Mereja

Author: Serkadis

  • Bloombox on 60 Minutes

    I listened to the claims made tonight and can make some observations.
    This is a fuel cell technology and the fabricated panels appear reasonable on the face of it.  The energy output per panel is extraordinary and in view of the established field tests, must be accepted.
    More importantly, the energy conversion from any given fuel is twice what is possible by a thermal plant.  Again this is reasonable and even expected.  Most folks have no idea just how much energy is carried away in a heat engine, and going from a 33% efficiency to a 60% efficiency is great.
    They make the claim that any sort of fuel can be used.  I would be happy to be able to use fuel oil at twice the present efficiency rate supplied by diesel engines. The reason fuel cells stalled was that the chemistry created all sorts of problems.  Heating it to 600 degrees can free all the hydrogen but clog the system with carbon.  The idea has been to use hydrogen and oxygen to produce direct current.  The promise implied here is that this has now changed and we are able to consume a range of organics.
    A comment was made that solar fits into this and we do not understand what that means and is likely unrelated to the direct process.
    The key claim is that a very efficient fuel cell has been made and is been successfully field tested with a lot of clients who will not go along with fudging by anyone.  Let us accept that as true for the nonce.
    What it does do is separate energy users from power grids and attaches them to fuel grids, whether natural gas, fuel oil or biofuel.  The apparent energy output is strong enough to adapt to present electrical demands though that is now likely to decline as innovation moves to optimize local energy use.  It did not matter too much when an ocean of power was on the grid.
    To put this in perspective, although we are comparing apples, oranges and bananas, The direct conversion of fuel to electrical power on demand doubles the available power.  Releasing the energy of the power grid eliminates line losses equal to at least half of the power produced.
    Roughly speaking, this technology provides a four fold energy output potential from the present energy base of the USA economy.  It could even by modified for automobiles as small units to transition to electrical vehicles.  The engine disappears and is replaced with a fraction of the fuel and the Bloombox.
    There is certainly enough room in the energy equations involved to make this fly.
    Is K.R. Sridhar’s ‘magic box’ ready for prime time?
    February 19, 2010 4:33 PM
    http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/02/19/is-k-r-sridhars-magic-box-ready-for-prime-time/
    Bloom CEO K.R. Sridhar holding the ceramic plates that are stacked up into modules to create the company’s “Bloom Box” fuel cells.
    The Bloom Energy CEO is finally unveiling his entry in the fuel-cell arena after years of playing it close to the vest.
    By Paul Keegan, contributor
    K.R. Sridhar looks nervous. The CEO of Bloom Energy, the much-hyped fuel cell start-up, sits in a conference room preparing to show off his magical “Bloom Box” for the first time in public. The 49-year-old scientist-turned entrepreneur has raised $400 million in venture capital for his Sunnyvale, California company, but until now Sridhar has revealed almost nothing about what his company has actually produced since it launched eight years ago.
    “In our eight-year history, this is the first time I’m sitting down with anybody who’s not wearing a Bloom badge,” he says with a laugh. “So it’s a big deal.”
    Thus begins the opening salvo of a full-bore media assault by this soft-spoken mechanical engineer that will soon be followed by a 60 Minutes segment on CBS on Sunday and a big press event on Wednesday in Silicon Valley. On the dais at Bloom’s coming-out party will be board member Colin Powell, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and John Doerr of Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers, the blue-chip venture capital firm that jump-started the Bloom bandwagon back in 2002 (New Enterprise Associates and Morgan Stanley were also early believers). The event will be held at eBay (EBAY) headquarters in San Jose, one of its first customers – along with Google (GOOG), Wal-Mart (WMT), FedEx (FDX), and Staples (SPLS) – and CEO John Donahoe is expected to rave about the potential of these little black boxes that Sridhar claims will “change the world.”
    Those dark spots on photos of earth taken from outer space? Ablaze with light. That old, unreliable grid mostly powered by dirty coal? Obsolete, since Bloom boxes are basically tiny power plants installed right in your back yard, next to the dumpster at your corporate campus, or at your local electric-car charging station – though they can also be connected to an electrical grid just like your PC connects to the Internet. Hydrocarbons such as natural gas or biofuel (stored in an adjacent tank) are pumped into the Bloom Box – ceramic plates stacked atop each other to form modules that can be assembled into a unit of any size – and out comes abundant, reliable, cleaner electricity. The company says the unit does not vibrate, emits no sound, and has no smell.
    Sridhar, an India-born PhD who once led a team of NASA scientists trying to develop the technology to sustain life on Mars, holds one of the modules in his hand. Stacking them into a bread loaf-sized unit, he says, can produce one kilowatt of electricity, enough to power an American home. Sridhar explains that it has taken so long to produce this contraption because he is building not just a company but an entire industry. “You are used to market sizes that start with a ‘B’,” he told venture capitalists when the company launched in 2002. “This is a market size that starts with a ‘T’.”
    Alas, the fuel cell industry – for all the genuine promise and outrageous claims of the last 50 years – is still one with profit margins that start not with “T,” “B,” or even “M,” but with a minus sign. Bloom lost $85 million in 2008, according to venture capitalists that have seen its business plan, roughly on par with other fuel-cell companies building energy boxes much like Bloom’s. The reason is simple: fuel cells are still too expensive – at least until there is a market to produce them on a mass scale.
    Google told Fortune that it has a 400 kilowatt installation from Bloom at its headquarters in Mountain View, California. But the real test, analysts say, is whether Google feels confident enough to use Bloom boxes to power its vast server farms upon which its business depends.
    “I definitely think Bloom is over-hyped,” says Jacob Grose, senior analyst at Lux Research, which specializes in emerging technologies, though he stresses that he hasn’t seen the soon-to-be-unveiled Bloom box. “What Bloom offers does not seem to be unique – other fuel-cell companies are doing very similar things. The real question is whether Bloom has unlocked the secret of how to make these things cheap, and I’m very skeptical of that.”
    One company that Grose points to as offering a similar product – sans the media circus – is Fuel Cell Energy, Inc., a small firm based in Danbury, Connecticut that went public in 1992 and has over 60 fuel-cell installations worldwide at companies ranging from Pepperidge Farm to Westin Hotels. Like Bloom, it also hasn’t figured out how to make money, losing $71 million last year on revenues of $88 million.
    The stakes are high not only for Bloom, but also for Kleiner, Perkins, which staked its post-dotcom future on renewable energy and is looking for a monster hit. Bloom was actually the VC firm’s first foray into green technology, and Sridhar says he is the evangelist who opened the company’s eyes to its huge potential. “With this concept we can change the world,” Sridhar says he told the Kleiner partners. “So it was a very big leap of faith on their part.”
    Sridhar stresses that he never promised immediate results – unlike Internet startups, a fuel-cell company is very capital intensive and requires a long gestation. “I told them in 2002, it will take roughly eight years to have a commercial product,” he says. “So we are on schedule. I said you are used to investing tens of millions of dollars before reaping the benefits. This is going to be hundreds of millions of dollars before you see the benefit.”
    It took three years of development to produce the first in-house version of the Bloom box, and in 2006 the company shipped its first unit to be tested at the University of Tennessee under a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy. After two years of testing, the company shipped the first Bloom boxes to corporate customers in July of 2008 – twenty Fortune 100 companies in all.
    So why is Sridhar going public with his product  now? Turns out it wasn’t his idea – his customers are forcing him to show his hand. “They are pushing,” he admits. “They are saying if you’re not going to say anything we’re going to go out and say we’re doing this.”
    The reason these companies are so anxious to go public? It’s great PR – they want to let the world know how green they are. “The young people they are trying to recruit into these organizations are really asking questions in the interview process like, ‘How green are you?’ ” Sridhar says. “ ‘How sustainable are you?’ ”
    Grose says even if a company like Google ends up spending more on energy by using the Bloom boxes, the positive publicity will more than make up for it. “Google likes to present itself as a green company for recruiting and burnishing its global brand,” he says. “Even if it loses money for awhile, it’s still a very good thing to do.”
    So Sridhar is finally opening the door and sending his baby out into the world. Will it be able to stand up on its own? Stay tuned.

  • Olympic Cherry Blossom Festival

    One of the springtime pleasures of living in Vancouver is that for some reason back in the twenties even or there abouts, the city decided that one of the preferred street plantings would be the Japanese cherry tree which erupts the moment the temperature warms slightly in the spring into a huge mass of pink flowers.  As a result this town becomes flooded with pink blossoms about the same time as the crocuses burst out.
    Most years, a late snow and a cold snap ensure that this occurs sometime in March.  However, as anyone following the Olympics must know be now, Vancouver has been experiencing pleasant spring like weather.  The crocuses are out all over and the first of the cherry trees have begun to blossom.
    That suggests that the last week of the Olympics will see the bulk of the trees reach full blossom.  It is one of the most gorgeous trees we have and it is no surprise it is esteemed in Japan.  I have never seen it make any fruit, but that is certainly not why they are planted.
    Vancouver is almost cut off from the weather of the rest of the continent which is controlled here by incoming systems from the Pacific.  This gives us a sometimes awful rainy season that usually hit hard before Christmas and peters out into February.  However, like California and the rest of the Pacific Northwest we have a oceanic coastal regime that is moderate temperate for the most and does not reach very far inland.
    The actual average for February snowfall is an unremarkable 21 centimeters, usually delivered every four years or so in one big dump.

  • The Gagging of Henk Tennekes

    What is so appalling was how easily an obviously competent scientist was turned out of a key position merely because he chose to simply point out the obvious issues with the emerging global warming theory.
    This is a repeat of the Lysenko tale under Stalin.  We once thought we were immune.  Now money does what Stalin did.
    In fact political groupings form around funding initiatives and there is obviously huge pressure to suppress consenting opinion mostly because the scientist involved likely have no respect for the granters of the funds.  After all we do not want to confuse these fine citizens with detail.
    A simple call to arms to save the world – that they can understand.  The arrogance is breathtaking.
    It is insane of course; science has never worked like that.
    I want you to think about something.  A discovery was announced a month ago that just might outright cure all cancers.  This will, if correct, abruptly end that cost factor in health medicine.  I also think the adoption of other protocols will largely end most incapacity among the elderly within the next decade.
    So as we face rising potential costs we have also major reductions appearing.
    You know that everyone is focused on the cost part of the equation as if reduction was impossible.
    We live in a profoundly imperfect world in which far too many interests try to rig outcomes to suit their narrow interests.  The only justice comes when this is revealed.  I will not voice a silly platitude about it been inevitable.  It was not until the climategate emails were released.  To that minute, evidence had been suppressed for fifteen years.  That is a long piece out of a good man’s life.
    We have a society that wants people to win or lose.  That process ensures that half of the best are often sidelined as this man was.
    Gagged! Thrown out on the street! In the nineties, Henk Tennekes was made to clear his  desk and resign as Director of the KNMI (Dutch Meteorological Institute).
    His sin? In a newspaper column the world-renowned meteorologist had disproved all the bold claims about climate change. Swearing in high places! And in the meantime, “hard proof” for the greenhouse effect evaporated. After all the scandal surrounding the UN IPCC panel, the skeptics voice  can finally be heard. Time for the rehabilitation of Holland’s first climate exile?
    Rehabilitation of the country’s first CO2-exile
    By Edwin Timmer
    http://www.probeinternational.org/files/UKVersieHenkTennekes.pdf
    ARNHEM – “I worry a lot these days. I worry about the arrogance of scientists who blithely claim that they are here to solve the climate problem, as long as they receive massive increases in funding. I worry about the way they covet new supercomputers. Others talk about ”stabilizing the climate“. I’m terrified of the arrogance, vanity and recklessness of those words. Why is it so  difficult to demonstrate a little humility?“ Is this a response to recent climate scandals? Sober criticism of the failed IPCC UN climate panel that exaggerated the melting of the glaciers? No, these are extracts from a column which appeared exactly twenty(!) years ago in a British scientific journal. When the then Director of Policy Development at the KNMI (Holland’s Met Office,) Henk Tennekes put the cat among the pigeons. Watch out for all the unsubstantiated claims about climate! “My role as research director was regarded by the people around me as primarily that of provider of the next even bigger computer. But I wanted to get to the heart of the problem. Are these forecast models reliable? Not funny, everyone thought. Looking for the truth?
    You must be mad!
    That means you have to accept the fallibility of these models. That’s much too dangerous. Most  of the KNMI researchers were happy if they could just sit in the cafeteria with their like-minded colleagues.”
    Greenhouse Theory
    The now 73-year-old scientist still persists in his fundamental criticism of climate modelling, for instance the often-heard argument that ‘95 percent of the greenhouse theory remains valid’. 
    Tennekes: “Why does the IPCC ignore the oceans? The top 2½ meters of all sea-water contain as much heat as the total amount of heat in the atmosphere. Why has the topmost kilometre of the oceans turned colder during the last five years? We don’t know. Until we understand what is happening with the heat in the oceans, the models which aim to predict the climate are totally useless. Tennekes himself acknowledges that he has never been the easiest person to deal with. “I was a troublemaker, and have a horrible temper,” he says whilst gazing out over the snow from his home in the Molenbeke district of Arnhem. “I lose my temper and get angry easily. When that column was published, my associates complained behind my back to the big boss, Harry Fijnaut.”
    Henk, within two years you’ll be out on the street“ said Harry. In fact, it took him three years because he first had to invent a reorganization which would make my position superfluous. That’s how those top level bureaucrats arrange things. He wouldn’t even allow me a dismissal on grounds of ’incompatibility of characters.’
    Climate Outcast
    And so Tennekes became the first climate exile in the Netherlands. In retrospect the incident is illustrative of how during the past twenty years climate research – and accompanying alarming statements „appears to have fallen into the hands of a small clique that tolerates no contradiction, and equates dissenters to Holocaust deniers. Tennekes: “KNMI’ers still avoid me like the plague, because I say something different from the group dogma. First you must believe in something, only then you are allowed to participate in their discussions” In 1986, Tennekes unleashed a revolution in weather forecasting in a speech to the Royal Meteorological Society. That speech made him world-famous among his peers. The slogan he launched in that speech was: “No forecast is complete without a forecast of forecast skill. His eyes twinkle when he recalls that event. For the IPCC this was a warning of biblical proportions. Once Tennekes was out on the street, he was floored, a psychological wreck. Moreover, there were problems with his pension. “There are few professors who earn as little as me.” Teaching college-level courses for retired people (in the UK these are called U3A, University for the 3rd Age) and his passion for flying and birds helped him get through it. Not only did Tennekes write the first book ever about turbulence in the ’70’s, he recently rewrote his book ’The Simple Science of Flight’, used by high school seniors and college students the world over. The bartailed godwit flies non-stop over the Pacific Ocean in a week. Eleven thousand kilometers from Alaska to New Zealand! How is it possible? How can it feed itself? Other species of wading birds manage only 5,000 kilometers!
    What is at hand here? The bar-tailed godwit has much better aerodynamics than we thought. Enormously efficient flying muscles. And it undergoes crazy physiological changes during the flight. All of its fat and half of its flight muscles are burned up by the time it reaches its destination. Even its heart has shrunk. People have no idea of the flexibility of living things! “ His enthusiasm falters when he thinks of the World Wildlife Fund or the Society for the Protection of Birds, which see climate change as a major threat to animals. Tennekes buries his head in his hands and moans: “That’s not science, that’s advocacy. Environmental Clubs are based on the idea that each bird and each territory must remain the same forever. But nature is not static! Put a bird on an island and within one hundred years you have a new species. I get really annoyed by the idea that we’re here to save nature. That’s a terrible overstatement of our  abilities”. “The notion that the climate is the biggest catastrophe of our time, is pure grandstanding.
    Who’s taken in by all this climate talk? Moreover, the general public is systematically exposed to nightmare scenarios. I find that  scandalous. Yes, as far as the climate debate goes, I’m becoming blunter every day. When IPCC says that sea level will rise fifty centimeters in a hundred years, it’s an exaggeration, but I’ll let them get away with it. If Al Gore makes six meters of it, then I’ll swear loudly. If Rob van Dorland of KNMI then smirks and says that Gore was perhaps  ”exaggerating a little“, then I’ll swear even more loudly. You’re fooling us! ”
    New Ice Age
    “I am much more anxious about the cooling of the earth. The ultimate fate of this planet is a new ice age. If the main wheat belts of the Northern hemisphere fail to produce their much needed harvest, heaven knows how we will feed ourselves. Well, it could be that warming will lead to a disaster. I still want to accept that. But you must weigh this unknown risk against other problems. Why should we spend insane amounts to prevent CO2 emissions, while the risk is uncertain and any potential benefits of the solution unsure? With much less money we could eradicate malaria from this planet. Or fight HIV, before the entire African population decimates itself“.
    Intimate clique
    “No, I’m not surprised about the fuss surrounding current climate research. This storm has been brewing for years. The contributions of climate skeptics disappear unnoticed in the rubbishbin.
    IPCC is run by an intimate clique of only a few dozen people. I believe that Minister Cramer (Environment) is a victim of the spin-doctors who surround her, people who believe ’good causes’ are served best by evil means. But these green bureaucrats do not understand the meaning of the proverb. It is the road to HELL that is paved with good intentions, not the road to HEAVEN. You can print that.“
    Translation: Richard Sumner (UK)

  • PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap confirmed for PS3

    After a brief denial, Dylan Cuthbert of Q-Games finally confirmed that PixelJunk Racers 2nd Lap will definitely be coming to the PlayStation 3.
     
     
     

  • I left my phone at home v1.3 for Windows Mobile reviewed

    I Left My Phone at Home is essentially a data-retrieval and phone-monitoring app, which is useful as a backup in case you find you do not have your phone with you. When you have discovered you are “sans phone”, you can login in online from a computer to see your phone messages, battery life of the unit, and other information…

    Read more at BestWindowsMobileApps.com here.

  • Nintendo patents vibrate feedback feature for DS

    That was quick. I just reported earlier about a probable E3 announcement of a new DS 2, and already, we have here another piece fitting to that puzzle. A patent filed by Nintendo was just found, and

  • Water Vapor The Next Demon Gas by Doug L. Hoffman

    Article Tags: Doug L. Hoffman, Water Vapour

    With CO2 driven global warming becoming more discredited by new scientific evidence every day, the world’s meddling climate regulators are casting about for a new gas to demonize. Last year the US Environmental Protection Agency was reportedly thinking of even classifying water vapor as a pollutant, due to its central role in global warming. Because water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, accounting for the majority of the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect, water vapor emissions during human activities—such as the processing and burning of fossil fuels—are again coming under increasing scrutiny by government regulators.

    Recent research has shown that water vapor, gaseous H2O, plays an important part in regulating Earth’s temperature. It has long been known that H2O is responsible for the majority of “greenhouse” warming. In fact, calculations show that removal of all greenhouse gases, leaving only water vapor, would decrease the absorption of infrared energy re-radiated by Earth’s surface by only 34 percent. While water vapor in the atmosphere is highly variable, ranging from only trace amounts to as much as 4%, the overall average amount of H2O has been rising in recent decades.

    According to a PNAS report by B, D. Santer et al. the recent increase in water vapor is primarily due to human-caused increases in GHGs and not to solar forcing or volcanic eruptions. Satellites have observed an increase in atmospheric water vapor of about 0.41 kg/m2 per decade since 1988. Observations show the increase in water vapor is around 6 to 7.5% per degree Celsius warming of the lower atmosphere. The study described the research this way:

    Results from current climate models indicate that water vapor increases of this magnitude cannot be explained by climate noise alone. In a formal detection and attribution analysis using the pooled results from 22 different climate models, the simulated “fingerprint” pattern of anthropogenically caused changes in water vapor is identifiable with high statistical confidence in the SSM/I data. Experiments in which forcing factors are varied individually suggest that this fifingerprint ‘‘match’’ is primarily due to human-caused increases in greenhouse gases and not to solar forcing or recovery from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Our findings provide preliminary evidence of an emerging anthropogenic signal in the moisture content of earth’s atmosphere.

    Click source to read FULL report by Doug L. Hoffman

    Source: theresilientearth.com

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  • Britain set for a bumper bloom – when the bad weather ends by Lewis Smith, The Independent

    Article Tags: World Temperatures

    The bad weather has delayed spring by up to four weeks but when it finally does arrive it will be a stunner, gardeners said yesterday. Temperatures have been so low for so long that plants that usually start flowering in spring are holding back to avoid being damaged by the Arctic conditions.

    But the number of botanical no-shows is stacking up and when spring does arrive, gardeners expect a riot of colour in their borders. A survey by National Trust gardeners and volunteers has shown that flowering dates have been set back by up to a month, bucking a trend for the earlier flowering seen in recent years.

    A national flower count has been carried out by the organisation since 2006 at its Devon and Cornwall properties, but this year it has also looked at its gardens in other parts of the country.

    The survey revealed that some species appear to have put off flowering by up to a month and far fewer plants have managed to burst into bloom than this time last year.

    Click source to read more

    Source: independent.co.uk

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  • Climategate: What’s Wrong with this Picture? by Dexter Wright, AmericanThinker.com

    Article Tags: ClimateGate, Dexter Wright

    Image Attachment

    Scientific Nobel Prizes are traditionally awarded to scientists whose work has been found to be a foundational discovery in the fields of physics, chemistry, or medicine. However the rules are different for a Nobel Peace Prize. The Peace Prize is more of a popularity contest; otherwise, how could we explain that the PLO thug Yasser Arafat was a recipient? In 2007, the Nobel Committee awarded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) a Nobel Peace Prize to be shared with former Vice President Al Gore. It is important to note that the Peace Prize was not awarded for any discipline in science. As time has passed, the work that went into the award-winning report has come under scrutiny as questions of sloppy scientific methods are raised in the wake of Climategate. Looking closely at the report reveals scientific flaws.

    Buried deep in the pages of the report are several graphs claiming to show that the average temperature of the Earth has been warming since the beginning of the industrial revolution. One of the more infamous graphs is the Northern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstruction Graph. This graph leaves off the Antarctic continent, where routinely, temperatures are recorded at well below -40o Celsius. The coldest temperature on Earth ever recorded was -89o C was at Vostok Station on the Antarctic plateau in 1983. This Northern-Hemisphere-only temperature graph was plotted with an accuracy of one-tenth of a degree Celsius and is touted as strong “evidence” for what has been termed anthropogenic global warming (AGW). The devil is in the details, as they say.

    Click source to read FULL report by Dexter Wright

    Source: americanthinker.com

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  • High schoolers design house interior for upcoming trade show

    She calls herself a “scrapbook-aholic.” He’s a self-professed HGTV junkie.

    Together their passions blend into the perfect talent for tackling a monumental challenge sure to be unmatched by any area high schooler.

    For more than a month, Lindsey Semonski and Spencer Strickler, both 17 and students at East Peoria Community High School, have been designing the interior of a new house.

    But this isn’t just any house. It is the Homeway Homes house set to rise later this week inside the Peoria Civic Center as the centerpiece of the Home Builder’s Association of Greater Peoria’s 2010 Spring Home Show.

    “It’s been a lot of fun,” said Semonski, the project leader. “I’ve learned to take more of a leadership role rather than following other people’s ideas. It will help me a lot in college.”

    The pair have been the creative geniuses behind everything that will go inside the house. Their first assignment was to select paint colors for the 2,032 square-foot, ranch-style house that features 9-foot ceilings, three bedrooms, two and a half baths and a living room with a corner fireplace.

    “Me and Lindsey have never worked together,” said Strickler. “We both have the same taste colorwise (and) everything (else) we picked out.”

    The pair also visited Bed, Bath & Beyond in Peoria for bathroom and bedding accessories. They selected furniture from the Homeway Homes model homes to be used throughout the house. Accent pieces were picked from Little Betty’s Designs in Morton.

    “I honestly didn’t think it was so much work or as expensive as it is,” said Semonski. “If we didn’t have the vendors then we probably wouldn’t be able to do the project because the furniture and stuff is so expensive.”

    Semonski and Strickler were chosen out of a group of six students from the high school to be the designers for the home. While they have collaborated on most phases of the project, they individually are responsible for designing the layout of each room.

    Strickler did his design work on a computer using a 3-D design layout program. Semonski tapped her scrapbooking skills and presented her design in a portfolio.

    The high school’s design teacher, Jo Moore, will judge both of their designs with help from a group of professional designers. Individual design ideas will then be chosen and implemented in the house.

    “The two students work extremely well together and have been a joy to work with,” said Moore. “Our field trips and work hours together have been some of the best in my career.

    “They both have outstanding work ethic, professional attitudes and unique taste in design. They have an eye for using the elements and principles of design.”

    Moore’s repeated class trips with her students over the last five years to tour the Homeway Homes construction facility in Deer Creek and model homes in Goodfield unknowingly put her on the company’s radar. In a good way.

    “When we were looking at this home show we were looking for something different to jazz it up and get community involvement, give it a little different draw,” said Homeway Homes general manager Ted Schieler. “It was the first thing that came to mind” to correlate Moore’s students into the design phase.

    So the idea was born to solicit design ideas from high school students as a way to give them real exposure to the field of interior design. Schieler contacted the high school and was directed to Moore, who put the project into action.

    “Its been wonderful,” said Schieler. “They seem to be really excited about the opportunity.”

    Strickler said he volunteered for the project because when he was a little kid he always liked rearranging furniture in his playroom. That constant need to redecorate or try out new ideas has continued into his teens.

    “Now when I’m bored, I rearrange my room,” he said.

    The inside walls of the Homeway Homes house are already painted and are scheduled to be brought to the Civic Center on Tuesday. Furniture and other accessories will begin to arrive Thursday evening and Friday morning.

    From there, it will be a race against time for the show’s opening to set up the house according to Semonski and Strickler’s designs. The students won’t find out until Wednesday which designs Moore selected. The trio will help with setup on Friday, making final decisions on room arrangements.

    “I’m excited Friday night to see the reaction from all of the people coming through, to see how they really feel about it,” said Strickler.

     

    Leslie Williams can be reached at 686-3188 or [email protected].

    Read the original article from Journal Star.

    Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services


  • Prison Break: Conspiracy first gameplay trailer

    Here’s the first gameplay trailer for Deep Silver’s video game adaptation of the hit TV show Prison Break. There’s not a lot of breaking out at this point, but there is a lot of hanging around, as

  • dotMobi Domain Goes to Afillias

    Nobody can argue that the number of mobile-dedicated websites has risen considerably, since the mobile market has one of the most flourishing ones all around the world, while more and more customers use their devices as a means to access the Internet. Therefore, the acquisition of the domain .mobi is sure to bring Afilias, provider of Internet infrastructure serv… (read more)

  • E3 to unveil DS2 and PSP2?

    It appears that people are not only gearing up for the GDC next, but even for the E3 as early as now. Shane Bettenhausen of Ignition Entertainment (and formerly of EGM), is positing that there will be

  • Peorian found dead in street early Sunday

    Authorities are investigating the cause of death of a man who was found lying facedown in the street near his home early Sunday.

    Kelvin Mosley, 44, of 1617 S. Stanley St. was pronounced dead at 2:30 a.m., about 45 minutes after four teens walking by found him lying in the road in the 1600 block of Stanley.

    There were no visible signs of trauma, and the cause of death is unknown, said Peoria County Coroner Johnna Ingersoll. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday.

    Mosley, a cook who was described as full of life and close with family and friends, recently became engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Jessie Copeland.

    “He did not deserve to die like this, he was almost home,” Copeland said Sunday night from the house they shared. “He will be missed dearly by me, his friends and family.”

    She told police she gave him a ride to LA Connection, a Western Avenue bar, late Saturday evening.

    Mosley left the bar at some point with a friend, who dropped him off at another friend’s house. He apparently decided to walk home from there, Copeland said.

    His cell phone showed he called her phone about 10 minutes prior to the 911 call. She regrets she never heard the phone ring, as he probably was calling her for a ride home.

    “If I had, he would be watching basketball,” she said.

    Copeland said a police officer knocked on her door about 2:30 a.m. and asked her if she had seen or heard anything about a man in the street, dead.

    She said she didn’t and then looked out the window. As a police flashlight illuminated the body, she felt a jolt. She was fairly sure it was her fiance.

    “I gave them a photo of Kelvin and asked them to tell me it was not him,” she said.

    But to her dismay, it was a match.

    Copeland, a certified nursing assistant at Bel-Wood Nursing Home, said Mosley didn’t appear to have gunshot or stab wounds when she ran out in the street to see him. However, his wallet and shoes were missing.

    Mosley’s sister, Stacy Mosley, said she and her family saw some bruises on his face at the coroners’ office Sunday.

    Police confirmed Sunday evening that Mosley’s shoes were missing when officers arrived at the scene, but released no further information, including whether anyone had been taken into custody or arrested. “He was a good father figure, a good male figure,” Stacy Mosley said of her brother, adding he had eight children, five girls and three boys.

    He served in the military in Seattle for four years in the 1980s and had been working at a Bartonville restaurant as a cook for about 10 years at the time of his death, she added.

    Pearlie Mosley described her son as full of life and outgoing. “Everybody loved him,” she said.

    “Everybody has taken it real hard,” Stacy Mosley added.

    Riya V. Anandwala can be reached at 686-3194 or [email protected].

     

     

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  • Probe of McHenry Co. state’s attorney could run $100,000

    The McHenry County Board’s finance committee will consider authorizing as much as $100,000 to fund a special prosecutor’s probe into alleged wrongdoing by State’s Attorney Louis Bianchi.

    The special prosecutor, former Lake County Judge Henry Tonigan III, and an associate already have billed the county about $34.231 for work done on the case since he was appointed in September to look into claims Bianchi used a state’s attorney secretary to perform campaign-related work on county time.

    Bianchi repeatedly has denied the accusations.

    The resolution permits county administration to pay up to $100,000 from the county’s general fund contingency budget for the services of Tonigan’s firm, Barrington-based Kelleher & Buckley, as well as that of Thomas K. McQueen, a former federal prosecutor assisting in the investigation.

    If approved by the finance committee, the measure likely will go before the full county board for final approval in March.

    McHenry County Judge Gordon Graham appointed Tonigan special prosecutor after ruling Sept. 4 an independent investigation was necessary to maintain the integrity of the justice system. The probe is focused on, but not limited to, claims made by former Bianchi aide Amy Dalby.

    Dalby filed a sworn affidavit last year stating she was instructed to do political work while employed as the state’s attorney’s personal secretary. She also has provided examples of what she said was the work she performed, including typing letters to political supporters, maintaining campaign donor lists and typing campaign-related checks.

    Dalby, 25, made the accusations after an earlier special prosecutor probe, launched at Bianchi’s request, led to her being charged with unlawfully copying and removing computer files from the state’s attorney’s office. She eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor computer tampering charge and received court supervision.

    The Dalby investigation cost county taxpayers about $64,155, according to court records.

    Tonigan has given no indication as to when he might wrap up his investigation, and did not return a call seeking comment last week.

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  • Portugal floods kill 42, some people feared buried

    FUNCHAL, Madeira Islands — Rescue workers in Madeira dug through heaps of mud, boulders and debris Sunday, searching for victims buried by floods and mudslides that have killed at least 42 people on the popular Portuguese island.

    Residents looking for missing loved ones were directed by local authorities to the resort’s international airport, where a makeshift morgue has been set up.

    Social services spokesman Francisco Jardim Ramos said not all the bodies had been identified. The center is equipped with psychiatric, psychological and social counseling services, he said.

    More than 120 other people were injured and an unknown number were missing, possibly swept away or smothered, authorities said, adding the death could still rise. Of 248 people who were forced to flee their homes for temporary shelters, 85 have been allowed to return home, Ramos said.

    Late Sunday, a spokeswoman for the British Foreign office confirmed that a British national had died, but declined to give further details. The spokeswoman spoke on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

    The Foreign Office also said a small number of Britons had been hospitalized on Madeira. The island is popular with British tourists, who for centuries have regarded wines made in Madeira as a luxury product.

    The worst storm to hit Madeira since 1993 lashed the south of the Atlantic Ocean island, including the capital, Funchal, Saturday, turning some streets into torrents of mud, water and rolling debris.

    “We heard a very loud noise, like rolling thunder, the ground shook and then we realized it was water coming down,” said Simon Burgbage, of Britain.

    Madeira is the main island, with a population of around 250,000, of a Portuguese archipelago of the same name in the Atlantic Ocean just over 480km (300 miles) off the west coast of Africa.

    The flash floods were so powerful they carved paths down mountains and ripped through the city, churning under some bridges and tearing others down. Residents caught in the torrent clung to railings to avoid being swept away. Cars were tossed about by the force of the water; the battered shells of overturned vehicles littered the streets.

    “It was horrible, there were cars on rooftops, there were vans and trucks that had fallen and been totally crushed,” said German tourist Andreas Hoisser.

    The raging water swept a fire truck downstream, slamming it into a tree.

    Funchal residents and visitors must now contend with a lack of fresh water until destroyed infrastructure is repaired, the head of water services said.

    “One of the main conduits of the city, which is upstream of most of the public distribution systems, has simply disappeared,” said Pimenta de Franca.

    The death toll “will likely increase, given the circumstances of this flood,” Ramos said, adding there were “great difficulties” with communications on the island since phone lines were ripped out by the deluge.

    “People are scared, some have lost loved ones and things are very complicated because of that,” said Madeira-born Luisa Jardin.

    Firefighters used pumping equipment to try to drain an underground parking garage at a downtown department store close to where the heaviest floodwaters descended. Local authorities feared shoppers may have been trapped below ground by the deluge.

    “The store is totally destroyed, damaged, full of slurry,” said owner Joao Andrade.

    A medical team backed up by divers and rescue experts arrived Sunday aboard a C-130 transport plane at the archipelago, 550 miles (900 kilometers) southwest of Lisbon. The plane was also carrying telecommunications equipment. Once telephone communications are restored it will be easier to discover who is missing, Ramos said.

    The sun begun shining Sunday morning, making it easier for rescue workers to move around roads and bridges damaged by floodwaters and littered with uprooted trees, cars and boulders which hampered search and rescue efforts.

    By midday Sunday, tourists could be seen strolling and taking photographs in Funchal. Streets just a few yards away from the channels where the muddy deluge raced toward the sea were largely unscathed.

    But more rain hit later in the day, raising fears of new mudslides on the mountainous island.

    The island’s most famous son, Real Madrid football star Cristiano Ronaldo, was horrified by the floods.

    “Nobody can remain indifferent to the disaster,” he told journalists in Madrid. “I want to express my willingness to, as far as I can, help agencies and authorities to overcome the effects of this devastation.”

    Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

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  • Crown grad from Algonquin rose to lead TSA

    David Stone, a national leader with local roots, was remembered Sunday during an uplifting memorial service at Dundee-Crown High School.

    More than 100 friends and former classmates gathered in the school’s auditorium to pay tribute to the talented athlete from Algonquin who went on to become the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security.

    Stone, 57, died in November from a heart attack at his Virginia home.

    Among those paying tribute were President Barack Obama, who wrote a letter to Stone’s wife, Faith, that said, “Rear Admiral Stone led the Transportation Security Administration with the same distinction and dedication that he demonstrated as a Naval officer. Throughout his life, he set and example for his colleagues of integrity and commitment to public service.”

    Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also wrote a letter to Faith Stone, describing Stone as “an extraordinary man whose devotion to our country and commitment to service will forever be his inspiring legacy”

    On a more personal note, Stone’s sister, Peg Schwartz, praised her brother during Sunday’s service.

    “After meeting Dave, he made you want to be a better worker, husband, wife, friend and person,” she said.

    Another memorial service for Stone was held in December at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

    Stone was the Transportation Security Administration’s first Federal Security Director at Los Angeles International Airport. There he developed the post-September 11, 2001 security standards required by law, including the electronic screening of all checked baggage.

    President George W. Bush then appointed Stone as Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for the TSA. He remained in the position from 2003 to 2005, overseeing an agency responsible for the safety of the country’s mass transit, rail, highway, pipeline, maritime and aviation systems.

    Most recently, Stone served as president of safety and security of Cisco Smart+Connected Communities, based in India.

    A 1970 graduate of Irving Crown High School in Carpentersville, since merged with Dundee High School to become Dundee-Crown, Stone was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2005.

    He was recruited to play basketball at the U.S Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., where he earned a bachelor of science degree and began his naval career in 1974. He retired 28 years later with the rank of Rear Admiral.

    In May, Stone will receive a memorial burial with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

    Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

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  • NZ tries diplomacy first to end Japan whale hunt

    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand said Monday it may join Australia in seeking international legal action against Japan over its annual whale hunt in the Antarctic if negotiations fail to produce a diplomatic solution.

    Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Friday his government would take Japan to international court over its research whaling program that kills hundreds of whales a year if Tokyo does not agree to stop the hunt by November.

    Australia, a staunch anti-whaling nation, has long threatened international legal action.

    New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said Monday a diplomatic solution would be quicker — and therefore save more whales — than pursuing a case in the International Court of Justice at The Hague, which could take years to resolve.

    Diplomatic negotiations likely will be complete within weeks, McCully said.

    “We’ll know soon whether we are going to achieve success that way or not,” he said. “If not, the court process is obviously a serious option.”

    He gave no details of the negotiations, believed to revolve around having Japan end its Antarctic whale hunt while still being allowed to kill minke whales in the north Pacific Ocean.

    Prime Minister John Key also backed a diplomatic resolution to Japan’s whaling in the waters off Antarctica, saying New Zealand may only resort to court action if it fails.

    “Either the diplomatic solution is going to be a stunning success in the next few months or it’s going to be a stunning failure,” Key told the NewstalkZB radio network.

    If a “diplomatic solution fails and the only option available is a court action, at that time we will consider whether we’ll join Australia, but I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions that we would,” Key said.

    Australia also was still pursuing a diplomatic outcome, “and that is why they’re holding off from taking a court case before November,” he told reporters.

    Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Sunday that Tokyo will defend its hunt in any legal forum, saying it is an allowed exception to the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 ban on commercial whaling.

    Speaking after meeting with his Australian counterpart Stephen Smith, he said it was unfortunate Australia had indicated it would take international court action.

    Smith said the Australian government also has decided to present a proposal to the International Whaling Commission asking that Japan’s whaling program be stopped within a “reasonable period of time.”

    Smith restated if an agreement between the countries isn’t reached, Australia will seek arbitration in the International Court of Justice.

    Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

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  • Rumor: New Tomb Raider coming, will support PS3 motion controller

    It’s time for another Rumor Has It portion! Dutch website Videogames Zone is reporting that a new Tomb Raider game will be out, and that it will be featuring the PS3’s new motion controller.
     
     
     

  • Experts shed light on visitors’ ancient items

    Half a bison skull, a necklace made from melted down Mexican pesos, a stone sculpture of a baby wrapped in a blanket and a multitude of arrowheads were some of the artifacts examined at Dickson Mounds Museum on Sunday.

    The museum held its 28th annual Artifacts Identification Day and invited visitors to bring objects and curiosities for identification and a little bit of history. Experts examined dozens of items.

    Central Illinois is teeming with stories from the past. The area was inhabited 12,000 years ago, and natives continued to make their lives in Illinois until French settlers forced them out in the late 1800s.

    “This is a rich area for all sorts of archaeology,” said Jonathan Reyman, a curator of anthropology at the Illinois State Museum. “You could dig almost any place in Peoria and find lots of stuff.”

    Many visitors brought prehistoric arrowheads and spear points to the event for evaluation, such as the 9,000-year-old projectile points Ron Beaird brought.

    Beaird originally is from Lewistown and now lives in Vermont, but he said he returns for the museum’s identification event every year. He has collected nearly 200 prehistoric projectile points and other prehistoric objects in 25 years.

    “You’ll see stuff here you’re never going to see anywhere else,” he said. “Stuff your grandfathers have found.”

    Some eventgoers did bring artifacts their relatives had passed on to them. David Blakley of Springfield may have had the most confusing object – a small sculpture of a baby on a cradle board, a Native American baby carrier. The stone effigy had the tracings of blue-painted decorations and had a rough-hewn look. Blakley’s mother found the object 50 years ago in a shop in southern Illinois.

    “We’ve had it for years,” Blakley said. “Nobody could ever tell us what it was worth or where it was from.”

    At least three experts evaluated the baby sculpture, and none could tell the sculpture’s age or origin. Comparing a symbol on the sculpture’s side to a symbol on another prehistoric piece led archeologist Alan Harn to say it could be between 600 and 700 years old, but he wasn’t sure.

    “It’s one of the more unusual things I’ve seen,” he said.

    To find artifacts, most eventgoers said they hunted in fields, on creek beds and sometimes in rivers.

    Terry Martin, a curator of anthropology at the Illinois State Museum, said even though experts aren’t always sure of an object’s history, it’s still important for them to know about the things people find in local fields.

    “Nobody learns anything if they just hoard these things,” he said. “We’re interested in what people have. . . . We can work together to learn.”

    Kelvin Sampson, an exhibit designer at Dickson Mounds, said the history and age behind some artifacts can be hard for people to understand.

    “They find these things and think they’re a couple hundred years old,” he said. “But no, they’re 9,000 years old.”

     

    Lauren Rees can be reached at 686-3251 or [email protected].

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