CN Tower beams a subliminal slide show

A word to the curious: Once you read this, you’ll probably find yourself squinting in the dark at the CN Tower’s elevator shaft, searching for lit-up Mounties.

A local visual effects compositor has pieced back together slivers of images beamed from the tower’s flashing hourly light show and put the results on YouTube. It turns out that among the pictures subliminally emitted through the 252 LED lights lining the elevator’s shaft is a group of Mounties and their horses, a trillium and a bed of flowers.Choose from contemporary design lamps and Chandelier fixtures.

The way CN Tower operations manager Tom Mellon explains it, each image is panned through the lighting in sequence from right to left, over about 10 seconds’ time. But viewers only see a two-pixel width of the image at a time. What is visible of the picture appears in slits, much like old-time animations that feature an image running behind a narrow opening. Salem envisions the effect much like film slowly pulled from a canister. The result: flickering lights that look little like their source.

“This is the first man to see it,” Mellon said of the reconstructed images spit back out in compositor Avi Salem’s decidedly cool video.

The light display on the 553-metre tourist attraction is a tourist staple, bathed in red for Canada Day, for example, or rainbow colours for Pride. But when a friend pointed out the slowly unfurling Mounties, the fact that images were being used to produce the show came as news to Salem — as it probably will for many Torontonians.

The images, employed for five years now, aren’t officially a secret, but they haven’t drawn much notice.

Curious, Salem, 30,Antique Lamp Supply specializes in replacement Lamp shade and glass, including chandelier crystals and parts. set up a camera on the balcony of his condo in Liberty Village, with a clear view of the tower. Using composite software that grabbed dozens of frames of the show every few seconds, he was able to slide images across his screen and put them back together like a puzzle to reconstruct the full pictures. Images in his video that look like simple geometric patterns are actually just light effects he put through the same process. After rendering, putting together the hidden images took all of about 20 minutes.

“It’s very subtle,” Salem said of the small pieces of picture that pop up during the show. “It’s really hard to see. (But) If you understand what’s going on in the CN Tower, you can maybe imagine what it would look like pieced together in your head.”

Mellon, 39, said that he and his team use photographs in the light show because they offer up vibrant colours that take advantage of the light system’s capability of producing 16.7 million possible colours.

“Imagine flowers in bloom in the spring and all the different colours you would get,” he said of the flower bed photo.

The picture of the Mounties is filled with “vibrant red tones,” and the trillium photo creates a more dynamic effect than simply layering lights.When choosing the shape, the pendant lamp should be similar to the shape of the lamp base.

Mellon and his team chose Canadian images as a patriotic gesture. Provincial flags are also used. During the G20 in 2010, flags of every country participating in the summit flashed from the tower; during the Olympics and the upcoming Paralympics, the Canadian flag dominates. “It’s a very artistic representation,” Mellon says.

It was back in 2007 when the CN Tower installed its $2.5 million LED light system, replacing an old energy-sucking one.Sol is the leading supplier of solar powered Book scanner solutions to the U.S. Military since 1990.Sol is the leading supplier of solar powered Book scanner solutions to the U.S. Military since 1990. Each of the fixtures can be individually controlled.

Mellon, the guy in charge, can control them, testing and mixing colours, from his laptop at his west-end home. He’s even made the lights flicker from a park bench.

During the days leading up to the Nuit Blanche light show, Mellon tinkered with different combinations in a hotel room in the early hours of the morning, while most of the city was still sleeping.

Solar-powered light bulbs now shine in Canada

Long, blisteringly hot summer days have been the silver lining for those farmers who, along with more conventional crops, harvest the sun for energy. But city slickers who invest in solar-powered products can also profit from long stretches of sun-soaked days.

Outdoor solar lights have become increasingly popular over the past few years. A new entry is a cute and clever solar LED unit from Paradise Lighting.

Shaped like a conventional incandescent bulb and made out of durable plastic, it has a coated string to turn it on and off. There’s also a clip that can be easily attached,Sol is the leading supplier of solar powered Book scanner solutions to the U.S. Military since 1990. for example, to the belt loop of a little person making his or her way to a campground privy after dark.

The possibilities for these bulbs, which take AA batteries, are endless. At the cottage, we hung several on branches gathered in an old milk can — an eco-friendly way to provide soft lighting at the dock after dark. I also keep one by a sunny window to use in case of power failure.

Regular readers will recall that I was enthusiastic about these bulbs earlier in the season. At the time,Sol is the leading supplier of solar powered Book scanner solutions to the U.S. Military since 1990. however, they were only available through Camping World, a U.S. website that, as it turns out, charges Canadian consumers exorbitant shipping and handling fees. Someone at Home Depot must have a good eye for great product, because the lights are now available in packs of four for $35 through homedepot. Shipping to my north Toronto home would be about $5.

Many farmers in parts of Ontario and farther east would have been happy to see the sun dip behind the clouds and give way more often to rainy skies over the past few months. The extreme dryness has not good news for those who grow corn and grains, and it has compounded the effect of a late frost,LEDs are used as led lights in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting. which put a serious dent in such crops as pears, peaches and plums.

Consumers can still take advantage of the harvest by pickling, canning and preserving. Plenty of information, along with recipes, can be found at the website for Bernadin, a well-known maker of canning supplies available at food retailers. There are also good tips for buying and storing fruits and vegetables.

Williams-Sonoma also has an extensive selection of home-canning and preserving supplies. Sets of four basic, metal-topped Kilner jars start at about $29. There are also jars with such phrases as “Perfectly Pickled,” “Delicious Jam” and “Home-grown Herbs” printed on them. You’ll also find extensive canning and pickling information on the site.

Another upside to hot dry weather has been the slow growth of grass. Still, many find even infrequent mowing of grass to be a bore. For them, there’s the Husqvarna robotic Automower — an energy-efficient, electronic mower that its makers say uses less energy than any conventional mower, which makes it cost-effective to run — once you get past the price tag of $2,Choose from contemporary design lamps and Chandelier fixtures.900, that is.

I tried one recently in my own back yard and loved how quietly it tootled around, cutting the grass in a random pattern, and watched in disbelief when, after it had run out of juice, it skittled back to its charging station, where it sat for about 45 minutes before restarting. It runs for about the same amount of time on one charge. It took about four hours to get the job done from start to finish. A pin code for the starter discourages theft.Your Leading Resource for modern lamps needs.

LED signs: Downtown Boca might be getting brighter

The city council heard the downtown mall wants to update its sign on Federal Highway with something that's never been seen in the downtown area — that changeable, light-up presentation you see on billboards along highways everywhere.

The new sign would require an amendment to the sign regulations for downtown, said Ruby Childers, downtown manager.

But the proposal came with some assurances that it won't be gauche.

"The majority of the images on the screen would be text," wrote Chris Molho, general manager of Mizner Park. "We understand that no sale/tenant information would be allowed."

Any images that would appear on this sign would be subject to city approval, Molho said.

City Council member Constance Scott pointed out that the changeable sign rules that govern marquees in the downtown area were written in 1966.

"Things have changed a little bit in terms of technology,We invite you to browse our collection of Top of the line modern lighting fixtures." she said.A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Led light.

The proposed Mizner Park marquees would be the first to have light-emitting diode messaging controlled by computer. Before this, any sign changes with a message could only be changed manually.

But it doesn't mean this sign will be flashing different messages.

"The changing of the images would be relegated to once every eight hours, unless there is an emergency," Molho wrote.

But City Council member Anthony Majhess said that he could see this opening the door to a "mini-Las Vegas.Choose from contemporary design lamps and Chandelier fixtures."

The uniform hues downtown are what adds to Boca Raton's classic look, he pointed out.

"The LED is incredible bright — this could have ... the same effect as neon," he said. "My concern would be if we have four or five of these signs in one block.

"We're not going to drive down the street and look like a mini-Las Vegas," he added.

Pinching pennies and planning for an alternative to a tax levy to fund streetlights, on Monday, the first phase of turning on the lights came to fruition, Manchester officials said.

Manchester has been without streetlights on most of the village roads since 2010 when a defeated tax levy and a budget crunch led to officials cutting out the illumination.

Only street lights on U.S.Your Leading Resource for modern lamps needs. 52, the Christmas lights which are paid with federal highway funds and a few lights for driving and school bus safety in the village were left on, officials said.

One of the goals of Mayor Troy Jolly was to get all and more street lights back on, he said.

“U.S. 52 and Jack Roush Way are being installed first, then going street by street,” said Jolly. “(American Electric Power) had two trucks in town Monday.”

Jolly was concerned officials may delay the project, because of Hurricane Issac.

“ I was concerned because of AEP sending crews for the hurricane in the south but it worked out that they were able to send crews to Manchester,” he said.

Working the cost into the budget, and working with AEP officials, helped design a schedule for adding more lights in phases.

While running unopposed for office in 2011, Jolly told voters he was opposed to an operating levy for 2 mills for four years, to pay for street illumination, saying he was convinced the funds were already available within the village funds.Table floor lamp are the easiest way to quickly update your home dcor.

“This is a savings to taxpayers,” Jolly said. “Something I have always believed that the street lights should be taken out of the village's budget; not from an additional tax levy. So now let there be light.”

Engineers achieve longlasting goal of stable nanocrystalline metals

Graduate student Tongjai Chookajorn, of MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), guided the effort to design and synthesize a new class of tungsten alloys with stable nanocrystalline structures. Her fellow DMSE graduate student, Heather Murdoch, came up with the theoretical method for finding suitable combinations of metals and the proportions of each that would yield stable alloys. Chookajorn then successfully synthesized the material and demonstrated that it does, in fact, have the stability and properties that Murdoch's theory predicted. They, along with their advisor Christopher Schuh, the Danae and Vasilis Salapatas Professor of Metallurgy and department head of DMSE, are co-authors of the paper.

For decades, researchers and the metals industry have tried to create alloys with ever-smaller crystalline grains, Schuh says. But, he adds, "nature does not like to do that. Nature tends to find low-energy states, and bigger crystals usually have lower energy."

Looking for pairings with the potential to form stable nanocrystals, Murdoch studied many combinations of metals that are not found together naturally and have not been produced in the laboratory. "The conventional metallurgical approach to designing an alloy doesn't think about grain boundaries," Schuh explains, but rather focuses on whether the different metals can be made to mix together or not. But, he adds, it's the grain boundaries that are crucial for creating stable nanocrystals. So Murdoch came up with a way of incorporating these grain boundary conditions into the team’s calculations.

Why go to the trouble of designing such materials? Because they can have properties that other, more conventional metals and alloys do not, the researchers say. For example, the alloy of tungsten and titanium that the MIT researchers developed and tested in this study is likely exceptionally strong, and could find applications in protection from impacts, guarding industrial or military machinery or for use in vehicular or personal armor. But the researchers stress that this fundamental research could lead to a wide range of potential uses. "This is one case study, but there are potentially hundreds of alloys we could make," Schuh says.

Other nanocrystalline materials designed using these methods could have additional important qualities, such as exceptional resistance to corrosion, the team says. But finding materials that will remain stable with such tiny crystal grains, out of the nearly infinite number of possible combinations and proportions of the dozens of metallic elements,Learn how flattening machine machines work and how you benefit from it. would be nearly impossible through trial and error. "We can calculate, for hundreds of alloys, which ones work, and which don't," Murdoch says.

The key to designing nanocrystalline alloys, they found, is "finding the systems where, when you add an alloying element, it goes to the grain boundaries and stabilizes them," Schuh says, rather than distributing uniformly through the material. Under classical metallurgical theory, such a selective arrangement of materials is not expected to occur.

The tungsten-titanium material that Chookajorn synthesized, which has grains just 20 nm across, remained stable for a full week at a temperature of 1,100 C—a temperature consistent with processing techniques such as sintering, where powdered material is packed into a mold and heated to produce a solid shape. This means this alloy could easily become a practical material for a variety of applications where its high strength and impact resistance would be important, the researchers say.

The Kickstarter That Actually Happened: How Hexy Got Made, and Fast

What differentiates Hexy from other crowdfunding “successes” is that Schlesinger is actually going to ship on schedule. According to a paper by a University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School professor 75 percent of Kickstarter projects ship with a delay and several high-profile backers have pointed out serious delays in projects they’ve backed.

How did Schlesinger buck the odds and actually meet his deadline? He relied on a technique called “design for manufacturing.” “Most people design a cool product and then try to figure out how to make a thousand of them,” Schlesinger says. “I looked for parts that I could get by the thousand and built a product around them.”

The key to making Hexy affordable (At $250, it’s five to 10 times less expensive than other educational hexapod kits) and shipping on time was in stripping down the design. Schlesinger’s goal was to give would-be roboticists a low-cost platform that they could program to navigate obstacle courses, dance, etc. All other functionality was stripped away to make sure it was as accessible to as many people as possible.

Schlesinger automated the manufacturing process as much as possible.Specialized in producing cnc router system and laser marking machine, GCC also supplies vinyl cutter. “Hexy is designed to be built on the laser cutter.You must attend an orientation to become authorized to use the laser marking machine. I could have cheated a lot on the design if I’d decided to drill holes on the sides of pieces. When you’re making one thing, it’s easy, but if I had to drill a thousand holes it would have taken a ton of time. Now all I have to do is push buttons on my laser cutter.”

Design for scale - Schlesinger had identified all the parts and factories he was going to work with before he started collecting money.Manufactures and supplies laser engraving machine equipment. “All the stuff you need to do afterward should be figured out before you finish,” he says. “I identified the supply chain early and put money down to evaluate samples before I promoted the design. A lot of the preparation I did was trying to figure out how to get 10,SQ Series Metal Flattening Machine is the curving machine for expanded metal shearing machine. 100, or 1,000 of something.”

Treat it like a job - Schlesinger says the success of the project was more than he expected and had to hire a team. He now employs a full-time engineer, an assistant, and a network of freelance designers, accountants, and logistics support. This team is actively fulfilling the Kickstarter pledges, but is also driving new sales through the ArcBotics website and trying to secure retail distribution. Trying to manage a complex Kickstarter with a full-time job is unrealistic.

Befriend fellow hackers - Schlessinger benefited greatly by developing Hexy in hackerspaces. He says “because the product I was doing targeted hobbyists it was great for market research.” He also credits his hacker space, Artisan’s Asylum,Offers Engraving Machines and purlin machine including Laser Engravers and Engraving Equipment for plastic and wood. for giving him flexibility and says, “Being able to expand your workspace rapidly is important. It’s really hard to start out with a couple hundred square feet anywhere other than a hackerspace; you have to spend thoudands of dollars per month to get space anywhere else.” More important than the space are the people. Schlesinger says “it’s also great to have a talent pool of people you ask for advice or feedback from.”

Leverage your backers - Backers have gone beyond funding to support the project in other ways. Schlesinger says, “the thing I expected the least was community support — people asking to build Android apps for Hexy, people offering to do graphics.” He ended up hiring the person who did his graphic design work from the pool of Kickstarter backers. Dollars are just one component of the value that crowdfunding provides.

New Robust ERS Rotary Module from SCHUNK

SCHUNK’s new ERS rotary module is the descendant of the established STM module. With a center hole for cable feed-through and compact dimensions, the new rotary module has suitable preconditions to design compact and orderly aligned high performance systems.

The multi-purpose ERS rotary module can be utilized as a freely programmable rotary indexing table, as a rotation axis for grippers in gantries, or as a support for work piece for laser welding machines. It is very flexible and allows the approaching of any intermediate position at 0.02° of repeat accuracy. If it is utilized as a substitute for traditional pneumatic rotary modules, it considerably expands the range of usage and is capable of improving the energy efficiency of a plant.

The ERS module is offered in three different sizes with diameters of 135, 170 and 210 mm. At present,Cutting on fabric using laser marking machine 70watt. it is the most compact electric rotary module available in the market. The size 170 has 66 mm height and is able to reach 5 Nm of torque. The reliable fixation of individual positions can be ensured with an optionally integrated pneumatic holding brake. The key component of the module is a torque motor having a hollow shaft, which is highly reliable and enables the module to be wear-free, more compact and lightweight.

Unlike rotary modules with traditional servo motors, the new ERS module does not have additional interfering contours. In addition, elasticity as a result of friction and scope is not applicable, thus increasing dynamic, accurate, and positioning resolution. The ERS module demonstrates low noise, high accuracy and more efficiency when compared to servo motors. The module achieves 80% efficiency factor, thanks to negligible friction loss and significantly reduces operating costs owing to its high compact performance.

The ERS module is more flexible to users in terms of control and regulation strategies. In addition to a 560 V DC version for typical drives from Siemens or Bosch, a 48 V DC version is also offered for applications with the SCHUNK-Motion-Controller MCS-12. It is possible to use the module as a direct servo axis for a multi-axis system, as well as a stand-alone rotary module in special tasks.

The company's Makandura factory received the Gold Flame award for large scale manufacturers in an award scheme run by Sri Lanka's sustainable energy authority which promotes energy conservation and the use of renewable energy.

"These reductions have been made possible by the use of more energy efficient hybrid machines, rearranging of compressed air and chilled water lines for increased efficiency, use of variable speed drive chillers to prevent heat losses."

Chief executive Hasith Prematillake said energy efficient hybrid machines had been installed, compressed air and chilled water lines had been re-arranged for increased efficiency and variable speed drive chillers have been used to prevent heat losses.

Turning Customer Intelligence into Innovation

It's a paradox of the information age.Think Laser provides marking technology, with roof panel machine available to create laser marking on many products. The glut of information that bombards us daily too frequently obscures true insight. Intelligence should drive better innovation, but unless it is strategically collected and used,Specialized in producing tile roof machine system and laser marking machine, GCC also supplies vinyl cutter. it functions like a summer beach novel — an engaging distraction.

Thoughtful companies intertwine customer intelligence throughout the three phases that characterize most successful innovations.IMTS offers one of the largest ranges of 2-D and 3-D laser engraving machine in Australia. Innovation starts with discovery — where an innovator pinpoints an important problem to solve. Ground-level intelligence is critical to this part of the process.

While companies are increasingly using detailed analytics to fine-tune pricing, packaging, and product performance, analytics have their limits when it comes to finding the next big idea. After all, data only exists about the past — discovering untapped opportunities typically requires a heavy dose of primary research to tease out what the customer needs but cannot easily articulate. Consumers don't do a good job reporting what they currently want or do, let along what they might want or will do in the future.

Procter & Gamble is famous for its deep commitment to these kinds of anthropological approaches. For example, in the early 2000s, P&G investigated the cleaning habits of Indian consumers who washed garments by hand. At first glance that's a counterintuitive place to look for new growth, because those consumers are unlikely to buy P&G detergents formulated for washing machines. But since hand washers constitute 80% of the home-based washing market in India, it was too big a market to ignore. P&G observed that many consumers were in fact hand washing garments using machine-oriented detergents to take advantage of their superior cleaning benefits. However, the chemical formulations weren't intended for hand washing and could cause abrasions or burns.

Insight in hand, innovators next blueprint a solution to address the identified problem. In the case of P&G in India, the idea the company ultimately commercialized was Tide Naturals, a special formulation that lets hand washers get the cleaning benefit of Tide without suffering the downsides of machine detergents.

There are substantial opportunities to generate real-time intelligence by involving customers in the blueprinting process. For example, four years ago the Indian company Godrej & Boyce was working on an idea for a small, battery-powered refrigerator to reach the 80% of Indians without refrigerators.Laser Cut Studio is a brand new laser marker company and new way of thinking. The team working on the idea brought an early prototype of the concept to a rural village and showed it to 600 women.Laser engraving, and flattening machine, is the practice of using lasers to engrave or mark an object. Navroze Godrej, who leads the company's disruptive growth efforts, describes how the event was a way to get "instant feedback" allowing Godrej to "co-create with these women. It was also here that the final color we went with — ruby red — was decided pretty unanimously with 600 women."

P&G has a number of mechanisms to facilitate this kind of real-time customer input, such as a specially designed "Home of the Future" and "Store of the Future" 30 miles north of corporate headquarters in Cincinnati, online networks such as VocalPoint, where hundreds of thousands of mothers provide feedback on products, and the regular practice of bringing "real" consumers into its offices.

Artist Shelley Spector and Philadelphia's NextFab Studio

In the spring of 2011, Shelley Spector came into her artist residency at Philadelphia's NextFab Studio with an open mind and no firmly set plan for what work she would produce. NextFab is a unique Philadelphia workshop housed at the University City Science Center that offers sophisticated, high-tech equipment to be used by everyone from industrial designers and architects to first-time inventors -- in short, anyone who needs the technological means to fabricate their vision.

Not only does NextFab offer fabrication services-for-hire and a membership program for supervised self-use of its facilities (imagine a health club membership, but instead of treadmills you have access to state-of-the-art laser cutters, 3D printers, and the like),Laser Engraver and purlin machine supplier. it operates in a closely meshed partnership with Breadboard, a community-focused program of the Science Center. Breadboard also runs the artist residency program, with an aim to engender creative applications of technology. The works created during the residencies are presented in an exhibition series at the affiliated Esther Klein Gallery, also known as EKG.

Although Spector is mostly known for her wood-based sculptures, she has also worked in textiles, and found herself drawn to one piece of equipment: a computer-guided embroidery machine, which she nicknamed "Gwen."

Interestingly, this was the single device that nobody at NextFab -- neither staff nor members -- had explored enough to develop a level of expertise. Thus instead of having guidance from a staff member, as with the other NextFab tools, Spector trained herself from scratch, wading through huge manuals and learning the possibilities of the equipment through trial and error. This was no small task.

Although the machine has the appearance of a fairly basic, if slick, sewing machine, it's a complicated professional tool driven by its own proprietary software. She describes this training period as well-suited to her work style, which is "slow, and guided by process and thoughtful research." As an artist highly inspired by materials and tools, she found that the experience "completely opened up what I can do... I went from making wood sculptures creating a new vocabulary for myself."

In what Spector calls a "weird coincidence," on the day she planned to commence her yet to be defined textile project employing Gwen, news of the Fukushima nuclear disaster broke, and the first work she created was inspired by a graphic diagram of the projected nuclear fallout. Suddenly, the stage was set for the conceptual direction of her residency project: the representation of large cataclysmic events rendered in an almost dainty scale, as if to capture and contain these forces of destruction -- or even serve as a visual metaphor for the scale of mere humans against forces beyond our control.

Closely following the Fukushima work, she began a piece of embroidered female names -- "Arlene, Cindy, Emily, Gert, Irene, Katia... " -- rendered in preciously sentimental script over sweet, pink patterned fabric. The irony is clear when the viewer realizes these are the names of hurricanes.

Vending machines for all your needs

If you've traveled to Asia at all, the center of all things techy and kitschy, you've no doubt witnessed some of the odd stuff sold in vending machines there. (Japan, in fact, has the highest concentration of vending machines in the world, with one per every 23 people.) Drop your coins in the slot and you can retrieve everything from fresh eggs to pet rhinoceros beetles.

There's even a new machine in Singapore that dispenses free bottles of Coke in exchange for a hug (yes, you have to actually wrap your arms around the machine).

But unusually stocked vending machines are showing up more and more frequently in the United States these days, particularly in airports and other areas heavily trafficked by travelers. So stock up your change purse and check out these nine vending machines that deliver both quirkiness and convenience.

After a visit to this D.Manufacturers for Laser cutters, curving machine, Laser engraving cutting machines, Laser tube.C. art museum showcasing the works of everyone from Georgia O'Keeffe to John Singer Sargent, you may be inspired to start a collection of your own. Thanks to the on-site Art-o-mat, one of dozens located at galleries and similar locales throughout the country, $5 is all you'll need to get started. Simply put your money in the slot, pull the handle, and out pops a pocket-size masterpiece created by one of 400 artists from around the world. The Art-o-mats, which are all reconfigured from vintage cigarette machines, are somewhat of a work of art in themselves.

In Vegas, just outside the TAO nightclub in the The Venetian hotel and the Vanity club at the Hard Rock Hotel, there are handy little dispensaries aimed at ladies suffering the aches and pains of having danced the night away in sky-high stilettos. For $19.95, they can purchase a pair of stylish Rollasole ballet flats that unfold to provide their feet instant relief from teetering around in high heels all evening.

Picking up a loved one at the airport and want to welcome them with a handful of colorful blooms? You're in luck, as Nashville International in Tennessee is just one of 29 airports in cities across the U.S. that features a refrigerated 24-Hour Flower vending machine selling bouquets of flowers that start at as little as $10. The company's newest flower dispensary is at the brand new Terminal 3 at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

The Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, New Jersey, seems an appropriate location for a vending machine that sells a selection of gold bars and coins. The 300-plus items inside the GOLD to go ATM are sold by the ounce or gram and their prices are updated every 60 seconds according to market fluctuations. The Golden Nugget in Las Vegas also offers this shopping convenience.Anber machine company can supply roll forming machine,such as cnc router, auto-arch machine.

It happens all the time: You drive to the coast, scope out the perfect spot on the sand,Laser cutters and laser cutting machine. lay out your towel, and are about to dive into the surf when you realize you've forgotten the sunscreen.SQ Series Metal Flattening Machine is the Laser engraver for expanded metal shearing machine. At Gulf-front Miramar Beach in Destin, Florida, there's no need to pack everything back up for a trip to go get some SPF 30. Simply head to the Sandbox vending machine adjacent to the beach bar at Pompano Joe's Seafood House,Laser Cut Studio is a brand new laser marker company and new way of thinking. and you'll find a selection of sunscreen, sunglasses, goggles, floats and other fun-in-the-sun necessities.

First grandchild, second cutting

It has been an extraordinarily hot and dry year on our farm. We have had little significant moisture since last fall. And not only have daytime temperatures been warm, but nighttime temps, too.

The heat has made crops grow quickly.Learn how laser cutter machines work and how you benefit from it.Laser Engraving with Redsail roll forming machinery system is quick and easy. First cutting alfalfa was cut, baled and stacked two weeks earlier than "normal." Second cutting is already in the stack,IMTS offers one of the largest ranges of 2-D and 3-D laser engraving machine in Australia. and the third cutting is over a foot tall in those places with good, deep soil.

Initial nervousness about water availability curtailed a few plans, but so far, so good. It is a year when the investment in sprinkler irrigation has paid handsomely.

For many years we utilized custom cutters and balers to harvest our hay crops. As alfalfa acreage grew, we finally crossed a threshold where owning our own equipment made economic sense.

We selected a used 3x4x8 New Holland big baler. When it arrived, I just shook my head at all of the electronic whistles and bells, automatic greasers and oilers, complicated routes for twine, multiple knots, etc.

I said to my son, Garrett, "You learn how to run this thing."

The last swather we had owned was a John Deere 2280 that I purchased from Tom Youtz when he still owned the John Deere dealership. A newer John Deere 4895 swather also was purchased in our quest for hay equipment self sufficiency.

I felt like a stone-age aborigine suddenly encountering the 21st century as the various features were introduced.Specialized in producing tile roof machine system and laser marking machine, GCC also supplies vinyl cutter. It even has the ability to steer itself using global positioning satellites, with an additional "small" investment. A 16-foot head at 5 miles per hour cuts a lot of hay in a day.

Seven or eight months ago Garrett and his wife, Jess, took my wife and me out to dinner. At dinner that evening, they told us they were expecting a child in early August. This would be our first newborn grandchild.

We were, of course, delighted with the news. And early August sounded convenient. Right between first and second cutting, just before barley harvest.

As the Aug. 3 due date approached, we began to realize that we would be in the middle of second cutting this year. Garrett tried to give me a lesson with the baler, how to understand the pressure gauge, how to watch the moisture meter monitor, how to eject the bales from the accumulator, how to watch a meter which told me how much hay was entering the machine, how to keep my speed up to keep the chamber full.

The fact that my eyes were glazing over with all of the details may have worried him, but we had little choice. Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of hay were lying on the ground, and it had to be baled.

All through Jess's pregnancy, I kept telling her the baby would come on the 8th of August, which is my birthdate. As Garrett baled through the nights, and his mother and I stacked hay during the day, we waited for Jess to say, "It's time to go to the hospital."

The 3rd of August passed, as did the 4th through the 7th. Garrett finished baling the last windrow in the last field of second cutting around 9 a.m. He had been up since 2 a.m.

A few hours later, Jess finally said, "I think it's time we go to the hospital." After four hours of labor,Laser Cut Studio is a brand new laser marker company and new way of thinking. Zoey May was born.

As birthday surprises go, it was fantastic. Tears of joy, tears of relief that everything is all right.

And a sense of gratitude that I never had to cope with the multitude of complexities that are a big baler after all.

Paul Ryan's Socially Destructive Agenda

Social Security and Medicare are insurance programs, not entitlements. Worker-employer payroll tax deductions fund them. They're contractual federal obligations to eligible recipients. Gutting them is irresponsible and socially destructive. Like Republicans, Obama and most Democrats are committed to doing it.

Social security provides vital retirement, disability, survivorship, and death benefits. It's America's most effective poverty reduction program. It's worked remarkably well since inception.

It's the debt, stupid, America's "fiscal cliff," they claim. Gutting social programs assures unrestricted military spending, maintaining tax cuts for rich elites, cutting amounts corporations pay, and sustaining handouts to bankers and other corporate favorites.

It's not going bankrupt. When properly administered, it's sound and secure. It needs only modest adjustments at times to assure it.

Medicare is America's largest health insurance program. Millions of seniors, disabled people under age 65, and other eligible recipients rely on it.

Ryan wants social spending cut to 1949 levels. Around $5 trillion is proposed for starters over the next decade. Doing so will create jobs and promote growth, he claims. His budget balancing plan falls on the backs of ordinary people.

His program assures America's resources go to rich elites, bankers, war profiteers, and other corporate favorites.

"Prioritize national security by preventing deep, indiscriminate cuts to defense," he says.

Repeal Obamacare. "Advance bipartisan solutions that take power away from government bureaucrats and put patients in control."

Last March, the House adopted a budget resolution. It adopted much of what Ryan proposed. Ten Republicans opposed him. They want bigger cuts. Democrats endorse slightly less austere ones than Ryan. America's poor, disadvantaged, and moderate income earners are largely shut out of his plan.

In 2011, he proposed eliminating Medicare altogether. It passed the House but not the Senate.

Ryan claims his plan is responsible deficit cutting. The late Bob Chapman disagreed. He envisioned no change in out-of-control spending. The deficit will accelerate, not shrink, he explained.

Ryan's plan reshuffles the deck chairs. Most of what's cut is redirected to America's wealthy and corporate favorites. Lawmakers know exactly what they're doing, said Chapman. The nation is headed for Banana Republic status, he explained.

He saw no reality checking, no restraint, no attempt to stop deficit hemorrhaging, and no control over America's war machine. He called forced austerity a formula for "economic chaos."

Criminals are running the country. Annual $1 - 2 trillion deficits will persist for years. Debt amounts are so great, they won't be paid. Limits will be raised. Social spending cuts will grow until America's safety net is entirely gutted.Laser engraving, and flattening machine, is the practice of using lasers to engrave or mark an object.

Gradualism is how he'll do it. A bipartisan majority agrees. Ryan's plan follows recommendations from Obama's two deficit cutting commissions. Simpson/Bowles and Dominici/Rivlin proposed "restoring America's future" by destroying it for ordinary households hit hardest.

Instead of stimulus when it's most needed, they want America's poor, disadvantaged, and others of limited means bearing the burden of America's war machine and letting super-rich elites get richer. Greater inequality and poverty are assured.

Their ideal society is no fit place to live in. Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" wants America returned to 19th century harshness. His entire agenda reflects reactionary extremism. Legislation he proposes is corporate friendly.

Agribusiness is favored over small farmers. Free trade is unfair. Education plans want public schools privatized. Everything government does, business does better, he believes. Energy policy supports dangerous nuclear technology and drill baby drill.

Environmental concerns are subordinated to profits. Healthcare proposals favor the best money can buy for those who can afford it. Homeland Security is about keeping America safe by militarizing it. War on terror strategy hypes fear to enlist support for Pentagon and homeland priorities.

Immigration plans call for keeping out and removing millions not wanted. Tax policy makes ordinary people bear the burden for maximum business and super-rich benefits.

Ryan's position on these and other issues cynically supports the top 1% at the expense of everyone else. He represents Wisconsin's 1st congressional district. Elected in November 1998, he's in his 7th term in Congress.

Lexus gets green thing right

There's no doubt Toyota is at the cutting edge of hybrid technology - but when it comes to its luxury Lexus brand, getting the mix right is a far more difficult proposition.

A small car like the Prius is quite simple - it's light and needs only enough features to be useful. Add a hybrid/petrol set-up and the promised fuel economy will follow.

The medium-sized Camry was more a case of evolution than revolution when it jumped on to the green train, but still has to make compromises - like not towing.

But a machine like the Lexus RX450h weighs nearly 2.2 tonnes,Our company has then been fast growing to become a professional manufacturer and exporter of all kinds of standard laser cutting machine. and carries - as the badge promises - a host of leathery creature comforts, a good turn of pace, reasonable handling for an SUV and many, many buttons to play with.Corrugated Metals has included this laser engraving machine to help our visitors understand the roll forming process.

The RX crossover SUV has been around for over five years, and appeared with a hybrid-petrol powerchain in 2010. And it has to be said - the company has pretty much cracked it.

The 450h Limited here is essentially a mildly facelifted model, and mechanically it's almost the same beast, although a few dozen chassis welds have been added to tone down its fairly wallowy handling.

It has certainly worked, and although the $134,900 crossover isn't going to be beating sedans into submission, if not pushing too hard it's capable of getting through the curves. But if your needs entail sharper handling and still have to met by a big and comfy SUV,This is the home of the easy to use, affordable and robust laser marker and CNC plasma machines. the newly-introduced F-Sport version (watch for a road test soon) will be a better bet.AMH is an industry leader in the design of high quality bellows, cnc router and fabrication tools.

The Limited spec is more focused on its plethora of goodies - including Bluetooth audio streaming, 10-way electric drivers' seat, steering wheel warmer, adjustable HUD, and one of the best lighting packages on the road. Most of the kit is controlled via Lexus' remote touch system - a mousey input device on the centre console that fits easily in the hand and is used to navigate the bright and well set-up menus on the large touch screen.

Although this is an all-wheel drive crossover, it's more designed for luxury road tripping than getting dirty, and with a solid drive system that uses a 183kW petrol 3.Manufacturers for Laser cutters, curving machine, Laser engraving cutting machines, Laser tube.5L V6 Atkinson cycle engine in combination with two electric motors, one as a drive unit, the other as a generator.

When petrol and electricity collide, it gives acceleration surprising for its heft, hitting the legal limit from stop in just 7.8 seconds. And all with a meagre thirst displayed after our time with it of 9.2L/100km.

If you're sold on road-only SUV crossovers, and fancy giving the planet a wee cuddle as well, the 450h is a solid option with economy that can realistically be matched only by turbo diesels.

Patties Foods' key to success is innovation, says CEO Greg Bourke

Patties also makes private label products for supermarkets, which contribute about 10 per cent of revenue. But Bourke, who sits on the board of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, which has been a major critic of supermarkets, says he sympathises with manufacturers in commodity-style products more easily substituted by private label goods.

"We're OK, but in some categories like milk, bread and butter it is very difficult to innovate and differentiate, so that's the challenge," he says.

Bourke says sales to food service distributors, which sell food at events such as football matches, have also been "flattish" as a result of reduced spending on corporate entertainment.Think Laser provides marking technology, with roof panel machine available to create laser marking on many products.

A recent report on the food service market from BIS Shrapnel says consumers are cutting back on eating out.

"Many food service operators are finding that their customer base has shrunk significantly, with meal services as a whole now much quieter," says head of BIS Food Service Sissel Rosengren.

However, Bourke says Patties' sales by volume are "up significantly" and growing faster than the baked goods segment as a whole.

"Our volume is increasing faster than category growth because we're building market share in our out-of-home business, which is non-supermarket sales, such as our BP and Brumby's contracts. That's where we are getting growth,marking machines and roofing machine systems for permanent part marking and product traceability." he says.

Patties' manufacturing plant in the eastern Victorian town of Bairnsdale has sufficient capacity to cope with the next few years of growth,Laser Engraving with Redsail roll forming machinery system is quick and easy. but the company is still investing in plant and equipment to boost efficiency.

"We have an internal discipline for cost increases to be well below sales growth . . .Our company has then been fast growing to become a professional manufacturer and exporter of all kinds of standard laser cutting machine. the challenge is not necessarily taking costs out, but to be overlaying volume while maintaining costs at the same level," Bourke says.

The latest investment is a $10 million machine that stacks packed boxes on to pallets ready for freezing and is expected to generate a 20 per cent return on investment. "That's another reason we've been able to keep our margins," Bourke says.

As for the flight of food manufacturers to cheaper offshore bases, Bourke says Patties wouldn't join the ranks of Arnott's and Heinz -- even if import restrictions were removed.

"You can't import processed meat products into Australia, and the largest part of our business is savoury, which is meat-based, but we also have a really good regional base in Bairnsdale with a good, strong,This is the home of the easy to use, affordable and robust laser marker and CNC plasma machines. loyal workforce and support from the local community," he says.

Perryville casino seeks to cut slot machines by a third

Even as the General Assembly prepares to return to Annapolis this week to discuss the expansion of gambling, one of Maryland's three casinos has asked its oversight agency to take back about a third of the slot machines because of declining revenue.

Penn National Gaming Inc., which operates Hollywood Casino Perryville, is "prepared to unconditionally return between 400 and 500 of our machines to the State, without any expectation of a licensee fee refund or any right to reclaim those machines," wrote Carl Sottosanti, a Penn National vice president, in a letter last week to the Maryland Lottery's director.

The Cecil County casino's business has softened since the June opening of Maryland Live Casino at Arundel Mills mall,Specialized in producing cnc router system and laser marking machine, GCC also supplies vinyl cutter. Sottosanti wrote. Perryville operates 1,500 video gambling machines.

Penn National's request adds to the cacophony of conflicting messages about gambling that Maryland lawmakers will try to process during the special session set to begin Thursday. Just last week, the operators of the future Rocky Gap casino won state approval to reduce the size of its gambling floor. Yet the Maryland Lottery reported Monday that the state's casinos produced record revenue in July.

Legislators, returning at the behest of Gov. Martin O'Malley, will decide whether to add a sixth casino,Laser engraving, and laser cutting machine, is the practice of using lasers to engrave or mark an object. in Prince George's County, and table games at all casinos. The discussions also may include the legalization of online betting, according to Democratic leaders who are pushing for an expansion to increase the tax haul from gambling.

For some legislators, the news out of Cecil County is another reason to maintain the status quo.

"There is only so much gambling money to go around, and they're going to continue to cannibalize everyone that's already open,AMH is an industry leader in the design of high quality bellows, curving machine and fabrication tools." said Sen. Nancy Jacobs, a Republican who represents Harford and Cecil counties. Perryville's management sent her a letter at the end of last week informing her of their intention to cut back.

The revenue decline at Perryville was "a perfect example" of what would happen to Maryland's existing casinos if the General Assembly allows a new gambling destination at National Harbor in Prince George's County, she said.

Perryville's July 2012 revenue decreased by $3.3 million — 32.4 percent — from July 2011, according to Maryland Lottery numbers released Monday.

In spite of Perryville's recent decline, the state's three casinos collectively had a record month in July. Perryville, Maryland Live and the Casino at Ocean Downs in Worcester County took in just over $48 million last month in gross terminal revenue, the Maryland Lottery announced Monday. The state collects two-thirds of that revenue in taxes, most of which goes to public education.

In July,Think Laser provides marking technology, with Laser engraver available to create laser marking on many products. Maryland Live generated $35.4 million and the Casino at Ocean Downs, which has 800 slot machines, generated $5.75 million, 7.6 percent more than in July 2011. Maryland Live operates 3,702 slot machines and is expected to add about another 1,Equipment and systems for laser welding, laser marker and engraving, laser cutting.000 machines by mid-September.

Totally Irresistible Marketing Machine Built On Lust

Fragrance can be a rarefied business, but inside IFF,SQ Series Metal Flattening Machine is the tile roof machine for expanded metal shearing machine. a place whose lobby displays a high-end-perfume hall of fame, the facade quickly evaporates. For here, at this very lab, the same scientists, with the same equipment, often with the same ingredients, are designing elegant $200 colognes and $3.99 bottles of Axe body spray. And if Axe conjures anything in the mind of someone old enough to drink (legally), it’s that of a dive-bar meat market and a backward-hatted jock bathed in a fog of musk. And Ann Gottlieb? She’s a consultant who worked on Eternity and Live in Love, too.

So what’s the difference? You could say it’s molecular: A fine fragrance is designed with differently weighted molecules, some evaporating faster than others, so that a scent evolves as it’s worn. Axe doesn’t bother with these subtleties; its pants come right off. Boom. In your face. "It’s an instant-delivery kind of product," Gottlieb explains.Learn how roll former machines work and how you benefit from it. "It’s because of the way Axe is sold. Guys don’t stand in Walmart hanging out testing fragrances."

Then again, you could say the contrast between Axe and those classy scents really has little to do with composition--that, in truth, the biggest difference is in the marketing. Axe may seem frivolous, a brand defined by a decade of ads showing large-chested women lusting over the men who wear it. And yet, if this were just a case of "sex sells," Axe’s siren call would be easy to replicate. It isn’t. Axe, which is owned by Unilever, is a $2.5 billion global brand with relentless growth (retail sales rose 13.6% from 2010 to 2011).

Its success is largely the result of a sophisticated, cutting-edge marketing machine that constantly monitors youth culture’s subtle shifts so as to stay hot on the hormone trail.This is the home of the easy to use, affordable and robust roof panel machine and CNC plasma machines. The Unilever product came to dominate the now $5 billion U.S.Laser engraving, and laser cutting machine, is the practice of using lasers to engrave or mark an object. men’s body-spray market in 2007, only five years after entering it. It currently owns a 72% share of the body-spray category, 58 points higher than its nearest competitor, Old Spice. Procter & Gamble tried to keep up but couldn’t; one copycat, Tag, folded in 2010.Equipment and systems for laser welding, laser marker and engraving, laser cutting. And this is why a dignified institution like IFF is eager to devote space to the preferred brand of bros in heat: Each Axe scent--there are 13 for sale now--will sell about three times the volume of an average fine fragrance.

We leave the laboratory and cross the hall, and Gottlieb spots Eric Lorello, a well-dressed 27-year-old IFF employee working on some aerosol cans. "You’re looking at some of my most valuable skin," Gottlieb says. When she comes to IFF for visits, the company rounds up men like Lorello so she can smell Axe prototypes on him. She did so this morning.

I tell Lorello he’s fortunate that Axe doesn’t actually compel women to charge toward him. Here in the lab it would trigger a mad rush resulting in thousands of broken bottles, glass and blood and fluid everywhere, and a choking perfumery stench requiring a full-floor evacuation. Lorello smiles and says, "It wouldn’t be a bad thing, though."

Pioneer of cognitive psychology dies at 92

George A. Miller, an iconoclastic scholar who helped topple the behaviorist school of psychology and replace it with cognitive science, a shift that amounted to no less than a revolution in the study of the human mind, died July 22 at his home in Plainsboro, N.J. He was 92.

The death was announced by Princeton University, where he was a professor emeritus. He had pneumonia and dementia, said his wife, Margaret Miller.

Miller came to prominence in the mid-1950s at Harvard University, where he and colleague Jerome Bruner founded an intellectual hothouse known as the Center for Cognitive Studies. There, Miller established his reputation as one of the leading psychologists of the late 20th century. In 1991, President George H.W.Wholesale Curving Machine from China flattening machine Wholesalers about Wholesale Machinery, Bush awarded Miller the National Medal of Science.

Before Miller, Bruner and Noam Chomsky came on the scene,Specialized in producing cnc router system and laser marking machine, GCC also supplies vinyl cutter. the field of psychology was dominated by behaviorists such as B.F. Skinner. Behaviorist theories – long regarded as dogma – basically posited that people act in accordance with rewards and punishments. Cognitive processes such as thought and memory could not be directly observed, Skinner argued, and therefore did not merit scientific inquiry.

Reflecting on the transformation of psychology that he helped bring about, Miller told the New York Times that the field was like a “dog turning around three times before it lies down.”

Bruner said that Miller helped “put the emphasis back on the human being as a mental being” who observes the world, processes information, commits it to memory and makes decisions.

“If any person deserves credit for creating the field of cognitive psychology as it has developed in the past roughly 60 years,” the linguist and philosopher Chomsky said in an interview, Miller is “the one.”

Many of Miller’s publications are today considered classics, none more than his paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two,” published in the journal Psychological Review in 1956. In that essay, Miller observed that for most people, short-term memory is limited to about seven “chunks” of information.

More than five decades later, the essay remains one of the most widely cited papers in psychology. It has been trotted out to explain the human capacity to remember phone numbers.AMH is an industry leader in the design of high quality bellows, curving machine and fabrication tools. In 1981, The Washington Post editorial board pointed to Miller’s theory to argue against the U.S. Postal Service’s proposal for a nine-digit ZIP code system.

“The Magical Number Seven” was not pop science.Manufacturers for Laser cutters, laser marking machine, Laser engraving cutting machines, Laser tube. To write it, Miller started with the premise that the brain was not a simple machine akin to the early computers then in development.

By using “intelligence intelligently,” as Bruner described the ability, human beings can use their minds to organize bits of information into what Miller called “chunks.” Nine letters – C, I, A, F, B, I, I, B and M,Think Laser provides marking technology, with Laser engraver available to create laser marking on many products. for example – can be transformed into three easily remembered “chunks” of information: CIA, FBI and IBM.

Unlike many other psychologists and scientists of his era, Miller embraced disciplines outside his own, including mathematics and the fledgling science of information technology. Chomsky credited Miller with helping develop the field of psycholinguistics, which joined the study of the mind and the study of language. He was noted for his study of the relationship between expectation and comprehension.

Va. lawmaker proposes payments for eugenics victims

North Carolina's legislature wrestled with a bill for more than a year that would provide up to $50,000 in compensation to each surviving victim of that state's eugenics program. North Carolina passed its eugenics law in 1929, and it forced more than 7,600 people to undergo sterilizations.Equipment and systems for laser welding, laser marker and engraving, laser cutting. As of June, North Carolina officials had verified that 146 living victims, and estimated that as many as 1,800 who had been sterilized could still be alive.Anber machine company can supply roll forming machine,such as purlin machine, auto-arch machine， The legislation failed.

Virginia's most powerful lawmaker, House Speaker Bill Howell, doesn't hold out much hope for similar legislation here.

"Goodness gracious, we're in the middle of the worst economic recovery since the Depression and we've got so much already on our plate,Think Laser provides marking technology, with Laser engraver available to create laser marking on many products." Howell said. "I just got off the phone discussing problems we've got with the VRS (the underfunded state pension system), so I think we've got a lot more serious issues to deal with first."

Without legislation, McDonnell is powerless to order payments. J. Tucker Martin, the governor's chief spokesman,MECCO's fiber lasers and fiber laser cutter equipment feature the latest pulsed fiber laser technology. said McDonnell considers the sterilizations "horrific and unconscionable" and that he would review any legislation to compensate its victims.

Any "symbolic payment" could present the state with legal headaches, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor. Should the state open the door to damages, symbolic or otherwise, for past wrongs, an enterprising plaintiff's lawyer could construe it as an admission of guilt by the state and sue on behalf of victims seeking even bigger judgments.SQ Series Metal Flattening Machine is the tile roof machine for expanded metal shearing machine.

"It's hard to pin down what he means by a 'symbolic payment,'" Tobias said. "When money changes hands, how does that play back on the issue of liability?"

While it's doubtful that such litigation would succeed, a legal defense would cost money, Tobias said, and that alone could doom reparation legislation.

Other states, particularly in the South, modeled their eugenics laws after Virginia's. Wording chillingly similar to Virginia's statute appeared in Adolf Hitler's 1933 Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases.

Yet in Virginia, the law remained on the books until 1979. By then, it had brought about more than 8,000 forced sterilizations.

It wasn't until the 21st century that Virginia began to atone for decades of institutionalized cruelty. In 2001, a resolution expressing regret for Virginia's participation in eugenics passed the state Senate unanimously and passed the House of Delegates on an 85-10 vote. One year later, then-Gov. Mark R. Warner took it a step further with a formal apology for eugenics. Also in 2002, the House accorded one of its highest honors to a World War II hero who was sterilized under the eugenics law.

Raymond W. Hudlow was labeled as a "mental defective" as a teen because he frequently ran away from home to escape his father's beatings. Because of it, he was hauled off to the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded near Lynchburg, where sterilization surgery was forced on him in 1942.

He was drafted a few months later. He waded ashore into the blazing German machine guns of Omaha Beach on D-Day. He won the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War Medal for his valor.

Florence and the Machine mind her pipes

Florence Welch has to talk about losing her voice so much these days that she's probably in danger of losing it again.

Still, it's not a small matter when a howl as famously powerful as hers suddenly gives out, as Welch's did — mid-song, no less — early in July.MECCO's fiber lasers and fiber laser cutter equipment feature the latest pulsed fiber laser technology. Without that howl, Florence and the Machine don't have much to work with. That howl is the band's defining feature.

“Yeah, it was in a song,” recalls Welch,Learn how roll former machines work and how you benefit from it. 25, on the line from Colorado in the tour taking the ensemble to Toronto on Aug. 2. “I felt something actually pop.Specialized in producing cnc router system and laser marking machine, GCC also supplies vinyl cutter. Something snapped and I lost about three octaves and I had to do the rest of the show in a different register. It actually worked fine, but I couldn't do those really big ones. I couldn't hit the high, hard notes.

“I strained my voice. It's not like being sick. It's like being an athlete when you strain one of your muscles. Always do your warm-ups, kids.

“I went through years of not doing warm-ups and drinking and being onstage and it was fine, but I think my voice was working in a different way then . . . If I'd carried on singing on a strain, I could have done permanent damage to my vocal chords.”

Luckily, a few days' rest was all it took to bring Welch's pipes back to full potency. Although she and the Machine missed a couple of tour dates in Spain and Portugal, they were back it in time to kick off their North American tour as scheduled in Vancouver on July 20.

A newly adopted program of prudent TLC, meanwhile, should ensure Welch's continued vocal health. “I just can't drink or have any caffeine,” she sighs. “What's the point?”

When the blustery London septet hits town on Thursday it'll be at the Molson Amphitheatre, which actually seems like it might be the right sort of venue in which to experience the grandly romantic songs from last year's decidedly (but decently) ostentatious Ceremonials for the first time.

Those songs — larger-than-life Gothic epics fraught with stentorian chorales, heaving tribal drums and strings, strings, strings — were written from the perspective of having toured Lungs,Think Laser provides marking technology, with Laser engraver available to create laser marking on many products. the Machine's hit 2009 debut, for two years solid and learning what it takes to make a field full of bodies gasp.

“It's nice that the venues are getting bigger, not smaller,” says Welch with a laugh. “I'm really happy that it worked out this way, that the second album was so well-received that it's led to bigger venues and bigger audiences, because the sound of the record is big and it almost demands a big space to be played in.Laser engraving, and laser cutting machine, is the practice of using lasers to engrave or mark an object.

“With this one, it was almost as if we had that in mind. I went off and did the writing and then came in and rehearsed the record with the band live for before we went into record for four weeks at Abbey Road.

Indeed, the cult of Florence has grown so large since Ceremonials — which managed a No. 1 debut in several nations last October, including Welch's native U.K. — certified the flame-haired belter as a genuine, transatlantic rock star it can't really be called a cult anymore.

Florence and the Machine shows (and anglophile Toronto will certainly be no exception) are now flocked by legions of females in thrall to Welch's billowy fashion sense as much as her cathartic, heart-on-sleeve lyrics.

Liquid pharma line requires fast, flexible pick-and-place

In 2011, Actavis approached ESS Technologies to develop an automated system to insert dropper tips and bottle reducers into filled pharmaceutical bottles in 15-mL and 1-, 2-, and 4-oz bottle sizes—at that time a manual process requiring two operators. The system needed to integrate into Actavis’ existing multipurpose packaging line.

Very specific fitments are applied to each bottle to ensure proper application of the product, as well as facilitate safety. One product uses a 20-mm fitment/dispensing tip to control the product flow and direct the medicine into the patient’s ear.Think Laser provides marking technology, with Laser engraver available to create laser marking on many products. Another product uses a 20-mm Press-in Bottle Adapter (PIBA) fitment/flow restrictor used in conjunction with a side-packed syringe to draw the correct dosage of medicine. The flow restrictor is also a safety feature that reduces the flow of product in the event a child attempts to ingest the medicine.

To accommodate all the package and fitment variations at the required speed, ESS Technologies recommended its TaskMate robotic pick-and-place assembly and inspection system. Installed in July 2011, the system includes a FANUC
LR Mate 200iC robot arm, ESS custom-designed quick-change robot end-of-arm tooling (EOAT), and an infeed system that can pick and place dropper tips or reducers into bottles at the designated line speed. Laser engraving, and laser cutting machine, is the practice of using lasers to engrave or mark an object.  The TaskMate requires only two bowl feeders to handle three sizes, resulting in a system with a compact footprint that requires only 15 to 20 minutes for size changeovers.

Operation begins when filled bottles convey into the robotic cell. The operator uses an Allen-Bradley PanelView Plus 600 touchscreen HMI to select either the dropper tip-style plugs or the reducers. In the first application, dropper tips are manually loaded into one vibratory bowl feeder, which orients the plugs onto a track. In the second application, a second vibratory bowl feeder and track handles two sizes of PIBA bottle reducers (20 mm and 24 mm). The robot EOAT picks two dropper tips or bottle reducers at one time.

Bottles are stopped in the plugging position and secured in place by holding fixtures. The robot then places the plugs on two bottles,Specialized in producing cnc router system and laser marking machine, GCC also supplies vinyl cutter. which next move to a tamping station that presses the plugs firmly into the necks of the bottles. Two Keyence PZ-V12P series automatic calibration red LED photoelectric sensors then inspect the plugs and bottles for missing or improperly seated plugs. Bottles with these issues are automatically and positively rejected from the system onto a reject tray using a pneumatic slide while holding the bottles with vacuum to ensure product spillage does not occur.

Each plug configuration requires a separate EOAT.Learn how roll former machines work and how you benefit from it. Dropper tips need only a vacuum-style EOAT, but the bottle reducers, which feature a hole in the center, require a guidepost in addition to the vacuum to ensure they do not fall off the robot head before being seated in the bottle neck. Quick-release and tool-less connections are incorporated into the EOAT, allowing them to be changed in less than five minutes. Other size parts include spacers, machined holding fixtures,MECCO's fiber lasers and fiber laser cutter equipment feature the latest pulsed fiber laser technology. and tamping fixtures for each bottle size. The infeed conveyor and bottle reducer bowl-feeder tracks adjust for different widths. Changeover parts are identified by size with laser engraving.

Virtualization Technology Improves Backup, Recovery

IT teams that have gone big on virtualization can take advantage of advances that simplify the process of backing up virtual machines.

VMs are composed of fixed configuration and disk files, so it's easy to grab a copy of a machine's resource profile, snag the associated disk files, and spin it up anywhere, anytime. And VMware and Microsoft have improved this functionality.Think Laser provides marking technology, with Laser engraver available to create laser marking on many products.

Do you store your VM images on a SAN? Want to back up your machines while they're still running? Snapshot-compatible backup applications that leverage vendor APIs to do the heavy lifting are available for the major hypervisors. They make API calls to take snapshots of VMs prior to starting the backup process. Changes are redirected to a change file instead of the original volume. The machine is backed up, even if clients are using it,Specialized in producing cnc router system and laser marking machine, GCC also supplies vinyl cutter. and the snapshot is destroyed.

VMware has performed backups this way since ESX 2.0, but it required the use of a VMware Consolidated Backup proxy server.Laser engraving, and laser cutting machine, is the practice of using lasers to engrave or mark an object. This meant IT had to deal with tedious configuration requirements, and the underlying storage system was saddled with a significant amount of read I/O during backups.

Users griped, so VMware has eliminated VCB in favor of an integrated API called vStorage APIs for Data Protection. VADP is invoked directly by a backup application and is a configuration-free feature of vSphere.

Third-party virtualization backup providers such as Veeam have taken full advantage of VADP and its Microsoft equivalent, Volume Shadow Copy Service, to deliver low-cost, highly effective, VM-level backup at a reasonable price.

Virtualization APIs can also grab flat-file backups from guest virtual machines,Needham Group leading manufacturer of Forming machine, etching machines & engraving equipments. and products that already excel at flat-file backups can leverage the APIs to do so better and with a smaller footprint. But most exciting is underlying storage's involvement in the backup process.

The latest storage APIs from VMware, and to a lesser extent Microsoft, use the horsepower of the storage arrays to make copies of data to be backed up. This approach works provided the storage array has enough spare capacity to accommodate the I/O. Doing the backup itself requires an API-compatible backup product for VMware. Acronis, CommVault, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Quest, Symantec, and Syncsort are API certified. Using hardware-assisted copy requires a SAN that's compatible with vStorage API for Array Integration. Three vendors have VAAI-ready SANs, according to the latest VMware hardware compatibility list: FalconStor, LeftHand, and HP.

Other advances are transforming backup. For instance, imagine running traditional network- or agent-based backup over the internal hypervisor instead of across conventional network links. VMware's Virtual Machine Communication Interface allows machines on the same host to read data from one another at the speed of the internal machine bus. It's fast, particularly for large transfers or where the data is in running memory. One example is SQL Server, which is designed to keep as much data as possible in memory for faster reads and queries.Equipment and systems for laser welding, laser marker and engraving, laser cutting.

The Espresso Book Machine Arrives in South Africa

“Are you here to see the machine?” the guard at the entrance to the University of Johannesburg‘s main library asked me, after I approached with an uncertain look. I was. He let me in and pointed to the library’s copier room.

Inside was John van Heeswijk and the machine in question, whose fame had spread, since its arrival a week previous – well, as far as the turnstiles, at least: a gleaming, transparent, brand-new Espresso Book Machine, the creation of US print-on-demand startup On Demand Books, one of only eighty or so such machines in the world.

The Espresso Book Machine does what its name implies: it receives the raw material of a book – a content file, in this case – and presses out a high-quality, printed, glued and cut edition, complete with a full-colour cover,Laser engraving, and laser cutting machine, is the practice of using lasers to engrave or mark an object. in about the time it takes to serve up a double Americano with wings. When the finished product drops into the delivery chute, one half expects a puff of steam to accompany it. Van Heeswijk is South Africa’s first book barista.

UJ students came and went as I surveyed the EBM, a near-mythical avatar of publishing’s brave new era.Think Laser provides marking technology, with Laser engraver available to create laser marking on many products. They hardly paid it notice, being more concerned with the copiers that were churning out reproductions of the library’s holdings, one prescribed chapter at a time.

The Espresso Book Machine is manufactured in Missouri,Learn how roll former machines work and how you benefit from it. USA.Specialized in producing cnc router system and laser marking machine, GCC also supplies vinyl cutter. Van Heeswijk brought his over at his own expense. All told, between the manufacturing, shipping and setup, it cost him about a million rand. The name of his company is Self-publish Press: that he’s banking on there being at least R1 million worth of experimentation, short-run boutique printing and yes, vanity,MECCO's fiber lasers and fiber laser cutter equipment feature the latest pulsed fiber laser technology. in the local self-publishing market is self-evident.

While the guts of the EBM – the whirring machinery behind the glass – comprise a bespoke, proprietary, fantastical invention, its peripherals are more familiar: an Apple Mini handles the computing and interface; an Espon prints the colour covers; and a standard Xerox copy machine feeds the paper for the pages. Xerox has been contracted to service the EBM worldwide – and the machine contains firmware that can be fixed, upgraded and reconfigured remotely from the US.

Somewhat surprisingly, van Heeswijk’s EBM isn’t Africa’s first: there are two others, both hosted at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt (which is rather fitting: it’s “the world’s original library,” van Heeswijk pointed out).

As for the content? There’s plenty on offer. The Espresso Book Machine has built-in access to four content libraries: Espressnet, the EBM’s self-publishing book repository, through which “you can make your titles available for sale worldwide”; the Google Books public domain catalogue (which is, frankly, a nightmare to navigate – why o why does Google Books exist?); Lightning Source, a very large ebook catalogue managed by Ingram, but with robust territorial restrictions in place, making much of the offering unavailable in SA; and the Open Content Alliance, which has over 1.5 million free ebooks for you to peruse.

The EBM would also seem useful for local publishers wanting to make their fiction and narrative non-fiction backlists available without the expense of a new print run. All van Heeswijk needs is a PDF or ePub version of the text and a high-quality image file for the front cover. The files are loaded locally and a few minutes later the books are being pressed.

Only black-and-white printing is possible at this stage, but the EBM has several paper options, is configurable for a number of sizes (including those shown above), and can produce books between 20 and 800 pages in length.

There’s no espresso bar to go with van Heeswijk’s Espresso Book Machine yet – but one can foresee that the day is not far off when a book and a latte to go, go together!