What are the key characteristics of a successful CEO heading an innovative company? Machine Design editor Leland Teschler describes wish list, which includes overconfidence (characterized by how CEOs manage their stock options), and an "unwavering resolve and workmanlike diligence" for getting work
Asking for Formula and Working Details as a Beginner Electrical Engineer
A current of 50A is carried by two cables in parallel. One cable has a resistance of 0.15ohms-and carries 20A. What is the resistance of the other cable?
Too Old to Hire?
Despite laws against discrimination on the basis of age, older workers, those 50 plus, say they have the biggest disadvantage when seeking a job. In fact, employment counselors suggest that age may be the most common form of workplace discrimination. Why do think employers are so reluctant to hire o
More Transparent OLEDs For Phones
See-through OLED panels can be made by either keeping the emitter and driver layers very thin, or by leaving areas empty except for a see-through substrate. A 2-inch 320 x 240 (QVGA) OLED panel, deposited on glass, let more than 50% of the light through. They seem destined for phones — but why
Group Unveils Worst Polluters of 2010
*Video: msnbc bjorn lomborg interview november 11 2010
(Click to play video)Â MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan interviewed Bjorn Lomborg last week, a former “climate change skeptic” and now a guy who thinks that telling the blunt truth about climate change is the wrong approach. He feels the right approach is to emphasize clean energy. He may be right, but not for the reasons he’s stating. Clean energy is really all we have left in this political “climate” (no pun intended.) Since the anti-science Republicans have taken over Congress, the United States will probably not do anything about ending greenhouse gas emissions this year and next that doesn’t include support for American business. That means we will still be supporting and using coal, gas and BP oil. There is just no other realistic expectation.
But it’s misleading to say that “scaring people” doesn’t work, especially when the background for this show claims that the world is not going to end. I don’t know of anyone who is saying that in the first place, and trying to de-emphasize the emergency situation we are in with climate change does no service to anyone. It’s accurately described by climate scientists as a “crisis”. Scaring people is warranted when a serious threat exists for real, and we aren’t doing much about it, as with climate change. And scaring people through communications has been proven to work. That’s the only reason there are so many negative campaign ads every election season. It’s the reason the American public supported a war in Iraq that didn’t need to be fought. Negative ads and scare tactics work, but that have to be used honestly and only when necessarily. Obviously, the fear of higher taxes has worked on the American public lately more than the fear of climate change. So, fear tactics only work when the conditions are right, and they don’t always work. Education would be better, in a world where people were open to being educated. (That’s a problem of another kind.) And yet another problem — lying to the American public about climate change, which is what a lot of very rich people are doing.
What is worse – sugar-coating climate change or being straight with the public about it?
Climate Progress Guest blogger Josh Nelson is New Media Director at the Alliance for Climate Protection and its Repower America campaign.
Koch Industries, “the biggest company you’ve never heard of,” first among a final four in online poll.
From Climate Progress.
To spread the word about Koch Industries and its long history of working to deceive the American people about climate change, we’ve launched a new website: http://www.KochIndustriesFacts.com.
Three weeks ago, we asked our members to nominate the worst corporate polluters of 2010. Our goal was to identify organizations that have hijacked our democracy, devastated our environment and denied the science of climate change — all while reaping massive profits. The response was overwhelming. In just a few days, [...]
Motor Connection – Ladder Diagram of Star Delta
hi every one please tell me about ladder diagram of star delta. regards
Muslim Women may escape TSA pat-downs over ethnic insensitivies
Lesbian TSA Agents searching Burqa-clad Muslim women
From Eric Dondero:
The new TSA pat-down policies are receiving a great deal of attention, with women in particular finding them especially invasive. TSA Agents are now routinely scanning and even touching genital, breast and and anal areas during the screening process. But one group of women may soon be exempt, if CAIR has its way. The Council on American Islamic Relations is strongly protesting the procedures and urging Muslim women to opt out.
From CNS News "Muslim Group Advises Women Wearing Hijabs to Allow TSA ‘Enhanced Pat Downs’ Only on Head and Neck Area":
In the “special recommendations for Muslim women who wear hijab,” it states: “Before you are patted down, you should remind the TSA officer that they are only supposed to pat down the area in question, in this scenario, your head and neck. They SHOULD NOT subject you to a full-body or partial-body pat-down.”
It also states: “Instead of the pat-down, you can always request to pat down your own scarf, including head and neck area, and have the officers perform a chemical swipe of your hands.”
Sniffer Dogs loathed by Islamists, to be used in screenings
Another Islamic group, The Figh Council of North America has issued a Fatwa saying that body scanners violate Muslim religious law.
“It is a violation of clear Islamic teaching that men or women be seen naked by other men and women. Islam highly emphasizes haya (modesty) and considers it part of the faith. The Qu’ran has commanded the believers, both men and women, to cover their private parts.”
The TSA has responded with a statement suggesting that all passengers should expect continuation of "unpredictable searches." One method suggested by TSA is Canine policing, likely to deeply offend Muslim travelers.
Additionally, Islam strongly condemns homosexuality. However, the TSA has a strict policy of non-discrimination in employment and regularly hires homosexual men and women as Agents.
There have been no reports as of yet, of Christian women, even religious fundamentalists, Mormons or Orthodox Jews refusing the searches.
Condensing Turbine Won't Rotate After 2 Days Shutdown
Our condensing 5,5 MW steam turbine has been operating
for 4 years without problems.By start after short 2 days shutdown we found out barring gear broken.After repair we tryed to start turbine again but is´t impossible to spinn the turbine.Turbine was stopped right regularly before shutdown.
Motor Theory
hi can anyone give me a help with this question please?
i need to find starting voltage of the motor, the percentage of normal torque when the motor is started the motor start current and supply current.
i thnk the point of the exercise is to bring home the point that that trfx for st
Open Thread – November 13th, 2010 | Gene Expression
Blogs worth checking out: Reaction Norm, A Replicated Typo, and Dodecad. Heather Mac Donald has some expectations for the Tea Party.
Take a look at the Wikio Science Top 20. Same old, same old. I’m always sniffing around for new science blogs, and am struck by how many of the top bloggers I’ve met personally. Eight of the top 20 on Wikio for example. Are there many unknown gems out there?
Josh Green reminisces about the rise of Talking Points Memo. Some people “have it”, some do not. Joshua Micah Marshall “has it.” He’s always had it. I started an abortive blog in the fall of 2001, but gave up after a week. Then I started blogging in April of 2002, and never looked back. For most of the 2000s I was a code monkey who blogged as a hobby on the side. I never managed to give it up, and it’s led me to some really awesome places.
Cultures differ. Check out the definition for ‘Islamophobia’. Now read this article, Palestinian held for Facebook criticism of Islam:
Residents of Qalqiliya say they had no idea that Walid Husayin — the 26-year-old son of a Muslim scholar — was leading a double life.
Known as a quiet man who prayed with his family each Friday and spent his evenings working in his father’s barbershop, Husayin was secretly posting anti-religion rants on the Internet during his free time.
Now, he faces a potential life prison sentence on heresy charges for “insulting the divine essence.” Many in this conservative Muslim town say he should be killed for renouncing Islam, and even family members say he should remain behind bars for life.
“He should be burned to death,” said Abdul-Latif Dahoud, a 35-year-old Qalqiliya resident. The execution should take place in public “to be an example to others,” he added.
Over several years, Husayin is suspected of posting arguments in favor of atheism on English and Arabic blogs, where he described the God of Islam as having the attributes of a “primitive Bedouin.” He called Islam a “blind faith that grows and takes over people’s minds where there is irrationality and ignorance.”
If that wasn’t enough, he is also suspected of creating three Facebook groups in which he sarcastically declared himself God and ordered his followers, among other things, to smoke marijuana in verses that spoof the Muslim holy book, the Quran. At its peak, Husayin’s Arabic-language blog had more than 70,000 visitors, overwhelmingly from Arab countries.
…
Husayin is the first to be arrested in the West Bank for his religious views, said Tayseer Tamimi, the former chief Islamic judge in the area.
The Western-backed Palestinian Authority is among the more religiously liberal Arab governments in the region. It is dominated by secular elites and has frequently cracked down on hardline Muslims and activists connected to its conservative Islamic rival, Hamas.
Husayin’s high public profile and prickly style, however, left authorities no choice but to take action.
…
Instead, he began going to an Internet cafe — a move that turned out to be a costly mistake. The owner, Ahmed Abu-Asal, said the blogger aroused suspicion by spending up to seven hours a day in a corner booth. After several months, a cafe worker supplied captured snapshots of his Facebook pages to Palestinian intelligence officials.
…
He could face a life sentence if he’s found guilty, depending on how harshly the judge thinks he attacked Islam and how widely his views were broadcast, said Islamic scholar Tamimi.
Even so, a small minority has questioned whether the government went too far.
Zainab Rashid, a liberal Palestinian commentator, wrote in an online opinion piece that Husayin has made an important point: “that criticizing religious texts for their (intellectual) weakness can only be combatted by … oppression, prison and execution.”
- I think many readers of this weblog could sympathize Walid Husayin. He seems to have been an “internet atheist,” obsessed with the rejection of theism which was so strongly normative in the world around him. Because of the familial expectations he clearly had to live a lie in public, so he took out his angst in private. We’re not talking Michael Servetus here, we’re talking an angry 15 year old on LiveJournal (no offense, but in societies where men live with their families deep into their 20s they are usually psychologically teenagers in my experience).
- Burning a religious dissenter has some negative connotations for people in the West. That sort of stuff basically stopped after the Enlightenment, though the famous burning of the aforementioned Michael Servetus at the instigation of John Calvin shows just how acceptable such barbarism was in the West even in the early modern period. From the perspective of modern Westerners though that was the past, and like slavery burning someone for blasphemy is no longer thinkable (unless you’re a follower of R. J. Rushdoony). Things are different in much of the Muslim world, especially the Arab world. If Islamophobia is the irrational fear of Islam, what do you call the rational fear? Are those who want a cordon sanitaire against these sorts of cultural values without any foundation in reality? I don’t begrudge Muslims of whatever stripe arguing for the superiority or virtuosity of their belief system; that’s the nature of their meme. Rather, I’m always struck by the lack of reflection that many secular Westerners have as to the realized perniciousness of Islam in the world when judged by the values that Westerners today hold to be fundamental.
- The 70,000 visitors is vague. 70,000 visitors total is not large, but 70,000 per day is reasonable. The fact that Walid Husayin attained some level of pseudo-fame in the Arab world attests to a pent up demand for a violation of the norm of ostentatious piety. Throughout the history of civilization there have been sects and movements which operate as a counter-narrative against the pieties of the age. Cynics in ancient Greece of the Stoics and Platonists. Daoists in the China of the Confucians. The Carvaka who rejected the strictures of Brahmanical Hinduism. This strain also existed within Islam, exemplified by the poet Al-Ma’arri, who declared that “The sacred books are only such a set of idle tales as any age could have and indeed did actually produce.” But the fact is that the Abrahamic religions in particular have a long track record of not tolerating counter-cultural religio-philosophical movements. Al-Ma’arri and Plethon were notable tokens, not representatives of an alternative school. In contrast to the often imperfectly realized acceptance of the fact of plurality of opinion in Greece & Rome, in China, and in Indic civilization, Christianity and Islam tended toward ideological monopoly.
- The blog Breaking Spells asserts:
Regardless, only the most backward of societies -the most primitive of this world- would still have the barbaric and mindless law which allows a death sentence for blasphemy….
Here’s a map of the UN’s Human Development Index (black is the lowest category, but lighter blue shades are lower):
Some Muslim countries, like Pakistan, have low HDI. Others, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, have high HDI. Additionally, much of Latin America and Africa has lower HDI than the “core” Muslim world (Arab-Turk-Persian). The Muslim nations really aren’t primitive. Geneva in the 16th century wasn’t primitive. A well developed system of thought-policing from on-high is unfortunately a feature of more advanced societies, though the trend is obviously not monotonic as a function of development. The causal connections are not necessarily clear.
Image
Hello,
Is there any software or method to remove water mark logo from an image.
thanks.
The Willamette River Transit Bridge
The Willamette River Transit Bridge is part of a larger project to extend 7.3 miles of the Portland Light Rail (MAX) to Milwaukie, Oregon (a suburb to the south). The total cost of the light rail extension has been a topic covered extensively by local media – costs are estimated around $1.4 billion. At up to $134 million for the bridge, it’s the single costliest piece of the light rail project. The bridge itself will be the first of its kind in the United States in terms of it being built for sole use by pedestrians, bicycles, buses, light rail, and streetcar. No private cars will be allowed. The multi-use transit crossing will be the first bridge built over the Willamette River in 37 years.
The project is slated to start next spring, and will be completed by 2015. The bridge will link a future Oregon Health and Science University Schnitzer Campus on the west side slated for construction in 2012 with the OMSI museum and an opera house on the east side.
The objective of the bridge is to provide connectivity between the east and west for multiple modes of transportation. The bridge will also support planned development and future land uses. When built, the new Willamette River Transite Bridge will be a showcase that reflects the Portland region with its core values. It will also serve as a symbol that reflects current technology and innovation.
This summer, the project learned that the Federal Transit Authority would provide less funding than anticipated (50 percent of the total $1.4 billion price tag instead of the 60 percent it requested). In a short amount of time, the region pulled together to identify cuts to fit the project to the new budget, as well as to obtain additional local funding. The region produced a trimmed-down project in less than two months, one that still stretches from PSU to Milwaukie to Oak Grove and still includes 10 new stations.
The region has been able to problem-solve quickly and efficiently because neighborhoods, businesses, transit riders and jurisdictional partners have been in agreement for a number of years: Building the Portland-Milwaukie light-rail project is key to continued regional livability, equity and growth. Construction is just around the corner. And it won’t be long before our transit system serves more people and more places than ever before.
If no major delays are encountered, the bridge will be completed in the fall of 2015, when Portland and surrounding Multnomah County’s population is projected to be 30 percent more than it was in 1980.
As a local resident that rides my bicycle around the city, and as a resident who frequently uses public transportation, I am personally excited to see this project get started. Moreover, I particularly love the design that has been presented and selected by the advisory committee. The views that peds and bicyclists will have from the bridge will add to the urban environment while serving as a modern icon of sustainability. Portland just being Portland…
To view the latest details about the Willamette River Bridge and the Portland-Milwaukie light rail project go to trimet.org
Google Invests in Wind
Google Investing Big in $5 Billion Offshore Wind Corridor
Google is investing big in offshore wind development along a large chunk of the East Coast. The proposed project will cost about $5 billion over 10 years to build a string of deepwater transmission lines that would run up to 20 miles offshore from Virginia to New Jersey.
Often one of the most expensive parts of renewable energy projects, transmission lines are crucial to the growth of clean energy in the country. After all, there’s no benefit to a wind farm until that energy is delivered to our homes.
The 350-mile Atlantic Wind Connection will start construction in 2013. It will be able to transmit 6,000 MW of energy from offshore wind farms, enough to power about 1.9 million homes.
The first phase, which will run 150 miles from New Jersey to Delaware in federal waters will be capable of delivering 2,000 MW of wind energy. Â It will be completed by 2016 and will cost about $1.8 billion.
The entire transmission system will tie into PJM’s electrical grid that serves 13 states, plus Washington, D.C.
Google will be one-third owner of the project, while investment firm Good Energies, Japanese company Marubeni and Maryland transmission company Trans-Elect are splitting the rest. The combined initial investment in the project runs in the tens of milions of dollars.
via Huffington Post
Detailed Dark Matter Map Yields Clues to Galaxy Cluster Growth
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took advantage of a giant cosmic magnifying glass to create one of the sharpest and most detailed maps of dark matter in the universe. Dark matter is an invisible and unknown substance that makes up the bulk of the universe's mass.
The new dark matter observations may yield new insights into the role of dark energy in the universe's early formative years. The result suggests that galaxy clusters may have formed earlier than expected, before the push of dark energy inhibited their growth. A mysterious property of space, dark energy fights against the gravitational pull of dark matter. Dark energy pushes galaxies apart from one another by stretching the space between them, thereby suppressing the formation of giant structures called galaxy clusters. One way astronomers can probe this primeval tug-of-war is through mapping the distribution of dark matter in clusters.
A team led by Dan Coe at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys to chart the invisible matter in the massive galaxy cluster Abell 1689, located 2.2 billion light-years away. The cluster's gravity, the majority of which comes from dark matter, acts like a cosmic magnifying glass, bending and amplifying the light from distant galaxies behind it. This effect, called gravitational lensing, produces multiple, warped, and greatly magnified images of those galaxies, like the view in a funhouse mirror. By studying the distorted images, astronomers estimated the amount of dark matter within the cluster. If the cluster's gravity only came from the visible galaxies, the lensing distortions would be much weaker.
Based on their higher-resolution mass map, Coe and his collaborators confirm previous results showing that the core of Abell 1689 is much denser in dark matter than expected for a cluster of its size, based on computer simulations of structure growth. Abell 1689 joins a handful of other well-studied clusters found to have similarly dense cores. The finding is surprising, because the push of dark energy early in the universe's history would have stunted the growth of all galaxy clusters.
"Galaxy clusters, therefore, would had to have started forming billions of years earlier in order to build up to the numbers we see today," Coe explains. "At earlier times, the universe was smaller and more densely packed with dark matter. Abell 1689 appears to have been well fed at birth by the dense matter surrounding it in the early universe. The cluster has carried this bulk with it through its adult life to appear as we observe it today."
Mapping the Invisible
Abell 1689 is among the most powerful gravitational lensing clusters ever observed. Coe's observations, combined with previous studies, yielded 135 multiple images of 42 background galaxies.
"The lensed images are like a big puzzle," Coe says. "Here we have figured out, for the first time, a way to arrange the mass of Abell 1689 such that it lenses all of these background galaxies to their observed positions." Coe used this information to produce a higher-resolution map of the cluster's dark matter distribution than was possible before.
Coe teamed with mathematician Edward Fuselier, who, at the time, was at the United States Military Academy at West Point, to devise a new technique to calculate the new map. "Thanks, in large part, to Eddie's contributions, we have finally `cracked the code' of gravitational lensing. Other methods are based on making a series of guesses as to what the mass map is, and then astronomers find the one that best fits the data. Using our method, we can obtain, directly from the data, a mass map that gives a perfect fit."
Astronomers are planning to study more clusters to confirm the possible influence of dark energy. A major Hubble program that will analyze dark matter in gigantic galaxy clusters is the Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH). In this survey, the telescope will study 25 clusters for a total of one month over the next three years. The CLASH clusters were selected because of their strong X-ray emission, indicating they contain large quantities of hot gas. This abundance means the clusters are extremely massive. By observing these clusters, astronomers will map the dark matter distributions and look for more conclusive evidence of early cluster formation, and possibly early dark energy.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.
For more information visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/dark-matter-map.html
Webb Fixes Need To Start On The 9th Floor
Keith's note: The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project started under NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Associate Administrator Ed Weiler. Virtually all of its chronic and unabated cost increases and schedule slips have occured under Weiler's watch either at NASA HQ or at NASA GSFC. When former SMD AA Alan Stern tried to bring the escalating costs of programs such as JWST and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) under control, in 2008, multiple NASA sources note that Chris Scoelese and Ed Weiler maneuvered to force Stern's resignation, in a classic NASA "shoot the messenger" move, with Weiler taking Stern's place within barely a week.
Meanwhile in a statement prepared for Bolden, it is evident that the agency is in complete denial when it comes to the severity of its escalating costs for government projects. Didn't the recent election sent a rather clear message from the electorate with regard to their dissatisfaction with out of control government spending? Add in the soaring overruns on MSL (another Weiler managerial fiasco) and National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) - a project managed for the agency by Chris Scolese, and you see three large fiscal black holes sucking away at all the other things the agency is supposed to be doing for science, and exploration.
Bolden's response? He wants Weiler and Scoelese to spend more time watching JWST. These two have presided over years of cost growth and schedule delays that have damaged multiple projects within SMD, and which now threaten to damage the Agency's reputation as a whole. Perhaps it is Weiler and Scoelese that need to be changed out ...
This latest cost increase/schedule delay happened throughout Charlie Bolden's entire tenure with both Scolese and Weiler overseeing this program at NASA HQ under Bolden's direct, daily management. Perhaps Gen. Bolden doesn't realize his connection to the collective mismanagement of these projects is itself becoming as clear as the vacuum of space ...
Keith's update: Word has it that there will be a press conference on Monday where some heads will roll as this mess is reorganized under Chris Scolese. Stay tuned.
Ephemerisle Program Update
(We'd like to apologize for the delay in formally making this announcement. Some of you who are in the Ephemerisle community may have already heard about it informally. We have been behind on our communications over the last couple of months.)
The Seasteading Institute has made the reluctant decision to table its Ephemerisle program at this time. We are not currently planning events for 2011 or beyond.
Los Angeles Beaches: Come On Baby Light My (Bon)Fire
One of the best things to do while on the beach is to enjoy a bonfire with good company. When was the last time you had a bonfire on the beach? It was 2003 for me. Marsha Takeda-Morrison walks us back through time when she was in high school in L.A. She reminisces about the days when fire pits were a common thing on beaches. Today they are not as easy to find, but they are there. Marsha tells us exactly where…
Growing up in Southern California I spent a lot of time on the beach. And this sounds so cliché, but one of the electives my hippie high school offered was surfing. So even though I wasn’t taking that particular class, I spent more than a few of my ‘free’ periods hanging out watching classmates surf while I pretended to be working on my photography assignment nearby. In fact, most of the school found some reason to be at the beach for at least part of the school day – I remember quite a few term papers written on the observation of bogus species of sand crabs. It’s a wonder any of us graduated and went on to become anything other than hair-braiders.
But one of my fondest memories of my beach-going teen years is sitting around a bonfire with my classmates and friends after school and on weekends. Back then pretty much all of the beaches had fire rings for making bonfires. (Saying ‘back then’ makes it sound like ancient history, but I’m really not that old. Although we did lay down on woolly mammoth pelts instead of beach towels.)
Now it’s not so easy to find those once ubiquitous cement rings – in fact the only beach in Los Angeles that still allows bonfires is Dockweiler State Beach in Playa Del Rey. Many beaches in Orange County have fire pits, but I’ll be steering my teen daughters towards Dockweiler where I spent many hours with my friends, our faces lit by the light of flickering orange flames. Besides, I think there might be some sand crabs that need cataloging.
Here are some LA-area beaches that allow bonfires. Check with the individual locations, as some laws may have changed.
Los Angeles:
Dockweiler State Beach
Orange County:
Aliso Beach
Bolsa Chica State Beach
Corona Del Mar State Beach
Crystal Cove State Beach
Huntington Beach
Laguna Beach
Newport Beach west of Balboa Pier
Newport Beach east of Balboa Pier
Photo: Webshots
The original posting can be found here: UpTake Getaway Crew: LA
Sea Turtle vs Dry Land Tortoise
As you are walking along a trail to the beach in Florida, you might come across a turtle like the one above, slowly dragging itself along behind the parched, dry, scorching hot sand dunes. You might be tempted to move it down to the water’s edge…but DON’T!!! This is a Florida gopher tortoise. They do [...]
Looking For Paradise?
That’s all I’m sayin’.
Space Coast Birding Festival – Catalog Available & Registration Open
I told you I’d let you know when the catalog is available, so here it is! Registration is now OPEN on the festival website. Don’t wait too long; the top classes and field trips fill up quickly (I learned that the hard way last year). Catalog Table of Contents: Welcome Raptor Project Sponsors & Partners [...]