Wichita Business Journal | Wichita aerospace supplier plans multi-million dollar expansion Wichita Business Journal ... like the F-35 for. Enlarge. Growing demand, including in the defense industry on aircraft like the F-35 for Lockheed more. Lockheed Martin. Globe Engineering facility growth will include new hiring, driven by demand in multiple aerospace segments. |
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Wichita aerospace supplier plans multi-million dollar expansion - Wichita Business Journal
While theres nothing objectionable about governments funding a public good like education, its notable that the industry partner in question here is aerospacean industry that seems to perpetually receive a disproportionate amount of politicians attention, not to mention taxpayer money.
Superficially, this isnt surprising. Airplanes are impressive to just about everyone, from small children to politicians, and for obvious reasons. Theyre big machines that fly. Even the word aerospace conjures up positive imagery of sophisticated technology and engineers in lab coats. For anyone who laments industries like cutting down trees or extracting oil out of the ground as boring relics of a bygone era, aerospace ticks all the exciting boxes that signal economy of the future.
Unfortunately for Canadians, that future never quite seems to arrive. Bombardier, Canadas most prominent aerospace company, is the national poster child for corporate welfare, having received $4 billion since 1966.
Last year, after receiving $1.3 billion in aid from Quebec taxpayers, it proceeded to fire 2,000 Canadian workers. Not long after, the Trudeau government came along to give them a further $372 million in repayable loans. It is no exaggeration to say the company has essentially been kept on life support for decades by Canadian taxpayers. And if Bombardier sold brooms instead of airplanes, the market would have put it out of its misery decades ago.
Naturally, aerospace boosters are quick to insist theres more to the story. Often this takes the form of what are usually referred to as economic spinoff effects. The pitch goes something like this: Bombardier builds planes. Those planes need parts. So Bombardiers demand for parts sustains a whole bunch of suppliers as well.
This logic sounds great on paper but theres just one small problem: it isnt true. Far from Bombardier sustaining its own supply chain, Canadian taxpayers are forced to subsidize companies in the aerospace supply chain as well, through regional development funds, provincial funds, and the recently launched Strategic Innovation Fund.
In fact, the aerospace industry in Canada resembles a giant pyramid scheme, with taxpayers at the bottom of the pyramid. Based on the aerospace is special argument (often backed up with the sage every other country does it argument), Canadian taxpayers have the privilege of subsidizing an entire industry top to bottom. Theres the aforementioned subsidies to Bombardier; subsidies for Bombardier-led consortiums to do research and development; subsidies to the buyers of Bombardiers planes (in the form of cut rate loans through Export Development Canada) which are in many cases already priced below cost; and subsidies to Bombardiers suppliers.
If this sounds like a crazy business strategy, its because it is. And if we were to replace the word airplanes with candy canes, no sane person would take the pseudo-economics of aerospace seriously. But because it is about airplanes, and airplanes are sophisticated machines, politicians, industry executives, union leaders and more than a few otherwise intelligent people buy into the whole absurd charade. And why not? Its not their money at stake. Its merely the broader taxpaying public, and those working in industries to which the normal laws of economics apply, who end up paying the price.
Its far past time we accept the obvious: aerospace isnt special, and its perpetual coddling by politicians soaks Canadian taxpayers and hurts Canadian businesses in other industries. If the aerospace industry cannot survive in this country without Canadian taxpayers propping it up forever in countless ways, its time to let it go.
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Canada's aerospace industry is a giant pyramid scheme - Canada Free Press
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The word calorie is mentioned often in the ever-changing world of nutrition and fad diets. Counting calories sends a shiver down the spine of anyone who enjoys burgers, beer and the occasional sweets.
Engaging in Central Oregons active lifestyle, such as hiking Smith Rock or riding a bicycle up McKenzie Pass, can be misery when lugging extra weight around.
How can that be fixed? Learning nutrition and how to do weight management is key. Calorie counting is often the first step.
Well, theres an app for that.
Pulse spent a week testing four mobile apps designed to help track calories, the goal being to lose, gain or maintain weight.
After researching the best reviewed, and lists of most popular by downloads, Pulse selected MyFitnessPal, Lose It!, My Plate and Fat Secret and downloaded each onto an iPhone. An age, height, current weight and weight goal (lose, gain or maintain) were entered into each program.
Weve listed the pros and cons we discovered by using each app.
When using a calorie counter app to manage your weight, consider the accuracy of logging food, exercise and your own height, weight and age.
One apps definition of moderate activity may not be the same as the others.
Blindly jumping behind the 2,400 calories per day that Fat Secret suggested, for example, will satisfy your sweet tooth, but it wont help your weight-loss goals.
MyFitnessPal
A pro about MyFitnessPal is that after using it for some time, the food you frequently consume (as a creature of habit) is readily available to tap and log in your food diary for the day. Logging your own recipes is easy, as pointed out by the high approval rating for the ease of use in a study by Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management. There is also a quick-add method to log calories.
You can enter water consumption and exercise information into this app, too.
A con: The list of exercises is fairly narrow. Working out with a barbell or doing any form of power lifting is hard to calculate. MyFitnessPal doesnt recognize those activities as exercise. A tip to track that, however, is to record the calories burned using the heart-rate monitor under Strength Conditioning on the app. To more easily track other exercises, MyFitnessPal syncs well with a fitness tracker, such as a Fitbit, if you have one.
Lose It!
This app was confusing to navigate. Trying to understand all of the graphs and charts when it was first downloaded took some close attention. Several app store reviews echoed that frustration.
Give it time and go ahead and purchase this app for $40 a year if you want the premium version to really delve in to the advertisement-free program (or dont) and youll find that logging food is simple. It has an expansive food database and barcode scanner that are very helpful.
This app made me question the accuracy of its daily calorie goal. For a 25-year-old, 5-foot-6 woman weighing 155 pounds who is moderately active, it suggested 1,565 calories. No pale ale or sweet potato fry was going to be logged into that food diary.
My Plate
Simplicity at its finest. My experience with this app was ridiculously easy. The different fields of food log, goals, updates and settings are easy to manipulate. Food logging is tap-and-go if you can find the food, however. Some items from Market of Choice and Trader Joes either werent found or offered calorie counts different from other apps, even with the barcode scanner. If you like simplicity, though, this is great for basic use.
Fat Secret
After you set up this app with your personal information, the home screen is filled with a newsfeed of user-submitted meal recipes that are accompanied with a picture. The pictures are not the ones you would find in Sunset Magazine, however, you might be tempted to use a few of the simple dinner recipes.
Trying to set more specific goals like carb or protein intake was a task and a half. Personalizing anything past the initial setup was difficult and for this reason (besides the name), this app failed to make it past the week of trial. It also offered an unrealistic calorie goal of 2,400 calories per day. While that might allow for an extra finger of peanut butter on a bad day, it wont result in losing weight.
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Apps to assist a healthy lifestyle - Bend Bulletin
Singapore should be worried that diabetes is increasingly being diagnosed in children owing to the increased incidence of obesity (Protect your child against diabetes; July 31).
Cultivating a healthier lifestyle in children, however, is not only the job of parents but also schools. What children eat in school can influence their eating habits in future.
Pupils usually have at least one meal a day from the canteen. Apart from their recess, those who arrive at school early may have breakfast there, and those who have co-curricular activities may eat lunch at school too.
It is thus important that schools give healthier food and beverage options in their canteens.
In 2011, the Health Promotion Board (HPB) established the Healthy Meals in Schools Programme to encourage this and help students cultivate good eating habits from their youth.
The programme criteria include cutting down fat, sugar and salt, serving whole grains, fruit and vegetables, and serving healthy set meals that incorporate food from the four main food groups: Brown rice; wholemeal bread; meat and others; vegetable and fruit.
An increase in the percentage of children making healthy food choices can help to decrease the incidence of obesity and illnesses caused by it, like Type 2 diabetes, in children.
Through courses and talks done by external vendors, schools can also educate pupils about the importance of a healthy lifestyle, i.e. maintaining a balanced diet and keeping fit.
Helping them to understand the dangers of an unhealthy lifestyle is essential to inculcating in them a will to change their eating habits and stay healthy.
They may also become agents of change for those around them to adopt a healthier lifestyle. That said, the role of parents, the main role models for their children, should not be compromised or undermined.
Parents should work hand in glove with schools to ensure that their children get the nutrients they need to grow and maintain a healthier lifestyle.
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Schools have key role in helping kids keep healthy lifestyle - TODAYonline
If I were to tell you that our nations nutritional and overall health woes could be fixed with the help of a Berkeley native who is a 27-year vegetarian and the mother of two living in New York City, you would most likely think I have lost it, right?
Well, that is what I am telling you. That person is Nina Teicholz; a trained investigative journalist who spent nine years studying diet and disease with no formal training in nutrition and yet what she has uncovered every man, woman and child in this country needs to hear.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is still forming its administration, and one leadership role that still needs to be filled is that of the person who will ultimately guide the future of dietary guidelines. I make no bones about having faith in Teicholzs abilities to do that because she does not sit back or kowtow to the squeaky wheel. She simply shares the science of developing proper diets that has long been suppressed.
For example, in the past month a hit piece on animal agriculture was released on Netflix. That vegan agenda piece is called What the Health. Within hours of its release, Teicholz was the first response available on the internet and you can read it at http://www.dietdoctor.com.
I would like to share with you some USDA information that she used in her summary of why this Netflix piece did not show the real truth.
Over the last 30 years, as rates of obesity and diabetes have risen sharply in the U.S., the consumption of animal foods has declined steeply: whole milk is down 79 percent; red meat by 28 percent and beef by 35 percent; eggs are down by 13 percent and animal fats are down by 27 percent. Meanwhile, consumption of fruits is up by 35 percent and vegetables by 20 percent. All trends therefore point towards Americans shifting from an animal-based diet to a plant-based one, and this data contradict the idea that a continued shift towards plant-based foods will promote health.
You see most studies today are observational studies, meaning they randomly ask people what they have eaten for the past 30 years and then try to tie it to the acceleration of their chosen disease. Teicholzs, on the other hand, has mountains of data and actual science about what is really going on with diet and health in our population.
Furthermore, the most maddening part of this information is she acquired the consumption data directly from the USDA. Yes, this is the same USDA that has continued to provide the misguided directives about reducing fat and protein and ramping up carbs with natural sugars from fruits and vegetables. The truth of the matter is the USDA has had access to all of this factual dietary information for 30 years.
I have become good friends with Teicholz since the release of her book that shares all of her research about diet and disease. The book is The Big Fat Surprise. The really interesting and respectable thing about her is she only has one dog in the fight. She does not come from a farming family with roots in food production. Her only passion was ignited when she was enlightened about the real facts leading to proper health. She developed a conviction that all other Americans need to get on board with after we have all been misled for so many years.
Lets look at the impact of poor nutrition. Our students are not keeping up with students in other countries and people look to blame the public school system. However, all the science clearly states that if you do not feed your brain, your ability to learn is limited. The foundation to improving our nations health and intelligence rests directly on the back of what we eat. We need to feed our kids, feed our families and feed our brains better than we have been.
That is the very reason I believe it is time we ask someone who has studied the science behind diets instead of those who have been following what the last wind of a political storm may have blown in. Look at the facts and the data. We need to change what we are eating and teach Americans the truth about what their bodies need to successfully live, work, play and learn. Teicholz can do that.
Editors note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at http://www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at trentloos@gmail.com.
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Real diet science, not wind storms - High Plains Journal
Wouldnt you agree? Exercise and proper nutrition is only good for you when you actually do it! Equally so, is the fact that we must deal with many distractions that deter us from completing our much-needed exercise. Thats why it is so important to identify and utilize strategies that will help keep you motivated to maintain your exercise program for the rest of your life. Hopefully this weeks tips will be beneficial in that manner and can be included in your growing library for fitness success.
Wouldnt you agree? Exercise and proper nutrition is only good for you when you actually do it! Equally so, is the fact that we must deal with many distractions that deter us from completing our much-needed exercise. Thats why it is so important to identify and utilize strategies that will help keep you motivated to maintain your exercise program for the rest of your life. Hopefully this weeks tips will be beneficial in that manner and can be included in your growing library for fitness success.
It has been my experience that most successful fitness programs have been incorporated smoothly into a persons weekly agenda as a way of life. This usually requires instituting change. And, of course, change is never easy. However, the stress of this process can be minimized if you are aware and prepared to handle it effectively.
The first stage of change is usually pre-contemplation: This is where there is no apparent intention to actually make a change within the next six months, and there may not even be an awareness of the need to change. Here is where your family support system becomes so important and effective. Many times the encouragement from a loved one can motivate us toward achieving a much-needed healthier lifestyle. This could develop into a neat situation where the family begins exercising together. I love the idea and it is a great way to spend quality time with your entire family or significant other. A relaxing low impact walk on a pleasant evening is a nice way to get some exercise and great conversation with the one you love.
The next phase is contemplation: Here you begin to weigh the time, effort, and cost necessary to make lifestyle changes. For example, reviewing your family schedules, or budgeting your finances, etc
Thirdly comes preparation: You fall in this category if you are demonstrating efforts and plans to initiate changes. Deciding the gym or trainer of your choice etc would be examples.
Next comes action: This is where you are actually in the process of making changes. Like training with weights and completing cardio three to four times a week, or eating sensible healthy meals that include a nice combination of protein, moderate good carbohydrates, and low-fat food choices.
Finally, after successfully completing these stages for change you must prepare for maintenance. Here you have demonstrated the ability to achieve your goals and are in the process of establishing methods to monitor and control your new behavior of exercise as a way of life. I am taking a wild guess here, but I bet you fall in this category, right? If you do fall into this category, congratulations and keep up the good work! If you do not fall in this category, I have faith in you, and you should have faith in yourself, because with a little planning and change you will be on your way towards achieving your first realistic fitness goal in no time. It is never too late to start your exercise program.
Here are a few essential keys to successful change:
Develop a true desire to confront and face any fears about a healthy life style. Your better health is worth the effort.
Believe in yourself. You can be in the best shape of your life.
Gather knowledge that will help you achieve a healthy lifestyle change logically.
Write down your fitness goals, review them daily, and take action to achieve them. Set realistic short term and long term goals.
Be prepared for setbacks, because you will have them. Simply view them as learning experiences for continued success. Never give up!
Monitor, evaluate, and reward your progress.
As you identify and incorporate realistic changes towards your healthy lifestyle, I encourage you to keep a positive attitude. Dont allow anything to stand between you and your goal of feeling better, looking better, and performing better. Improving individual health benefits like lowering your blood pressure or cholesterol are great motivators that will help fuel your exercise program as a way of life.
Until next week, keep up the good work and please go out and make it a nutritious and healthy day! To get started on healthy weight loss and nutrition products, call Reggies Personal Training & Nutrition, 104 E. Main, Downtown, Shawnee, (405) 613-0237, email to reggiesnutrition@hotmail.com. Ask about the 24-day challenge for great results!
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Getting started with your health improvement program - Shawnee News Star
Dean Olsen Staff Writer @deanolsenSJR
Expanding a program that cultivates high school students interest in the medical profession and helping future doctors avoid unconscious bias are among the goals of a new associate dean at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine.
This job will give me the opportunity to be a collaborator, a change agent, Dr. Wendi Wills El-Amin said.
Wills El-Amin, 46, a family medicine physician, began her new role Aug. 1 as associate dean for equity, diversity and inclusion. She previously was an academic strategist in SIUs department of medical education and treated patients through the department of family medicine.
The Springfield resident succeeded Dr. Wesley Robinson McNeese, who helped launch SIUs office of diversity, multicultural and minority affairs in 2001.
McNeese, 69, who is African-American, is a Christian minister who pastors a Springfield church. He has been hired to work part-time on diversity initiatives throughout the SIU system, including the campuses in Carbondale and Edwardsville.
Wills El-Amin, who also is African American, was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Houston, Texas. She said she will take on McNeeses role of mentoring minority medical students. Among other duties, she also will oversee the Physician Pipeline Preparatory Program, or P4, which McNeese founded in 2009.
The P4 program enrolls Springfield-area high school students interested in potential careers as doctors. The after-school program provides mentors and exposure to the medical field.
Wills El-Amin said she would like to expand the program so parts of it reach students in the elementary and middle-school grades. Many of these young people would benefit from learning that a career as a doctor is a possibility, she said.
Wills El-Amin said her most influential teacher was in third grade a woman she knows today as Mrs. Creole.
She was the teacher who really made me believe I had a lot of potential, El-Amin said.
McNeese and Wills El-Amin come from different backgrounds.
McNeese said he grew up very poor in East St. Louis. He was salutatorian of his high school class and served in the Air Force in Vietnam before working as a journalist in East St. Louis and a paramedic.
He enrolled at Illinois State University at age 30 and later took part in SIUs Medical/Dental Education Preparatory Program (MEDPREP) before earning his medical degree at SIU and working a decade as an emergency room doctor. He now is a father of four. His new title with SIU will be system executive director for diversity initiatives.
Since McNeese began his work on diversity at SIU, the school has definitely made strides in the percentage of minority students enrolling and graduating as doctors, he said.
SIU currently ranks in the top 3 percent to 4 percent of medical schools nationwide when it comes to the percentage of black students graduating, he said, though the share of doctors who are black nationwide 4 percent remains low.
The P4 program, which has served many students who are minorities since its inception, could produce medical students for SIU eventually, McNeese said.
Its a grow-your-own type of idea, he said.
Wills El-Amin, the mother of three girls, grew up the daughter of an internal-medicine physician, but like McNeese, she said she experienced racism as she grew up and as a professional.
She earned a bachelors degree from Hampton University in Virginia and a medical degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., before completing a family medicine residency at the University of Texas at Houston.
She joined SIU in 2013 and before that was director of the University of Virginias cancer center disparity initiative and the outreach center on health disparities. She is chairwoman of the womens health section for the National Medical Association, an organization of African American doctors.
Wills El-Amin said she will work to help all SIU medical students, minority and non-minority, understand how the health of their patients can be influenced by factors outside the exam room. Those factors, known as the social determinants of health, can include poverty, education and crime.
She said she also wants to equip medical students with tools to avoid burnout a common problem among the ranks of physicians. Im very invested in cultivating resiliency, she said.
Unconscious biases can shape the way doctors interact with patients, Wills El-Amin said. She said she plans to use data on those biases to shape the curriculum for medical students and create a different approach when theyre dealing with their patients.
The medical schools staff already has received some training on eliminating institutional racism. That training will continue and will promote equitable treatment regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation, Wills El-Amin said.
My approach is more of how to teach people cultural humility, she said.
Dr. Jerry Kruse, dean and provost of the medical school, said McNeese has done an excellent job for the school. Kruse said Wills El-Amin is an accomplished medical educator. She has a focus in her heart on the students.
Wills El-Amins annual salary as associate dean will be $210,000. The salary for McNeeses salary for his new job was unavailable. His salary as a medical school associate dean was $210,000, according to SIU officials.
Contact Dean Olsen: dean.olsen@sj-r.com, 788-1543, twitter.com/DeanOlsenSJR.
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SIU med school administrator to expand diversity promotion efforts - The State Journal-Register
Press Release
Statement of Alderman Khalif J. Rainey - August 11, 2017
The announcement by Ascension that it will preserve the Wheaton Franciscan-St. Joseph Campus Hospital, the only hospital in Sherman Park and a strong and stabilizing partner in the neighborhood, is absolutely great news. I want to take this time to publicly thank them.
As one of the only safety-net hospitals in the city, St. Josephs future was unclear for some time. So many of my constituents were born at St. Josephs and so many more have been healed there. The loss of the hospital would have been devastating to the Sherman Park community. Ascension has consistently demonstrated a stakeholder and strong neighbor position to the area and securing the future of St. Josephs only adds to their commitment.
Through optimizing care at their multiple hospitals in Milwaukee, Ascension has provided a great service not only to the Sherman Park community, but to the entire City of Milwaukee.
Ascension has reaffirmed its support for the Sherman Park neighborhood and I look forward to many more years of partnership.
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Ascension committed to St. Joseph Hospital for the long haul - urbanmilwaukee (press release)
On 15 September 2017 at about 10pm AEST, Nasas Cassini spacecraft will plunge deep into the hostile atmosphere of Saturn on an historic but suicidal course. Its the grand finale of a 20-year mission which has revolutionised our understanding of the solar system and sent home more than a quarter of a million stunning images of Saturn and its moons.
Cassinis instruments will be running to the last, capturing every possible byte of data from its closest encounter with the ringed planet before it ultimately evaporates.
Some 1.2bn km away, in a valley just outside Canberra, Glen Nagle and his colleagues will be listening intently to what he calls the whispers from deep space. Im going to be here for 24 hours and I wont be sleeping, he says enthusiastically.
Nagle (pictured above) works at the the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, aka Tidbinbilla Tracking Station, home to four antennas which help track and command the many spacecraft in our solar system. Run by CSIRO, Australias national science agency, but funded by Nasa, Tidbinbilla is one of just three stations in Nasas Deep Space Network (the others are in California and Madrid) and it is here that Cassinis final radio signals will be received and relayed to a global audience.
Were going to be responsible for capturing Cassinis last breath of data, Nagle says. Itll be a bittersweet moment.
Nasa cant do it without us because the other stations are completely facing in the wrong direction. Saturn will be in our skies, our field of view. Its literally the way the planets have aligned.
Opened in 1965, Tidbinbilla is a serene station enveloped by national parks. Its a place where the low hum of the moving antennas and the occasional paging announcements are the only sounds that punctuate the silence.
The dishes look surprisingly small from a distance, dwarfed by nature itself, but up close their scale is imposing. The largest is 70m in diameter and 109m across its curvature you could throw a football field into it, Nagle says and weighs about 4,000 tonnes. They are almost millimetre-perfect parabolic surfaces.
Each dish acts as both a gigantic ear and a gigantic loudspeaker, telling the spacecrafts how to behave, ensuring their health and collecting their data. The dishes operate night and day, whether or not the skies are clear to the naked eye.
At the present time we, Earth, have about 30 missions in the solar system, so about 40 individual spacecraft, Nagle says. We communicate with them using radio waves the invisible part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Spacecraft receive and transmit data as digital ones and zeros. Its the same way that your phone receives a radio signal before your phones software turns it back into a picture, its just those ones and zeros. We dont know whether the stream were receiving is a beautiful picture or some instrument data or some engineering data or whatever it is.
The DSN doesnt handle satellites in Earths orbit the kind that are used for mobile communications, observation, weather prediction, GPS and so on. Theyre literally too close for us, Nagle explains. We just talk to the missions that have headed out across the solar system.
The furthest of them, Voyager 1, is so far from Earth that it seems a minor miracle its signal can be heard at all. For Nagle, a self-confessed space buff since childhood who is now the outreach and administration lead at Tidbinbilla, its a thrilling thought.
Right now Voyager 1 is roughly 20.7bn km away and moving further away by about 1.4million km every day, he says. Thats about four and a quarter times further away than Pluto. So its way out there. It takes over 30 hours to get a signal there and back.
To give you some idea of what that signal is like now: Voyager transmits at around 19 watts, about half the power its taking to run the lightbulb in your fridge. So imagine already trying to see half your fridge light from four and quarter times as far away as Pluto youre not going to see it.
And it gets even smaller because as that signal travels across that 20bn km of space it spreads out, it becomes thinner and more diffuse.
In fact, he adds excitedly, the signal we get is equivalent to only about one twenty billionth billionth with a b! of the amount of power thats generated by a typical watch battery. But youre still getting the information, the ones and zeros, and even though its very weak all of the information is still there.
Up high on dish number DSS35, theres a minor problem which needs to be fixed. The ball gears are not meeting correctly and the dishs ability to slowly pivot as it must do to track the craft while the Earth rotates is being compromised.
Currently were inserting a bit of solder to measure the backlash in the gear, says antenna technician Michael Murray. We measure the crush on the solder and thatll give us an idea of what the backlash is.
As with everything in space exploration, precision counts. And yet, oddly, just a few metres away theres a kink in the safety rail where a section has been cut away and awkwardly repositioned.
John Howell, the survey electronics technician, laughs. When they built this antenna they realised the rail was in the way and they had to cut this out [for the dish to be able to fully rotate]. We do months and months of testing when things are first built, we move everything very slowly, and when they got to this bit they realised, Oh no, its not going to work. We blame the engineers.
Howell has been employed at Tidbinbilla by CSIRO for the past 15 years the same duration as Nagle but, unlike his colleague, his knowledge of the science is more cursory.
People ask me what are they tracking today and I say, Ive got no idea. As long as my things point to where theyve got to point ... I mean, when weve got a major level one support happening like the Mars rovers landing or Cassini then its quite interesting, but apart from that some of the scientific stuff is way above my head.
He adds: But I am interested in the Voyager probes. It takes forever to get a signal to them and back at the speed of sound light, Nagle interrupts apologetically Oh sorry, the speed of light! Howell continues.
They left when I was still in primary school. I find it hard to believe we can talk to something that far away. It blows my mind.
In the recently built control centre a place Matthew Purdie, senior link controller, describes as the heart of the station activity is decidedly slow. You might imagine a hive of scientists huddled around monitors awaiting fresh data but in fact theres only one CSIRO scientist based at Tidbinbilla and his research role is detached from the day-to-day communications performed on behalf of Nasa and the other space superpowers. Nasas scientists are located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the US.
Purdie and his team of controllers are patiently monitoring banks of screens, waiting for the rare occasion when a command fails or for the more alarming news that a craft has become inoperable or gone missing. Occasionally they have to call the JPL to tell them their craft are sick.
We refer to ourselves as coiled springs, Purdie says. Were sort of employed to handle things when they go wrong. Most of the time were looking for green on our screens. If everythings green were good; if it goes orange or red were in trouble.
Behind him, a box of on one of his screens turns orange. Oh, thats nothing to worry about, he says assuredly. Thats a carrier out of lock. Its spacecraft 74. We lost the signal but it was an expected loss of signal because the craft occultated it went behind Mars.
Right now Im on antenna DSS34, so Im tracking three spacecraft: MRO [Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter], Maven and Mars Odyssey. Id have to get out the book to tell you exactly what each spacecraft is doing. We know the technical side of our spacecraft, what bit rates they use, command frequencies and all that stuff, but quite often we forget why theyre there.
Purdie knows plenty about Cassini, however, and has been on duty for some of its recent dives the series of 22 daring orbits between Saturn and its rings which have given the craft a unique perspective on the planet and the surrounding bands of dust, rock and ice.
Disappointingly, Purdie already knows his shift patterns will cause him to miss the finale next month. Hes tempted to come to work anyway.
I like being part of history and science, he says. I like the fact that Ive been here for landings and launchings and things like that. Years ago they used to go around to each of the stations and ask for a Go? No go?, so youd have to say, DSS45 is a go! That was so cool, I loved doing that. They dont do that any more.
Australias involvement in space exploration is six decades old and even though Nagle thinks Australia doesnt see itself as a space-faring nation it has played a critical role in some of the most inspiring moments in the history of humankind.
The dish out the front is the one from Honeysuckle Creek that received and relayed to the whole world the first pictures of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969, Nagle explains. He must have regaled people with the full story a thousand times or more, yet he makes it sound anything but tiresome.
Nasas original intention was to use their dish in California to transmit the pictures to the world and show America winning the space race, he says. When Neil came out of the spacecraft the first thing he needed to do was switch on a camera which was mounted upside down so that he could later pick it up with his big, gloved hand. Nasa were going to flip the picture but the video technician called in sick that day and his backup forgot.
Eventually they flipped it but it was highly contrasted because the signal was going to ground somewhere. Mission control couldnt show that to the world and Neil wasnt going to wait.
At the critical moment, Honeysuckle Creek had a perfect image. When Nasa saw that, Nagle continues, they flipped the switch to Australia and 600 million people around the world watched Neil come down the ladder, put his left foot on the surface of the moon and say, One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
I was an eight-year-old kid sitting in front of the television, glued to the screen, watching humans walk on the moon in glorious black and white. I had no idea that 40 years later Id be working at the place where I can look out of my window at the dish that brought me those pictures.
That enduring sense of wonder is shared by Greg Boyd, the senior network administrator at Tidbinbilla.
I love the science, he says. When I first started I was into everything. We used to have these things called twixes, well before we had emails. They were advisories about what was happening and Id be reading all this groovy stuff thats going on.
As time goes on you become blase. Not jaded; blase. But Im doing my dream job and Ive been doing it for the last 25 years. Where else can a boy from Australia work for Nasa and really be critically involved in their missions? This is it.
As night falls over Tidbinbilla, low-lying clouds initially block the views overhead. A group of kangaroos gathers by the perimeter fence, intrigued by the faint, eerie noises emanating from the site.
By 3am the clouds have finally dissipated and the vast, star-spangled sky is simply breathtaking. Somewhere out there, Cassini is looping the loop between Saturn and its rings.
In its lifetime Cassini and its accompanying probe, Huygens, have revealed many of the secrets of the Saturnian system: how the particles that make up Saturns rings range in size from smaller than a grain of sand to as large as mountains; how Titan, one of the moons, has prebiotic chemistry as well as rain, rivers, lakes and seas; how icy plumes of water are spraying upwards from tiger stripe fractures on Enceladus, an otherwise frozen moon.
It has also witnessed giant hurricanes at both of Saturns poles and captured the first complete view of the north polar hexagon not bad for a one megapixel camera. The finale should reveal yet more about the interior of the planet as the craft measures its gravity and magnetic field.
The decision to hurl Cassini into Saturns deadly, gaseous atmosphere next month has been made through necessity and responsibility. The craft has run out of fuel and contains a nuclear battery; Nasas scientists fear it might contaminate one of the surrounding moons should it crash into them.
We have to dispose of the spacecraft safely, says deputy project scientist Scott Edginton, whos based in California, because Titan and Enceladus have been shown to be places where there are conditions for habitability, conditions that we think are appropriate for life.
So our navigators came up with this series of grand finale orbits, flying through the gap between the planet and the rings, and eventually ending in Saturns atmosphere. When the scientists saw that plan they were like, Wow, this is unexplored territory, were going to learn so many new things. So starting April this year we entered into the grand finale orbits. Its hard to believe were almost done.
Of the final descent, he says: Think of it as were sniffing the atmosphere. It will set the ground truth for past measurements and even future measurements. Thats something Im really looking forward to.
At Tidbinbilla the following morning, the anticipation in the visitors centre is just as palpable. Its this generations Voyager, says Jonathan Kent, a self-proclaimed hack astronomer. I think its capturing peoples minds and hearts and reinvigorating our interest in space.
Ten-year-old Scout Miller is proof. Shes at the centre with her family, and talk of the discoveries made by Cassini and Juno Nasas mission to Jupiter which delivered a tranche of close-up images of the planets red spot has made her wonder what else might be out there.
There must be alien life, she says. We cant be the only people. It cant just be a coincidence that we just appeared and no one else has, and that this is the only planet with the right things for life.
Many of CSIROs staff at Tidbinbilla share her optimism and, even though Nagle forewarns that life may never be found due to the sheer scale and age of the universe, he says: It would be a fantastic thing to find because it would answer the most fundamental questions we have: Is it just us? Are we alone? Is the universe full of life? Are we the first life? Are we the last?
Future missions to Saturn and its moons may yet reveal some answers, but for Cassini the deadly denouement is imminent.
Cassinis going to end its life as a shooting star in the atmosphere of a giant ringed world, says Nagle. Theres no more poetic way for a spacecraft to finish what has been a magnificent mission.
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Space whisperers: the Aussies guiding Cassini's suicide mission to Saturn - The Guardian
Dmitry Chumak, better known as Photographer has apparently quit his DJ career. The Ukranian star was recently supposed to play at the 2017 beach edition of Quest for trance. However, just a while ago they announced that Photographer has quit his DJing career and hence wont be playing at the festival.
Were sorry to announce that tomorrow, at our Quest4Trance the beach edition 2017 event at Elements Beach,
Posted by Quest4Trance onFriday, August 11, 2017
Well, the reason for this is unknown and there has been no official confirmation from Dmirty himself. So, we cant really say much at the moment. It is extremely upsetting to see such talented producers and DJs quitting these days. We hope it is just a temporary phase and he returns back soon.
Trance enthusiast. Armada Ambassador. Content writer. Im not afraid of 138! Making people give Trance a chance.
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Photographer quits his DJ career - Trance Hub (satire) (press release) (blog)
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A movie version of William Gibson's hugely influential sci-fi novel Neuromancer has been in development many times over the years, but has yet to make it to the screen. It has now been reported that another attempt is being made to adapt the classic book, with Deadpool's Tim Miller tapped to direct.
According to Deadline, Miller and his VFX studio Blur will develop the movie at Fox. Miller was initially set to direct Deadpool 2 for the studio, but disagreements with star and producer Ryan Reynolds led to his departure in October last year. The site reports that Fox has been looking for a major project for Miller since then. X-Men producer Simon Kinberg is set to produce.
Miller is the latest filmmaker to be attached to a potential Neuromancer movie. Directors Chris Cunningham and Chuck Russell previously worked on different versions of a script, while music video director Joseph Kahn was attached to the project in 2007. The film got closer in 2010 when Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice) was hired to work on it. His version was still in development as late as 2013, with a script co-written by Gibson.
Neuromancer was first published in 1984. It tells the story of a veteran computer hacker who is hired by a mysterious employer to perform a dangerous, almost-impossible hack. The novel is now considered one of the most important works of the cyberpunk genre and is also notable for popularizing the term "cyberspace."
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Cyberpunk Classic Neuromancer Might Become A Movie From Deadpool Director - GameSpot
The world just a little bit bleaker the day we learned that Deadpool director Tim Miller would be dropping out of Deadpool 2. Deadpool was a film thats been a long time in the making, and the fact that one of its key architects wouldnt be around for the second one was a bit of a gut punch to fans of the first. However, there was a bright side to this sad bit of news. While Miller would no longer be involved in Deadpool, it did open him up to work on other big projects.
Not long after, it was revealed that he was in early talks to direct an eventual reboot of James Camerons The Terminator. However, with the rights still not set to revert back to Cameron until 2019. Another project Millers been attached to is the adaptation Influx, though the current status of that is unknown. Now, Miller is attached to yet another novel adaptation.
RELATED:WHOA! Cameron Coming Back For A True TERMINATOR 3? With DEADPOOL's Tim Miller?!
According to Deadline, Miller is on board to direct Neuromancer, a cyberpunk film from sci-fi author William Gibson. The synopsis for the novel on Amazon is as follows:
No screenwriter is currently set to adapt the story, but the studio is working on setting someone up as we speak. On board to produce is X-Men: Dark Phoenix director Simon Kinberg.
Between Terminator, Influx, and now Neuromancer on Millers plate (not to mention his producing Sonic the Hedgehog), it seems like the filmmaker has lined up the next few years quite nicely. As of right now, each of these projects are in various states of development, so we wouldnt be surprised if he were to tackle all these films over a 2-3 year period, which would make for quite the packed release schedule down the line.
Are you excited to see Miller join another project? Let us know your thoughts down below!
SOURCE: Deadline
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Moving 0.37% from the most recent open, shares ofEDAP TMS S.A. (NASDAQ:EDAP) have landed on investor watchlists as the latest bid puts the equity at$2.70. Investors interested in stocks under $5 have given this stock a second look over the past few weeks.
Most investors are likely looking for that next stock that is ready to take off running. Maybe the focus is on finding a stock that has recently taken a turn for the worse for no real apparent reason. As we all know, as quickly as a stock can drop in price, it can bounce back just as fast.
Although the popular stocks that receive a high level of media coverage tend to recover quicker after a sell-off, there may be plenty of under the radar stocks that are ripe for buying. Scoping out these potential market gems may help repair a portfolio that has taken a hit for any number of reasons.
The average investor might not have the time to monitor every single tick of a given stock, but taking a look at historical performance may help provide some valuable insight on where the stock may be trending in the future. Over the past week, EDAP TMS S.A. (NASDAQ:EDAP) has performed -8.47%. For the past month, shares are -15.63%. Over the last quarter, shares have performed 6.73%. Looking back further, EDAP TMS S.A. stock has been -14.42% over the last six months, and -17.68% since the start of the calendar year. For the past full year, shares are -11.18%.
There is rarely any substitute for diligent research, especially when it pertains to the equity markets. No matter what strategy an investor employs, keeping abreast of current market happenings is of the utmost importance. Everyone wants to see their stock picks soar, but the stark reality is that during a market wide sell-off, this may not be the case. Recently, shares of EDAP TMS S.A. (NASDAQ:EDAP)have been seen trading -9.46% away from the 200-day moving average and -15.55% off the 50-day moving average. The stock is currently trading -29.87% away from the 52-week high and separated 20.00% from the 52-week low. EDAP TMS S.A.s RSI is presently sitting at 27.14.
New investors may sometimes be working with limited capital. Choosing which stocks to own can be a tough decision. Individuals may be deciding on whether to buy 10 shares of a stock trading at $100 as opposed to purchasing 100 shares of a stock trading at $10. We have recently been focusing on stocks that are trading under the $10 price level. We are constantly monitoring technical and fundamental factors that may lead to breakouts for these relatively cheap (in terms of price) stocks.
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Can This Stock Price Climb The Ladder: EDAP TMS S.A. (NASDAQ ... - FLBC News
Elon Musk wants to get inside your head. In April, the Silicon Valley billionaire announced plans to launch Neuralinka company dedicated to developing a brain-to-machine interface to cure brain ailments like paralysis and memory problems and help people compete with robots when the artificial intelligence revolution makes human brains obsolete. Musk says this will be accomplished by implanting tiny electrodes into the brainallowing for things like downloading and uploading memory and casual brain-to-brain communication.
Leaders in the neurotechnology field welcome Musks arrival, while neuroethicists and others urge caution. The endeavor may sound like science fiction, but its feasible, says Timothy Deer, president of the International Neuromodulation Society, a nonprofit group of researchers and developers dedicated to using spinal cord stimulation to treat neurological pain. The cochlear implant was invented 20 years ago, and with electricity and the right frequencies targeting the brain, it allows people to hear, he says. That sounded impossible back then. And great gains require great brains, Deer says. Ben Franklin didnt know how to harness electricity, but he and others knew it was the key to something. Now, we know how to use electricity in very specific ways. Its exciting to see how Mr. Musk might change how we think.
Humans have been trying to mess with their brain waves to solve diseases since ancient times: The Romans and Greeks used to put electric fish on top of their heads to relieve pain, says Ana Maiques, CEO of Neuroelectrics, a company that develops noninvasive wireless brain monitoring and stimulation technologies.
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Elon Musk, chairman and chief executive officer of Tesla Motors Inc., gestures as he speaks during a news conference in Fremont, California, on September 29, 2015. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty
Maiques is happy Musk has entered the neurotech field. With new technologies, including artificial intelligence, there is a lot of room for startups and new companies, she says.
Jennifer French, co-founder and executive director of Neurotech Network, a nonprofit that advocates for and educates the public about implantable technology, says investments in neuroscience and neurotechnology from the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative started by the Obama administration have been critical in exploring the brains mysteries.
Zack Lynch, founder of Neurotechnology Industry Organization, a global trade association representing companies involved in neuroscience and brain research, says, The [human] brain is the most complicated organ on the planet. The neurotechnology industry produces $165 billion in yearly revenue, he says, but 90 percent of that revenue comes from pharmaceuticals for neurological disorders like Lou Gehrig's disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Annual revenue from neurological devices is about $10 billion.
If Musk is successful, he will run into a swamp of ethical issues. Neuroscience raises questions about technology, art, entertainment, warfare, religion and what it means to be human, Lynch says. And these considerations will be difficult to address in the short term, says Peter Reiner, professor and co-founder of the National Core for Neuroethics. Most important is privacy of thought. When a computer is hooked up to me and knows what Im thinking, that becomes a very challenging area to navigate. Another issue is what Reiner calls reason bypassing. If a device can influence your brain without you perceiving it, are you really making your decisions? He believes society already faces these questions with smartphones: Advertisers are collecting information about users based on their browsing habits and then using that data to try to change their behavior.
Daniel Wilson, a best-selling author and robotics engineer, considers these ethical issues in his novel Amped, which predicts that neurotechnology will cure people with mental disabilities and eventually help them leapfrog beyond human ability. The amplified humans known as amps are then discriminated against because the public fears their abilities.
Wilson believes brain-to-machine interfaces will become common, but that they will not diminish the humanity of their users. People often look at human creations, and we call them unnatural, Wilson says. But from my perspective, theres nothing more natural than a human being creating a tool. Birds nests or anything animals do instinctively always seems natural, but we consider it unnatural when a human uses a tool. Thats the most natural thing that a human can do. To put that tool in our bodies is a completely natural extension of what weve been doing for millennia.
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(CNN) -- Here's some background information aboutcloning, a process of creating an identical copy of an original.
Facts: Reproductive Cloning is the process of making a full living copy of an organism. Reproductive cloning of animals transplants nuclei from body cells into eggs that have had their nucleus removed. That egg is then stimulated to divide using an electrical charge and is implanted into the uterus of a female.
Therapeutic Cloningis the process where nuclear transplantation of a patient's own cells makes an oocyte from which immune-compatible cells (especiallystem cells) can be derived for transplant. These cells are stimulated to divide and are grown in a Petri dish rather than in the uterus.
Timeline: 1952 - Scientists demonstrate they can remove the nucleus from a frog's egg, replace it with the nucleus of an embryonic frog cell, and get the egg to develop into a tadpole.
1975 -Scientists get tadpoles after transferring cell nuclei from adult frogs.
1986 -Sheep cloned by nuclear transfer from embryonic cells.
February 22, 1997 -Scientists reveal Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from cells of an adult animal. She was actually born on July 5, 1996.
1998 -More than 50 mice are reported cloned from a single mouse over several generations. Eight calves are cloned from a cow.
2000 -Pigs and goats are reported cloned from adult cells.
2001 -Advanced Cell Technology of Worcester, Massachusetts, says it produced a six-cell cloned human embryo, in research aimed at harvesting stem cells.
2001 -Five bulls are cloned from a champion bull, Full Flush.
2002 -Rabbits and a kitten are reported cloned from adult cells.
December 27, 2002 - Clonaid claims to produce first human clone, a baby girl, Eve.
January 23, 2003 -Clonaid claims to have cloned the first baby boy. The baby was allegedly cloned from tissue taken from the Japanese couple's comatose 2-year-old boy, who was killed in an accident in 2001. Clonaid has never provided physical evidence of the cloning.
February 14, 2003 -The Roslin Institute confirms that Dolly, the world's first cloned mammal, was euthanized after being diagnosed with progressive lung disease. She was 6 years old.
May 4, 2003 -The first mule is cloned at the University of Idaho, named Idaho Gem.
June 9, 2003 -Researchers Gordon Woods and Dirk Vanderwall from the University of Idaho and Ken White from Utah State University claim to have cloned a second mule.
August 6, 2003 -Italian scientists at the Laboratory of Reproductive Technology in Cremona, Italy, say they have created the world's first cloned horse, Prometea, from an adult cell taken from the horse who gave birth to her.
September 25, 2003 -French scientists at the National Institute of Agricultural Research at Joy en Josas, France, become the first to clone rats.
February 12, 2004 -South Korean researchers report they have created human embryos through cloning and extracted embryonic stem cells. Findings by a team of researchers were presented to South Korean scientists and describe in detail the process of how to create human embryos by cloning. The report says the scientists used eggs donated by Korean women. An investigative panel concludes in 2006 that South Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang's human stem cell cloning research was faked.
August 3, 2005 -South Korean researchers announce they have successfully cloned a dog, an Afghan hound named Snuppy.
December 8, 2008-April 4, 2009 -Five cloned puppies from Trakr, a German Shepherd Sept.11 Ground Zero rescue dog, are born.
May 2009 -Clone of Tailor Fit, a two-time quarter horse world champion, is born, one of several cloned horses born that year.
September 29, 2011 -At South Korea's Incheon Airport, seven "super clone" sniffer-dogs are dispatched to detect contraband luggage. They are all golden Labrador Retrievers that are genetically identical to "Chase," who was the top drug detention canine until he retired in 2007.
May 15, 2013 -Oregon Health & Science University researchers report in the journal Cell that they have created embryonic stem cells through cloning. Shoukhrat Mitalipov and the biologistsproduced human embryos using skin cells, and then used the embryos to produce stem cell lines.
April 2014 -For the first time,cloning technologies have been used to generate stem cells that are genetically matched to adult patients.Researchers put the nucleus of an adult skin cell inside an egg, and that reconstructed egg went through the initial stages of embryonic development, according to research published this month.
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Fast facts about cloning - WPSD Local 6: Your news, weather, and sports authority - WPSD Local 6
While much of the Game of Thrones cast has morphed from the innocence of the first season to the militarized cynicism of its seventh, none have undergone as striking a transformation as Isaac Hempstead Wrights Bran Stark. The precocious little spider monkey whose climbing excursions effectively caused the War of the Five Kings has become a stoic, omniscient weirdo after his travels beyond the Wall. Everyone else is enjoying the brief and bittersweet pleasures of reunion; Bran is trying to continue being a human being rather than Westeros first computer filing system. That has meant changes for both Wright and his now one of the most fascinating on the series as we reach the beginning of the end. At a joint AT&T and HBOevent, Paste sat down with Wright to talk Game of Thrones, memes, and what he can see of his future.
Paste: I heard that you were a bit of a meme aficionado. Have you been browsing Twitter after each episode?
Isaac Hempstead Wright: Ive seen a lot of memes. Amongst the abuse I got after episode three [The Queens Justice]so much hate after that. Oh Bran, I hate Bran now. Hes changed so much. Guys, chill the fuck out. Its alright.
Paste: Do you contribute to the discussion secretly?
Wright: I dont, Im purely an observer. But all I do with my girlfriend is send memes to each other. She got so excited when she found one of me. Isaac, youre in a meme! Yeah, Im in a meme. [Bran] has become very meme-able. Ive seen some great ones, like one where Meera goes, My brother died for you, Hodor died for you, and Bran says, New phone who dis?
Paste: Has this character change affected you professionally? A big acting step up?
Wright: It was really interesting to do, because in many ways, for me at least, Bran has been playing either a child or a teenager. Obviously with some unique and weird bits, but as Ive grown up, its basically just been me in a different time period. Theres things you can bring into it, with this and other parts, but now theres nothing you can possiblyIm not arrogant enough to think I know everything. We had a couple meetings with the producers David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and we modeled it on Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen. We called it Dr. Branhattan. This idea of existing at all these different times and tuning into all these moments.
Paste: I know youve also learned from Max von Sydows performance as the previous three-eyed raven. How are you doing it differently?
Wright: I didnt want it to be just like Max von Sydow because that three-eyed raven had been sitting in that tree for a thousand years. Bran hasnt. Hes not that old. Hes just been given all this craziness now. Theres no point in trying to pretend that hes immediately become wise. Hes obviously become wise, but he hasnt had time to sit there and go through all the history. The way it works, this whole vision thing, isnt that he knows everything immediately. He has access to everything. So where that raven has sat there for a million years and has everything at his fingertips, Bran doesnt yet. So we didnt want him to be this, Oh, I know everything and Im all stoic sort of guy. Hes still a kid, just with a unique power.
Paste: He and Samwell Tarly (John Bradley-West) are really the only ones dealing with the world by sitting and learning quietly.
Wright: Yeah, its really nice. Its nice being one of the representatives of the intellectuals of Westeros. People using knowledge as power.
Paste: In the past youve said that you plan on pursuing a PhD in the futureis that still important to you?
Wright: Somebody put this PhD thing on WikipediaIm not doing a PhD. I am going to university for joint honours in music and maths. Music theory mainly. I just did my Grade 8 Music Theory this year.
Paste: Have you gotten to do your composition theory stuff yet?
Wright: Yeah, Ive been composingIm friends with Ramin Djawadi, our composer, and Ive been with them on some of the tours theyve done of all the music. Whenever were at an event, we just sit in a corner and talk music.
Paste: Did you and Kristian Nairn [who played Hodor in the series] bond over music?
Wright: Weve always been music pals. I managed for the first time its taken me agesto go see him DJ. Awesome. Im not really into house music, but it was really good.
Paste: Electronic music can get pretty close to classical though.
Wright: Oh, definitely! Steve Reich! I mean, Aphex Twin, even.
Paste: Going on to university, what lessons do you think youll take from your experience on Game of Thrones?
Wright: I think one of the most important things, with Bran anyways, is learning from massive mistakes. Bran basically killed everyone he held dear. But he didnt sit there and wallow and go, Oh, Im useless and cry in despair. He also didnt just brush it off. He took from it that he needed to be wiser and accepted that this was destiny. Theres no point getting upset. Which is a bit of a grandiose way of putting learn from your mistakes.
Jacob Oller is a writer and film critic whose writing has appeared in The Guardian, Playboy, Roger Ebert, Film School Rejects, Chicagoist, Vague Visages, and other publications. He lives in Chicago, plays Dungeons and Dragons, and struggles not to kill his two cats daily. You can follow him on Twitter here: @jacoboller.
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While Rich Pantaleo studied mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, one of the electives he chose was a class in photography. He also joined the robotics club.
Together, the class and club paved the way for his current dual career owner of a photography enterprise and a robotics engineer for National Robotics Engineering Center, a research facility in Pittsburghs Lawrenceville neighborhood owned by CMU.
Hired shortly after graduating, Pantaleo, 30, has worked on some interesting robotics projects. One took him to South Africa for three weeks, where he was part of a team trying to develop a robotics system for mapping an underground platinum mining operation. Part of that effort also took him to Croatia, where he worked with a mining company to turn a remote-controlled dozer into a fully automated one.
Another trip, this time to California, had him work in the strawberry fields designing a robotic plant sorting system. Another project had him design a sensor pod for the remote measurement of steel slabs for a steel mill in Illinois.
For the military, he worked on a team that created a robotic wheel that enables vehicles to move through a wide variety of terrain swamp, desert, and dirt and paved roads. Currently, hes engrossed in a project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to improve the survivability of military vehicles.
Traditionally, the answer to improved survivability was to add more armor, but in this age of advanced weaponry that is not always practical, he said. Instead, were working on a robotic shield that can move in front of an incoming ordnance.
Pantaleo said he always loved making things with his hands, which is why he likes robotics for its hands-on attributes. As a child, his maternal grandfather, George Karabin, a master carpenter for Donora Lumber Co., taught him how to use hand tools. This eventually led to his woodworking interests, which initially saw him making serving trays for family as Christmas gifts.
For the last 10 years, hes been turning out furniture (end and coffee tables, lamps, a clock case and serving trays) at his Monongahela home workshop that he gives to friends as wedding presents.
In addition to his work and furniture-making, he is now focusing on photography.
I started taking photos in high school with a digital camera at a time when I was an avid rail fan, he said. I saw awesome rail photos on the internet, wondered if I could do the same and drove around taking photos of locomotives.
A breakthrough moment came about when he enrolled in a black-and-white photo class at CMU.
There, I performed the rites of passage of photography: shooting on an SLR, developing my own film, making my own prints from negatives and working long nights in the darkroom, he writes on his photography website, http://www.monvalleyphotoworks.com. It let me see that photography could be an art form.
Pantaleo put his photographic endeavors on hold after the end of the photography class, partly because he no longer had access to the darkroom, partly because he was too involved with his engineering studies. But in 2012, with his student loans paid off, he invested in a new digital camera and resumed his picture-taking passion with a focus on the old industrial sites of the Mon Valley.
On his website, which he promotes through social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Flickr, he sells prints of images hes taken from Greene County north to Pittsburgh. At the moment, he has between 800 and 900 photos for sale and also publishes an annual Mon Valley-themed calendar.
In the last couple of years, hes gone back to shooting on film rather than digitally and said hes fallen in love with the work he gets on medium format film.
I now take fewer photos, but the results are better, he said.
Theres yet another side to Pantaleos multifaceted interests, one he attributes to his father, Rich, a retired instrumental music teacher for Ringgold School District. His father encouraged all three of his children to play an instrument, and his childhood home was full of music.
Kate plays the flute, Regina plays the clarinet and I play trumpet and piano, Pantaleo said. In two annual concerts at Ringgold Middle School, Regina and I play in the Greater Monongahela Area Community Band, which my dad directs. I also play trumpet during the summer for Too Many Tubas at nursing homes and church festivals.
Putting his piano talents to the test, he also plays electric keyboard for the Indie rock band, Good Ship Gibraltar, at gigs in and around Pittsburgh. As if all his interests arent enough to fill up his appointment book to the max, he has another project he hopes to start on soon.
Ive been thinking of publishing a photo coffee table book on the coal mines of our region, he said. But I havent yet been able to work out the publication details.
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Monongahela robotics engineer finds time for trio of diverse pursuits - Observer-Reporter
Nest's streaming cameras offer a great way to keep an eye on things back at the ranch, assuming your home broadband connection is up to the task.
Security cameras with real-time alerts aren't just for catching burglars in the act, they can also offer peace of mind if you've got school-aged children coming home to an empty house or pets who spend the day alone.
Consumer-grade streaming cameras have been around for years, and there are plenty to choose from, but smart home pioneer Nest adds a few clever features to help stand out from the crowd. At the same time Nest has also launched its smart smoke/ carbon monoxide alarm in Australia, but we're still waiting on the Nest Smart Thermostat.
The cameras aren't cheap; the Nest Cam Indoor and Outdoor models cost $319 each, plus there's the optional Nest Aware cloud-based monitoring service which costs $14 per month for the first camera and $7 for each subsequent camera with Nest throwing in 30 days for free.
Perhaps more importantly, Nest's streaming cameras can also take a high toll on your broadband connection which will be an instant deal-breaker in some homes.
Easy to set up
It's simple to link a camera to your home WiFi network and Nest account by downloading the iOS/Android Nest app and scanning the QR code on the back on the camera. As a fallback it's also possible to configure the cameras using a desktop browser.
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Both cameras are easy to install around your home, offering 1080p resolution and a 130-degree field of view thanks to a slight fisheye lens.
The Nest Cam Indoor features a flat magnetic base, along with a screw-in wall plate, so you can stick it pretty much anywhere as long as it's within range of your WiFi network and the 3-metre power cable can reach a wall socket.
You can stand the Indoor camera upright on a flat surface or attach it to the wall and then tilt the camera up and down, as well as twist it from side to side. There's the option to flip the image if you need to install the camera upside-down on the ceiling.
Meanwhile the Nest Cam Outdoor features a curved magnetic back and comes with a concave wall plate that has a 7.5-metre power cable. Once the camera is attached to the base it's easy to tilt it in any direction up to around 50 degrees. While the outdoor camera is weatherproof, Nest recommends not installing it in direct sunshine.
Keep an eye on things
You can access your cameras via the Nest mobile app or a desktop browser, with the option of two-factor authentication to help keep out uninvited guests.
While the cameras are handy for seeing what's happening at home right now, Nest's strength is its intelligent alerts system which can send emails or pop-up alerts to your phone. Unfortunately most of these features rely on you shelling out for a Nest Aware subscription each month.
Even if you don't have a subscription, each camera will notify you when it hears a noise or sees something move. You're not bombarded with messages every time someone walks in front of the camera, instead it notifies you at the first sign of activity after which it uses intelligent alerts to only notify you of "important activity".
You're sent a photo of the scene which isn't always very helpful if the culprit is far from the camera but you can click on the link to see a live feed.
At this point you can see and hear what's happening in the room and use two-way audio to speak to your unexpected guest, although the audio can be a bit unreliable (perhaps a bandwidth issue, although they were tested on 100/2 Mbps cable broadband). The picture is crisp and the cameras do a good job of coping with brightbacklights.They're infrared cameras, so they can still see clearly at night.
Stay Alert
Unfortunately you need a Nest Aware subscription if you want to see an instant replay or scroll back in time. Without this, the cameras will be of little use to some people.
To cut down on alerts, you can adjust the microphone sensitivity, or else disable sound or motion notifications completely. Nest Aware subscribers can also create custom zones within each camera's field of view, which is handy if you don't want to detect pets walking across the floor or trees moving outside the window. Nest Aware applies extra intelligent scene and audio analysis to reduce false positives, plus subscribers can save clips and create timelapse videos.
Nest Aware subscribers can also opt to only receive alerts when a person walks into the room, with smart image analysis able to recognise human movement (but not recognise specific faces, that requires the Nest Cam IQ which isn't sold in Australia). Subscribers can also take advantage of intelligent sound alerts, recognising people talking or dogs barking.
Private party
To further cut down on alerts and better manage your privacy you can schedule specific cameras to switch off at specific times of day. You can also automatically disable certain cameras when the Nest mobile app detects you're at home, although this chews through your smartphone battery like all GPS-enabled apps which monitor your location while they're running in the background.
Alternatively you can keep the cameras running but stop alerts when you're at home, which might be important depending on the types of events you're watching for.
Thankfully it's possible to add family members to your Nest account and control the cameras and alerts depending on who is home which is important if you don't want alerts on your phone when you go to the shops on the weekend while others stay at home.
Apart from smartphones, you can use Works With Nest-compatible low-powered Bluetooth GPS trackers to tell the cameras when you're home the kind of thing you could easily attach to house keys or a school bag.
If you don't live alone there are obviouslyprivacy and trust issues to be considered. The Nest Cams helped solve the mystery of my missing sunglasses; they were misplaced during a party so we went back to the video replay to find their hiding spot, but you can image how this power could be abused.
Look to the cloud
Unlike some security cameras the Nest Cams don't store any video onboard, instead they upload to the cloud constantly which obviously presents major challenges if your home is starved of bandwidth.
The upside of streaming to the cloud is that you can get an instant replay at any time or scroll back up to 30 days with thumbnails marking events of interest, but of course only if you're paying for the Nest Aware subscription.
The downside is that you're chewing through a hell of a lot of bandwidth, with that data probably counting towards your monthly usage limit. Even if you don't have a Nest Aware account, the cameras must upload constantly for you to receive alerts. With no onboard storage or backup power, the Nest Cams are useless if an intruder cuts the internet and/or power to your house before breaking in the window although you're sent alerts if your cameras are offline for a while.
In the picture
The cameras offer a sharp 1080p resolution with 8x digital zoom but even with a 2 Mbps uplink this wasdialled down to 720p by default, at which point a single Nest Cam is constantly uploading at 400 kbps leaping past 1 Mbps per second when something moves. At this rate a single camera will chew through around 120 GB per month.
These bandwidth demands are simply ludicrous in a country like Australia where many homes face monthly data limits and would be lucky to have access to 1 Mbps upload speeds. Thankfully you can adjust the picture quality to allow for your bandwidth, dialling it up to 1080p uploading at 1.2 Mbps and chewing through 300 GB per month or down to 360p (150 kbps, 30 GB per month).
Even at the lowest settings these bandwidth demands might still be too much if you have several cameras around your home, so you might curb their thirst by using the advanced settings to disable certain cameras at certain times.
Even if you're lucky enough to have access to the NBN you'd want to be on at least the 25/5 Mbps speed tier, as a basic 12/1 plan won't cut it. Heaven forbid everyone in your neighbourhood owns a few Nest Cams or your peak hour broadband traffic jams could get a lot worse.
So what's the verdict?
Like many American products, Nest Cams are designed for a world where data andbandwidth are seemingly infinite resources. In returnthe camerasoffer some impressive tricks but only if your home broadband can cope and you're prepared to shell out for the Nest Aware subscription.
To be fair some rivals also demand a monthly fee for cloud video storage, so it's important to do your research before taking the plunge. If you won't sign up for Nest Aware then your money is probably best spent elsewhere, especially if you'll be forced to dial down the picture quality so you're not making the most of the Nest Cam's 1080p resolution.
In a perfect worldNest Cams could be the perfect home surveillancetool, but for now they'll be impractical in many Australian homes until we sort out our nation's broadband woes.
Link:
Hands on: Nest Cam Indoor and Outdoor home security cameras - The Sydney Morning Herald
With Marylands governorship and General Assembly seats at stake in the 2018 election, the states Democratic and Republican parties are both testing new approaches to outreach and working more vigorously than in the past to boost turnout in their favor.
Armed with lists of independents and party affiliates who sat out recent midterm elections, party volunteers and candidates are canvassing neighborhoods virtually every weekend to convince voters that the upcoming races matter, focusing largely on battleground districts but also reaching into each others strongholds.
Democrats, who outnumber Republicans by 2 to 1 in Maryland, want to oust Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and shore up their veto-proof majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly amid a surge of grass-roots activism and anger toward President Trump, who is deeply unpopular in the state.
Republicans are pushing to build on their 2014 success, when they captured the governorship in an upset and took over nine legislative seats during a year of record-low turnout for Democratic voters. They want to reelect Hogan and break the Democratic supermajority by flipping at least five Senate seats held by Democrats.
The challenge at this point for both political parties is to make sure your base remains engaged and committed, said John Willis, a University of Baltimore politics professor and former Maryland secretary of state who worked with past Democratic campaigns.
In 2014, voter turnout in the state dropped 11 percent compared with the previous gubernatorial election, including an 8 percent drop for registered Democrats. Some of the most significant declines occurred in Baltimore City, Montgomery and Prince Georges counties traditional Democratic strongholds.
Willis said registered Democrats could take back the governorship by increasing their turnout by four points, or about 80,000 people, noting that Hogan won the office with about 66,000 more votes than his opponent, then-Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D).
The key to 2018 is mobilization and getting back to normal, Willis said. The margin can be closed very easily with a mobilization effort.
To that end, the Democratic Party has embarked on a 10,000-household listening tour that will last through fall, asking residents what they want from elected leaders before developing an overarching message for upcoming elections. Then it will pivot toward trying to persuade voters to show up at the polls and back its nominees.
Old-fashioned neighbor-to-neighbor conversations is the most effective tool in politics these days, Maryland Democratic Party chair Kathleen Matthews said. Data is crucial, but in terms of a process, its all about building trust and conversations with people.
The Republican Party, flush with cash since Hogan took office and hoping down-ballot candidates can piggyback on the governors sky-high approval ratings, has been similarly active, deploying canvassers to swing districts with a new mobile app that flags residents who are likely to consider GOP candidates.
Its no secret were outnumbered in voter registration, but we believe we can capitalize on Hogans popularity and a tight data operation to make sure that our voters starting with Republicans but also independents and Democrats who will vote for Republicans from time to time are going to be there for us in the governors and General Assembly races, Maryland GOP chair Dirk Haire said.
Both parties are trying to win over people like Perry Rose, a 51-year-old computer programmer who lives in a working-class neighborhood of eastern Baltimore County. He voted consistently as a Republican in the past but now describes himself as an independent, saying he grew disenchanted with the GOP in recent years.
Del. Christian J. Miele (R-Baltimore County), who is running for state Senate and was the first 2018 candidate to receive backing from Hogan, worked Roses neighborhood during a recent canvassing effort this month.
Rose recognized Miele from a recent stream cleanup event and greeted the candidate as he neared his property with campaign brochures, but didnt commit to supporting him in the next election.
I dont know what you stand for, but I know youre a good person, and I can at least say youre at the top of my mind, he said.
Miele asked Rose to call him later so he could lay out his policy positions.
Thats why you door-knock because you dont know how someone like that is going to vote, Miele said. It sounds like hell support the person with the best ideas.
Frederick resident Heather Scott-Fagan is another potential prize for both parties. The 27-year-old lab technician, who said she typically votes only in presidential elections, described herself to Democratic canvassers this month as strongly left-leaning but named nonpartisan redistricting something Hogan has pushed for the past two years as a top priority.
When asked whether she wants to see Hogan reelected, she replied that she would rather see someone else.
Instead of waiting until after the primaries, the state Democratic Party has launched its field operations and voter outreach roughly a year in advance.
Trumps election has bolstered Democratic recruiting.
Daryl Martin, a 62-year-old editor for government contractors who knocked on doors with the Frederick group this month, said she has not been involved in campaigning since 1972, when she stuffed mailboxes for then-Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern.
I did that and just disappeared until this election, she said. I got angry and decided I needed to do something.
Martin and a partner knocked on 15 doors and reached four residents over nearly three hours, using printed spreadsheets that did not list homes in a geographical order.
Haire says the GOP mobile app, which uses data such as voting history and consumer habitsto determine which residents might vote for the partys candidates, gives them an advantage.
The day after Martins outing, Miele knocked on 35 doors in a two-hour period and reached five people, with his app providing logical routes.
The Democratic Party has similar technology but didnt use it during the Frederick outing this month.
Both organizations are uploading residents responses to survey questions to build their databases and identify supporters, opponents or those consideredpersuadable.
Both parties are focused on political battlegrounds such as Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Frederick counties, all jurisdictions that Hogan won convincingly in 2014.
In Marylands 2016 Senate race, then-Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D), who won the seat, defeated House Minority Whip Kathy Szeliga (R-Baltimore County) by 16 points in the Republican candidates home jurisdiction, but he lost in Frederick and Anne Arundel counties by 4.2 points and 1.4 points, respectively.
State Sen. Ronald N. Young (D-Frederick), one of the GOPs top targets for 2018, said he feels confident about winning reelection if turnout is strong in the largely Democratic city of Frederick. Last weekend, he led more than 20volunteers on a door-knocking campaign in his district.
Theres a good chance of some degree of a blue tide this time around, he said. Often during an off year, voters go the opposite direction of president, and this one is saying some things that could motivate people ... but Im not going to rely on that. Im going to concentrate on turning out the votes myself.
Read more here:
How Maryland's political parties ramped up their ground games for 2018 - Washington Post
GOSHEN The monthly Creative Kids Day occurred Saturday at the Old Bag Factory in Goshen, offering stimulating activities from molding clay and exploring virtual reality to mixed media projects and more.
On the main level, Mark Goertzen, of Goertzen Pottery, had his pottery wheel spinning while he molded small clay cups. In the entry sat a table, a little lower for younger artists, with clay ready to work and mold.
"We have clay available for them to build to their own imagination," said Goertzen. "So we've had people making turtles. Someone did a pinch pot, and there have been other creatures made today. It's mainly exploring how clay is wonderfully malleable that you can form into shapes and things, to your imagination's content. It's just trying to get kids' hands dirty, and making something on their own."
While children can be a little timid in their approach, Goertzen said that doesn't usually last long.
"Kids naturally gravitate to clay, because you can just pinch it into any form they want," he said. "There's no right way to do it, and so conversely there's no wrong way to do it, so you don't have to worry about messing up just get messy."
On the second level in the complex, the Elkhart Art League, Second Song, The Train Exhibit and the Robotics Club were ready to interact with curious kids.
"Today's project is charcoals on tar paper, tar paper art," said Vice President of the Elkhart Art League Ellen Ridenour. "You have to start out with a circle, and you can go from there."
A few shop fronts down, a shop front with massage chairs and a virtual reality setup drew inquisitive minds.
Josh Ridenour heads the monthly Robotics Club on site at the Old Bag Factory during the last Saturday of each month, from 10 a.m. to noon. Leading with the virtual reality headset, the projects of the club go beyond designing robotics and navigating digital realities.
"These kids, and a bunch of other kids, have built this computer, this 3-D printer set, and we're starting to get into virtual reality," said Josh.
The virtual reality program allows users to explore the surface of Mars on the Mars Rover, disassemble and reassemble a jet engine and tour the International Space Station. One of the programs Josh uses to demo new users is an underwater exploration, where the user is beneath the sea near a shipwreck, getting acquainted with the wildlife nearby.
"Every kid should have access to this stuff. We make it available to all kids so nobody is left behind," said Josh.
Creative Kids Day is a monthly event at the Old Bag Factory, taking place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. the second Saturday of each month.
View original post here:
Creative Kids Day activities span clay to virtual reality - Goshen News