text:
For decades, residents in the Midway neighborhood in East Baltimore have dealt with fumes, noise and the less-than-pleasing aesthetics of a major bus depot in their backyards.
On Tuesday, federal, state and local officials gathered in the neighborhood in the rain to promote a $140 million investment to replace the Maryland Transit Administration's aged Kirk Avenue facility — aiming to revitalize the neighborhood in the process.
"We're going to be a better neighbor to the community we're in," said Robert Smith, administrator of the MTA, which stores and maintains about 175 buses at the site. "We've been here for decades. It's time."
The neighborhood is noisier than ever, but for good reason, neighbors say. Work is underway on the first, $65 million phase of the project: turning the adjacent, empty Reese Press lot into a new maintenance facility for the depot.
The first phase is expected to be completed in the summer of 2015.
The second, $75 million phase will rebuild the existing MTA facility across Kirk Avenue, which was built in 1947 and today serves 16 bus routes, most of them in Northeast Baltimore.
The second phase is expected to be completed in 2017.
Combined, the new facilities will feature 300,000 square feet of space for administrative offices, bus fueling and washing bays, and on-site parking for the 350 MTA operators and staff who will work there. The MTA will be able store about 175 buses indoors, including new hybrid vehicles that are difficult to store in older facilities because of their height.
A large outdoor garden will be open to neighborhood residents.
Officials said the project will allow the MTA to ramp up its efforts to switch to hybrid buses, keep its fleet safer, help clean up the air in Baltimore and improve operations along many routes in Northeast.
The work will create hundreds of jobs, officials said, with many set aside for individuals from poorer communities.
Neighbors said they are excited about the changes.
"It was just kind of like dead space," said Linda Johnson, a resident since 1971 and president of the Greater Greenmount Community Association, of the lot where the Reese Press building used to stand. "Now with this new project, it brings some new life."
"Change is a good thing," said Elaine Day, another association member who has lived in the neighborhood since 1977. "That building sitting there was blight for 20, 30 years."
Funding includes a $40 million federal grant to the state under the Federal Transit Administration's State of Good Repair program in 2012, which allowed the first phase of the project to begin. It also includes $75 million designated for the second phase under the state's Transportation Infrastructure Investment Act of 2013.
Breaking News Alerts
Tuesday's groundbreaking brought out a large number of officials, including Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and other state and local legislators; Maryland Department of Transportation Secretary James T. Smith Jr.; Rep. Elijah Cummings; Federal Transit Administrator Peter M. Rogoff; and U.S. Deputy Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari.
Cummings, who was credited as a key champion of the project, said he toured the neighborhood with residents years ago and heard about high cancer rates in homes surrounding the bus facility, complaints about blight, and a general sense that noise and air pollution was diminishing quality of life in the neighborhood.
He and other officials, including Rawlings-Blake, said the project will allow residents to enjoy their neighborhood again.
Porcari, who previously served as Maryland's transportation secretary, said the project was all about "keeping faith with our community" and improving transit throughout the city.
"By our standards, this is a pretty significant federal grant, and it's for the right reasons," he said. "This is transportation at its best."


text: Transposition of the great vessels Definition Transposition of the great vessels is a heart defect that occurs from birth (congenital). The 2 major vessels that carry blood away from the heart -- the aorta and the pulmonary artery -- are switched (transposed). Alternative Names Transposition of the great arteries; TGA; d-TGA; Congenital heart defect - transposition; Cyanotic heart disease - transposition; Birth defect - transposition Causes The cause of most congenital heart defects is unknown.Factors in the mother that may increase the risk for this condition include:Age over 40AlcoholismDiabetesPoor nutrition during pregnancy (prenatal nutrition)Rubella or other viral illness during pregnancy Transposition of the great vessels is a cyanotic heart defect. This means there is decreased oxygen in the blood that is pumped from the heart to the rest of the body. In normal hearts, blood that returns from the body goes through the right side of the heart and pulmonary artery to the lungs to get oxygen. The blood then comes back to the left side of the heart and travels out the aorta to the body.In transposition of the great vessels, the blood goes to the lungs, picks up oxygen, returns to the heart, and then flows right back to the lungs without ever going to the body. Blood from the body returns to the heart and goes back to the body without ever picking up oxygen in the lungs.Symptoms appear at birth or very soon afterward. How bad the symptoms are depends on the type and size of additional heart defects (such as atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect, or patent ductus arteriosus) and how much the blood can mix between the 2 abnormal circulations. Symptoms Symptoms may include:Blueness of the skinClubbing of the fingers or toesPoor feedingShortness of breath Exams and Tests The health care provider may detect a heart murmur while listening to the chest with a stethoscope. The baby's mouth and skin will be a blue color.Tests often include the following:Cardiac catheterizationChest x-rayECGEchocardiogram (if done before birth, it is called a fetal echocardiogram)Pulse oximetry (to check blood oxygen level) Treatment The baby will immediately receive a medicine called prostaglandin through an IV (intravenous line). This medicine helps keep a blood vessel called the ductus arteriosus open, allowing some mixing of the 2 blood circulations.A procedure using a long, thin flexible tube (balloon atrial septostomy) may be needed to create a large hole in the atrial septum to allow blood to mix.A surgery called an arterial switch procedure is used to permanently correct the problem within the baby's first week of life. This surgery switches the great arteries back to the normal position and keeps the coronary arteries attached to the aorta. Prior to the development of this surgery, a surgery called an atrial switch (or Mustard procedure or Senning procedure) was used. There are still many people alive who had this surgery. Outlook (Prognosis) The child's symptoms will improve after surgery to correct the defect. Most infants who undergo arterial switch do not have symptoms after surgery and live normal lives. If corrective surgery is not performed, the life expectancy is only months. Possible Complications Complications may include:Coronary artery problemsHeart valve problemsIrregular heart rhythms (arrhythmias) When to Contact a Medical Professional This condition can be diagnosed before birth using a fetal echocardiogram. If not, it is most often diagnosed soon after a baby is born.Go to the emergency room or call the local emergency number (such as 911) if your baby's skin develops a bluish color, especially in the face or trunk.Call your provider if your baby has this condition and new symptoms develop, get worse, or continue after treatment. Prevention Women who plan to become pregnant should be immunized against rubella if they are not already immune. Eating well, avoiding alcohol, and controlling diabetes both before and during pregnancy may be helpful. References Fraser CD, Carberry KE. Congenital heart disease. In: Townsend CM Jr, Beauchamp RD, Evers BM, Mattox KL, eds. Sabiston Textbook of Surgery. 19th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Saunders; 2012:chap 59.Kliegman RM, Stanton BF, St Geme JW, Schor NF. Cyanotic congenital heart lesions. In: Kliegman RM, Stanton BF, St Geme JW, Schor NF, eds. Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. 20th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2016:chap 430.Webb GD, Smallhorn JF, Therrien J, Redington AN. Congenital heart disease. In: Mann DL, Zipes DP, Libby P, Bonow RO, Braunwald E, eds. Braunwald's Heart Disease: A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine. 10th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Saunders; 2015:chap 62. Images Heart, section through the middle Heart, front view Transposition of the great vessels Close Image 1 of 3 Maximize imageRestore image Patient Instructions Pediatric heart surgery - discharge Read More Alcohol use disorder Arrhythmias Breathing difficulty Diabetes Pediatric heart surgery Rubella Skin discoloration - bluish Systemic

subset: commoncrawl


text: Do you regularly get 1 bar on your radio for home use. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you spend 30$ and buy the home outdoor antenna http://shop.sirius.com/edealinv/serv...dParentID=7872 Sense i have installed it in my room 100% of the time i have 3 full bars and never an interruption. Very easy to install and cheap!!!


text:
William (Bill) R .and Ruth Marie Bernhardt Wood of El Dorado, Kan., celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary Aug. 6 in Ruidoso.
The celebration was hosted by their children: Julie Wood, Chris Wood and Carol Wood Sandoval, grandchildren: Amanda Wood Pullen, Ryan Wood, Janay Summers, Andrew Sandoval, Patrick Sandoval and Taryn Wood and their great-grandchild: Korbyn Pullen.
The couple was married on Aug. 20, 1961, in El Dorado, Kan.
They have three children, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
William Wood is a music professor at Eastern New Mexico University.
Ruth Wood is a Nursing instructor at Clovis Community College.


text:
Wolf Blitzer delivers the most important breaking news and political, international, and national security stories of the day. Tune to The Situation Room weekdays 5-7pm ET on CNN.
With exclusive, new video of Tuesday's deadly clashes in Kiev, CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Steven Pifer, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, discuss the ongoing protests rocking the eastern European country.
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text:
Every year the Cannes Film Festival whips around, you can guarantee to start feeling the summer start shining on in. Just picture the French Riviera, the movie stars, the palm fronds, and sail boats. Champagne in sandals . . . the works!
It's like a nostalgia, really. I think everyone, once in their lives will make an appearance on that legendary red carpeted staircase. At least once in our many lives, I guarantee it.
Once again, the line-up of films is quite impressive, and the movie on everybody's lips has got to be Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring" which brings together Emma Watson, Taissa Farmiga, Katie Chang, Isreal Broussard as the real life clique of celebrity obsessed High Schoolers who made a splash in 2009 for their wild and childlike antics.
People want what they can't have, and these kids just took it to the extreme in a whole new level. Its a lot about insecurity and acceptance, and if you get these things you might get the acceptance you are yearning for.
Also known as the "Hollywood Hills Burglars" and the "Burglar Bunch", Vanity Fair would publish the iconic article entitled "The Suspects Wore Louboutins" by Nancy Jo Sales in March 2010 on the cusp of the newly exposed scandal that was rocking Los Angeles by storm {click here to read the original article}.
How could a bunch of teens possibly have the know-how to break into their most worshipped and idolized celebrities (names like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Audrey Patridge, and Orlando Bloom) and steal upwards of $3 million worth of clothes and jewelry ? Easy, really – Google. The film hopes to shed light on the perils of our society, who raise our bright and beautiful youth to become celebrity obsessed criminals. It's all just a bit of fun, they think, until things get serious. . .
The film is getting a ton of praise for Sofia Copolla's acute and withdrawn directing sensibilities, as well as its crisp cinematography by the late and legendary Harry Savides. However, this is not the only film to deal with the same startling themes.
Cannes Classics brings to light a much-too-forgotten gem of a film, 1960's"Le Pleine Soleil" (or "Purple Noon") directed by Renee Clement and starring original E.O.F. Style Idol himself, Alain Delon, in probably his most provocative and stylish role.
You know the story, already, I'm sure. The story of Tom Ripley – "The Talented Mr. Ripley". It was only 14 years ago that Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jude Law starred in the lead roles of this classic thriller. Published in 1955, and written by Patricia Highsmith, the story would be the first in a slew of novels starring the notorious anti-hero, Tom Ripley.
"Purple Noon" would be Delon's first big starring role, and it is what he brings to the camera that makes his performance the most magical and mesmerizing take on Mr. Ripley's misguided eccentricities.
The film was released to relatively positive reviews, mostly for Delon's masterful acting, but disappointed for an abrupt ending caused by studio standards of the time who refused to see a villain get away with his crimes (which is where the 1999 film comes in and wins major points).
But, nevertheless, "Purple Noon" pays off with its on-point portrayal of the casual life, style, and luxury of the comfortably rich and famous. The menswear is sublime, and almost every shot is a tour-de-force of classic Mediterranean cool.
Tom Ripley is a chameleon of a man who begins to live the life of another more fabulous, and more wealthy man, and the best part is (for Ripley, least), this other man had a real knack for really great style. The rings, the loafers, the shirts, the jacket, the hair – it's enough to make Daisy Buchanan break down in tears! How could he not want to take over this guy's life?
This is the frightening paradox embedded within this maddeningly modern mystery.
"He loved possessions, not masses of them, but a select few that he did not part with. They gave a man self-respect. Not ostentation but quality, and the love that cherished the quality. Possessions reminded him that he existed, and made him enjoy his existence. It was as simple as that. And wasn't that worth something? He existed. Not many people in the world knew how to, even if they had the money. It really didn't take money, masses of money, it took a certain security."
-Patricia Highsmith, "The Talented Mr. Ripley"
Take a look back and you can spot straight off the bat the timelessness of it all. It's a film like "Purple Noon" that will stick in your memory forever, and become a staple repertoire of how you want to dress this summer: clean, cool, casual, and elegant. Those are just some keywords to keep in mind when venturing into these cool dark waters.
And even to a certain degree, become someone else if you have to. Moving through the streets with your cool clean shades on, feel the mystery embody you, and take to the streets like you're about to buy them.
"Anticipation! It occurred to him that his anticipation was more pleasant to him than the experiencing."
-Patricia Highsmith, "The Talented Mr. Ripley"
Moocher, Musician, Madman; Tom Ripley is an enigma in many respects, which makes him all the more powerful in his sinister quest. His behaviour can be criticised, but also, he can be completely understood.
Who doesn't want that easy life? The life of luxury and ease that you read about in the magazines, filled with all those expensive clothes, and beautiful women. Think about if you had the chance to exchange your life for someone else's. . . would you?
The teens that formed "The Bling Ring" would have to agree, and are a mighty monument to the same themes portrayed in "Purple Noon".
Isn't it scary to think that over 50 years later, the same anxieties that were fiction, have now come full circle and are as real as ever. Patricia Highsmith was definitely onto something, so if you want to get a head start on the entire thought process make sure to check out "Purple Noon" this summer, and maybe rock the Ripley edge (minus the murder).
Until next time,


text:
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This USA Rice-developed search helps rice farmers find conservation programs in their state that provide some form of assistance to their operation, whether it be through cost sharing, management incentives or tax exemptions.
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An on-farm secondary containment facility provides a minimization of the risk of accidental release of …
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Gullies on farmland that are effecting usable area and water quality are stabilized and regraded. Check …
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A strip/area of native or introduced herbaceous vegetation situated between cropland, grazing land or …
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text: Brock Animal Hospital is a full-service veterinary medical facility for dogs and cats, located in Pinellas Park, Florida. Our professional and courteous staff always strive to provide the best medical, surgical, and dental care for your special friends. We believe that responsible pet ownership and preventative health care are keys to a long and happy life for your pets. Centrally located in Pinellas County, Brock Animal Hospital has provided over 30 years of quality veterinary care for Pinellas Park, Clearwater, Largo, Seminole, Kenneth City, St. Petersburg, and the surrounding areas. Please contact us today to learn more about our veterinary practice and to find more information about how Brock Animal Hospital can serve your needs, and those of your cherished pets. After all... "Special Friends Deserve Special Care"


text:
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Bulletin Board - Current Postings
Welcome to the bulletin board!
Here, you will find items of interest that have come to the attention of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians, and which we believe would be interesting or beneficial for blind, deaf-blind and partially sighted Canadians to know about.
Do you have a relevant item of interest that you would like to post here? If so, submit your bulletin board item for review.


text:
Story by
Emil Protalinski
Emil was a reporter for The Next Web between 2012 and 2014. Over the years, he has covered the tech industry for multiple publications, incl Emil was a reporter for The Next Web between 2012 and 2014. Over the years, he has covered the tech industry for multiple publications, including Ars Technica, Neowin, TechSpot, ZDNet, and CNET. Stay in touch via Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Today's announcement builds on the company's launch of Chrome apps in September that work offline by default and act like native applications on the host operating system. Those Chrome apps work on Windows, Mac, and Chrome OS, but now the company wants to bring them to the mobile world.
Last month, we broke the news that the company was working on bringing Chrome packaged apps from the desktop to the mobile world. At the time, Google developer advocate Joe Marini said the beta toolkit for porting and building such apps would be ready in January. In the last week of the month, Google has delivered as promised.
Google offers two developer workflows for the aforementioned native app packaging process. You can run your Chrome app on a device or emulator using the command-line or an IDE, and you can also use the Chrome Apps Developer Tool to run your app on an Android device without the need to install the mobile platform's SDK or an IDE.
Here is an example of a basic to-do list Chrome app running on OS X as well as Android:
- identity – sign-in users usingOAuth2 without prompting for passwords.
- payments (currently Android only) – sell virtual goods within your mobile app.
- pushMessaging – push messages to your app from your server.
- sockets – send and receive data over the network using TCP and UDP.
- notifications (currently Android only) – send rich notifications from your mobile app.
- storage – store and retrieve key-value data locally.
- syncFileSystem – store and retrieve files backed by Google Drive.
- alarms – run tasks periodically.
If you're a developer interested in building Chrome apps for mobile, or porting your existing Chrome apps to mobile, you can get started by checking out the readme, as well as the links below.
➤ Sample apps | Stack Overflow | Developer Forum
See also – Google is building a Chrome app-based development environment called Spark and Google's Chromium team is building a way to launch apps without installation by just clicking a link
Top Image Credit: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images
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text:
|Safe Haskell
The preferred method for rendering a
Document or single
is by using the pretty printing facility defined in Pretty.
Pretty-printing does not work well for cases, however, where the
formatting in the XML document is significant. Examples of this
case are XHTML's
<pre> tag, Docbook's
<literallayout> tag,
and many more.
Theoretically, the document author could avoid this problem by
wrapping the contents of these tags in a <![CDATA[...]]> section,
but often this is not practical, for instance when the
literal-layout section contains other elements. Finally, program
writers could manually format these elements by transforming them
into a
literal string in their
CFliter, etc., but this is
annoying to do and prone to omissions and formatting errors.
As an alternative, this module provides the function
which will format XML
Content as a
String while retaining the
formatting of the input document unchanged.
Known problems:
- HaXml's parser eats line feeds between two tags.
Attributes should be formatted by making them an instance of
Verbatimas well, but since an
Attributeis just a tuple, not a full data type, the helper function
verbAttrmust be used instead.
CMiscis not yet supported.
Elements, which contain no content, are formatted as
<element-name/>, even if they were not defined as being of type
EMPTY. In XML this perfectly alright, but in SGML it is not. Those, who wish to use
verbatimto format parts of say an HTML page will have to (a) replace problematic elements by
literals before running
verbatimor (b) use a second search-and-replace stage to fix this.
This class promises that the function
verbatim knows how to
format this data type into a string without changing the
verbAttr :: Attribute -> String Source
This is a helper function is required because Haskell does not
allow to make an ordinary tuple (like
Attribute) an instance of a
class. The resulting output will preface the actual attribute with
a single blank so that lists of
Attributes can be handled
implicitly by the definition for lists of
Verbatim data types.


text:
Stay Tuned: Don't miss 'Planet Earth: Blue Planet II'
The next installment of the Emmy-winning "Planet Earth" franchise, "Blue Planet II," focuses on the ocean, and it doesn't disappoint. Sir David Attenborough returns to narrate extraordinary footage of sea life, much of which has been filmed for the first time. It is a visually stunning series that will surprise and delight you.
Production was a monumental undertaking. The series was filmed for more than four years on every continent and across every ocean with a creative team that visited 39 countries and spent over 6,000 hours diving and filming. Technological advances including ultra-high definition low-light cameras and submersibles that allowed producers to be the first humans to dive 3,280 feet into Antarctic waters, produced exceptional footage of behaviors and creatures never before seen.
Revealing an ocean world full of compelling animal characters, each episode is structured as several stories that are expertly connected through Attenborough's narration and a soundtrack that seamlessly moves from tense drama to whimsy. In one story, there is a Giant Trevally fish that leaps out of the waters of the Indian Ocean to catch seabirds called Terns, in mid-flight. When Attenborough gives the baby birds human characteristics by calling them "youngsters," and the high-speed footage captures their battle to survive the hungry mouths of the Trevally in slow-motion, it's a moment full of suspense. Will the youngsters make it?
The music reaches a crescendo, one particular seabird somehow escapes and the Giant Trevally crashes to the sea without its prey. I'm pretty sure I gasped at this point.
In another segment, which is my favorite from episode one, we meet the Tuskfish, an orange-dotted fish that swims in the waters off Lizard Island, Australia. Every day, the Tuskfish travels to the outer edge of the reef, uses its sharp, protruding teeth to pick up a bivalve and takes it back to a formation of coral shaped like a bowl. In this coral kitchen, the Tuskfish will fling the clam repeatedly against the rock to break it open. As Attenborough charmingly quips, "Some fish are much cleverer than you might suppose." Indeed.
There are surfing dolphins in South Africa, Mobula Rays putting on a bioluminescence light show in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, Orca and Humpback whales feasting on herring in Norway and gender-changing Kobudai fish in Japan. Every story segment is beautifully produced to create a sense of wonder and awe.
As much as "Blue Planet II" is inspiring, it's also a lesson that our ocean system is changing. In a segment on Walruses in the polar north, we learn that the summer sea ice has retreated by forty percent in the last 30 years, with serious consequences. Attenborough's narration follows a female Walrus and her pup as they search for a patch of ice that will keep them safe from predators. It's a drama filled journey, made more so by Attenborough's use of anthropomorphism, but the message is clear. How many more seasons until there is no ice left on which to rest?
"Planet Earth: Blue Planet II" premieres on Saturday, Jan. 20 at 9 p.m. EDT, simulcast on BBC America, AMC, IFC, WE TV and Sundance TV.
— Melissa Crawley is the author of "Mr. Sorkin Goes to Washington: Shaping the President on Television's 'The West Wing'" and the recently released "The American Television Critic." She has a Ph.D. in media studies and is a member of the Television Critics Association. To comment on Stay Tuned, email her at email@example.com or follow her on Twitter at @MelissaCrawley.


text:
Iron Age
Iron Age, period in the development of industry that begins with the general use of iron and continues into modern times. In Asia, Egypt, and Europe it was preceded by the Bronze Age. It did not begin in the Americas until the coming of the Europeans. Iron beads were worn in Egypt as early as 4000 BC, but these were of meteoric iron, evidently shaped by the rubbing process used in shaping implements of stone. The oldest known article of iron shaped by hammering is a dagger found in Egypt that was made before 1350 BC This dagger is believed not to have been made in Egypt but to be of Hittite workmanship. The use of smelted iron ornaments and ceremonial weapons became common during the period extending from 1900 to 1400 BC About this time, the invention of tempering (see forging) was made by the Chalybes of the Hittite empire. It is possible that the Hittite kings kept ironworking techniques secret and restricted export of iron weapons. After the downfall of the Hittite empire in 1200 BC, the great waves of migrants spreading through S Europe and the Middle East insured the rapid transmission of iron technology. In Europe knowledge of iron smelting was acquired in Greece and the Balkans, and somewhat later in N Italy (see Etruscan civilization; Villanovan culture) and central Europe. The Early Iron Age in central Europe, dating from c.800 BC to c.500 BC, is known as the Hallstatt period. Celtic migrations, beginning in the 5th cent. BC, spread the use of iron into W Europe and to the British Isles. The Late Iron Age in Europe, which is dated from this period, is called La Tène. The casting of iron did not become technically useful until the Industrial Revolution. The people of the Iron Age developed the basic economic innovations of the Bronze Age and laid the foundations for feudal organization. They utilized the crops and domesticated animals introduced earlier from the Middle East. Ox-drawn plows and wheeled vehicles acquired a new importance and changed the agricultural patterns. For the first time humans were able to exploit efficiently the temperate forests. Villages were fortified, warfare was conducted on horseback and in horse-drawn chariots, and alphabetic writing based on the Phoenician script became widespread. Distinctive art styles in metal, pottery, and stone characterized many Iron Age cultures.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2023, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Human Evolution


text:
How to Open a Pool- Swimming Pool Opening Tips
- With spring right around the corner, it is never too early to start thinking about reopening your swimming pool for the season. With temperatures rising and kids getting tired of being cooped up inside, why not focus on what's to come…. swimming, frolicking and general pool merriment! This process does not have to be a huge hassle with a little preparation and time management. If you are sure that winter cold weather is behind you and temperatures seem to be stable, usually in the 70's as a rule of thumb, then the time to reopen the pool has arrived!
Here are some basic steps to follow:
- Clear debris from OUTSIDE of the pool. This is often overlooked, but can be a real time saver in the long run. Make sure to clean up any leaves, branches, dirt and other debris in the surrounding pool area that would later be tracked into the water.
- Remove the cover. Clear all debris and standing water from the top of your cover to avoid a big mess later when preparing the cover for storage. Make sure to follow the manufacturer's instructions on cover removal and use all appropriate tooling as needed.
- Add water to appropriate operating level for your pool.
- Change plugs and check skimmer baskets/ basket strainers for damage. Make sure to remove all of your winter plugs and parts that were installed to prevent freeze damage. Replace with your in-season plugs and parts.
- Clean debris from pool bottom. Add a chemical clarifier to help breakdown the debris. Start by raking out the largest debris, and then use your vacuuming system for a thorough cleaning. Don't forget to brush the pool walls as well. Visit Acepools.com to find a variety of cleaning systems.
- Start the pump and filter system. Follow instructions carefully. Check filters for damage and water leaks at connections. Backwash your filter if needed. Replace filters as necessary.
- Shock, test and stabilize the water. Chemically shock your water, then 24 hours later, test it. Once desired chemical levels are achieved, don't forget to stabilize or condition your water to prevent rapid loss of chlorine due to UV rays. Throughout the season, make sure to use a high quality algaecide to kill any present algae and to prevent it from forming. All of your pool chemicals can be found at Acepools.com
- Take inventory and replace needed items. Now that your pool water is ready, go ahead and check other pool parts such as lighting, steps and ladders, pool toys, and all other equipment and maintenance items. Repair and replace as needed.
- Set-up your outdoor sanctuary. Clean and set-up your outdoor furniture, table and chairs, tiki torches and barbecue grill.
Now all you have to do is wait for the truly warm weather to arrive so that you can start enjoying your backyard oasis! Please visit Acepools.com, where pool people shop, for all of your swimming pool needs.


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Today I'm talking with Eric Asbery, President of Equalizer Industries, Inc., an undisputed premier provider of innovative tools and products for the auto glass repair and replacement (AGRR) industry in the world. The company was founded by Eric's father Ray Asbery in 1987. Ray unexpectedly passed away last September 27th at the age of 67.
Over the years Equalizer has received many awards, including several "Best of Show" awards. Company executives have also received a variety of industry awards including Eric's being recognized in 2007 by the National Glass Association (NGA) with its prestigious NGA "10 Under 40" award; in 2005, Equalizer Vice President of Sales, Gilbert Gutierrez was awarded the prestigious Len Stolk Award" and Ray was honored by being awarded in 2004 the "Carl Joliff Award" by the Independent Glass Organization, in 1994 the NGA's "Professional of the Year" and in 1992 Inc. Magazine's "Entrepreneur of the Year" award. In fact, Auto Glass Week 2012 will be dedicated to Ray's legacy.
Equalizer is headquartered in Round Rock, Texas which is about 15 miles north of the Texas state capitol of Austin.
DR: Thank you very much for taking the time to answer some questions Eric. I'm a big fan of Equalizer and I only wished that the tools that your company has developed and brought to the market over the past 25 years would have been available when I first started as an auto glass installer 40 years ago.
Eric Asbery: I hear that very often. As I was growing up, my Dad was transitioning from being an auto glass technician to a manager over several locations. I can remember him always talking about how there were no specific tools that technicians could use and that the taking glass out of automobiles was getting harder.
DR: I know that your father got his start in the AGRR industry with U.S. Auto Glass. How did long did he work for Joe Kellman and what were his responsibilities while at U.S. Auto Glass?
Eric Asbery: Actually, Dad got his start in AGRR as an installer in Louisville, Kentucky in the early 1960's. He was hired in 1985 by Joe Kellman to manage the Austin, Texas market for U.S. Auto Glass. He worked there until late 1987.
DR: What was the impetus for Ray to start the company and how was he able to envision the tools he developed over the years?
Eric Asbery: Early in 1987, Dad and his technicians encountered the problematic 1986 Ford Taurus. It was a radical new design and the lower part of the windshield was attached by a thick, heavy bead of urethane that was nearly impossible to use conventional tools to remove it without breaking the windshield further. Many technicians were so frustrated by it that they resorted to just breaking it out with a hammer. One Saturday morning, after several of these tough jobs had come through his shop, Dad woke up with the design for the original Equalizer tool in his head. He went to work that Monday with the first Equalizer after building it over the weekend in our garage.
Dad was always inventing. He was a working man that really enjoyed working with his hands. He was always trying to improve upon any working situation he encountered. He listened to those around him, when they encountered a problem with their daily work; he always tried to make their job easier. Whether it was a tool or technique, it was very enjoyable for him to make work more productive for everyone.
DR: Equalizer is known for its products all over the world. How did that happen and what are you planning to maintain and grow that presence, especially beyond North America?
Eric Asbery: In the early days of Equalizer, we received a lot of attention on a worldwide scale. Every trade show we exhibited at or magazine we advertised in, people who did auto glass anywhere in the world were drawn to us because we were producing tools that hadn't existed before. The timing was right and we knew it. We were fulfilling a need, right when it was needed the most. We simply focused on providing great customer service and the world came to us.
We now have over 100 different distributors worldwide; we are constantly traveling, researching current automotive glass installation trends and training the appropriate people necessary to satisfy the needs of technicians everywhere. As the global economy allows, we are always in search of new areas to market and support our products.
DR: Equalizer has always been known as the dominant company for auto glass replacement tools. Do you plan to do the same for repair?
Eric Asbery: The auto glass repair market is something we have always invested in. There are several great repair systems out there and we have carried several of them over the past several years. If our coverage of this market is consistent, then there is a chance we can become the dominant supplier. However, our primary goal is to ensure that any product we offer gives the auto glass technician the best opportunity to do their job effectively and easily.
DR: Many people are always looking forward to the new Equalizer catalog. In the last several years, you also established a great presence on the internet. Do your customers still like to look through a paper catalog or is there a shift to see the products through electronic media?
Eric Asbery: We have found that even though there is an ever-growing part of the industry that is becoming electronically inclined, most people still like to "flip through pages" of our catalog and that will be the direction we will continue to go until we sense that a major shift to electronic media is on the horizon. We think our catalog will continue to stay in printed form for quite some time but we always alternately develop and make available electronic versions of our promotional or marketing materials.
DR: When did you join Equalizer and what areas of the company were you responsible? How did your responsibilities grow over the years?
Eric Asbery: I have been at Equalizer since day one. My role at Equalizer, until 2005, had been directly related to developing Equalizer's brand, image and marketing presence. In 2005, Dad (then 61) and I began work on my transitioning to the daily management of Equalizer. We both considered that transition complete in late 2010. Although Dad had never had any definitive plans for retirement, we all figured he'd work at Equalizer into his 80's. In retrospect, I am very relieved we had this foresight.
DR: I know that many of the tools that Equalizer has developed over the years have unquestionably helped reduce countless injuries of auto glass technicians. The number of cuts, lacerations, back and neck strains requiring visits to hospital emergency rooms has had to have gone down by those using your tools and products. I know many companies supply auto glass technicians with Equalizer tools just for that reason. Hopefully this question doesn't make you feel uncomfortable, but do you hear from those who buy and use your tool thanking you for how Equalizer tools make it easier for them to do their jobs?
Eric Asbery: It is a very humbling experience to hear from someone who has benefited greatly from something you created for them. We receive feedback from hundreds of technicians each year thanking us for offering these products to them. My favorite memories from over the years have been when a technician has walked up to my Dad or any of us working at a trade show or open house and proceeded to tell a "before and after" story about our one of our tools and how it has greatly impacted their life in a positive way. It is truly the best part of my job.
DR: When new car models come out each year they often have auto glass parts factory-installed in ways that many responsible for replacing those parts feel were designed by diabolical design engineers who seem to try to cause problems. How quickly do you start looking for replacement solutions for those parts that could cause difficulties?
Eric Asbery: We have a network of "Equalizer Inventors" who are mostly auto glass technicians who have worked with us to design or create products over the years that we sell and/or produce for them. These technicians will encounter new design problems during their job on a daily basis and within a very short time they inform us of it. In many cases, they will offer a potential solution based on their experience and that's what gets the ball rolling to create a product that will simplify the experience.
DR: With the sudden great loss of your company's leader, mentor, friend and your father, what plans do you have in the future to continue to grow the business and provide the AGRR industry with leading edge and innovative products in your leadership role?
Eric Asbery: Since the beginning of our company, our focus has been to serve the needs of auto glass technicians everywhere. We developed relationships and processes to ensure we have been on the leading edge of technology for this industry. Nothing has changed or will change in this area. This is why Dad founded this company, this is our purpose.
We are always on the lookout for the next big thing, the next viable trend. Be it a tool, a process or just an idea or concept. We will travel, learn, adapt and teach. We will continue to gain from the experience of technicians in the smallest auto glass shop to the biggest national chain. We will always listen, respond and provide the best products available. This is what we do.
Thank you very much for spending the time to answer my questions Eric. You have a great company and I wish you continued great success. You and your team have provided the AGRR industry with amazing products. I know that many join me in anticipation of the next great product that you develop to further improve the installation process as well as the safety of technicians around the world. Thank you for all you and your company do.
Just Sayin'


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Unknown Mortal Orchestra In Concert
Unknown Mortal Orchestra In Concert
Lizzie Chen/NPR Music
Lizzie Chen/NPR Music
Lizzie Chen/NPR Music
Lizzie Chen/NPR Music
Lizzie Chen/NPR Music
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The psych-rock trio Unknown Mortal Orchestra doused a sold-out Washington, D.C., crowd in an epic wash of guitar noise during an hour-long performance at the Rock and Roll Hotel, recorded and webcast live on Feb. 27.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra, from Portland, Ore., just released its latest shape-shifting album, titled II. What began as a basement project for frontman Ruban Nielson has since grown to a full band, with a sound that traverses 40 years' worth of popular music, from vintage soul to shimmering pop, psych-rock and funk.
Set List
- "Little Blue House"
- "Thought Ballune"
- "Bicycle"
- "How Can You Luv Me?"
- "No Need For A Leader"
- "Strangers Are Strange"
- "Faded In The Morning"
- "Jello And Juggernauts"
- "Monki"
- "From The Sun"
- "Swim And Sleep"
- "So Good At Being In Trouble"
- "Ffunny Ffriends"
- "Boy Witch"


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12/06/2014 - Due to serious concerns about the extremely low level of enforcement of Japan's offence of bribing foreign public officials – just three prosecutions since 1999 – the OECD Working Group on Bribery recommended in December 2013 that Japan establish an Action Plan to organise police and prosecution resources to be able to proactively detect, investigate and prosecute cases of foreign bribery by Japanese companies.
Japan's Action Plan, which became operational in April 2014, creates newly specialised resources for detecting and investigating cases of foreign bribery in the three largest district prosecutors' offices and each prefectural police office. Although the Action Plan lacks important details, it marks the first time that prosecutors and police in Japan have been assigned responsibility for specific crimes. By December 2014, the Working Group expects the Action Plan to be much more fully developed. It also expects to see a major increase in the number of foreign bribery cases detected and investigated, and a substantial increase in successful prosecutions and convictions in the near future.
The Action Plan fails so far to rectify misleading information on "facilitation payments" in guidelines to companies on the foreign bribery offence issued by Japan's Ministry of Economic Trade and Industry (METI). The Working Group therefore expects that METI will not delay any further in making it clear in its Guidelines that "facilitation payments" are not exempted by Japan's foreign bribery offence. The Working Group commends Japan's National Tax Agency (NTA) for its substantial contribution to the Action Plan. The NTA has provided training and guidance to tax inspectors on detecting bribe payments disguised as "miscellaneous expenses", and strengthened the channel for reporting suspicious payments to NTA Headquarters.
Since 2005, the Working Group has repeatedly recommended to Japan that it establish the legal authority to confiscate the proceeds of foreign bribery, which is required by the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, and punish those who launder such proceeds. In the absence of these measures, the Working Group questions whether Japan can effectively implement the Convention, including sanctioning companies that bribe overseas. The Working Group will continuously monitor Japan's progress on enacting the required legislation and on implementing the Action Plan. In December 2014, the Working Group will also assess implementation of other outstanding recommendations, including METI's role in enforcing Japan's foreign bribery offence.
>> More information about Japan and OECD Anti-Bribery Convention
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The door of a dry-cleaner-size storefront in an industrial park in Wareham, Massachusetts, an hour south of Boston, might not look like a portal to the future of American manufacturing, but it is. This is the headquarters of Local Motors, the first open source car company to reach production. Step inside and the office reveals itself as a mind-blowing example of the power of micro-factories.
In June, Local Motors will officially release the Rally Fighter, a $50,000 off-road (but street-legal) racer. The design was crowdsourced, as was the selection of mostly off-the-shelf components, and the final assembly will be done by the customers themselves in local assembly centers as part of a "build experience." Several more designs are in the pipeline, and the company says it can take a new vehicle from sketch to market in 18 months, about the time it takes Detroit to change the specs on some door trim. Each design is released under a share-friendly Creative Commons license, and customers are encouraged to enhance the designs and produce their own components that they can sell to their peers.
The Rally Fighter was prototyped in the workshop at the back of the Wareham office, but manufacturing muscle also came from Factory Five Racing, a kit-car company and Local Motors investor located just down the road. Of course, the kit-car business has been around for decades, standing as a proof of concept for how small manufacturing can work in the car industry. Kit cars combine hand-welded steel tube chassis and fiberglass bodies with stock engines and accessories. Amateurs assemble the cars at their homes, which exempts the vehicles from many regulatory restrictions (similar to home-built experimental aircraft). Factory Five has sold about 8,000 kits to date.
One problem with the kit-car business, though, is that the vehicles are typically modeled after famous racing and sports cars, making lawsuits and license fees a constant burden. This makes it hard to profit and limits the industry's growth, even in the face of the DIY boom.
Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors, saw a way around this. His company opted for totally original designs: They don't evoke classic cars but rather reimagine what a car can be. The Rally Fighter's body was designed by Local Motors' community of volunteers and puts the lie to the notion that you can't create anything good by committee (so long as the community is well managed, well led, and well equipped with tools like 3-D design software and photorealistic rendering technology). The result is a car that puts Detroit to shame.
It is, first of all, incredibly cool-looking — a cross between a Baja racer and a P-51 Mustang fighter plane. Given its community provenance, one might have expected something more like a platypus. But this process was no politburo. Instead, it was a competition. The winner was Sangho Kim, a 30-year-old graphic artist and student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. When Local Motors asked its community to submit ideas for next-gen vehicles, Kim's sketches and renderings captivated the crowd. There wasn't supposed to be a prize, but the company gave Kim $10,000 anyway. As the community coalesced around his Rally Fighter, members competed to develop secondary parts, from the side vents to the light bar. Some were designers, some engineers, and others just car hobbyists. But what they had in common was a refusal to design just another car, compromised by mass-market needs and convention. They wanted to make something original — a fantasy car come to life.
While the community crafted the exterior, Local Motors designed or selected the chassis, engine, and transmission thanks to relationships with companies like Penske Automotive Group, which helped the firm source everything from dashboard dials to the new BMW clean diesel engine the Rally Fighter will use. This combination — have the pros handle the elements that are critical to performance, safety, and manufacturability while the community designs the parts that give the car its shape and style — allows crowdsourcing to work even for a product whose use has life-and-death implications.
Local Motors plans to release between 500 and 2,000 units of each model. It's a niche vehicle; it won't compete with the major automakers but rather fill in the gaps in the marketplace for unique designs. Rogers uses the analogy of a jar of marbles, each of which represents a vehicle from a major automaker. In between the marbles is empty space, space that can be filled with grains of sand — and those grains are Local Motors cars.
Local Motors has just 10 full-time employees (that number will grow to more than 50 as it opens build centers, the first of which will be in Phoenix), holds almost no inventory, and purchases components and prepares kits only after buyers have made a down payment and reserved a build date.
Rogers was practically destined for his job. His grandfather Ralph Rogers bought the Indian Motorcycle Company in 1945. When the light Triumph motorcycles began entering the US after World War II, the senior Rogers recognized that his market-leading Chief, a big road workhorse, was uncompetitive. The solution was to make a new light engine so Indian could produce its own cheap, nimble bikes. He went bust trying to develop the motor. It was just too hard to change direction — and eventually he lost the business.
Today, Rogers' grandson intends to do something even more radical — create a whole new way of making cars — on a shoestring budget. His company has raised roughly $7 million, and he thinks that's enough to take it to profitability. The difference between now and then? "They didn't have resources back then to enter the market, because the manufacturing process was so tightly held," he says. What's changed is that the supply chain is opening to the little guys.
The 36-year-old Rogers favors military-style flight suits, an echo of his time as a captain in the Marines, including action in Iraq, and he boasts both a Harvard MBA and a stint as an entrepreneur in China.
While at Harvard, Rogers saw a presentation on Threadless, the open-design T-shirt company, which showed him the power of crowdsourcing. Cars are more complicated than T-shirts, but in both cases there are far more people who can design them than are currently paid to do so — Rogers estimates that less than 30 percent of car design students get jobs at auto companies upon graduation. The rest become frustrated car designers, exactly the pool of talent that might respond to a well-organized vehicle design competition and community. Today, the Local Motors Web site has around 5,000 members. That's a 500-to-1 ratio of volunteer contributors to employees. This is how industries are reinvented.
Here's the history of two decades in one sentence: If the past 10 years have been about discovering post-institutional social models on the Web, then the next 10 years will be about applying them to the real world.
This story is about the next 10 years.
Transformative change happens when industries democratize, when they're ripped from the sole domain of companies, governments, and other institutions and handed over to regular folks. The Internet democratized publishing, broadcasting, and communications, and the consequence was a massive increase in the range of both participation and participants in everything digital — the long tail of bits.
Now the same is happening to manufacturing — the long tail of things.
The tools of factory production, from electronics assembly to 3-D printing, are now available to individuals, in batches as small as a single unit. Anybody with an idea and a little expertise can set assembly lines in China into motion with nothing more than some keystrokes on their laptop. A few days later, a prototype will be at their door, and once it all checks out, they can push a few more buttons and be in full production, making hundreds, thousands, or more. They can become a virtual micro-factory, able to design and sell goods without any infrastructure or even inventory; products can be assembled and drop-shipped by contractors who serve hundreds of such customers simultaneously.
Today, micro-factories make everything from cars to bike components to bespoke furniture in any design you can imagine. The collective potential of a million garage tinkerers is about to be unleashed on the global markets, as ideas go straight into production, no financing or tooling required. "Three guys with laptops" used to describe a Web startup. Now it describes a hardware company, too.
"Hardware is becoming much more like software," as MIT professor Eric von Hippel puts it. That's not just because there's so much software in hardware these days, with products becoming little more than intellectual property wrapped in commodity materials, whether it's the code that drives the off-the-shelf chips in gadgets or the 3-D design files that drive manufacturing. It's also because of the availability of common platforms, easy-to-use tools, Web-based collaboration, and Internet distribution.
We've seen this picture before: It's what happens just before monolithic industries fragment in the face of countless small entrants, from the music industry to newspapers. Lower the barriers to entry and the crowd pours in.
The academic way to put this is that global supply chains have become scale-free, able to serve the small as well as the large, the garage inventor and Sony. This change is driven by two forces. First, the explosion in cheap and powerful prototyping tools, which have become easier to use by non-engineers. And second, the economic crisis has triggered an extraordinary shift in the business practices of (mostly) Chinese factories, which have become increasingly flexible, Web-centric, and open to custom work (where the volumes are lower but the margins higher).
The result has allowed online innovation to extend to the real world. As Cory Doctorow puts it in his new book, Makers, "The days of companies with names like 'General Electric' and 'General Mills' and 'General Motors' are over. The money on the table is like krill: a billion little entrepreneurial opportunities that can be discovered and exploited by smart, creative people."
A garage renaissance is spilling over into such phenomena as the booming Maker Faires and local "hackerspaces." Peer production, open source, crowdsourcing, user-generated content — all these digital trends have begun to play out in the world of atoms, too. The Web was just the proof of concept. Now the revolution hits the real world.
In short, atoms are the new bits.
It all starts with the tools. in a converted brewery in Brooklyn, Bre Pettis and his team of hardware engineers are making the first sub-$1,000 3-D printer, the open source MakerBot. Rather than squirting out ink, this printer builds up objects by squeezing out a 0.33-mm-thick thread of molten ABS plastic. Five years ago, you couldn't get anything like this for less than $125,000.
During a visit in late November, 100 boxes containing the ninth batch of MakerBots are lined up and ready to go out the door (as a customer, I'm thrilled to know that one of them is coming to me). Nearly 500 of these 3-D printers have been sold, and with every one, the community comes up with new uses and new tools to make them even better. For example, a prototype head delivers a resolution of 0.2 mm. Another head can hold a rotating cutter, turning the printer into a CNC router. (CNC is short for computer numerical control, which simply means that the machines are driven by software.) And yet another can print with icing, for desserts.
Out of the box, the MakerBot produces plastic parts from digital files. Want a certain gear right now? Download a design and print it out yourself. Want to modify an object you already have? Scan it (a researcher at the University of Cambridge has developed a technology that will allow you to create a 3-D file by rotating the object in front of your webcam), tweak the bits you want to change with the free SketchUp software from Google, and load it into the ReplicatorG app. Within minutes, you have a whole new physical object: a rip, mix, and burn of atoms.
Other tools offer additional tricks. The $18,000 ShopBot PRSalpha can work door-sized pieces of wood. Or buy a smaller kit for $1,500 at buildyourcnc.com. If metal is your material, try a CNC mill for around $2,000. Or, if you're more into electronics, use the free CadSoft Eagle software to create your own circuit boards, then upload the file to have it fabbed in a few days at places like Advanced Circuits.
So, too, for CNC laser cutters, plasma cutters, water-jet cutters, and lathes. You can make anything from fine jewelry to car chassis this way, and tens of thousands of people are doing just that. We've already seen this DIY creation movement boom around such simple platforms as T-shirts and coffee mugs, then expand into handcrafting at Etsy (which did about $200 million in sales last year). Now it's moving to more complex platforms — like 3-D models and plastic fabrication — and open source electronics hardware like the pioneering Arduino project.
With the tools in place, the second part of this new industrial age is how manufacturing has been opened up to individuals, letting them scale prototypes into full production runs. Over the past few years, Chinese manufacturers have evolved to handle small orders more efficiently. This means that one-person enterprises can get things made in a factory the way only big companies could before.
Two trends are driving this. First, there's the maturation and increasing Web-centrism of business practices in China. Now that the Web generation is entering management, Chinese factories increasingly take orders online, communicate with customers by email, and accept payment by credit card or PayPal, a consumer-friendly alternative to traditional bank transfers, letters of credit, and purchase orders. Plus, the current economic crisis has driven companies to seek higher-margin custom orders to mitigate the deflationary spiral of commodity goods.
For a lens into the new world of open-access factories in China, check out Alibaba .com, the largest aggregator of the country's manufacturers, products, and capabilities. Just search on the site (in English), find some companies producing more or less what you're looking to make, and then use instant messaging to ask them if they can manufacture what you want. Alibaba's IM can translate between Chinese and English in real time, so each person can communicate using their native language. Typically, responses come in minutes: We can't make that; we can make that and here's how to order it; we already make something quite like that and here's what it costs.
Alibaba's chair, Jack Ma, calls this "C to B" — consumer to business. It's a new avenue of trade and one ideally suited for the micro-entrepreneur of the DIY movement. "If we can encourage companies to do more small, cross-border transactions, the profits can be higher, because they are unique, non-commodity goods," Ma says. Since its founding in 1999, Alibaba has become a $12 billion company with 45 million registered users worldwide. Its $1.7 billion initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2007 was the biggest tech debut since Google. Over the past three years, Ma says, more than 1.1 million jobs have been created in China by companies doing ecommerce across Alibaba's platforms.
This trend is playing out in many countries, but it's happening fastest in China. One reason is the same cultural dynamism that led to the rise of shanzhai industries. The term shanzhai, which derives from the Chinese word for bandit, usually refers to the thriving business of making knockoffs of electronic products, or as Shanzai.com more generously puts it, "a vendor, who operates a business without observing the traditional rules or practices often resulting in innovative and unusual products or business models." But those same vendors are increasingly driving the manufacturing side of the maker revolution by being fast and flexible enough to work with micro-entrepreneurs. The rise of shanzhai business practices "suggests a new approach to economic recovery as well, one based on small companies well networked with each other," observes Tom Igoe, a core developer of the open source Arduino computing platform. "What happens when that approach hits the manufacturing world? We're about to find out."
Not long ago, all this was impossible. To see how it used to be back in the 20th century, watch the movie Flash of Genius. The film, which is based on a true story, starts in the mid-1960s and tells the sad tale of the invention of the intermittent windshield wiper. A lone inventor — college professor Bob Kearns — tinkers in his basement until he finally creates a working prototype. Rather than sell the technology to a big car company, Kearns decides he wants to build his own company and make the wiper himself. Ford signs on to install Kearns' wipers in one of its new models. That means he needs to build a factory. He leases a huge warehouse and starts outfitting it with assembly lines, forklift loaders, and other heavy equipment — a classic industrial-age scene.
How to Build Your Dream
In the age of democratized industry, every garage is a potential micro-factory, every citizen a potential micro-entrepreneur. Here's how to transform a great idea into a great product.
As Kearns is getting close to firing up his facility, Ford abruptly backs out of the deal. With no revenue in sight, the factory shuts down before producing a single wiper.
Eighteen months later, Kearns is walking home in the rain and sees a brand new Ford Mustang turn the corner. The windshield wiper sweeps, then pauses, then sweeps again. His brilliant idea has been stolen. Kearns is ruined and will soon go mad, thus the rest of the movie. (The real-life Kearns eventually sued Ford and Chrysler for patent infringement and, after years of litigation, won nearly $30 million.)
Today, Kearns would do it differently. As before, he would have made the first prototype in his basement. But rather than building a factory, he would have had the electronics fabbed by one company and the enclosure made by another. He then would have paid a wiper manufacturer in China to create a custom assembly with these components. They would have shipped straight to his customers, the car companies, and the whole process would have happened in months, not years — too fast for big companies to beat him. No factory, no lawsuits, no madness. He could have fulfilled his dream of turning his invention into a company without tilting at windmills.
To see this model emerging in the real world, you need only visit TechShop, a chain of DIY workspaces that offer access to state-of-the-art prototyping tools for around $100 a month.
On a recent afternoon at the facility in Menlo Park, California, Michael Pinneo, a successful former executive in the synthetic-diamond business, is machining a vapor- deposition chamber for his newest approach to creating colorless diamonds. Over in the corner stands the base of a rocket lander being developed by a team that's competing in the Google Lunar X Prize. At another table, Stephan Weiss, vice president of Interoptix, and one of his colleagues are assembling circuit boards used to manage electricity grids. They're doing 50-unit runs, which Weiss describes as "too small for a factory but too big for your garage." The devices carry the badge of ABB, a giant engineering firm; the utility customers may never know that they were made by hand in a hackerspace.
This is an incubator for the atoms age. When TechShop founder Jim Newton went looking for an executive to run it, he quickly decided on Mark Hatch, a former Kinko's executive. The analogy is apt: In the same way that Kinko's democratized printing and, in the process, created a national chain of service bureaus, TechShop wants to democratize manufacturing. It now has two additional locations, in Durham, North Carolina, and Beaverton, Oregon, and has plans for hundreds more. One of the spots being considered is San Francisco, within the facilities of the much-shrunken San Francisco Chronicle. The irony is delicious: the seeds of tomorrow's industry growing in the ashes of yesterday's.
Over lunch, Hatch reflects on the arc of manufacturing history. With the rise of the factory in the industrial age, Karl Marx fretted that a tradesman could no longer afford the tools to ply his trade. The economies of scale of industrial production crowded out the individual. Although the benefits of such industrialization were lower prices and better products, the cost was homogeneity. Combined with big-box retailers, the marketplace became increasingly dominated by the fruits of mass production: goods designed for everyone, with the resulting limited diversity and choice that implies.
But today those tools of production are getting so cheap that they are once again within the reach of many individuals. State-of-the-art milling machines that once cost $150,000 are now close to $4,000, thanks to Chinese copies. Everybody's garage is a potential high tech factory. Marx would be pleased.
Blogger Jason Kottke wrestled with what to call this new class of entrepreneurship, these cottage industries with global reach targeting niche markets of distributed demand. "Boutique" is too pretentious, and "indie" not quite right. He observed that others had suggested "craftsman, artisan, bespoke, cloudless, studio, atelier, long tail, agile, bonsai company, mom and pop, small scale, specialty, anatomic, big heart, GTD business, dojo, haus, temple, coterie, and disco business." But none seemed to capture the movement.
So he proposed "small batch," a term most often applied to bourbon. In the spirits world, this implies handcrafted care. But it can broadly refer to businesses focused more on the quality of their products than the size of the market. They'd rather do something they were passionate about than go mass. And these days, when anyone can get access to manufacturing and distribution, that is actually a viable choice. Walmart, and all the compromise that comes with it, is no longer the only path to success.
For a final example of that, swing to the Seattle suburbs to meet Will Chapman of BrickArms. Out of a small industrial space, BrickArms fills gaps in the Lego product line, going where the Danish toy giant fears to tread: hardcore weaponry, from Lego-scale AK-47s to frag grenades that look like they came straight out of Halo 3. The parts are more complex than the average Lego component, but they're manufactured to an equal quality and sold online to thousands of Lego fans, kids and adults, who want to create cooler scenes than the standard kits allow.
Lego operates on an industrial scale, with a team of designers working in a highly secure campus in Billund, Denmark. Engineers model prototypes and have them fabricated in dedicated machine shops. Then, once they meet approval, they're manufactured in large injection molding plants. Parts are created for kits, and those kits have to be play-tested, priced for mass retail, and shipped and inventoried months in advance of their sale at Target or Walmart. The only parts that make it out of this process are those that will sell in the millions.
Chapman works at a different scale. He designs parts using SolidWorks 3-D software, which can create a reverse image that's used to produce a mold. He sends the file to his desktop CNC router, a Taig 2018 mill that costs less than $1,000, which grinds the mold halves out of aircraft-grade aluminum blocks. Then he puts them in his hand-pressed injection molding machine, melts some resin beads, and pumps them through. A few minutes later, he's got a prototype to show to fans. If they like it, he gets a local toolmaker to reproduce the mold out of steel and a US-based injection molding company to make batches of a few thousand.
Why not have the parts made in China? He could, he says, but the result would be "molds that take much longer to produce, with slow communication times and plastic that is subpar" (read: cheap). Furthermore, he says, "if your molds are in China, who knows what happens to them when you're not using them? They could be run in secret to produce parts sold in secondary markets that you would not even know existed."
Chapman's three sons package the parts, which he sells direct. Today, BrickArms also has resellers in the UK, Australia, Sweden, Canada, and Germany. The business grew so big that in 2008 he left his 17-year career as a software engineer; he now comfortably supports his family of five solely on Lego weapon sales. "I bring in more revenue on a slow BrickArms day than I ever did working as a software engineer." Life is good.
In the mid-1930s, Ronald Coase, then a recent London School of Economics graduate, was musing over what to many people might have seemed a silly question: Why do companies exist? Why do we pledge our allegiance to an institution and gather in the same building to get things done? His answer: to minimize "transaction costs." When people share a purpose and have established roles, responsibilities, and modes of communication, it's easy to make things happen. You simply turn to the person in the next cubicle and ask them to do their job.
But several years ago, Bill Joy, one of the cofounders of Sun Microsystems, revealed the flaw in Coase's model. "No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else," he rightly observed. Of course, that had always been true, but before, it hardly mattered if you were in Detroit and someone better was in Dakar; you were here and they were there, and that was the end of it. But Joy's point was that this was changing. With the Internet, you didn't have to settle for the next cubicle. You could tap the best person out there, even if they were in Dakar.
Joy's law turned Coase's law upside down. Now, working within a company often imposes higher transaction costs than running a project online. Why turn to the person who happens to be in the next cubicle when it's just as easy to turn to an online community member from a global marketplace of talent? Companies are full of bureaucracy, procedures, and approval processes, a structure designed to defend the integrity of the organization. Communities form around shared interests and needs and have no more process than they require. The community exists for the project, not to support the company in which the project resides.
Thus the new industrial organizational model. It's built around small pieces, loosely joined. Companies are small, virtual, and informal. Most participants are not employees. They form and re-form on the fly, driven by ability and need rather than affiliation and obligation. It doesn't matter who the best people work for; if the project is interesting enough, the best people will find it.
Let me tell you my own story. Three years ago, out on a run, I started thinking about how cheap gyroscope sensors were getting. What could you do with them? For starters, I realized, you could turn a radio-controlled model airplane into an autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone. It turned out that there were plenty of commercial autopilot units you could buy, all based on this principle, but the more I looked into them, the worse they appeared. They were expensive ($800 to $5,000), hard to use, and proprietary. It was clear that this was a market desperate for competition and democratization — Moore's law was at work, making all the components dirt cheap. The hardware for a good autopilot shouldn't cost more than $300, even including a healthy profit. Everything else was intellectual property, and it seemed the time had come to open that up, trading high margins for open innovation.
To pursue this project, I started DIY Drones, a community site, and found and began working with some kindred spirits, led by Jordi Muñoz, then a 21-year-old high school graduate from Mexico living in Riverside, California. Muñoz was self-taught — with world-class skills in embedded electronics and aeronautics. Jordi turned me on to Arduino, and together we designed an autonomous blimp controller and then an aircraft autopilot board.
We designed the boards the way all electronics tinkerers do, with parts bought from online shops, wired together on prototyping breadboards. Once it worked on the breadboard, we laid out the schematic diagrams with CadSoft Eagle and started designing it as a custom printed circuit board (PCB). Each time we had a design that looked good onscreen, we'd upload it to a commercial PCB fab, and a couple of weeks later, samples would arrive at our door. We'd solder on the components, try them out, and then fix our errors and otherwise make improvements for the next version.
Eventually, we had a design we were happy with. How to commercialize it? We could do it ourselves, getting our PCB fab house to solder on the components, too, but we thought it might be better to partner with a retailer. The one that seemed culturally matched was SparkFun, which designs, makes, and sells electronics for the growing open source hardware community.
The SparkFun operation is in a newish two-story building in an office park outside Boulder, Colorado. The first floor is larger than three basketball courts, with racks of circuit boards waiting to be sold, packed, and shipped on one side and some machines attended by a few technicians on the other. The first two machines are pick-and-place robots, which are available used for less than $5,000. They position tiny electronic components in exactly the right spot on a PCB. Once each batch of boards is done, technicians place them on a conveyor belt that goes into another machine, which is basically just a heater. Called a reflow oven, it cements the parts into place, essentially accomplishing what a worker could do with a soldering iron but with unmatched precision and speed.
The PCBs arrive from SparkFun's partner firm in China, which makes millions of them using automated etching, drilling, and cutting machines. At volume, they cost a few cents each.
That's it. With these elements you can make the basics of everything from a cell phone to a robot (structural elements, such as the case, can be made in low volume with a CNC machine or injection-molded if you need to do it cheaper at higher volume). You can sell these components as kits or find some college students on craigslist to spend a weekend assembling them for you. (I conscript my kids to assemble our blimps. They rotate roles, coveting the quality assurance task where they check the others' work.)
SparkFun makes, stocks, and sells our autopilot and a few other products that we designed; we get to spend our time working on R&D and bear no inventory risk. Some products we wanted to make were too time-intensive for SparkFun, so we made them ourselves. Now, in a rented Los Angeles garage, we have our own mini SparkFun. Rather than a pick-and-place robot, we have a kid with sharp eyes and a steady hand, and for a reflow oven we use what is basically a modified toaster oven. We can do scores of boards per day this way; when demand outstrips production, we'll upgrade to a small pick-and-place robot.
Every day our Web site takes orders and prints out the shipping labels. Muñoz or one of his workers heat-seals the products in protective electrostatic bags and puts them in shipping envelopes. The retail day ends at 3:30 pm with a run to the post office and UPS to send everything off. In our first year, we'll do about $250,000 in revenue, with demand rising fast and a lot of products in the pipeline. With luck, we'll be a million-dollar business by the third year, which would put us solidly in the ranks of millions of similarly successful US companies. We are just a tiny gear in the economic engine driving the US — on the face of it, this doesn't seem like a world- changing economic model.
But the difference between this kind of small business and the dry cleaners and corner shops that make up the majority of micro-enterprise in the country is that we're global and high tech. Two-thirds of our sales come from outside the US, and our products compete at the low end with defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Although we don't employ many people or make much money, our basic model is to lower the cost of technology by a factor of 10 (mostly by not charging for intellectual property). The effect is felt primarily by consumers; when you take an order of magnitude out of pricing in any market, you can radically reshape it, bringing in more and different customers. Lowering costs is a way to democratize technology, too.
Although it's shrinking, America's manufacturing economy is still the world's largest. But China's growing production sector is predicted to take the number one spot in 2015, according to IHS Global Insight, an economic-forecasting firm. Not all US manufacturing is shrinking, however — just the large part. A Pease Group survey of small manufacturers (less than $25 million in annual sales) shows that most expect to grow this year, many by double digits. Indeed, analysts expect almost all new manufacturing jobs in the US will come from small companies. Ones just like ours.
How big can these small enterprises get? Most of the companies I've described sell thousands of units — 10,000 is considered a breakout success. But one that has graduated to the big leagues is Aliph, which makes the Jawbone noise-canceling wireless headsets. Aliph was founded in 1999 by two Stanford graduates, Alex Asseily and Hosain Rahman, and it now sells millions of headsets each year. But it has no factories. It outsources all of its production. And though more than a thousand people help to create Jawbone headsets, Aliph has just over 80 employees. Everyone else works for its production partners. It's the ultimate virtual manufacturing company: Aliph makes bits and its partners make atoms, and together they can take on Sony.
Welcome to the next Industrial Revolution.
Chris Anderson (firstname.lastname@example.com) is editor in chief of Wired.Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.


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Dear Editor,
In an excerpt from the 1962 fictional "Fire on the Mountain" Edward Abbey wrote:
"You know, a man came out to see me one day, said he was from the Range Management Bureau. He saw these here yuccas and he asked what they were good for… 'I'm a patient old fool,' Grandfather said. 'I told him the Indians made baskets out of the leaf fibers, used the stalks for fences and shade, and made good medicine out of the flowers. Always saving plenty of yuccas for future use, of course.' But the man said to me, 'We got paper and cellophane and cardboard now, who needs a basket?' He said, 'You don't need shade now, you go indoors and turn on the air conditioner when it's hot.' And he said, 'As for medicine you get all you need in Juarez for five dollars a gallon.' 'He won the argument' Grandfather said, 'but he lost his immortal soul."
All these decades later in the non fictional world, has our love of paper, cellophane, cardboard, air conditioning and drug store pharmaceuticals, not to mention our addiction to fossil fuels further separated us from our immortal souls and the lands that used to nourish them? Is it the reason we are willing to trade our air quality, water quality and quantity, our plant and animal communities, and the beauty of the wildlands around us for the sake of oil and gas exploration?
Are we letting the powerful corporations and the politicians who side with them win the argument that big money, big profit and big power are more important than our immortal souls and the protection of the planet? I think that is the road down which we have been led and, like mythical lemmings, we are following the ones in front and do not see the cliff ahead until we have gone one step beyond the ledge.
How might we stop following those leading us over the ledge? As a united body of residents we say NO. We say WAIT. We say STUDY. And we don't stop saying it until we are heard.
We try to slow down the process, slow down our run-away consumerism, slow down our addictive appetites for fossil fuels, and we push to find a better way to run the planet. We start at home. We unite. We don't let Moab become the next oil patch. We don't build man-camps for the workers that come from out of the area. We stop buying the lie that they know best. We stop losing the argument. We reclaim our souls.
Carol Mayer


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Today's News: Our Take - The Good Wife First Look: Grey's Vet T.R. Knight Faces Off Against Eli Gold
The Florrick for Governor campaign is getting some help from a very familiar face when The Good Wife returns with new episodes next year.
Good Wifespoiler photos: Get a sneak peek at what's ahead
Grey's Anatomy alum T.R. Knight will check into the CBS legal drama on Sunday, Jan. 6 at 9/8c as Jordan Karahalios, a savy campaign manager Eli (Alan Cumming) is forced to work with. The role marks a rare TV appearance for Knight, who has only guest-starred on a 2011 episode of Law & Order: SVU since his six-year stint at Seattle Grace.
Will Eli play nice with the new kid? Check out these photos to find out.
The Good Wife airs Sundays at 9/8c on CBS.
View original The Good Wife First Look: Grey's Vet T.R. Knight Faces Off Against Eli Gold at TVGuide.com
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The other day, my two interns, Tufts University grad student Katie Andrews and Boston University grad student Rebecca Shrago, had the opportunity to attend a lunch sponsored byJennie-O Turkey StoreBistroTruck
. Jennie-O has partnered with the in New York City to serve up tasty and inventive turkey burgers all week long to promote lean turkey as an excellent burger alternative. Here, Katie and Rebecca dish about their lunch-and give options for creating your own healthy masterpieces at home.
Lunch was held right on the sidewalk at 53rd St. and 6th Ave., where we sampled all 5 of the signature turkey burgers created especially for the event by Bistro Truck owner Yassir Raouli. Raouli, whose truck is famous for serving home-style Moroccan cuisine featuring grass-fed beef and lamb and organic chicken, said he was excited to work with Jennie-O to give New Yorkers another healthy alternative to the typical street fare of hot dogs and soft pretzels. Each turkey burger, Raouli explained, was inspired by a different neighborhood or borough of New York City, including Little Italy, the Flatiron District, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the East Village.
To maximize flavor without adding calories and fat, Raouli infused the turkey burgers with spices and topped them with items like roasted poblano peppers, Portobello mushrooms, and fresh herbs. As I munched away, debating which burger was my favorite ("The Brooklyn! No - The Bronx!"), I got to thinking how easy it would be to dress up my own turkey burgers at home. Hey, there are at least four more weeks of summer - plenty of time to give the ol' grill another go-around. (Just make sure you pick lean or extra-lean ground turkey for lower total and saturated fat.)
More From Good Housekeeping
Get a taste of New York City by visiting SwitchToTurkey.com, where you can find Yassir Raouli's turkey burger recipes. While you're at it, check out some of our triple-tested recipes right here at Good Housekeeping:
And, in case you tire of burgers, we have more healthy options for your grill.
Just in case you were wondering, the spicy, aromatic "Brooklyn" finally got the best of me; Katie couldn't get enough of the panko and parsley-crusted "East Village." Which burger will be your favorite?


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"Trust" is a word that should be barred from National Hockey League venues.
In 1994-95, the NHL shortened a season to 48 games after a long labor stoppage because it wanted cost certainty, and got it to a degree in the form of a rookie salary cap.
Trust us, the issue is corrected, we heard.
Then in 2004-05, the entire season was canceled as the NHL fought to get a hard salary cap in place for more cost certainty. Trust us, with a full salary cap in place, we heard, this was not going to happen again.
In the wee hours of Sunday morning, and after a prolonged labor stoppage in the NHL that put another season on the brink of being wiped out, the league and its players agreed to a collective bargaining pact.
The league is back. A 48-to-50 game schedule is coming after a rushed training camp of approximately a week. There will only be games played within each conference. The playoffs likely won't start until May.
The postseason could come close to Baseball's All Star Game.
It defines dilution of the product.
This time, it's not clear what each side was fighting for, but the damage undoubtedly will be extensive.
Why should anybody trust this league ever again? All the NHL does is break trust.
Like many of you reading this, I'm obsessed with the four major team sports in this country. Honestly, I can't get enough of any of them. But when push comes to shove and somebody insists I name a favorite sport, I say hockey.
Hockey carries the moniker as the world's fastest sport. It is deserved. That speed is combined with a rugged aspect that involves full contact. Fighting is allowed at its highest level. Beyond speed and contact, hockey is the most skilled of all the major team sports. It not only involves incredible hand-eye coordination at high rates of speed under extreme physical pressure and danger, but there is a necessity to learn how to ice skate.
There is no sports event more compelling than a great hockey game. Yet, the sport is run at its highest level, the NHL, extremely poorly. And it is not just Gary Bettman, the NHL's long-time deservedly maligned commissioner, at fault. The NHL has been getting it wrong forever.
The league has taken teams out of markets that supported franchises, and moved them to markets that don't (you know it's just a matter of time until they try Atlanta again). When the league has expanded, beginning in 1967-68 when it doubled in size from six to 12 teams, it has inevitably proven to be the immediate detriment of the sport, not its common benefit.
All sports have problems with the way they are officiated, but none to the degree of the NHL. It just changes on bizarre whims. Because of hockey's physicality, players often cross the line. However, the manner in which punishment for infractions is doled out is anything but even-handed and consistent. It took forever, but, finally, a major U.S. television network is legitimately interested in the NHL for reasons other than pity – NBC – to the point it is building a new sports network around the league. The lockout took away that momentum.
And please, don't fall into the trap of the players being considered innocent dupes. They are the ones who hired Donald Fehr, whose history of labor war while heading the Players Association in baseball, in addition to being an enabler of the so-called steroids era in that game, was deplorable.
The NHL has been particularly inconsiderate of Detroit. Located in a border city to Canada, and one of the Original Six franchises, the Red Wings play in a conference with only one team in their time zone. For years, Red Wing fans have being forced to endure playoff games starting after 10 on weeknights and seldom seeing the teams they really care about their team facing, such as Toronto and Montreal, visiting Joe Louis Arena. This is the NHL's longstanding memo to Red Wings' fans: "You will get Columbus and Nashville every other night – and you will like it. Oh, and by the way, don't you dare throw that octopus on the ice…."
It's abuse, that's what it is.
I know what you're thinking. "Caputo, you will watch every minute of every Red Wings' game…" That, thanks the magic of the DVR, is close to being true.
"The first thing you make sure you do every Saturday night is to see what crazy thing Don Cherry says on Hockey Night in Canada."
True, again. If I can't actually watch Don Cherry, I record his segment. Oh, and "Satellite Hot Stove" and (I'm almost embarrassed to admit this) "Hockey Night in Canada After Hours."
I'm hooked. I admit it. I always will be. I justify it in my mind by telling myself that I'm not going to let Gary Bettman and the American version of the KHL (Knucklehead Hockey League) ruin my fun.
Yet, somehow that only infuriates me more, and makes my genuine disgust increase.
How about you?
Pat Caputo is a senior sports reporter and a columnist for The Oakland Press. Contact him at email@example.com and read his blog at theoaklandpress.com. You can follow him on Twiter @patcaputo98