in belt conveyor system we have zero speed sensors (for safety) in tail end, which is senseing the puls from pulley/min and give the feedback its moniter, moniter is operted by 230V AC and output gentration is 8VDC for sensor operating voltage, from the moniter 1 relay with NO contact which is give
The Ladies of Star Wars, Playing Cards [Star Wars]
I know what you're thinking right now. "Who in the hell is Koyi Matei?" We haven't the slightest clue, but she was probably the chief protagonist in Episode 2, or something. [
2 stage snowblower shaft
Hi I have a 1978 snowblower. The gear box worm gear is bad & needs to be replaced. To get at it I have to remove the front auger but the shaft is old & rusted & I am have a hard time getting it to break loose. Any ideas?
Mold
I have a water leak under my fiberglass shower stall. I stopped the water flow, removed the molding and Sheetrock on either side of the stall, removed the pooled water and sprayed everything I could see, and not see, 3 times with 4-1 chlorine bleach and water and twice with vinegar. I let the liquid
Lithium for ALS – Angioplasty for MS
Peter Lipson reported Monday about new research suggesting that Multiple Sclerosis may be caused by venous blockage. He correctly characterized some of the hype surrounding this story as “irrational exuberance.”
This is a phenomenon all too common in the media – taking the preliminary research of an individual or group (always presented as a maverick) and declaring it a “stunning breakthrough,” combined with the ubiquitous personal anecdote of someone “saved” by the new treatment.
The medical community, meanwhile, responds with appropriate caution and healthy skepticism. Looks interesting – let’s see some more research. There is a reason for such a response from experts – experience.
We have been here before – lithium for ALS
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the death of motor neurons, leading to weakness and ultimately paralysis or death. There is currently only one proven treatment for ALS, a drug called riluzole, and its effects are modest – prolonging tracheostomy-free survival by 2 months on average. So new treatments are welcome, to say the least, and there is ongoing research looking for possible treatments.
In February of 2008 I wrote about a preliminary study by Italian researcher, Fornai, in 44 patients with ALS, showing a dramatic improvement in outcome. This research followed a mouse study that also showed significant improvement.
Press reporting about this “breakthrough” research resulted in patients with ALS and their families contacting me and other neurologists asking how they could get treated.
Meanwhile, the reaction of the ALS research community was cautious but hopeful. It was felt that this preliminary research deserved further study, but was not enough to conclude that lithium was effective or to start treating patients with it.
The North East ALS Consortium (of which I am a member, although I did not participate in this study), based upon Fornai’s research, performed a randomized controlled multi-center trial of lithium in ALS. The results were dead negative – so negative that the trial was stopped early due to futility.
Here we have animal studies and preliminary human trials showing a dramatic improvement, and a follow-up larger and better controlled study showing zero effect. How do we reconcile these results?
Simple – preliminary data is unreliable, by definition. Most new ideas in medicine do not pan out. And as a result (and as John Ioannidis has taught us) most published studies are wrong. What is reliable are later, larger, more definitive trials, and specifically a consensus of results in the peer-reviewed literature after a question has had time to simmer and mature.
Zamboni and CCSVI
It should therefore be no surprise at all that the medical community is once again taking a cautious approach to preliminary research published by a single researcher claiming dramatic results from a revolutionary new idea. As Peter discussed, Dr. Zamboni, a neurosurgeon, believes he has found a cause and a cure for multiple sclerosis (MS) – a neurosurgical one.
Just like with lithium and ALS, his idea is an interesting one, and his preliminary data deserved to be taken seriously – which means replicating his research and doing follow up studies. He claims that patients with MS – 100% of the MS patients he has studied, but none of the controls – have blockages in the veins that drain blood from the brain. These blockages lead to blood backing up in the brain, which causes iron deposits, which results in inflammation and MS.
At this point there are many possibilities. It’s possible Dr. Zamboni is the victim of confirmation bias (I am always suspicious of 100% results) and his new condition – chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency or CCSVI is an illusion.
It is possible he has found a real pathological marker for MS but what he is seeing is the result of MS, not the cause of it. Inflammation is known to follow the venous system in MS, but there are explanations for this that have to do with the immune system in the central nervous system. Perhaps chronic inflammation from MS causes sclerosis in the veins and the blockage that Dr. Zamboni is finding.
If this is true then it is possible that the venous sclerosis is playing no or only a minimal role in MS pathology, and fixing them by opening them up with baloon angioplasty is of no benefit. It is also possible that even though the venous changes are cause by auto-immunity in MS, once they form they worsen the clinical syndrome, and treating CCSVI in MS will improve outcome, even if it does not cure the underlying cause driving the disease.
And it is possible that Dr. Zamboni has discovered the or an underlying cause of MS – that CCSVI is actually the primary driver of the disease. Or perhaps it just triggers the auto-immune response, but once triggered it is self-sustaining.
This is a huge range of possibilities, and it is definitely premature to come to the most extreme conclusion among them. We need time for the MS community to pick over Zamboni’s claims and research. While we do not know what ultimately causes MS, we have decades of high quality research characterizing its pathophysiology. How does this research square with Zamboni’s claims? Let’s wait and see.
Zamboni’s basic claims need to be replicated. And if warranted, clinical studies need to fully characterize the risks and benefits of any procedure to address alleged CCSVI. Perhaps it only has benefit is a sub-population of MS. Maybe it makes the disease worse. We won’t know until quality studies are done.
I am not holding my breath, just as I wasn’t with lithium for ALS, but I will certainly follow the research. I would love for Zamboni to be correct – if we can essentially cure MS with a one-time procedure that would be a huge boon to MS patients and save billions.
Help – the media is not being irresponsible!
The most absurd reaction to Zamboni’s research came from the Huffington Post. As Peter reported, Erika Milva wrote a rambling piece suggesting that the cautious responses of American media, MS societies, and the medical community were due to being risk-averse and the omnipresent (in the fantasies of many) Big Pharma conspiracy.
Milva could not understand why the media was not irresponsibly jumping over this story and hyping it, as some of the foreign press has. So I guess she decided to make up for this with maximal hysteria of her own.
But there is no mystery here. Zamboni’s claims are radical, and therefore by definition improbable. But more importantly, they are preliminary. That doesn’t mean they are wrong – it just means we do not yet know. Let’s wait for some quality research.
And that is one of the primary differences between science-based medicine and everything else – basing treatments on evidence, witholding judgment until reliable evidence is in, and not overreacting to every pilot study that pops up.
I will let you know in a couple of years how Zamboni’s claims have turned out.
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Gold "Supreme" PS3 Costs $319,000, Plus Your Dignity [Gaming]
Was that $490,000 gold Wii on the wrong side of the allegiance for you? Thankfully Goldstriker's now offering a 22ct-gold-and-diamond-studded PS3, letting you take on the terrorists in MW2 the proper way.
Only three have been made, so you better get your skates on if the 1,600 grams of solid 22ct gold and 58 0.50ct diamonds-decorated console is just the living room accessory you've been after. Only £199,995 ($319,104)—a veritable steal in comparison to the Wii. But how much will the Xbox 360 version set us back, and can we get a refund when the inevitable RROD happens? [Stuart Hughes via Goldstriker]
Why Are We Closing Guantanamo?
Rebuffed this month by skeptical lawmakers when it sought finances to buy a prison in rural Illinois, the Obama administration is struggling to come up with the money to replace the Guantánamo Bay prison.
As a result, officials now believe that they are unlikely to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer its population of terrorism suspects until 2011 at the earliest — a far slower timeline for achieving one of President Obama’s signature national security policies than they had previously hinted.
So, closure is not going to happen soon. And the taxpayer will undoubtedly get stuck with a payoff to whatever U.S. locality ends up housing the Guantanamo inmates. What will this have accomplished?
Nothing. The issue should never have been whether the U.S. closes Guantanamo. I am not aware of a compelling reason to maintain this base, and I am equally unaware of a compelling reason to close it.
The crucial question has always been, and remains, what legal rules and procedures to employ for individuals designated by the federal government as enemy combatants?
The Bush administration's view was that the federal government could detain anyone, whether a U.S. citizen or not, whether captured on U.S. soil or not, indefinitely. And that such detainees had no right to counsel, process, procedure, or anything.
That cannot be the right balance between protecting national security and safeguarding individual rights. I can imagine a reasonable argument that says, "persons captured under such and such cirmcumstances, who might be a threat to national security, do not have the same rights as a standard criminal suspect." Perhaps this would mean trials held in secret, or under different rules of evidence, or something. But anyone detained by the government must have some ability to protest his innocence.
So, I would have cheered Obama had he iniated a serious discussion of the appropriate rules and procedures for dealing with enemy combatants. Instead, he focussed on the irrelevant question of whether to close Guantanamo. By so doing he has given and aid and comfort to proponents of the extreme positions that he and his supporters claim to oppose.
In Space, Even Sharp’s Solar Cells Can Generate Energy [Space]
Sharp's made no secret of its interest in solar cell technology, but finally they've shown off the fruit of their efforts, the first solar cell capable of surviving in space.
As they're actually flexible, they'll be perfect for covering satellites and other space-bound objects, and are even able to be folded around tight corners. Measuring 20 microns in thickness, Sharp's prototype was created by combining indium gallium crystals, gallium arsenide and indium gallium arsenide, growing them on solid substrate molecules before adding them to film. Sharp's hoping to manufacture them before 2012, for space shuttles and the like to generate energy from way up above us. [Nikkei via CrunchGear]
Give Your Kid An Inflated Ego With The Ultimate Boy-Racer Stroller [Kids]
You just know that the kid who gets pushed around in this stroller will grow up to become a boy-racer. At $2,000, it's almost karma for the parents who decided buying a Roddler was a good idea.
There's two rear wheels and one front wheel, all encased in red-painted chrome, matching brakes, wheel bullets and chrome grips. The seat is made from suede and carbon vinyl leatherette so your precious darling is swathed comfortably. It's $2,000, but I'm sure that whoever buys this thing couldn't possibly balk at coughing up an extra $500 for the kit which transforms it into a trike once the youngster grows up a bit. [Roddler via Uncrate via Geekologie]
How to Permanently Make a Hydrofobic Plastic Sampling Device Hydrofilic
We are looking into the possibilities to replace a glass capillary currently glued into a sampling device with a plastic moulded sampling device (including a plastic capillary part). We face problems with the capillary forces due to the hydrophobicity of the plastics. Do you have any suggestions (ot
Mind Blowing Video of the Canon 1D Mark IV [Cameras]
We already saw some stunning night video of the Canon 1D Mark IV, but it's nothing, nothing I tell you, compared to this mind blowing movie of a cold winter day in Prague. You won't believe some of the shots.
Philip Bloom, the same guy who shot the Skywalker Ranch earlier this year, got his hands on a pre-production Canon 1D Mark IV and took it to Prague, alongside Lucasfilm producer Rick McCallum.
McCallum helped him by eating some hot dogs, while Bloom took some of the most beautiful shots I've ever seen from a DSLR camera. So subtle, so delicate, and yet so crisp and rich. Check out the falling snow with just the street lighting. My mind is about to assplode. [Vimeo]
Mob Condom Protects 230 People from STDs [Condoms]
Did you think the giant bed condom was the biggest condom in the planet? Wrong! Those Italians have made one for the biggest salami on Earth, one that can fit 230 people at the same time: The Mob Condom.
It was part of a campaign to raise awareness of STDs, asking people to get together inside the condom at different events through Italy, using Facebook, Twitter, and other internet sites. They were able to get 230 people inside at one of the events. I like absurd things like this. I just wish everyone were naked inside, wearing condoms themselves. [Direct Daily]
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Boeing 737 Splits in Two at Landing [Happy Ending]
Details are unclear at this time, but an American Airlines' Boeing 737-800 plane split in two, overrunning the runway at Jamaica's Norman Manley International Airport, in Kingston. One of the passengers' description is frightening.
The passenger declared that the landing seemed all normal. Everyone applauded when the Boeing touched down, after a very rough flight under heavy rain. Then they noticed the plane wasn't stopping. A big noise was heard, and the whole structure started to break down as the oxygen masks dropped and all alarms went off. Another passenger declared that the plane starting to break right in front of her. Indeed, the plane split in two when it slid during the braking phase of the landing, ending a just few meters from the sea.
Seems to me that the ABS in the landing gear may have failed. Miraculously, none of the 148 passengers and six crew on board has died. Only 40 have been reported injured. [VOA]
Next Party Switchers in the House – Travis Childers of MS, Bobby Childers of AL, or Walt Minnick of Idaho?
"GOP sources hint that there may be more party switches to come..."
Under reported political story of the year: Since September over 40 Democrat elected officials in at least 5 states have switched to the Republican Party. They include county clerks, judges, a state attorney general, and one state representative. The switches have come in Vermont, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.
Yesterday, a United States Congressman switched to the Republican Party from the State of Alabama: Parker Griffith of the AL's 1st District. Now, there's news of even more to come. Four names come up most frequently. And all four have voting records even further to the conservative side than Griffith's.
From the Hotline (National Journal) Dec. 24:
But after a Dec. in which 4 Dems in swing districts announced they would not seek re-election, Griffith's decision to abandon his party cannot be seen as anything but a blow to Dems. If someone with his voting record is deciding to run as a GOPer instead of a Dem, that could suggest he is seeing polling that scares him.
Expect GOPers to suggest that the next to flip may be Reps. Walt Minnick (D-ID), Bobby Bright (D-AL) and Travis Childers (D-MS). All 3 represent deep red districts, and all 3 vote with their party 80% of the time or less -- a lower frequency than Griffith voted with Dem leaders, according to the Washington Post vote tracker.
GOP sources hint that there may be more party switches to come, sounding as confident as they have been with an impending, but not yet obvious, wave of retirements.
Meanwhile, MSNBC identifies three potential switchers post-Griffith switch, including two who made the Hotline list:
The other three: Walt Minnick (ID), Bobby Bright (AL) and Gene Taylor (MS).
Show The World What You’re Drinking, With The Cipher Drinking Glass [Concepts]
Remember those plastic glasses we had as kids, which changed color if liquid was inside? You'd quite often get them for 99c with a kid's meal at a fast food chain. These are the next (grown-up) step in the evolution.
While it's just a concept for now, I'm really hoping designer Damjan Stankovic can send them off on the production line. Each Cipher Drinking Glass has a multitude of colored dots in a seemingly random pattern, but once liquid is added, the dots actually spell out what sort of drink it is. You can see from the pic that it recognizes orange juice, milk and Coca Cola—but I wonder if it would detect the difference between vodka and gin? [Damjan Stankovic via New Idea Homepage via OhGizmo]
Multitouch ASUS Eee Pad Tablet With Tegra Chip On Sale in March? [Tablets]
That Eee Pad we heard about earlier in the month has just been given another rinse through the gossip washing machine, with details about a multitouch, Tegra chipped 4 - 7-inch model breaking cover in March.
It seems like every man and his dog is using NVIDIA's new Tegra chip, with Notion Ink and ICD's tablets being just two we've seen recently. The German site NetbookNews has been tipped off on a March launch for the multitouch tablet, which will be either 4-inches or 7-inches in size (or potentially offered as two different models), and will have either 720p or 1080p resolution. It's presumed to be running Android 2.0, or a variant of it anyway, which ASUS should've got around to much earlier than now, as rumors of a smartbook or Android phone have been flying around since last year.
The leak isn't exactly solid, as you can see, but for anyone holding out for an affordable tablet next year, it's a sliver of hope to cling onto. [NetbookNews via Electronista]
Next-Generation iPhone May Have 5-Megapixel Camera, Sources Claim [Rumor]
Digitimes' patchy sources are claiming that OmniVision Technologies—the current manufacturers of the iPhone 3GS' 3.2-megapixel CMOS image sensor—has won a new contract with Apple to provide the Cupertino company with new sensors for the next-generation 2010 iPhone.
They claim that the new CMOS image sensors are 5 megapixels. OmniVision Technologies say the orders will increase too, from 20-21 million estimated this year, to 40 to 45 million CMOS for the 2010. [Digitimes]
Kids on iPods, Dial-Up Internet, 9/11, Britney Spears, and All Those "Old Things" [Y2k10]
What does it mean to be have been born in 2000? In a video that went viral earlier this month, Allison Louie-Garcia interviews 9-year-olds who can't hum a Britney Spears song and learned about 9/11 from a library book.
At a recent family function, I showed my eight-and-a-half-year-old niece, Dandara, my new book, Obsolete. Specifically, I showed her the book's James Gulliver Hancock-rendered illustrations of various objects that are becoming obsolete. I asked her what she thought each one was. She guessed that the cassette tape was some kind of film dispenser; a can of 35mm film was, in her view, clearly meant for storing small food products. She correctly guessed that Wite-Out was a kind of paint, but she couldn't figure out what one would use it for. This was a really entertaining game... for me. Unfortunately, she quickly grew tired of me laughing at her.
Allison Louie-Garcia took this idea one step further by interviewing a handful of kids born in 2000. The resulting video serves as a reminder of how much has changed in the last decade. The children discuss their first MP3 players, recall using computers at age two, and marvel over the sounds of a dial-up modem. Napster, one kid guesses, must've had something to do with naps. And Britney Spears lives in their memory as "the girl who cut her hair bald."
Louie-Garcia also asks the children about war and terrorism. My nephew Miles was three on 9/11/01 and I recall, in the weeks after the attack, walking in Manhattan's Union Square talking to him about the American flags that were omnipresent. With his little hand reaching up to mine, we walked around and made a game of counting them. It was my little way of trying to brand the memory on him—a recollection he would one day be able to share with his own grandchildren if they ever asked if he remembered what it was like to be in New York during that fateful time.
A few months later, one of my editors at work told me to not reference 9/11 in anything I wrote. "People are already over it," she said. I was nonplussed. But, this video reminds me that, in the end, editors are always right. What do the kids of 2000 as the most important event in their lifetimes? Michael Jackson's death. [Vimeo via Diary of a Madman and pretty much everywhere else on the internet]
Anna Jane Grossman will be with us for the next few weeks, documenting life in the early aughts, and how it differs from today. The author of Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us By (Abrams Image) and the creator of ObsoleteTheBook.com, she has also written for dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Salon.com, the Associated Press, Elle and the Huffington Post, as well as Gizmodo. She has a complicated relationship with technology, but she does have an eponymous website: AnnaJane.net. Follow her on Twitter at @AnnaJane.
Obama, Reid, Pelosi – Socialist Agenda destroying our Constitutional Rights
by Stephen Maloney
Barack Obama, who has never established his eligibility to hold the office of President, is systematically violating the Constitution he has sworn to uphold. Nancy Pelosi recently called serious constitutional questions about the health legislation "a joke." Harry Reid has recently provided many bribes to Senators in order to secure their votes. (Bribery consists of more than just handing over bags-full of cash.) "Bribery" in the Constitution is an impeachable offense.
Republicans in the Senate have raised the issue whether the proposed health legislation is unconstitutional. Clearly, it does great violence to the Constitution.
Although it will come as a surprise to Nancy Pelosi, Congress does not have unlimited powers to do whatever it darn well pleases. It also does not have any authority to force people to spend money on any product, including health insurance.
The enumerated powers of Congress are contained in the Constitution's Article 1, Section 8. As you read through the following, notice how simple and understandable (except for an occasional old word or two) Article 1, Section 8 is. Have Pelosi and Reid ever read it? If so, they regarded it as basically meaningless.
The Constitution is the key document in American history. As the first Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall, said of Article 1, Section 8: "This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it, would seem too apparent . . . [and] that principle is now universally admitted."
Universally admitted by all . . . except by Obama, Pelosi, Reid and their political cronies. It's impossible to establish socialism in the U.S. without shredding -- and obliterating -- the Constitution.
The following material is Article I, Section 8 -- it's short and simple, and it list no power to rule over health care or impose mandates to buy insurance. If liberals want to do that, they must amend the Constitution (which requires 67 votes in the Senate, not just 60), as well as approval by three-quarters of the states. Good luck getting that.
Enumerated powers of Congress:
Section 8: The Congress shall have power To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals [courts] inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;-And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
Congress has no other powers -- none -- other than the ones listed above. The Founders, unlike our modern "leaders," kept things short and sweet.
Again, why is it important that we adhere to the Constitution? As a legal expert writing in Wikipedia puts it: "The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States. It provides the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government to the states, to citizens, and to all people within the United States."
Editor's Note - Stephen Maloney is a libertarian Republican activist in Western Pennsylvania. He was Co-Founder of Draft Sarah Palin for VP in 2008. Currently he is active with at least 7 Republican Congressional campaigns around the US, including:
TimBurnsforCongress (Burns -- R -- against Murtha - D, PA 12th)
KeithRothfusforCongress (Rothfus -- R -- against Altmire - D, PA 4th)
RickPerryforGovernor (Perry -- R -- against Hutchison -- R)
KJeneretteforCongress (Jenerette -- R -- against Brown - R, SC 1st)
CarlyforSenate (Fiorina - R -- against Boxer -- D, CA, U.S. Senate)
RubioforSenate (Rubio - R - against Crist -- R, FL, U.S. Senate)
ToomeyforSenate (Toomey - R -- against Specter or Sestak, PA, U.S. Senate)
