Author: Serkadis

Finally, God of War III hits store shelves today. But while you’re stewing at work waiting for quitting time to get yourself a copy, here’s the game’s launch trailer, a montage of godly badassery and probably the

A new MAG patch, v1.04a, will go live tomorrow that aims to limit “spawn camping” in some of the game’s maps and tweaking a few balance-related bits. Hit the jump for the complete patch notes.

We get pitched stories from PR people all the time, and probably 99.9% of them end up getting ignored and trashed — mostly because they’re not even close to relevant, but often because we have no interest in being someone’s free promotional team. What’s amusing, however, is that invariably, days after we get pitched on certain stories, I end up seeing them appear in all sorts of mainstream publications, including some of the biggest and “most trusted” names in journalism.

And yet we keep getting told that we need to “support” this all important newspaper industry so they can carry on with the important democracy-saving task of journalism?

Last year, we noted that some attempts to count how many stories a newspaper actually reported on each day showed that the numbers were woefully low — just a handful per day, with the rest all filled in with fluff and wire service copy. But it gets even more ridiculous once you realize that many of the “stories” that reporters worked on were really little more than gussied up press releases turned into “articles.”

Boing Boing points us to a recent study in Australia that looked at a week’s worth of newspaper stories, and found that more than half were placed by PR people, though there was definitely a pretty wide range depending on the newspaper.

This seems like a pretty important finding to be included in any debate about “saving” newspapers — especially when the government is talking about stepping in to tax others to prop up newspapers. If all they’re really doing is propping up efforts to run wire copy and run thinly veiled advertisements-as-news, is that really what the government should be supporting? It seems we have this mental “ideal” of journalism, represented by Woodward and Bernstein, holding politicians accountable for their actions — but that rarely happens in practice. Instead, too much of traditional journalism has become notetaking — writing down what politicians and PR people say and repeating it back to an audience that could find that information themselves if they wanted it.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Filed under: Minivan/Van, Recalls, Safety, Crossover, Honda

Honda has announced a recall for some 410,000 vehicle due to a defect with the Vehicle Stability Assist (VSA) module. According to the automaker, 344,00 Odysseys and 68,000 Elements (MY 2007-2008) are affected by the problem and owners will be notified via mail this April to take their vehicles into dealers.

The issue with the VSA results in a softening sensation through brake pedal and a longer pedal travel that requires owners to apply more pressure to bring their vehicles to a halt. The condition worsens over time as the stability control system lets a small amount of air into the braking system. Full details on the problem, including Honda’s recall hotline, are available after the jump.

Continue reading Honda recalling 410,000 Odysseys and Elements for brake problem

Honda recalling 410,000 Odysseys and Elements for brake problem originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Credit Classes

• Register now for summer. Classes begin May 24 and throughout the summer.
• Need help getting started? Contact Admissions, 847.925.6707.
• Already applied and need help choosing classes? Contact Center for New Students.
• Current Harper students with questions about classes should contact Academic Advising.

Continuing Education Non-Credit Classes

• Register now for summer. Classes begin May 17 and throughout the summer.
• Need help getting started? Contact Continuing Education, 847.925.6300.

According to a new report from Societe Generale, gold miners like Barrick Gold aren’t hedging against price fluctuations despite recent pullbacks in price.

Sure you can lock in a price via a forward contract but that practice has apparently all but died in recent years.

BullionVault: Despite the Gold Price hitting a new record-high monthly average in each of Oct., Nov. and Dec. 2009, “We have not observed a shift in the attitudes of [mining] producers towards hedging,” says GFMS in its latest quarterly report for Société Générale.

“These views remain firmly in line with the anti-hedging sentiment of prospective gold equity investors,” the report says.

Fearing further price falls after the 20-year bear market of the 1980s and ’90s, the world’s major Gold Mining companies had sold forward a total of 3,421 tonnes of production – as yet unmined – by mid-2001.

Continue reading ->

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Why Has Gold Been Such A Dog? It’s As Simple As Supply And Demand
• Metals Struggle As Gold, Silver Dip
• Dow Squeezes Out Modest Gains On High Volume

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Mike Prokosch: (617) 723-2639
March 16, 2010                                                                                   

State Could Gain 6,000 Jobs by Making Weatherization Field a “High Road” Industry

BOSTON – Massachusetts can get 6,000 good jobs by making the fast-growing weatherization field a “high road” industry. That’s the takeaway from a report released today by the Green Justice Coalition and the national Apollo Alliance. The report, An Industry at the Crossroads: Energy Efficiency Employment in Massachusetts, shows that:

• The jobs are coming. The state and utility companies are investing $1.4 billion in building energy efficiency over the next three years. That will create 6,000 direct and 8,300 indirect jobs in the construction sector retrofitting more than 100,000 residential units and 20,000 commercial and municipal structures.
• Right now, weatherization wages are poverty wages. Prevailing wages in home weatherization are $11.26 to $17.59 per hour in Massachusetts, so low that workers qualify for low-income weatherization assistance.
• “Low-road jobs” cost workers, taxpayers, and the state. Employers who underpay workers shift the cost of supporting their families onto taxpayers. This can cost the state and federal government more than $28,000 a year per family.
• “High road” jobs are a good bargain. Paying all of Massachusetts’s energy efficiency workers $18 an hour + $4 in benefits would bring in $32 million a year in income taxes, unemployment contributions, and workers compensation premiums.

The reports concludes that the state, cities, and utility companies can make weatherization jobs “good jobs” by requiring contractors to meet Responsible Employer standards. Responsible contractors would pay living wages and offer benefits, provide quality training and safe workplaces, and hire local residents. Responsible contractors can help end Depression-level joblessness in the state’s low-income communities and communities of color by hiring local residents.

For copies of the report, visit www.massclu.org or contact Mike Prokosch at Community Labor United at 617-723-2639 or [email protected]. Interviews are available with workers in the industry, labor market expert Dr. Andrew Sum of Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies, and leaders of the state’s Green Justice Coalition.

###

The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of unlikely and diverse interests – including labor, business, environmental, and community leaders – advancing a bold vision for the next American economy centered on clean energy and good jobs.

The Green Justice Coalition is a partnership of community groups, labor unions, environmental and other organizations that support a sustainable, equitable, and clean energy economy in Massachusetts. The Coalition is an affiliate of the national Apollo Alliance.

Federal regulators are looking into the fact whether Toyota’s unintended acceleration issues are being caused by cosmic rays – and no we’re not kidding. Radiation from space has long affected airplanes and space shuttles and is known for causing errors in computer systems.

It was recently reported that some consumers are still facing sudden acceleration issues even after their recalled vehicles have been fixed by Toyota dealerships.

The recent study of cosmic rays shows just how deep regulators are digging to solve the mystery of unintended accelerations in Toyotas.

The move comes after an anonymous tipster whose complaint prompted regulators to look at the issue said that the design of Toyota’s microprocessors, memory chips and software could make them vulnerable than those used by other automakers.

“I think it could be a real issue with Toyota,” Sung Chung, who runs a California testing firm, said. Toyota told the Free Press that its engine controls are “robust against this type of interference.”

We’ll find out soon enough.

– By: Stephen Calogera

Source: Free Press

Article Tags: Headline Story, Roy Spencer

INTRODUCTION

My last few posts have described a new method for quantifying the average Urban Heat Island (UHI) warming effect as a function of population density, using thousands of pairs of temperature measuring stations within 150 km of each other. The results supported previous work which had shown that UHI warming increases logarithmically with population, with the greatest rate of warming occurring at the lowest population densities as population density increases.

But how does this help us determine whether global warming trends have been spuriously inflated by such effects remaining in the leading surface temperature datasets, like those produced by Phil Jones (CRU) and Jim Hansen (NASA/GISS)?

While my quantifying the UHI effect is an interesting exercise, the existence of such an effect spatially (with distance between stations) does not necessarily prove that there has been a spurious warming in the thermometer measurements at those stations over time. The reason why it doesn’t is that, to the extent that the population density of each thermometer site does not change over time, then various levels of UHI contamination at different thermometer sites would probably have little influence on long-term temperature trends. Urbanized locations would indeed be warmer on average, but “global warming” would affect them in about the same way as the more rural locations.

This hypothetical situation seems unlikely, though, since population does indeed increase over time. If we had sufficient truly-rural stations to rely on, we could just throw all the other UHI-contaminated data away. Unfortunately, there are very few long-term records from thermometers that have not experienced some sort of change in their exposure…usually the addition of manmade structures and surfaces that lead to spurious warming.

Source: drroyspencer.com

Read in full with comments »   

When the Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition was announced (qjnet/news/arkham-asylum-goes-goty-comes-with-3d-support.html), it was only scheduled for release in PAL territories. Fortunately, Eidos isn’t leaving North America out of the 3D crime-fighting.
 
 

There won’t be a shortage of 3D games to play when 3D gaming hits the PS3. According to Sony, a lot of first-party studios are hard at work on such games for the Sony home console.

Atlus has released a new 3D Dot Game Heroes vignette called “The Most Interesting Hero in 3D”. Why’s he so interesting? Because even dragons consider him a boss. Check it out after the jump.

General Electric (GE), will raise its dividend payouts in 2011. If you hear someone screaming, it’s probably your grandmother excited about those shares she’s been holding since 1955.

Similarly, JP Morgan (JPM) just announced a $0.05 quarterly dividend for its stockholders.

As a result of the announcement, shares of GE are up 4% to $17.98 a share.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• CHART OF THE DAY: As Europe Crumbled, Investors Quietly Tip-Toed Back Into U.S. Stocks
• Lessons To Learn From The Incredible 12-Month Rally
• Perma-Bear Bob Janjuah Makes A Bullish Call

NEW – Heavy duty construction spring rewind hose reels for extreme applications. Pressures up to 3000 psi.

The ReCoila® ST series of spring rewind reels offers long hose lengths and large diameters in a rugged design for Heavy Duty applications. Built around the platform of the very successful
ReCoila T series manual and motor driven reels the ST series performs to customers expectations.
Applications include, Air, Water, Fuels, Lubricants, Chemicals for diverse industries including mining, offshore, service vehicles, workshops – anywhere a rugged reliable spring rewind reel
is required for large diameter and long length hoses.
Standard units are powder coated Steel and are also available also in Stainless Steel and Aluminium construction. Dual hose and high pressure versions are available.

ReCoila hose reels, cord reels and cable reels offer you an economical and quality solution to improve your safety record, improve efficiencies, increase productivity and reduce costly down time. Our goal is to help you understand the features that make ReCoila the market leader; and separates our hose reels from the rest. We offer real features and real benefits giving you the confidence that your choice in ReCoila Reels is indeed the RIGHT one.

Schmitt Europe, Ltd., (a division of Schmitt Industries, Inc.,) is pleased to announce the launch of its new SB-5500 balancing and acoustic emission (AE) controller at the GrindTec 2010 tradeshow in Augsburg, Germany, on the 17th – 20th of March. The SB 5500 will be shown by Schmitt’s south German agent IS Zubehör GmbH in Halle 7 Stand Nr 740.

The SB-5500 is the latest addition to the World leading SBS line of dynamic grinding wheel balancing and acoustic emission monitoring products.

The SB-5500 is a new advanced balancer control platform appropriate for all grinding machines. It features a larger, high resolution display, digital electronic design, enhanced communication options, four channel capability and 24V DC or universal input AC power supply. Options also include basic acoustic emission analysis for gap and crash detection and enhanced acoustic emission analysis capability. This features frequency signature analysis and full integration of frequency data into any CNC program.

The SB-5500 is a modular controller that can be supplied with one-to-four plug-in electronic cards allowing multiple machines or devices to be monitored and controlled. These plug-in electronic cards include the: SB-5512 internal or external balancers with cable connection; SB 5518 Hydrokompenser fluid chamber balancers; SB-5522 Acoustic Emission Monitoring System (AEMS) gap-crash for grinding and dressing monitoring; SB-5532 internal or external balancer with “no cable” connection (non-contact balancers); and the SB-5543 manual balancer, allowing operators to position a mass on the flange to balance the grinding wheel.

The SB-5500 is compatible with all existing SBS balancers, AE sensors and cables, and boasts a new colour TFT LCD display. A remote display panel for facial mounting, or a Virtual display to run on grinder CNC/PLC screens are also available.

Other new features of the SB-5500 include enhanced communication to grinding machine controls with the addition of Profibus, Ethernet and hardwire interfaces, an improved temperature operating range and new DC power supply option (21-28V DC), simplifying the integration of the SB-5500 into machine builders control panels. In addition, a Chinese language feature is offered , complementing the existing English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Polish and Russian language user interfaces.

FUTEK Advanced Sensor Technology is proud to now offer their model LLB400, a Miniature Load Button Load Cell with improved overall accuracy. The load cell has a high accuracy with a deflection of 0.0015” nominal and an operating temperature of -60° F to 200° F. As an extra feature, this model may also be offered with a USB output option.

Model LLB400 is a Low Profile Load Button Load Cell with Threaded Mounting Holes. This particular Load Button can be used in Press, or Inline compression applications. The standard LLB400 Load Button Load Cell model has a very robust construction available in 17-4 Stainless Steel, with a 1.25” outside diameter and a 10 feet long 26 AWG 4 conductor shielded Teflon cable. This model is offered in a wide capacity ranging from 100lbs to 2,500lbs. Another unique feature of this load cell is its miniature size. With a diameter of 1.23” and width of 1.39”, this makes it a perfect fit for applications where space is limited. You will also find options for external matched output readily available.

The standard LLB400 Load Button Load Cell can be modified or customized to meet your requirements and most capacities are in our inventory, making them available for 24 hour shipping. Similar to our entire Load Cell product line this model is manufactured in USA and uses metal foil strain gauge technology.

Product Highlights:
Weight: 6 oz
Low Deflection
Compression
Low Profile
Shielded Teflon Cable
Improved Accuracy: +/-0.15% RO (capacities 100lbs – 2,000lbs.)
Nonrepeatability: +/-0.1% of RO
17-4 Stainless Steel Construction
Utilizes Metal Foil Strain Gauge Technology

For those who are a looking for a complete system solution, FUTEK can provide a complete USB Solution package for this sensor. Our USB Solution comes with basic software and is also offered with a extended software version. FUTEK also offers both signal conditioned displays or our VCal Portable System. FUTEK’s VCal Portable System brings an easy-to-use system verification directly to the customer making it ideal for on-site verification and calibration of your products.

Abanaki Corporation offers the Oil Grabber® Model 8 oil skimmer for the food processing industry where plant maintenance engineers are looking for the lowest cost, most reliable method of removing food greases and oils from the wastewater stream. Abanaki skimmers use the differences in specific gravity and surface tension between oil and water, allowing the belt to attract frying oils, vegetable oils, greases, and animal fats as the belt passes through the surface of the water. The simple belt-and-motor approach is proven to operate unattended and reliably for decades with little maintenance.

To avoid fines from government and municipal sewer districts, food processing plants must limit the amount of oils discharged into the environment. Oils and greases entering a plant’s wastewater stream in the process line or during sanitary washdowns, must be removed continuously. The Model 8 oil skimmer provides a continuously operating belt and wiper that can remove up to 40 gallons per hour of oil and grease from water and water-based solutions. Depending on the characteristics of the liquid, the Model 8 oil skimmer is capable of reducing oil content to fewer than five parts-per-million in water. Another benefit of using an Abanaki oil skimmer comes from the recaptured greases and oils, which can be used to manufacture other products such as pet food.
Using an upper and lower pulley system, the oil skimmer belt runs through contaminated liquid to pick up oil from the surface. The belt travels over the head pulley and then passes through tandem wiper blades, from which oil is scraped off both sides and discharged. The tail pulley features flanges that allow the pulley to roll freely on the inside of the belt without becoming dislodged in turbulent applications. No bearings are needed; the unit does not need to be fastened to the tank. An optional tether and cage assembly is offered to prevent the tail pulley from being dislodged. The Oil Grabber Model 8 can be used in tanks with depths as shallow as one foot or as deep as 100 feet.

Reliability and efficiency are important in each area in a company, and of course this also includes the PCB assembly department.

This has led the connector specialist ODU, located in Mühldorf, Germany, to expand its ODU MAC LC (modular rectangular connectors) with the addition of a PCB termination module. This module allows simple and efficient connection of PCBs to rectangular connectors. The PCB modules are first soldered on to the PCB, and then the ODU MAC LC can be very simply plugged in. No extra frame is needed on the PCB side, and this reduces the assembly costs.

ODU MAC LC PCB module at a glance

* Solder temperature: 260° C/ 500° F (30 s)
* 5, 6 and 10 contact positions available
* Modules are delivered with solder joints already mounted
* Insulator material: PA (black)
* Insertion forces remain in the connector, so there is no
unnecessary stress on the PCB

Most caliper disc brakes currently available are either controlled pneumatically or hydraulically. The new spring applied electric caliper disc brake (EMB-300CP) from Ogura uses a series of springs to apply force to a friction disc and is released when voltage/current is applied. Since this brake operates electrically and only needs a simple two wire hook up, installation costs are far less than pneumatic and hydraulic brakes which require supply lines and compressed air or hydraulic fluid. The brake is approximately 7 inches in length, 5 inches in width and 6 inches in height. It can produce 710 lbs. of axial force and is made to operate with a disc thickness of 12.5 mm. Normal operating voltage is 45 volts but typically over excitation is used to get a quick response, so the brake is made to operate with an over excitation of 90 volts.

Since the brakes are modular in design, multiple brakes can be added to a single disc to increase the torque. If two brakes are used on one disc, the torque doubles.. Customers also have the option, if space is available, to increase the size of the disc to increase the torque. For example, the torque from an 8” disc would be about 150 lb. ft. and from a 16” disc, it would be 300 lb. ft. Brakes can also be made with integral limit switches so that a system would register if the brake is either engaged or disengaged. All brakes also come with manual release nuts so brakes can be released in an emergency. Although, mainly designed for hoist and elevator applications, these low cost modular brakes can be used in a variety of industrial applications.

Theses brakes are only a small part of over 3,000 different clutch and brake models that Ogura has available. If this brake does not meet your needs please contact us at 732-271-7361 and we will assist you in finding one that does or if you prefer please visit our website at www.ogura-clutch.com for immediate information. Ogura Industrial Corporation, Somerset, NJ

Creaform proudly launches the fourth version of the proprietary software VxScan. This program can now integrate data acquired by both a Handyscan 3D laser scanner and the HandyPROBE armless and portable CMM in the same referential and in realtime. Creaform now offers the ultimate reverse engineering and quality control solution in terms of precision, portability, ease of use and flexibility.
Thanks to this new platform, it is now possible to create geometrical entities such as planes, lines, points, spheres, cylinders, or circles directly from scanning or probing data and in a single referential. These entities may then be saved in a format that allows direct exporting into most reverse engineering and CAD software (IGES).
“Both our lines of products based on optical technology already offered precision and portability; they can now function 100% together. This fourth version of VxScan now allows the user to get the best of both worlds. The new function will once again increase tenfold the number of possible applications in quality control, in engineering, and several others,” says Marco St-Pierre, Vice-President, Innovation and Technology with Creaform.
The HandyPROBE armless and portable CMM, recently launched by Creaform, is powered by the C-Track 780 Dual-camera sensor. This unique duo increases the reliability and speed of the measurement process, whether on or off the production line.
The VxScan software, supplied with the Handyscan 3D laser scanners and the HandyPROBE, is offered in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Japanese, and Chinese versions.