. The organic strategic planning has been utilized in the company by the owner who is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). It articulates on the organization's vision, principles, values and core business ethics and conduct. The owner has ensured all the structures and cultures in the organization are up to date for its success. The leadership, culture and structures of the organization are well developed so as to avoid complexities (Haines, 2004).
The CEO's assertion that the impact of the economic environment was up and down because the business was still growing so it had not reached the level of financial stability yet, was critical and required redress. The CEO further mentioned that there was only one competitor that was local and from then Floaters Transportation, inc. was winning the population. The vans were fully loaded for comfort with DVD players and Satellite radio. In order to address these issues, it was critical for the organization to improve in the management, communication, coordination, and organization. There is no doubt that the company is a threat to many motor vehicle selling companies in the world. This information is based interview from the owner of the company who is also the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and other information is from the journals and its customers (Lorenzen, 2006).
The owner's strategy for gaining new business is marketing and for maintaining it's business keeping a good reputation. The sales and marketing department therefore, have what it takes to maintain the company's image and to increase the sales so that the profit margins can double every year. The keys to success according to the owner are marketing and consistence. This business can be said to be better than other businesses in the same industry because it has been able to increase its Market share by 25% every year and its customers are more than ten (10) million all over the world. It is considered as a market leader in the industry all over the world. It manufactures and sells high quality motor vehicles in accordance to what customers want and in line with the technological advancement (Allison & Kaye, 2005).
The company complies with the entire local and international laws governing the business; hhence there are no much complications when transacting business. This is has made it to dominate in the market and many countries are willing to accept their motor vehicles (Lorenzen, 2006). For these reasons therefore, the business can compete favorably in the market due to its flexibility and adaptability to various market environmental conditions and situations. The company has expanded its operations to more than 50 countries as its closer rival has only expanded its operations to 34 countries. This is an added advantage to the company to dominate and influence the market before its rivals penetrate (Haines, 2004).
The business owner has many other opportunities with the advancement of technology. The owner can take advantage of the e-commerce so that it can transact (buying and selling) business through online (Lorenzen, 2006). This is an opportunity because it will cut on the cost of traveling and saves time; hence increased profit margins. The owner can have new branches in some countries in the Middle East because there are more customers and a few motor vehicle selling firms in the region. The countries in Middle East have friendly terms and conditions of trade that can easily be adopted due to favorable legal conditions concerning international trade (Haines, 2004).
I recommend that the owner should focus on improving the marketing strategies so as to remain relevant in the market (Haines, 2004). As the CEO told me, I also recommend that the business should expand its operations rather than sticking only to the catering service. There must be strategies that focus on specific regions and markets due to difference in market requirements and expectations. The CEO advised that the business would attract a lot of investors if it would begin servicing several populations rather than concentrating on the local market alone. I therefore recommend that the company, through the owner should improve diplomatic relations, which sometimes goes sour with some countries especially in Asia. The owner should improve the delivery of goods to the customers. The mode or the channel of distribution should be faster and meets all the expectations. The owner should build a strong relationship with other nations by engaging in social responsibility so as to build the trust and loyalty with the citizens (Burkhart & Reuss, 1993).


The flat glass market is projected to grow from USD 92.90 Billion in 2016 to USD 142.05 Billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 7.30% during the forecast period. The growth of the market can be attributed to the high demand from the construction & infrastructure industry and emerging application industries such as automotive & transportation & solar energy. The market witnessed a significant growth in the past few years, due to the increased demand for flat glass from China, the U.S., Germany, India, Brazil, and Malaysia.
The flat glass market is segmented, based on product type, into basic float glass, toughened glass, coated glass, laminated glass, and extra clear glass. Laminated is projected to the fastest-growing segment during the forecast period. The toughened glass segment was the largest segment of the market in 2016, as toughened glass is used extensively in the construction and transportation applications.
The flat glass market is segmented by end-use industry into construction & infrastructure, automotive & transportation, solar energy, and others. The construction & infrastructure segment was the largest segment of the market in 2016, owing to the growing demand for flat glass in residential building projects, government regulations pertaining to green & sustainable buildings, and aesthetic appearance of flat glass.
The flat glass market, based on technology, is segmented into rolled, sheet, and float glass. The float glass segment was the largest segment of the market in 2016, due to the advantages of the technology, such as easy and fast processing. Furthermore, with the help of this technology, it is possible to mass produce flat glass that is perfectly smooth and has no marks.
Asia-Pacific was the largest consumer of flat glass in 2016. India and China are major markets for flat glass due to growing construction and infrastructure development activities, increasing automotive production, and rising installations of solar panels in both countries.
The demand for glass fabric or glass roving for better results is increasing, especially in emerging economies, owing to automation and shift from open mold applications to close mold applications. This may act as a restraint for the growth of the flat glass market.
Asahi Glass (Japan), Saint-Gobain (France), Nippon Sheet Glass (Japan), Guardian Industries (U.S.), and Taiwan Glass (Taiwan) are some of the leading players in the flat glass market. Asahi Glass (Japan) has been focusing on maintaining its position in the market by tapping various global markets. The company has entered strategic alliances with local distribution centers in emerging markets to increase its market share and customer base. The company adopted investments & expansions as its growth strategy in the recent years.
11.1.1 Asahi Glass Co., Ltd.
12.9 Vitro, S.A.B. De C.V.
*Details on Business Overview, Products Offered, Strength of Product Portfolio, Business Strategy Excellence, and Recent Developments Might Not Be Captured in Case of Unlisted Companies.
12.11.5 China Luoyang Float Glass Group Co., Ltd.
12.11.13 Qingdao Kangdeli Industrial & Trading Co., Ltd.
12.11.14 Jin Jing (Group) Co., Ltd.