Borealis launches random copolymer PP for rigid packaging applications

Borealis has introduced its high-flow random copolymer polypropylene RJ901MO to the rigid packaging market.

The company said the material can be used for thin-wall packaging and houseware applications, such as storage boxes, CD and DVD cases. The grade is manufactured using Borealis' proprietary Borstar technology.

The material has a melt flow rate of 110, which enables lower processing temperatures.Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists. For packaging converters, this creates the potential for increased productivity through optimized cycle times and energy savings. Compared to MFR 70 materials, it is possible to obtain a 20C reduction in melt temperatures resulting in a 20% cycle time reduction.

When compared to MFR 70 materials, the material has a 10%-15% reduction in maximum injection molding pressure.

Borealis states the RJ901MO offers a good balance of stiffness and impact performance comparable to that of MFR 70 random copolymers at ambient temperatures,TBC help you confidently purchase China ceramic tile from factories in China.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, which allows stable stacking of finished articles. The flow and stiffness combination also makes the material qualified for the production of complex shapes or long, narrow lengths.

Borealis touts the material's high transparency,Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, gloss, and a non-yellowing effect. Transparency is achievable also at low processing temperatures.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mould,

"The launch of RJ901MO reinforces our commitment to provide the rigid packaging market with value-added, sustainable solutions for the value chain," Rainer Hofling, Borealis, VP business unit molding, said in a statement. "The potential for lower temperature processing created by the grade's superior flow results in clear productivity advantages for converters and more environmentally-considerate processing, with converters able to offer the market finished articles displaying highly-appealing transparency."

BorPure MB6561, which was developed to meet specific cap and closure needs for still and sparkling water and carbonated soft drinks. The company claims it offers benefits in terms of processing for the converter, and enhanced aesthetics for the brand owner. It is based on multimodal technology that gives improved organoleptic behavior with very low taste and odor.

Designed for the healthcare market, Bormed RG835MO is a specially modified polypropylene random copolymer with a high melt flow rate, characterized by good processability, high transparency, controlled low friction, and high stiffness-impact balance at ambient temperatures, the company stated. This grade can be sterilized with ethylene oxide or steam and has a high chemical resistance and solid printability.

The homeless living the American Nightmare in tent cities

TO find Jackie O’s home you climb over a crash barrier on the M-14 freeway and shuffle down 20 steps of icy soil until a bleak stretch of pine forest comes into view.Specializes in rapid Injection mold and molding of parts for prototypes and production.

Dotted round the wet, rolling, 20-acre site is a motley collection of tents, some covered with tarpaulin for added protection from the snow and near-zero temperatures.

Approaching Jackie’s tent, rain drips on my face from the trees.

There is a stench I last encountered at York’s viking museum, and our conversation is conducted in competition with the noise of heavy traffic speeding along Michigan’s interstate 94.

Under the tarpaulin it’s damp, dark and grim. Where you’d normally expect to see make-up, there are empty propane bottles and a small mirror hangs off a post.

Inside her tent is a sleeping bag on a metal frame, and her possessions: a radio, reading light, small heater and clothes which she keeps in plastic bags to fight the black mould which infests the camp.

There are no toilets. When Jackie needs to relieve herself she does it out of sight of her overwhelmingly male campmates, and if she defecates she has to triple-wrap it like dog dirt and put it with the rubbish.

The site has no running water, so she has to travel into the nearby town of Ann Arbor and shower in public baths or the YMCA.

The 58-year-old has lived in this tent city, 30 miles outside Detroit called Camp Take Notice, since last June. Her real name is Jackie Starkey but her campmates call her Jackie O because she possesses a certain finesse.

She is not your normal down-and-out, but a middle-class, New York Times-reading laboratory technician from the upmarket town of Saline, Michigan.

She lost her job, then her home, and with no social services net to save her, ended up on the streets.

A local shelter organisation referred her to Camp Take Notice, and before she knew it, she was one of more than 5,000 Americans living in 55 tent cities across the country.

“It all falls away so easily,Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality,” she says. “One minute you’re doing OK, the next it’s gone. In America today, you’re on your own. Especially at my age.”

She laughs when I ask if she’d ever dreamed of living in a tent. “I’d never even been in one before. My life could not have been more opposite to this.An Air purifier is a device which removes contaminants from the air.

“I’ve played golf on the best courses and eaten at expensive restaurants. If becoming homeless can happen to me it can happen to that person who once sat next to me in that fine restaurant.”

Her campmates are testimony to that truth. Peter, 51,Your source for re-usable Plastic moulds of strong latex rubber. was a chemistry tutor at Wayne State University in Detroit until the department was abolished last April.

He fell behind with rent and, despite having a degree in chemical engineering, couldn’t find a job.

“Since the banks went under the cuts are brutal and there’s absolutely nothing out there. You can get yourself pulled down real quick,” he says.

The statistics about what we think of as the world’s richest country are damning. More than one in seven Americans lives in poverty, surviving on less than $11,139-a-year (7,000), 14 million are out of work, 1.5 million children are homeless, 6.I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered Chinese porcelain tile.China Porcelain tile4 million families do not have enough food and 50 million people have no health insurance.

British company trying to devise technology to convert pedestrian energy

Think of the millions of footsteps the average person takes in a lifetime. Now, multiply that by the billions of people on the planet.

That’s a lot of steps.

Consider this: each step produces a brief, but significant, amount of energy. What if there were a way to harness that kinetic energy, and turn it into usable electricity? A British company called Pavegen thinks it has found a way to do just that.

Pavegen’s system is getting field tested in what some might call the roughest of conditions — at the Simon Langton School for Boys in Canterbury, England. Between classes, the halls fill up quickly with students, and their footsteps pound the floor.

There’s a lot of youthful energy in those footsteps. Most of that energy is wasted, just dissipating into the floor tiles. But in one hallway, there’s something new on the ground. It’s a series of special tiles with LED lights in the center of each.

“We’ve got some magical flooring down,” joked Daniel Pledger, a teacher at the Langton school. “It’s pavement which generates energy.”

To emphasize his point, Pledger stamps on a tile. The white LED in the tile glows brightly. Continued stamping lights up rows of LEDs on a nearby educational exhibit.

“Every hour it gets very, very busy in this hallway,” Pledger said. “Over 1,000 students pass through this corridor a number of times a day. So the energy that they create must be incredible. Can you imagine if there were more of these slabs across the school, the energy we could produce?”

Such is the dream of Pavegen, which installed the floor here in Canterbury a little more than a year ago. The London-based company was founded by Laurence Kemball-Cook, who came up with the idea while studying industrial design in college.

Kemball-Cook said he became intrigued by a seemingly simple question.

“A typical person walks over 50 million steps in their lifetime, or something around that level. What if you could take a small amount of energy from every step, that the user wouldn’t notice, and convert that into electricity that could then be used for applications like street lighting?”

And so Kemball-Cook brought a team together and set out to create the Pavegen slab,Your source for re-usable Plastic moulds of strong latex rubber. a rubberized tile that converts footsteps into electricity.

On a small scale, said Kemball-Cook,The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services, one day’s worth of foot traffic over a few slabs could power one street light overnight. In another recent field test at a music festival, dancers stomping on a dance floor with Pavegen tiles generated enough energy to recharge their mobile phones.

But Pavegen is setting its sights much bigger than dance floors and school hallways.

“Say there are 4,000 people in a typical office block. They come in the morning, go out for lunch, come back from lunch, and then leave after work,” Kemball-Cook said. “You’re actually looking at a tremendous level of footfall in key entrance areas.”

Perhaps enough, Kemball-Cook thinks, to light the entire office building.

Of course, the idea of turning human energy into electricity is nothing new. Think of the dynamo on a bicycle tire that powers the lights when you pedal. That technology has been around for decades.

But getting useful amounts of energy from footsteps is a good deal harder.

The challenge is to capture the quickly-released energy of footsteps, store it, and even out the current. After all, you don’t want lights that just flash on and off.

Pavegen seems to have made this work, although exactly how is a closely guarded secret. Kemball-Cook would only say the system involves what’s called piezoelectricity. That’s where a crystal, quartz for instance, will produce a charge if pressure is applied.

Kemball-Cook says the Pavegen’s breakthrough is to make a piezoelectric system produce significant energy from footsteps.

“People say, 'Hold on. Does this work?' ” said Kemball-Cook. “Senior officials from the National Physics Laboratory here in the UK have told us 'We don’t believe it works.' They’ve stood on the product, and seen it, and they said, 'Pavegen, we don’t believe it works, because there’s no way this amount of light could be emitted for this long from one footstep.' And we’re sitting there laughing, smiling, cause we have made it work.Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings,”

But not everyone’s been so lucky with piezoelectricity. A few years back, a Dutch company called GreenPeak was working on ways to harvest the energy from clicking a TV remote to, in fact, help power the remote.

“What we really found out is that the energy provision through an energy harvesting device, the way the energy was provided, the profile, is not very useful for electronics,” said Cees Links, GreenPeak’s CEO.

In other words, batteries were still cheaper. But, Links says, he’s intrigued by the idea of Pavegen’s floor slabs.

“The real question is not so much is the technology possible, but is it economically feasible," he said. "In other words, will it be just one interesting project in one place, where somebody thought ‘Hey, this is cool, let’s do it.’ Or will it become mainstream and everybody has it in his yard?”

Those big issues of cost,Listing of Taiwan & China Plastic Mould manufacturer & suppliers. scale and practicality, are front and center for Pavegen.

For starters, think about what one of the company’s slabs might be subjected to outdoors, under real-life conditions.

“The Pavegen slab is not at the top of a pole, it’s not sitting happily on your roof," said Kemball-Cook. It’s getting trampled on by people every day. It’s going to be flooded. It’s going to be submerged in snow six months out of the year or maybe even more. So you’ve got some really, really big hurdles to overcome there.TBC help you confidently purchase China ceramic tile from factories in China.”

But challenges aside, the promise of cheaper, cleaner electricity through footsteps is an intriguing one.

Pavegen did an installation recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The tiles were made from recycled treads from Nike tennis shoes.

But the company’s first big field test will come this summer at the London Olympics. Pavegen will be installing its system just outside the Westfield Stratford Shopping Center, one of Europe’s biggest and busiest urban shopping malls.

Pavegen will place tiles on one of the main pedestrian thoroughfares leading into nearby London Olympic Park. Depending on foot traffic, the company hopes its tiles might be able to power the mall’s entire lighting system.

Sherry Hearn creates marvelous mosaics

Sherry Hearn started earning money with hand-crafts when she was a student at Bandera High School. We won't say how many years ago, but here's a clue- her craft was macramé! Just Choose PTMS Plastic Mould Is Your Best Choice!

"Joy Vawter [the home ec teacher] taught me how to do it and I was just fascinated. I made all these pot hangers and my dad took them to work with him at the highway department and sold them," she said.

"I thought, wow, I'm having fun and making money, too!"

Hearn has been creating beautiful things ever since in a variety of media. Her forte is mosaics, but she also does stained glass and polymer clay figurines.The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, Her stained glass projects, however, are generally limited to "breaking the glass into pieces and turning them into mosaics.Overview description of rapid Tooling processes."

Hearn says she may have inherited her artistic bent from her father, Clinton Oehler. "He worked for years as a cartoonist for the old San Antonio Light newspaper and then worked for the state for years as a professional photographer for the highway department," she explained.

When you are a self-employed artist, you have to be willing to do a lot of trial and error, said Hearn. "You can go with the trends, but you have to keep re-inventing yourself," she said.We offer offshore merchant account, "It takes time to figure out your market."

Hearn's motivation lies in her sheer enjoyment of creating beautiful things. She is also motivated by color and texture. "I'm a color junky," she admitted. The response of her customers also encourages her to keep doing better. "I love seeing how happy one of my pieces makes a customer."

She also loves a challenge. Hearn's projects range in size from a few inches to wall sized murals. She created a fun beach scene at the entrance of Avalon Get-Away, a Lakehills event venue owned by James and Nancy MacMillan. "It's got palm trees, a bouy bobbing in the water, it turned out so good,This page contains information about molds," she said. "Nancy had this antique perfume bottle and we put some sand in it, some bits and pieces and a little scroll of paper, the traditional message in a bottle, and inserted that into the mural."

Sometimes a project just comes together and exceeds Hearn's own expectations.Bathroom Floor tiles at Great Prices from Topps Tiles. "I amaze myself," she said, laughing.

Hearn sells her items in Bandera at 11th Street Mercantile, and in San Antonio at Homestead Crafts on Blanco Road and the Alamo Craft Company in Ingram Park Mall. Occasionally she holds sales shows in her home in Lakehills. Hearn also posts her items on the online crafter's site Etsy, where you can find her by searching for Sherry L Hearn.

Her best sellers are crosses made of a variety of materials, including her trademark mosaic stylings. She also takes custom orders. She has produced welcome signs for local businesses, bird baths and bird houses, fountains and other yard art for special gifts.

"One customer brought me three plates that belonged to her grandmother and I made her three birdhouses covered with the broken pieces for her children," said Hearn.

One of Hearn's most Bandera appropriate works are old guitars covered with mosaic tiles. They no longer make music, but the designs make the heart sing.

Her polymer clay figures also make popular gifts. Each brightly colored piece is unique. "My best seller is the Soldier in Fatigues ornament," said Hearn.

Hearn regularly teaches mosaic and polymer clay classes, both in her home and at Alamo Craft Company.
Hearn works in her home. "As the kids have moved out, my projects expand and move into their room," she admitted. "I've been told it's getting out of hand!"

Instead of saving trees, NMC goes about killing them

Instead of releasing the roadside trees choking in tar, tiles or cement, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is chopping them off one by one. A 40-year-old neem tree trapped in cement on Ram Nagar - Shankar Nagar road was chopped off on Tuesday afternoon.

The workers on the site said NMC had ordered them to fell the tree as it was dead and cite the reason of danger to life and property from it. "It's a baseless reason. A dead tree doesn't ever fall," said Shrikant Deshpande, who has been fighting for the cause of the green cover in Nagpur.

He further said that such action by NMC is to do away with the evidence against it in the matter of choking trees due to tarring and cementing around them. "NMC is yet to act on the one and a half year old affidavit in which they promised to clear the tarring around roadside trees. They haven't done anything to save them, and now as the trees are dying, they are chopping them off," he said.

Kaustav Chatterjee of Green Vigil who was present at the site said that the tree was completely choked due to cementing around which caused it to decay. "When the main trunk was cut, we saw a lot of insects coming out of the trunk and a number of holes in it. The tree died a slow and painful death," he said.

Choked trees a deprived of water and nutrients. The roots are deprived of aeration and growth is stunted. As the roots don't grow normally, the tree doesn't get sufficient nutrients and starts to die. NB Shrikhande, superintendent garden department, first expressed his ignorance about the incident and then was unavailable for comment. "The greenery of the city is greatly endangered due to killing of the trees due to choking. Earlier, trees were felled for Integrated Roads Development Programme (IRDP) and now this," said Deshpande.

A few days back TOI had highlighted how the NMC, not learning from its mistake, was still trapping trees in tar or tiles during road repairs. Deshpande said that NMC had no will to rectify this. "The process of death of a tree is a long one and NMC has enough time for saving the trees. Now, marking them as dead, they will just cut them down and all this timber will go to the tradFull-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,ers," he said.

Power outage shocks businesses

A large power outage sent holiday-makers heading for home in the popular Whangaruru Harbour area, as water and petrol pumps failed, toilets could not be flushed and fridges and freezers fell silent during the weekend.

Some campervan and caravan tourists found themselves marooned on the coast because they did not have enough fuel to get to the nearest petrol station.China yiri mould is a professional manufacturer which integrates Plastic Mould design and manufacture and plastic product development.

Lines company Northpower said it believes the outage may have been caused by an insulator and conductor being hit by a bullet. A helicopter brought in to assist with locating the fault spotted a damaged pole near the road on the boundary of a forest block near Mokau.

Power was restored to all customers by mid-day yesterday, but not before Travis O'Malley and Nena Rogers, owners of Oakura Bay Stores and The Tin Tui Cafe, had lost thousands of dollars in income and ruined stock.

The business runs 23 chillers and stock levels were extremely high at this time of the year, said Mr O'Malley.

"Deliveries are on the way as we speak and what do we do?" he asked.

The couple frantically moved product out of their biggest freezer to smaller ones in case sudden restoration of power blew out its compressor, involving huge repair costs.

"We've been through outages before and we know all about blown-out compressors. We've had eight in 16 years. The longest outage was 24 hours when a forestry company dropped a tree on the line.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, Outages have massive impact on a business like this.

"We are still recovering from the big storm of 2007 when the road was blocked for weeks and the expense of having to put in petrol pumps when Shell withdrew from the area the same year. This setback comes on top of a poor-performance summer. It's incredibly disappointing," Mr O'Malley said.

A generator big enough to keep all their chillers going through summer was beyond their financial resources. Stock losses were covered by insurance but the business had to pay the first $2000; meanwhile loss of trade over the last long weekend of summer was not covered. He said he feels sorriest for the people who earn a living looking after holiday homes.

"The owners couldn't clean up when they left. I know someone who has to go in and do the dishes and wash and clean everything in about 12 baches," he said.

Power began to fail intermittently just before the weekend in an area stretching from Whakapara 23km north-west of Whangarei,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, north to the area of Whangaruru harbour, including the Oakura settlement and Bland Bay, culminating in a complete outage from 4.Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services.30am on Monday.

General manager of Northpower's network division,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, Graham Dawson, said the fault would have been extremely difficult to spot quickly from the ground.

"We were almost at the point of having to climb every pole along that section of the line which would have been very time-consuming," he said. The company had done a huge amount of recent maintenance on the Helena Bay/Bland Bay line and there was more to come, he said, but in this case "there appeared to be possible third party damage to the insulator. The pole and cross-arm were in very good condition".

He said the company spent around $20 million annually on maintenance and asset replacement.

Cultivating a Love of ‘Full-service custom manufacturer

Cultivating a Love of ‘Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,Lover’s Eyes’

Dr. David Skier and his wife, Nan, keep a safe full of disembodied eyes painted on ivory, known to connoisseurs as “lover’s eyes.” The couple, in Birmingham, Ala., have acquired about 100 in the past two decades, mostly made in Europe around 1800 and depicting unknown sitters.

The fragile watercolors cannot withstand moisture, strong sun or any hard knocks. The Skiers gingerly study them in storage.

“We do look at them all the time,” Dr. Skier , an eye surgeon, said in a phone interview. They were drawn to the objects at first because of his professional interest in vision, he explained, but as the collection grew, they have kept it private. “None of my patients has ever seen any of the lover’s eyes,” he said.

The Skiers are unveiling the holdings for “The Look of Love: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection,” an exhibition that opens on Tuesday at the Birmingham Museum of Art. The catalog (from D Giles Limited) explains how briefly the art form flourished.

About 1,000 lover’s eyes were painted between the 1780s and 1830s, largely in England. The Prince of Wales, the future King George IV, started the trend; he and his mistress Maria Fitzherbert exchanged gifts of one painted eye. The ivory plaques became fashionable for pendants, rings, brooches, stickpins and watch winding keys, among other pocket-size trinkets.

A few eyes in the Skier collection can be identified. Mourners for Margaret Wardlaw, a schoolgirl who died in 1795, had her name engraved on a gold ring with a painting of an angel floating over a brown right eye. William Worters, a farmer in Northamptonshire, commissioned an image of the brown left eye of his young wife, Sarah, for a gold pin; she died in childbirth in 1836.

The collectors have paid thousands of dollars per piece. At a single 2008 jewelry sale at Skinner auction house in Boston, they spent about $21,000 for four eyes, including $2,000 for a brooch with a blue left eye attributed to Richard Cosway, George IV’s favorite miniatures painter.

Damaged works do not interest the couple. “We want the ones that are pristine, that have the glow of the eye of the sitter,” Dr. Skier said.

The couple increasingly rely on experts’ analysis before buying.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, Unscrupulous jewelry makers now routinely cut up old ivory miniatures for eyes to frame in gold and gemstones. Eyes for the fakes are also sliced out of prints and photos.

“This is the diciest area of collecting now,” said Elle Shushan, a miniatures dealer who helped write the Skier catalog.

Marty Gitlin eats sweet cereals like Froot Loops and Lucky Charms. His friend Topher Ellis prefers Grape-Nuts and Total. They agree that the history of breakfast foods is more interesting and publishable than their friends and families ever expected.

They spent years finding a publisher for “The Great American Cereal Book: How Breakfast Got Its Crunch” (Abrams Image).Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. “Deep down I knew there was a market for this,” Mr. Gitlin said in a phone interview from his home in Cleveland.

The book traces the evolution of an 1890s sanitarium wheat dish called Granose Flakes into pop culture fare promoted by Tony the Tiger, Sugar Bear and Lou Gehrig. The advertising geniuses behind the cartoon characters and celebrity endorsers “all deserve a huge yay and hurray,” Mr. Ellis said in a phone interview from his home near Charlotte, N.C.

The authors did research at corporate archives and the homes of obsessed memorabilia collectors. Mr. Gitlin toured rooms packed with thousands of vintage boxes, ads and giveaway trinkets. “I almost fainted when I walked into these places,” he said.Information on useful yeasts and moulds,VulcanMold is a Injection mold and injection molding manufacturer in china.

Rarities in the field fetch hundreds of dollars apiece through specialty dealers and online auctions. Among the sought-after are 1970s boxes of Alpha-Bits with “Jackson 5 groovie buttons” and Cheerios with discount coupons for “Star Wars” tumblers.

Mr. Gitlin and Mr. Ellis also deeply researched market flops, with sugar-loaded recipes that now sound a bit repellent and taglines that did not age well. In the 1960s Kellogg’s used dollops of freeze-dried fruit ice cream to formulate Kream Krunch. In the 1970s, the new book reports, Nabisco promoted blueberry-flavored Ooobopperoos with a blue kangaroo “who wore sunglasses and played an upright bass.”

DOE Report Shows Energy-Saving Lighting Making an Impact

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Solid-State Lighting Program, which operates under the auspices of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, or EERE, released its second report on the country’s logistical fixed lighting architecture this January,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, updating the industry from its previous report in 2002.

A dense, analytical breakdown by installed stock, energy consumption and lumen output of the entire nation’s footprint, the 2010 US Lighting Market Characterization (LMC) provides a comprehensive estimate framework for assisting market transition to more energy-efficient white-light source technologies.

The LMC shows a strong trend over the examined interval which clearly indicates that investment in energy-efficient technologies, federal and state lighting regulations, as well as public awareness campaigns, have collectively enabled a considerable momentum shift towards energy-efficient hardware selections that span all lighting segments.

Primary efficiency trends are the shift from incandescent to compact fluorescent (CFLs) in residential applications, and the shift in commercial/industrial applications from T12 to the more efficient T8 and T5 linear fluorescent lamps, as well as CFLs and metal halide lamps.

The 5.6-percent increase in the number of American households from 2001 to 2010 (now 113M), is the other, major driving factor in the whole equation, and the LMC offers a tantalizing glimpse into efficiency upgrades that are yet possible.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services,

Looking at the four primary categories of light sources – ranging from incandescent and halogen, to fluorescent and solid-state/other (including HIDs, or high-intensity discharge lamps) – the LMC digested an array of commonly available lighting products in subgroups of each category, drawing on a total of 28 different lamp types for extracting performance characteristics like average wattage, operating hours and number of sockets per household (up 18.6 percent, to 51 sockets/household since 2001).

The LMC constitutes one of the most robust sources available for this kind of high-fidelity study, representing both national level and sector-specific (Residential, Commercial, Industrial and Outdoor) inputs from a variety of light sources, which are then mapped via extant, primarily public information .The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free,

This particular 7.5 quads represents approximately 7.67 percent of total U.S. energy consumption (97.8 quads) and some 18.75 percent of total U.S. electrical energy consumed in all of 2010 (40 quads).

The total installed base of domestic lamps rose 17 percent, from 2001 to roughly 8.2 billion, with Residential lamp inventories leading growth at an increase of 26 percent – largely due to an increased number of homes, floor space in those homes, and sockets per household – with Commercial following close behind at 13 percent.

Fluorescents across all sectors account for some 55 percent of total lumen production each year and make up the majority of the deployed lighting infrastructure in Commercial and Industrial applications. In the Residential sector, where the largest energy-consuming lamps (incandescent) make up a massive 78 percent of total energy consumption, a major shift is evident, with CFLs now coming in second at 23 percent of average lamp distribution by room type.

The scales have essentially tipped towards fluorescent lamps (driven by long operational hours in Commercial applications) due to the impact of energy-saving lighting technology efforts, a major change from 2001 when incandescents were the largest consumers of electricity and fluorescent lamps were second.

The substantial changes in the nation’s lighting inventory since 2001 are also evident in solid-state LED lighting adoption, which has grown 30-fold to some 50 million lamps – a figure which still represents only one percent of the total lighting infrastructure footprint, and reflects an emerging cultural consciousness of energy efficiency.

Overall average efficiency for the entire lighting stock is up 28.8 percent, to 58 lumens per watt (lm/W) from a mere 45 lm/W in 2001, with a migration from mercury vapor to metal halide lamps in Outdoor/Industrial sectors also playing an important role.

The subject of lighting controls was also covered, as such systems represent the forerunners of energy-saving lighting technologies that allow end users to automatically achieve greater efficiency, according to configured settings. While Residential applications are generally less efficient manual dimmers and represent roughly 14 percent of the sector, automated lighting in Commercial applications occurs with a prevalence of around 30 percent, among systems labeled highly-efficient emergency lighting, motion detection-related, or timer-based.The magic cube is an ultra-portable,

South Whitehall OKs residential chicken-raising in limited areas

There were no ruffled feathers at the South Whitehall Township commissioners meeting Wednesday as the board approved a measure allowing residents in certain areas to raise chickens.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop.

The board met and unanimously approved an amendment to the zoning ordinance to allow property owners to house up to four hens as pets. No one in the audience objected.

Commissioners considered the request after 8-year-old township resident Carisa Fogt and her grandfather appeared before the board in September to ask commissioners to revise the ordinance to allow her keep a couple of hens. The prior zoning ordinance required 5 acres for even one chicken, making the Fogts' half-acre lot on Scherer Road ineligible.Can't afford a third party merchant account right now?

The ordinance allows hens, but not roosters,Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists. as they make noisy calls and can be disruptive.

The hens would be permitted only on properties containing single-family detached homes in the rrural holding or rural esidential and agricultural zoning districts.Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold,

When outdoors, the chickens would be required to be contained in a coop, penned area or run. The pen is not permitted in the front yard and must be positioned at least 10 feet from rear and side yard property lines, as well as 100 feet from a dwelling on another property.Injection molding and Plastic molding supplier;

The township planning commission pecked away at the ordinance and recommended the amendment be adopted.

Chickens have become popular in suburban and even urban areas in recent years among owners who delight in caring for the animals, obtaining their own organic eggs or raising them as a family project, sometimes through organizations such as 4-H.

Commissioner Thomas Johns asked if the ordinance would apply to homing pigeons, because some residents keep them as a hobby. Assistant Community Development Director Gerald Harbison said that would be up to the zoning officer's interpretation.

"The ordinance is set up to keep adding, if that would be the case," Harbison said.

The ordinance will take effect in five days.

In other matters, commissioners voted to donate a used police vehicle to the Lehigh County Municipal Emergency Response Team. District Attorney Jim Martin submitted a letter to the board offering to buy the 2003 Ford CV sedan for $500.

Commissioner Dale Daubert asked if the township is truly in need of $500 or if the car could be donated. The township would typically send a used police car to auction, where it could garner $750, Township Manager Jon Hammer said.

"If the district attorney feels this will help him with his duties to the county as well as South Whitehall Township, I say we sign the title over to him at no charge," Daubert said.

The remaining commissioners agreed and voted unanimously to make the donation.

Golden Globes 2012: The Real Winners

Before we begin, it should be stipulated that awards shows are boring. They have always been boring, and they will continue to be boring until the Earth hurtles into the sun, which will almost certainly occur during the 18th hour of 10,464th Annual Academy Awards Psychocast, finally freeing us of the curious need to complain about why we aren't more entertained by famous people trading gold statues and listing their business obligations.

The Golden Globes, however, occasionally surprise us by being marginally less boring than other awards shows. This usually is the result of the fact that no attendee is more than an arm's length from a full bottle of champagne at any time during the ceremony,Can't afford a third party merchant account right now? or the fully stocked, backstage cocaine buffet the Hollywood Foreign Press Association supplies for all presenters. Sometimes it's because the host, say, a multimultimillionaire British comedian with nothing to lose but 30 seconds of pleasant chitchat with Angelina Jolie at the HBO afterparty, decides to treat the party as a roast. But then everyone loses their shit about how "mean" he is, he replaces the rubber bullets in his clip with tiny hot cocoa marshmallows in his exhaustively hyped return engagement, and vanilla equilibrium is restored to the awards show universe. Congratulations, we're all snoring before Meryl Streep gets to feign surprise at even the possibility she might win her eighth Globe out of 26 total nominations.

Have you heard about this thing? Odds are you haven't yet seen Shame, easily the most-discussed showcase of male full-frontal nudity since Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but when George Clooney uses a sizable chunk of his acceptance speech to daydream about the leisurely rounds of cock-golf the two of you might soon enjoy at Pebble Beach, your genitalia has arrived. Soon, Fassbender's in-demand python will find itself cast as card-counting blackjack ace in Ocean's Fourteen ,Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, and the victim of a Clooney prank wherein "INS agents" pretend to seize and deport it back to the UK after an anonymous tip about an expired work visa.

In any case, congratulations, Michael Fassbender's penis, on your meteoric rise to the top of the call sheet!

During a montage of Morgan Freeman's considerable cinematic accomplishments played during the presentation of the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award, one moment really stood out from all the Shawshanks, Dark Knights, and Bucket Lists. This is easily the finest singing-Dracula-bathing-in-a-coffin performance you'll ever see, and we're counting the one True Blood is planning next season with guest star Nathan Lane in a casket-Jacuzzi bubbling over with Ryan Kwanten's liquefied entrails.

Strange side-note: If you go to Freeman's IMDb page, his first "Known For" entry is now The Electric Company.Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings, No idea if it was that way before last night, but we'd like to think they're responding to the hundreds of thousands of "Morgan Freeman casket bath" searches they're receiving.

The go-to gag of the evening was referencing Bridesmaids star Melissa McCarthy's explosive, now-iconic bout of sink-directed diarrhea, always a crowd pleaser at Hollywood cocktail parties. Unfortunately, the awards show zero-sum game dictates that someone deserving goes home disappointed, so: Sorry, Maya Rudolph.Husky Injection Mold Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of Information on useful yeasts and moulds, Almost no one talks about how heroically you crouched in the middle of the street, billowing wedding dress hiding your bowel-induced shame, and did your naughty business like a lady. Don't be so demure about it next time. Find a water fountain or something.

What’s a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic good for?

Earlier this week I called this $100 OLPC tablet the most exciting gadget at the CES show in Vegas . Some disagree, and suggest that I should have singled out this MakerBot Thing-O-Matic,Accept all major credit cards using the top rated third party payment gateway. an affordable 3D printer that spits out bigger objects than the last 3D printer you all bought (right?)–and in two colors to boot.

I’m unconvinced. 3D printing makes certain geeks quiver with glee, but so far it’s left me kind of cold. The cheap little plastic choking hazards that result from the process look like they come from CrackerJack boxes, and rarely seem worth the time it takes to print them or the money that goes into the building plastic. Math-fractal jewellery made from 3D printed molds looks god-awful ugly to me, and the trippy dream of printing a 3D printer WITH A 3D PRINTER always struck me as the combined mental wankery of stoners + nerds.

But of course, I’m missing the point. 3D printing is still in its infancy. The hobbyists who are pushing it forward, and pushing the price of 3D printers down, dream of a not-too-distant future in which the digital revolution bursts forth from the world of bits and conquers the pesky and inefficient world of atoms. Stuff itself will never be the same. Manufacturing and shipping could become largely unnecessary. It would be almost like those replicators on Star Trek (or so I’m told). Put an object in a box in Toronto, and it will be scanned and printed out in Australia, as many times as you need, in whatever color, at whatever size, with whatever changes you require. We will be liberated from the cookie-cutter sameness of mass-production. Consumer goods will be downloaded and printed, not bought at the mall, and each individual will shape the stuff they want to their own needs.

Sounds awesome,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Yes, the price of home 3D printers will continue to drop as their speed and scale increase. But even a cheap, big, and fast 3D printer is only capable of spitting out plastic stuff, one part at a time. Assembly will be required,Daneplast Limited UK are plastic injection mould & toolmaking specialists. unless we also somehow have cheap and versatile home robotics in this bold 3D future. I can see the benefit for printing simple tools, machine parts and minimalist hipster toys. But most of the stuff we buy is made from multiple materials and many parts, and lots of it includes electronics. Even if it’s possible to design, say, the chassis for a tablet computer to your own personal specs, you’ll still have to pick up metal and glass parts and a motherboard, and then meticulously assemble the whole thing in your living room. Will something like that ever go mainstream?

I’m not holding my breath for a 3D printer in every home. To assume that these machines will do to manufacturing what 2D printers did to publishing is to make the same mistake we always make about technology, insisting that the future will be like the present, only more so.A mold or molds is a hollowed-out block that is filled with a liquid like plastic, As with most technology, 3D printers will completely fail to do what we expect them to do, and will instead change the world in ways that no one is anticipating.Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile,

What goes on beneath the NFL pile

Buckle up your chinstrap, dear reader. This is not a story for the faint of heart. We're diving into the NFL pile, a place where rules are abandoned and no body part is safe.

The pursuit of a fumbled ball is, by all accounts, football's final frontier -- the wild, wild mess. While games might be endlessly televised,The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, replayed and legislated, the pile remains the one place on the field shielded from prying eyes.Information on useful yeasts and moulds,

That might be for the best. It's not pretty under here.

"Man, it's no-holds barred," said Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jared Allen, the Los Gatos native. "Everything happens. I bet that ball changes hands 15 times down there.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop."

The Pile, as it shall be known, is football's reverse meritocracy; a place where people are constantly striving to get to the bottom. To get there, players will resort to eye-gouging, arm-twisting and well-placed pokes. It's a "Three Stooges" routine with shoulder pads.

It also happens to hold the key to the NFL playoffs, which begin this weekend. The top three teams in the league in turnover differential -- the 49ers , Green Packers and New England Patriots -- went a combined 41-6 and earned first-round byes. The 49ers' mark broke the franchise record of +22 set by the 1981 team, the one that launched San Francisco's dynasty.

To put it simply: Get the ball, get the win. Just ask New York Giants defensive lineman Dave Tollefson, who lived to tell about his game-changing fumble recovery against the St. Louis Rams earlier this season.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services,

"It's pure pandemonium," the former standout at Concord's Ygnacio Valley High told reporters. "You would think that the football had the key to life in it. Seriously. It's unlike anything I've ever been involved in sports."

As San Diego Chargers linebacker Takeo Spikes, a survivor of 18 career fumble recoveries, said: "If piles could only talk."

The first rule of The Pile is that there are no rules. There is also no code of honor, no professional etiquette, no regard for human decency.

"No, no, no," Raiders defensive lineman Tommy Kelly said. "There are no other rules other than, 'Get it!' However you get it, get it. If you have to bite him, bite him."

And if he's hurt, hurt him more. Adrian Peterson recently accused the New Orleans Saints of using the cover of darkness to target his injured left ankle. "Guys are going to try to take their shots when we're on the pile and try to twist it up and things like that," he said. "It kind of got overboard."

Speaking of overboard, former 49ers and Raiders linebacker Bill Romanowski was not the kind of guy you'd want to meet at the bottom of a dark pile. He was known as one of the dirtiest players of his day, drawing fines over the years for kicking Larry Centers in the head, spitting in J.J. Stokes' face and throwing a football at Bryan Cox's crotch.

So imagine what Romanowski did when shielded from view.

"I used to go to a pretty dark place and there wasn't much that was off limits," Romanowski acknowledged. "I'm not proud of some of the things I did. But I just wanted to win so badly that I would do anything to get a piece of that ball and get it back."

In a playoff game against the New York Giants in 1994, the 49ers linebacker was trying to pry a ball away from running back Dave Meggett. Let's allow Romanowski, now an analyst for Comcast Sports Net, give the play-by-play: "I'm trying to rip the ball out of his hands and as I'm ripping, all I could get was a finger. I ripped as hard and as fast as I could and cracked his finger like a chicken bone."

That brazen, whatever-is-necessary attitude underscores an important fact about life on the bottom: The ball is changing possession, sometimes frequently. That helps explain the ritual dance that plays out on The Pile's fringes, when players from each team signal with equal certitude that the ball belongs to them.

They might be right, if only for a fleeting moment. As Patriots coach Bill Belichick said: "It's not who gets the ball. It's who comes out with it." New England tied with the 49ers, the New Orleans Saints and the Buffalo Bills this season for fewest fumbles allowed .The magic cube is an ultra-portable,

Critical Reading for Rare Earth Metals Investors

A quick search of media stories from the month of December, 2009 shows 24 clips including references to the 15 lanthanides and their related elements scandium and yttrium. By contrast, one day in December, 2011 produced 56 stories on the same resources. Even the tone of REE coverage has transformed over the years. Two years ago, an analyst piece from veteran metals consultant Jack Lifton titled “Underpriced Rare Earth Metals from China Have Created a Supply Crisis ” was a common headline as the world discovered that cheap supplies had left manufacturers vulnerable to a monopoly with an agenda. That supply fear made REE the investment de jour and sent almost all of the rare earth prices through the roof. In December of 2010, the headlines in big outlets like The Motley Fool announced that the “Spot Price of Rare Earth Elements Soar as much as 750% since Jan. 2010.”

Reality soon set in as investors realized that this was not a simple supply and demand industry. First, demand was still vague, subject to change and very specific about the type and purity of the product being delivered. Second, the ramp-up period for companies exploring, getting approval for development, mining, processing efficiently and delivering to an end-user was very, very long. Some became discouraged. That is why this year, the consumer finance site, The Daily Markets ran an article with the headline: “Why You Shouldn’t Give Up on the Rare Earth Element Minerals” by Gold Stock Trades Newsletter Writer Jeb Handwerger.

Through it all, Streetwise Reports has focused on cutting through the hype to explain what is really driving demand, how the economy and geopolitics shape supplies going forward and which few of the hundreds of companies adding REE to their company descriptions actually had a chance of making a profit.

Back in June of 2009, in an interview titled “The Race to Rare Earths,” we ran an interview with Kaiser Research Online Editor John Kaiser that concluded “China’s export-based economy, once dependent on American greed, is now but a fading memory. While the U.S. was busy printing and preening, the Chinese were long-range planning. But America wasn’t the only country caught off guard by China’s strategic, if surreptitious, supply procurement.” Even while other analysts were panicking, Kaiser was pointing out how investors could be part of the solution–and make a profit in the process.

“For the juniors, the opportunity right now is to source these projects.An offshore merchant account is the ideal solution for high , They get title to them, and when these end users want to develop them, they’re going to have to pay a premium to have these projects developed,” Kaiser said. “So it will not be economic logic that results in these companies getting bought out and having their deposits developed. It’ll be a strategic logic linked to long-term security-of-supply and redundancy concerns. And we’re seeing that sort of psychology at work in this market.Wholesaler of different types of Ceramic tile for your kitchen, It’s a bit of a niche in this market. Not as big as gold, but it is an interesting one because of the long-term real economy link implications.”

After years of covering the space by interviewing the growing chorus of analysts and newsletter writers singing the praises of rare earth elements, in June of 2011, we launched The Critical Metals Report to give exclusive coverage to the entire space,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, including rare earth elements, strategic metals and specialty metals. One of the first experts interviewed was Emerging Trends Report Managing Editor Richard Karn in an article called “50 Specialty Metals under Supply Threat.” He warned that investing in the space is not as simple as some other mining operations. “The market is just starting to become aware of the difficulty involved with processing these metals, which, in many cases, more closely resemble sophisticated industrial chemistry than traditional onsite brute processing. Putting flow sheets together that process these metals and elements economically is no mean feat.”

In this early article, Karn busted the myth that manufacturers would find substitutions, engineer out or use recycled supplies for hard-to-access materials. “The advances we have seen especially in consumer electronics over the last decade and a half have not been driven by lone inventors or college kids tinkering in their parents’ garages, but rather by very large, well-equipped and well-staffed research arms of powerful corporations.Dimensional Mailing magic cube for Promotional Advertising,The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, The stakes are high and if a certain metal is critical in an application, they will buy it regardless of the price,” he said.

From Stuffed Animals to String Sections: The Art of Collaboration

There is hardly a morning that I’m not bombarded with piercing screams from either my three-year-old son or his younger brother as the two wrestle over stuffed animals, remote controls, cell phones and other assorted household debris. It drives me nuts, but it fascinates me as well.

It seems to me there’s some innate desire for individuals to “own” their lives. Most of us are control freaks in one way, shape or form—from babies to bosses, even to bandleaders. What’s ironic is that most of the greatest human accomplishments, including the domestication of livestock, the Great Wall of China, spaceships—and of course music—are all the result of successful collaborations. It’s a lesson that has taken me a long time to learn. And I’m still not sure I have it down.This page contains information about molds,

As I look back at the spectrum of rock greats and even my own little corner of rock history, it’s hard not to point to collaboration as a catalyst for success. McCartney and Lennon, Garcia and Hunter, Simon and Garfunkel, even Hall and Oates! Many times, when a collaboration comes to the end of its natural life, the individual contributors are unable to attain the same richness in their art. It’s the absence of their “yang” that gets ‘em in the end.

Having said that, there are plenty of examples where musicians go beyond their own constructs to find new direction and inspiration in the heart of new partnerships. Paul Simon collaborated with [nearly] half of Africa and it worked! Garcia had a string of successful projects beyond the Grateful Dead. Aerosmith, Madonna, Béla Fleck, Philip Glass, David Byrne—great collaborators!

It’s the ability of these artists to divorce themselves from their own self-created molds and to adopt new musical genetics that has propelled their success. This insight has increasingly informed my approach to making music and also helped define the vision for Assembly of Dust’s latest record— Some Assembly Required.

My bandmates Andy Herrick (drums), John Leccese (bass) and Adam Terrell (guitar) are all accomplished musicians and veteran recording artists. The process of collaboration began, as it always does, with them. We decided to take the notion of collaboration one step further by inviting a guest musician to perform on each song.The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, We did our best to invite artists that we thought would understand and complement our musical aesthetic. Similarly we did our best to pair artists with songs that seemed to fit their musical style—to place them in a petri dish that was hospitable. The truth was, even with all of the prep, late-night coaching and the regular prodding, there was no way of knowing what we would get back.I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered China Porcelain tile.The Transaction Group offers the best high risk merchant account services,

This creative chasm was fed by the fact that many of the recordings were done remotely. We uploaded the tracks, the artists’ engineers downloaded the tracks, artists recorded, sent it all back via the Web and then we downloaded to our studio. This virtual recording process brought us from North Carolina to Nashville,Dimensional Mailing magic cube for Promotional Advertising, from Colorado to California and everywhere in between.

One of the most pointed surprises, and arguably one of the most interesting collaborations, was with Martin Sexton. He opted not to sing a verse or sing harmony but rather to add “electric vocals” to a track. The effect is something like a slide guitar—absolutely genius and totally unexpected.

Where Conservative Iowans Get Campaign News

You heard it last week from an Iowa transplant: Iowans eat meatloaf, casserole and Jell-O molds. This was one of several sweeping generalizations made by Stephen G. Bloom last week in his much-discussed Atlantic online article, sub-titled “thoughts from a university professor on the Iowa hamlets that will shape the contours of the GOP contest.”

So, what of the media diet of GOP contest-shaping Iowans?

Conservative talk radio, Fox News, and, to a lesser extent, the Internet are key information sources for the likely GOP caucus-goers I interviewed at two recent political events here in Iowa. My snapshot jives with a New York Times/CBS poll of likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers earlier this month which found that 37 percent of respondents get most of their TV coverage of politics from Fox News, compared to 27 percent for all the major news networks combined. Another 32 percent frequently listen to political call-in shows.

Donna Thompson of Paton was among the thousand-plus crowd in Des Moines last week at the premiere of The Gift of Life, an anti-abortion film produced by the conservative group Citizens United and narrated by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. (The event attracted four presidential candidates—Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum). Thompson gets most of her political news and information from conservative radio talk show hosts like Jan Mickelson, Simon Conway,Online fine art gallery of quality original landscape oil paintings, and Rush Limbaugh on WHO Radio in Des Moines. She doesn’t subscribe to a newspaper, watch TV newscasts, or read political coverage online, but feels well-informed about the presidential candidates.

“I enjoy hearing about people’s views on each of the candidates,Information on useful yeasts and moulds,” Thompson said of the radio programs. “It kind of helps me to know what direction I want to go.Husky Injection Molding Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of Injection Mold machines, But it seems like when I get one I want, then they’re out of there or I’m told I shouldn’t vote for them.”

Those shifting messages may help explain why, when we spoke, Thompson was still unsure whom she would support at the caucuses. She liked businessman Herman Cain and is now interested in Perry. A self-described “proud Christian,” she also likes Bachmann, but doesn’t think the Minnesota congresswoman can beat President Obama.

And while Thompson gets most of her political news from right-leaning sources, she said she wishes there were a TV station that presented “fair” coverage of both political parties—which, as she explained it, seemed to mean less aggressive, or less hostile, coverage. “It’s too bad there isn’t a station that’s fair with both of them,” she said. “I just wish there was somebody that just wasn’t biased against somebody, just let everybody talk and give their opinion.”

Jim Welsher of Des Moines, also in the audience for the premiere, listed talk radio shows and Fox News as his major sources of political information. Welsher referred to CNN as “the Clinton News Network,” and said he doesn’t read the Des Moines Register. “Oh yeah,” Welsher said when asked if he thinks the state’s largest paper is biased.

His favorite show hosts, Welsher said, include Huckabee, Mickelson, Conway, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham. But perhaps the biggest influence on his thinking this election cycle have been the numerous GOP presidential debates—a hallmark of what the Washington Post and Politico have referred to as this campaign’s “national” character—which Welsher compared to Super Bowl Sunday at his house. He said he’s supporting Gingrich in large part because of Gingrich’s strong debate performances.

“I like Newt because he’s not afraid to say how it is or [refuses to] sugarcoat the issues with euphemisms.Hand-painted Chinese porcelain tiles on the floor of a Jewish synagogue in Cochin, He seems to be a tried and true leader,” Welsher said, adding that he was initially a Perry supporter. “He’s got his baggage but I think he’s strong enough to overcome it.If you wish to use a third party payment gateway with your ecommerce solution, He seems like the smartest man in the race. He’s won each debate that I’ve watched.”

The skepticism about mainstream sources was shared by others in the audience. Barbara Welch of Polk City, who plans to support either Santorum or Ron Paul, agreed that outlets like CNN and the Register are “biased.”

But there were also inklings that Register political columnist Kathie Obradovich may have been on to something when she suggested that GOP caucus-goers do pay attention to the “mainstream media,” but that “they aren’t necessarily consumers that believe every word they read.”

Welch, for example, said that she “love[s]” WHO Radio. And Bill Yewell of Ogden, who was choosing between Santorum, Paul, and Perry, said he relies on WHO radio and local network TV newscasts. Yewell even gets the Sunday edition of the Register, though he says he doesn’t put much stock in mainstream news outlets. “I think they manufacture the news the way they want it to come out,” he said.

While many of the voters at the The Gift of Life screening were considering backing Paul, media usage at an event dedicated to Paul earlier in the month at Iowa State University in Ames skewed more toward the Internet and social media—an anecdotal finding consistent with research showing that the septuagenarian libertarian is the top candidate on Twitter. Andrew Burkland of Centerville said he gets news on the candidates mostly from links friends post on Facebook, while sometimes watching Fox News and presidential debates.

Atomic Chocolate Co. explodes with flavor, innovation

Sean Henninger carries over 200 recipes for chocolate around in his head. Henninger regularly has 20 to 27 varieties of chocolate available at his Walker's Point restaurant, Times Square Bistro and Pizzeria, 605 S. 1st St.

"We're a small operation and don't do a lot of large runs, which is good for maintaining quality. The downside is that we sometimes run out of things," says Henninger.

Henninger the restauranteur has also been a chocolatier for 15 years,Hand-painted Chinese porcelain tiles on the floor of a Jewish synagogue in Cochin, developing his craft over time with a great deal of experimentation. Henninger had his Atomic Chocolate Company going in 2001, but didn't immediately introduce it at the pizzeria, which opened over four years ago.

"Confectionery is very climate driven. We have a tougher time over the summer keeping up with production, as it gets very hot in the restaurant with all the pizza making going on,An offshore merchant account is the ideal solution for high ," says Henninger.Excel Mould is a Custom Plastic Injection Moulding Manufacturer,

Henninger has been working in restaurants almost his entire life. He first came to chocolate making while running a restaurant that needed more dessert options. Those early creations were hand-rolled, a look that Henninger says he doesn't like as much as the ones he's now able to make with polycarbonate molds.

Atomic's confections begin with a high-grade chocolate, a secret highly guarded by Henninger. "A lot of producers start out with mid-grade chocolates and hope to make up for it with their ingredients. It doesn't work," says Henninger.

There are no preservatives or artificial flavors in Atomic's chocolates. Atomic's chocolate creations are crafted over time from only natural ingredients. Momentarily speaking like an alchemist, Henninger describes the process of developing flavors out of certain elements, like how he stays on teas for a while and moves on to experimenting with nuts from there.

Most of Atomic's chocolates are made in three parts. First, the chocolate is heated and poured into polycarbonate molds. Next, the ganache, or filling, is added and last but not least a chocolate bottom is spread over the forms while still in the molds.

Learning how to temper chocolate is the most difficult part of chocolate making. When the chocolate is melted,Why does Plastic moulds grow in homes or buildings? it has to be allowed to cool to a certain temperature based on the confection being made.

"There's a lot of weird science to this. Balancing flavors is one thing,The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, balancing the temperatures of the fillings and shells together is another. Getting it all to work involves a lot of invention and practice," says Henninger.

Henninger says that there aren't a lot of schools in the country for confectionery. Chocolatiers tend to either develop their own skills over time, like Henninger did, or work with someone else to learn the fine art and weird science of chocolate making.

Zoey Rae is taking the second route. She has been apprenticing with Henninger for about a year and plans to continue developing her craft.

This author got to sample a discarded wine-infused chocolate, which was delicious. It was rejected because Henninger's apprentice used Chardonnay in what was supposed to be a port wine ganache. Truly, it was a beautiful mistake, but still not what was required to fill Atomic's orders.

Works of Bloom, Young a good pairing at Outsider Folk Art Gallery

For "Raw Edges," an exhibit of paintings and mixed media by Jim Bloom and Purvis Young on view through Feb. 17 at the Outsider Folk Art Gallery, the gallery staff moved the stands and tables from the middle of the floor to enjoy the larger-scale format of these two popular artists. The show comprises a wide selection of both artists at various stages of their careers and production.

Admittedly, it does make for better viewing when one can step back and breathe the art. In fact, the show could be considered very large if one were to count all the works held in reserve and stored in the back room. Lack of space and framing prevented the gallery from having a monster presentation, but its director, Emily Branch, is very accommodating and will show the pieces if asked.

The internationally known Young, with museum shows and documentaries to his credit, has of late received a lot of ink, and the gallery does have a significant holding of his work for sale. So for the dozen works presented I will say little, save for the fact that they are classic Purvis and deserve a look-see. The Goodbread Alley artist of Miami's impoverished Overtown neighborhood died of heart failure last year at the age of 67,The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, bringing the collectibility of his work to a much higher status.

For this article, however, I will place my attention on the works of Bloom, whose paintings dominate the main portion of the display area. Bloom, 42 and mostly self-taught, also has gained some notoriety, having been included in numerous outsider art fairs with a few well-placed sales. His work hasHand-painted Chinese porcelain tiles on the floor of a Jewish synagogue in Cochin, gotten more involved with larger paintings of groups of people, as opposed to the smaller, more intense interactions among a handful of individuals.Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists.

Bloom paints traditionally on canvas but is a fan of abject materials and often paints on such items as torn-up cardboard. In many instances, he piecemeals the sections together with glue to make a leg or an arm and incorporates that section within the composition. This endows the piece with a vivid three-dimensional texture and an unmistakable presence. His colors are bright but judiciously applied, keeping the painting keenly balanced between color and line.

The latest artworks seem to resemble, unintentionally of course, the linear energy and dramatic color of early Willem de Kooning. His subject matter is profoundly different, though, and leans toward the emotional release attained by speaking his mind on those personal observations embedded in his work.Tru-Form Plastics is a one-stop shop for plastic Injection Molding, Seeing a collaged painting such as "Someone Else's Mother" or "You Know You Want to Hit That" makes it quite clear that his style and narrative are closely knit, his abstract tendencies and poetic inertia a compelling symbiosis.

There is a lot of sex in this show - not vulgar,Dimensional Mailing magic cube for Promotional Advertising, but as part of the whole drama of existence. And frankly, both Young and Bloom are known for painting from the gut and not pulling punches. This is a good pairing and well worth a visit.

Storm clouds gathering

'I always fear that one day I will open my eyes and see nothing,The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free," speaks a disembodied voice from a large video screen that depicts a group of young Thai men sleeping, huddling and otherwise passing time amidst an incandescent red light. This casual but intimate voice also tells us "Too bad we are not in the future," and "They call me the guy who can recall my past life.Bathroom Floor tiles at Great Prices from Topps Tiles."

One of two juxtaposed video screens, the other depicts torch-lights flickering in a rural landscape at night. An image of fire emerges, then daylight literally breaks the scene and we see soldiers and others seemingly play-acting while billows of smoke begin to dissolve the depth of vision. Sometimes the camera lingers on the bodies of the men on both screens, paying loving attention to faces and flesh. A peculiar scene sees a figure draped in a white sheet wearing a silly, rubber, monster mask and wandering through a field during twilight; at one point, the figure appears to be on fire.

These two video screens occupy a large,This page contains information about molds, darkened room at the Jim Thompson Art Center where mats on the floor invite you to lie down and become absorbed.An offshore merchant account is the ideal solution for high , They form part of an 8-monitor installation titled Primitive throughout the art centre. A version of Primitive was shortlisted for the Hugo Boss Prize in New York in 2010 and is the precursor to Apichatpong's film Loong Boonmee raleuk chat (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives), which took top honours at the Cannes Film Festival, also in 2010.

A predominant feature of the installation is the capacity of light to compel our gaze: scenes include shards of lightening cackling at night outside a rural Thai house and in temple ruins; the faces of the boys who lounge and sleep are sometimes spot-lit; and in the video titled I'm Still Breathing the torsos of a group of dancing men reflect the sun-drenched day. This imagery is mythically resonant and mostly spellbinding. But Apichatpong hints at narratives and contexts that suggest concerns beyond merely capturing our rapt attention. And, in this respect, he can come close to breaking the spells he casts. This is a provocative tension at the heart of much of his work.

Nabua Song is a video portrait of a Thai soldier whose inexpressive _ barely moving _ face is accompanied by a soundtrack of a folk song that includes the lyric "Seize your gun and stand firm, we will fight for justice, all roads lead to Esarn". Nabua is the northeastern _ Isan _ Thai village where these films were shot; and is the site where so-called communist sympathisers fled to in the '60s but were ultimately forced into the jungle by the Thai army, whose campaigns lasted until the '80s and included theft, rape and murder. The region is famed for its "widow ghosts", the fable of female spirits who abduct men that enter their empire.

Apichatpong's use of a filmic vocabulary that treats history and myth as a tacit backdrop to the play of ethereal, quietly iconic and fragmented imagery has been widely discussed. One commentator wrote that Apichatpong reveals how "The historical spectres of inequality and injustice do not simply disappear but come back to haunt us in unexpected reckonings". Another suggested _ in response to Primitive _ "In Thailand the spiritual is political."

Further, Apichatpong has been linked to film-makers such as Tsai Ming-Liang and Semi Kaplanoglu, among many others, under the mantle of Slow Cinema and Contemporary Contemplative Cinema (CCC). This purported genre is described by the British film critic Jonathan Romney as "austere minimalist cinema that downplays event in favour of mood."

We gain a sense from these claims that one doesn't so much watch an Apichatpong film as experience it. This is heightened by the spatial terms of an installation because of our physical relationship to different scales and our ability to move back and forth throughout the display of monitors.

While we could worry _ as some critics of Slow Cinema have and as the narrator I quoted above stated _ that, though our eyes are open, we are not really seeing anything, Apichatpong is acutely aware of how to bring us into an intimate relationship with the details of lives being lived without epic significance (the resting youth, the guys on the truck,Dimensional Mailing magic cube for Promotional Advertising, the laconic soldier etc.). And he highlights the dreams that attend the everyday ("Too bad we are not in the future"). However, reminders of powerful forces are ever-present: the unpredictability of nature, the discomforting implications of uniforms, the sexuality of bodies and the sentiments of protest songs etc. These reminders are at once compelling and ominous.

A view of life in the NFL trenches

Kris Jenkins is a former All-Pro defensive lineman for the Carolina Panthers. A series of major operations (one shoulder, three knee) forced him to retire from the New York Jets after the 2010 season. Today, he works for a New York-based cable channel. Here are excerpts from recent interviews that New York Times sportswriter Greg Bishop conducted with Jenkins, who said he wanted to share the often untold stories of life as a professional football player.

NFL fans, people outside, they have no clue what goes on. You ever been in a car crash? Done bumper cars? You know when that hit catches you off guard and jolts you, and you're like, what the hell? Football is like that. But 10 times worse.

I got my first NFL concussion against Green Bay my rookie year. I jumped, and my feet got clipped, and I hit the ground face-first. Bang! No shoulders. No chest. Nothing. Just my face hit. I got up, and I had the punch-drunk feeling,If so, you may have a cube puzzle . seeing starbursts ...

I knew where I was.Do not use cleaners with porcelain tiles , steel wool or thinners. I knew what was going on. I also knew I had my bell rung. I made tackles back to back, and I remember one coach saying, the way he's playing right now, the concussion probably did him some good. I played the whole game.

The debate about concussions wasn't there yet. I've had more than 10, including college and the pros. Nobody cared. And that's the thing. We play football.

I remember one game, at Carolina, my second year. We played Arizona, and the double team weighed 780 pounds combined. They just kept double-teaming me, hoping I would fold and cave in. I didn't. From the double teams, over the years, I wore the left side of my body down. I was past hurt. I was at the point of numb. Like my body was shutting down nervous systems, so I didn't have to deal with pain.

The numbness started at the very beginning.Polycore oil paintings for sale are manufactured as a single sheet, I couldn't feel part of both arms. I couldn't feel part of both legs. It was worse on the left. I'm just starting to get feeling back in my left side. Look, football is no joke.

But I'm going to say this much: Somebody has to be the grunt. That's why there's no better position on the field than interior defensive line. Forget quarterbacks or specialists. They've got it easy. If we don't come to play, nobody else on defense can do their job. Piles, oh, my God, they're brutal. I've had my ankles twisted. I've been bit ... I've tried to break guys' elbows, pinching people, twisting ankles, trying to bend up their arms, pop an elbow out. Why? I had to fight back.This page contains information about molds,

Mentally, we're conditioned to be tough. We're conditioned to feel no pain. The only injury I ever felt while playing was when one of my knees tore. That's the only time I felt pain and was like, OK, that hurt.

But Mondays,which applies to the first offshore merchant account only, you wake up, and it's hard to get out of bed. It hurts wherever you got hit. I remember one time getting hit by Edgerrin James. He put his head in my chest. I woke up, and I couldn't even move, because it felt like my chest was going to collapse. It was sore for days. All you want to do is get the blood circulating.

CardEase Mobile Brings Fast, Secure and Fully Compliant Mobile Payments Acceptance

CardEase Mobile is completely secure. It’s been fully tested by UK banks, is EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) certified, and is approved by Visa, MasterCard and American Express. Uniquely, it incorporates bank-grade end-to-end encryption, ensuring data cannot be compromised at any time during a transaction.

CardEase Mobile turns a BlackBerry or Android smartphone or tablet, in conjunction with a Bluetooth PIN pad, into a secure mobile credit card terminal which processes both Chip and PIN and magnetic stripe card transactions. Receipts for the transactions are provided by text message or email, directly from the smartphone.

Many types of mobile businesses such as tradespeople, repair or delivery services right through to market traders, beauticians and personal trainers can now accept Chip and PIN payments on their mobile phone, without the hassle of cheques or cash.The application can provide Ceramic tile to visitors, Provided they own a BlackBerry or Android device, have a merchant account with one of our partners and a mobile signal, card payments can be taken wherever their business takes them. The card reader/PIN pad and the mobile app is provided as part of the package from CreditCall’s acquiring bank partners.Your source for re-usable Plastic moulds of strong latex rubber.

CreditCall Marketing Director, Pete Alcock commented,Unlike traditional high risk merchant account , “There are a number of card acceptance apps emerging at the moment which are clearly non-compliant with UK banking rules, some of which don’t even support Chip and PIN. With CardEase Mobile we have done the job properly and engineered the first solution that meets ALL the current UK requirements, so as to protect both cardholders and merchants from fraud, abuse and chargebacks.” He added, “As a leader and innovator in this industry,ceramic magic cube for the medical, security and compliance are paramount to us which is why no cardholder sensitive data is stored on the smartphone or card reader, and all data traffic is encrypted.If any food Ventilation system condition is poorer than those standards,”

CardEase Mobile is not like Square or iZettle which hold master merchant accounts making their solutions available to anyone. In order to use CardEase Mobile, businesses need to sign up for a merchant account with one of our partners.

Our partners have white labelled CardEase Mobile and will rebrand it with their own name but CreditCall will continue to provide the app and payment gateway services.

CardEase Mobile will become available on 1st December to a limited number of users under a new name from our acquiring bank partner, which then will launch CardEase Mobile commercially under this brand three months later.