However, there’s a reason I quoted £14,000 specifically in the figure above, because I recently saw another statistic saying that if one’s income is above 14 grand a year, you are one of the top 4% richest people on planet Earth. Or, to put it another way, if you were on that income, and were then to select somebody totally at random from our species, then 24 times out of 25 you would be richer than them.

Now, this slightly shocking fact, as well as being a timely reminder as to the prevalence of poverty amongst fellow members of our species, to me raises an interesting question; if £14,000 is only just about enough to let one’s life operate properly in modern Britain, how on earth does the vast majority of the world manage to survive at all on significantly less than this? More than 70% of the Chinese population (in 2008, admittedly; the rate of Chinese poverty is decreasing at a staggering rate thanks to its booming economy) live on less than $5 a day, and 35 years ago more than 80% were considered to be in absolute poverty. How does this work? How does most of the rest of the world physically survive?

The obvious starting point is the one stating that much of it barely does. Despite the last few decades of massive improvement in the living standards and poverty levels in the world in general,  the World Bank estimates that some 20% of the world’s populace is living below the absolute poverty line of surviving on less than $1.50 per person per day, or £365 a year (down from around 45% in the early 1980s- Bob Geldof’s message has packed a powerful punch). This is the generally accepted marker for being less than what a person can physically keep body and soul together on, and having such a huge proportion of people living below this marker tends to drag down the global average. Poverty is something that the last quarter of the century has seen a definitive effort on the part of humanity to reduce, but it’s still a truly vast issue across the globe.

However, the main contributing factor to me behind how a seemingly meagre amount of money in the first world would be considered bountiful wealth in the third is simply down to how economics works. We in the west are currently enjoying the fruits of two centuries of free-market capitalism, which has fundamentally changed the way our civilisation functions. When we as a race first came up with the concept of civilisation, of pooling and exchanging skills and resources for the betterment of the collective, this was largely confined to the local community, or at least to the small-scale. Farmers provided for those living in the surrounding twenty miles or so, as did brewers, hunters, and all other such ‘small businessmen’, as they would be called today. The concept of a country provided security from invasion and legal support on a larger scale, but that was about it; any international trade was generally conducted between kings and noblemen, and was very much small scale.

However, since the days of the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution, business has got steadily bigger and bigger. It started out with international trade between the colonies, and the rich untapped resources the European imperial powers found there, moved on to the industrial scale manufacture of goods, and then the high-intensity sale of consumer products to the general population. Now we have vast multinational companies organising long, exhaustive chains of supply, manufacture and retail, and our society has become firmly rooted in this intense selling international economy. Without constantly selling vast quantities of stuff to one another, the western world as we know it simply would not exist.

This process causes many side effects, but one is of particular interest; everything becomes more expensive. To summarise very simply, the basic principle of capitalism involves workers putting in work and skill to increase the value of something; that something then gets sold, and the worker then gets some of the difference between cost of materials and cost of sale as a reward for their effort. For this to work, then one’s reward for putting in your effort must be enough to purchase the stuff needed to keep you alive; capitalism rests on the principle of our bodies being X% efficient at turning the food we eat into the energy we can use to work. If business is successful, then the workers of a company (here the term ‘workers’ covers everyone from factory floor to management) will gain money in the long term, enabling them to spend more money. This means that the market increases in size, and people can either sell more goods or start selling them for a higher price, so goods become worth more, so the people making those goods start getting more money, and so on.

The net result of this is that in an ‘expensive’ economy, everyone has a relatively high income and high expenditure, because all goods, taxes, land, utilities etc. cost quite a lot; but, for all practical purposes, this results in a remarkably similar situation to a ‘cheap’ economy, where the full force of western capitalism hasn’t quite taken hold yet- for, whilst the people residing there have less money, the stuff that is there costs less having not been through the corporation wringer. So, why would we find it tricky to live on less money than the top 4% of the world’s population? Blame the Industrial Revolution.

Industrial can mean something very large or bigger than usual. I applied this to the line, and extended it across the nation, and then across the world map.

Think about all the people living on this extended version of our line!

I chose a few spots on the line to look up what the people look like there:

• Motorized internal calibration (Optional)
• ISO GLP compliance (Optional)
• Real Time Clock (RTC) (Optional)
• Multiple weighing units.
• Standard bi-directional RS-232 interface
• Polyfunction: % weighing, counting, fill mode, GSM.
• Backlight LCD display
• Density determination kit (optional)
• Weigh below hook for density determination (Optional).
• Anti theft locking device (Optional)
• GSM (grams per sq mtr) measurement for paper & cloth quality checking.
• Cotton Count (New English count) measurement for cotton yarn with temperature compensation (Optional).
• Denier measurement for silk and synthetic yarn (Optional).
• Cocoon assessment with statistical analysis for cocoons (Optional).
• Software for SQC (Statistical Quality Control) for Pharmaceutical Industries (Optional).

Contech, the leading manufacturer of high precision electronic balances in India with 18 years Industry experience today offers the complete range of Electronic Balances and Weighing scales for various applications. Our range comprises of Laboratory Balances, Moisture Balances, Gem and Jewellery Balances, Super Market Scales, Health Scales, Industrial Scales, Crane Scales, Weighing Indicators, Electronic Weighbridges, Scales for special applications, etc. Company has added range of laboratory equipments like pH Meters, Conductivity Meters, Melting Point Apparatus, Polarimeters, Digital Refractometers and also X-Ray Gold Purity Testers.

Company was established by three technocrats in the year 1992.Company gradually added various models to its range of products and today has got a product range from 0.01mg Analytical Balances to 150 ton Electronic Weighbridges. Where Innovation never stops…. is the slogan of Contech Instruments Ltd and is synonymous with Contech having more than 100 models today. Contech an 9001:2008 Company is the largest manufacturers of Electronic Balances based on Electro Magnetic Force Compensation Technology in India today and is selling more than all other manufacturers put together which only shows the market domination of Contech for High Precision Electronic Balances.

Contech is the only Indian manufacturer who has developed and manufactured in true sense the complete and best range for all purpose weighing machines from 0.01mg Analytical Balances to 150 ton Electronic Weighbridges in its own setup illustrating the technical competence of the Company. Company employs more than 250 personnel and manufactures more than 30000 Balances per year today. Company has got enough infrastructure for manufacturing 3000 Balances per month.

Contradictory phrases, oxymorons and other crap.

Lately I have been hearing a lot of self-contradictory descriptions, contradictory phrases or statements, so I decided to throw up on this blog the one I can think of, since I feel guilty not posting much this year.

I think these are also considered Oxymorons – which I always thought were high-school kids with acne who used too much Oxy5 on their faces…

Enjoy:

• Amusing artlessness
  An exciting baseball game
  Atheist’s belief
  Austere charm
  Authentic indications
  Authoritative critic
  Autocratic power
  Automatic termination
  Available data
  Avenging fate
  Average excellence
  Benevolent Dictator
  Burdensome business
  Butt heads
  Carping critic
  Clean Coal
  Christian Objectivism
  Collectivist Individual
  Definate maybe
  Derogatory denial
  Efficient bureaucrat
  Emphatic earnestness
  Fair tax
  Fat-free doughnut
  Fawning flatteries
  Gathering gloom
  God given ability
  Good grief
  Government organization
  Harmful CO2 emissions
  Heathen hordes
  Indelicate impetuosity
  Industrial-scale green energy
  Innate knowledge
  It’s in the mail
  Jumbo shrimp
  Labored levity
  Laissez-faire Communist
  Maddening monotony
  Middle-East peace
  Non-violent boxer
  Partial Fractions
  Personal attraction
  Personal predilection
  Positive government bailout of (insert industry name here)
  Pro-Man Altruism
  Rational faith
  Reason-free Objectivims
  Reversing backwards
  Revert back
  Ripe reflection
  Savage satirist
  Superbowl winner (pick one: Saints, Vikings, Falcons, Texans, Eagles)
  Tart temper
  Temporary Government Program
  Terribly pleased
  The Department of Redundancy Department
  Unenvied insipidity
  User-friendly tax code
  Vicarious virtue
  Violent love
  Well-meaning Altruist

Write me with others, and I will add them to the comments.

via yankodesign.com

via yankodesign.com

via yankodesign.com

via yankodesign.com

Industrial scales are perfect for monitoring the filling process. A bench scale is used to keep track of the weight during the filling process for smaller sized cans, pails and other containers. A drum scale will serve this purpose for drums and small tanks, whereas a platform scale or floor scale can handle larger dewars and larger tanks. While this will solve the accuracy issue, it still requires the filling operator to read the scale and control the filling process.

Arlyn Scales offers a programmable set-point controller for their entire line of bench scales, drum scales, platform scales and floor scales. This allows the filling operator to program the desired weight into the industrial scale. Electrical signals from the scale will control the filling device, shutting it off when the target weight is reached. While this minimizes the efforts required of the fill operator, there may still be some inaccuracies caused by latent delay in turning off pumps, and valves, and the material remaining in fill pipes or tubes.  This controller permits a second target value to be programmed, which can set the filling into a much slower trickle feed. Generally, this will be sufficient to obtain the desired target weights.

For all of these reasons, there are many rules and regulations pertaining to the management of hazardous wastes. Some of these simply define what materials and items are deemed to be hazardous and which are not. Others outline the methods required for physically handling hazardous materials. There are specifications for the types of clear and accurate documentation that must be maintained.

Much of this documentation is associated with the amounts of these materials. Generally, they must be weighed at all steps in the process. Clearly, it is important to know how much material is generated. That can be determined by using a good quality industrial scale. Depending on the amounts and type of hazardous waste, this could be a bench scale with resolution as high as 0.001 lb. If it is a liquid that is stored in a pail, tank or drum, then a drum scale would be considered. Cylinders of hazardous liquids and gasses are weighed on cylinder scales. Platform scales, floor scales and pallet scales are used to weigh larger containers, totes and larger tanks. The weight can be recorded by hand onto the proper form. Alternatively, Arlyn Scales offers computer interfaces for most of their electronic scales. Weights can now be automatically stored in a database file, or can be printed on labels and other types of forms. It is even possible to use a USB memory stick to log the weight information from these digital scales, along with the time and date of the weighing action. This is particularly useful for maintaining high quality records.