Ratings are through the roof over at A&E. In fact, viewership has been so strong for The Jackson Brothers’ new reality show that the network is offering the guys a second season, TMZ.com claims. Jackie, Tito, Marlon, and Jermaine are still considering whether or not to take A&E up on their offer. The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty premiered on the network last month. We haven’t watched the show yet, have you?
At Notre Dame, ranked among the top of U.S. major research universities in the percentage of students studying abroad and with 80 percent of its students doing volunteer service, education is not an ivory tower enterprise. Plenty of learning takes place in the classrooms and labs, in residence halls and over lunch. But an institution that wants to change the world must be in the world, so the University has stepped up its efforts to provide its students with experiential learning opportunities through internships, research projects and service-learning initiatives — worldwide.
These programs have taken students to Darfur, Rwanda, Haiti and the Middle East to encounter the effects of violence, injustice, poverty and hatred, and to join the efforts of peace-builders and health-care providers. Engineering faculty and students have gone to Benin in western Africa to bring well-water technology to villages without clean water. Alums and undergrads have gone to Lesotho in southern Africa to build and staff clinics for the youngest victims of AIDS. And MBA students, through a class called “Business on the Front Lines,” have been exploring the role of business in post-war reconstruction efforts, working with Catholic Relief Services in Bosnia and Lebanon.
The Kellogg Institute’s International Scholars Program enables students to understand international relations from the ground up in a wide array of nations — Ecuador, Namibia, China, Peru, Thailand, Uganda, Nicaragua, China and Ghana. The Kroc Institute’s reach is also global, bringing international students to campus and dispatching them, as students and alums, to some of the world’s most troubled corners.
Whether fighting disease in sub-Saharan Africa, grappling with immigration issues along the U.S.-Mexican border, staffing schools in Uganda or negotiating social and political stalemates in Latin America, students are learning the ways of the real world through a variety of possibilities. One hub, though, is Notre Dame’s Center for Social Concerns. Long known for its Urban Plunge, its week-long service ventures over fall and spring breaks, and its Summer Service Projects, the center’s International Summer Service Learning Program now sends students to 12 countries in South America, Asia and Africa.
Notre Dame, which has sent more of its graduates into the Peace Corps than any other Catholic college or university, has a tradition of engagement far beyond its South Bend campus. University photographer Matt Cashore ’94 has visited some of the places students have gone to live and learn. Here are some of the images he’s brought back.
ESPN.com reports: Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has decided that Wade Phillips will return as coach next season despite Dallas’ 34-3 loss Sunday to the Vikings, a high-ranking team source said.
Jones had indicated in recent weeks that Phillips was likely to return but remained non-committal after Sunday’s lopsided loss.
Under Phillips, the Cowboys have won two NFC East titles in three seasons.
Get the full story: ESPN.com
Read the original article from Tribune News Services.
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" Siam Tower "+" Siam Discovery Center " The perfect building in Bangkok
We are scarcely two weeks into 2010 and we may have already witnessed the most surprising news item of the year. Out of nowhere and via the TamsPalm blog, New Zealand based ruggedized handheld specialist Aceeca has unofficially confirmed that they are readying not one but two new Palm OS Garnet handheld PDAs for release. These new Garnet machines will be based upon shared hardware architecture with a pair of new Windows CE 5.0 handhelds.
Officially, Aceeca remains one of Access’ final remaining Palm OS licensees, so the news is not totally out of left field. While Aceeca has remained rather quiet as of late, the firm has remained committed to supporting their existing stable of Palm OS devices.
As seen before, personalizing the looks of your iPhone can be quite a pain. Luckily, Winterboard comes into play! Winterboard is a great little app that lets you customize the springboard (the place where you can select and start your apps) of your iPhone.
Winterboard allows you to change your icons, customize applications, add or change graphics in the status bar and dock, install themes, and change the wallpaper of your iphone’s springboard. It has quite some possibilities as you can see.
Winterboard works for 2.x+ iPhones and iPods, but needs you to jailbreak your iPhone/iPod to install Cydia.
Now, for this article, we’re going to limit ourselves to changing the springboard background of your iPhone with Winterboard.
First, you need to open Cydia, and select the “Sections” tab on the bottom.
Here you will see the “System” menu, enter that, and locate Winterboard.
Select Winterboard, and in the next screen, choose “Install” on the top right, and confirm that. This will download and install Winterboard on your iPhone, but needs a reboot of your phone to finish the install.
Once your iPhone has rebooted, you will see Winterboard happily sitting in your springboard next to the other apps.
Start up Winterboard to get an overview of all the available customizations.
Select “User Wallpaper” to select and change the wallpaper of the springboard to that of your choice. This will overwrite the current background or the theme background if you have any installed.
Select “Dim Wallpaper” if you want your background to dim a bit, so that your icons stand out more. Can be useful on very busy or colorful backgrounds.
Select “User Lock Background” to select and change the wallpaper of the lock screen to that of your choice. This can also be done the way Apple intended it to: Changing your iPhone’s background
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The Orlando Sentinel reports: Former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz says the profession has taken a turn for the worse since he was walking the sidelines in South Bend and elsewhere.
“You didn’t feel threatened by everybody,” said Holtz, who coached the Irish from 1986-96.
“Most I ever made was $135,000. It wasn’t about money. You just enjoyed what you were doing and you had a security about what you were doing. You didn’t have the Internet and everybody getting fired and offensive. On Friday night after we put the team down, we’d go have drinks with the media … It’s changed, and it hasn’t changed for the better.”
On the player-mistreatment charges involving Mike Leach at Texas Tech and Jim Leavitt at South Florida, Holtz said: “I grabbed a facemask on a player because I wanted to make sure I had his undivided attention. He had done something to a player that wasn’t reflective of the game we teach … I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
Get the full story: OrlandoSentinel.com
Photo: Lou Holtz on why he never drinks water: “It has no taste, and if it does, it’s not good for you.” (Annie McQuary/Ap)
Read the original article from Tribune News Services.
There’s nothing jaw dropping about Prada’s Fall/Winter 2010 line, but that’s what makes the collection work. There are its moments with wild prints and playful colorful camo, but its the more toned down styles that give us a better view of Prada’s vision for men. From the beginning we get a sense of a new kind of luxury with camel sportscoats and tan colored pieces. The color story that follows, enters a fascinating take on knits mixed with a variety of hues. The suits work well with the knits, and this is the big plus side of Prada for fall. Then from the colorful, we take a turn to the dark with jet black overcoats and jackets, seemingly mixing with the tan colors that started the collection – appropriately bringing the collection around full circle.
Continue reading for more images and a video of the show.
Source: GQ
Don’t worry… I’m not going Sci-Fi on you. I’m talking about reaction forces. What do I mean by reaction forces? Well, when there is a relative motion between a solid object and a surrounding fluid, a force will be placed on the solid due to the pressure variation over the surface of the solid. This force is caused by the change in speed and direction of the fluid. For example, we see reaction forces in action when water flows through a pump.
Reaction forces on a rear-wing of an Indy race car. Image courtesy of Voxdale.
Now predicting force or pressure distribution on a surface should be a key design decision factor in the design of any system in which a moving fluid can cause product reliability, stability and usability issues (I’m including safety under this category because unless it is safe to use, it isn’t really usable now is it?). Force prediction can be used to optimize the geometry or to determine what’s required to support the said structure.
Several methods have been used by manufacturers for predicting pressure forces but I always say the one that offers the best combination of speed, affordability and accuracy is Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. CFD has proven its efficacy for handling these kinds of problems – there are plenty of application stories and customer testimonials out there. For example, a team at Watts Industries Netherlands deals with design issues relating to backflow prevention devices and automatic control valves for domestic, commercial and industrial uses of water. They need to be extremely careful because contamination of drinking water could prove disastrous. So they use CFD software to test their designs. And to further verify the results, they create and test physical prototypes. They have been able to obtain exactly the same results from their chosen CFD software as their test rig; thus allowing them to deploy their products to the field with increased confidence. According to Rene Aarntzen, the R&D Engineering Manager at Watts Industries, “For the past year we have found exactly the same results from FloEFD and our test rig. That’s important because maybe in a few years, after we’ve built an extensive library of results, then we won’t need to build and test physical prototypes anymore.” Personally as a manager, I find any opportunity to save cost without sacrificing quality, safety or purpose a tall cool drink of water on a hot summer day!
If you are interested in learning more about how to harness reaction forces or to optimize your designs, I would suggest your attending our upcoming online presentation titled: Simulating and Optimizing Reaction Forces. The presenter, Nate Hanlon, is one of our consultant engineers based in the States and he has a background in the design of fans, blowers and impellers. So feel free to ask him a few questions. I’m sure he’s got some sage words of advice for everyone. And before I forget, as with all online presentations, anyone who registers for the event will be sent a link to the archived version so even if you can’t attend the meeting at the specified time, you will be able to access the presentation at your convenience after the event.
Lastly, if you like to read more about Mr. Aarntzen’s experience at Watts Industries, please feel free to click here.
Hope to see you at the meeting (now if I could only get the stormtrooper music out of my head, we’d be golden).
Until next time,
Nazita
The St. Petersburg Times reports: Gaines Adams, the Bears’ defensive end who died of cardiac arrest Sunday at age 26, is being remembered by his former Tampa Bay teammates as an elite athlete who was humble, gentle and easy-going.
“He was one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met,” said defensive tackle Chris Hovan, whose locker next to Adams’ in Tampa.
“He was this gentle, free spirit. He could be friends with anybody. He was always happy, always grateful for his life.”
Adams struggled with the expectations of being taken with the fourth pick in the 2007 draft.
“When you’re the fourth pick in the draft, you’re going to be the face of the franchise,” Hovan said.
“It was tough on him at first because he was so young. But he understood. And he came out with the mind-set that he was going to get better.”
Get the full story: TampaBay.com
Photo: Gaines Adams struggled with high expectations in Tampa. (Rick Stewart/AP)
Read the original article from Tribune News Services.
Sling Media’s Sling Touch Control 100
In the past decade, few design trends for electronic devices have had such a seismic impact as the revolution of smallness. It’s not just that the sizes of devices have shrunk; the mindsets of designers and the whole culture of design have shifted toward all things Lilliputian.
I’ve been an industrial designer for many years, and recently, while I was attending a medical device conference, I began to think about downsized designs and the effect that they’ve had on designers and device users. While medical device developers, as well as some others, have largely continued to observe the “form-follows-function” mantra of yesterday, I am spending most of my time focused on the mantra of smallness. Many of us designers are now dealing with problems that scale down to one-tenth of a millimeter, and our clients are, too.
Great skill at design and development of diminutive things is seen as a novelty by some, but is in fact rare — and in high demand. The types of decision-making and talents required to do effective design of small things differ quite widely from norms in the overall design field. Increasingly, these talents are differentiating the design leaders from the losers.
To get a sense of how companies and designers alike are affected by this trend, consider, for example, a design problem involving integrating electronics, batteries, an antenna and other components into the slimmest possible product possible. Is this just an engineering task? No, it’s a company-wide problem to solve, affecting product branding and more. Designers must develop the best possible relationships with clients and employers to solve such problems in a holistic way.
Here are some bottom-up ideas for designers and those who work with them to consider, especially when optimizing work done at the small scale:
These days, device designers are used to hearing the annoying refrain that “This device is going to be bigger than the iPhone.” More likely than not, if a product really is going to be that big, it’s because shrewd people were thinking about small things.
Gadi Amit is president of NewDealDesign.
In-post image courtesy of Sling Media, thumbnail of Glide TV.
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The latest edition of The China Analyst hits on the hot topic of rare earth metals, and includes an excellent interview with Chinese professor Fu Zhongde, a scientist deeply involved in the country’s advancement of this industry. (via MineWeb)
Will the Chinese government encourage domestic rare earths companies to ‘go global’?
I am afraid the government will not do so. If, on the one hand, the Chinese government regulates the industry and limits rare earth exports, while on the other hand encouraging REE companies to go global, it would be contradictory and unfair. I do not think the government will do this.
What is currently the status of Chinese rare earth processing technology compared to the rest of the world? How advanced is it exactly? Will China require technological assistance from overseas?
Rare earth processing technology in China is highly advanced and can be regarded as filling an important gap in the world. China can supply REE products as pure as 99.9999%, while for example French companies can only produce 99.999% pure products and Japanese firms generally produce 99.9% purity products. In addition to the purity, Chinese technology now uses low energy consumption, creates no pollution, and utilises a zero discharge process. So in terms of rare earths processing technology, China definitely leads the world and is certainly very competitive. I can attest to that myself, being the owner of a few patents in the field of ion exchange technology.
The full interview and more is found in the report below.
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Good old Steve just put up a great graphic detailing all of the possible rumors about whatever the heck Apple is releasing whenever it will release it. Rumors include the “glowing Apple logo” as well as a “touch sensitive case.” I think the iSlate will also give worms to ex-girlfriends.
Click to embiggen.
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United States Agribusiness Report Q1 2010 – new report releasedPR-inside.com (press release)Ethanol production in the US has boomed over the past decade, driven by high oil prices and government policy to support biofuel production. …and more &r…
Details are scarce, and, as with most Apple grumblings, the rumor factor is sky high on the rumor Richter scale. The Chinese paper Commercial Times is reporting that Apple has signed a deal with Korean company Sintek Photronic to provide touch panels for a 22-inch, full touch screen iMac. The Times also cites a deal with long time partner Quanta for production of the new product, predicted to be released in 2010. Now, none of this has been substantiated, but we’re happy to report on an Apple rumor that doesn’t involve the word “tablet.” Hopefully we’ll find out on or around January 27th!
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Thread para postear cosas curiosas y anecdotas en la aviación venezolana e internacional
As expected, Apple is holding a “special event” on Jan. 27 to “come see our latest creation,” with invitations being sent out JUST SECONDS AGO. 10am PST, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.
Let’s take a closer look at the invite, which is, again, to “come see our latest creation.” Using the word “creation” is telling in both its vagueness and its specificity: It says it’s something new. Apple likes playing with words, too—remember the “something’s in the air” tagline for the event they introduced the MacBook Air, their latest truly new product?
At the same time, it’s interestingly far less weighty than the tagline for the Macworld where Apple introduced the iPhone, which indicated that it would be the beginning of something huge: “The first 30 years were just the beginning.” It’s a light and fluffy blurb, not the one you might expect for something that some people think could be the beginning of a brand new kind kind of personal computing, previously only depicted in movies.
It’s also splattered with paint. Maybe they’re being playful. Maybe there’s a (finger)painting application. Maybe we’re reading too much into a jpeg. Either way, we’ll be there, live.
Panasonic still believes in plasma. The company, which owns the biggest plasma panel plant in the world and is the global leader in this segment, today announced [JP] the VIERA G2 series, which consists of a total of three new plasma TVs. And as Panasonic sells these devices in the US, too, chances are the new line-up will find its way outside Japan in the future as well.
The main selling point of the G2 TVs is the native contrast ratio, which stands at an impressive 5,000,000:1, the highest for a plasma TV so far (according to Panasonic). By way of comparison: The $6,000 Panasonic Z1 only had a contrast ratio of 40,000:1.
Buyers will be able to choose between three sizes: 42, 46 and 50-inches. Needless to say, all TVs are full HD, and Panasonic claims they reduced power consumption by 30% (compared to the G1 series introduced last year). To be more concrete, power consumption stands at 398W for the biggest model, at 365W for the 46-incher and at 335W for the 42-inch VIERA.
The new TVs will hit Japanese stores next month. Prices: $2,400 for the 42-inch model, $2,700 for the 46-inch model and $3,500 for the 50-incher.
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