“More than a day at the beach” proclaims the Seaside Visitors’ Guide.
The phrase perfectly describes the town’s First Saturday Art Walk. The
monthly celebration of art invites us to “stretch our legs and our
imagination every first Saturday in Seaside” from 5 to 8 p.m. Much more
than a day at the beach, the art scene in Seaside is one happening
experience.
The beach town – once known primarily as a place
where families came to jump the waves, stroll the Prom, chow down on
mustard-slathered pronto pups and have a good time on bumper cars – has
seen a lot of change. Maintaining its family-friendly status, Seaside
has evolved into an art-loving destination.
“We have people who
come into town the first part of each month because they want to include
the art walk in their Seaside experience,” said Laura Kaim, office
manager at the Seaside Chamber of Commerce. Kaim puts together a monthly
map of participating galleries and shops, available at the art walk
sites and at the chamber. Most participants are located in the heart of
Seaside, with the exception of Gearhart’s Trail’s End Art Association,
the longest active art association on the Oregon Coast. Gearhart is
located a couple of miles north of Seaside. In February it will showcase
the photography of Beaverton’s Richard Newman.
Started in 2005,
Seaside’s First Saturday Art Walk continues to offer art of all mediums
from fine to funky and fun. Participating galleries, shops, art and
artists vary each month, guaranteeing an expansive art experience. In
December, Seaside’s Water’s Edge Massage Therapy participated with its
healing arts. Last summer, young kids displayed and sold their original
art – meeting the asking price of somewhere between two and three
dollars. Chain saw art even makes an appearance: Tilted Arts and Gifts’
February featured artist is Sara “Ellie” Ruscetta, who starts her work
with cedar driftwood from local beaches and uses a chain saw to create
whimsical landscape decor.
Local chefs show off their culinary
arts. Authors do book signings. And it’s not unusual to have a chance to
mix and mingle with local, national and international award-winning
artists who are present at their shows.
Live music is often part
of the scene. Depending on the time of year in Dave Bartholet’s
artists’ co-op, the Gilbert District Gallery, art walkers may find
Seaside’s Dylan Loehr playing the Didgeridoo, an Australian instrument
he built himself. The Gilbert District Gallery is also full of
Bartholet’s striking wildlife watercolors along with a mix of artwork by
four other talented artists.
At Fairweather House and Garden,
owner Denise Fairweather is always on the lookout for fine art,
continuing to launch exciting shows. In February, Gary Loveless, a
Cannon Beach artist-photographer, will showcase his original photos that
are infused with specially coated aluminum, giving a magical
luminescence to every piece.Nitrogen Controller and Digital dry cabinet with good quality.
The
hip and happening Yummy Wine Bar and Bistro provides good tastes in its
rotating art shows and a menu that paints a clear picture. Featuring
seasonal and local offerings,Manufactures and supplies laser marker
equipment. the Bistro has been an active art walk participant since
2007. February’s show will feature Oskkar Walker’s “Mea sunsa de inspira
ie,” or “My Darling Inspiration,” a bold and colorful series of acrylic
palette knife paintings.
The Seaside art walk has it all: from
fine art to wearable art, pottery, paper, glass, copper, leather,
handmade jewelry – and don’t forget the art fortune telling and
tattooing. Hold Fast Tattoo Company and Art Gallery, a combination
tattoo and body piercing studio and art gallery, will feature mixed
media by artist T. Chappell and collages by artist Jeff Harnett.Welcome
to Find the right laser Engraver or laser marking machine .
You
know her. Tracy Chevalier wrote a captivating, best-selling novel about
her. Scarlett Johansson played her in the movie. She's been compared to
her iconic rival, Mona Lisa,Bay State Cable Ties
is a full line manufacturer of nylon cable ties and related products.
but she's much more exotic, enigmatic and strikingly gorgeous. And yet,
despite her extraordinary popularity, she was never real. In fact
(scholars believe), she's a "tronie -- a painting exercise created from
the imaginings of the brilliant Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer.
No
matter. The "Girl with a Pearl Earring" -- a superstar in oil on canvas
-- has come to the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and this might be
your only chance to see her, since she rarely leaves the Royal Picture
Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, South Holland. Despite her diminutive
size -- the painting is just 17.5 inches by 15 inches -- she won't
disappoint,Shop for bobblehead
dolls from the official NBC Universal Store and build a fun collection
for your home or office. with her glinting pearl, frozen-moment-in-time
gaze, and simple beauty -- all of which invite speculation and
adoration.
You know her. Tracy Chevalier wrote a captivating,
best-selling novel about her. Scarlett Johansson played her in the
movie. She's been compared to her iconic rival, Mona Lisa, but she's
much more exotic, enigmatic and strikingly gorgeous. And yet, despite
her extraordinary popularity, she was never real. In fact (scholars
believe), she's a "tronie -- a painting exercise created from the
imaginings of the brilliant Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer.
No
matter. The "Girl with a Pearl Earring" -- a superstar in oil on canvas
-- has come to the de Young Museum in San Francisco, and this might be
your only chance to see her, since she rarely leaves the Royal Picture
Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, South Holland. Despite her diminutive
size -- the painting is just 17.5 inches by 15 inches -- she won't
disappoint, with her glinting pearl, frozen-moment-in-time gaze, and
simple beauty -- all of which invite speculation and adoration.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Becoming a major player
Oh, how the times have changed. It wasn’t that long ago that condominiums were just a bit player on the Ottawa scene.
As little as a decade ago, they barely scraped together five per cent of the new home market. But Ottawa has grown up and condos have joined the big boys.
In an effort to find out which floor plans were the most popular last year, more than 30 builders were polled to offer up their top sellers. Of the 28 who responded, there was an almost even split between condos, townhomes and single-family homes, a result that mirrors the new home sales numbers gathered by industry analyst Ron Desjardins.
It’s a bit of a snowball effect, he says,wind turbine and a reflection of the change in our demographic that began in the late ’90s,A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon. with immigrants more familiar with living in a denser environment and young professionals attracted by the high-tech sector who were looking for lifestyle rather than living in the suburbs.
Although consumer confidence is up and there are “a ton of first-time buyer opportunities out there” — 90 per cent of people under age 25 are renters as well as 62 per cent of those in the 25-34 age group — he notes that recent changes to mortgage rules make it harder for first-time buyers, the ones often attracted to condos, to qualify for mortgages.
And the prediction that baby boomers will sell their big home in the suburbs and flock to downtown condos?
“All the research tells us that the 55-plus stay in place for five to 10 years. The vast majority stay in place until health drives them out,” he says. “If people think that the vast majority of that boomer market’s going to move, that’s not going to happen. But more and more will.”
Brad Lamb’s ultra-modern SoBa project at Bank and Catherine streets launched in October with the Toronto-based developer himself on hand to get things started. Two months later, close to 40 per cent of the 240 units had been sold.
The most popular plan so far? A wide and shallow one-bedroom-plus-den that’s also a corner unit and features two balconies.
“In all, you have over 39 feet of windows on the east side of the unit and over 13 feet of windows on the south side,” says spokesman Ryan Spencer.
The 730-square-foot unit offers nine-foot exposed concrete ceilings, a European-styled kitchen and a blend of engineered hardwood, ceramic and porcelain tile on the floors. Half of the units featuring this floor plan have sold so far, Spencer says.
Going with what worked well at its Central 1 project across the street, Urban Capital reproduced one particular layout in three sizes for its Central 2 and Hideaway condos at Bank and McLeod streets and “it has proved to be the bestseller yet again,” says development director Taya Cook. It’s also the layout that was chosen for the model suite built in the sales centre.
In sizes ranging from 549 to 615 square feet, the one-bedroom-plus-den works for both individuals or couples,Shop for bobblehead dolls from the official NBC Universal Store and build a fun collection for your home or office. she says. The mid-size 609-square-foot version sold the most, followed by the largest, then the smallest, combining for almost 40 per cent of units sold last year.
EQ Homes saw such enthusiastic response when it first launched Foxwood in late 2011 that the company kept releasing units in the cluster of low-rise buildings, selling out all 96 in a mere six weeks.
It was a product and a location that had little competition, coupled with a demand for downsizing options for those who wanted to stay in the community, says marketing manager John Montpetit. Now under construction, there will be eight buildings in all, each three storeys high with four units per floor, which means every unit is a corner unit. There’s also underground parking and elevators in all buildings, a plus for buyers.
Montpetit says it’s not so much one floor plan that stood out,How cheaply can I build a solar power systems? it was the whole project. But although there were an equal number of units and therefore no top seller, he did note that one layout was requested the most: the Maple.Nitrogen Controller and Digital dry cabinet with good quality.
For Mastercraft’s signature SoHo condos, the buildings themselves are almost as important as the floor plans, says Lynsey Bennett of Bennett Property Shop Realty, which represents the builder.
Hotel-style living, fitness facilities created by award-winning body builder and trainer Dalton Brown, interior designs by Brian Gluckstein and location are all part of the offerings of the two condos the builder was selling in 2012: SoHo Lisgar and SoHo Champagne.
But if there could be just one top choice, the Bennett team pointed to one of SoHo Lisgar’s layouts, saying it represented about 20 per cent of sales. The F2 is a one-bedroom-plus-den with “incredible views of downtown Ottawa and the suites available on the upper floors of the building can also see the Peace Tower,” says Bennett.
The 777-square-foot unit includes marble bathrooms, integrated appliances, hardwood flooring and extra-long kitchen islands. A model suite of the F2 will be available for viewing this month, Bennett says. Prices start from $322,900 with suites on higher floors just released.
As little as a decade ago, they barely scraped together five per cent of the new home market. But Ottawa has grown up and condos have joined the big boys.
In an effort to find out which floor plans were the most popular last year, more than 30 builders were polled to offer up their top sellers. Of the 28 who responded, there was an almost even split between condos, townhomes and single-family homes, a result that mirrors the new home sales numbers gathered by industry analyst Ron Desjardins.
It’s a bit of a snowball effect, he says,wind turbine and a reflection of the change in our demographic that began in the late ’90s,A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon. with immigrants more familiar with living in a denser environment and young professionals attracted by the high-tech sector who were looking for lifestyle rather than living in the suburbs.
Although consumer confidence is up and there are “a ton of first-time buyer opportunities out there” — 90 per cent of people under age 25 are renters as well as 62 per cent of those in the 25-34 age group — he notes that recent changes to mortgage rules make it harder for first-time buyers, the ones often attracted to condos, to qualify for mortgages.
And the prediction that baby boomers will sell their big home in the suburbs and flock to downtown condos?
“All the research tells us that the 55-plus stay in place for five to 10 years. The vast majority stay in place until health drives them out,” he says. “If people think that the vast majority of that boomer market’s going to move, that’s not going to happen. But more and more will.”
Brad Lamb’s ultra-modern SoBa project at Bank and Catherine streets launched in October with the Toronto-based developer himself on hand to get things started. Two months later, close to 40 per cent of the 240 units had been sold.
The most popular plan so far? A wide and shallow one-bedroom-plus-den that’s also a corner unit and features two balconies.
“In all, you have over 39 feet of windows on the east side of the unit and over 13 feet of windows on the south side,” says spokesman Ryan Spencer.
The 730-square-foot unit offers nine-foot exposed concrete ceilings, a European-styled kitchen and a blend of engineered hardwood, ceramic and porcelain tile on the floors. Half of the units featuring this floor plan have sold so far, Spencer says.
Going with what worked well at its Central 1 project across the street, Urban Capital reproduced one particular layout in three sizes for its Central 2 and Hideaway condos at Bank and McLeod streets and “it has proved to be the bestseller yet again,” says development director Taya Cook. It’s also the layout that was chosen for the model suite built in the sales centre.
In sizes ranging from 549 to 615 square feet, the one-bedroom-plus-den works for both individuals or couples,Shop for bobblehead dolls from the official NBC Universal Store and build a fun collection for your home or office. she says. The mid-size 609-square-foot version sold the most, followed by the largest, then the smallest, combining for almost 40 per cent of units sold last year.
EQ Homes saw such enthusiastic response when it first launched Foxwood in late 2011 that the company kept releasing units in the cluster of low-rise buildings, selling out all 96 in a mere six weeks.
It was a product and a location that had little competition, coupled with a demand for downsizing options for those who wanted to stay in the community, says marketing manager John Montpetit. Now under construction, there will be eight buildings in all, each three storeys high with four units per floor, which means every unit is a corner unit. There’s also underground parking and elevators in all buildings, a plus for buyers.
Montpetit says it’s not so much one floor plan that stood out,How cheaply can I build a solar power systems? it was the whole project. But although there were an equal number of units and therefore no top seller, he did note that one layout was requested the most: the Maple.Nitrogen Controller and Digital dry cabinet with good quality.
For Mastercraft’s signature SoHo condos, the buildings themselves are almost as important as the floor plans, says Lynsey Bennett of Bennett Property Shop Realty, which represents the builder.
Hotel-style living, fitness facilities created by award-winning body builder and trainer Dalton Brown, interior designs by Brian Gluckstein and location are all part of the offerings of the two condos the builder was selling in 2012: SoHo Lisgar and SoHo Champagne.
But if there could be just one top choice, the Bennett team pointed to one of SoHo Lisgar’s layouts, saying it represented about 20 per cent of sales. The F2 is a one-bedroom-plus-den with “incredible views of downtown Ottawa and the suites available on the upper floors of the building can also see the Peace Tower,” says Bennett.
The 777-square-foot unit includes marble bathrooms, integrated appliances, hardwood flooring and extra-long kitchen islands. A model suite of the F2 will be available for viewing this month, Bennett says. Prices start from $322,900 with suites on higher floors just released.
What determines the Price of Gold
There were two main influences when I was growing up in the 1970s and
80s. We went through a period of very high inflation in the United
States. President Nixon imposed wage and price controls in a misguided,
or perhaps very cynical, attempt to fight inflation. And Nixon’s
successor, President Ford, handed out these silly little lapel buttons
that said “Whip Inflation Now”. I remember seeing a young man on the TV
news who had reported a chain store for the economic crime of raising
the price of one of their products. He was being given some kind of
award for this.
The second historical event was the gold bull market of the late 70s. Then Reagan came in along with Paul Volker who he inherited from the former president, Carter.wind turbine I wasn’t paying much attention at the time but it stuck with me that gold had made this huge move.Basics, technical terms and advantages and disadvantages of Laser engraver.
Those two things came together and had a life-long influence on me. From that time I took away a curiosity about inflation. And that led me eventually to be curious about the whole field of economics. I was lucky that I came upon the Austrian School of Economics. I started reading Austrian economics in high school. The Austrian School emphasized gold as the basis of the monetary system and how well that has worked out over the course of human history.
The popular perception of China an economic juggernaut on a path to eclipse the economies of the developed world. And how did that happen? Because their wise central planners chose an export-driven growth strategy. Many people now think that this strategy has gotten them to a point where they are deficient in domestic consumption, so they need to switch to a consumption-driven mode of economic growth; and that this also will be accomplished by the same wise central planners through a series of carefully designed five-year plans.
I think almost everything about this view is wrong; it is still largely a centrally planned economy and we know from the economics of the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, central planners cannot allocate resources.
If you have a very simple economy where people make consumption goods with their bare hands, this can be done with central planning. But Mises was trying to explain the economic growth that has occurred in the world from small villages to vast modern economies with millions of goods and a complex division of labor. How could this type of growth occur? The process requires the development of a complex inter-relationship of capital goods, natural resources, and division of labor.
In a modern economy, the number of things that could be produced is nearly unimaginably large. And the number of different production methods for even a single good is incalculable. Take gold for example – finding a deposit is quite complex. There are many ways to look for it. Magnetic fields, chemistry,Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making supplies and accessories! electrical, drilling. How much drilling and where? And then, when you have the deposit, should it be open pit or underground? Should a resource estimate be established first or start mining and follow the vein? And what about the metallurgy, the chemistry? What type of electrical power? What types of labor? Refine the ore on site, or partially refine? Build roads, rail, or ship the ore? There are millions of decisions and each one needs to be fully answered down to the hire or purchase of specific pieces of capital and individual workers.
Only with prices can you have accounting, which is the ability to calculate profit and loss. In a market economic system, the important decisions are made on the basis of an anticipated profit and loss, which is the difference between the expected prices received on sales and the costs.
Mises had the insight that prices of capital goods are only a meaningful tool for resource allocation if they are established by a competitive bidding process among entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs must choose how much they are willing to pay to acquire a specific capital asset and hire the skilled workers they need. Entrepreneurs are people who put at risk their own capital, and will either earn a profit or suffer a loss.
The diversity of entrepreneurs is a key part of this. Each business firm or company founder has a unique view of their own market, which may be highly detailed and based on years of experience. Mises also noted that each entrepreneur has his idea about what the customer will want. The market is a decentralized process in which the entrepreneur who has the best plan for each particular asset, along with some cash, will end up in a position to choose how that asset gets used.
In my own former job, I worked for a company that was in a small sub-sector of a sub-sector. There are perhaps half a dozen people in the world who truly understood our industry, maybe fewer. The entire world is full of experts like this, people who understand a particular industry or product really well.
Can you imagine, for example, that we would have iPhones or Kindles if the technology industry was planned by a central committee? Before the iPhone, competition in the mobile industry was primarily over how many minutes per month you got on weekdays or weekends. When Steve Jobs decided to develop the iPhone, he risked $150 million of his shareholder’s money and took on the US mobile industry, who did not want a disruptive phone taking away the spotlight from their monthly plans.
Central planning means the abolition of this type of competition. And that is the problem that Mises identified. There is no way to replace this competitive bidding process with a single planner or a planning committee. The central committee cannot bid against itself for the opportunity to acquire specific capital goods and labor. That would be nothing more than the left hand bidding against the right hand. They could assign fake prices to resources and pretend to calculate the best projects, but the numbers that would come out of this process would not be prices,Totech Americas delivers a wide range of drycabinets for applications spanning electronics. they would be arbitrary numbers that did not reflect the best possible use of scarce productive resources. Mises showed that A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon.a central planner has no basis for making economic decisions, even if the process did not become entirely politicized, as it always does.
The second historical event was the gold bull market of the late 70s. Then Reagan came in along with Paul Volker who he inherited from the former president, Carter.wind turbine I wasn’t paying much attention at the time but it stuck with me that gold had made this huge move.Basics, technical terms and advantages and disadvantages of Laser engraver.
Those two things came together and had a life-long influence on me. From that time I took away a curiosity about inflation. And that led me eventually to be curious about the whole field of economics. I was lucky that I came upon the Austrian School of Economics. I started reading Austrian economics in high school. The Austrian School emphasized gold as the basis of the monetary system and how well that has worked out over the course of human history.
The popular perception of China an economic juggernaut on a path to eclipse the economies of the developed world. And how did that happen? Because their wise central planners chose an export-driven growth strategy. Many people now think that this strategy has gotten them to a point where they are deficient in domestic consumption, so they need to switch to a consumption-driven mode of economic growth; and that this also will be accomplished by the same wise central planners through a series of carefully designed five-year plans.
I think almost everything about this view is wrong; it is still largely a centrally planned economy and we know from the economics of the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, central planners cannot allocate resources.
If you have a very simple economy where people make consumption goods with their bare hands, this can be done with central planning. But Mises was trying to explain the economic growth that has occurred in the world from small villages to vast modern economies with millions of goods and a complex division of labor. How could this type of growth occur? The process requires the development of a complex inter-relationship of capital goods, natural resources, and division of labor.
In a modern economy, the number of things that could be produced is nearly unimaginably large. And the number of different production methods for even a single good is incalculable. Take gold for example – finding a deposit is quite complex. There are many ways to look for it. Magnetic fields, chemistry,Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making supplies and accessories! electrical, drilling. How much drilling and where? And then, when you have the deposit, should it be open pit or underground? Should a resource estimate be established first or start mining and follow the vein? And what about the metallurgy, the chemistry? What type of electrical power? What types of labor? Refine the ore on site, or partially refine? Build roads, rail, or ship the ore? There are millions of decisions and each one needs to be fully answered down to the hire or purchase of specific pieces of capital and individual workers.
Only with prices can you have accounting, which is the ability to calculate profit and loss. In a market economic system, the important decisions are made on the basis of an anticipated profit and loss, which is the difference between the expected prices received on sales and the costs.
Mises had the insight that prices of capital goods are only a meaningful tool for resource allocation if they are established by a competitive bidding process among entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs must choose how much they are willing to pay to acquire a specific capital asset and hire the skilled workers they need. Entrepreneurs are people who put at risk their own capital, and will either earn a profit or suffer a loss.
The diversity of entrepreneurs is a key part of this. Each business firm or company founder has a unique view of their own market, which may be highly detailed and based on years of experience. Mises also noted that each entrepreneur has his idea about what the customer will want. The market is a decentralized process in which the entrepreneur who has the best plan for each particular asset, along with some cash, will end up in a position to choose how that asset gets used.
In my own former job, I worked for a company that was in a small sub-sector of a sub-sector. There are perhaps half a dozen people in the world who truly understood our industry, maybe fewer. The entire world is full of experts like this, people who understand a particular industry or product really well.
Can you imagine, for example, that we would have iPhones or Kindles if the technology industry was planned by a central committee? Before the iPhone, competition in the mobile industry was primarily over how many minutes per month you got on weekdays or weekends. When Steve Jobs decided to develop the iPhone, he risked $150 million of his shareholder’s money and took on the US mobile industry, who did not want a disruptive phone taking away the spotlight from their monthly plans.
Central planning means the abolition of this type of competition. And that is the problem that Mises identified. There is no way to replace this competitive bidding process with a single planner or a planning committee. The central committee cannot bid against itself for the opportunity to acquire specific capital goods and labor. That would be nothing more than the left hand bidding against the right hand. They could assign fake prices to resources and pretend to calculate the best projects, but the numbers that would come out of this process would not be prices,Totech Americas delivers a wide range of drycabinets for applications spanning electronics. they would be arbitrary numbers that did not reflect the best possible use of scarce productive resources. Mises showed that A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon.a central planner has no basis for making economic decisions, even if the process did not become entirely politicized, as it always does.
PATRICK HERON’S UNSEEN SKETCHES GO ON DISPLAY NPG
The ten displayed preparatory paintings and drawings for one of the
Gallery’s most famous portraits show the complex process of depicting,
from figuration to abstraction, one of the twentieth century’s greatest
poets. According to the artist, the final portrait owned by the Gallery
and also on display, was painted ‘from memory very slowly, after a
period of nearly three years.’
Patrick Heron secured permission to paint T. S. Eliot in January 1947. While Eliot’s reputation was established Heron was still relatively unknown and yet to secure recognition as one of Britain’s leading abstract painters. He had been fascinated by Eliot’s poetry since his early teens and it was his father, Tom Heron, who had become a friend of the poet through his connection with the New English Weekly, who provided the initial contact.
The first sitting was held two months later in Eliot’s central London office at Faber & Faber, the publishers where he was a director, shortly after the death of his estranged first wife Vivien. At that moment a national electricity crisis coincided with extremely cold weather and it was forbidden to use electric fires in late morning: to keep warm Eliot began the sittings wearing a dark blue overcoat which can still be glimpsed in the final abstracted painting. In a letter to Heron, Eliot’s second wife Valerie later described, ‘what I liked about the drawing was that you had captured a mood of mingled sweetness and sadness.’
At the outset Heron had no idea how the portrait would turn out. He started by making drawings in order to acquaint himself with the ‘plastic facts’ of Eliot’s physiognomy. Nearly three years followed when further sittings were held at the painter’s house in Holland Park and at his parents’ home in Welwyn Garden City. Heron’s concern was to distil his sitter’s appearance to essentials. The two paintings on display show his allegiance to the analytical cubism of early Picasso, Eliot’s features being fractured into flattened planes.
Heron described looking into Eliot’s ‘grey eye’ as ‘looking into the most conscious eye in the universe [...] into the very centre of contemporary consciousness.’ Seeing the work’s progress at the house in Holland Park, Heron recalls that Eliot exclaimed, ‘It’s a cruel face, a cruel face: a very cruel face! But of course you can have a cruel face without being a cruel person!’
During one sitting, the artist told Eliot that he wanted ‘to somehow see his head in plastic terms which would be identical with those of the large coffee-pot in my latest still-life. [...] No head,Totech Americas delivers a wide range of drycabinets for applications spanning electronics. I felt, even in a painting which called itself ‘a portrait’, should have more or less importance in plastic terms than any other part of the painting – a Cezannian principle of the essential quality of parts, which must always and forever prevail.’ Heron recalls registering Eliot’s ‘faint surprise’ at hearing his head likened to a coffee-pot!
Paul Moorhouse, Curator of Twentieth Century Portraits,We offers custom Injection Mold parts in as fast as 1 day. National Portrait Gallery, London, says: ‘The ensuing portrait is one of Patrick Heron’s most remarkable inventions. Completing a journey of progressive abstraction, in the end it was made from memory - and, as the surprising double-profile testifies, with the insight of a penetrating imagination.’
Patrick Heron: Studies for a Portrait of T. S. Eliot is part of the Gallery’s ongoing Interventions series of displays curated by Paul Moorhouse, which commenced in 2006 with Andy Warhol: 10 Portraits of Jews of the 20th Century. Drawing on significant works loaned to the Gallery, the series focuses on important 20th-century artists who have extended portraiture in innovative ways. To date, the Interventions series has included Bridget Riley: from Life, John Gibbons: Portraits, Frank Auerbach: Four Portraits of Catherine Lampert, Anthony Caro: Portraits, Tony Bevan – Self Portraits and Thomas Struth.
Going forward, we plan to continue our engagement on strengthening the rule of law. We are bringing prosecutors and judges to consult with their Bulgarian counterparts and share their experiences. In the past year, members of the Specialized Court for organized crime cases and the Ministry of Justice traveled to the United States for a week of consultations with their counterparts in our Federal criminal justice system. We have identified subject matter experts who have come to Bulgaria to assist the Ministry of Justice as it drafts new legislation. We are training law enforcement officials at the FBI Academy as well as through the International Law Enforcement Academy, or ILEA, in Budapest. And both our FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have sent agents to work side-by-side with their Bulgarian counterparts.
But of course the key ingredient for success here is going to be your determination - the commitment of Bulgarian officials and civil society to make needed reforms.
As all of you know, a key factor in the effective functioning of a healthy democracy is the strength of civil society, especially of NGOs. At the onset of Bulgaria's transformation, civil society was virtually nonexistent. We are proud of having helped develop organizations that work in such diverse areas as protecting the environment, developing a market economy, protecting human rights, and safeguarding the rights of workers. Today, Bulgaria's NGOs are many, active, and influential.Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making supplies and accessories!
One good example is the forum in which we find ourselves today.Basics, technical terms and advantages and disadvantages of c. From its founding in 1991, the Atlantic Club has promoted the transatlantic relationship, and now goes way beyond its original purpose. It is now educating Bulgarians about security issues and other crucial topics in the region and beyond.
In the final analysis, our strong bilateral relationship is about much more than any single institution, any business deal,wind turbine or any negotiation between our two governments. Our most important ties extend well beyond the walls of my Embassy and your Foreign Ministry. They are the people-to-people connections that give our official relationship its depth, its warmth, and that will sustain it into the future.
Patrick Heron secured permission to paint T. S. Eliot in January 1947. While Eliot’s reputation was established Heron was still relatively unknown and yet to secure recognition as one of Britain’s leading abstract painters. He had been fascinated by Eliot’s poetry since his early teens and it was his father, Tom Heron, who had become a friend of the poet through his connection with the New English Weekly, who provided the initial contact.
The first sitting was held two months later in Eliot’s central London office at Faber & Faber, the publishers where he was a director, shortly after the death of his estranged first wife Vivien. At that moment a national electricity crisis coincided with extremely cold weather and it was forbidden to use electric fires in late morning: to keep warm Eliot began the sittings wearing a dark blue overcoat which can still be glimpsed in the final abstracted painting. In a letter to Heron, Eliot’s second wife Valerie later described, ‘what I liked about the drawing was that you had captured a mood of mingled sweetness and sadness.’
At the outset Heron had no idea how the portrait would turn out. He started by making drawings in order to acquaint himself with the ‘plastic facts’ of Eliot’s physiognomy. Nearly three years followed when further sittings were held at the painter’s house in Holland Park and at his parents’ home in Welwyn Garden City. Heron’s concern was to distil his sitter’s appearance to essentials. The two paintings on display show his allegiance to the analytical cubism of early Picasso, Eliot’s features being fractured into flattened planes.
Heron described looking into Eliot’s ‘grey eye’ as ‘looking into the most conscious eye in the universe [...] into the very centre of contemporary consciousness.’ Seeing the work’s progress at the house in Holland Park, Heron recalls that Eliot exclaimed, ‘It’s a cruel face, a cruel face: a very cruel face! But of course you can have a cruel face without being a cruel person!’
During one sitting, the artist told Eliot that he wanted ‘to somehow see his head in plastic terms which would be identical with those of the large coffee-pot in my latest still-life. [...] No head,Totech Americas delivers a wide range of drycabinets for applications spanning electronics. I felt, even in a painting which called itself ‘a portrait’, should have more or less importance in plastic terms than any other part of the painting – a Cezannian principle of the essential quality of parts, which must always and forever prevail.’ Heron recalls registering Eliot’s ‘faint surprise’ at hearing his head likened to a coffee-pot!
Paul Moorhouse, Curator of Twentieth Century Portraits,We offers custom Injection Mold parts in as fast as 1 day. National Portrait Gallery, London, says: ‘The ensuing portrait is one of Patrick Heron’s most remarkable inventions. Completing a journey of progressive abstraction, in the end it was made from memory - and, as the surprising double-profile testifies, with the insight of a penetrating imagination.’
Patrick Heron: Studies for a Portrait of T. S. Eliot is part of the Gallery’s ongoing Interventions series of displays curated by Paul Moorhouse, which commenced in 2006 with Andy Warhol: 10 Portraits of Jews of the 20th Century. Drawing on significant works loaned to the Gallery, the series focuses on important 20th-century artists who have extended portraiture in innovative ways. To date, the Interventions series has included Bridget Riley: from Life, John Gibbons: Portraits, Frank Auerbach: Four Portraits of Catherine Lampert, Anthony Caro: Portraits, Tony Bevan – Self Portraits and Thomas Struth.
Going forward, we plan to continue our engagement on strengthening the rule of law. We are bringing prosecutors and judges to consult with their Bulgarian counterparts and share their experiences. In the past year, members of the Specialized Court for organized crime cases and the Ministry of Justice traveled to the United States for a week of consultations with their counterparts in our Federal criminal justice system. We have identified subject matter experts who have come to Bulgaria to assist the Ministry of Justice as it drafts new legislation. We are training law enforcement officials at the FBI Academy as well as through the International Law Enforcement Academy, or ILEA, in Budapest. And both our FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have sent agents to work side-by-side with their Bulgarian counterparts.
But of course the key ingredient for success here is going to be your determination - the commitment of Bulgarian officials and civil society to make needed reforms.
As all of you know, a key factor in the effective functioning of a healthy democracy is the strength of civil society, especially of NGOs. At the onset of Bulgaria's transformation, civil society was virtually nonexistent. We are proud of having helped develop organizations that work in such diverse areas as protecting the environment, developing a market economy, protecting human rights, and safeguarding the rights of workers. Today, Bulgaria's NGOs are many, active, and influential.Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making supplies and accessories!
One good example is the forum in which we find ourselves today.Basics, technical terms and advantages and disadvantages of c. From its founding in 1991, the Atlantic Club has promoted the transatlantic relationship, and now goes way beyond its original purpose. It is now educating Bulgarians about security issues and other crucial topics in the region and beyond.
In the final analysis, our strong bilateral relationship is about much more than any single institution, any business deal,wind turbine or any negotiation between our two governments. Our most important ties extend well beyond the walls of my Embassy and your Foreign Ministry. They are the people-to-people connections that give our official relationship its depth, its warmth, and that will sustain it into the future.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Statement to Parliament on the Scrap
Mr. Speaker, after more than a year of closure, the scrap metal trade
is now officially open. This reopening has been long in coming, but we
had to ensure that due diligence was applied, so that at the end of the
day we have a system guided by an appropriate regulatory framework.
This meant months of careful examination of the existing regulations, and in-depth research of best practice in other jurisdictions, and in some cases adapting them, where necessary, to create a best-fit,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. for the local industry.
New features have been added to create the best operating and monitoring system for the scrap metal trade. As the Minister under whose portfolio the scrap metal trade falls, I am here to report that I am satisfied that the new scrap metal regime is being operated within the best possible regulatory framework.
Contrary to the view noised in certain public spaces that the reopening of the trade is a manifestation of the ‘policy of poverty’, the trade in scrap metal benefits a wide cross section of Jamaicans, operating at various levels along the value chain. It is perfectly true that the little hand-cart man benefits, but it is also true that the dealer benefits, the large utility and industrial companies, and the shipping lines benefit.
Just this morning I received a visit from the CEO of a family-owned manufacturing company, whose business generates scrap metal in the manufacturing process. The closure of the industry had resulted in significant losses to the business, which depends on foreign exchange to purchase raw materials.
Mr.Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing. Speaker, the generation of scrap metal is a natural consequence of the modernization and retooling of industrial operations.
During the closure of the industry I received frequent calls and visits from big industrial firms and utility companies, strongly arguing the case for the reopening of the trade as they had large stockpiles of scrap metal for disposal. Their expressed preference was that the opening of the trade be limited to industrial entities only.
At the other end of the spectrum, we were bombarded with requests for the reopening of the trade, from small dealers whose livelihoods had been negatively affected by the closure. We listened to all stakeholders and took decisions that were in the national interest, guided by a philosophy of equity and fair play, as we are of the firm view that the benefits should accrue at every level along the value chain.
Mr. Speaker, as you may be aware, allegations have been noised in the media that the sites are being operated in the absence of the required environmental permit. This was clearly a misunderstanding, based on a lack of clarity arising from the recent changes in the operating structure.
If you recall, Mr. Speaker, Cabinet had initially approved a single central site, but based on discussions with the Scrap Metal Federation, we reviewed the initial plan and found merit in their proposal of several multi-user sites. Following a selection process and on the advice of the Department of Customs and the Police, three multi-user sites were selected.
It was agreed that these three sites would be managed by the Factories Corporation of Jamaica (FCJ). The understanding was that the owners of the sites had or would have obtained the requisite permit from NEPA. Now that there is clarity concerning the NEPA requirements, the FCJ has taken steps to immediately address the issue.They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets.
Let us make it clear, we have no intention to breach any law or policy and so we commit to adhering fully to the requirements and conditions from NEPA.
Additionally, we have made arrangements for NEPA to conduct routine inspections of the sites to ensure that there is no contravention of environmental laws. In addition to the foreign exchange earnings and the job creation, the scrap metal trade also clears the environment of derelict scrap metal.
Mr. Speaker, in preparation for the reopening of the industry, great care was taken to ensure that the infrastructure and systems are the most effective for the industry at this time.
The owners and operators of the three multi-user sites have themselves gone to great lengths to equip the sites to ensure the smooth running of that aspect of the trade. The state of the art equipment installed at some sites is first world - a clear indication of cutting edge technology at work.
On one site there is a piece of equipment, a ‘quick loader’, valued at some $45 million dollars, which has the capacity to fully load a 40 foot container in under 10 minutes. In visiting the sites, there is an obvious sense of pride exhibited by the owners … pride about being part of a well-run, well-organized industry which will have multiple benefits at many different levels.
All of the sites have 24 hour video surveillance, which is monitored off site, in addition to day time security provided by the security forces. Mr. Speaker, the traders, dealers and exporters are in the process of getting themselves fully legitimized, acquiring the various permits, licenses and police recommendations in order to carry out the various activities associated with the trade.
What we have in place therefore is a trade which is poised to earn significant foreign exchange and provide well needed jobs.
The scrap metal trade is part of the global value chain and at its zenith in 2006 earned the country US$100 million in foreign exchange and provided jobs for over 10,000 jobs persons many from the lower socio-economic group. With the price of energy ever increasing, and the levels of certain non-renewable resources decreasing, it is my expectation that the demand for scrap metal will continue to increase.
This however, must not be pursued at the risk to public infrastructure and personal property. In the past we lost millions of dollars to theft and vandalism, in addition to the cost of dislocation to businesses and additional security measures which companies were forced to implement.
Underpinning the reopening of the trade, therefore, has been the need to tighten and enforce the regulations and ensure that we bring to book any and everyone who does not play by the rules. All of us have to play by the rules if we are to have a sustainable and proper functioning scrap metal industry.
Mr. Speaker, under the new regime there are no items which are regarded as prohibited. Certain items which were hitherto listed as prohibited are now listed as restricted. These include, but are not limited to, manhole covers, copper, I-beams and bridges. Companies which generate these restricted items can exercise the option of exporting these items themselves, or selling them through a dealer.
The new regime features a strengthened regulatory framework, which allows for traceability along the value chain and verification of ownership.
Not to reopen the industry would send a very negative message to the international community about our ability as an administration and as a country to regulate an industry which is a major foreign exchange earner.
There is enough data to show that where a trade or an activity is banned in the face of high demand, it serves only to spawn illicit activity, undermining the very objective it had set out to achieve.
It should also be noted that former Minister of Industry, Christopher Tufton,The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. now head of CAPRI, is on record saying that he now believes that the trade should be allowed to continue and the necessary controls should be strictly enforced. Which of the cacophony of voices coming from the Opposition should we therefore be listening to?
Mr. Speaker, in the third week of January Factories Corporation of Jamaica (FCJ), took possession of the sites and began, along with the Department of Customs and the Police to assess and test existing stockpiles of scrap metal to verify their export readiness. The FCJ, the Police and Customs also used the time to refine and retest the systems, the infrastructure and the technological support.
Mr. Speaker,You must not use the laser cutter without being trained. a new feature of the scrap metal regime is the collaboration with the Ministry of National Security to rid police stations across the island of derelict vehicles no longer needed for evidence. This will earn significant foreign exchange for the Ministry of National Security. Their removal will reduce the unsightly congestion in the parking lot of several police stations and reduce the health hazard posed from vermin which use these scrap heaps as a breeding ground.
Mr. Speaker, the new regime makes a distinction between industrial and non-industrial scrap and rigorous operating procedures have been designed to govern this. I will now highlight a few elements of the regulatory regime:
All exporters, (excepting exporters who generate metal waste in their manufacturing operations) must post a seven million dollar bond with the Factories Corporation of Jamaica. The intent is to apply a portion of the bond towards compensation for victims of theft. Entities which generate waste for re-use in their production processes will be exempt.
This meant months of careful examination of the existing regulations, and in-depth research of best practice in other jurisdictions, and in some cases adapting them, where necessary, to create a best-fit,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. for the local industry.
New features have been added to create the best operating and monitoring system for the scrap metal trade. As the Minister under whose portfolio the scrap metal trade falls, I am here to report that I am satisfied that the new scrap metal regime is being operated within the best possible regulatory framework.
Contrary to the view noised in certain public spaces that the reopening of the trade is a manifestation of the ‘policy of poverty’, the trade in scrap metal benefits a wide cross section of Jamaicans, operating at various levels along the value chain. It is perfectly true that the little hand-cart man benefits, but it is also true that the dealer benefits, the large utility and industrial companies, and the shipping lines benefit.
Just this morning I received a visit from the CEO of a family-owned manufacturing company, whose business generates scrap metal in the manufacturing process. The closure of the industry had resulted in significant losses to the business, which depends on foreign exchange to purchase raw materials.
Mr.Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing. Speaker, the generation of scrap metal is a natural consequence of the modernization and retooling of industrial operations.
During the closure of the industry I received frequent calls and visits from big industrial firms and utility companies, strongly arguing the case for the reopening of the trade as they had large stockpiles of scrap metal for disposal. Their expressed preference was that the opening of the trade be limited to industrial entities only.
At the other end of the spectrum, we were bombarded with requests for the reopening of the trade, from small dealers whose livelihoods had been negatively affected by the closure. We listened to all stakeholders and took decisions that were in the national interest, guided by a philosophy of equity and fair play, as we are of the firm view that the benefits should accrue at every level along the value chain.
Mr. Speaker, as you may be aware, allegations have been noised in the media that the sites are being operated in the absence of the required environmental permit. This was clearly a misunderstanding, based on a lack of clarity arising from the recent changes in the operating structure.
If you recall, Mr. Speaker, Cabinet had initially approved a single central site, but based on discussions with the Scrap Metal Federation, we reviewed the initial plan and found merit in their proposal of several multi-user sites. Following a selection process and on the advice of the Department of Customs and the Police, three multi-user sites were selected.
It was agreed that these three sites would be managed by the Factories Corporation of Jamaica (FCJ). The understanding was that the owners of the sites had or would have obtained the requisite permit from NEPA. Now that there is clarity concerning the NEPA requirements, the FCJ has taken steps to immediately address the issue.They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets.
Let us make it clear, we have no intention to breach any law or policy and so we commit to adhering fully to the requirements and conditions from NEPA.
Additionally, we have made arrangements for NEPA to conduct routine inspections of the sites to ensure that there is no contravention of environmental laws. In addition to the foreign exchange earnings and the job creation, the scrap metal trade also clears the environment of derelict scrap metal.
Mr. Speaker, in preparation for the reopening of the industry, great care was taken to ensure that the infrastructure and systems are the most effective for the industry at this time.
The owners and operators of the three multi-user sites have themselves gone to great lengths to equip the sites to ensure the smooth running of that aspect of the trade. The state of the art equipment installed at some sites is first world - a clear indication of cutting edge technology at work.
On one site there is a piece of equipment, a ‘quick loader’, valued at some $45 million dollars, which has the capacity to fully load a 40 foot container in under 10 minutes. In visiting the sites, there is an obvious sense of pride exhibited by the owners … pride about being part of a well-run, well-organized industry which will have multiple benefits at many different levels.
All of the sites have 24 hour video surveillance, which is monitored off site, in addition to day time security provided by the security forces. Mr. Speaker, the traders, dealers and exporters are in the process of getting themselves fully legitimized, acquiring the various permits, licenses and police recommendations in order to carry out the various activities associated with the trade.
What we have in place therefore is a trade which is poised to earn significant foreign exchange and provide well needed jobs.
The scrap metal trade is part of the global value chain and at its zenith in 2006 earned the country US$100 million in foreign exchange and provided jobs for over 10,000 jobs persons many from the lower socio-economic group. With the price of energy ever increasing, and the levels of certain non-renewable resources decreasing, it is my expectation that the demand for scrap metal will continue to increase.
This however, must not be pursued at the risk to public infrastructure and personal property. In the past we lost millions of dollars to theft and vandalism, in addition to the cost of dislocation to businesses and additional security measures which companies were forced to implement.
Underpinning the reopening of the trade, therefore, has been the need to tighten and enforce the regulations and ensure that we bring to book any and everyone who does not play by the rules. All of us have to play by the rules if we are to have a sustainable and proper functioning scrap metal industry.
Mr. Speaker, under the new regime there are no items which are regarded as prohibited. Certain items which were hitherto listed as prohibited are now listed as restricted. These include, but are not limited to, manhole covers, copper, I-beams and bridges. Companies which generate these restricted items can exercise the option of exporting these items themselves, or selling them through a dealer.
The new regime features a strengthened regulatory framework, which allows for traceability along the value chain and verification of ownership.
Not to reopen the industry would send a very negative message to the international community about our ability as an administration and as a country to regulate an industry which is a major foreign exchange earner.
There is enough data to show that where a trade or an activity is banned in the face of high demand, it serves only to spawn illicit activity, undermining the very objective it had set out to achieve.
It should also be noted that former Minister of Industry, Christopher Tufton,The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. now head of CAPRI, is on record saying that he now believes that the trade should be allowed to continue and the necessary controls should be strictly enforced. Which of the cacophony of voices coming from the Opposition should we therefore be listening to?
Mr. Speaker, in the third week of January Factories Corporation of Jamaica (FCJ), took possession of the sites and began, along with the Department of Customs and the Police to assess and test existing stockpiles of scrap metal to verify their export readiness. The FCJ, the Police and Customs also used the time to refine and retest the systems, the infrastructure and the technological support.
Mr. Speaker,You must not use the laser cutter without being trained. a new feature of the scrap metal regime is the collaboration with the Ministry of National Security to rid police stations across the island of derelict vehicles no longer needed for evidence. This will earn significant foreign exchange for the Ministry of National Security. Their removal will reduce the unsightly congestion in the parking lot of several police stations and reduce the health hazard posed from vermin which use these scrap heaps as a breeding ground.
Mr. Speaker, the new regime makes a distinction between industrial and non-industrial scrap and rigorous operating procedures have been designed to govern this. I will now highlight a few elements of the regulatory regime:
All exporters, (excepting exporters who generate metal waste in their manufacturing operations) must post a seven million dollar bond with the Factories Corporation of Jamaica. The intent is to apply a portion of the bond towards compensation for victims of theft. Entities which generate waste for re-use in their production processes will be exempt.
Slippery sidewalks keep emergency rooms busy
Ice and snow is a dangerous combination out on the roads, sidewalks
and parking lots. Local emergency rooms say they're seeing more patients
coming in after falling on the ice.
"It's been iciest on the sidewalks for me I walked down 3rd Ave and that was pretty bad," said Jeremy Sutton.
The emergency room at Mayo Clinic Health System-Eau Claire has been busy this week.
“People just slipping on the ice falling on their butts hitting their heads its very common this time of year,” said Dr. Sue Cullinan with Mayo Clinic Health System.
Cullinan says most patients she sees after a fall come in with a broken ankle, hip or a nasty bump on the head. She says falls can be life-threatening for people on blood thinners. Cullinan says two of the most dangerous places to slip and fall are on the stairs or stepping out of your car.
“Usually people aren't looking and aren’t careful stepping on to a curb or getting out of their car so they slip before they know it’s icy; so thinking ahead, looking down, taking short shuffling steps and expecting ice where ever you go is the best thing you can do,” said Cullinan.
There was a time when manual transmissions always outperformed automatics on the track, but you won’t find a clutch on today’s F1 supercars anymore. Those have been replaced by semi-automatic paddle shifters mounted to the steering column. Even on the street-legal consumer side, acceleration is a shifting landscape. While six-speed manuals such as the Lingenfelter Chevy Corvette and Dodge Viper Hennessey Venom still hold the top 0 to 60 mph times, today’s automatics are increasingly accelerating faster and getting better fuel economy than their manual counterparts in what amounts to a significant changing of the guard.
In the automotive world – as in computing, Jeopardy!, and sometimes even chess – technology is outperforming humans.
With much talk about driverless car technology lately, that begs a number of questions. One example: Vehicle fuel efficiency, hybrids, and electric vehicles are central to a transforming, cleaner, greener transportation system; What will driverless cars mean for fossil fuel consumption in the transportation sector? At RMI, we’re very interested in the answers to this question.
Individual driverless cars come with important opportunities for increased efficiency. Groups of driverless cars likewise have the potential for even greater collective efficiencies, for example through shared reduced drag. And driverless vehicles seamlessly connected to smart infrastructure offer even greater promise still.
In the context of driverless cars, drafting becomes platooning, a grouped “train” of autonomous,Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing. connected cars following a lead car. The SARTRE project—fully operational today and potentially ready for consumer deployment within 10 years—is the latest iteration of a concept that first gained popularity in the 1990s.The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. By traveling within 13 feet of one another,They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets. the platooned vehicles reap great efficiency gains. A 1995 PATH (Partners for Advanced Transportation TecHnology) study showed fuel use reductions up to 20 percent at this distance; even greater reductions are possible with larger platoons and/or tighter spacing between vehicles.
Now here’s where driverless cars, hypermiling, and speed all potentially intersect. The National Highway Maximum Speed Law of 1974, motivated by the 1970s oil crisis, gave us the 55 mph speed limit, targeted at keeping U.S. drivers at peak fuel efficiency. In 1995, the law was abolished and speed limits now vary widely state by state, though 55 mph remains common on many of the nation’s highways. But what if driverless cars—by being able to safely maintain much closer following distances in platoons than human drivers—could actually increase the speed of peak efficiency? We’d get places faster while still using less fuel.
The opportunities bound up in driverless cars are many. They’re highly compatible with car-sharing programs (more on that in a future post). They have implications for public transportation systems (ditto). If you’re feeling drowsy on a long-haul drive or at the end of a tough day at work, a driverless car could let you sit back and relax, or even take the wheel if it senses you’re driving erratically; ditto if you find you’ve unexpectedly had too much to drink—rather than call a taxi, a driverless car could take you home. By feeding information into (and obtaining info from) a shared database akin to the smartphone app Pothole Alert, they could avoid road hazards or even notify the local highway department or department of public works to road repair and maintenance needs.
But let’s return to the fuel consumption issue. Driverless cars connected to the traffic light system could communicate with an upcoming light and have it stay green or change to green, so that you could maintain cruising speed and optimal fuel efficiency (not to mention avoiding an unnecessary delay at the light). And of course there’s the familiar issue of parking, especially in urban environments where it accounts for 30 percent of all traffic. Autonomous cars and a smart parking system could allocate parking spaces to the nearest vehicles in need of a spot,You must not use the laser cutter without being trained. and vehicles could navigate to those spots directly and quickly, reducing the fuel consumption, emissions, and time associated with searching for a spot.
There are pitfalls to be wary of, however. One giant elephant in the driverless car room is vehicle miles traveled (VMT). It’s tempting to believe that driverless cars will reduce VMTs through various efficiencies,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. but the opposite could also happen. In a highly autonomous vehicle future, we may do far more with our cars than we currently can—think of Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond calling his BMW 750 via cell phone in Tomorrow Never Dies, or David Hasselhoff’s Michael Knight and his autonomous car, KITT, each chasing down different suspects in Knight Rider.
What if our driverless cars of the future have a valet mode that allows them to park themselves, becoming not just driverless but also passengerless? What if they run errands for us, such as picking up lunch or dry cleaning or the kids at soccer practice? What if driverless cars—and the efficiencies and flexibility they offer—actually incentivize us to drive more? This “rebound effect” could increase VMT and fuel consumption, eating into the potential energy savings we’d otherwise expect from highly efficient autonomous vehicles. We must be prepared to address these undesirable yet entirely possible outcomes.
"It's been iciest on the sidewalks for me I walked down 3rd Ave and that was pretty bad," said Jeremy Sutton.
The emergency room at Mayo Clinic Health System-Eau Claire has been busy this week.
“People just slipping on the ice falling on their butts hitting their heads its very common this time of year,” said Dr. Sue Cullinan with Mayo Clinic Health System.
Cullinan says most patients she sees after a fall come in with a broken ankle, hip or a nasty bump on the head. She says falls can be life-threatening for people on blood thinners. Cullinan says two of the most dangerous places to slip and fall are on the stairs or stepping out of your car.
“Usually people aren't looking and aren’t careful stepping on to a curb or getting out of their car so they slip before they know it’s icy; so thinking ahead, looking down, taking short shuffling steps and expecting ice where ever you go is the best thing you can do,” said Cullinan.
There was a time when manual transmissions always outperformed automatics on the track, but you won’t find a clutch on today’s F1 supercars anymore. Those have been replaced by semi-automatic paddle shifters mounted to the steering column. Even on the street-legal consumer side, acceleration is a shifting landscape. While six-speed manuals such as the Lingenfelter Chevy Corvette and Dodge Viper Hennessey Venom still hold the top 0 to 60 mph times, today’s automatics are increasingly accelerating faster and getting better fuel economy than their manual counterparts in what amounts to a significant changing of the guard.
In the automotive world – as in computing, Jeopardy!, and sometimes even chess – technology is outperforming humans.
With much talk about driverless car technology lately, that begs a number of questions. One example: Vehicle fuel efficiency, hybrids, and electric vehicles are central to a transforming, cleaner, greener transportation system; What will driverless cars mean for fossil fuel consumption in the transportation sector? At RMI, we’re very interested in the answers to this question.
Individual driverless cars come with important opportunities for increased efficiency. Groups of driverless cars likewise have the potential for even greater collective efficiencies, for example through shared reduced drag. And driverless vehicles seamlessly connected to smart infrastructure offer even greater promise still.
In the context of driverless cars, drafting becomes platooning, a grouped “train” of autonomous,Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing. connected cars following a lead car. The SARTRE project—fully operational today and potentially ready for consumer deployment within 10 years—is the latest iteration of a concept that first gained popularity in the 1990s.The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. By traveling within 13 feet of one another,They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets. the platooned vehicles reap great efficiency gains. A 1995 PATH (Partners for Advanced Transportation TecHnology) study showed fuel use reductions up to 20 percent at this distance; even greater reductions are possible with larger platoons and/or tighter spacing between vehicles.
Now here’s where driverless cars, hypermiling, and speed all potentially intersect. The National Highway Maximum Speed Law of 1974, motivated by the 1970s oil crisis, gave us the 55 mph speed limit, targeted at keeping U.S. drivers at peak fuel efficiency. In 1995, the law was abolished and speed limits now vary widely state by state, though 55 mph remains common on many of the nation’s highways. But what if driverless cars—by being able to safely maintain much closer following distances in platoons than human drivers—could actually increase the speed of peak efficiency? We’d get places faster while still using less fuel.
The opportunities bound up in driverless cars are many. They’re highly compatible with car-sharing programs (more on that in a future post). They have implications for public transportation systems (ditto). If you’re feeling drowsy on a long-haul drive or at the end of a tough day at work, a driverless car could let you sit back and relax, or even take the wheel if it senses you’re driving erratically; ditto if you find you’ve unexpectedly had too much to drink—rather than call a taxi, a driverless car could take you home. By feeding information into (and obtaining info from) a shared database akin to the smartphone app Pothole Alert, they could avoid road hazards or even notify the local highway department or department of public works to road repair and maintenance needs.
But let’s return to the fuel consumption issue. Driverless cars connected to the traffic light system could communicate with an upcoming light and have it stay green or change to green, so that you could maintain cruising speed and optimal fuel efficiency (not to mention avoiding an unnecessary delay at the light). And of course there’s the familiar issue of parking, especially in urban environments where it accounts for 30 percent of all traffic. Autonomous cars and a smart parking system could allocate parking spaces to the nearest vehicles in need of a spot,You must not use the laser cutter without being trained. and vehicles could navigate to those spots directly and quickly, reducing the fuel consumption, emissions, and time associated with searching for a spot.
There are pitfalls to be wary of, however. One giant elephant in the driverless car room is vehicle miles traveled (VMT). It’s tempting to believe that driverless cars will reduce VMTs through various efficiencies,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. but the opposite could also happen. In a highly autonomous vehicle future, we may do far more with our cars than we currently can—think of Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond calling his BMW 750 via cell phone in Tomorrow Never Dies, or David Hasselhoff’s Michael Knight and his autonomous car, KITT, each chasing down different suspects in Knight Rider.
What if our driverless cars of the future have a valet mode that allows them to park themselves, becoming not just driverless but also passengerless? What if they run errands for us, such as picking up lunch or dry cleaning or the kids at soccer practice? What if driverless cars—and the efficiencies and flexibility they offer—actually incentivize us to drive more? This “rebound effect” could increase VMT and fuel consumption, eating into the potential energy savings we’d otherwise expect from highly efficient autonomous vehicles. We must be prepared to address these undesirable yet entirely possible outcomes.
Support for registering rental properties in Amherst
Residents affected by an influx of rental units in neighborhoods and
owners of rental properties told municipal officials last week that
Amherst should begin requiring licenses for those wishing to house
tenants.
But at the same time they cautioned against mandating regular inspections of these properties,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. which they said could make any rental registration program unwieldy and ineffective and also might not serve to address the community concern of misbehaving renters.Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing.
At the first of two public forums hosted by the Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods Working Group, Maurianne Adams, a Precinct 10 Town Meeting member, said permits or licenses should be issued to those seeking to do business in Amherst. A rental registration system, she said, would be “something that designates this a commercial activity that requires compliance.”
Adams said inspections should be secondary to permitting and suggested a three-tiered system that would segment rentals into three categories: owner-occupied rentals, large apartment complexes and companies that are purchasing homes for the express purpose of converting them to rentals.
Joel Greenbaum of Hadley, who owns and manages several rental properties in Amherst,You must not use the laser cutter without being trained. said registration of rental properties is a worthwhile endeavor.
Moving beyond this to regular inspections is a concern, though, because it might become too regulated and burdensome, he said. “Enforcement should be complaint driven,” Greenbaum said.
The working group, established in October by Town Manager John Musante and made up of residents, town and University of Massachusetts officials and property owners, used the forum as an opportunity to gather feedback and provide an update on progress toward establishing a rental registration bylaw expected to come before Town Meeting in May.
Select Board Chairwoman Stephanie O’Keeffe, who is a member of the panel, said there are five questions being confronted. These are what would inspections of rental properties entail, how would parking plans be reviewed and approved, what are the penalties for noncompliance, how will homes be accessed and what should be done with the existing bylaw that limits all dwellings to four unrelated housemates.
Assistant Town Manager David Ziomek, who is overseeing the working group, said the town is already being more vigilant with rental units under building commissioner Robert Morra and housing code enforcement officer Jon Thompson.
“What I’m asking for is to give people the power to revoke a license (and) the privilege of using our neighborhood as a place to make money, as a place to run a business,” Stacey said.
Jennifer Taub of Lincoln Avenue also asked the town to develop a permit certificate that puts the town in control of companies seeking to purchase properties for the express purpose of making money from rentals.
Taub said any system imposing fines or penalties on egregious violators would be difficult to implement, noting that many landlords are “lawyered up.”
Cinda Jones, who owns and manages several rental units in North Amherst, said she sympathizes with those affected by student rentals on Lincoln Avenue, which is near her childhood home on Amity Street.
“Like my neighborhood where I grew up, I’ve never seen as out-of-control kids as I have lately,” Jones said.
She said a group of landlords is already working toward establishing a system of best practices that can be used to get a handle on problem homes and the tenants who live in them. One suggestion is requiring all rental properties to have town bylaws related to noise and nuisances posted in a visible way near the main entrance.
Jones advocated for a landlord-supported fund that could be used to hire more police details focused on student behavior, which would replace private security that many are already using.
The working group is also considering changes to the bylaw that limits dwellings to four unrelated housemates, no matter the size of the home.
Another feature that the offset press offers optionally is the MPS Ultraflex rail system. This innovative positioning and parking system for rail-mounted units provides the ability to set aside or move the unit to the job location where it is required.They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets. Numerous capabilities of this press were shared during the live demonstrations.
Within minutes of set-up preparation and only a few meters of set-up waste, a complete print job change was completed, including design and material change from ultra thin foil to very thick paper. As different substrates, preferences and print and pressure settings can be calibrated and saved into a job memory,The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. set-up times and wastes are kept considerably low, providing substantial economic benefit, especially for short runs.
Die cutting was demonstrated with the MPS Change Die station which enables die-cutting of fine materials and difficult shapes at high speeds, followed by a matrix removal system also engineered by MPS that shreds and removes the matrix. At full speed the offset press can run up to 200 meters a minute. Overall, the MPS EXL-offset press demonstrated that efficiency and affordability together with superior and stable offset print quality is achievable.
Live demonstrations on the MPS flagship EF410 UV full servo 8-colour flexo press included a quick material and design change. The widely installed EF press line offers a high level of automation in print and pressure settings and extensive converting flexibility in a wide range of substrates. The EF press is standard equipped with the innovative MPS Nonstop Print Change (NPC) technology, that allows the operator to prepare any idle print unit for a new design without needing to stop the press.
But at the same time they cautioned against mandating regular inspections of these properties,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. which they said could make any rental registration program unwieldy and ineffective and also might not serve to address the community concern of misbehaving renters.Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing.
At the first of two public forums hosted by the Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods Working Group, Maurianne Adams, a Precinct 10 Town Meeting member, said permits or licenses should be issued to those seeking to do business in Amherst. A rental registration system, she said, would be “something that designates this a commercial activity that requires compliance.”
Adams said inspections should be secondary to permitting and suggested a three-tiered system that would segment rentals into three categories: owner-occupied rentals, large apartment complexes and companies that are purchasing homes for the express purpose of converting them to rentals.
Joel Greenbaum of Hadley, who owns and manages several rental properties in Amherst,You must not use the laser cutter without being trained. said registration of rental properties is a worthwhile endeavor.
Moving beyond this to regular inspections is a concern, though, because it might become too regulated and burdensome, he said. “Enforcement should be complaint driven,” Greenbaum said.
The working group, established in October by Town Manager John Musante and made up of residents, town and University of Massachusetts officials and property owners, used the forum as an opportunity to gather feedback and provide an update on progress toward establishing a rental registration bylaw expected to come before Town Meeting in May.
Select Board Chairwoman Stephanie O’Keeffe, who is a member of the panel, said there are five questions being confronted. These are what would inspections of rental properties entail, how would parking plans be reviewed and approved, what are the penalties for noncompliance, how will homes be accessed and what should be done with the existing bylaw that limits all dwellings to four unrelated housemates.
Assistant Town Manager David Ziomek, who is overseeing the working group, said the town is already being more vigilant with rental units under building commissioner Robert Morra and housing code enforcement officer Jon Thompson.
“What I’m asking for is to give people the power to revoke a license (and) the privilege of using our neighborhood as a place to make money, as a place to run a business,” Stacey said.
Jennifer Taub of Lincoln Avenue also asked the town to develop a permit certificate that puts the town in control of companies seeking to purchase properties for the express purpose of making money from rentals.
Taub said any system imposing fines or penalties on egregious violators would be difficult to implement, noting that many landlords are “lawyered up.”
Cinda Jones, who owns and manages several rental units in North Amherst, said she sympathizes with those affected by student rentals on Lincoln Avenue, which is near her childhood home on Amity Street.
“Like my neighborhood where I grew up, I’ve never seen as out-of-control kids as I have lately,” Jones said.
She said a group of landlords is already working toward establishing a system of best practices that can be used to get a handle on problem homes and the tenants who live in them. One suggestion is requiring all rental properties to have town bylaws related to noise and nuisances posted in a visible way near the main entrance.
Jones advocated for a landlord-supported fund that could be used to hire more police details focused on student behavior, which would replace private security that many are already using.
The working group is also considering changes to the bylaw that limits dwellings to four unrelated housemates, no matter the size of the home.
Another feature that the offset press offers optionally is the MPS Ultraflex rail system. This innovative positioning and parking system for rail-mounted units provides the ability to set aside or move the unit to the job location where it is required.They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets. Numerous capabilities of this press were shared during the live demonstrations.
Within minutes of set-up preparation and only a few meters of set-up waste, a complete print job change was completed, including design and material change from ultra thin foil to very thick paper. As different substrates, preferences and print and pressure settings can be calibrated and saved into a job memory,The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. set-up times and wastes are kept considerably low, providing substantial economic benefit, especially for short runs.
Die cutting was demonstrated with the MPS Change Die station which enables die-cutting of fine materials and difficult shapes at high speeds, followed by a matrix removal system also engineered by MPS that shreds and removes the matrix. At full speed the offset press can run up to 200 meters a minute. Overall, the MPS EXL-offset press demonstrated that efficiency and affordability together with superior and stable offset print quality is achievable.
Live demonstrations on the MPS flagship EF410 UV full servo 8-colour flexo press included a quick material and design change. The widely installed EF press line offers a high level of automation in print and pressure settings and extensive converting flexibility in a wide range of substrates. The EF press is standard equipped with the innovative MPS Nonstop Print Change (NPC) technology, that allows the operator to prepare any idle print unit for a new design without needing to stop the press.
Some families to be priced out of health overhaul
Some families could get priced out of health insurance due to what's
being called a glitch in President Barack Obama's overhaul law. IRS
regulations issued Wednesday failed to fix the problem as liberal
backers of the president's plan had hoped.
As a result, some families that can't afford the employer coverage that they are offered on the job will not be able to get financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance on their own. How many people will be affected is unclear.
The Obama administration says its hands were tied by the way Congress wrote the law. Officials said the administration tried to mitigate the impact. Families that can't get coverage because of the glitch will not face a tax penalty for remaining uninsured, the IRS rules said.They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets.
"This is a very significant problem, and we have urged that it be fixed," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, an advocacy group that supported the overhaul from its early days. "It is clear that the only way this can be fixed is through legislation and not the regulatory process."
But there's not much hope for an immediate fix from Congress, since the House is controlled by Republicans who would still like to see the whole law repealed.
The affordability glitch is one of a series of problems coming into sharper focus as the law moves to full implementation.
Starting Oct. 1, many middle-class uninsured will be able to sign up for government-subsidized private coverage through new health care marketplaces known as exchanges. Coverage will be effective Jan.The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. 1. Low-income people will be steered to expanded safety-net programs. At the same time, virtually all Americans will be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government program, or by buying their own plan.
Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, an advocacy group for children, cited estimates that close to 500,000 children could remain uninsured because of the glitch. "The children's community is disappointed by the administration's decision to deny access to coverage for children based on a bogus definition of affordability," Lesley said in a statement.
Congress said affordable coverage can't cost more than 9.5 percent of family income. People with coverage the law considers affordable cannot get subsidies to go into the new insurance markets. The purpose of that restriction was to prevent a stampede away from employer coverage.
Congress went on to say that what counts as affordable is keyed to the cost of self-only coverage offered to an individual worker, not his or her family. A typical workplace plan costs about $5,600 for an individual worker. But the cost of family coverage is nearly three times higher, about $15,700, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
So if the employer isn't willing to chip in for family premiums - as most big companies already do - some families will be out of luck. They may not be able to afford the full premium on their own, and they'd be locked out of the subsidies in the health care overhaul law.
Employers are relieved that the Obama administration didn't try to put the cost of providing family coverage on them.
"They are bound by the law and cannot extend further than what the law provides," said Neil Trautwein, a vice president of the National Retail Federation.
After narrowly escaping the snow falling in NJ Monday morning, I made my way to DesignCon 2013 in Santa Clara in time to catch a longstanding panel: The Case of the Closed Eye starring T&M World’s own Ransom Stephens as well as Chris Loberg from Tektronix, Erick Kvamme from LSI Corp.,Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing. Mike Li from Altera Corp., Greg LeCheminant from Agilent, Marty Miller from LeCroy, and Pavel Zviny from Tektronix. The bottom line from this panel is that higher data rates require better test and measurement equipment and better, more intelligent test patterns.
During the panel, Marty Miller specifically asked the question, “Is the time testing using long data patterns spent wisely?” in response to Erick’s report on how long it took him to acquire the data that underscored most of the analysis by the panel. And, Greg LeCheminant considered the questions, “what is clock recovery doing to my jitter measurements?” and “how does PLL behavior impact measurement?” He warned that it is important for test equipment manufacturers to be careful of how they do clock recovery, because long patterns, such as PRBS31, stress a test instrument’s clock recovery capability.
Tuesday morning, I attended a paper session, “Channel to Channel Crosstalk Behavior and Design Optimization for DDR4 Signaling,” which is a DesignCon Paper Award Finalist. The paper is by Xiang Li and James McCall of Intel. Unfortuantely, neither was able to attend, so James Casanova, also of Intel, gamely took over the presentation.You must not use the laser cutter without being trained. In this work,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. the authors took used a motherboard with a CPU, riser card, and DIMMs to study the interfaces between the DDR4 channel and the memory buffer and the DIMMs and the memory buffer. The area of interest was underneath the memory buffer, where the connectors were, because that’s where they looked for crosstalk. The DDR4 channel had a coupling impact on the memory buffer channel, while the memory buffer had coupling impact on the DDR4 channel. The work included creating a 3D model that represents the memory buffer interface and the DDR4 connector. It included the stripline trace from the memory buffer channel and connector via from the DDR4 backside channel. A major takeaway from this analysis was to keep to single trace routing if possible.
As a result, some families that can't afford the employer coverage that they are offered on the job will not be able to get financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance on their own. How many people will be affected is unclear.
The Obama administration says its hands were tied by the way Congress wrote the law. Officials said the administration tried to mitigate the impact. Families that can't get coverage because of the glitch will not face a tax penalty for remaining uninsured, the IRS rules said.They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets.
"This is a very significant problem, and we have urged that it be fixed," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, an advocacy group that supported the overhaul from its early days. "It is clear that the only way this can be fixed is through legislation and not the regulatory process."
But there's not much hope for an immediate fix from Congress, since the House is controlled by Republicans who would still like to see the whole law repealed.
The affordability glitch is one of a series of problems coming into sharper focus as the law moves to full implementation.
Starting Oct. 1, many middle-class uninsured will be able to sign up for government-subsidized private coverage through new health care marketplaces known as exchanges. Coverage will be effective Jan.The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. 1. Low-income people will be steered to expanded safety-net programs. At the same time, virtually all Americans will be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government program, or by buying their own plan.
Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, an advocacy group for children, cited estimates that close to 500,000 children could remain uninsured because of the glitch. "The children's community is disappointed by the administration's decision to deny access to coverage for children based on a bogus definition of affordability," Lesley said in a statement.
Congress said affordable coverage can't cost more than 9.5 percent of family income. People with coverage the law considers affordable cannot get subsidies to go into the new insurance markets. The purpose of that restriction was to prevent a stampede away from employer coverage.
Congress went on to say that what counts as affordable is keyed to the cost of self-only coverage offered to an individual worker, not his or her family. A typical workplace plan costs about $5,600 for an individual worker. But the cost of family coverage is nearly three times higher, about $15,700, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
So if the employer isn't willing to chip in for family premiums - as most big companies already do - some families will be out of luck. They may not be able to afford the full premium on their own, and they'd be locked out of the subsidies in the health care overhaul law.
Employers are relieved that the Obama administration didn't try to put the cost of providing family coverage on them.
"They are bound by the law and cannot extend further than what the law provides," said Neil Trautwein, a vice president of the National Retail Federation.
After narrowly escaping the snow falling in NJ Monday morning, I made my way to DesignCon 2013 in Santa Clara in time to catch a longstanding panel: The Case of the Closed Eye starring T&M World’s own Ransom Stephens as well as Chris Loberg from Tektronix, Erick Kvamme from LSI Corp.,Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing. Mike Li from Altera Corp., Greg LeCheminant from Agilent, Marty Miller from LeCroy, and Pavel Zviny from Tektronix. The bottom line from this panel is that higher data rates require better test and measurement equipment and better, more intelligent test patterns.
During the panel, Marty Miller specifically asked the question, “Is the time testing using long data patterns spent wisely?” in response to Erick’s report on how long it took him to acquire the data that underscored most of the analysis by the panel. And, Greg LeCheminant considered the questions, “what is clock recovery doing to my jitter measurements?” and “how does PLL behavior impact measurement?” He warned that it is important for test equipment manufacturers to be careful of how they do clock recovery, because long patterns, such as PRBS31, stress a test instrument’s clock recovery capability.
Tuesday morning, I attended a paper session, “Channel to Channel Crosstalk Behavior and Design Optimization for DDR4 Signaling,” which is a DesignCon Paper Award Finalist. The paper is by Xiang Li and James McCall of Intel. Unfortuantely, neither was able to attend, so James Casanova, also of Intel, gamely took over the presentation.You must not use the laser cutter without being trained. In this work,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. the authors took used a motherboard with a CPU, riser card, and DIMMs to study the interfaces between the DDR4 channel and the memory buffer and the DIMMs and the memory buffer. The area of interest was underneath the memory buffer, where the connectors were, because that’s where they looked for crosstalk. The DDR4 channel had a coupling impact on the memory buffer channel, while the memory buffer had coupling impact on the DDR4 channel. The work included creating a 3D model that represents the memory buffer interface and the DDR4 connector. It included the stripline trace from the memory buffer channel and connector via from the DDR4 backside channel. A major takeaway from this analysis was to keep to single trace routing if possible.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Has Obama administration gone wobbly on Syria?’
Syria, chemical weapons and the United States. If nothing else,Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making
supplies and accessories! President Barack Obama last month was
emphatic. “I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad,” Obama declared
at the National Defense University in early December, “….The world is
watching. The use of chemical weapons is…totally unacceptable….[T]here
will be consequences and you will be held accountable.”
But what a difference a New Year makes. At a January 10 news conference, the administration’s senior security officials, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff head Martin E. Dempsey, recoiled: Consequences won’t involve the Pentagon. Better wait to secure the arsenal after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad falls, Panetta said. Dempsey stated: “Preventing the use of chemical weapons would be almost unachievable.” The result, as Panetta explained: “We’re not working on options that involve boots on the ground.”
Assad must have smiled. Washington had gone wobbly on chemical weapons.Canada Is Your Premier Personalized bobbleheads Head Company! With the deterrent value of the president’s remarks in question – and one unconfirmed report that Syria used a chemical agent in Homs on December 23 – the chemical specter remains. This raises the key question: Would Obama really stand by if the Syrian government gassed thousands of its citizens?
Before we answer, let’s hit the pause button for a reality check: Are chemical weapons really more heinous than the bombs that have already killed some 60,000 Syrians. This continuing mayhem has not justified military intervention so far. Why would chemical weapons be different?
Lift the pause button and one suspects it would be hard for the U.S. government to turn a blind eye to a Halabja on steroids – Halabja being the last case where an Arab regime (Iraq in 1988) killed thousands of its people in a chemical attack.
But the tug to save lives is countered by another specter: Quashing Assad’s chemical capacity could plunge the U.S. into a new military quagmire.
Obama clearly has the authority to act. If he wishes to use force, under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, he can do so for at least 60 days without congressional approval.
But to avoid Congress now would be a mistake. The flummoxed administration needs another set of eyes to determine what is in the national interest. Congress can do this, assuming it can act with independence and reverse the legacy of deferring to the executive branch on matters of war and peace. Granting presidents, for example, broad authority to use military force without proper vetting – as the Gulf of Tonkin and Iraq war resolutions illustrated – ill-served the country.
To this end, Congress should reconvene the hearings begun last session. This time, however, it must press for details about the administration’s assumptions about intervening or not. In addition, all the hearings should be public – not secret, as the administration prefers. This will give the American people confidence in the decision-making.With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other solar light products.
Congress should mold its findings into a joint House and Senate resolution – still plausible on national security issues even as legislators divide on budgetary matters – unblemished by executive branch drum-beating or quaking.
If Congress does this, it won’t just be addressing the Syrian challenge. It will finally begin to right the imbalance of power between the executive and lawmakers that for too long has dominated American war deciding.
This will begin to fulfill what the War Powers Resolution intended – to “insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the president will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities.”
Bowlsby gave the typical conference realignment double-talk by saying that the Big 12 feels, “very good about where we are”, but not failing to mention that, “we’d be unwise to be oblivious to all that is going on around us. We need to be constantly vigilant”. That is about as close as us Big 12 supporters are going to get to having Bowlsby guarantee that the Big 12 will expand prior to 2014,We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. though he did mention that staying at 10 members or allying with other conferences without adding teams were possibilities.
Though it might seem like the most pressing matter, conference composition was not the number one item on the agenda for the meetings. Rather, the primary focus of the ADs was to discuss the future of Big 12 bowl tie-ins.
The conference has to do so because the Cotton Bowl, which currently has the first pick of non BCS bound Big 12 teams come bowl season, is set to become part of the rotation of semifinal game sites once the new playoff system comes into effect in 2014. Bowlsby stated that once the host bowls are finalized over the next few months, the Big 12 will want to reach out to different bowls in order to secure spots for its members in prestigious games. He went on to say that both the Alamo Bowl and the Meineke Bowl (it is the friggin’ Texas Bowl people, COME ON!) have, “expressed a desire to move up and-or maintain a high level of association” with the Big 12.
Other potential sites for future Big 12 bowl engagements include games played in Florida. Siting the fact that the majority of the nation’s recruits come out of Texas, Florida, and California, Bowlsby expressed that the Big 12 desires to have a strong presence in all three states during bowl season.We have become one of the worlds most recognised Ventilation system brands. They already have Cali ties due to their involvement with the Holiday Bowl.
But what a difference a New Year makes. At a January 10 news conference, the administration’s senior security officials, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff head Martin E. Dempsey, recoiled: Consequences won’t involve the Pentagon. Better wait to secure the arsenal after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad falls, Panetta said. Dempsey stated: “Preventing the use of chemical weapons would be almost unachievable.” The result, as Panetta explained: “We’re not working on options that involve boots on the ground.”
Assad must have smiled. Washington had gone wobbly on chemical weapons.Canada Is Your Premier Personalized bobbleheads Head Company! With the deterrent value of the president’s remarks in question – and one unconfirmed report that Syria used a chemical agent in Homs on December 23 – the chemical specter remains. This raises the key question: Would Obama really stand by if the Syrian government gassed thousands of its citizens?
Before we answer, let’s hit the pause button for a reality check: Are chemical weapons really more heinous than the bombs that have already killed some 60,000 Syrians. This continuing mayhem has not justified military intervention so far. Why would chemical weapons be different?
Lift the pause button and one suspects it would be hard for the U.S. government to turn a blind eye to a Halabja on steroids – Halabja being the last case where an Arab regime (Iraq in 1988) killed thousands of its people in a chemical attack.
But the tug to save lives is countered by another specter: Quashing Assad’s chemical capacity could plunge the U.S. into a new military quagmire.
Obama clearly has the authority to act. If he wishes to use force, under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, he can do so for at least 60 days without congressional approval.
But to avoid Congress now would be a mistake. The flummoxed administration needs another set of eyes to determine what is in the national interest. Congress can do this, assuming it can act with independence and reverse the legacy of deferring to the executive branch on matters of war and peace. Granting presidents, for example, broad authority to use military force without proper vetting – as the Gulf of Tonkin and Iraq war resolutions illustrated – ill-served the country.
To this end, Congress should reconvene the hearings begun last session. This time, however, it must press for details about the administration’s assumptions about intervening or not. In addition, all the hearings should be public – not secret, as the administration prefers. This will give the American people confidence in the decision-making.With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other solar light products.
Congress should mold its findings into a joint House and Senate resolution – still plausible on national security issues even as legislators divide on budgetary matters – unblemished by executive branch drum-beating or quaking.
If Congress does this, it won’t just be addressing the Syrian challenge. It will finally begin to right the imbalance of power between the executive and lawmakers that for too long has dominated American war deciding.
This will begin to fulfill what the War Powers Resolution intended – to “insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the president will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities.”
Bowlsby gave the typical conference realignment double-talk by saying that the Big 12 feels, “very good about where we are”, but not failing to mention that, “we’d be unwise to be oblivious to all that is going on around us. We need to be constantly vigilant”. That is about as close as us Big 12 supporters are going to get to having Bowlsby guarantee that the Big 12 will expand prior to 2014,We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. though he did mention that staying at 10 members or allying with other conferences without adding teams were possibilities.
Though it might seem like the most pressing matter, conference composition was not the number one item on the agenda for the meetings. Rather, the primary focus of the ADs was to discuss the future of Big 12 bowl tie-ins.
The conference has to do so because the Cotton Bowl, which currently has the first pick of non BCS bound Big 12 teams come bowl season, is set to become part of the rotation of semifinal game sites once the new playoff system comes into effect in 2014. Bowlsby stated that once the host bowls are finalized over the next few months, the Big 12 will want to reach out to different bowls in order to secure spots for its members in prestigious games. He went on to say that both the Alamo Bowl and the Meineke Bowl (it is the friggin’ Texas Bowl people, COME ON!) have, “expressed a desire to move up and-or maintain a high level of association” with the Big 12.
Other potential sites for future Big 12 bowl engagements include games played in Florida. Siting the fact that the majority of the nation’s recruits come out of Texas, Florida, and California, Bowlsby expressed that the Big 12 desires to have a strong presence in all three states during bowl season.We have become one of the worlds most recognised Ventilation system brands. They already have Cali ties due to their involvement with the Holiday Bowl.
First Friday presents pastels and pottery
The guild, located at 1009 Main St., will mix media styles in their
exhibit titled, “Personality in Pastels & Pottery,” along with the
Art Walk showcasing local talent.
Meet featured artists Dietra Morris and Ginger Baldwin at the artist’s opening reception from 6-8 p.m. and enjoy a variety of live music, numerous dining choices and extended shop hours around town.
It won’t be hard to spot the local artists showing their work in more than 14 downtown businesses during the Art Walk from 5-8 p.m. Maps of the Art Walk are also available at all participating merchants.
“You can tell a lot about an artist by really looking at his or her work,” Baldwin said.
The Featured Artist display will be inside the guild’s gallery where the artistic duo will showcase their unique pieces individually throughout the evening.
Morris, of Elgin, is a master potter and member of the guild who has been working with pottery since 1976.
While attending Mitchell High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., she fell under the direction of master potter, Ed Shrock, and since then has developed a style of her own, mastering high-fire functional artwork.
“My art is versatile in that it looks good on a mantle, can withstand the heat of the oven, set out on the table, washed in the dishwasher and then be placed back on the mantel,” Morris said.We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. “All of my pottery is colored with food-safe glazes that can be microwaved and used in the oven.With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other solar light products.”
Morris’ pieces often showcase fragments of her late grandmother’s delicate tatting designs.We have become one of the worlds most recognised Ventilation system brands. She uses a technique which fossilizes them on various pieces in honor of her grandmother.
She is a mother of three, although none are artists. But her talents have not been lost in the gene pool as her two grandchildren,Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making supplies and accessories! Zuri and Xahlia, may very well be the next master potters to carry on her legacy.
On the other end of the artisan pendulum is pastelist and secretary of the guild, Ginger Baldwin of Bastrop.
Born in Canada, Baldwin comes from a long line of strong, creative women. Encouraged by her mother and grandmother, she entered her first art show at age six with a watercolor painting of the Statue of Liberty.
Over the years, she has attended numerous informal art classes and workshops, but mainly refers to herself as a self-taught artist.
After a hiatus from painting for several years, Baldwin rediscovered her passion in 2010 when friend Brenda Knoll encouraged her to attend a class taught by landscape pastel artist, Enid Wood.
“There is no room for timidity in art,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Everything you do is a learning experience. And I tell people to remember that there is nothing in the world that cannot be improved at least a little bit by adding purple.”
The big 9-by-14-foot section in the system's Savage branch sits to his left, already complete. In it, three cartoon critters putz along in a teal-and-purple dirigible, high above a rolling prairie scene not far removed from the southern Minnesotan landscape where the library is located.
Now Preslicka is working on the remaining 8-by-8-foot section, shading in a dog and cat who are sharing the cab of what looks to be a purple hang glider. An old Walkman playing National Public Radio is clipped to his belt, and a new haircut and a matching, neatly trimmed brown beard frame his round face.Canada Is Your Premier Personalized bobbleheads Head Company!
Staccato dabs with a short-haired brush do most of the work, but it's the long, wavy, contoured strokes that get the final say. He stops all the time to quickly mix colors in an old metal tray. There's a reddish brown, two shades of neon orange, three shades of turquoise, a light purple and a deep blue, but there is no black. Preslicka doesn't use black. And he doesn't do Disney characters.
"What I do is create unique stuff. There's value in having something that is totally unique," said Preslicka, speaking in the calm, thoughtful demeanor of a man who paints children's murals.
"In art school, everyone wanted to illustrate children's books, and this is a way I could do some of that."
The Savage resident grew up in New Prague and went to the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul. After graduation, he worked for a few different local design firms before starting Preslicka Studio 18 years ago.
Much of his work has been aimed at a youthful audience. Preslicka has done jobs for General Mills, Dairy Queen, Nabisco, Malt-O-Meal and 3M, as well as creating the logos for Scott County and the cities of Savage and Burnsville.
He has five kids himself, ages 10 to 18, and originally started painting murals for their bedrooms. Then he had the idea to start painting other children's bedrooms for extra income on the side.
His first big project was the pool at the Burnsville YMCA, and since then he's done 17 projects for different YMCAs across the metro.
His mural business is called the Big Picture and has snowballed in large part due to the business savvy of his wife, Heidi, who graduated from St. Thomas with a degree in marketing. Today there are more than 50 Preslicka murals in Minnesota, in places ranging from day cares to museums.
Meet featured artists Dietra Morris and Ginger Baldwin at the artist’s opening reception from 6-8 p.m. and enjoy a variety of live music, numerous dining choices and extended shop hours around town.
It won’t be hard to spot the local artists showing their work in more than 14 downtown businesses during the Art Walk from 5-8 p.m. Maps of the Art Walk are also available at all participating merchants.
“You can tell a lot about an artist by really looking at his or her work,” Baldwin said.
The Featured Artist display will be inside the guild’s gallery where the artistic duo will showcase their unique pieces individually throughout the evening.
Morris, of Elgin, is a master potter and member of the guild who has been working with pottery since 1976.
While attending Mitchell High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., she fell under the direction of master potter, Ed Shrock, and since then has developed a style of her own, mastering high-fire functional artwork.
“My art is versatile in that it looks good on a mantle, can withstand the heat of the oven, set out on the table, washed in the dishwasher and then be placed back on the mantel,” Morris said.We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. “All of my pottery is colored with food-safe glazes that can be microwaved and used in the oven.With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other solar light products.”
Morris’ pieces often showcase fragments of her late grandmother’s delicate tatting designs.We have become one of the worlds most recognised Ventilation system brands. She uses a technique which fossilizes them on various pieces in honor of her grandmother.
She is a mother of three, although none are artists. But her talents have not been lost in the gene pool as her two grandchildren,Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making supplies and accessories! Zuri and Xahlia, may very well be the next master potters to carry on her legacy.
On the other end of the artisan pendulum is pastelist and secretary of the guild, Ginger Baldwin of Bastrop.
Born in Canada, Baldwin comes from a long line of strong, creative women. Encouraged by her mother and grandmother, she entered her first art show at age six with a watercolor painting of the Statue of Liberty.
Over the years, she has attended numerous informal art classes and workshops, but mainly refers to herself as a self-taught artist.
After a hiatus from painting for several years, Baldwin rediscovered her passion in 2010 when friend Brenda Knoll encouraged her to attend a class taught by landscape pastel artist, Enid Wood.
“There is no room for timidity in art,” she said. “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Everything you do is a learning experience. And I tell people to remember that there is nothing in the world that cannot be improved at least a little bit by adding purple.”
The big 9-by-14-foot section in the system's Savage branch sits to his left, already complete. In it, three cartoon critters putz along in a teal-and-purple dirigible, high above a rolling prairie scene not far removed from the southern Minnesotan landscape where the library is located.
Now Preslicka is working on the remaining 8-by-8-foot section, shading in a dog and cat who are sharing the cab of what looks to be a purple hang glider. An old Walkman playing National Public Radio is clipped to his belt, and a new haircut and a matching, neatly trimmed brown beard frame his round face.Canada Is Your Premier Personalized bobbleheads Head Company!
Staccato dabs with a short-haired brush do most of the work, but it's the long, wavy, contoured strokes that get the final say. He stops all the time to quickly mix colors in an old metal tray. There's a reddish brown, two shades of neon orange, three shades of turquoise, a light purple and a deep blue, but there is no black. Preslicka doesn't use black. And he doesn't do Disney characters.
"What I do is create unique stuff. There's value in having something that is totally unique," said Preslicka, speaking in the calm, thoughtful demeanor of a man who paints children's murals.
"In art school, everyone wanted to illustrate children's books, and this is a way I could do some of that."
The Savage resident grew up in New Prague and went to the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul. After graduation, he worked for a few different local design firms before starting Preslicka Studio 18 years ago.
Much of his work has been aimed at a youthful audience. Preslicka has done jobs for General Mills, Dairy Queen, Nabisco, Malt-O-Meal and 3M, as well as creating the logos for Scott County and the cities of Savage and Burnsville.
He has five kids himself, ages 10 to 18, and originally started painting murals for their bedrooms. Then he had the idea to start painting other children's bedrooms for extra income on the side.
His first big project was the pool at the Burnsville YMCA, and since then he's done 17 projects for different YMCAs across the metro.
His mural business is called the Big Picture and has snowballed in large part due to the business savvy of his wife, Heidi, who graduated from St. Thomas with a degree in marketing. Today there are more than 50 Preslicka murals in Minnesota, in places ranging from day cares to museums.
The Nardi shows Formula Vee’s rich history
“The Nardi” has a special place in the hearts of Volkswagen
motorsports fans, but few know the full story of the first-ever Formula
Vee car.
It all started in Florida in the mid-1950s, when Miami hardware-store owner Hubert Brundage decided he wanted to create a Formula Junior car using standard Volkswagen parts.
Unable to do the work himself, Brundage commissioned famed racecar driver, engineer and designer Enrico Nardi to build his car for him. Brundage shipped a brand-new 1958 113 VW Beetle to Torino, Italy -- and Nardi went to work.
The designer took the car apart, separating the engine, transmission and suspension. He then created the tube-like, one-seat racecar that is recognized as today’s Formula Vee car.
“It was a beautiful car,” Brundage’s son Jan said. “It was very different from anything else that was out at the time.”
It was not only very different, but, as Formula Jr. cars were steadily rising in cost and becoming obsolete, Brundage’s new car gave him an idea.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a smart card can authenticate your computer usage and data.
Brundage thought that his Nardi-made car could be easily and inexpensively reproduced, making more cost-effective race cars.
“So he sold it,” Jan said. “He didn’t do it to make a profit.Canada Is Your Premier Personalized bobbleheads Head Company! He did it to help make better racecars.”
Brundage “sold” his Nardi to Bill Duckworth and George Smith for $1, with the knowledge that they were going to try to reproduce the aluminum-bodied car to make 10-20 fiberglass-bodied cars. The new cars, all using components of the VW Beetle, were to start a new racing series in central Florida (that would later become Formula Vee).
Duckworth and Smith -- who later started the racecar-building company Formcar Constructors in Orlando, Fla. -- used the Nardi as the mold for fiberglass-bodied cars. After four years, they sold 500 or so cars. The cars sold as kits for $1,000, ready-mades for $2,400. Smith, who was involved in the administration of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), talked to the club’s sanctioning body and pitched a new series, which would become Formula Vee. After much discussion, the idea took off, and Formula Vee cars became a very popular way to break into formula racing.
Duckworth and Smith then retired from their business and sold the Nardi. For years that was the logical ending to the birth for Formula Vee.
Years later, in the early 1970s, after the senior Brundage had died, Jan Brundage was reading the classified section of Autoweek and he saw an ad for an “aluminum-bodied Nardi.”
“My mouth just dropped,” he said. “I knew it was my dad’s car. It was so coincidental, because I never read the classifieds. I just happened to see it.”
Brundage knew that there was only one aluminum Nardi ever made,With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other solar light products. and he knew that he had to have it.
“I called the guy and he wanted $1,400. I didn’t even hesitate. I told him the check was in the mail.”
Actually, Brundage sent a friend up to Ohio to check the car out before buying it. It turned out that it was the Nardi. Brundage, who felt that the car was a big part of his family’s history, bought the car and put it in storage.
“I just wanted to have it,” he said. “I never really wanted to do much more with it.”
However, Brundage had no idea how important the Formula Vee series would prove to be to the people who participated in it. As time went by, former drivers started having Formula Vee reunions and get-togethers. Brundage even went to one in the mid-80s, and saw the how much people still loved the old Formula Vee cars.
Sure this would probably help, and guaranteeing future salaries for Pro Bowl players is something that Rodney Harrison brought up recently. It might make things better on some level, but it wouldn’t eliminate the fact that the game is an exhibition. You can’t get any closer to winning a Super Bowl – the ultimate goal for all players – with what you do in the Pro Bowl. It’s a game that takes place after the season with nothing on the line, aside from the future health of the player as you so astutely pointed out. That inherently removes the competitive nature of the contest. Things can be done to tweak that issue, but it will never be solved. Personally, I watched the bulk of the Pro Bowl the other night and thought it was pretty entertaining as compared to similar all-star games and exhibitions. I have no problem if it were left alone and played the way it is today moving forward. I also would have no problem if they never played another Pro Bowl again.We have become one of the worlds most recognised Ventilation system brands.
While I haven’t yet gotten enough into the pre-draft process to assess all the available talent and which positions are likely early-round targets, both needs you bring up are worthy of consideration.We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. Though there is hope that Tavon Wilson might develop into more of a strong safety type player, I have my doubts. If not, that’s a major need next to McCourty or Gregory. At receiver an outside option who can beat coverage and make plays down the field would be a huge get. But those types of guys usually go very high in the draft. Early reports are that this isn’t the most blue chip of wide receiver draft classes, so maybe an elite guy will slide to late in the first with no real consensus top targets at the position. But I will say that adding a true playmaker – something the Patriots need at more than a few positions – at both safety and wide receiver would be a big boost to this team’s playoff chances moving forward.
It all started in Florida in the mid-1950s, when Miami hardware-store owner Hubert Brundage decided he wanted to create a Formula Junior car using standard Volkswagen parts.
Unable to do the work himself, Brundage commissioned famed racecar driver, engineer and designer Enrico Nardi to build his car for him. Brundage shipped a brand-new 1958 113 VW Beetle to Torino, Italy -- and Nardi went to work.
The designer took the car apart, separating the engine, transmission and suspension. He then created the tube-like, one-seat racecar that is recognized as today’s Formula Vee car.
“It was a beautiful car,” Brundage’s son Jan said. “It was very different from anything else that was out at the time.”
It was not only very different, but, as Formula Jr. cars were steadily rising in cost and becoming obsolete, Brundage’s new car gave him an idea.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a smart card can authenticate your computer usage and data.
Brundage thought that his Nardi-made car could be easily and inexpensively reproduced, making more cost-effective race cars.
“So he sold it,” Jan said. “He didn’t do it to make a profit.Canada Is Your Premier Personalized bobbleheads Head Company! He did it to help make better racecars.”
Brundage “sold” his Nardi to Bill Duckworth and George Smith for $1, with the knowledge that they were going to try to reproduce the aluminum-bodied car to make 10-20 fiberglass-bodied cars. The new cars, all using components of the VW Beetle, were to start a new racing series in central Florida (that would later become Formula Vee).
Duckworth and Smith -- who later started the racecar-building company Formcar Constructors in Orlando, Fla. -- used the Nardi as the mold for fiberglass-bodied cars. After four years, they sold 500 or so cars. The cars sold as kits for $1,000, ready-mades for $2,400. Smith, who was involved in the administration of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), talked to the club’s sanctioning body and pitched a new series, which would become Formula Vee. After much discussion, the idea took off, and Formula Vee cars became a very popular way to break into formula racing.
Duckworth and Smith then retired from their business and sold the Nardi. For years that was the logical ending to the birth for Formula Vee.
Years later, in the early 1970s, after the senior Brundage had died, Jan Brundage was reading the classified section of Autoweek and he saw an ad for an “aluminum-bodied Nardi.”
“My mouth just dropped,” he said. “I knew it was my dad’s car. It was so coincidental, because I never read the classifieds. I just happened to see it.”
Brundage knew that there was only one aluminum Nardi ever made,With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other solar light products. and he knew that he had to have it.
“I called the guy and he wanted $1,400. I didn’t even hesitate. I told him the check was in the mail.”
Actually, Brundage sent a friend up to Ohio to check the car out before buying it. It turned out that it was the Nardi. Brundage, who felt that the car was a big part of his family’s history, bought the car and put it in storage.
“I just wanted to have it,” he said. “I never really wanted to do much more with it.”
However, Brundage had no idea how important the Formula Vee series would prove to be to the people who participated in it. As time went by, former drivers started having Formula Vee reunions and get-togethers. Brundage even went to one in the mid-80s, and saw the how much people still loved the old Formula Vee cars.
Sure this would probably help, and guaranteeing future salaries for Pro Bowl players is something that Rodney Harrison brought up recently. It might make things better on some level, but it wouldn’t eliminate the fact that the game is an exhibition. You can’t get any closer to winning a Super Bowl – the ultimate goal for all players – with what you do in the Pro Bowl. It’s a game that takes place after the season with nothing on the line, aside from the future health of the player as you so astutely pointed out. That inherently removes the competitive nature of the contest. Things can be done to tweak that issue, but it will never be solved. Personally, I watched the bulk of the Pro Bowl the other night and thought it was pretty entertaining as compared to similar all-star games and exhibitions. I have no problem if it were left alone and played the way it is today moving forward. I also would have no problem if they never played another Pro Bowl again.We have become one of the worlds most recognised Ventilation system brands.
While I haven’t yet gotten enough into the pre-draft process to assess all the available talent and which positions are likely early-round targets, both needs you bring up are worthy of consideration.We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. Though there is hope that Tavon Wilson might develop into more of a strong safety type player, I have my doubts. If not, that’s a major need next to McCourty or Gregory. At receiver an outside option who can beat coverage and make plays down the field would be a huge get. But those types of guys usually go very high in the draft. Early reports are that this isn’t the most blue chip of wide receiver draft classes, so maybe an elite guy will slide to late in the first with no real consensus top targets at the position. But I will say that adding a true playmaker – something the Patriots need at more than a few positions – at both safety and wide receiver would be a big boost to this team’s playoff chances moving forward.
Obama's Climate Push to Benefit Energy-Saving Companies
President Barack Obama's promise to attack climate change is likely
to light a fire under federal agencies slow to comply with a mandate to
cut energy use - which could be very good news for companies that
specialize in systems that save power.
Waiting in the wings are the likes of Honeywell International Inc, Johnson Controls Inc and Ameresco Inc that are ready to carry out heating and cooling system upgrades, lighting retrofits and similar projects in some of the government's 500,000 buildings.
Efficiency projects, according to many, are a key way the government can reduce its own energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions without seeking additional funds from Congress.
Many of these projects are implemented under so-called energy savings performance contracts in which a company develops, installs and arranges financing for improvements to boost energy efficiency and lower costs.With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other solar light products.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a smart card can authenticate your computer usage and data. The energy service company guarantees the project's energy savings and services are repaid through those savings.
In late 2009, Obama mandated that federal agencies make significant reductions in energy consumption. The aim was for the government to "lead by example" by upgrading many of its facilities. Two years later, the administration tried to jumpstart that work by setting a goal for federal agencies to enter into at least $2 billion of energy efficiency projects within two years.
"There is a lot more potential in the program than what's been done today," said Adam Procell,We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. executive vice president at Lime Energy Co, which works with larger companies such as Johnson Controls to design and install energy efficiency projects for federal customers.
With Obama renewing his commitment to combat climate change in his second inaugural address this week, some expect to see more pressure on agencies to get going on those projects.
"If President Obama was to let all of his administrators know that this was an important priority of his,We have become one of the worlds most recognised Ventilation system brands. you could see reacceleration of this market in a relatively short period of time," said Wedbush Securities analyst Craig Irwin, who follows energy efficiency companies.
With less than a year left to reach the $2 billion goal, major efficiency companies have been working to develop project proposals and expect a string of contracts to be awarded this year.
"In the last six months, federal government activity has heated up," Paul Orzeske, president of Honeywell Building Solutions, said in an interview. "That's going to step up as the year goes on."
In October, Honeywell won an $80.6 million project to improve energy efficiency at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, the largest such project ever awarded by the federal government, according to Orzeske. Most such projects are in the $10 million to $15 million range, he added.
The upgrades are expected to save more than $170 million over 20 years, guaranteed by Honeywell through the contract.
Other energy service companies poised to benefit from federal project awards include Ameresco and United Technologies Corp's Noresco unit, both of which have been active in the federal market in recent years. Other companies that have done federal projects in the past include Clark Energy Group LLC, Siemens AG and Schneider Electric SA.
The U.S. market for energy efficiency and services topped $5.1 billion in 2011, according to Pike Research, and is expected to reach $16 billion in sales by 2020. The market is dominated by municipal, university, school and hospital projects, but demand from federal agencies has increased because of the Obama administration's mandate and economic stimulus programs, the report said.
Johnson Controls Building Efficiency's vice president of government relations, Mark Wagner, said the government has not yet addressed what will happen once it meets its $2 billion goal, but he was encouraged by Obama's renewed pledge to address climate change.
"The budget is going to be tight in the federal government for the foreseeable future," Wagner said. "If government agencies want to make their facilities more efficient, performance contracting is the way to address their needs and to address climate change."
Johnson Controls won a $16 million contract in late 2011 to put in a solar energy installation and make other efficiency improvements at Fort Bliss, the nation's largest military installation.Canada Is Your Premier Personalized bobbleheads Head Company!
Smaller companies that supply equipment or software to the project developers could also see a boost from federal projects, according to Aditya Ranade, who leads the sustainable building materials team at technology research firm Lux Research.
Specifically, Ranade called out LED and lighting systems companies Acuity Brands Inc and Digital Lumens and Optimum Energy LLC, which uses software and cloud computing to optimize heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, as companies that could see a boost in orders from federal contracts.
Waiting in the wings are the likes of Honeywell International Inc, Johnson Controls Inc and Ameresco Inc that are ready to carry out heating and cooling system upgrades, lighting retrofits and similar projects in some of the government's 500,000 buildings.
Efficiency projects, according to many, are a key way the government can reduce its own energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions without seeking additional funds from Congress.
Many of these projects are implemented under so-called energy savings performance contracts in which a company develops, installs and arranges financing for improvements to boost energy efficiency and lower costs.With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other solar light products.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a smart card can authenticate your computer usage and data. The energy service company guarantees the project's energy savings and services are repaid through those savings.
In late 2009, Obama mandated that federal agencies make significant reductions in energy consumption. The aim was for the government to "lead by example" by upgrading many of its facilities. Two years later, the administration tried to jumpstart that work by setting a goal for federal agencies to enter into at least $2 billion of energy efficiency projects within two years.
"There is a lot more potential in the program than what's been done today," said Adam Procell,We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. executive vice president at Lime Energy Co, which works with larger companies such as Johnson Controls to design and install energy efficiency projects for federal customers.
With Obama renewing his commitment to combat climate change in his second inaugural address this week, some expect to see more pressure on agencies to get going on those projects.
"If President Obama was to let all of his administrators know that this was an important priority of his,We have become one of the worlds most recognised Ventilation system brands. you could see reacceleration of this market in a relatively short period of time," said Wedbush Securities analyst Craig Irwin, who follows energy efficiency companies.
With less than a year left to reach the $2 billion goal, major efficiency companies have been working to develop project proposals and expect a string of contracts to be awarded this year.
"In the last six months, federal government activity has heated up," Paul Orzeske, president of Honeywell Building Solutions, said in an interview. "That's going to step up as the year goes on."
In October, Honeywell won an $80.6 million project to improve energy efficiency at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, the largest such project ever awarded by the federal government, according to Orzeske. Most such projects are in the $10 million to $15 million range, he added.
The upgrades are expected to save more than $170 million over 20 years, guaranteed by Honeywell through the contract.
Other energy service companies poised to benefit from federal project awards include Ameresco and United Technologies Corp's Noresco unit, both of which have been active in the federal market in recent years. Other companies that have done federal projects in the past include Clark Energy Group LLC, Siemens AG and Schneider Electric SA.
The U.S. market for energy efficiency and services topped $5.1 billion in 2011, according to Pike Research, and is expected to reach $16 billion in sales by 2020. The market is dominated by municipal, university, school and hospital projects, but demand from federal agencies has increased because of the Obama administration's mandate and economic stimulus programs, the report said.
Johnson Controls Building Efficiency's vice president of government relations, Mark Wagner, said the government has not yet addressed what will happen once it meets its $2 billion goal, but he was encouraged by Obama's renewed pledge to address climate change.
"The budget is going to be tight in the federal government for the foreseeable future," Wagner said. "If government agencies want to make their facilities more efficient, performance contracting is the way to address their needs and to address climate change."
Johnson Controls won a $16 million contract in late 2011 to put in a solar energy installation and make other efficiency improvements at Fort Bliss, the nation's largest military installation.Canada Is Your Premier Personalized bobbleheads Head Company!
Smaller companies that supply equipment or software to the project developers could also see a boost from federal projects, according to Aditya Ranade, who leads the sustainable building materials team at technology research firm Lux Research.
Specifically, Ranade called out LED and lighting systems companies Acuity Brands Inc and Digital Lumens and Optimum Energy LLC, which uses software and cloud computing to optimize heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, as companies that could see a boost in orders from federal contracts.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Hyundai's posh Santa Fe hits SA
The top-end SUV in Hyundai SA's local model range enters the market
in three derivatives with a choice of features and drivetrains.
Buyers in this segment are given a choice between the front-wheel-drive Santa Fe Premium and the two all-wheel-drive derivatives — the Executive and the Elite. When carrying more passengers is a priority, the Executive and Elite with their third row of seats that fold away into the cargo floor, offers another option to make it an even more versatile vehicle.
The third generation of Santa Fe is designed to be manageable in a city environment, with flexible seating arrangements and clever use of internal space.Other companies want a piece of that iPhone headset action It has a high ground clearance, an all-wheel drive system in the Executive and Elite, and a frugal, efficient turbodiesel engine.
Building on Hyundai's "Fluidic Sculpture" design philosophy, the exterior of the Santa Fe features a bold hexagonal front grille. A rising belt-line and shoulder line behind the rear door handles is a stand-out feature.
The front Xenon headlights get rectangular lenses, there are LED side repeaters in the rear clusters, and gloss black finishing does duty on the door frames and pillars.
At the rear, detailing includes a sporty twin muffler with double exhaust tips, a diffuser style moulding beneath the bumper, and an LED high-level brake light. Alloy wheels are standard - 17-inch rims are fitted to the Premium derivative, while the Executive comes with 18-inch and the Elite with 19-inch rims. A full alloy spare wheel is located under the cargo floor.
Longer and wider than the previous generation model, the all-new Santa Fe provides improved legroom and increased headroom in the first row. Seating convenience is improved by lowering hip point and ground clearance, while doors that extend to the bottom of the sills make access easier.
Seating arrangements are particularly versatile. A 12-way power adjustable driver's seat is a feature unique to the Elite derivative. Reminiscent of the type of seats typically found in large luxury SUVs, the second row can be slid back or forwards for added convenience, and can also be reclined and split fold for extra carrying capacity.
Boot space in the all-new Santa Fe is 1003 litres in the Premium five-seater,We've got a plastic card to suit you. and 994 litres in the seven-seater Executive and Elite. A new centre console storage box, deep door pockets and a sizable lockable glove box contribute to the overall storage space in the new Santa Fe. Remote folding of the second row seats simplifies the conversion of the interior luggage space for carrying large and bulky items like pushchairs and bicycles.
All models come with Dual Zone Climate Control, with a switch to activate the air conditioner for the second- and third-row passengers. A glove box cooler also keeps contents chilled.
The flagship Elite model features a tiny video camera that assists the driver when reversing or parking by showing in the rear-view mirror what is going on behind the car.
Among the many neat touches that highlight the premium nature of the all-new Santa Fe are automatic electric folding mirrors, an automatic rain sensor with speed-sensitive windscreen wipers, and the full-length panoramic sunroof that is standard in the Elite. Letting in even more light than conventional panoramic sunroofs, the Santa Fe's sunroof eliminates the centre beam and installs motor-driven roller blinds.
The all-new Santa Fe offers four-speaker and two-tweeter audio system. The system with its radio and CD player includes ports for aux cables, iPod and a USB connection for the use of various music and audio sources. The audio system can be operated via the steering wheel remote controls.
The turbodiesel delivers its power to the wheels through a smooth-shifting automatic six-speed transmission that offers the option of manual shift control.
The all-wheel drive system in the Executive and Elite delivers power through the front wheels under normal road conditions for optimum economy and fuel efficiency, but engages the rear wheels automatically when conditions demand it.Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet? It also features a 4WD lock mode selector that distributes power in a 50:50 ratio to front and rear wheels for increased off-road ability,Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks! while automatically switching to "Auto" mode to protect the drive system when the vehicle speed increases to 40km/h.
A Flex Steer system offers three steering modes that are selectable via a switch on the steering wheel, enabling the driver to choose between Comfort, Normal and Sport according to road conditions.
Suspension is by Macpherson struts at the front, and a multi-link arrangement at the rear. Dynamic dampers deliver saloon car-like levels of comfort and control, whilst the Flex Steer system offers improved precision and feel.
All AWD Santa Fes have an intelligent control unit that continuously analyses data from the vehicle controller, and through a multi-clutch plate distributes torque to any single wheel at a time. The coupling system is fully controllable via an electro-hydraulic actuation system. Braking force can also be sent to any single wheel at a time via the software. These processes are known as torque vectoring and torque braking. All this analysis is completely transparent to the driver.
Cutting-edge preventive safety systems offer optimal driving stability and require minimum effort from the driver, yet deliver maximum results on virtually any road condition.Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person. The application of these safety systems and technologies has earned the all-new Santa Fe a full house of five stars in the stringent test regimen of the European New Car Assessment Programme.
Buyers in this segment are given a choice between the front-wheel-drive Santa Fe Premium and the two all-wheel-drive derivatives — the Executive and the Elite. When carrying more passengers is a priority, the Executive and Elite with their third row of seats that fold away into the cargo floor, offers another option to make it an even more versatile vehicle.
The third generation of Santa Fe is designed to be manageable in a city environment, with flexible seating arrangements and clever use of internal space.Other companies want a piece of that iPhone headset action It has a high ground clearance, an all-wheel drive system in the Executive and Elite, and a frugal, efficient turbodiesel engine.
Building on Hyundai's "Fluidic Sculpture" design philosophy, the exterior of the Santa Fe features a bold hexagonal front grille. A rising belt-line and shoulder line behind the rear door handles is a stand-out feature.
The front Xenon headlights get rectangular lenses, there are LED side repeaters in the rear clusters, and gloss black finishing does duty on the door frames and pillars.
At the rear, detailing includes a sporty twin muffler with double exhaust tips, a diffuser style moulding beneath the bumper, and an LED high-level brake light. Alloy wheels are standard - 17-inch rims are fitted to the Premium derivative, while the Executive comes with 18-inch and the Elite with 19-inch rims. A full alloy spare wheel is located under the cargo floor.
Longer and wider than the previous generation model, the all-new Santa Fe provides improved legroom and increased headroom in the first row. Seating convenience is improved by lowering hip point and ground clearance, while doors that extend to the bottom of the sills make access easier.
Seating arrangements are particularly versatile. A 12-way power adjustable driver's seat is a feature unique to the Elite derivative. Reminiscent of the type of seats typically found in large luxury SUVs, the second row can be slid back or forwards for added convenience, and can also be reclined and split fold for extra carrying capacity.
Boot space in the all-new Santa Fe is 1003 litres in the Premium five-seater,We've got a plastic card to suit you. and 994 litres in the seven-seater Executive and Elite. A new centre console storage box, deep door pockets and a sizable lockable glove box contribute to the overall storage space in the new Santa Fe. Remote folding of the second row seats simplifies the conversion of the interior luggage space for carrying large and bulky items like pushchairs and bicycles.
All models come with Dual Zone Climate Control, with a switch to activate the air conditioner for the second- and third-row passengers. A glove box cooler also keeps contents chilled.
The flagship Elite model features a tiny video camera that assists the driver when reversing or parking by showing in the rear-view mirror what is going on behind the car.
Among the many neat touches that highlight the premium nature of the all-new Santa Fe are automatic electric folding mirrors, an automatic rain sensor with speed-sensitive windscreen wipers, and the full-length panoramic sunroof that is standard in the Elite. Letting in even more light than conventional panoramic sunroofs, the Santa Fe's sunroof eliminates the centre beam and installs motor-driven roller blinds.
The all-new Santa Fe offers four-speaker and two-tweeter audio system. The system with its radio and CD player includes ports for aux cables, iPod and a USB connection for the use of various music and audio sources. The audio system can be operated via the steering wheel remote controls.
The turbodiesel delivers its power to the wheels through a smooth-shifting automatic six-speed transmission that offers the option of manual shift control.
The all-wheel drive system in the Executive and Elite delivers power through the front wheels under normal road conditions for optimum economy and fuel efficiency, but engages the rear wheels automatically when conditions demand it.Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet? It also features a 4WD lock mode selector that distributes power in a 50:50 ratio to front and rear wheels for increased off-road ability,Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks! while automatically switching to "Auto" mode to protect the drive system when the vehicle speed increases to 40km/h.
A Flex Steer system offers three steering modes that are selectable via a switch on the steering wheel, enabling the driver to choose between Comfort, Normal and Sport according to road conditions.
Suspension is by Macpherson struts at the front, and a multi-link arrangement at the rear. Dynamic dampers deliver saloon car-like levels of comfort and control, whilst the Flex Steer system offers improved precision and feel.
All AWD Santa Fes have an intelligent control unit that continuously analyses data from the vehicle controller, and through a multi-clutch plate distributes torque to any single wheel at a time. The coupling system is fully controllable via an electro-hydraulic actuation system. Braking force can also be sent to any single wheel at a time via the software. These processes are known as torque vectoring and torque braking. All this analysis is completely transparent to the driver.
Cutting-edge preventive safety systems offer optimal driving stability and require minimum effort from the driver, yet deliver maximum results on virtually any road condition.Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person. The application of these safety systems and technologies has earned the all-new Santa Fe a full house of five stars in the stringent test regimen of the European New Car Assessment Programme.
A brief history from Budgie to BlackBerry 10
Listen to much of the chatter about Research in Motion today and
you'll hear the launch of BlackBerry 10 described in almost apocalyptic
terms. All-or-nothing. Live-or-die. Make-or-break. There's some truth
to the extreme language, but BlackBerry 10 is really just the latest in
a series of transformational moments for a company that has frequently
had to adapt to survive. In that sense, the appreciation for crises and
opportunities is almost as natural as breathing for RIM. What's less
certain is whether or not the company in 2013 is as capable of
wholesale shifts in strategy as it was for much of its not quite
30-year history. Read on to see why reform is possible, but won't be
quite so easy.
For its first two decades, RIM often showed the traits of a scrappy startup. It had nothing to lose and was willing to turn its business model on a dime to stay afloat. More importantly, it also had a simple, overriding determination to spread wireless data to the masses, no matter how that would come to pass. That gave it a leg up over contemporary technology stalwarts like Apple, Microsoft and Palm, all of whom were at least slightly behind RIM in seeing the value of truly instant mobile communication. CEO Mike Lazaridis (and eventual co-CEO Jim Balsillie) would see a void in the market, whether it was two-way paging or mobile email, and switch strategies to fill it.
As the 2000s wore on, however, RIM slowed down. Much of the decade revolved around entrenching what we know as the core BlackBerry business model, where messaging-focused smartphones ship to large-scale customers. The company acknowledged the consumer world as early as 2003, but its approach was increasingly reactionary. We wouldn't have had the BlackBerry Storm without the iPhone popularizing touchscreens first, for example. The company spent more time trying to justify its existing smartphone philosophy and less time getting ahead of trends, even as it lost its market share advantage and started working on BlackBerry 10. Some saw the eventual departures of Lazaridis, Balsillie and a slew of executives as necessary to undo an institutionalized resistance to change.
The launch of BlackBerry 10 isn't just the test of a software redesign, then. It's gauging whether or not a leaner RIM is once again nimble enough to stay relevant.Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks! We haven't quite returned to the company's early days, but its current position is an uncannily familiar one where RIM has to bet the farm on a new project. The difference? RIM isn't entering an untapped wireless market this time. While it's on better footing than a defunct mobile veteran like Palm, there's not much room for a second chance. Follow along with our timeline to see just how RIM's opportunities opened up, closed shut and maybe (just maybe) opened up again with a new OS.
Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin officially founded Research in Motion on March 7th, 1984 with a desire to commercialize Budgie, a system that wirelessly displayed information on a TV screen. It generated enough business to let RIM take on side projects, including a film barcode reader, but the real kick start was the arrival of one of the earliest wireless data networks, Mobitex. Software deals to support it led to the 1993 launch of RIMGate, the precursor to BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and wireless point-of-sale terminals in 1994. This early period also saw the introduction of Jim Balsillie, who met Lazaridis while trying to negotiate a purchase of RIM in 1992 and quickly became the future BlackBerry maker's VP of Finance.We've got a plastic card to suit you. Few other companies were as actively interested in mobile data at the time: apart from Mobitex creator Ericsson, the most conspicuous participant was IBM, whose smartphone-like Simon Personal Communicator went on sale briefly in 1994 and still depended on a 2,400-baud modem for data.
The BlackBerry era started in earnest in March 2002, when RIM unveiled the BlackBerry 5810. It was the first handheld from RIM to carry GSM and GPRS, although phone service was almost incidental when owners had to plug in a headset just to make calls. The situation got better when the 6710 and beyond had audio hardware built-in. Color came with the 7200 and 7700 series in 2003,Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person. but the real breakthroughs were the 6200 series from that year and the 7100 in 2004, which were explicitly targeted at "prosumers" who wanted a BlackBerry for personal use. In 2005, the 8700 series took the 7100's sleeker aesthetic to the high-end; for many, it was the first modern BlackBerry, where a polished design, phone features and a full keyboard were all in one device. Not that RIM could rest on its laurels. Nokia,Other companies want a piece of that iPhone headset action Palm and others had thrown themselves wholeheartedly into smartphones, and Microsoft's launches of Pocket PC 2002 and Windows Mobile provided a start for smartphone makers that would eventually play important roles, like HTC.
It's at the middle of last decade that RIM simultaneously reached its creative zenith and sowed the seeds of its decline. The BlackBerry Pearl of 2006 was the company's first phone built expressly for the regular public, and had such radical concepts (for RIM) as a camera and dedicated media playback. Both the Pearl and the QWERTY-equipped Curve of 2007 would be key to an explosion in sales over the next few years. However, it's also in 2007 that Apple launched the iPhone and began the public's love affair with touchscreens in their mobile devices. RIM's response,Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet? even into 2010, was to downplay the threat; it argued that customers needed hardware keyboards. It was difficult to know then just how dangerous the attitude would be when others were similarly dismissive -- see Steve Ballmer's jab that the iPhone was too expensive to succeed, for example -- but it's clear in hindsight that RIM had put the blinders on at the very moment its eyes needed to be wide open.
For its first two decades, RIM often showed the traits of a scrappy startup. It had nothing to lose and was willing to turn its business model on a dime to stay afloat. More importantly, it also had a simple, overriding determination to spread wireless data to the masses, no matter how that would come to pass. That gave it a leg up over contemporary technology stalwarts like Apple, Microsoft and Palm, all of whom were at least slightly behind RIM in seeing the value of truly instant mobile communication. CEO Mike Lazaridis (and eventual co-CEO Jim Balsillie) would see a void in the market, whether it was two-way paging or mobile email, and switch strategies to fill it.
As the 2000s wore on, however, RIM slowed down. Much of the decade revolved around entrenching what we know as the core BlackBerry business model, where messaging-focused smartphones ship to large-scale customers. The company acknowledged the consumer world as early as 2003, but its approach was increasingly reactionary. We wouldn't have had the BlackBerry Storm without the iPhone popularizing touchscreens first, for example. The company spent more time trying to justify its existing smartphone philosophy and less time getting ahead of trends, even as it lost its market share advantage and started working on BlackBerry 10. Some saw the eventual departures of Lazaridis, Balsillie and a slew of executives as necessary to undo an institutionalized resistance to change.
The launch of BlackBerry 10 isn't just the test of a software redesign, then. It's gauging whether or not a leaner RIM is once again nimble enough to stay relevant.Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks! We haven't quite returned to the company's early days, but its current position is an uncannily familiar one where RIM has to bet the farm on a new project. The difference? RIM isn't entering an untapped wireless market this time. While it's on better footing than a defunct mobile veteran like Palm, there's not much room for a second chance. Follow along with our timeline to see just how RIM's opportunities opened up, closed shut and maybe (just maybe) opened up again with a new OS.
Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin officially founded Research in Motion on March 7th, 1984 with a desire to commercialize Budgie, a system that wirelessly displayed information on a TV screen. It generated enough business to let RIM take on side projects, including a film barcode reader, but the real kick start was the arrival of one of the earliest wireless data networks, Mobitex. Software deals to support it led to the 1993 launch of RIMGate, the precursor to BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and wireless point-of-sale terminals in 1994. This early period also saw the introduction of Jim Balsillie, who met Lazaridis while trying to negotiate a purchase of RIM in 1992 and quickly became the future BlackBerry maker's VP of Finance.We've got a plastic card to suit you. Few other companies were as actively interested in mobile data at the time: apart from Mobitex creator Ericsson, the most conspicuous participant was IBM, whose smartphone-like Simon Personal Communicator went on sale briefly in 1994 and still depended on a 2,400-baud modem for data.
The BlackBerry era started in earnest in March 2002, when RIM unveiled the BlackBerry 5810. It was the first handheld from RIM to carry GSM and GPRS, although phone service was almost incidental when owners had to plug in a headset just to make calls. The situation got better when the 6710 and beyond had audio hardware built-in. Color came with the 7200 and 7700 series in 2003,Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person. but the real breakthroughs were the 6200 series from that year and the 7100 in 2004, which were explicitly targeted at "prosumers" who wanted a BlackBerry for personal use. In 2005, the 8700 series took the 7100's sleeker aesthetic to the high-end; for many, it was the first modern BlackBerry, where a polished design, phone features and a full keyboard were all in one device. Not that RIM could rest on its laurels. Nokia,Other companies want a piece of that iPhone headset action Palm and others had thrown themselves wholeheartedly into smartphones, and Microsoft's launches of Pocket PC 2002 and Windows Mobile provided a start for smartphone makers that would eventually play important roles, like HTC.
It's at the middle of last decade that RIM simultaneously reached its creative zenith and sowed the seeds of its decline. The BlackBerry Pearl of 2006 was the company's first phone built expressly for the regular public, and had such radical concepts (for RIM) as a camera and dedicated media playback. Both the Pearl and the QWERTY-equipped Curve of 2007 would be key to an explosion in sales over the next few years. However, it's also in 2007 that Apple launched the iPhone and began the public's love affair with touchscreens in their mobile devices. RIM's response,Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet? even into 2010, was to downplay the threat; it argued that customers needed hardware keyboards. It was difficult to know then just how dangerous the attitude would be when others were similarly dismissive -- see Steve Ballmer's jab that the iPhone was too expensive to succeed, for example -- but it's clear in hindsight that RIM had put the blinders on at the very moment its eyes needed to be wide open.
A Closer Look at Disney Infinity
When Disney Infinity was first announced a few weeks ago, I couldn’t
decide whether it was a childhood dream come true or a terrifyingly
efficient money-spinner. To be totally honest, it’s both – it’s going
to make a ridiculous amount of money, but Disney Infinity is not a
cynical or exploitative exercise. It’s creative, playful, and preserves
the soul of the cherished characters and places that it brings to
life.
When you look at how kids play with their toys, they’re born genre alchemists. Spider-Man can fight against Creepers from Minecraft; Hulk and Barbie can drive around in the Batmobile together; Iron Man and Buzz Lightyear can form a crime-fighting superteam in space. Disney Infinity taps right into this impulse, harnessing the imagination in a way that licensed kids’ games seldom bother to do.
One source of the waterfall of cash that Disney Infinity is sure to generate is the sheer amount of plastic stuff that you can buy for it. Where Skylanders comprises just figurines and an NFC portal that translates them into the game, Disney Infinity is more complex than that: there are power discs, playset pieces and hexagonal skin and item discs as well. The playset pieces unlock themed levels, the power discs add buffs and abilities to characters when stacked underneath them, and the hexagonal discs unlock vehicles, items, wallpapers and more to use in creating your own levels.
Playset pieces and characters will be sold individually or in packs of three, and the power and item discs will come in blind packs, like trading cards. This is a faintly frightening prospect for anyone with kids, as it opens Disney Infinity up to both playground trading for the discs and parental pestering for the more expensive figures. But given that these toys will be played with in both the real world and Disney’s virtual space, and that each themed playset will offer a good 15+ hours of gameplay by the developer’s estimation, there is decent value to them.
As a bit of a miniature-plastic-stuff addict, the quality of the figures themselves was a primary concern for me. Happily they’re such lovely-looking objects that you almost feel alright about their $12.99 individual price-tags (Brits can prepare to be screwed with a ￡12.99 retail price for individual figures, if Amazon’s pre-order pages are any indication). They’re made in conjunction with the same Chinese firm that manufactures Square Enix’s exquisite Play Arts figurines, and the quality is self-evident. They’re much better-looking and better-made than most of the overpriced merchandise you’ll find on the shelves of Disney stores.
There’s a unifying vinyl-cut style to them that makes each character look just similar enough to the others that they seem at home in the same universe. This carries over into the game itself – Disney Infinity’s style is definitely its own, though its versions of Jack Sparrow, Sully and Mr Incredible are far closer to the source material than, say, the LEGO games’ characterful minifigures.
There are two sides to Disney Infinity’s gameplay: the playset levels, which play out much like any other Disney-themed kids’ game, and the toybox creative mode. The playset levels are themed around particular movies and are only playable with characters for that movie. Each playset is essentially a self-contained game, each with its own unique mechanics as well as its own look. The Incredibles scenario is mostly about bashing baddies with big fists, and it does that very well – everything is destructible and enemies explode in a shower of parts, making you feel like you’re smashing toys to bits.
Just picking up and throwing things proves unreasonably entertaining – all the other characters have that vinyl-cut look as well, so you can throw them through windows/at buildings without fear of bloody repercussions (in the game, that is - in real life you'll probably regret it). The Monsters University playset has a totally different feel – Sulley and Mikey run around a bustling university campus, setting up pranks and elaborate chains of traps that send passers-by flying across the quad, launched by a spring-loaded manhole cover. It’s playful and friendly, with a smattering of gentle platforming puzzles and a lot of humour.
I ran out of time before testing out Pirates of the Caribbean, but it looks more action-orientated, with sailing setpieces and piratical sword-fighting for Jack Sparrow and co to get up to. When you place a villain character down on the Infinity Pad, the game doesn’t change,Other companies want a piece of that iPhone headset action so theoretically you could have Davy Jones fighting Davy Jones, or Syndrome facing himself in The Incredibles. The different character figures all have different powers that unlock different parts of the levels – you can complete them with anyone, but to see everything you’ll need all the characters.Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person.
As a bit of a miniature-plastic-stuff addict, the quality of the figures themselves was a primary concern for me. Happily they’re such lovely-looking objects that you almost feel alright about their $12.99 individual price-tags (Brits can prepare to be screwed with a ￡12.99 retail price for individual figures, if Amazon’s pre-order pages are any indication). They’re made in conjunction with the same Chinese firm that manufactures Square Enix’s exquisite Play Arts figurines, and the quality is self-evident. They’re much better-looking and better-made than most of the overpriced merchandise you’ll find on the shelves of Disney stores.
There’s a unifying vinyl-cut style to them that makes each character look just similar enough to the others that they seem at home in the same universe. This carries over into the game itself – Disney Infinity’s style is definitely its own, though its versions of Jack Sparrow, Sully and Mr Incredible are far closer to the source material than, say, the LEGO games’ characterful minifigures.
There are two sides to Disney Infinity’s gameplay: the playset levels, which play out much like any other Disney-themed kids’ game, and the toybox creative mode. The playset levels are themed around particular movies and are only playable with characters for that movie. Each playset is essentially a self-contained game, each with its own unique mechanics as well as its own look. The Incredibles scenario is mostly about bashing baddies with big fists, and it does that very well – everything is destructible and enemies explode in a shower of parts, making you feel like you’re smashing toys to bits.Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet?
Just picking up and throwing things proves unreasonably entertaining – all the other characters have that vinyl-cut look as well, so you can throw them through windows/at buildings without fear of bloody repercussions (in the game, that is - in real life you'll probably regret it). The Monsters University playset has a totally different feel – Sulley and Mikey run around a bustling university campus, setting up pranks and elaborate chains of traps that send passers-by flying across the quad,Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks! launched by a spring-loaded manhole cover. It’s playful and friendly, with a smattering of gentle platforming puzzles and a lot of humour.
I ran out of time before testing out Pirates of the Caribbean, but it looks more action-orientated, with sailing setpieces and piratical sword-fighting for Jack Sparrow and co to get up to. When you place a villain character down on the Infinity Pad, the game doesn’t change, so theoretically you could have Davy Jones fighting Davy Jones, or Syndrome facing himself in The Incredibles. The different character figures all have different powers that unlock different parts of the levels – you can complete them with anyone, but to see everything you’ll need all the characters.
It’s a lot more like LittleBigPlanet 2 than it is like Minecraft – and it riffs on Media Molecule’s create-play-share philosophy in a way that 2011’s Disney Universe - which invited plenty of LBP comparisons of its own - did not.We've got a plastic card to suit you. Disney hopes to encourage creators with competitions, challenging them to make the best racetrack or the best castle and then redistributing the winners as level packs (for free, obviously).
Disney Infinity has “several” more worlds on the disc that will be unlocked with future playsets and characters – but instead of releasing levels based on new movies (or other Disney properties, like Star Wars) as DLC, Disney Interactive will be releasing a Disney Infinity 2 when the time is right. This is a little disappointing, but given that the game is out on all platforms, there was no way to design a framework for all of them that would allow the developer to add in levels that weren’t on the disc.
Disney Infinity’s trump card over Skylanders is its potentially universal appeal – where Skylanders are designed for 6-10-year-old boys, Disney has characters that appeal to everyone. That’s reflected in the gameplay, which keeps things simple and kid-friendly but varies between puzzles, platforming and action. It’s the creative aspect that really animates Disney Infinity, though, and that makes this more than an inspired lesson in cash conjuration.
When you look at how kids play with their toys, they’re born genre alchemists. Spider-Man can fight against Creepers from Minecraft; Hulk and Barbie can drive around in the Batmobile together; Iron Man and Buzz Lightyear can form a crime-fighting superteam in space. Disney Infinity taps right into this impulse, harnessing the imagination in a way that licensed kids’ games seldom bother to do.
One source of the waterfall of cash that Disney Infinity is sure to generate is the sheer amount of plastic stuff that you can buy for it. Where Skylanders comprises just figurines and an NFC portal that translates them into the game, Disney Infinity is more complex than that: there are power discs, playset pieces and hexagonal skin and item discs as well. The playset pieces unlock themed levels, the power discs add buffs and abilities to characters when stacked underneath them, and the hexagonal discs unlock vehicles, items, wallpapers and more to use in creating your own levels.
Playset pieces and characters will be sold individually or in packs of three, and the power and item discs will come in blind packs, like trading cards. This is a faintly frightening prospect for anyone with kids, as it opens Disney Infinity up to both playground trading for the discs and parental pestering for the more expensive figures. But given that these toys will be played with in both the real world and Disney’s virtual space, and that each themed playset will offer a good 15+ hours of gameplay by the developer’s estimation, there is decent value to them.
As a bit of a miniature-plastic-stuff addict, the quality of the figures themselves was a primary concern for me. Happily they’re such lovely-looking objects that you almost feel alright about their $12.99 individual price-tags (Brits can prepare to be screwed with a ￡12.99 retail price for individual figures, if Amazon’s pre-order pages are any indication). They’re made in conjunction with the same Chinese firm that manufactures Square Enix’s exquisite Play Arts figurines, and the quality is self-evident. They’re much better-looking and better-made than most of the overpriced merchandise you’ll find on the shelves of Disney stores.
There’s a unifying vinyl-cut style to them that makes each character look just similar enough to the others that they seem at home in the same universe. This carries over into the game itself – Disney Infinity’s style is definitely its own, though its versions of Jack Sparrow, Sully and Mr Incredible are far closer to the source material than, say, the LEGO games’ characterful minifigures.
There are two sides to Disney Infinity’s gameplay: the playset levels, which play out much like any other Disney-themed kids’ game, and the toybox creative mode. The playset levels are themed around particular movies and are only playable with characters for that movie. Each playset is essentially a self-contained game, each with its own unique mechanics as well as its own look. The Incredibles scenario is mostly about bashing baddies with big fists, and it does that very well – everything is destructible and enemies explode in a shower of parts, making you feel like you’re smashing toys to bits.
Just picking up and throwing things proves unreasonably entertaining – all the other characters have that vinyl-cut look as well, so you can throw them through windows/at buildings without fear of bloody repercussions (in the game, that is - in real life you'll probably regret it). The Monsters University playset has a totally different feel – Sulley and Mikey run around a bustling university campus, setting up pranks and elaborate chains of traps that send passers-by flying across the quad, launched by a spring-loaded manhole cover. It’s playful and friendly, with a smattering of gentle platforming puzzles and a lot of humour.
I ran out of time before testing out Pirates of the Caribbean, but it looks more action-orientated, with sailing setpieces and piratical sword-fighting for Jack Sparrow and co to get up to. When you place a villain character down on the Infinity Pad, the game doesn’t change,Other companies want a piece of that iPhone headset action so theoretically you could have Davy Jones fighting Davy Jones, or Syndrome facing himself in The Incredibles. The different character figures all have different powers that unlock different parts of the levels – you can complete them with anyone, but to see everything you’ll need all the characters.Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person.
As a bit of a miniature-plastic-stuff addict, the quality of the figures themselves was a primary concern for me. Happily they’re such lovely-looking objects that you almost feel alright about their $12.99 individual price-tags (Brits can prepare to be screwed with a ￡12.99 retail price for individual figures, if Amazon’s pre-order pages are any indication). They’re made in conjunction with the same Chinese firm that manufactures Square Enix’s exquisite Play Arts figurines, and the quality is self-evident. They’re much better-looking and better-made than most of the overpriced merchandise you’ll find on the shelves of Disney stores.
There’s a unifying vinyl-cut style to them that makes each character look just similar enough to the others that they seem at home in the same universe. This carries over into the game itself – Disney Infinity’s style is definitely its own, though its versions of Jack Sparrow, Sully and Mr Incredible are far closer to the source material than, say, the LEGO games’ characterful minifigures.
There are two sides to Disney Infinity’s gameplay: the playset levels, which play out much like any other Disney-themed kids’ game, and the toybox creative mode. The playset levels are themed around particular movies and are only playable with characters for that movie. Each playset is essentially a self-contained game, each with its own unique mechanics as well as its own look. The Incredibles scenario is mostly about bashing baddies with big fists, and it does that very well – everything is destructible and enemies explode in a shower of parts, making you feel like you’re smashing toys to bits.Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet?
Just picking up and throwing things proves unreasonably entertaining – all the other characters have that vinyl-cut look as well, so you can throw them through windows/at buildings without fear of bloody repercussions (in the game, that is - in real life you'll probably regret it). The Monsters University playset has a totally different feel – Sulley and Mikey run around a bustling university campus, setting up pranks and elaborate chains of traps that send passers-by flying across the quad,Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks! launched by a spring-loaded manhole cover. It’s playful and friendly, with a smattering of gentle platforming puzzles and a lot of humour.
I ran out of time before testing out Pirates of the Caribbean, but it looks more action-orientated, with sailing setpieces and piratical sword-fighting for Jack Sparrow and co to get up to. When you place a villain character down on the Infinity Pad, the game doesn’t change, so theoretically you could have Davy Jones fighting Davy Jones, or Syndrome facing himself in The Incredibles. The different character figures all have different powers that unlock different parts of the levels – you can complete them with anyone, but to see everything you’ll need all the characters.
It’s a lot more like LittleBigPlanet 2 than it is like Minecraft – and it riffs on Media Molecule’s create-play-share philosophy in a way that 2011’s Disney Universe - which invited plenty of LBP comparisons of its own - did not.We've got a plastic card to suit you. Disney hopes to encourage creators with competitions, challenging them to make the best racetrack or the best castle and then redistributing the winners as level packs (for free, obviously).
Disney Infinity has “several” more worlds on the disc that will be unlocked with future playsets and characters – but instead of releasing levels based on new movies (or other Disney properties, like Star Wars) as DLC, Disney Interactive will be releasing a Disney Infinity 2 when the time is right. This is a little disappointing, but given that the game is out on all platforms, there was no way to design a framework for all of them that would allow the developer to add in levels that weren’t on the disc.
Disney Infinity’s trump card over Skylanders is its potentially universal appeal – where Skylanders are designed for 6-10-year-old boys, Disney has characters that appeal to everyone. That’s reflected in the gameplay, which keeps things simple and kid-friendly but varies between puzzles, platforming and action. It’s the creative aspect that really animates Disney Infinity, though, and that makes this more than an inspired lesson in cash conjuration.
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