Stateam in pat si cugetam profund asupra unei probleme de moment dar totusi foarte apasatoare, studiam atent avantajele si dezavantajele, inchideam si deschideam paranteze, parca erau si ceva radicali pe acolo, urmarind un rezultat cat mai exact daca se merita sau nu sa ma masturbez, cand m-a lovit revelatia: mereu am incercat sa inteleg femeile, am zis ca asta ar putea sa ma ajute dar am gresit.

Rezultatul: a intelege o femeie == a o tolera. Pfff, ce simplu era!

Ultimele chestii, biciclete, pisici, poiana, struguri, pepeni, fete, aici.

But Today I Am To Save As Many Flies As Possible.
In Each Hand I Carry A String – Determined.
I Throw Them Into The Abyss And Try To Draw In The Flies Before The Smolts Reaches Them Where They Fight The Stream And Water.
I Can’t Breathe And I’m Getting Heavier With Every Wave.
I Need A Miracle Because I’m Drowning Sins.

I started a new thingie where I post 1000 words per day –> http://1000wordsperday.wordpress.com
Let’s see how far it goes

___

I have nothing else to post here right now, sorry.

Am tendinta sa ma complic si sa complic orice ce se poate complica iar daca nu se poate complica ii modific eu putin structura ca sa se poata complica. E simplu

Free Landsat Scenes Go Public by the Million
Released: 8/20/2009 3:26:01 PM

Contact Information: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey Office of Communication 119 National Center Reston, VA 20192

Ron Beck Phone: 605-594-6550 Joan Moody Phone: 202-208-3280

Subscribe to USGS News Releases via our electronic mailing list or RSS feed.

**** www.usgs.gov ****

[from]

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2293&from=rss_home

***

pe IM, facebook, la calculator in general:

Sunday, August 09, 2009

U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for August 9

http://www.census.gov

111 Teams Get Green Light to Advance in Multimillion Dollar Competition

PLAYA VISTA, Calif., (April 7, 2009) –The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE, a multimillion dollar competition designed to inspire a new generation of viable, super fuel-efficient vehicles, today announced its official list of 111 Registered Teams.

VIEW B-ROLL FOOTAGE HERE

Having passed this first wave of judging, these teams now move one step closer to competing for their share of a $10 million prize purse that will be awarded to teams that win a rigorous long distance stage competition and can exceed 100 MPG equivalent fuel economy (MPGe).

The teams, which collectively represent 136 vehicle entries with 14 different fuel sources, include diverse groups from 25 U.S. states and 11 countries. Established automakers, emerging start-ups, universities and inventors are among those represented. Six of the Registered Teams remain confidential.

In the coming months, Registered Teams will undergo Design Judging based on a detailed Data Submission package, which will provide information on their vehicle’s features, production capability, safety and business plans. Those that pass Design Judging will move into the performance testing phase and partake in a series of competition events that will begin as early as May 2010. Winners will be announced in 2010.

The competition start date, the number of venues, and the geographic distribution of venues will be determined prior to July 2009.

“We are thrilled with the wide variety of teams and technologies from around the world that are joining us in this competition,” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO, The X PRIZE Foundation. Being accepted as a Registered Team is a major milestone. This is also an exciting step for the Foundation as we move closer to our goal of inspiring a new generation of real, clean, safe and super fuel-efficient vehicles.”

“The level of American innovation and entrepreneurship we’re seeing in the Automotive X PRIZE is encouraging,” said Senator Jeff Bingaman, Chairman of the Senate Energy Committee. “It’s also a positive response to many of the challenges confronting the U.S. auto industry. I applaud these teams for the important work they’re doing for our nation’s energy future.”

Winners will be selected from two classes in the Competition Division — Mainstream and Alternative. A complete list of Registered Teams, listed by the class in which they will compete and their proposed fuel type is available here [ PDF].

Earlier this year, the competition announced details of a Demonstration Division designed specifically for large, established automobile manufacturers to showcase their latest fuel efficient vehicles. Entrance into this Division will remain open until the summer.

About the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Competition
The goal of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE is to inspire a new generation of viable, super-efficient vehicles to offer consumers more choices and make their lives better as a result. The competition will place a major focus on affordability, safety, and the environment. It is about developing real, production-capable cars that consumers want to buy, not science projects or concept cars. For more information about the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE, please visit www.progressiveautoxprize.org or email progressiveautopress@xprize.org. For related educational resources, please visit www.FuelOurFutureNow.com.

About Progressive
Progressive, founded in 1937, is a leading insurer of cars, motorcycles, recreation vehicles, boats and commercial vehicles. The Company offers competitive rates and innovative products and services that meet drivers’ needs throughout their lifetimes as well as 24/7 online and in-person customer and claims service. One of Progressive’s Core Values is Excellence. To the Company’s more than 26,000 people, it simply means seeking constant improvement. Over time, this has meant introducing revolutionary ideas that make car insurance easier to shop for, buy and use. It’s this same innovative spirit that’s behind the Company’s sponsorship of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE. The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE will inspire innovation that will produce more fuel efficient vehicle choices, helping to make a difference in people’s lives.

Progressive’s products and services are available locally through more than 30,000 independent insurance agencies in the U.S., online at www.progressive.com and by phone at 1-800-PROGRESSIVE (1-800-776-4737).

About the X PRIZE Foundation
The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.” In 2004, the Foundation captured the world’s attention when the Burt Rutan-led team, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private spaceship to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for suborbital spaceflight. The Foundation has since launched the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE and the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The Foundation, with the support of its partner, BT Global Services, is creating prizes in Space and Ocean Exploration, Life Sciences, Energy and Environment, Education and Global Development. The Foundation is widely recognized as a leader in fostering innovation through competition. For more information, please visit www.xprize.org.

http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/news-events/press-release/111-teams-get-green-light-to-advance-in-multimillion-dollar-competition

***

June 25, 2009
Racing Goes Green
“As long as we’re talking about auto racing’s X files, we should touch upon the highest-profile green-racing event on the agenda: the $10 million Progressive Automotive X Prize. In April, the Auto X Prize’s organizers announced that 111 teams were accepted into the competition, and spokeswoman Carrie Fox told me today that 96 of those teams have gone on to the next step of the contest by turning in their business plans.”

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/06/25/1978006.aspx

***

http://www.mrs.org/s_mrs/index.asp

Materials Research Society

Check out their magazine and abstracts of current materials science stuff

XVIII International Materials Research Congress 2009

CasaMagna Marriott Cancún Resort
August 16 – 21, 2009
Km. 16 Hotel Zone
Cancún, Quintana Roo

The following information is available on the official XVIII International Materials Research Congress 2009 Web site:

• Symposia Program and Tutorial Courses
• Sponsors & Exhibits
• Abstract Submission Information (Submission Deadline was June 7, 2009)
• Registration Information
• Committees

The core mission of the Materials Research Society is to make knowledge gained through materials research as widely available as possible. Because knowledge gained anywhere can benefit people everywhere, MRS has always worked to promote leading-edge research from around the world. Materials research is a truly global enterprise.

In that spirit, the Materials Research Society (MRS) and the Sociedad Mexicana de Materiales (MRS-Mexico) are working together to grow the International Materials Research Congress (IMRC) held annually in Cancun, Mexico.

The IMRC offers a range of symposium topics of interest to MRS members and has become a popular destination in recent years with about 1500 attendees from around the world.

MRS and MRS-Mexico will work collaboratively to grow this meeting in the future. This annual event will provide additional high-level meeting capacity in a readily accessible and attractive location. As has always been true of the MRS Fall and Spring Meetings, a “bottom up” approach will allow this “Summer Meeting” to evolve rapidly in real time to meet the needs of the materials research community.

ORGANIZE A SYMPOSIUM

In keeping with the goals outlined above, we invite you to find out more about organizing a symposium at the MRS Summer Meetings in 2010 and 2011.

[Also -]

http://www.cimtec-congress.org/

You’ve got to see this site – there are no words to describe it -

The CIMTEC series of International Conferences on Modern Materials and Technologies was started on the late sixties with the objective of establishing closer relationships between the scientific materials research communities of Eastern and Western blocks in a time where exchange of information was remarkably constrained. Nowadays, where the geopolitical context is evolved to favour global exchanges with terabit information continuously flowing through the web, CIMTEC remains a primary focus for communication among the materials scientific, technical and production community worldwide.

GENERAL OUTLINE

http://www.cimtec-congress.org/2010/general_outline.asp

CIMTEC 2010 – 12^th International Conference on Modern Materials and Technologies – will be held in Montecatini Terme, Tuscany, Italy, on June 6 to 18, 2010. CIMTEC 2010 will consist of the 12^th International Ceramics Congress (June 6-11) and of the 5^th Forum on New Materials (June 13-18), each of them including a number of Symposia, Focused Sessions, and Conferences. As a major long standing event for the international materials community, CIMTEC will again gather together a large and qualified audience of materials scientists, physicists, chemists and engineers as well as experts of a wide range of the most demanding application areas of modern materials, from information technology to biological systems. CIMTEC 2010 will devote special attention to most relevant directions for materials research based on new theory and refined modeling strategies and on the ever increasing opportunities offered by the continuous remarkable progress in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Outstanding areas of the subject will be covered, from the molecular and nanoscales to large complex integrated systems. Special focus of the Forum on New Materials will be to apply the new research findings to the development of a number of sustainable energy technologies from advanced fossil fuel energy cycles including CO2 sequestration, to nuclear energy, to photovoltaic power generation.

The Chair, Co-Chairs and CIMTEC 2010 Committees invite you to foster progress in the field by contributing to what promises to be an exciting meeting, and to enjoy the immense unique artistic heritage and wonderful landscape of Tuscany.

Pietro Vincenzini
General Chair CIMTEC Conferences
Chairman World Academy of Ceramics

Co-Chairs CIMTEC 2010
Akio Makishima
President International Ceramic Federation
Robert P.H. Chang
General Secretary International Union of Materials Research Societies

***

Space elevator
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A space elevator would consist of a cable anchored to the Earth’s surface, reaching into space. By attaching a counterweight at the end (or by further extending the cable for the same purpose), inertia ensures that the cable remains stretched taut, countering the gravitational pull on the lower sections, thus allowing the elevator to remain in geostationary orbit. Once beyond the gravitational midpoint, carriages would be accelerated further by the planet’s rotation. (Diagram not to scale.)

A space elevator is a proposed structure designed to transport material from a celestial body’s surface into space. Many variants have been proposed, all of which involve traveling along a fixed structure instead of using rocket powered space launch. The concept most often refers to a structure that reaches from the surface of the Earth on or near the Equator to geostationary orbit (GSO) and a counter-mass beyond.

The concept of a space elevator dates back to 1895 when Konstantin Tsiolkovsky[1] proposed a free-standing “Tsiolkovsky” tower reaching from the surface of Earth to geostationary orbit. Most recent discussions focus on tensile structures (specifically, tethers) reaching from geostationary orbit to the ground. This structure would be held in tension between Earth and the counterweight in space like a guitar string held taut. Space elevators have also sometimes been referred to as beanstalks, space bridges, space lifts, space ladders, skyhooks, orbital towers, or orbital elevators.

Current technology is not capable of manufacturing practical engineering materials that are sufficiently strong and light to build an Earth based space elevator. The primary issue is that the total mass of conventional materials needed to construct such a structure would be so great that the cable would break under its own weight. Recent conceptualizations for a space elevator are notable in their plans to use carbon nanotube-based materials as the tensile element in the tether design, since the measured strength of microscopic carbon nanotubes appears great enough to make this theoretically possible[citation needed]. Current technology could produce elevators for locations in the solar system with a weaker gravitational field, such as Mars.[2]
Contents

* 1 Geostationary orbital tethers
* 2 History
o 2.1 Early concepts
o 2.2 Twentieth century
o 2.3 21st century
* 3 Structure
o 3.1 Base station
o 3.2 Cable
o 3.3 Climbers
o 3.4 Powering climbers
o 3.5 Counterweight
o 3.6 Alternative concepts
* 4 Launching into outer space
* 5 Extraterrestrial elevators
* 6 Construction
o 6.1 Safety issues and construction difficulties
o 6.2 Economics
* 7 See also
* 8 References
o 8.1 Specific
o 8.2 General
* 9 External links

Geostationary orbital tethers

This concept, also called an orbital space elevator, geostationary orbital tether, or a beanstalk, is a subset of the skyhook concept, and is what people normally think of when the phrase ’space elevator’ is used (although there are variants).

Construction would be a vast project: a tether would have to be built of a material that could endure tremendous stress while also being light-weight, cost-effective, and manufacturable in great quantities. Materials currently available do not meet these requirements, although carbon nanotube technology shows great promise. A considerable number of other novel engineering problems would also have to be solved to make a space elevator practical. There are problems regarding feasibility that have yet to be addressed. Nevertheless, the LiftPort Group stated in 2002[3] that by developing the technology, the first space elevator could be operational by 2014.[4][5]

History

Early concepts
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

The key concept of the space elevator appeared in 1895 when Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris to consider a tower that reached all the way into space, built from the ground up to an altitude of 35,790 kilometers above sea level (geostationary orbit).[6] He noted that a “celestial castle” at the top of such a spindle-shaped cable would have the “castle” orbiting Earth in a geostationary orbit (i.e. the castle would remain over the same spot on Earth’s surface).

Tsiolkovsky’s tower would be able to launch objects into orbit without a rocket. Since the elevator would attain orbital velocity as it rode up the cable, an object released at the tower’s top would also have the orbital velocity necessary to remain in geostationary orbit. Unlike more recent concepts for space elevators, Tsiolkovsky’s (conceptual) tower was a compression structure, rather than a tension (or “tether”) structure.

Twentieth century

Building a compression structure from the ground up proved an unrealistic task as there was no material in existence with enough compressive strength to support its own weight under such conditions.[7] In 1959 another Russian scientist, Yuri N. Artsutanov, suggested a more feasible proposal. Artsutanov suggested using a geostationary satellite as the base from which to deploy the structure downward. By using a counterweight, a cable would be lowered from geostationary orbit to the surface of Earth, while the counterweight was extended from the satellite away from Earth, keeping the center of gravity of the cable motionless relative to Earth. Artsutanov’s idea was introduced to the Russian-speaking public in an interview published in the Sunday supplement of Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1960,[8] but was not available in English until much later. He also proposed tapering the cable thickness so that the tension in the cable was constant—this gives a thin cable at ground level, thickening up towards GSO.

Both the tower and cable ideas were proposed in the quasi-humorous Ariadne column in New Scientist, 24 December 1964.

Making a cable over 35,000 kilometers long is a difficult task. In 1966, Isaacs, Vine, Bradner and Bachus, four American engineers, reinvented the concept, naming it a “Sky-Hook,” and published their analysis in the journal Science.[9] They decided to determine what type of material would be required to build a space elevator, assuming it would be a straight cable with no variations in its cross section, and found that the strength required would be twice that of any existing material including graphite, quartz, and diamond.

In 1975 an American scientist, Jerome Pearson, reinvented the concept yet again, publishing his analysis in the journal Acta Astronautica. He designed[10] a tapered cross section that would be better suited to building the elevator. The completed cable would be thickest at the geostationary orbit, where the tension was greatest, and would be narrowest at the tips to reduce the amount of weight per unit area of cross section that any point on the cable would have to bear. He suggested using a counterweight that would be slowly extended out to 144,000 kilometers (almost half the distance to the Moon) as the lower section of the elevator was built. Without a large counterweight, the upper portion of the cable would have to be longer than the lower due to the way gravitational and centrifugal forces change with distance from Earth. His analysis included disturbances such as the gravitation of the Moon, wind and moving payloads up and down the cable. The weight of the material needed to build the elevator would have required thousands of Space Shuttle trips, although part of the material could be transported up the elevator when a minimum strength strand reached the ground or be manufactured in space from asteroidal or lunar ore.

In 1977, Hans Moravec published an article called “A Non-Synchronous Orbital Skyhook”, in which he proposed an alternative space elevator concept, using a rotating cable,[11] in which the rotation speed exactly matches the orbital speed in such a way that the instantaneous velocity at the point where the cable was at the closest point to the Earth was zero. This concept is an early version of a space tether transportation system.

In 1979, space elevators were introduced to a broader audience with the simultaneous publication of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, The Fountains of Paradise, in which engineers construct a space elevator on top of a mountain peak in the fictional island country of Taprobane (loosely based on Sri Lanka, albeit moved south to the Equator), and Charles Sheffield’s first novel, The Web Between the Worlds, also featuring the building of a space elevator. Three years later, in Robert A. Heinlein’s 1982 novel Friday the principal character makes use of the “Nairobi Beanstalk” in the course of her travels. In Kim Stanley Robinson’s 1993 novel Red Mars, colonists build a space elevator on Mars that allows both for more colonists to arrive on Mars and also for natural resources mined on Mars to be able to leave Mars for Earth.

21st century

After the development of carbon nanotubes in the 1990s, engineer David Smitherman of NASA/Marshall’s Advanced Projects Office realized that the high strength of these materials might make the concept of an orbital skyhook feasible, and put together a workshop at the Marshall Space Flight Center, inviting many scientists and engineers to discuss concepts and compile plans for an elevator to turning the concept into a reality.[12] The publication he edited compiling information from the workshop, “Space Elevators: An Advanced Earth-Space Infrastructure for the New Millennium”,[13] provides an introduction to the state of the technology at the time, and summarizes the findings.

Another American scientist, Bradley C. Edwards, suggested creating a 100,000 km long paper-thin ribbon using a carbon nanotube composite material. He chose a ribbon type structure rather than a cable because that structure might stand a greater chance of surviving impacts by meteoroids. Supported by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, the work of Edwards was expanded to cover the deployment scenario, climber design, power delivery system, orbital debris avoidance, anchor system, surviving atomic oxygen, avoiding lightning and hurricanes by locating the anchor in the western equatorial Pacific, construction costs, construction schedule, and environmental hazards.[14][15] The largest holdup to Edwards’ proposed design is the technological limits of the tether material. His calculations call for a fiber composed of epoxy-bonded carbon nanotubes with a minimal tensile strength of 130 GPa (including a safety factor of 2); however, tests in 2000 of individual single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), which should be notably stronger than an epoxy-bonded rope, indicated the strongest measured as 52 GPa.[16] Multi-walled carbon nanotubes have been measured with tensile strengths up to 63 GPa.[17]

In order to speed development of space elevators, proponents are planning several competitions, similar to the Ansari X Prize, for relevant technologies.[18][19] Among them are Elevator:2010 which will organize annual competitions for climbers, ribbons and power-beaming systems, the Robolympics Space Elevator Ribbon Climbing competition,[20] as well as NASA’s Centennial Challenges program which, in March 2005, announced a partnership with the Spaceward Foundation (the operator of Elevator:2010), raising the total value of prizes to US$400,000.[21][22]

In 2005, “the LiftPort Group of space elevator companies announced that it will be building a carbon nanotube manufacturing plant in Millville, New Jersey, to supply various glass, plastic and metal companies with these strong materials. Although LiftPort hopes to eventually use carbon nanotubes in the construction of a 100,000 km (62,000 mile) space elevator, this move will allow it to make money in the short term and conduct research and development into new production methods. The space elevator is proposed to launch in 2010.”[dated info][23] On February 13, 2006 the LiftPort Group announced that, earlier the same month, they had tested a mile of “space-elevator tether” made of carbon-fiber composite strings and fiberglass tape measuring 5 cm wide and 1 mm (approx. 6 sheets of paper) thick, lifted with balloons.[24]

The x-Tech Projects company has also been founded to pursue the prospect of a commercial Space Elevator.[citation needed]

In 2007, Elevator:2010 held the 2007 Space Elevator games which featured US$500,000 awards for each of the two competitions, (US$1,000,000 total) as well as an additional US$4,000,000 to be awarded over the next five years for space elevator related technologies.[25] No teams won the competition, but a team from MIT entered the first 2-gram, 100% carbon nanotube entry into the competition.[26] Japan held an international conference in November of 2008 to draw up a timetable for building the elevator. [27]

In 2008 the book “Leaving the Planet by Space Elevator”, by Dr. Brad Edwards and Philip Ragan, was published in Japanese and entered the Japanese best seller list.[28] This has led to a Japanese announcement of intent to build a Space Elevator at a projected price tag of £5 billion. In a report by Leo Lewis, Tokyo correspondent of The Times newspaper in England, plans by Shuichi Ono, chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association, are unveiled. Lewis says: “Japan is increasingly confident that its sprawling academic and industrial base can solve those [construction] issues, and has even put the astonishingly low price tag of a trillion yen (£5 billion) on building the elevator. Japan is renowned as a global leader in the precision engineering and high-quality material production without which the idea could never be possible.”[27]

[edit] Structure
One concept for the space elevator has it tethered to a mobile seagoing platform.

The centrifugal force of earth’s rotation is the main principle behind the elevator. As the earth rotates, the centrifugal force tends to align the nanotube in a stretched manner. There are a variety of tether designs. Almost every design includes a base station, a cable, climbers, and a counterweight.

[edit] Base station

The base station designs typically fall into two categories—mobile and stationary. Mobile stations are typically large oceangoing vessels,[29]. Stationary platforms would generally be located in high-altitude locations, such as on top of mountains, or even potentially on high towers.[7]

Mobile platforms have the advantage of being able to maneuver to avoid high winds, storms, and space debris. While stationary platforms don’t have these advantages, they typically would have access to cheaper and more reliable power sources, and require a shorter cable. While the decrease in cable length may seem minimal (typically no more than a few kilometers), the cable thickness could be reduced over its entire length, significantly reducing the total weight.

[edit] Cable

The cable must be made of a material with a large tensile strength/mass ratio. A space elevator can be made relatively economically feasible if a cable with a density similar to graphite and a tensile strength of ~65–120 GPa can be mass-produced at a reasonable price.
Carbon nanotubes would be a highly useful material for creating a space elevator

Carbon nanotubes’ theoretical tensile strength has been estimated between 140 and 177 GPa (depending on plane shape),[30] and its observed tensile strength has been variously measured from 63 to 150 GPa, close to the requirements for space elevator structures.[30][31] Nihon University professor of engineering Yoshio Aoki, the director of the Japan Space Elevator Association, has stated that the cable would need to be four times stronger than the strongest carbon nanotube fiber as of 2008, or about 180 times stronger than steel.[27] Even the strongest fiber made of nanotubes is likely to have notably less strength than its components.

Improving tensile strength depends on further research on purity and different types of nanotubes.

By comparison, most steel has a tensile strength of under 2 GPa, and the strongest steel resists no more than 5.5 GPa.[32] The much lighter material Kevlar has a tensile strength of 2.6–4.1 GPa, while quartz fiber[33] and carbon nanotubes[30] can reach upwards of 20 GPa; the tensile strength of diamond filaments would theoretically be minimally higher.

Designs call for single-walled carbon nanotubes. While multi-walled nanotubes are easier to produce and have similar tensile strengths, there is a concern[citation needed] that the interior tubes would not be sufficiently coupled to the outer tubes to help hold the tension. However, if the nanotubes are long enough, even weak van der Waals forces will be sufficient[citation needed] to keep them from slipping, and the full strength of individual nanotubes (single or multiwalled) could be realized macroscopically by spinning them into a yarn. It has also been proposed[by whom?] to chemically interlink the nanotubes in some way[vague], but it is likely that this would greatly compromise their strength. One such proposal is to take advantage of the high pressure interlinking properties of carbon nanotubes of a single variety.[34] While this would cause the tubes to lose some tensile strength by the trading of sp² bond (graphite, nanotubes) for sp³ (diamond), it will enable them to be held together in a single fiber by more than the usual, weak van der Waals force (VdW), and allow manufacturing of a fiber of any length.
A seagoing anchor station would incidentally act as a deep-water seaport.

The technology to spin regular VdW-bonded yarn from carbon nanotubes is just in its infancy: the first success in spinning a long yarn, as opposed to pieces of only a few centimeters, was reported in March 2004[citation needed]; but the strength/weight ratio was not as good as Kevlar due to the inconsistent quality and short length of the tubes being held together by VdW.

As of 2006, carbon nanotubes cost $25/gram, and even a minimal, very low payload space elevator “seed ribbon” could have a mass of at least 18,000 kg ($ 450 million). However, this price is declining, and large-scale production could result in strong economies of scale.[35]

Carbon nanotube fiber is an area of energetic worldwide research because the applications go much further than space elevators. Other suggested[36] application areas include suspension bridges, new composite materials, lighter aircraft and rockets, armor technologies, and computer processor interconnects.[citation needed] This is good news for space elevator proponents because it is likely to push down the price of the cable material further.

A newly discovered type of carbon nanotube called the colossal carbon tube may be strong and light enough to support a space elevator. Its tensile strength is only 6.9 GPa, but its density is only .116 g/cm3, making its specific strength sufficient for a space elevator. In addition, it has been fabricated in lengths on the scale of centimeters, a headstart on the thousands of kilometers needed for a space elevator.[37]

Due to its enormous length a space elevator cable must be carefully designed to carry its own weight as well as the smaller weight of climbers. The required strength of the cable will vary along its length, since at various points it has to carry the weight of the cable below, or provide a centripetal force to retain the cable and counterweight above. In a 1998 report,[38] NASA researchers noted that “maximum stress [on a space elevator cable] is at geosynchronous altitude so the cable must be thickest there and taper exponentially as it approaches Earth. Any potential material may be characterized by the taper factor — the ratio between the cable’s radius at geosynchronous altitude and at the Earth’s surface.”

[edit] Climbers
A conceptual drawing of a space elevator climbing through the clouds.

A space elevator cannot be an elevator in the typical sense (with moving cables) due to the need for the cable to be significantly wider at the center than the tips. While various designs employing moving cables have been proposed, most cable designs call for the “elevator” to climb up a stationary cable.

Climbers cover a wide range of designs. On elevator designs whose cables are planar ribbons, most propose to use pairs of rollers to hold the cable with friction. Usually, elevators are designed for climbers to move only upwards, because that is where most of the payload goes. For returning payloads, atmospheric reentry on a heat shield is a very competitive option[citation needed], which also avoids the problem of docking to the elevator in space.

Climbers must be paced at optimal timings so as to minimize cable stress and oscillations and to maximize throughput. Lighter climbers can be sent up more often, with several going up at the same time. This increases throughput somewhat, but lowers the mass of each individual payload.
As the car climbs, the elevator takes on a 1 degree lean, due to the top of the elevator traveling faster than the bottom around the Earth (Coriolis force). This diagram is not to scale.

The horizontal speed of each part of the cable increases with altitude, proportional to distance from the center of the Earth, reaching orbital velocity at geostationary orbit. Therefore as a payload is lifted up a space elevator, it needs to gain not only altitude but angular momentum (horizontal speed) as well. This angular momentum is taken from the Earth’s own rotation. As the climber ascends it is initially moving slightly more slowly than the cable that it moves onto (Coriolis force) and thus the climber “drags” on the cable.

The overall effect of the centrifugal force acting on the cable causes it to constantly try to return to the energetically favourable vertical orientation, so after an object has been lifted on the cable the counterweight will swing back towards the vertical like an inverted pendulum[citation needed]. Provided that the space elevator is designed so that the center of weight always stays above geostationary orbit[39] for the maximum climb speed of the climbers, the elevator cannot fall over. Lift and descent operations must be carefully planned so as to keep the pendulum-like motion of the counterweight around the tether point under control.

By the time the payload has reached GEO the angular momentum (horizontal speed) is enough that the payload is in orbit.

The opposite process would occur for payloads descending the elevator, tilting the cable eastwards and insignificantly increasing Earth’s rotation speed.

It has also been proposed to use a second cable attached to a platform to lift payload up the main cable, since the lifting device would not have to deal with its own weight against Earth’s gravity. Out of the many proposed theories, powering any lifting device also continues to present a challenge.

[edit] Powering climbers

Both power and energy are significant issues for climbers – the climbers need to gain a large amount of potential energy as quickly as possible to clear the cable for the next payload.

Nuclear energy and solar power have been proposed, but generating enough energy to reach the top of the elevator in any reasonable time without weighing too much is not feasible.[40]

The proposed method is laser power beaming, using megawatt powered free electron or solid state lasers in combination with adaptive mirrors approximately 10 m wide and a photovoltaic array on the climber tuned to the laser frequency for efficiency.[29] A major obstacle for any climber design is the dissipation of the substantial amount of waste heat generated due to the less than perfect efficiency of any of the power methods.

Yoshio Aoki, a professor of precision machinery engineering at Nihon University and director of the Japan Space Elevator Association, suggested including a second cable and using the conductivity of carbon nanotubes to provide power.[27]

[edit] Counterweight

There have been several methods proposed for dealing with the counterweight need: a heavy object, such as a captured asteroid[6] or a space station, positioned past geostationary orbit, or extending the cable itself well past geostationary orbit. The latter idea has gained more support in recent years[year needed] due to the relative simplicity of the task and the fact that a payload that went to the end of the counterweight-cable would acquire considerable velocity relative to the Earth, allowing it to be launched into interplanetary space.

Additionally, Brad Edwards has proposed that initially elevators would be up-only, and that the elevator cars that are used to thicken the cable could simply be parked at the top of the cable and act as a counterweight.

[edit] Alternative concepts

Many different types of structures for accessing space have been suggested. As of 2004[update], concepts using geostationary tethers seem to be the only space elevator concept that is the subject of active research and commercial interest in space.[41]

The original concept envisioned by Tsiolkovsky was a compression structure, a concept similar to an aerial mast. While such structures might reach the agreed altitude for space (100 km), they are unlikely to reach geostationary orbit (35,786 km). The concept of a Tsiolkovsky tower combined with a classic space elevator cable has been suggested.[7]

Other alternatives to a space elevator include an orbital ring, space fountain, launch loop, Skyhook, space tether, and a space hoist.

[edit] Launching into outer space

The velocities that might be attained at the end of Pearson’s 144,000 km cable can be determined. The tangential velocity is 10.93 kilometers per second, which is more than enough to escape Earth’s gravitational field and send probes at least as far out as Jupiter. Once at Jupiter a gravitational assist maneuver permits solar escape velocity to be reached.[42]

[edit] Extraterrestrial elevators

A space elevator could also be constructed on other planets, asteroids and moons.

A Martian tether could be much shorter than one on Earth. Mars’ surface gravity is 38% of Earth’s, while it rotates around its axis in about the same time as Earth.[43] Because of this, Martian areostationary orbit is much closer to the surface, and hence the elevator would be much shorter. Exotic materials might not be required to construct such an elevator. However, building a Martian elevator would be a unique challenge because the Martian moon Phobos is in a low orbit, and intersects the Equator regularly (twice every orbital period of 11 h 6 min).

A lunar space elevator can possibly be built with currently available technology about 50,000 kilometers long extending though the Earth-Moon L1 point from an anchor point near the center of the visible part of Earth’s moon.[44]

On the far side of the moon, a lunar space elevator would need to be very long (more than twice the length of an Earth elevator) but due to the low gravity of the Moon, can be made of existing engineering materials.[44]

Rapidly spinning asteroids or moons could use cables to eject materials in order to move the materials to convenient points, such as Earth orbits;[citation needed] or conversely, to eject materials in order to send the bulk of the mass of the asteroid or moon to Earth orbit or a Lagrangian point. This was suggested by Russell Johnston in the 1980s.[citation needed] Freeman Dyson, a physicist and mathematician, has suggested[citation needed] using such smaller systems as power generators at points distant from the Sun where solar power is uneconomical. For the purpose of mass ejection, it is not necessary to rely on the asteroid or moon to be rapidly spinning. Instead of attaching the tether to the equator of a rotating body, it can be attached to a rotating hub on the surface. This was suggested in 1980 as a “Rotary Rocket” by Pearson[45] and described very succinctly on the Island One website as a “Tapered Sling”[46]

[edit] Construction
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2008)
Main article: Space elevator construction

The construction of a space elevator would be a vast project requiring advances in engineering, manufacturing, and physical technology.

[edit] Safety issues and construction difficulties
Main article: Space elevator safety

A space elevator would present a considerable navigational hazard, both to aircraft and spacecraft.[citation needed] Aircraft could be diverted by air-traffic control restrictions, but impacts by space objects such as meteoroids and micrometeorites pose a more difficult problem.[citation needed] One potential solution proposed by Edwards is to use a movable anchor (a sea anchor) to allow the tether to “dodge” any space debris large enough to track.

[edit] Economics
Main article: Space elevator economics

With a space elevator, materials might be sent into orbit at a fraction of the current cost. As of 2000, conventional rocket designs cost about $11,000 per kilogram for transfer to low earth or geostationary orbit. [47] Current proposals envision payload prices starting as low as $220 per kilogram[48]. Philip Ragan, co-author of the book “Leaving the Planet by Space Elevator”, states that “The first country to deploy a space elevator will have a 95 per cent cost advantage and could potentially control all space activities.” [49]

[edit] See also
Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Space elevators
Spaceflight portal

* Lunar space elevator for the moon variant
* Space elevator construction discusses alternative construction methods of a space elevator.
* Space elevator safety discusses safety aspects of space elevator construction and operation.
* Space elevator economics discusses capital and maintenance costs of a space elevator.
* Space fountain – very tall structures using fast moving masses to hold it up
* Tether propulsion – methods using long boluses
* Launch loop – a hypervelocity belt system that forms a launch track at 80 km
* Space gun – a method for launching materials
* Lightcraft- an alternative method for moving materials or people
* Space elevators in fiction

[edit] References

[edit] Specific

1. ^ Hirschfeld, Bob (2002-01-31). “Space Elevator Gets Lift”. TechTV. G4 Media, Inc.. Archived from the original on 2005-06-08. http://web.archive.org/web/20050608080057/http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/35657/Space_Elevator_Gets_Lift.html. Retrieved on 2007-09-13. “The concept was first described in 1895 by Russian author K.E. Tsiolkovsky in his “Speculations about Earth and Sky and on Vesta.”"
2. ^ Non-Synchronous Orbital Skyhooks for the Moon and Mars with Conventional Materials Hans Moravec 1978
3. ^ “Space Elevator Concept”. LiftPort Group. http://liftport.com/research2.php. Retrieved on 2007-07-28. ‘COUNTDOWN TO LIFT: October 27, 2031′
4. ^ David, Leonard (2002). “The Space Elevator Comes Closer to Reality”. http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html. ‘(Bradley Edwards said) In 12 years, we could be launching tons of payload every three days’
5. ^ “The Space Elevator”. Institute for Scientific Research, Inc.. http://www.isr.us/research_es_se.asp. Retrieved on 2006-03-05.
6. ^ a b “The Audacious Space Elevator”. NASA Science News. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast07sep_1.htm. Retrieved on 2008-09-27.
7. ^ a b c Geoffrey A. Landis and Christopher Cafarelli (1999). “The Tsiolkovski Tower Reexamined”. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 52: 175–180.
8. ^ Artsutanov, Yu (1960). “To the Cosmos by Electric Train” (PDF). Young Person’s Pravda. http://www.liftport.com/files/Artsutanov_Pravda_SE.pdf. Retrieved on 2006-03-05.
9. ^ Isaacs, J. D.; A. C. Vine, H. Bradner and G. E. Bachus (1966). “Satellite Elongation into a True ‘Sky-Hook’”. Science 11.
10. ^ J. Pearson (1975). “The orbital tower: a spacecraft launcher using the Earth’s rotational energy” (PDF). Acta Astronautica 2: 785–799. doi:10.1016/0094-5765(75)90021-1. http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/tower/tower.pdf.
11. ^ Hans P. Moravec, “A Non-Synchronous Orbital Skyhook,” Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, Vol. 25, October-December 1977
12. ^ Science @ NASA, Audacious & Outrageous: Space Elevators, September 2000
13. ^ “Space Elevators: An Advanced Earth-Space Infrastructure for the New Millennium”. http://www.affordablespaceflight.com/spaceelevator.html.
14. ^ Bradley Edwards, Eureka Scientific, NIAC Phase I study
15. ^ Bradley Edwards, Eureka Scientific, NIAC Phase II study
16. ^ Yu, Min-Feng; Files, Bradley S.; Arepalli, Sivaram; Ruoff, Rodney S. (2000). “Tensile Loading of Ropes of Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes and their Mechanical Properties”. Phys. Rev. Lett. 84: 5552–5555. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.84.5552. http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v84/i24/p5552_1.
17. ^ Min-Feng Yu, Oleg Lourie, Mark J. Dyer, Katerina Moloni, Thomas F. Kelly, Rodney S. Ruoff (2000). “Strength and Breaking Mechanism of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Under Tensile Load”. Science no. 287 (5453): 637–640. doi:10.1126/science.287.5453.637. PMID 10649994. http://sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/287/5453/637.
18. ^ Boyle, Alan. “Space elevator contest proposed”. MSNBC. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5792719/. Retrieved on 2006-03-05.
19. ^ “The Space Elevator – Elevator:2010″. http://www.elevator2010.org/. Retrieved on 2006-03-05.
20. ^ “Space Elevator Ribbon Climbing Robot Competition Rules”. http://robolympics.net/rules/climbing.shtml. Retrieved on 2006-03-05.
21. ^ “NASA Announces First Centennial Challenges’ Prizes”. 2005. http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/mar/HQ_m05083_Centennial_prizes.html. Retrieved on 2006-03-05.
22. ^ Britt, Robert Roy. “NASA Details Cash Prizes for Space Privatization”. Space.com. http://www.space.com/news/050323_centennial_challenge.html. Retrieved on 2006-03-05.
23. ^ “Space Elevator Group to Manufacture Nanotubes”. Universe Today. 2005. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/liftport_manufacture_nanotubes.html?2742005. Retrieved on 2006-03-05.
24. ^ Groshong, Kimm (2006-02-15). “Space-elevator tether climbs a mile high”. NewScientist.com (New Scientist). http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn8725.html. Retrieved on 2006-03-05.
25. ^ http://www.spaceward.org/elevator2010
26. ^ The Spaceward Foundation
27. ^ a b c d “Japan hopes to turn sci-fi into reality with elevator to the stars”. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4799369.ece. Lewis, Leo; News International Group; accessed 2008-09-22.
28. ^ “Leaving the Planet by Space Elevator”. http://www.leavingtheplanet.com/. Edwards, Bradley C. and Westling, Eric A. and Ragan, Philip; Leasown Pty Ltd.; accessed 2008-09-26.
29. ^ a b “The Space Elevator NIAC Phase II Final Report” (PDF). NASA. http://www.spaceelevator.com/docs/521Edwards.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
30. ^ a b c Demczyk, B.G. (2002). “Direct mechanical measurement of the tensile strength and elastic modulus of multiwalled carbon nanotubes” (PDF). http://www.glue.umd.edu/~cumings/PDF%20Publications/16.MSE%20A334demczyk.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-07-15. “2–5 GPa for fibers [2,3] and up to 20 GPa for ‘whiskers’”, “Depending on the choice of this surface, ?T can range from E/7 to E/5 (0.14–0.177 TPa)”
31. ^ Mills, Jordan (2002). “Carbon Nanotube POF”. http://depts.washington.edu/polylab/cn.html. Retrieved on 2007-07-15.
32. ^ 52nd Hatfield Memorial Lecture : Large Chunks of Very Strong Steel
33. ^ http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030714/orbital_railroads.shtml
34. ^ T. Yildirim, O. Gülseren, Ç. K?l?ç, S. Ciraci (2000). “Pressure-induced interlinking of carbon nanotubes”. Phys. Rev. B 62: 12648–12651. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.62.12648+. http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v62/p12648.
35. ^ “UPC Team Recens’ Answer to NASA’s Beam Power Space Elevator Challenge” (PDF). Polytechnic University of Catalonia. March 26, 2007. http://www.domitech.es/recensteam/recensteam/documentos/RecensTeam%20paper.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-02-11.
36. ^ Randall Parker. “Carbon Nanotube Fibers Tougher, Stronger Than Steel Or Spider Silk”. http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001388.html.
37. ^ Peng, H.; Chen, D.; et al., Huang J.Y. et al. (2008). “Strong and Ductile Colossal Carbon Tubes with Walls of Rectangular Macropores”. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101 (14): 145501. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.145501.
38. ^ Al Globus; David Bailey, Jie Han, Richard Jaffe, Creon Levit, Ralph Merkle, and Deepak Srivastava. “NAS-97-029: NASA Applications of Molecular Nanotechnology” (PDF). NASA. http://www.nas.nasa.gov/News/Techreports/1997/PDF/nas-97-029.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-09-27.
39. ^ “Why the Space Elevator’s Center of Mass is not at GEO” by Blaise Gassend
40. ^ Edwards. “NIAC Space Elevator Report – Chapter 4: Power Beaming”. NASA. Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. http://web.archive.org/web/20071013160456/http://isr.us/Downloads/niac_pdf/chapter4.html. “Alternatives that have been suggested include running power up the cable, solar or nuclear power onboard and using the cable’s movement in the environment’s electromagnetic field. None of these methods are feasible on further examination due to efficiency or mass considerations.”
41. ^ Bradley C. Edwards, Ben Shelef (2004). “THE SPACE ELEVATOR AND NASA’S NEW SPACE INITIATIVE” (PDF). 55th International Astronautical Congress 2004 – Vancouver, Canada. http://www.spaceelevator.com/docs/521Edwards.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-07-28. ‘At this time the space elevator is not included in the NASA space exploration program or funded in any form by NASA except through a congressional appropriation ($1.9M to ISR/MSFC)’
42. ^ P. K. Aravind (February 2007). “The physics of the space elevator”. American Journal of Physics (American Association of Physics Teachers) 45 (2). doi:10.1119/1.2404957.
43. ^ “Hans Moravec: SPACE ELEVATORS (1980)”. http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/1976.skyhook/1982.articles/elevate.800322.
44. ^ a b Pearson, Jerome; Eugene Levin, John Oldson and Harry Wykes (2005). “Lunar Space Elevators for Cislunar Space Development Phase I Final Technical Report” (PDF). http://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/1032Pearson.pdf.
45. ^ “Asteroid Retrieval by Rotary Rocket” (PDF). NASA. http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/asteroids/asteroids.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
46. ^ “Tapered Sling”. Island One Society. http://www.islandone.org/LEOBiblio/SPBI1SL.HTM. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
47. ^ “Delayed countdown”. Fultron Corporation. The Information Company Pvt Ltd. 18 October 2002. http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_f/futron_corporation/20021018_countdown.html. Retrieved on June 3, 2009.
48. ^ The Spaceward Foundation. “The Space Elevator FAQ”. Mountain View, CA. http://www.spaceward.org/elevator-faq. Retrieved on June 3, 2009.
49. ^ Ramadge, Andrew; Schneider, Kate (17 November 2008). “Race on to build world’s first space elevator”. http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,24662622-5014239,00.html. Retrieved on June 3, 2009.

[Isaa66] Isaacs, J. D., A. C. Vine, H. Bradner & G. E. Bachus (1966) ‘Satellite Elongation into a True “Sky-Hook”’ Science 151: 682-683.

[edit] General

* Edwards BC, Ragan P. “Leaving The Planet By Space Elevator” Seattle, USA: Lulu; 2006. ISBN 978-1-4303-0006-9 See Leaving The Planet
* Edwards BC, Westling EA. The Space Elevator: A Revolutionary Earth-to-Space Transportation System. San Francisco, USA: Spageo Inc.; 2002. ISBN 0-9726045-0-2.
* Space Elevators – An Advanced Earth-Space Infrastructure for the New Millennium [PDF]. A conference publication based on findings from the Advanced Space Infrastructure Workshop on Geostationary Orbiting Tether “Space Elevator” Concepts, held in 1999 at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama. Compiled by D.V. Smitherman, Jr., published August 2000.
* “The Political Economy of Very Large Space Projects” HTML PDF, John Hickman, Ph.D. Journal of Evolution and Technology Vol. 4 – November 1999.
* The Space Elevator NIAC report by Dr. Bradley C. Edwards
* A Hoist to the Heavens By Bradley Carl Edwards
* Ziemelis K. “Going up”. In New Scientist 2001-05-05, no.2289, p. 24–27. Republished in SpaceRef. Title page: “The great space elevator: the dream machine that will turn us all into astronauts.”
* The Space Elevator Comes Closer to Reality. An overview by Leonard David of space.com, published 27 March 2002.
* Krishnaswamy, Sridhar. Stress Analysis — The Orbital Tower (PDF)
* LiftPort’s Roadmap for Elevator To Space SE Roadmap (PDF)
* Space Elevators Face Wobble Problem: New Scientist

* Peter Swan & Cathy Swan, “Space Elevator Systems Architecture.” Lulu.com 2007. isbn 978-1-4303-1405-9 See ref. 555344 at www.lulu.com

[edit] External links
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* Elevator:2010 Space elevator prize competitions
* The Space Elevator Reference
* Space Elevator Engineering-Development wiki
* Audacious & Outrageous: Space Elevators
* Ing-Math.Net (Germany) – Ing-Math.Net (German Max-Born Space Elevator Team 2006) (German)
* Project of the Scientific Workgroup for Rocketry and Spaceflight(WARR) (German)
* The Economist: Waiting For The Space Elevator (June 8, 2006 – subscription required)
* CBC Radio Quirks and Quarks November 3, 2001 Riding the Space Elevator
* Times of London Online: Going up … and the next floor is outer space
* The Space Elevator: ‘Thought Experiment’, or Key to the Universe?. By Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Address to the XXXth International Astronautical Congress, Munich, 20 September 1979.

Conferences:

* 2008 [1]
* 2002 [2] Description of the 2002 conference

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator”
Categories: Exploratory engineering | Megastructures | Space colonization | Spacecraft propulsion | Space technology | Vertical transportation devices | Space access

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

***

Elevator:2010 – The Space Elevator Challenge

Follow the games on the Space Elevator Games Offical Web Site

* We are practically there! This week marked the beginning of the home stretch – just a few more weeks till the games.
* The teams are ready, Dryden is ready, the helicopter operator is ready – we’re sure you are ready too.
* (TBA), NASA Dryden Research Center.
* Follow us there!

www.SpaceElevatorGames.org

Climbing The Sky

The dream of a Space Elevator is a monumental one. A vision that will not only further space exploration and knowledge, but has the potential to shape the existential future of the human race for centuries to come.

For the first time since it was initially conceived, this dream is now within our reach.

With the Elevator:2010 challenge, the Spaceward Foundation has joined the on-going construction effort, adding energy, resources and new initiatives to the ever-growing number of organizations, companies, websites and enthusiasts focused on the technical, political and economic development of the Space Elevator.

Our goal is to generate enough interest in the project, so that within five years the Space Elevator basic building blocks can be demonstrated as feasible, and full-scale design and construction can begin.

And hence our name. Elevator:2010. we promise to get an answer for you by then.

Competition

Elevator:2010 is designed to address the “social engineering” of the Space Elevator. Taking our cue from the X-prize, solar car races, and various other competitive ventures, we use engineering competitions as a tool to capture mindshare in academia, space enthusiast community, and the general public. If we can have even 10 universities and 100 engineering students involved with the Space Elevator project each year, we’d have left our mark on the aerospace community.

In the days of airships, the advocates of planes devised a new way to promote their (obviously impractical…) inventions. It was called an “air show”, and it had a dual purpose: First, these pioneers knew that they could explain airplanes all they wanted using equations and diagrams – it was not until they showed them flying that they really got their message across. Second, they recognized the power of competition – by bringing together airplane enthusiasts in a competitive environment, they were able to accelerate the rate of development beyond what was likely in the isolated confines of their shops.

Our goal is to infect the engineering and science community with our passion for building the Space Elevator, thus making them ambassadors to our cause. As the fruits of their efforts take to the sky every year, we will have demonstrated the feasibility and sheer simplicity of the Space Elevator concept, and will have brought it closer to reality.

Our prize money is provided by NASA’s Centennial Challenges program – a total of $4,000,000 over the next 5 years! To maximize our return and reduce our risk, we distribute the money in slowly increasing increments, as we ratchet up the difficulty level of the challenges.

Power Beaming (Climber) Competition

Our most visible competition event, the power beaming / climber competition challenges universities, enthusiasts and private industry teams to design and build the best possible Space Elevator climber prototype.

We provide the race track, in the form of a vertically-suspended ribbon (and other support hardware), and the teams provide the climbers that carry payload up that ribbon, along with the power beaming systems that power them.

The climbers are rated on the basis of speed and amount of payload.
• Read all about it…

http://www.spaceward.org/elevator2010-pb

Tether Strength Competition

The Space Elevator design will live or die on our ability to produce a material that is sufficiently light and strong enough to bear its own weight against the force of Earth’s gravity.

The tether competition is a perpetual dare for any group to present a tether that is at least 50% better than last year’s best offering.

Tethers are ranked according to strength and weight.
• Read all about it…

http://www.spaceward.org/elevator2010-ts

http://www.spaceward.org/elevator2010

[From - ]

The Spaceward Foundation 2008 – www.spaceward.org – Mountain View, CA

***

SBIR – STTR
NASA

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)
+ SBIR/STTR 2009 Phase 1 Solicitation
July 7, 2009 to September 3, 2009

+ SBIR/STTR 2009-1 Proposal Submission EHB now online
Proposals due no later than 5:00 pm EDT on September 3, 2009

<!–+ SBIR 2008-2 Proposal Submission EHB now online
Proposals due no later than 5:00 pm EDT on the last day of the Phase 1 contract
–>+ The Concept SBIR/STTR Quarterly Newsletter

<!– Proposals due on the last day of the Phase 1 contract (no later than 5:00 pm EST on August , 2008)

+ SBIR 2005-2 Proposal Submission EHB
Submission Closed–>
+ TechSource – An easy way to search recently funded SBIR/STTR Phase 2 technologies

[From - ]

http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/SBIR.html

(And – definitely check out this – )

SBIR/STTR Program Information

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs provide an opportunity for small, high technology companies and research institutions (RI) to participate in Government sponsored research and development (R&D) efforts in key technology areas.

If you are a small business concern with 500 or fewer employees, or a non-profit RI, such as a university or a research laboratory with ties to an SBC, then NASA encourages you to learn more about these programs and significant sources of seed funding for the development of your innovations. The SBIR Phase 1 contracts last for 6 months with a maximum funding of $100,000, and Phase 2 contracts last for 24 months with a maximum funding of $600,000. The STTR Phase 1 contracts last for 12 months with a maximum funding of $100,000, and Phase 2 contracts last for 24 months with the maximum contract value of $600,000.

Historically, the ratio of the number of Phase 1 proposals to awards for SBIR is 7:1 and for STTR is 5:1. About 40 percent of the completed Phase 1 projects receive funding for Phase 2 development.

http://sbir.gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/pgminfo.htm

***

National Inventors Month Poster

***

[My Note - now this is an invention . . . ] , cricketdiane wowsa note -
Bugatti Boosted by NASA for 253 mph at $2.1 Million (Update1)

Review by Jason H. Harper

Aug. 6 (Bloomberg) — It’s the ultimate test in self- confidence. You’re refueling Bugatti’s new convertible at a gas station in the Hamptons and the normally gawk-proof locals have gathered around, gawking. One man finally asks The Question.

“How much IS this car, anyway?”

Sliding back into the fine-leather cocoon of your open-top roadster, you fire up the 16-cylinder, 1,001-horsepower engine positioned behind your head.

“Two million, give or take.”
Then, you whisk away in a roar of turbo power that drowns out the sound of dropping jaws. You may want to practice the answer first in front of a mirror.

With a base price of 1.4 million euros ($2 million), the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport is the world’s most expensive car in production. My test car is $2.1 million. Exchange rate fluctuations could swing the U.S. sticker by as much as the price of a new Porsche.

(Aston Martin’s coming One-77, at least 1 million pounds ($1.7 million) excluding tax, will also land in the top-dollar class.)

While the Grand Sport claims many superlatives, including the title of world’s fastest convertible, I doubt you’ll escape that question, even at a top speed of 253 miles per hour. Some bystander would cry out at the blur, “How much?”

For readers who do not sacrifice Toyota hybrids at the altar of exotic-car geekdom, allow me to catch you up.

Resurrected Marque

The Grand Sport is the convertible version of the Veyron 16.4, the 1.2-million euro coupe first released in 2006 after the storied Bugatti marque was resurrected by Volkswagen Group. With a top speed also of 253 miles per hour, it captured the title of the world’s fastest production car at the time.

The Grand Sport is the ultimate one-upper. With 150 slated for production, it’s rarer than the coupe, will go just as fast when the clear targa-style roof is attached, and you can smell your greenbacks burning as you tool around.

Roughly the size of a Honda Civic, the mid-engine, all- wheel-drive roadster is powered by a W-16 engine with four turbochargers that’ll fire you forward with 922 pound-feet of face-deforming torque. It has an automated seven-speed dual- clutch transmission, and a suspension that automatically adjusts according to your speed.

Utterly distinctive if not drop-dead sexy, it features two jet-like airtakes over the exposed mid-engine and a rounded, low silhouette. The interior is gorgeous but simple, with no screens and no storage. The roof is removed manually and must be stored elsewhere. While there’s an umbrella contraption that can be used in a pinch (really), best have Jeeves check the weather.

Maddening Hamptons

I get a day with it in the Hamptons, both ideal and maddening. Showing off your latest acquisition here is practically a religion, yet you’ll rarely exceed 35 mph.

It’s difficult to review the Grand Sport in a regular way. You could buy 10 Ferrari F430s for this price, and it’s clearly not 10 times as good. It’s a mega-luxury item, akin to a $9,000 Birkin bag which holds a wallet just like a regular bag.
What ostensibly makes the Veyron worth the $2 million? Could it be a Swarovski crystal-encrusted engine, those supple unicorn-leather seats or the tears of virgins in the window- washing fluid. Well, no. Mostly it’s the cost of engineering and the NASA-grade materials that keep the weight down.

To sustain sonic speeds, it needs special components, from a windshield that can sustain a bird strike to tires that won’t turn into sludge with extreme heat. VW probably spent the equivalent of a Wall Street bailout to engineer, build and test crash the two models.

How often will owners actually drive 253 mph? Never. But how often will they talk about it at parties?

Polo Practice

To answer that question, I pull into the grass parking lot of the Mercedes-Benz Polo Challenge in Bridgehampton. My wife and I are instant, mysterious VIPs. Russian oligarchs perhaps, or Pablo Escobar’s former accountant, finally out of hiding.

We make new friends fast.

None of which has anything to do with the actual driving capabilities. In traffic, the Veyron is compliant and puppy-dog sweet, sans exotic-car antics. But drop your foot onto the gas and it becomes an earth-bound jet.
I have never experienced acceleration like this. Never.

Sixty flashes by in 2.5 seconds; 125 mph in just over 7. Basically, it’s twice as fast as fast cars. There is no lag; it just goes faster and faster and faster until you run out of courage and road.

You’re in a convertible, remember, and the engine sounds like an F-16 is behind your shoulder, about to drop its full payload. Absolutely delightful.

Spray the Hose

I do open the car up, but more in a dribble-the-spigot way than a spray-the-hose fashion, not wanting to spend the night in jail.

The carbon-ceramic brakes will give you whiplash and, on twisty roads, the Bugatti will do a fair imitation of a Ferrari 430 Scuderia. It’s amazing to scream around a corner in a car that costs the same as your dream two-bedroom home in the West Village.

At the end of the day, I step out exhilarated, yet also a bit relieved. Answering The Question (and its inherent need to justify that sum) is just a bit too stressful for my own particular man in the mirror.

The 2010 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport at a Glance

Engine: 8.0-liter, quad-turbo, W-16 with 1,001 hp and 922 lb-ft of torque.

Transmission: 7-speed dual clutch.

Speed: 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds.

Gas mileage per gallon: 8 city; 14 highway.

Price as tested: $2.1 million.

Best feature: The mind-bending speed.

Worst feature: Trying to justify the equally mind-bending price.

Target buyer: A Master of the Universe.

(Jason H. Harper writes about autos for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Jason H. Harper at Jason@JasonHharper.com.
Last Updated: August 6, 2009 09:00 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601093&sid=aMiNfzF_r5Fs

***

National Inventors Month
August is National Inventors Month

By Mary Bellis, About.com
See More About:

* national inventors month
* august

National Inventors Month
Inventors Convention Funding for Inventions Inventors Inventions American Inventors Inventors Patents
August is National Inventors Month. A month long event celebrating invention and creativity. National Inventors Month began was started in 1998 by the United Inventors Association of the USA (UIA-USA), the Academy of Applied Science, and Inventors’ Digest magazine.

Why have National Inventors Month as a month dedicated to inventors? The answer is to help promote the positive image of inventors and the real contributions they give to this world.

“We want to recognize those talented, brave individuals who dare to be blatantly creative, and therefore different, and whose accomplishments affect every facet of our lives,” says Joanne Hayes-Rines, editor of Inventors’ Digest and a sponsor of National Inventors Month.

National Inventors Month – Poster
You can print this official poster and hang it up.
National Inventors Month – Sponsors

* Inventors’ Digest – Sponsor of National Inventors’ Month
* United Inventors Association of the USA Sponsor of National Inventors’ Month
* Academy of Applied Science A sponsor of National Inventors Month, the Academy of Applied Science is a private, nonprofit organization, incorporated in 1963, with educational and scientific purposes and a major commitment to innovation.

http://inventors.about.com/od/eventsconventions/a/inventors_month.htm

***
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***

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National Inventors’ Month Poster

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blposter.htm

***

News

DOE Awards $377 Million in Funding for 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers

Washington, DC – In a major effort to accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to build a new 21st-century energy economy, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the delivery of $377 million in funding for 46 new multi-million-dollar Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) located at universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations, and private firms across the nation. more>

Batteries Announcement – North Carolina

Remarks as Delivered: Secretary Chu announces $49 Million for the production of Lithium Ion Batteries. more>

http://www.energy.gov/

***

Basics – How to Become a Successful Inventor

By Mary Bellis, About.com Guide to Inventors

Learn the relationship between patents and the market value of inventions, the need for counsel, the need for prior art searches and about being skeptical of invention promoters. Learn the many different aspects of invention step by step.

http://inventors.about.com/od/firststeps/u/inventor_nasics.htm

Turning an Invention Idea into Money
Lesson Nine: How Do I License an Invention?

By Mary Bellis, About.com
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Introduction – About These Lessons

If you have a patent or have applied for a patent (patent pending) you can attempt to license your patent rights. Non patented inventions can be licensed as well and the research/marketing methods would be the same, however, extra/different steps would be taken that are not covered here.

Use This Resource – List of Manufacturers
Create a list of potential manufacturers who may be interested in your product. In our lesson on searching for prior art it was suggested that you write down any patent assignees – now you can understand a use for them. Aim for a list of at least 50 or more.

Find manufacturers by looking in stores and magazines for similar products. Visit product related tradeshows. Your local library should have great reference material on manufacturers. Use online manufacturer databases such as the Thomas Register to search for companies that make a product like yours. You can do an Internet search for manufacturers by using the keywords of your product.

Send a Marketing Letter
Send a brief individually tailored and professional looking marketing letter to each company on your list. The letter will state that, you are willing to consider selling or licensing the patent rights to your invention. With your marketing letter, it is superior to include a professional looking brochure and a website address connected to your product. A short one-page color brochure with photos, that describes your invention and its benefits, should also be included with the marketing letter. A second choice would be to send a copy of your patent drawings. Wait one month, if a company has not replied you can then telephone them to see if they are interested in your product.

Treat Your Licensing Agreement Seriously
If you have the opportunity to negotiate for a licensing agreement, you may want to use an experienced lawyer. It is not advisable for you to negotiate the contract on your own. The license agreement will include provisions for upfront payments, royalty percentages and infringement issues. You can give an exclusive license to one party, or a non-exclusive license to more than one party. You can set a time or territory limit on the license or not.

The USPTO will publish in its official gazette a notice that your patent is available for licensing or sale for a fee.

Continue > Lesson 10: Business Plans
License an Invention

Rules for Patent Licensing & Patent AssignmentLicense an InventionDirectory: Patent License
Table of Contents

IntroductionNext Lesson: Business PlansLast Lesson: Making Money
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http://inventors.about.com/od/licensingmarketing/a/license.htm

***

National Inventors Month – Great Everyday Inventions

InventHelp’s Tribute to the Inventors of Kleenex®, the Zipper
and Disposable Razors

For those of us involved in the world of inventing, August is a special month – it’s National Inventor’s Month! We at InventHelp® are excited that this time is set aside to celebrate the achievements of the innovative and entrepreneurial, although we feel that 31 days is not nearly long enough to get the job done right!
Read more articles from the August 2006 issue of InventHelp’s free newsletter for inventors
2006 ERA Invention Showcase Preview

Invention Trivia: Who received the first U.S. patent?

Thousands of inventors have helped to shape the world into what it is today, and choosing the best ones is no easy task. Computers, microwaves and antibiotics are routinely listed among the best inventions of all time. While their importance is indisputable, the everyday inventions that make our lives easier often get overlooked. As proof that great inventions do not always have to be complicated, InventHelp® honors a few of our favorite simple pleasures.

AH-CHOO! The Invention of the Kleenex®

Before the invention of disposable tissues, whenever you had a cold, you would simply blow your nose into your handkerchief, place it back into your pocket, and repeat as necessary – not exactly the best way to get rid of a bug. In the 1920s, Kleenex® Brand invented the facial tissue category, which was touted by screen legends Helen Hayes and Jean Harlow.

In 1926, Kleenex® Facial Tissue 200s were introduced in Canada to serve as a handkerchief replacement, much to the relief of the flu-afflicted. Ads that featured film superstars helped the brand continue to grow and expand its line. By 1928, Kleenex® offered cartons with perforated tops for easy access to tissues. Over the next several decades, more varieties, colors and decorative boxes found their way into the Kleenex® line. In 2004, Kleenex® introduced an anti-viral tissue that is designed to keep germs trapped inside the tissue.

Undoubtedly, the invention of the Kleenex® has shorted the length of a cold for many of us. Although, if you visit Grandpa, he may still be using his handkerchief.

Keeping It “Together” – The Invention of the Zipper

The interesting story of the zipper is the perfect example of how a great idea can take a long time to take off. In the zipper’s case, it took about 80 years.

National Inventors MonthElias Howe, who also invented the sewing machine, received a patent in 1851 for an “automatic, continuous clothing closure,” but the runaway success of the sewing machine left him with little time to develop this invention.

It wasn’t until 44 years later that Whitcomb Judson developed a “clasp locker” that was similar in design to Howe’s closing device. Judson and business partner Colonel Lewis Walker founded the Universal Fastener Company to manufacture the device. Even after its debut appearance at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, the invention of the zipper had yet to find commercial success.

The modern design of the zipper evolved when Swedish-born Gideon Sunback joined the Universal Fastener Company. He also created the manufacturing machine for the new zipper, which could produce several hundred feet of fastener per day.

The name “zipper” was invented by the B.F. Goodrich Company, who used the fastening device on a new type of boot. Aside from boots, it took another 20 years for the zipper to catch on in the fashion world. But, over the years, zippers have made their way onto clothing, luggage and countless other objects.

As you can see, it was a long way up for the zipper invention.

A “Sharp” Idea – The Inventor of Disposable Razors

It’s estimated that men will spend an average of five months of their lives shaving, so it’s no surprise that one man, King Camp Gillette, took it upon himself to make the job easier!

When Gillette’s home burned to the ground during the Chicago Fire of 1871, he became a traveling salesman. His work led him to William Painter, inventor of the Crown Cap, who told Gillette that a successful invention was one that was purchased again and again.

One morning, Gillette dreamed up an entirely new razor that could be used several times and discarded (see how clever that Kleenex® was?). In 1901, he enlisted the help of MIT grad William Nickerson to create a metal blade that was sturdy yet inexpensive. The disposable razor enjoyed a great boost when the U.S. government issued “safety razors” to the entire armed forces. In later years, razors with two, three, four and yes, five blades were introduced to the public.

While Gillette pioneered the invention of disposable razors, his competitor, Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Schick, beat him by a “hair” when Schick patented the first electric razor in 1925.

During National Inventor’s Month, InventHelp® is proud to celebrate the inventors who have enriched our world with their discoveries. From everyday conveniences to modern miracles, inventions change the way people live. By the time we celebrate National Inventor’s Month next year, who knows how many more amazing inventions will make life better for all of us?

Back to Articles for Inventors | Back to August 2006 Newsletter

http://www.inventhelp.com/National_Inventors_Month.asp

***

Sunday, August 09, 2009
U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for August 9

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WASHINGTON, Aug 09, 2009 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ —-Following is the daily “Profile America” feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090226/CENSUSLOGO)

SUNDAY, AUGUST 9: INVENTORS MONTH

Profile America — Sunday, August 9th. Inventions make our lives easier, more enjoyable and, in some cases, save our lives. They range from the astonishing to the ridiculous — from lasers to hula hoops, and from disposable diapers to iPods. The most common image of an inventor is that of a quirky, if not downright eccentric, genius. Doing away with that stereotype is one of the goals of National Inventors Month, held each year in August, as well as getting young people interested in science and technology. Each year, nearly 160,000 patents are granted for inventions, with about one-in-10 going to individuals. The remainder are awarded to corporations, about half of them in foreign countries. You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources: Chase’s Calendar of Events 2009, p.387

Statistical Abstract of the United States 2009, t. 748

Profile America is produced by the Public Information Office of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on a monthly CD or on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look under the “Newsroom” button).

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

http://www.census.gov

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/census-bureau-daily-feature-august-1740876840/

***

Upcoming Events

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Inventors Assistance Program and the National Inventors Hall of Fame® Foundation are proud to announce the 14th Annual Independent Inventors Conference being held at the USPTO Campus in Alexandria, VA on November 5 and 6, 2009. The conference includes breakout sessions for novice and seasoned inventors along with practical advice from USPTO experts, successful inventors and patent practitioners. Future updates will be posted to the USPTO home page.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/iiconf/upcomingevents.htm

***

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/index.htm

US Patent and Trademark Office – Inventors’ Resources Portal

***

My Note -

There is a non-disclosure form on the WIPO site to use as a model for interested manufacturers, investors, venture capitalists to sign before seeing what you’ve created, invented, dreamed up or otherwise originated.

WIPO is the World Intellectual Property something or other . . .

- cricketdiane, 08-09-09

**

Energy Efficiency

The Department of Energy is committed to reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil and developing energy efficient technologies for buildings, homes, transportation, power systems and industry. The mission of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) is to strengthen America’s energy security, environmental quality, and economic vitality in public-private partnerships that: enhance energy efficiency and productivity; bring clean, reliable and affordable energy technologies to the marketplace; and make a difference in the everyday lives of Americans by enhancing their energy choices and their quality of life.

EERE leads the Federal government’s research, development, and deployment efforts in energy efficiency. EERE’s role is to invest in high-risk, high-value research and development that is critical to the Nation’s energy future and would not be sufficiently conducted by the private sector acting on its own.

Program activities are conducted in partnership with the private sector, state and local government, DOE national laboratories, and universities. EERE also works with stakeholders to develop programs and policies to facilitate the deployment of advanced clean energy technologies and practices.

	Energy for America’s future The National Energy Policy promotes the development and deployment of energy systems and practices that will provide current and future generations with clean, efficient, affordable, and reliable energy.
	Protecting the environment through energy efficiency By working closely with private industry, governments and consumers the ENERGY STAR® program was established in 1992 to identify energy efficient products and reduce carbon emissions.
	Making homes more energy efficient The Weatherization Assistance Program works to reduce the burden of energy prices on the disadvantaged by making low income homes more energy efficient.
	Maintaining energy for the future Department initiatives help industry maintain the infrastructure to deliver energy to the consumer now, and for the future.
	Learn How You Can Make Every Day Earth Day Explore ways to save energy and improve the environment by taking simple steps around your home.

http://www.energy.gov/energyefficiency/index.htm

***

My Note – you know somebody needs to look into what kind of foolishness will happen on 09-09-09 (simply because of the number combination.) With any luck and foresight, it will be something useful instead of some stupidifying terror act or obscene computer thing.

It would be good to see what the folks over there at Mensa, MIT and Stanford to celebrate the National Inventors Month – they are always coming out with really nifty stuff . . .

- cricketdiane

***

http://www.census.gov/

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***

My Note -

There are obviously a lot of problems to be solved including this one which needs a fairly quick solution -

What can be done with two-thirds of a million camels?

- cricketdiane

**

Australia considers mass killings of camels
Posted 3h 17m ago | Comments 15
Ranchers in central Australia use a truck to chase and catch a camel roaming wild on the property.
Central Australian Camel Industry Association via AP

SYDNEY (AP) — Thousands of camels in Australia’s remote Outback could be killed by marksmen in helicopters under a government proposal aimed at cutting down the population of the havoc-wreaking creatures.

First introduced into Australia in the 1840s to help explorers travel through the Australian desert, there are now about 1 million camels roaming the country, with the population doubling every nine years.

They compete with sheep and cattle for food, trample vegetation and invade remote settlements in search of water, scaring residents as they tear apart bathrooms and rip up water pipes.

Last month, the federal government set aside 19 million Australian dollars ($16 million) for a program to help slash the population. Besides sending in sharpshooters in helicopters and on foot, officials are considering proposals to turn some of the creatures into tasty treats such as camel burgers.

Hunters in the United States have shot wolves from helicopters in Alaska in an aerial predator control program there. More than 800 wolves have been killed as part of the program, which has been a point of national controversy since it was initiated five years ago.

Glenn Edwards, who is working on drafting the Australian government’s camel reduction program, said the population needs to be slashed by two-thirds to reduce catastrophic damage.

But some remain opposed to a mass slaughter. Camel exporter Paddy McHugh, who runs camel catching operations throughout Australia, said a cull would be ineffective.

What happens in 15 years when the numbers come back again? Do we waste another $20 million? McHugh said.

The camels McHugh’s associates capture are sold overseas, used in tourism and processed for their meat. In recent years, McHugh said he has seen an explosion in international demand for the animals.

The main problem with trying to capture and export the animals is that they can grow up to 7 feet (2.1 meters) tall and weigh 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms), said Patrick Medway, president of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia.

You imagine trying to catch a lion or a tiger or an elephant in its native habitat and then bring it back and sell it to another country, Medway said. It’s not an easy thing to do.
Tony Peacock, CEO of the University of Canberra’s Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Center, said a cull was the most effective method.

To be shot from a helicopter is actually quite humane, even though that sounds brutal, he said. If I was a camel, I’d prefer to just get it in the head.

Mark Pearson, executive director of the animal welfare group Animal Liberation New South Wales, offered another solution: birth control. Giving the animals a drug to render them infertile is far kinder than pumping them full of bullets, he said.

But Edwards said even if you could get close enough to administer birth control, camels still live up to 30 years — meaning decades more damage to the environment.

Edwards favors an integrated approach that would include shooting some of the animals for their meat, with others left behind to decompose. No matter what solution is accepted, Edwards said, waiting much longer to act would be disastrous.

We need to get moving as soon as we can because we are facing a crisis, he said.

AP

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-08-08-australia_N.htm?csp=34

***

Nagasaki mayor calls for nuclear-free world on 64th anniversary of A-bombing

Sunday 09th August, 10:03 AM JST

NAGASAKI —

Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue on Sunday called on people around the globe to choose the path toward a world free of nuclear weapons, echoing a call made earlier by U.S. President Barack Obama, as the southwestern Japanese city commemorated the 64th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing.

‘‘We, as human beings, now have two paths before us,’’ Taue said in his Peace Declaration read out at a memorial ceremony at Nagasaki Peace Park. ‘‘While one can lead us to ‘a world without nuclear weapons,’ the other will carry us toward annihilation.’’

In April, Obama said in Prague that the United States will seek a world without nuclear weapons, creating a wave of optimism among those who are petitioning for the abolishment of nuclear arms across the world.

‘‘President Obama’s speech was a watershed event, in that the United States, a superpower possessing nuclear weapons, finally took a step towards the elimination of nuclear armaments,’’ Taue said, adding that people in Nagasaki are circulating petitions urging the U.S. leader to visit the city, which was devastated by the 1945 bombing.

As for Japan’s role, Taue said the country must take a leading role in disseminating around the world the ‘‘ideals of peace and renunciation of war’’ as stipulated in its Constitution, as the only nation to have suffered nuclear bombings.

The mayor also urged the Japanese government to legislate its three non-nuclear principles of not producing, possessing or allowing nuclear weapons on Japanese territory, and work on creating a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Northeast Asian region including North Korea.

A moment of silence was observed at 11:02 a.m., the time when a U.S. bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the city on Aug 9, 1945, killing an estimated 74,000 people by the end of that year. The bombing occurred three days after the first one was dropped on Hiroshima.

A total of 3,304 people were additionally recognized in the past year as fatal victims of the bombing of Nagasaki, bringing the total number of those who have died as a result of it to 149,266, according to city government officials.

This year’s anniversary comes on the heels of North Korea’s conducting a second nuclear test in May, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Taue touched on Pyongyang’s conduct, saying, ‘‘As long as the world continues to rely on nuclear deterrence and nuclear weapons continue to exist, the possibility always exists that dangerous nations like North Korea and terrorists will emerge.’’

He urged the international community to make North Korea destroy its nuclear arsenal and said the five major nuclear powers—Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States—must ‘‘fulfill their responsibility to reduce nuclear arms.’’
In support of Taue, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, president of the U.N. General Assembly and a Roman Catholic priest, spoke at the ceremony, saying, ‘‘The only certain way to assure that nuclear weapons will never be used again is to eliminate them outright.’’

Also attending the ceremony, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso pledged to stick to Japan’s three non-nuclear principles as he gave a speech similar to the one he delivered in Hiroshima three days earlier.

Aso mentioned an agreement reached Thursday between the government and people suffering from atomic bombing-related illnesses under which the state will provide a blanket resolution to all 306 plaintiffs who have sought recognition as suffering from illnesses caused by the bombings.

The move came after the state lost 19 straight lawsuits filed across the country over the certification issue, putting an end to their six-year-long legal battle.

Japan surrendered Aug 15, 1945, six days after the second atomic bomb turned Nagasaki into a silent ruin, bringing an end to World War II.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/nagasaki-mayor-calls-for-nuclear-free-world-on-64th-anniversary-of-a-bombing

***

(And here is a new kind of brick for building homes that is air-tight building materials because of the ways these bricks are made by compression rather than in a traditional manner – however, the website where I found it had an online survey from Nielson that popped up and froze my browser, then locked up my computer and crashed everything I was doing – so, -)

**

Aeonian brick – ‘Legos’ for people who want greener, hurricane-safe homes
August 4th, 2009

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

While people scurry to devise new green components for homes, Don Blalock is in the enviable position of launching one that he’s been nursing along for the last six years.

His Aeonian brick will build houses that are significantly more energy efficient than conventional homes; help them qualify for LEED platinum certification and withstand hurricane force winds up to 240 mph. They’ll also resist heat, mold, mildew and termites, says Blalock, whose goal is to build “the most structurally sound house that’s livable (and) that will last for a very long time.”

Blalock, a onetime music teacher and 35-year veteran of the construction business, knows he sounds like someone peddling a secret sauce on an infomerical – “But wait There’s more We’ll throw in termite and fire protection with your durable new home ”

But he explains that he simply set out to build a better brick, one that would repel the water damage he repeatedly saw while overseeing reconstruction of houses for State Farm Insurance. Seven out of 10 homeowner claims involved water damage, from an array of sources including leaky pipes. Water damage led to mold “explosions” inside walls on receptive drywall and wood supports, compounding the damage and the indoor air quality.

Experimenting with brick, he says he developed a chemical process that tinkered with the molecular properties of clay to make it intrinsically more water resistant — creating a product able to leap over concrete block as a useful building base (and compete with sealed brick as a viable exterior).

The idea attracted enough private investment that the company broke ground on its first model home outside Charleston, S.C., on Monday. It’s expected to be done by November and will serve as a demonstration building and offices for Aeonian Brick Homes, which will sell whole-house plans that can be built with the brick.

A Charleston builder, Jessco Homes, also plans to build a house from Aeonian brick as a prototype of a net zero energy home.

“We ran across the technology a couple months back and decided we’ll build a home out of this material and couple it with some other features to try to build a zero energy home,” said Jessco CEO Jeff Stahl. The Jessco model, a one-story, will use high-efficiency heating and cooling systems and new lighting installations to cut energy use. The Aeonian brick will play a major role in reducing energy needs, acting as a heat barrier.

“In a normal stick home, you don’t get the thermal energy mass you do with this,” said Stahl, whose company is launching a green building incubator program called Eco Sustainable Systems.com. Aeonian Brick, he says, has “huge potential” to protect homeowners from escalating electrical bills — as well as hurricanes and termites.
Can Brick Be Green?

Brick has been known to last for the ages. In desert climates, ancient ruins made of bricks have largely survived. But in wet areas, fired clay bricks erode and can absorb water that can nurture mold and mildew issues in a home.

Aeonian brick homes will keep mold out, Blalock says, and be revolutionary in other ways, too, starting with how they’re built. The smooth, 8H8×4-inch bricks are made from compressed clay that’s been precision-molded and fit seamlessly together, like Legos. The bricks form the house’s exterior surface and serve as frame, insulation and drywall. Electrical wiring and plumbing are embedded during construction. The result is a nearly airtight, water-resistant structure that Blalock hopes to see embraced by builders in hot, humid and hurricane-prone areas.

The key is the material and their tight fit. “This material is so precise I can make a brick today and I can make a brick next year, both will be within 1/100 of an inch,” Blalock says.

Even though the bricks use regular clay, which takes resources from the earth, the process is greener than traditional brick production. Regular bricks must be fired at high temperatures over an extended period of time (many days) whereas Aeonian brick is molded and steam cured, replicating ancient processes and using far less electricity.

It also claims green points for removing the need for stick framing, saving trees. More green savings accrue by subtracting the drywall. The price for all this? About the same as for conventional building, Blalock estimates, because the savings in multiple materials make up for the costs of the unique new brick.

The bricks are formed like compressed earth products, but perform better because the clay is altered with a chemical that makes the clay water resistant. The catalyst is derived from oil slag, but Blalock swears it’s non-toxic (and claims competitive privilege in concealing the formula). The petroleum byproduct involved has been tested in other uses and proven to be safe, he says, noting that the Aeonian process makes use of waste material.

“This is the essence of recycling. This is recycling something you want to get rid of that the companies
are having a hard time getting rid of.”

The houses can be scored, molded and painted to blend in completely with an existing neighborhood. The paint bonds to the material, inside and out, and will not require repainting, he promises. These houses won’t look weird, Blalock says, and can be made to look “exactly” like other homes in the area. (Which may or may not be a good thing.)

From 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

http://www.greenrightnow.com/kabc/2009/08/04/aeonian-brick-legos-for-big-people-who-want-greener-homes/

***

Aeonian Brick Homes

Our brick is a clay-based, interlocking brick that has been certified in 34 states to be waterproof, fireproof, termite and insect-proof, soundproof, mold and mildew-proof, insulates the home, saves energy and withstands hurricane and tornado force winds up to 240 mph with no structural damage. An Aeonian Brick home will protect you and your family during the worst of weather conditions.

It is also one of the greenest construction materials that exists on the market today. Our interlocking design and shape is what allows us to build a wall that can withstand hurricane force winds up to 240 mph.

Using a special adhesive on the bricks is much like welding metal, the weld becomes stronger than the material it is holding together. This fact along with the interlocking shape is why a home built with our bricks can resist high winds.

If you want to know why no other brick manufacturer in the United States produces a brick that can do what our Aeonian Brick can do, click here.

The finished home has no wood, stucco, drywall or added fiberglass insulation, so toxic and environmentally sensitive building materials are eliminated.

Working Toward LEED Platinum Certification

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is tasked with making green buildings available to everyone within a generation. LEED for Homes is a rating system put in place by the USGBC to promote the design and construction of high-performance green homes.

We are working closely with our LEED Home Provider to ensure that all houses built with Aeonian Bricks are LEED certified. Not only LEED certified, but certified at the Platinum Level.

If you would like to view a video that explains the LEED for Homes Certification Process, click here. This is the process that we go through to have our homes receive the highest LEED certification, Platinum Level.

If you are interested in using our brick for a construction project, click here to find out how to obtain pricing information.

http://aeonianbricks.com/

**

a green building incubator program called Eco Sustainable Systems.com.
http://ecosustainablesystems.com/

***

http://www.ifdp.co.uk/products/temporaryBarriers.html

Aqua Levees and Aqua Dams

{And – along with the tubes which can be filled with water and hold back floods – and were absolutely genius as an invention – }

http://www.hurricaneconstruction.net/?q=node/58

This page features multi-media demonstrations of innovative hurricane resistant construction techniques and products featured at the LaHouse Resource Center on the LSU campus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The expert-hosted, hands-on demonstrations showcase and leverage the educational outreach program of LaHouse and serve as an introduction and “kickoff” to the Hurricane-Resistant Construction Online network.

Visit LaHouse at www.louisianahouse.org

PAPERLESS DRYWALL Steve Easley discusses the benefits of using paperless drywell to help mitigate mold with Georgia Pacific Product Development Manager, Barry Reid . 3.5 minutes.Click for Video ROOF UNDERLAYMENTS Steve Easley talks with Mike Roche of Grace Construction Products about the benefits of synthetic roof underlayments. 6.5 minutes.Click for Video MINIMIZING MOISTURE AND MOLD Certified Industrial Hygienist and Indoor Air Quality Specialist Susan Raterman explains how to mitigate mold and decay fungi, and prevent mold growth in new homes right at the source. 12 minutes. Click for Video CODE CHANGES Jeff Burton of IBHS and Kurt McCarty, executive director of the Louisiana State Unified Construction Council explain the “why” of code changes designed to make structures resistant to hurricanes and other natural disasters. 18 minutes.Click for Video DESIGN DO’S AND DONT’S Building Science Consultant Steve Easley shows you how to avoid the water traps, wind catchers, and missing or incorrect flashing that contribute to unnecessary early failure, and the explosion of construction defect litigation. 9 minutes.Click for Video BASICS OF MOISTURE MOVEMENT Got Mold? Certified Industrial Hygienist and Indoor Air Quality Specialist Susan Raterman teaches basic forensic mold and decay fungi detection and identification techniques, and the many health hazards of toxic mold in buildings. 25 minutes.Click for Video MOLD INVESTIGATION AND REMEDIATION Got Mold? Certified Industrial Hygienist and Indoor Air Quality Specialist Susan Raterman teaches basic forensic mold and decay fungi detection and identification techniques, and the many health hazards of toxic mold in buildings. 25 minutes.Click for Video MOLD AND MATERIALS Steve Easley talks with Certified Industrial Hygienist and Indoor Air Quality Specialist Susan Raterman about the basics of mold and mold prevention. 5 minutes.Click for Video MOLD TREATMENT Steve Easley speaks with Frank Glowacki of Zinsser about the benefits of their Perma-Wash product. 4 minutes.Click for Video

WEATHER RESISTANT WOOD TRIM: Steve Easley talks with Becky Gee of Windsor One about the development process of high quality molding. 5 minutes.Click for Video

INSTALLING DURABLE TRIM PART 1: Master finish carpenter Gary M. Katz and master framing carpenter Mike Sloggatt teach time-tested durable trim techniques, including flashing details to keep porch posts and other exterior millwork dry. 30 minutes.Click for Video

INSTALLING DURABLE TRIM PART 2: Katz and Sloggatt continue time-tested durable trim techniques, including using high-strength pocket screw joints to join exterior millwork, and more. 25 minutes.Click for Video

REGIONAL ARCHITECTURAL TRIM STYLES Master finish carpenter Gary M. Katz and master framing carpenter Mike Sloggatt teach the basics of historical architectural styles, and the right way to construct traditional-looking trim details using today’s durable trim techniques. 18 minutes.Click for Video

BASICS OF THE CONTINUOUS LOAD PATH Katz and Sloggatt instruct how vertical loads are carried from roof to footing, the best materials to use, and how to tie it all together to resist nature’s forces.Click for Video HURRICANE RESISTANT WALL CONSTRUCTION Nailing schedules, careful workmanship, and the right sheathing material are the key to hurricane-resistant wall construction. Master carpenters Katz and Sloggatt continue in the series of hurricane-resistant construction techniques.Click for Video WEATHER RESISTANT ROOFING MEMBRANE SYSTEMS Katz and Sloggatt discuss the advantages of weather-resistant roofing membrane systems, including GRACE Ice and Water Shield, and Tri-Flex 30. 28 minutes.Click for Video

STORM RESISTANT WINDOWS: CODE Learn what the current building code requires, and how PGT Windows meet those demands. Steve Easley talks with PGT’s Product Specialist, Dave Olmstead. 6.5 minutes.Click for Video STORM RESISTANT WINDOWS Steve Easley talks with PGT’s Product Specialist, Dave Olmstead, about the benefits of using laminated glass. 4.5 minutes.Click for Video BENEFITS OF PLYWOOD vs OSB Steve Easley discusses the benefits of using storm resistant plywood vs OSB with Georgia Pacific Product Development Manager, Barry Reid. 3 minutes.Click for Video HOUSEWRAP FLASHING TECHNIQUES Housewrap can cause as much harm as good if improperly applied. Katz and Sloggatt demonstrate the correct installation techniques that aid in water management, including sill padding of windows, self-adhesive flashing tape, and more. 22 minutes.Click for Video INSTALLING IMPACT-RESISTANT WINDOWS Master carpenters Gary Katz and Mike Sloggatt demonstrate the correct way to install storm-resistant windows for high-wind and hurricane areas, as well as the best product choices to avoid storm damage. 16 minutes.Click for Video MOISTURE-RESISTANT DRYWALL SYSTEMS Moisture-resistant means mold resistant! Katz and Sloggatt demonstrate moisture-resistant wallboard systems that eliminate the food source for mold and mildew by eliminating the paper covering. 6 minutes.Click for Video RADIANT ROOF SHEATHING SYSTEMS Radiant roof sheathing has a reflective barrier that blocks 97% of radiant gain in the attic reducing the cooling requirements of the house by 17%. Katz and Sloggatt demonstrate the system. 7 minutes.Click for Video MODULAR STORM SHELTERS Steve Easley demonstrates an innovative SIPS and Kevlar pre-fab StormRoom™ kit that can protect occupants during natural disasters, meets FEMA requirements for storm rooms, and can be conventionally finished. 6 minutes.Click for Video

SmartVENT FOUNDATION FLOOD VENTS After Hurricane Katrina, Lousianna resident Bruce Colby witnessed the effectiveness of SMART VENT Foundation Flood Vents first hand. 2.5 minutes.Click for Video

1. Read the papers before signing them.

2. Ask the dumb questions that make it obvious you don’t know.

3. Ask the same dumb questions of everybody, especially specialists and attorneys who would know what it actually means, until you understand it.

4. Look it up, but don’t expect that to make any sense of it until you can form the right questions to ask using the right words to convey what you are asking.

5. Expect to communicate poorly until the basic principles start to gel in your mind – but keep trying until you get the communication right.

6. Don’t expect anybody to believe you know anything about anything – it won’t be about that anyway. It will be about someone else proving they know more than you do – so let them.

7. Learning is the one thing that can’t be fudged, it can’t be cooked to appear to be what it isn’t. The skills of learning are yours simply by applying them.

8. If you know a lot about something – remember this: you can’t now, nor ever know everything about it. There will always be more to remember than you have ever thought to ask about it and there will always be more to learn about any one thing than what you’ve ever considered about it.

9. There will always, always, always be times that appear to be complicated which are indeed complicated. It is the magic of being alive as a human being that the capacity exists within each of us to challenge the reality before us and apply ourselves to it despite its complexity and difficulty.

10. Whatever can be learned, can be mastered and there will still be more to know and to learn about it. There will always be ways to apply new ideas and new information and new processes and new paradigms to that mastery.

11. If you ask, the only fool is the one who pretended to know and didn’t – not you or me for accepting the limitations of knowledge and sought to know more.

12. Living is not a game, not a premise easily dismissed and not a practice session for something else. It is lived in the now with all the fullness and depth of the entire universe available. It doesn’t matter what people think about that – living is intrinsically powerful by virtue of itself regardless of anything else. What you do with it is up to you.

- cricketdiane, 08-07-09

Adding 2 plus 2 to get 8,633,000,000 -

(A Cricket House Studios thought of the day thing.)

***

Comment posted today on this post – (and my response) -

California selling off state landmarks article on my wordpress blog

[I'll find the link in a minute . . . ]

***

Comment and Reply – on 08-03-09 – WordPress BlogPost

Marinda Griffin

Submitted on 2009/08/03 at 6:35pm

This is all so enlightening. I recently saved enough money to move to California to study Environmental Science at great California University. After moving across the country I was admitted to California State University Los Angeles after applying in February of 2008.

One month before I am supposed to begin school I receive a letter in the mail saying that two of my courses are not transferable. Why they did not tell me this earlier so that I could take the classes over the Summer I don’t know. Now, after paying a $55 application fee and a $100 registration fee, both non-refundable, I must wait an entire year before attending a University.

Spring admissions to state schools are closed due to the budget crisis. Attending a university has been a dream of mine and my families. I am the first in my family to have an Associates Degree. Currently, I am interning with a state agency concentrated on environmental efforts. It is such an amazing opportunity, especially with such little education. I truly enjoy it but with the state California is in, I have absolutely no opportunity to have a dream job while I wait for my dream school.

I must say, following my dreams to California has not been too disappointing, it’s beauty is un-questionable. Hopefully this broke college student will find her dream again. Ithe mean time maybe a sailing course at a ommunity college on the federal dime isn’t such a bad idea.

My Response -

cricketdiane

http://www.livestream.com/crickethousestudios

Submitted on 2009/08/03 at 6:57pm

Do you know that you can apply to test out of those classes? It could be that the organization you are working for or some of the environmental groups / non-profits / or agencies and green businesses local to you, would sponsor your fees to take the testing for the classes they say won’t transfer. Just a thought.

The counselors at the California university where you have been accepted can make the arrangements for the testing and you will receive the credit for the courses as if you had attended them there. Especially since you have already received the information contained in these courses, it would be worthwhile.

Also, whether you knew it or not – the academic dean and faculty chair people of any department in the university can make an acceptance of the classes they say do not count – they have the authority and ability to make an exception to the standard policy and enter those classes on your academic record as accepted credits.

Go see them, it only takes a phone call and an appointment. Some department heads can be contacted by email but it is better to call and get an appointment.

- cricketdiane, 08-03-09

***

5:48pm UK, Saturday August 01, 2009

Thousands of people have answered Top Gear presenter James May’s call for help building a house out of Lego bricks.

James May has promised to live in the Lego house

A total of 1,200 were granted free tickets to the vineyard where the two-storey building is being constructed, leaving 1,500 people to be turned away.

“Up until now, the largest thing I’ve ever built with Lego was probably a plane or a battleship, because that was all I could build with the amount I had.”

When the house, filled with Lego furniture, is completed later this month, May has promised to live in it.

[etc.]

More than three million Lego pieces have been delivered for the event, filmed for BBC series James May’s Toy Stories.

Helpers were tasked with making full-sized bricks, each one consisting of 272 Lego pieces.

Builders will then take over in laying the bricks over a six-day construction process.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/James-May-Lego-House-Thousands-Of-Fans-Help-Top-Gear-Presenter-Build-House-Made-Of-Plastic-Bricks/Article/200908115351734?lpos=Showbiz_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15351734_James_May_Lego_House%3A_Thousands_Of_Fans_Help_Top_Gear_Presenter_Build_House_Made_Of_Plastic_Bricks

15351709.jpg
James May of Top Gear with Lego House bricks being used for two-story live in Lego House

***

• Gallery

  Jan 23,2009

  Brick Obama: Building A Lego-cy

• Video
  2:35

  Jan 21,2009

  Obama In The Land Of Lego

• Gallery

  Dec 08,2008

  Brickarm Lego-Style Terrorist toys

• Dec 04,2008
  

  ‘Lego’ Terrorist Outrage

• Video
  3:08

  Oct 15,2008

  Lego’s Brick Testament!

• Gallery

  Sep 18,2008

  Lego Celeb-rates A Mini Birthday

• Aug 12,2008
  

  Toy Maker Builds Success

• Jul 28,2008
  

  Top Toy Builds On Past

• Gallery

  May 16,2008

  Lego Creations Made By Celebrities Auctioned

***

My Lego House I built for Jasmine to have a playhouse -

Cricket Diane Lego House for Jasmine Atriel 2008 - playhouse construction of Legos

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Cricket Diane Lego House for Jasmine Atriel - 2008 - playhouse construction Legos

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Cricket Diane Lego House for Jasmine Atriel - 2008 - Lego playhouse construction

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Cricket Diane 2008 Lego House for Jasmine Atriel to have a playhouse

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Cricket Diane - Lego Castle 2005 that became part of the Lego playhouse for Jasmine Atriel 2008

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• James May building house entirely of Lego

  Times Online – 06:25:09 PM, Saturday Aug 01, 2009
  Thousands rallied to help Top Gear presenter James May build a house entirely from Lego today. May is hoping to…

• Thousands answer call to help build Lego house

  Ballymena Today – 04:56:31 PM, Saturday Aug 01, 2009
  Thousands of people have answered Top Gear presenter James May’s call for help building a new house entirely…

• Help build world’s largest LEGO light bulb

  bookofjoe – 02:01:50 PM, Saturday Aug 01, 2009
  “… the light bulb will be assembled by museum visitors together with the help of LEGO master builders.”…

• May vows to live in Lego house

  BreakingNews.ie | Breaking News from Ireland – 08:48:35 AM, Saturday Aug 01, 2009

• LEGO Systems and Smithsonian Institution Celebrate Children…

  Street Insider – 10:00:58 PM, Friday Jul 31, 2009

[from - ]

http://indepth.news.sky.com/InDepth/topic/Lego

***

August 01, 2009

Help build world’s largest LEGO light bulb

Construction begins today (Saturday, August 1, 2009 at 11 a.m.) at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., day one of a two-day collaborative build of an 8-foot-tall light bulb.

“… the light bulb will be assembled by museum visitors together with the help of LEGO master builders.”

I can’t speak for you but me, I’d love to watch and chat with these LEGO masters.

Above and below,

“Dan Steininger, master model builder at Lego Systems, Inc., builds a prototype of a light bulb at the Enfield [Connecticut] facility. The prototype is a model of the actual light bulb that will be eight feet tall and will be displayed at the Smithsonian,” reads the legend for these photos published in the June 21, 2009 Hartford Courant.

August 1, 2009 at 10:01 AM

http://www.bookofjoe.com/2009/08/help-build-worlds-largest-lego-light-bulb.html

***

LEGO Systems and Smithsonian Institution Celebrate Children and Their Big Ideas During National Inventors Month

July 31, 2009 6:58 PM EDT

WASHINGTON, July 31 /PRNewswire/ — In honor of National Inventors’ Month, LEGO Systems Inc. today launches its LEGO(R) CLICK! Awards, an essay contest for children ages 6 to 13. In addition, the Smithsonian Institution’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation and LEGO Systems Inc. invite families to a two-day collaborative build of the world’s largest light bulb – the universal symbol of a big idea – made entirely of LEGO bricks on August 1 and 2 at the National Museum of American History.

The 8-foot-tall light bulb is being assembled by museum visitors with the help of LEGO Master Builders. Additionally, the museum’s hands-on invention space, Spark!Lab, is hosting special interactive, construction play-themed activities for children where they are able to “patent” their creations. The Lemelson Center also collaborated with LEGO Systems to develop invention-themed mini-building activities to be held at 29 LEGO Stores in the United States this weekend. All of the programs reinforce the connection between play and invention explored in the museum’s “Invention at Play” exhibition and celebrate the philosophy that anyone can have a big idea and then can bring it to life.

“Invention is the practical application of creativity, and is a core benefit of our play pattern that we are thrilled to encourage children to explore further,” said Soren Torp Laursen, president, LEGO Systems. “As children have fun building with LEGO bricks, they also engage in a trial and error process that culminates in that moment when everything clicks and their idea becomes real. In so doing, they build the confidence they need to tackle and solve problems and share ideas – qualities they can take with them into adulthood to contribute innovative ideas and solutions at work, at play or in their communities.”

Now in its third year (formerly called the LEGO Creativity Awards), the LEGO CLICK! Awards are designed to inspire and celebrate children’s creativity, innovative thinking and inventive spirit. Five winning essays submitted by children between the ages of 6 and 13 will each be awarded a $5,000 savings bond. To submit for the award, children must answer: “If you could invent anything, what would it be? Describe how to use it. How did you get the idea? What excites you about it?” before November 2, 2009. Entries will be judged by a panel of experts from the Smithsonian Institution and LEGO Systems. More information, applications and complete rules are available at www.LEGOCLICKAwards.com.

LEGO Systems Inc. is the Americas division of the LEGO Group, a privately-held firm based in Billund, Denmark. The LEGO Group is committed to the development of children’s creative and imaginative abilities through high-quality, creatively educational play materials, and its employees are guided by the motto adopted in the 1930s by founder Ole Kirk Christiansen: “Only the best is good enough.” For more information, visit www.LEGO.com.

The Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation is dedicated to exploring invention in history and encouraging inventive creativity in young people. The center is supported by The Lemelson Foundation, a private philanthropy established by one of the country’s most prolific inventors, Jerome Lemelson, and his family. The Lemelson Center is located in the National Museum of American History. For more information, visit invention.smithsonian.org.

LEGO and the LEGO logo are trademarks of The LEGO Group. (C) 2009 The LEGO Group.

    MEDIA CONTACTS:
    LEGO Systems: Karen Lynch
    650.490.0608 / lynch@flashpointpr.com
    Smithsonian Institution: Kate Wiley

http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/LEGO+Systems+and+Smithsonian+Institution+Celebrate+Children+and+Their+Big+Ideas+During+National+Inventors+Month/4836454.html

***

[from - ]

    202.633.3129 / wileyk@si.edu

SOURCE LEGO Systems, Inc.

***

			Smithsonian Channel Experience the world of the Smithsonian with great programs on history, culture, science and technology, plus exciting programs for kids!
			More about Smithsonian Networks

			Science at the Smithsonian Explore science at the Smithsonian through videos, stories, scientist interviews and photos
			Explore Smithsonian Photography An ever-expanding view into more than 150 years of photography collecting throughout the Smithsonian
			More Research

[AND]

			Lights! Camera! Smithsonian! Make a quest to find artifacts that inspired scenes in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
			What’s Up on the Hill? Face the Nation moderator Bob Schieffer sets the stage for this insider’s look at Congress
			More Events

http://www.si.edu/

From Spark to Click: Celebrating National Inventor’s Month
Celebrate National Inventors’ Month by helping to build an 8-foot-tall light bulb using LEGO bricks
Sat & Sun, Aug 1 & 2, times vary

From Spark to Click: Celebrating National Inventors’ Month

When	Saturday, August 1, 2009, 11 AM – 5 PM
Categories	Demonstrations, Kids & Families, Workshops
Sponsor	American History Museum
Venue	American History Museum
Event Location	1st Floor, Center, near Constitution Ave. entrance
Cost	Free
Continues	Continues August 2
Related Events	See related program on August 15
Related Exhibition	Invention at Play
Details	(for all ages) Celebrate with the museum’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation the first annual National Inventors’ Month. Explore the connections between play and invention by helping to build a record-breaking 8-foot-tall light bulb — the universal symbol of a big idea — using LEGO bricks with the assistance of LEGO master builders. Then stop by the Spark!Lab, the Lemelson Center’s hands-on invention space, to participate in special building and engineering-related activities.
Web Site	americanhistory.si.edu…

http://www.si.edu/events/calendar.htm?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D84702839

***

[From 2001 - ]

USPTO TO HOLD 6^TH ANNUAL INDEPENDENT INVENTOR’S CONFERENCE
August 3 – 4, 2001; 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
The DoubleTree Hotel
300 Army Navy Drive
Arlington, Va.

It all begins with an idea…But where do you go from there?

The Department of Commerce’s U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Office of Independent Inventor Programs (OIIP) will answer this and other questions about patenting inventions and registering trademarks at the 6th Annual Independent Inventor’s Conference, “Celebrating National Inventor’s Month,” August 3 – 4, 2001 in Arlington, Va.

“Throughout history, it has been the independent inventor who was on the cutting edge of new products and technologies. So many great ideas have come from individuals, such as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who invented the world’s first personal computer working together in a garage,” noted Nicholas Godici, Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Acting Director of the USPTO.

The two-day conference schedule includes workshops on patent and trademark basics, patent and trademark searching techniques, interacting with patent and trademark examiners, and hands on training in USPTO’s electronic patent and trademark application filing systems. In addition to USPTO staff, workshops will be hosted by outstanding experts in product development and marketing, including Ronald Docie, inventor and author; “Furby” toy inventor Richard Levy; J. Mark Davis, inventor and marketer; Joanne Hayes-Rines, editor of the Inventor’s Digest; and Dan Lauer, CEO and founder of a successful toy company.

For more information visit USPTO’s web site at http://www.uspto.gov/go/iic2001

[from - ]

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/speeches/01-31.htm

***

Deadlines: Submit essays Aug. 1-31, 2009. All entries must be postmarked by Aug. 31, 2009. – See Below -

Historic Press Releases > Time Machine

[ USPTO Home ][ Kids' Home ][ Twinkle Lights ][ Bright Lights ][ Guiding Lights ]
[ imagination machine ][ whowhatwhenwherehowwhy ][ time machine ]
[ games ][ puzzles ][ links ][ help ][ Search ]

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ahrpa/opa/kids/kidevents_press.html

Note: RealPlayer version 10 or later required to view video with caption.

National Campaign to Inspire Young Inventors Three PSAs from the USPTO’s Advertising Council campaign, “Inspiring Invention” “Suction Tires” – Video (2008JUL31) | “Cat Magnet” – Video with Caption | “Bandage Puller” – Video with Caption (2007APR10)

http://www.uspto.gov/video/index.htm

US Patent and Trademark Office – video streams

http://www.uspto.gov/

Announcing beta.uspto.gov

>> USPTO Beta Version
The USPTO is pleased to announce the beta test release of its new Web site will remain open for an additional period of about six weeks. The new site has been redesigned to improve the look and feel, as well as to enhance the user experience with improved navigation. The USPTO’s goal is to make the Web site technologically up-to-date, user-friendly, and responsive to customer feedback.

>> Click here for full Story

USPTO Opens Exhibit of Michael Jackson’s Patent and Trademarks

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum are presenting a special exhibit featuring material from Michael Jackson’s patent and trademark applications. The exhibit is free and open to the public starting Wednesday, July 15 and runs through Labor Day.

>> Click here for full story

Promoting Innovation – Today’s USPTO This video features a 27 minute history and tour of the USPTO. Video | Video with Caption >> Download ZIP file of Video [ ZIP/70.4MB] (2006NOV01) NOTE: This is a large video, please allow a few minutes for it to download

Protecting Geographical Indications This video explains the United States government’s position regarding geographical indications (GIs), a type of intellectual property that indicates the origin of goods or services in a particular geographic area with particular characteristics. Some examples are Parma Ham, Roquefort Cheese, Florida Oranges and Idaho Potatoes. Video | Video with Caption (2005SEP23)

http://www.uspto.gov/video/index.htm

US Patent and Trademark Office – video streams

***

Inventors > 13th Annual Independent Inventors Conference

REGISTRATION – TOPICS – SPEAKERS – DIRECTIONS – LODGING – AGENDA

13th Annual Independent Inventors Conference

The 13th Annual Independent Inventors Conference, co-sponsored by the United States Patent Trademark Office (USPTO) and the National Inventors Hall of Fame® Foundation, will be held in Alexandria, VA at the US Patent and Trademark Office campus on August 8-9, 2008.

A pre-conference workshop (August 7, 2008 from 5pm – 7pm) is included with your registration for anyone interested in learning patent basics and how they protect inventions. This workshop is for beginners and is a good foundation for the conference.

USPTO presenters will include Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce Margaret Peterlin, Commissioner for Patents John Doll, Louis Foreman, creator and executive producer of the Everyday Edisons Show, an inductee from the National Inventors Hall of Fame® Foundation, local IP attorneys as well as Supervisory Patent Examiners.

Registration is now open for this 2-day event. The fee is $100 per person for both days. The registration fee includes all sessions and presentations, morning and afternoon refreshments, lunch for both days and a networking reception on Friday evening.

For additional information about this event you can call the Inventors Assistance Program at 571-272-8850.

» 13th Annual Independent Inventors Conference Registration

[from]

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/iiconf/

***

What free assistance is available from USPTO? Free basic information on the patent and trademark system, forms, fees, products and services of the USPTO is available by calling the USPTO’s toll-free line, 800-PTO-9199 or by calling 571-272-1000. An automated message system is available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day providing informational responses to frequently asked questions and the ability to order certain free documents. Customer service representatives are available to answer questions, send free materials or connect you with other offices of the USPTO from 8:30 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. ET, Monday-Friday excluding federal holidays. The customer service representatives can transfer your call to the Inventors Assistance Center or the Trademark Electronic Business Center for responses to practice and procedure questions. Much of this information is alsoavailable at the General Information section of the USPTO Web site.

***

Welcome to IFIA

International Federation of Inventors’ Associations

The world-wide organization of the inventors and the innovators

Founded in 1968

IFIA (General information; in English) Knowing IFIA (organization, leadership, Statutes) Members from 86 Countries Publications (for sale) Cultural Exhibitions for rent (cartoons and stamps) Inquiries

IFIA Office > > > Activity reports in 2009 and documents Work in 2008 Work in 2007 Work in 2006

Inventions for commercialization by IFIA IFIA Invention Shows in 2009 > > > lFIA Official events 1000inventions.com: IFIA Website with 1100+ inventions for sale/licensing from 100+ countries – New applications are not accepted

Language versions of IFIA web Inventores Iberoamericanos (Spanish + Portuguese) Inventeurs d’Afrique francophone (Français) Arab Inventors (Arabic & English)

USEFUL INFORMATION International Patent Law and Practice Issues Worldwide Patent Applications: Current Situation (English & French) In favor of a World Patent In favor of a World Patent Interactive discussion Forum! (English + other languages) Comments on WIPO Patent Agenda Cost of Patenting Inventions Abroad Patent Offices Selected Websites of Patent Offices Independent Inventors Statistics Other pages Women Inventors Youth and Creativity On Inventions & Inventors by Farag Moussa (English + other languages) IFIA Website with 1000+ inventions for sale/licensing from 100+ countries! > > > www.1000inventions.com

Links IFIA Members Worldwide Industrial Property Offices in the World Major Providers of Patent Information Other Useful Sites on Inventions & Inventors

IFIA Website recognized Acknowledgements

Alert: Inventors Target of New Fraud!

Inquiries: Kindly state clearly your name/organization/country and briefly describe the purpose of your request. Priority is given to IFIA members; outside requests are handled selectively. Contact details: Mailing address: P.O. Box 319 H-1591 Budapest, Hungary IFIA Secretariat: Öv u. 95/a H-1141 Budapest, Hungary FAX (+36 1) 422 09 36; Phone: (+3620) 945 8078 e-mail: ifia @ inventor.hu

Websites: www.invention-ifia.ch www.1000inventions.com

]]> http://cricketdiane.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/2978/ Sat, 01 Aug 2009 22:50:09 +0000 cricketdiane http://cricketdiane.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/2978/

My Note – A little about this year’s poisoning of horses (real life in America, and I should’ve put the story about the Holocaust survivor that was strangled, beat and killed in his home – 90 years old, survived horrors of prison camps in Hitler’s version of Germany, and this is what America gives him in his final years, unbelievable) and below that, what the current uses of the “Patriot Act” and Homeland Security are doing to a 43-year old UK man who has a form of autism and is brilliant in spite of it -

- cricketdiane

****

* At least 20 horses were deliberately poisoned on farm, authorities say
* Toxic oleander leaves were found with apples, carrots in horses’ stalls
* No word yet on possible motive or sickened horses’ prognosis

updated 8:00 a.m. EDT, Sat August 1, 2009

(CNN) — More than 20 horses became ill when they were intentionally poisoned with toxic leaves in southern California this week, authorities said Friday.
These oleander bush leaves, toxic to horses, were found in a San Diego, California, stable.

[etc.]

An exact number of horses sickened was unclear, but officials believe they were more than 20. The animals, whose prognosis was not known, were under the care of veterinarians.

An investigation is under way.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/01/california.horses/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

***

[And from April of this year - ]

Polo horses may have been poisoned
Twenty-one ponies who mysteriously died as they were being prepared for a major match in Florida are likely to have been poisoned, vets believe.

By Tom Leonard in New York
Published: 6:38PM BST 20 Apr 2009

A horrified crowd at the International Polo Club Palm Beach in Wellington watched in silence on Sunday as vets tried desperately to save the animals after they collapsed or became dizzy as they were led out of their trailers.

The team is owned by Victor Vargas, a Venezuelan businessman, close confidant of Hugo Chavez and one of the richest men in South America.

Vets at the scene, who inserted intravenous tubes and tried to cool them down with fans and water, said the horses suffered pulmonary edema, an accumulation of fluid in their lungs, and heart failure.

They had high temperatures and were disoriented but felt no pain.

The as yet unidentified toxin could have been in tainted food, vitamins or dietary supplements, or some combination of all three that caused a toxic reaction, said Scott Swerdin, a vet who treated the horses.

James Belden, a local vet who worked for the team, Lechuza Caracas, said it was a clear case of “some sort of poison” and played down the possibity of steroid abuse.

[ . . . ]

John Wash, president of club operations for the International Polo Club Palm Beach, said the polo teams were told by veterinary officials that whatever killed the horses wasn’t airborne or contagious.

“It won’t just be the polo scene in Wellington, I think it will affect the polo scene worldwide,” Mr Wash said.

“In polo’s history there’s never been an incident like this that anybody can remember. This was a tragic issue on the magnitude of losing a basketball team in an aeroplane crash.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5189672/Polo-horses-may-have-been-poisoned.html
***

40 MPs in plea to Barack Obama over computer hacker Gary McKinnon

More than 40 MPs have issued a highly unusual direct plea to the Barack Obama urging him to halt the “shameful” extradition of a British computer hacker to the United States.

By John Bingham and Christopher Hope
Published: 8:00AM BST 01 Aug 2009
Gary McKinnon: British judges agree to more extraditions than US counterparts British computer hacker Gary McKinnon suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism Photo: AP

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, also threw his weight behind a campaign against plans to send Gary McKinnon, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, for trial in the US accused of breaking into sensitive military networks.

It came as the 43-year-old lost an eleventh hour High Court challenge to the move claiming that it would worsen his condition and represent “inhuman” treatment.

In a letter, seen by The Daily Telegraph, a group of MPs urged Mr Obama to halt the extradition arguing that “most reasonable individuals” would view it as disproportionate given his mental state.

[ . . . ]

Mr McKinnon, described by his own legal team as an eccentric, claims that he was merely searching for evidence of UFOs when he hacked into almost 100 US government computers from his bedroom in north London shortly after the September 11 attacks of 2001.

Although his extradition has already been agreed after a lengthy legal process, he launched a last-minute High Court challenge attempting to force the Home Secretary to block the move earlier this year.

His lawyers also challenged the decision by Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, not to sanction a trial in this country – something which would preclude extradition.

The lawyers argued that sending him for trial in the US, despite his mental condition and with the prospect of up to 60 years in prison if found guilty, would breach his human rights.

But despite accepting that extradition to the US could cause Mr McKinnon’s mental health to deteriorate and even worsen the risk of suicide, two senior judges ruled that it did not represent a “inhuman or degrading treatment”.

[ . . . ]

Forty MPs including Michael Ancram, Sir Patrick Cormack and Peter Bottomley signed the letter, organised by the Conservative member Angela Browning who is Vice President of the National Autistic Society.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the former Former Liberal Democrat leader, Chris Grayling, the shadow Home Secretary, and Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, also spoke out against the extradition.

Karen Todner, Mr McKinnon’s solicitor, said: “I have today sent a letter to President Barack Obama signed by 40 members of a cross parliamentary group of MPs asking him to step in to bring this shameful episode to an end. It is a sad state of affairs if this Government cannot protect our most vulnerable citizens.”

Any Supreme Court case is not thought likely to be heard until next spring, in the run-up to the expected general election.

[ . . . ]

Mr Cameron said: “Gary McKinnon is a vulnerable young man and I see no compassion in sending him thousands of miles away from his home and loved ones to face trial.”

Speaking on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice Mrs Sharp described the attempt to extradite her son as a “disgrace”.

“I’m desperately trying to get through to Obama,” she said. “This is from the Bush era … it is not of Obama, he would not want this to happen.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5949202/40-MPs-in-plea-to-Barack-Obama-over-computer-hacker-Gary-McKinnon.html

***

My Note -

Is That the best they can do with our money – to process and prosecute someone who is obviously not a terrorist, didn’t intend harm and was capable of getting into secure computer databases of our government. They ought to be hiring him instead of prosecuting and persecuting Gary McKinnon – he’s obviously brilliant and we need his expertise, and so does the government of the UK and Interpol and the European Parliaments’ cybersecurity forces.

What are they thinking to bring this man to the United States away from all that he knows and subject him to sitting in a jail cell through the fall and Christmas, locked away from everyone he knows in the abusive environments of our prison system? Why in the hell would anybody do such a thing given that what he did hacking into the government agency computer networks took a brilliant ability that we so desperately need?

How dare anyone destroy that brilliance, genius and level of knowledge when it caused no harm, was not intended to cause harm and was in no way related to terrorism, nor to a terrorist act? Then, to sit him in our jails until Spring of whenever without a due recourse because the bureaucracy of the Republican Party’s Bush Administration is still in unfettered tyranny? Are you kidding me – what kind of people would do this and get it so backwards when we are desperate to have people exactly like this man help us in our intelligence and cyber security fields? If they do this to him, there is nothing worth saving in America because there is apparently too much wrong with it to fix . . .

The United States of America has no business acting like a senseless bunch of Gestapo bastards without the insight or good judgment of a rock. It is a waste of time, effort and resources along with the fact that no good comes of it and it undermines the very foundation of our nation’s premise.

- cricketdiane, 08-01-09

***

Title – (this is not a sentence, it is a paragraph for a title – sorry about that),

US – Republican Administration Policies continue unabated, unhindered, and without regard, using their “conservative thinktank” policies to impose and define America with Abuses of Human Rights, Violations of Civil Rights, Oppression of the Disadvantaged and Disabled – These Bush, Reagan and even, Nixon era bureaucrats are still using their Gestapo tactics of unbridled cruelty, senseless unmerciful viciousness and psychotic sadistic whims on citizens lives while causing egregious harms against mankind – Here is what their efforts are using our money and resources to do this time – (leftover evils from previous Republican bureaucratic policies) -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5949202/40-MPs-in-plea-to-Barack-Obama-over-computer-hacker-Gary-McKinnon.html – These Republican right wing policies continue to be imposed on our society by using the Conservative Caucus choices that were enacted throughout the US agencies, state legislatures and under the guise of US states’ rights from the last twenty years, which inflict their abuses of power, intolerance of Human Rights and degradations of people upon every person it touches – now to include Gary McKinnon, UK citizen for hacking into US databases to find out about UFOs . . .

***

I still say – they ought to be hiring this guy, Gary McKinnon instead of giving him hell across two countries and using countless manhours, resources, administrative efforts, prosecution funds and costs to both countries, as well as the mental stress, inconvenience and difficulties it has caused him and his family (and in his community) – it is an insane waste of resources and a complete waste of his talents when we most need them available to us in both countries and in the European Parliament facilities, as well.

- my note

***

US oppression (of diversity – differences and disabled individuals – elderly – poor – disadvantaged – homeless – destitute – nonconformist – creative – gifted – intelligent – genius – brilliant – talented – unusual) continues along conservative christian values of intolerance and shameful cruelty / sadistic games with human lives – the same as the Bush administration CIA, NSA, police brutality and domestic policies of castes and oppression.

In the words of our Chinese counterparts – “Don’t try to catch a falling knife.” I saw it on the bloomberg ticker one night last fall and nearly fell out of my chair considering its implications. It might be correct – it may be that the United States who has demanded that every other nation abide by certain human rights protections for citizens, cannot do the same at home nor in any policies or action it takes. That would be a shame for it to continue that way.

****

My Note –
Why do experts and news commentators / producers tell the public that everything is fine (macro-economically) when all the numbers say something else? Durable goods orders are down because? Unemployment, layoffs and underemployed numbers are still up and possibly even rising, if we were able to see the true numbers. Companies are going out of business and bankruptcy courts are filled with filings across a broad spectrum of businesses. Commercial real estate loans are an accident waiting to happen and foreclosures of people’s homes continue to be in the stratosphere with many loans still expected to reset through the end of this year and next.

The number of homeless have increased to the point of devastation in communities across the US and everybody is watching to see if the durn stock market numbers mean something about a “rebound” – those numbers aren’t real. The shifts in value among stocks, commodities and financial derivatives are coming from huge players managing other people’s money – what do they know besides a guess considering they make their money whether they win or lose?

We have a population who does not know how to survive unless all the conditions are known quantities arranged in a certain order and progress along a recipe which doesn’t now exist for them. Wouldn’t it be more helpful to engage that with the real facts, some measure of truth, candid honest appraisals of where things stand now and a set of skills for “thinking on your feet,” resourcefulness and “flying by the seat of the pants” successfully?

Thanks, Ali – for your efforts and for all of the CNN team, but we really are getting to the hardest part now, when everyone is tired of the bad news and no jobs and it isn’t going to get better soon nor go back to the old way that it was, regardless.

- cricketdiane, 07-29-09

A Note to Ali Velshi – CNN Financial Reporting and Economics

***

CNNRADIO
Ask Ali Velshi
E-mail Ali Velshi with your questions about the economy or call him live on CNNRadio, at 11 a.m. ET

http://www.cnn.com/ireport/ireports/topics/forms/2008/05/ask.cnn.radio.velshi.html

***

Send your questions to CNNRadio

Are you a CNNRadio fan? E-mail us with your questions ahead of time and listen for the answers during the show, or call us at (877) 266-4189 to ask your questions on the air.

http://www.cnn.com/ireport/ireports/topics/forms/2008/05/ask.cnn.radio.velshi.html

***

New York gives homeless one-way tickets
Published: July 29, 2009 at 10:35 AM

[ . . . ]

City officials say there is no limit to where a family can be sent.

So far, the program has provided flights to 54 states and five continents, most often to Puerto Rico, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

One family with 10 children accepted an offer to go to Puerto Rico while another family moved to France with their three children.

New York spends $500,000 a year on the program which employs a local travel agency to book the one-way flights. (for more than 550 families)

“We want to divert as many families as we can that need assistance,” says Vida Chavez-Downes, who heads the program.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/07/29/New-York-gives-homeless-one-way-tickets/UPI-42541248878119/

****

The Republican / Bush Legacy -

LOS ANGELES, July 29 (UPI) — Seven percent of U.S. fifth-graders and their families have experienced homelessness — 11 percent for blacks — and it takes a toll, researchers say. (from 2004 – 2006)

[ . . . ]

Dr. Tumaini R. Coker of Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA and the Rand Corp. and colleagues analyzed data from a study of 5,147 fifth-grade students. Interviews of students and parents were conducted during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years and included children from Birmingham, Ala.; Houston and Los Angeles.

“It was unexpected to see such a high prevalence of family homelessness in this sample of fifth-grade students, were literally homeless — staying in places like shelters, cars or on the streets,” Coker, the lead author, said in a statement.

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/07/29/Seven-percent-of-fifth-graders-homeless/UPI-86521248842509/

***

Economic Outlook: Knocking on closed doors

By ANTHONY HALL, United Press International Published: July 29, 2009 at 8:18 AM

U.S. home prices and mortgage news have crept back into the headlines, as government officials took another swipe at helping homeowners Tuesday.

Officials from the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development sat down with bank executives in Washington to review the Make Homes Affordable program, which aims to help troubled homeowners with loan modifications.

It is a program with a goal of helping 4 million homeowners avoid foreclosure that has, to date, been frequently touted as underwhelming at best. Only 200,000 loans have been modified since March, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

[ . . . ]

The problem, in a nutshell, is profits. After weeding out homeowners behind on their payments who may be able to catch up on their own, without assistance, and those who would fail to keep up payments even with a modified loan, there are few well-intended homeowners left, the Boston Federal Reserve Bank said in a study of the nation’s housing predicament.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/07/29/Economic-Outlook-Knocking-on-closed-doors/UPI-82771248869922/

***

Alan White, a professor at Valparaiso University School of Law in Indiana, said lenders could cut down on the number of borrowers who end up defaulting again by giving them more help in the first place. He said too many modified loans don’t result in low enough payments. Also, he said, there may be fewer borrowers who can get out of trouble on their own because of continuing difficulties in the economy.

“The servicers are making assumptions that are much too anti-modification,’’ White said. “The servicers have the authority’’ to help borrowers, “they just don’t want to use it.’’

The study, coauthored by Manuel Adelino and Kristopher Gerardi, also rebuts a widely held suspicion that the holdup in modifying loans is because of investors who control them through mortgage-backed securities. The Fed found no difference in the rate of aid between investor-controlled loans and those that lenders own directly.

[ . . . ]

The number of foreclosure proceedings increased to 844,389 during the first quarter of 2009, up 73 percent from the first quarter of 2008, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

“You have more money going to the banks and the servicers than you do to the homeowners,’’ he said. “It would make more sense to just give money to the borrowers.’’

Jenifer McKim can be reached at jmckim@globe.com.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/07/07/lenders_avoid_redoing_loans_fed_concludes/

***

Durable goods orders drop 2.5 percent in June
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP
2 hours ago

WASHINGTON — Orders to U.S. factories for big-ticket durable goods plunged in June by the largest amount in five months, reflecting the continuing troubles in the auto industry and a steep drop in demand for commercial aircraft.

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that orders for durable goods fell 2.5 percent last month, much larger than the 0.6 percent decline that economists had expected. It was the biggest setback since a 7.8 percent fall in January.

[etc.]

http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20090728/US.Economy/

***

This is life in America -

Mass. woman killed, fetus removed from womb
2 hours ago

WORCESTER, Mass. — A pregnant woman was found dead in her apartment with her fetus cut from her womb, and police on Wednesday were trying to find the missing baby, which they said could have survived.

Authorities said 23-year-old Darlene Haynes was about eight months pregnant and the child would have needed immediate medical attention to survive.

Officials say Haynes also has a 1-year-old daughter who is safe with relatives.

Police said Tuesday that they had interviewed the father of Haynes daughter, Roberto Rodriguez.

Haynes had a restraining order against Rodriguez, who allegedly pushed her into a glass table in June and cut her arm, then grabbed her by the throat and slapped her, the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester reported, citing court records.

Court records also showed Rodriguez was charged with hitting Haynes in 2008 in a case that was continued without a finding.

[ . . . ]

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20090729/US.Cut.From.Womb/

My Note -

That is the life experiences of America which awaits our daughters, our women, our children, our day-to-day living with what really happens in the United States for women every single day, every moment of every year . . .

And, from one of the UPI articles above, a hidden set of information about the oil speculators (it shouldn’t have been buried in another article, if they wanted anybody to read about it – )

Regulators also took a first swipe at curbing speculation in the oil market Tuesday with the Commodities Futures Trading Commission holding the first of three hearings to explore moves to limit large bets that could manipulate prices.

Oil prices rose sharply in the summer of 2008, provoking concern that speculators were making fast gains at the public’s expense. Following a humbling fall in prices last fall, prices moved forward again this year, gaining about 50 percent since January.

In August, the CFTC will issue a report documenting the size of oil positions and the number of firms participating, which could shed light on the speculative nature of oil investments, the Post reported.

Asian markets were mixed Wednesday. The Nikkei 225 in Japan rose 0.26 percent, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell 2.37 percent. The Singapore Straits Times index dropped 0.76 percent. The S&P/ASX in Australia dropped 0.64 percent.

In midday trading in Europe, the FTSE 100 index rose 0.81 percent. The DAX 30 in Frankfurt rose 1.79 percent. In France, the CAC 40 gained 1.43 percent, while the broader DJStoxx600 rose 0.76 percent.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/07/29/Economic-Outlook-Knocking-on-closed-doors/UPI-82771248869922/

***
Lenders avoid redoing loans, Fed concludes
Study cites lack of profit in aiding the distressed

By Jenifer B. McKim
Globe Staff / July 7, 2009

Mortgage lenders don’t try to rework most home loans held by borrowers facing foreclosure because it would probably mean losing money, a study released yesterday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston concludes.

[etc.]

Officials from Hope Now, the private-sector alliance of mortgage servicers and investors, were unavailable for comment yesterday.

The Fed’s study found that only 3 percent of seriously delinquent borrowers – those more than 60 days behind – had their loans modified to lower monthly payments; about 5.5 percent received loan modifications that did not result in lower payments.

[ . .  .]

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/07/07/lenders_avoid_redoing_loans_fed_concludes/

***

Among the participants, Iran sent the most teams with 50 in the running, followed by Germany and Japan, according to the organisers.

Robots face off on football pitch, in kitchen at RoboCup 2009

Jul 1, 2009

VIENNA (AFP) — RoboCup 2009, the world’s largest robotics event, kicked off Wednesday in the southern Austrian city of Graz, with some 400 teams and 2,000 robots ready to compete in sports and rescue operations.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ixm4XobiCAxDhR0yuX91nz0_2cYA

***

Check out these cool videos of robots -

July 5, 2009 9:34 AM PDT
Ramen robots invade Japanese restaurant
by Dave Rosenberg

Udon combo in Tokyo

Udon combo in Tokyo.
(Credit: Dave Rosenberg)

Just when you thought your noodle waterslide was the height of Japanese food gadgetry, a ramen shop in Minami-Alps, Yamanashi, Japan, is gaining popularity for its robot chef.

[etc.]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10279512-62.html

***


Robot Chef

Look out chefs this bot has the moves!

***


Robot Fish

its a salmon, its a tuna, nope its ROBOT FISH!!!

***

TechWatch: Mini-bots

big bots small bots, one bot two bots…oh my

***


Robot Evolution

watch how the world started the creation of robots to now

***


Catwalk Robot

It’s the Cleopatra of the model world

E: Hai că am să rup în snobăială, de acum scriu și cu diactritice pe messenger )
E: Ar trebui să te simți bine
R: nu ma simt ca vad patratele in loc de diacritice. )
E: Serios?
E: )
R: ja.
R: )
E: Închide fereastra cu mine.
R: uhm..
R: ok.
E: Acum le vezi?
E::)))))))
R:=)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Response to comment on Climate Change -

There has to come a time when big industry, big business, crude oil based technologies such as cars and refining for plastics and fuels actually participate in the stewardship of our environment as conscientious citizens during the production and manufacturing phases of their products and in responsible accounting for the end-products that undermine the safety and health of us all because of their pollutants. These business decision-makers and politicians serving them have set themselves apart by insisting that to do anything differently from the way it is being done currently cuts into their viability as a business and thwarts their enterprise.

For about three hundred dollars each, filters could have been placed on airborne emissions from manufacturing plants during the 1970’s when air pollution was already many years of piped crud socked over nearly every American city and suburb. But, they didn’t want to do that.

And, every attempt to harness emissions and effluents from manufacturing processes to filter or reclaim them for another use was given your standard reply over the past twenty years and given the other standard political response about hippies and tree-huggers in the years before that.

Now, here we stand in America and in a World where exotic chemical combinations reek through the air, soil and water; where entire volumes of massive areas in the oceans are dead zones; where the children and grandchildren of all of us cannot go outside to play for many days of the year; and where cars still pump massive quantities of exotic pollutants in the air making a walk to health or jogging on any sidewalk in America, nothing more than an increased risk of cancer, lung disease, sun stroke, heat stroke and asthma.

Climate change is only a small representative part of what is happening as a result of the business community and the politicians in their back pockets insisting on being allowed to continue without regard for what they are forcing everyone to endure in by-products, end products that pollute, manufacturing chemical run-off, air pollutants that they are emitting into the air which then come down into rivers and yards where children and families should be enjoying a life of freedom rather than ending up in hospitals suffering exotic diseases and cancers.

We can’t afford to stand as enemies anymore where it is only one way at the expense of the other. It cannot be either big business or the people and our future, one or the other. That isn’t going to be viable as we go forward.

Without the people, business has nothing. Without a future world where prosperity can be enjoyed in the light of the sun with the winds of the earth gently moving the air that is safe to breath and able to drink the waters of our planet safely to quench our thirst, without that – there is nothing prosperity can be worth and nothing it can buy that will be worthwhile. Didn’t that ever occur to you and to those whose views your comment espouses?

- cricketdiane

***
Above is my response to –

comment made on my blog about Climate Change – same old story – different day – he apparently didn’t get the memo . . .

Howard Lowe
howard_lowe@comcast.net
98.198.192.192
Submitted on 2009/06/26 at 2:05pm

It is very disturbing for we earth scientists to be left out of the dialogue on climate change. The psuedo-scientists like Al Gore should pick up a book – a FRESHMAN GEOLOGY book. I realize that the book might be a little too complicated for them, BUT.
Earth warming and cooling has been going on ever since the Earth was formed 3.5 billion years ago, and this is long before God placed mammals into the evolutionary tree, much less MAN.
A distinguished professor of GEOLOGY at the Univeristy of Texas (Jackson College of Geological Science) recently completed a study of worldwide glacial activity throughout the GEOLGICAL eras. By studying the growth and recession of glacial ice during many ICE AGES he discovered the likelihood of the Earth now being in a warming period was wrong – he believes the Earth is going into a long period of global cooling. So do most earth scientists.
But then, who is this professor to try and compete with the world’s greatest self-appointed climate expert – Al Gore! The next time I am in Austin I will recommend that hereafter we send out journalists or lawyers to analyze the geological data – after all they seem to be the only ones anyone is listening to.
The arrogance of climate change kooks to believe they can manage the universe is ridiculous. Ice Ages come and go, but politicians stay and stay.
So, in spite of scientific facts and solid research the politicians will still pass a bill to reduce global warming anyway. They are arrogant enough to think that their vote will reverse God’s natural laws and stop global warming in its tracks. TRUE?
Howard R. Lowe

FALSO| False.

My Note –

Mr. Lowe and others he is repeating are distorting the truth by using the techniques found in rhetorical debate.

The issue of climate change and others like it – are not rhetorical debates, they are not theoretical science, they are not conjecture and in fact, they are not a matter of opinion.

The exotic chemical combinations that have been found in the air, soil and waters of every body of salt or fresh water in the United States can be found on the EPA websites data bases.

Every change in the weather patterns, convection currents and regional weather / temperature norms can be found on the NOAA statistical charts.

The average temperature change caused by massive ash clouds from volcanoes can be found, having already been studied. When the ash comes from industry – those charts apply in the same manner.

It isn’t rocket science to look through a data base of mean averages in rainfall, temperature, storm intensities, lightning strikes, severe events and see the changes that have already positioned in the records.

There are regions of the US where the average temperature since 1965 has been an increase of ten degrees. It does change the weather.

There are air current changes which have altered weather patterns and changed the climate dramatically right now, as a result of freeways, roadways, massive asphalted parking lots, cities of buildings rising up into the natural currents, from massive land lot changes by making them into reservoirs and damming into lakes where a river used to be.

Entire forests that would have converted the carbon dioxide into usable oxygen and other nutrients for the soil and our continued survival have been decimated to be replaced by huge shopping malls and also by huge industrial and manufacturing complexes who then put carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides and other even more exotic chemicals into the air, soil and water.

We didn’t come out ahead in the exchange doing it that way and then to amplify that by city after city, suburb on top of suburb, all over the US and now all over the world – it was just a matter of time before the scale would be tipped and permanent changes would occur in the overall global climate.

It isn’t a choice of either business and particularly big business and the oil industry gets its way or nobody does. It can’t be in the best interest of business to do it that way from here on out. It isn’t going to result in a viable business foundation going forward because in a very simple sense – we don’t have another planet where we can live and there isn’t another planet where those business people making bad choices as citizens can live either.

As a geologic event, the mantle of the earth could be in a cooling phase which has a half-life of 300 million years. A rhetorical argument could take that study and suggest that as climatic factor, however it is still a fact that long before that cycle plays into our climate, our own business practices and insistence on unregulated emissions and pollution, sprawling city building practices and industry changes to the landscape and climate will alter the global climate and regional sub-climates in profound ways. We’ve already passed that tipping point. It isn’t rhetoric – it is called, facts.

When hurricanes, monsoons, floods, wildfires, heat waves, blizzards, storms and other severe events damage facilities and infrastructures, it costs these same businesses a tremendous amount more than the costs of filtering systems would have been. It makes sense to be a good steward and a conscientious citizen.

- cricketdiane

and, just a note – God’s natural laws in every way suggests that you don’t tear up the planet that He made for you to stand on.

***

Gata, m-am hotărât! După frământări interioare, scărpinări exterioare și altele am decis! Melodia mea preferată sunt de fapt două melodii:

Neaparat în ordinea asta, 13-14 și niciodata una fără cealaltă. Cele mai deprimante, cele mai deșteptătoare, cele mai optimiste, cele mai cele care-mi ajung până la cele mai cele… Pentru mine. Astea sunt.

Phew, am scăpat de povara asta. De acum pot să ascult pur și simplu muzică.

// Later edit, așa de amuzament și pentru că tot îmi place să descopăr pattern-uri: în urma unor calcule matematice destul de complexe și cu aromă de fizică nucleară am ajuns la concluzia că relațiile mele din ultimele două decenii ce au implicat femele au fost activate după regula una da, una nu ) Partea funny e că acum am ajuns pe ”da”, deci dpdv matematic următoarea relație romantică ce include o componentă sexuală ar trebui să meargă. Pfff, am mai scăpat de-o povară, îndată decolez!

House passes sweeping health care reform bill that will cover 95% of all Americans but neglects to discuss how much it would cost or how it would be paid for. Why don’t the pass laws ending poverty and establishing peace in the Middle East while they’re at it?

I’ve noticed that when I need money or my children need money, there are ideas and business concepts and how to get money things that I stumble over or generate from my mind.

Over the last 35 years of my life, the husbands that I’ve had, my children, my friends and my family hear these ideas whenever we need money and what happens? Nothing happens. They say, “uhhhhhh!” with a facial expression that can only be described as disgust and “not again.” Then, the ideas are used by other people in the community who hear about them when my family members or friends are running their mouths about it to get attention and have something to talk about around other people. I’m sick of it, so in the interest of honestly knowing that I’ll never get anywhere with any of it -

Here are some of the businesses that I wish someone would start -

CurrentTv has an option of making video “pods” which are seven minutes long. They can be submitted on their site. They pay for them – probably not a lot but something. My idea is to take someone onto the Marta trains in Atlanta and discuss the headstart that Atlanta has made on green tech transportation systems. They are currently extending the Marta system to make it easier to get back and forth from outlying suburban communities. I would put a scene of Atlanta in the background where the train is coming through on its elevated track behind the commentator to describe the way this people mover has made a difference in the smoldering fumes from cars using the freeways. And,  the  Marta buses which are fueled by natural gas would be covered in the same video to round out the story. It would make a wonderful green tech story that conveys how Atlanta and other cities are making a huge difference which started quite a few years ago to decrease the physical pollutions from commuting and car traffic.

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Another business concept -

Rent-A-Dad business. Since there are so many domestic violence situations that have cost women and children the Dad of their family and because there is such a need for a father figure to be available – I think that a business which offers employment to good, decent men that would spend some time each week with families of single women and their children to have picnics, go to the park, help at the grocery store and play football out in the yard would be great. Its just a thought.

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There is a possible business in this one that I would love to see get done -

Every time I have had to send money to my sons or daughters or friends, it has been a completely impossible or extremely difficult proposition. There needs to be a way to send money or gift cards for Kroger or Wal-Mart or CVS for baby formula that costs no more than $3.00 to accomplish it. Most of the stores make out the gift card which can be purchased at the store, online or over the phone, but they physically mail that card. I could do that myself and have the person wait a week to get it. I’m talking about moving $25.00 to somebody anywhere in the US, either in cash or in a gift card that shows up the same day in the location where they are with a cost of only $3.00 to get it done. And, some way for it to get done online, or at the store or bank, and over the phone without requiring use of a credit card or bank account or debit card but allowing those to be used if desirable. When family members can be homeless or do without lights, heat, food or diapers and formula unless they get some money now, it is obscene and ridiculous that in this day and age, money can only be sent to them for a $25 service fee or several days later through a gift card.

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I would love to see a new type of corporation built that is a corporation with a conscience where people’s interests are served in equal proportion to the corporate interests and where inventors and creatives are honored with reasonable fair market value for what they create. In the long-term analysis, the company would be stronger, the value greater and the foundation for loyalty to the company’s interests would be enhanced. It would also encourage innovation, inventiveness, creativity and applying these things to the tasks at hand, the company’s offerings and the corporations’ services and products. Hasn’t it been long enough to see that not doing this has cost our entire nation and every business which has engaged in taking advantage of people’s innovative talents without giving a fair return for them?

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Another business I want to see built -

There is a need in every household in every city and suburb of America for a gizmo that literally cleans the air as it comes in the window. There is an air cleaner which is industrial sized but more of the home models than not are difficult to clean, do not take chemicals and mold spores out of the air, leave pollens and micro lint sized particles floating around unless an expensive hepa filter is used and changed every three weeks. The ionizing feature for the air is helpful in some ways, but there needs to be an air cleaner that literally drops the crap from the air, kills the mold and pollen spores, kills the dust mites and cleans the chemicals from car exhaust and industries that are exotic and pervasive. The fine dust from quarrying and huge air-exposed piles of cement and other industrial products fly around in every community, come through the windows or air-intake systems for air conditioning and there should be some simple, safe and effective way to take it out of the air for homes and apartments. That is the product I want to see and something which can be purchased for less than $50 where every home could have one.

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A good day for science, a bad day for human interactions

CricketDiane C Phillips Ocean Art - Trading Cards - Baby Crickets - Ships of the Imagination - and Takeout Box Art To Go

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Offer of Free Miniature Ocean Waves Painting / Trading Card / ACEO / original miniature painting created by Cricket Diane C Phillips (with $2.00 shipping and handling)

In order to market test the style of art painting that I am considering putting in stores – I am offering a free hand-painted miniature ocean waves painting  or ocean waves painting with boat that are an original art  one-of-a-kind collectible trading card.

Each original unique ocean waves artwork is an individually painted miniature ocean waves painting or ocean waves painting with a boat, sailboat or ship added. I am sending this original ocean waves miniature painting to you for free with a small charge for postage and handling of $2.00.

These paintings of the sea are acrylic paintings in miniature done on a variety of surfaces including mat board, canvas, watercolor paper, bristol board and canvas paper. Each miniature sea painting is 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches – about the size of a playing card, collectible trading card and slightly larger than a credit card.

Paintings of the ocean waves in this miniature size as I have painted them, are filled with emotion and color – and is a real painting that you can hold in your hand. You can feel the actual strokes of the paint in the surface of each unique sea painting. To cover postage and handling, there is a $2.00 charge, which can be sent by mail or through PayPal.

These are original ocean and sea waves paintings – original works of art in miniature designed and painted exclusively by a single artist, Cricket Diane C Phillips, made in the USA. Total size of each card is 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches (2 1/2 in. x 3 1/2 in.). They have been individually painted, signed and titled on the back with scenes of ocean waves and sky in each original miniature ocean painting.

The subject matter available will be ocean waves painting or ocean waves painting with boat. They are in an emotional painting style to capture the feeling of the ocean waves in a moment of time.

The examples you see here are ones I have painted which have already been sold and are now only available in prints. These examples of ocean waves miniature trading card paintings are not going to be identical to those offered. Each miniature sea painting is different and one-of-a-kind.

If you would like an ocean waves trading card painting that I have painted – order today – send $2.00 for postage and handling in the USA or $3.50 for International (Outside the USA), plus your name, address, city, state and country with postal code (zipcode).

And, do you want an ocean waves miniature painting or an ocean waves / sea painting miniature with a boat in it? The boats are purely imaginary and not intended to convey reality as a mechanical drawing would do. These are paintings, not comic strips.

Some of the ocean waves paintings have the blue and aqua tones of the sea and some have sunsets of the sea, night sea, early dusk ocean waves with muted tones and some are deep at sea without any sign of coast or shore.

Some of these miniature sea paintings / ocean waves paintings in trading card size have exotic color combinations with a flurry of ocean waves and some are calm, serene seas with touches of colors not uncommon to the ocean at different times of the day and in certain weather conditions over the sea.

Send $2.00 by mail, or use PayPal as described below to receive your own original miniature trading card sized ocean waves painting by CricketDiane. Please remember to note whether you would like an ocean waves miniature painting or an ocean waves painting with a boat miniature sea painting.

To: Cricket Diane C Phillips

1525 Terrell Mill Place, Apt. H

Marietta, GA 30067

UNITED STATES

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- Or, if you have PayPal -

transmit $2.00 USA or $3.50 International to -

dianecphillips@comcast.net on your PayPal account

and send me an email with your request for either ocean or ocean with boat – including your name, address, city, state, country and postal code

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Note – Please take a moment when you receive your original ocean waves miniature painting / sea painting trading card to email me or post a comment. I am interested in knowing -

1. Do you like your ocean waves painting or not?

2. What do you like or dislike about your original one-of-a-kind sea painting in miniature?

3. Would you like to see these miniature ocean waves paintings and ocean waves paintings with boats available in stores as a souvenir or collectible?

That would be great and you can register your original miniature sea painting by posting your comment on my blog after you have received your ocean waves painting trading card, if you can take a moment to do that.

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This offer good through June 30, 2009 – to get an ocean waves painting in trading card sized miniature of your own through this offer.

Limit – per household, individual or business, as many ocean wave miniature paintings art cards by cricketdiane as you would like but postage and handling is required for each of them.

For any business, non-profit, conservation, oceanography, or ocean / maritime / aquarium group interested in these miniature ocean waves paintings in trading card size, ocean waves with boats trading card size paintings or prints of these sea paintings to use for fund-raising or profit-making, please contact -

dianecphillips@comcast.net

(or post a comment here with your request and I will email you.)

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Orders will be filled in the order received.

You should receive your card in less than three weeks unless a waiting list becomes necessary, if it has been over three weeks let me know by email and I will see if I can find what happened to it.

CricketDiane C. Phillips Ocean Trading Card Art - Baby Crickets - Ships of the Imagination - Takeout Box Art To Go

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CricketDiane Ocean Trading Card Art - Baby Crickets - Ships of the Imagination - Takeout Box Art To Go - 2009

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http://www.business.gov/finance/financing/grants/

Small Business Grants

We’ve all seen the headlines: “Millions in free government money for your business.” Late-night infomercials and Internet advertisements promise grants to start or expand a business. Sound too good to be true? It is.

Facts About Government Grants

The federal government does not provide grants for starting and expanding a business.

Grants from the federal government are only available to non-commercial organizations, such as non-profits and educational institutions in areas such as, medicine, education, scientific research and technology development. The federal government also provides grants to state and local governments to assist them with economic development.

Some business grants are available through state and local programs, non-profit organizations and other groups. For example, some states provide grants for expanding child care centers; creating energy efficient technology; and developing marketing campaigns for tourism. These grants are not necessarily free money, and usually require the recipient to match funds or combine the grant with other forms of financing such as a loan.

If you are not one of these specialized business, both federal and state government agencies provide financial assistance programs that helps small business owners obtain low-interest loans and venture capital financing from commercial lenders.

How to Find Grants

If you are a small business owner, use our Small Business Loans and Grants Search Tool to find specialized small business grant programs.

If you are a non-profit organization or a for-profit business involved in scientific and technology research and development, consult the following resources:

• Grants.gov
  Find and apply for thousands of federal government grant programs.
• Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance
  Search a comprehensive database of grants, loans and other assistance programs available from federal agencies.

The following is a selection of major grant programs provided by federal government agencies.

Arts, Humanities and Education

• Education – U.S. Department of Education
• Humanities – National Endowment for the Humanities
• Libraries and Archives – National Archives and Records Administration
• Museums – Institute of Museum and Library Services
• Visual and Performing Arts – National Endowment for the Arts

Community and Social Services

• Employment and Labor Grants – U.S. Department of Labor
• Housing – U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Law Enforcement – U.S. Department of Justice

Health and Medicine

• Cancer Research – National Cancer Institute
• Health Care Services – U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration
• NIH Grants – National Institutes of Health

Science, Technology and Environment

• Energy Sciences Grants – U.S. Department of Energy
• Environmental Grants and Fellowships – Environmental Protection Agency
• Natural Resources – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• Scientific Research Grants – National Science Foundation
• Small Business Research and Development Grants
• Technology Grants - National Institute of Standards and Technology
• Telecommunications – National Telecommunications and Information Administration

http://www.business.gov/finance/financing/grants/

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A Fleet of 1500 Cloud-Seeding Ships Could Stop Global Warming, Say Scientists

By Annalee Newitz, 11:20 AM on Mon Sep 8 2008, 3,875 views

http://io9.com/5046852/a-fleet-of-1500-cloud+seeding-ships-could-stop-global-warming-say-scientists

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World Heritage List

The World Heritage List includes 878 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value.

These include 679 cultural , 174 natural and 25 mixed properties in 145 States Parties. As of April 2009, 186 States Parties have ratified the World Heritage Convention.

[Etc. - See this page for list of all sites by country -]

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/

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http://www.atmocean.com/

Atmocean’s wave-driven ocean upwelling system operates in the open ocean hundreds of miles from land where there is a steady supply of large ocean waves. Each pump, typically reaching down to depths of 100 meters to 400 meters beneath the surface, employs a surface buoy to capture this kinetic wave energy and pump the deep ocean toward the surface.

The deeper ocean is both colder and contains higher levels of nutrients. Upwelling of this deeper ocean, whether caused by storms and currents or by future deployment of Atmocean pumps, triggers the growth of phytoplankton. To metabolize the nutrients, phytoplankton take in dissolved CO2. This natural process today is absorbing nearly half of mankind’s emissions of CO2 while providing food for nearly all life in the upper ocean. But global warming is stratifying the upper ocean and reducing nutrients which reach the sunlit zone. Fewer phytoplankton grow, diminishing the ocean food chain and absorbing less CO2. This causes a feedback loop as more warming lessens natural ocean absorption of CO2, which then remains in the atmosphere to cause more warming.

In the years and decades ahead, Atmocean believes our wave-driven ocean upwelling system – which closely mimics and slightly enhances the natural ocean process – can play a critical role in restoring our ocean environment and cutting short this feedback loop. On the adjoining pages you can learn more about how our technology works and some of its applications. For more details, please contact Philip W. Kithil, CEO, at atmocean.kithil@gmail.com

http://www.atmocean.com/

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Reduce Hurricane Intensity

http://www.atmocean.com/hurricanes.htm

Atmocean, Inc.
802 Early Street
Santa Fe, NM 87505

Telephone – 505-310-2294
Fax – 888-527-6480

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Paharpur – Bangladesh

As an individual, you can help in many ways. Developing an awareness of the importance of World Heritage is the first step towards becoming an active participant in the preservation process. You can get informed about World Heritage, learn about World Heritage education, find out how to become a partner, discover how to visit sites in a responsible manner, how to work with us or make a donation.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/69

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[From - ]

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind.shtml

If you find an old windmill for sale, first make sure it’s intended for generating electricity instead of just pumping water. One common old windmill that’s often found for sale used is the Wincharger. The other popular wind generator of the era was the Jacobs. These were of higher quality than Winchargers–but many of both are still flying today. Several people around the U.S. restore, service and stock parts for old windmills. And the Jacobs is still being made today! The current production models are very large and expensive, with over 10 kW output–they are magnificently designed and built. Check out the Manufacturer’s Website for more information and cool pictures.

Electricity producing wind generators were very popular in the 1920s and 1930s all over rural America. They were available in many different sizes and voltages, and can often be found for sale in rural farm communities. Most models are quite suitable for a modern remote power system no matter what voltage they are. If you are able to locate an old wind generator, some basic maintenance (rust removal, lubrication, and testing) could put it back in working order quickly. They were built to last–before Rural Electricifation, they were the ONLY source of power for many rural farms and ranches. Backwoods Home Magazine published an excellent article in 2001 about finding and restoring old wind generators.

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• Homebrew Wind Turbine Construction Seminar, July 25-31 2009, Gerald, Missouri. More details, costs, and online registration (now OPEN) are available at the Evergreen Institute website. This will be a hands-on, 6-day, very intensive turbine building seminar that will end with a complete wind turbine install and erection. Loads of fun and great knowledge to be gained by everyone. Expect to be completely exhausted by the end of it!

Homebrew Wind Turbine Construction Seminar, August 17-22 2009, at the Otherpower wind turbine shop, 35 miles West of Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. This will be a hands-on, 6-day, very intensive turbine building seminar that will end with a complete wind turbine install and erection. Loads of fun and great knowledge to be gained by everyone. Expect to be completely exhausted by the end of it! Registration is NOW OPEN, and class is capped at 12 students, so register early.

Contact us for more information if you want to book a seminar of your own here in Colorado for 2-4 students, or seminar at your own location. Many of these seminars we put on are made possible by grant money from universities and community colleges, who sponsor instructors and professors to attend. We can also provide references from past seminars.

OPTIONS FOR GETTING STARTED IN WIND POWER

Build your own!

Homebrew Wind Power by Dan Bartmann and Dan Fink.The best book out there about building and flying do-it-yourself wind turbines. We know, because we wrote it! Order it from our Online Store HERE.

Building a wind generator from scratch is not THAT difficult of a project. You will need a shop with basic power and hand tools, and some degree of dedication. Large wind generators of 2000 Watts and up are a major project needing very strong construction, but smaller ones in the 700-1000 Watt, 8-11 foot range can be built fairly easily! In fact, we highly recommend that you tackle a smaller wind turbine before even thinking about building a large one. You’ll need to be able to cut and weld steel, and a metal lathe can be handy (though you could hire a machine shop that turns brake rotors do do some small steps for you).

In most locations, GENTLE winds (5-15 mph) are the most common, and strong winds are much more rare. As you’ll see by examining our latest machines, our philosophy about designing wind turbines is to make large, sturdy machines that produce good power in low wind speeds, and are able to survive high wind events while still producing maximum power. The power available in the wind goes up by a factor of 8 as the windspeed doubles.
Other critical factors are rotor size and tower height. The power a wind turbine can harvest goes up by at least a factor of 4 as you double the rotor size. And making a tower higher gets you above turbulence for better performance and substially increased power output. Putting a wind turbine on a short tower is like mounting solar panels in the shade!

Before you jump into building your own wind turbine or buying a commercial one, do your homework! There are certain things that work and certain things that don’t, and you can save hours and dollars by learning from other people’s successes and mistakes. Some recommended reading:

• Our book Homebrew Wind Power covers everything you need to know about the physics behind turning moving air into electricity, and includes detailed, step-by-step illustrated instructions on how to build a 10-foot diameter, 1 kilowatt turbine. And much more, including controls, wiring, towers, and troubleshooting.
• Our article The Bottom Line About Wind Turbines is an essential introduction to wind power. It covers the basics of how wind comes to us, how much power different size wind turbines can make in different wind regimes, and has a very handy section on detecting wind turbine scams.

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind.shtml

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• Wind-Powered Drive-in Movie Theater – World’s First?
• Windmill owner fascinated by power

US Stimulus Package expands tax credits for homeowners, businesses

On February 17, 2009 President Obama signed the American Recovery and Re-investment Act of 2009 into law. The bill improves upon the 2008 tax credit, by removing “cost caps.” This change allows consumers and small businesses to take a 30% tax credit off the installed cost of a wind turbine.

Read more

http://www.windenergy.com/index_wind.htm

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Wind Maps –

http://www.windenergy.com/globalwindmaps/index.htm

Search all locations worldwide (requires free login)

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My Note -

I found a site that had a build your own generator a while back – something like a home garage project. Will find it again and post it later . . .

It looks like the states and non-profits, cities and counties are good places to look for business grants, as well as specific industry groups. I’m going to look around for those also. I wonder how much could be raised with a business that is built from the ground up with green – ecologically friendly practices from the get-go. Might be interesting to find out.

- cricketdiane, 06-06-09

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From watching the Quest Means Business Show on CNN today -

I didn’t see the name of the guy talking about the “artificial intelligence” search engine, nor do I want to know except in order to avoid it. He admits that there is purely data mining on personal preferences and previous searches to define what search results will be made available. (pick any three cuss words and insert here to describe the creepy thinking that man was propagating.)

Now, it is annoying enough when ads are structured to be about “Marietta” when I’m on a site about Great Britain or science or engineering. If I wanted to know what was available on yahoo – I’d be using it which I don’t and if I wanted to search for something in Marietta – I’d have put that into the durn search window, which I didn’t or look it up in a phone book. But, invariably any page will tell me an ad for Marietta and the address will be yahoo.com. I hate them.

A search engine that can answer the question, “What do I need to do tomorrow?” indicates a complete lack of ethics and a thinly veiled attempt to cull and sell very personal search preferences in a cumulative manner. But, today I may need to know what goes into a chemical reaction with chlorine and cesium 137 (whatever came from the atomic atoll fallout), to any positive end-product. Last week, I may have wanted to know about the 7.1 earthquake in Honduras or wherever it was in Central America. Don’t tell me that some search engine should take away the natural search results when I put the terms, “rapid prototyping” in the window tomorrow because it is trying to figure out what the question could be in consideration of the others that came before it.

Why is it that when something works – people like this search engine idiot on the Quest show today can’t just leave that alone and go solve something that doesn’t work at all?

- cricket diane

email to quest means business, on 06-02-09

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So, I think it was yesterday that the BBC was kind enough to broadcast a show about how several very wealthy people specifically spent their money in a short period of time, how much it was for each of them, how they spent it and sort of why. It seems that there is a good reason why those who have the means to challenge really difficult problems aren’t doing it.

They are too busy buying sweaters that say “I’m a cutie” for their dogs, flying three continents away to have lunch, buying entire towns in Eastern Europe and having body modifications made to be more beautiful, more handsome, more buff, more sexy and more desirable than God actually made anyone.

No wonder little else is getting done out of those who have the money to do something productive – it isn’t even on the menu except as a tax haven or a way to mingle with others in the same class. I’m just teasing. I know there are many philanthropies which survive because of the gifts and bounty from both rich and poor, middle class and upper crust.

And, as self-absorbed as those shown on the BBC show and egocentric to an extreme at times, it is evident that no one considers anything they do as crazy. But, maybe they should.

There is likely no one who can explain to the rich playboy in their story that there is any other valid use or place for women than in his bed to stroke his fantasies into a life experience. That is probably useless information to him anyway and who would want a decent life partner of any sex stuck with him or anyone like him, regardless of how much money he makes. It isn’t just that money doesn’t buy real love nor a joyous life, it is that money doesn’t fix damn well everything either.

What is most nauseating about this show and about those who think and act like the people which the BBC producers were highlighting, is that – one, they genuinely seem to not know any better. And two, I think of the networks of people they know and resources that are accessible to them which are used for absolutely no productive purpose whatsoever – not to solve problems, not to produce anything to make the world a better place, not to make a contribution that is valuable which they are uniquely suited to offer or specifically positioned to support bringing to the world.

And three, that each of these people are given status and respect for what they say or think simply because they have money and resources that are unavailable to most people. What’s the use – they don’t think its important, then it must not be important. But, what if they really do only believe in buying what others cannot buy to flaunt their self-importance and there really is nothing else on the menu?

There are a lot of experts on tele news including CEO’s and those people described on the BBC show mentioned above that I wouldn’t trust to get me from my house to the Kroger without getting us lost – and Kroger is only a one mile walk from where I live. There aren’t but maybe one or two that I’ve seen on any of these shows, news analysts and experts, rich people, corporate executives, stock brokers, hedge fund managers and especially politicians from Washington’s Congressional delegations and our State governments that I would follow anywhere – not even from this side of the street to the other.

And, precisely because they’d get us killed or maimed or hurt or just plain lost by doing something that would only make sense in their rarefied little rich people worlds, like checking their reflection in a mirror while walking us across four lanes of traffic on foot. Or hiring somebody to carry us from here to the other side of the street who has to use a GPS navigator to find how to get there from here.

They’d likely take us through Tennessee to get from here to the other side of the street where I live by using the route on the GPS to figure it out. That comes from hiring somebody who gets paid to do something that they could’ve done themselves. It leaves the situation open to nonconstructive manipulated and opportunistic uses for undue gain by the person who being thus employed realizes the absolute stupidity of it.

The head jackass at the Bank of America makes more money that my mind can consider but who would trust that man to get them from here to Kroger, either in a car or on foot? I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t trust him to buy a list of groceries at that store without screwing it up or having to get somebody else to do it for him and he might blow a microwave to hell, if he figured out what the buttons could do besides warm coffee, which he would never have the occasion to do anyway.

How is it that anything he has uttered or said that he thinks about something during the last twenty years has been given the respect and unquestioned faith as if it has come straight from someone who would have to know and have it right? How could he possibly know when he and others like him haven’t been living with their feet touching the pavement or the rain touching their heads, don’t buy their own groceries, can’t cook a can of beans safely enough to serve anybody, don’t mow their own grass or know how to walk around a block without getting lost, hurt, robbed or killed?

- cricketdiane

Good Living is to stand where the trees filled with bright green leaves sparkling in the sunlight bow over a gently gurgling creek with its waters singing from little waterfalls and swirls over round glistening moss-covered rocks. It is to put a hand into the cool water and find a pretty rock or two and put the wet sparkling treasures into a pocket to discover later at home. It is to stand with pants rolled up in the bubbling swirls to feel rocks underfoot and waterfall spray under the canopy of arching branches and leaves that spreads out as far up the stream as the eye can see.

That is good living. It doesn’t cost much, doesn’t pay any bills, isn’t harnessed for anything except the sheer joy of the moment, but it nourishes the soul and complements the mind. It is a moment of time stopped from today and tomorrow and yesterday. Long before now, the creek has flowed and long after today, it will continue. The trees will sparkle with rays of the sun casting long strands of light through the branches and the new spring leaves will be the most marvelous colors of every green and yellow-green that exists. The spray of the creek’s falls will be cool on the skin, a gentle breeze will flow through the canopy and the beautiful water-polished rocks will sit on the creek bed highlighting their colors beneath the moving water.

Skipping rocks across a still pool a little ways from the drifting water, watching for crawdads and water snakes, finding rose quartz and rubies under the water on the creek bed and sunning on a flat rock that has been smoothed by the water over hundreds of years, are exceptional special moments to carry back into a hustled modern world of streets and buildings and buzzing activity.

In Japan, there are beautiful gardens with water features because of the soothing effects to the spirit and in many homes of the Middle East, there are fountains, pools and gently moving water channels in a central courtyard of the home for its spiritually nourishing qualities. There are sounds of water which cannot be acquired any other way but by its fall and splash with the echo of it against rocks or marble basin.

This sound sings to the soul of every human being. It calls to the life of living, it nourishes and forebears, it completes and awakens, it soothes and calms while restoring thoughts to a flow of focus and breadth at the same time. It is amazing and even the memory of it can do the same thing, filling the mind with wonder again and with a child-like delight at the world in its newness and potential, calming and awakening the mind to consider the possibilities with openness and the willingness to contemplate challenge.

- cricketdiane, 06-01-09

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