A company that develops wind turbine installations for commercial and agricultural landowners has secured more than ￡16m in new funding to help finance its next 10 projects.
Infinite Energy was set up three years ago and used an initial ￡6.9m funding round from venture capital trust Albion Ventures VCT to finance its first four projects.Changes in financial legislation mean venture capital trusts can no longer invest in projects designed to take advantage of feed-in tariffs, so Albion Ventures has formed a plc called Albion Community Power.
The new company has agreed to provide ￡15m in finance to support Infinite Energy’s next 10 projects.Infinite Energy, which has offices in Cardiff and Bridgend, has also signed a ￡1.6m funding deal with Finance Wales.The company has so far brought four turbine installation projects into operation, two near Milford Haven, one at Ebbw Vale and one near Bridgend.
The Bridgend one is the smallest at only 80kw (kilowatts), built to help a local farm generate electricity to help with the farm’s running costs. The other three sites each have a capacity of 500kw from a single turbine.Of the 10 new sites, which are in various stages of planning, seven are in Wales, two in the Midlands and one in Devon.The company says it hopes to reach “financial close” on the projects by December and to carry out construction during 2014.
All of the projects are for the installation of 500kw turbines except for one, at Shawell in Leicestershire, which is for a 1.5MW (megawatt) turbine.
Infinite Energy manages the planning, installation and system management of the turbine projects on behalf of its landowner or commercial clients. Its first installation, at Rassau industrial estate, was for roof tile manufacturer Redland Monier.The turbine has been operating since February 2012 and can produce enough electricity to power the equivalent of 307 homes, potentially saving up to 289 tonnes of CO 2 per year.
Following the success of the Rassau installation Infinite Energy was asked to complete two further installations for China Porcelain tile, including the one at Shawell.Albion Community Power is hoping to raise up to ￡24.4m in a share offer, and says it will consider raising a further ￡100m in funding if it believes further suitable renewable energy projects are available.It intends to invest in proven power generation methods across a range of renewable energy technologies, including solar, biomass heat, hydroelectricity and anaerobic digestion as well as wind.
With regard to wind, it says it plans to invest in turbines on brownfield sites near existing developments such as industrial estates rather than greenfield developments in remote areas.
This sits well with the Infinite Energy model, which is to site turbines by preference on industrial brownfield land, or on farms.Infinite Energy was established by directors Will David, a chartered surveyor, and Andrew Crossman, who has significant experience in energy use analysis and renewable energy. A third director, energy engineer Iestyn Morgan, joined the board later.
Following the installation at Rassau Nick Payne, factory manager at Monier Redland, said: “Monier Redland is committed to reducing its impact on the environment and has a medium-term plan to source 20% of its production energy from renewable sources. Our successful partnership with Infinite Renewables is a major step towards achieving this.”
Daniel Rees, Investment executive, Finance Wales said: "Infinite Energy has established itself as a leading Welsh renewable energy company and has a proven track record in the installation and management of wind turbine projects. Finance Wales is pleased to back the business as a funding partner.’
Not many people know the shallow area off the public access at Riverside Park in New Ulm can be a hot spot for walleye fishing, Schwartz said. What he didn't know: The reason he wasn't constantly snagging his lure on old tires, rusty barrels and other junk had something to do with the thumping music coming from a stage above the grassy river bank.
Schwartz figured the Riverblast festival was just about old people getting together to listen to bands, eat some food and enjoy each other's company while sipping some locally brewed Schell's beer. Scott Sparlin, one of the event's organizers, would have told Schwartz Riverblast is about fun, but it also supports a cause that has improved the river, and helped its walleye flourish, during the past two decades.
The event started as the River Rally in 1992 and evolved into Riverblast in 2000. It's always used camping, music and refreshments to make people aware of the river and to raise a little money for the Coalition for a Clean Minnesota River.
The coalition's most significant accomplishment, Sparlin said, has been changing people's attitudes about the river. Instead of thinking of the river as a dump, which was the case for many years, people now see it as an asset that can draw tourists to its river towns.
"The river is why New Ulm is here," he said. "It's why Mankato is where it is. It's why St. Peter is where it is."We're changing the way people view the Minnesota River and getting people to want to change it. There's lots of work to do, but the good news is the river is getting better."
Phosphorus and sediment levels have dropped by 25 percent since the coalition's work started, Sparlin said. They're still working on Nitrogen levels. They are making progress with that, in part, by working with farmers to change the way they tile their fields.
Greg Asmus and his two sons, 10-year-old Anthony and 2-year-old Jonathan, wandered down by the river to toss some rocks and watch Schwartz and his buddies cast their lines. Asmus, who grew up in New Ulm, pointed to a big rock he used to sit on when he fished as a kid. He remembered snagging his line regularly.
Read the full products at http://www.tilees.com/!
2013年9月2日星期一
2013年7月29日星期一
Scrabbling to the top
Last year was a bad year for competitive Scrabble. The 2012 USA National Scrabble Championship, which took part in Orlando, Florida, was hit by scandal. One player, a wunderkind of 13 years old, was exposed after a suspicious opponent noticed that he kept appearing to draw the prized blank tiles from the tile bag. It emerged that the little sneak was palming the blanks before each game and then pretending to draw them from the bag when it suited him. Max Karten, a former champion, complained to The Atlantic that cheating of this kind was degrading competitive Scrabble.
Nonetheless, the outcome – a judge was called, the tiles were counted, and the cheat expelled – was less dramatic than the way scenes might have unfolded at the World Scrabble Championships in 2011. There a Thai player demanded that his British opponent be strip-searched in the toilet, accused of hiding the letter “G”. The judges ruled that such a search would be undignified, and replaced the missing G tile with a new one. The Brit went on to win the game by just one point.
“Scrabble is a game of personal honour; opponents police themselves and each other,” a compelling Sports Illustrated feature stated in 1995. “As a result it is rife with feuds and imagined slights and Floor tiles. Players are as sensitive as flowers to any sign of ‘coffeehousing’ – the practice of trying to throw off an opponent by slurping a drink.”
South Africa’s newly-crowned Scrabble champion, Llewellin Jegels, says that these kinds of intimidation attempts are routine. “Absolutely, it happens all the time,” Jegels told the Daily Maverick. Competitive Scrabble sounds… intense. “Social players are quite shocked to see how we play,” Jegels agrees. “There’s a chess clock, it’s one-on-one, the game has to be finished in 50 minutes.”
The story goes that Scrabble was invented during the Great Depression by an unemployed architect called Alfred Butts. With a name like that, Mr Butts was surely no stranger to the power of word-play. Butts wanted to create a vocabulary-based game which nonetheless had an element of chance, and he called it the infinitely less-marketable ‘Criss-Cross Words’.
Butts was no linguist, but he hit on a cunning way to determine how frequently different letters should appear on Scrabble tiles: analysing the front page of the New York Times to see which were the most-used vowels and consonants in the English language. He deliberately limited the appearance of ‘S’ (just four per game) to deter plural words which would make the game too easy. A marketing partner suggested he change the name to ‘Scrabble’ after initial attempts to sell the game failed, and trademarked it in 1948. The rest is history – or at least, it was after the popular department store Macy’s began to stock the game, according to legend.
There’s a widespread notion that the people who work with language the most – writers, linguists – would be the best at Scrabble. Although Jegels himself is a writer and publisher, he says this idea simply doesn’t hold. “Many good Scrabble players are mathematicians. They seem to understand the probability of certain sets of tiles being picked. What is the probability of picking the word ‘retained?’ Very high; we’ve computed that.”
Scrabble players often rely on extremely obscure words to win their games. Jegels sends a photograph of the board after he’d won his final game at Nationals. The majority of words on it are unfamiliar: yag? Zoril? Qats?
“We don’t learn the meanings of all the words,” he explains. “It’s an extra memory burden to us. You just need to know that the word is there. As competitive players, the words represent opportunities to crush opponents with porcelain tiles. They’re like chess pieces.”
Like most competitive Scrabble players, Jegels learns lists of hundreds of thousands of words off by heart. Players take new words and re-arrange them alphabetically, to learn. Then, when the tiles are in front of the player, hopefully the memory prompt will supply the underlying word.
“We also have to learn all the anagrams of the words,” Jegels says. This allows players to choose the more obscure option, in order to make it more difficult for the next player to build off it. “Say you could play either RADIANT or INTRADA,” Jegels says.
Before tournaments, Jegels will play Scrabble intraday, every day. Sometimes he’ll have a flesh-and-blood training partner, he says, but more often than not he uses a software programme which analyses moves based on their potential score.
The computer programme he’s talking about is called “Quackle”, a seldom-heard word meaning “to choke”. In November 2006 it became the first piece of software to beat a Scrabble world champion in a best-of-5 match. “For competitive Scrabble players,” the Journal of Experimental Psychology noted, “the defeat of human intelligence by artificial intelligence is a watershed event comparable to the May 1997 win by IBM’s computer programme Deep Blue in a chess match against the reigning champion Gary Kasparov”.
The comparison between chess and Scrabble comes up several times during a conversation with Jegels, who loves playing chess as well. He acknowledges that Scrabble currently lacks the status or prestige of chess. “In time, that will come, but it will take a while because of its association with family fun,” he says. Jegels thinks one of the biggest misconceptions about Scrabble held by non-players is the role of luck.
Nonetheless, the outcome – a judge was called, the tiles were counted, and the cheat expelled – was less dramatic than the way scenes might have unfolded at the World Scrabble Championships in 2011. There a Thai player demanded that his British opponent be strip-searched in the toilet, accused of hiding the letter “G”. The judges ruled that such a search would be undignified, and replaced the missing G tile with a new one. The Brit went on to win the game by just one point.
“Scrabble is a game of personal honour; opponents police themselves and each other,” a compelling Sports Illustrated feature stated in 1995. “As a result it is rife with feuds and imagined slights and Floor tiles. Players are as sensitive as flowers to any sign of ‘coffeehousing’ – the practice of trying to throw off an opponent by slurping a drink.”
South Africa’s newly-crowned Scrabble champion, Llewellin Jegels, says that these kinds of intimidation attempts are routine. “Absolutely, it happens all the time,” Jegels told the Daily Maverick. Competitive Scrabble sounds… intense. “Social players are quite shocked to see how we play,” Jegels agrees. “There’s a chess clock, it’s one-on-one, the game has to be finished in 50 minutes.”
The story goes that Scrabble was invented during the Great Depression by an unemployed architect called Alfred Butts. With a name like that, Mr Butts was surely no stranger to the power of word-play. Butts wanted to create a vocabulary-based game which nonetheless had an element of chance, and he called it the infinitely less-marketable ‘Criss-Cross Words’.
Butts was no linguist, but he hit on a cunning way to determine how frequently different letters should appear on Scrabble tiles: analysing the front page of the New York Times to see which were the most-used vowels and consonants in the English language. He deliberately limited the appearance of ‘S’ (just four per game) to deter plural words which would make the game too easy. A marketing partner suggested he change the name to ‘Scrabble’ after initial attempts to sell the game failed, and trademarked it in 1948. The rest is history – or at least, it was after the popular department store Macy’s began to stock the game, according to legend.
There’s a widespread notion that the people who work with language the most – writers, linguists – would be the best at Scrabble. Although Jegels himself is a writer and publisher, he says this idea simply doesn’t hold. “Many good Scrabble players are mathematicians. They seem to understand the probability of certain sets of tiles being picked. What is the probability of picking the word ‘retained?’ Very high; we’ve computed that.”
Scrabble players often rely on extremely obscure words to win their games. Jegels sends a photograph of the board after he’d won his final game at Nationals. The majority of words on it are unfamiliar: yag? Zoril? Qats?
“We don’t learn the meanings of all the words,” he explains. “It’s an extra memory burden to us. You just need to know that the word is there. As competitive players, the words represent opportunities to crush opponents with porcelain tiles. They’re like chess pieces.”
Like most competitive Scrabble players, Jegels learns lists of hundreds of thousands of words off by heart. Players take new words and re-arrange them alphabetically, to learn. Then, when the tiles are in front of the player, hopefully the memory prompt will supply the underlying word.
“We also have to learn all the anagrams of the words,” Jegels says. This allows players to choose the more obscure option, in order to make it more difficult for the next player to build off it. “Say you could play either RADIANT or INTRADA,” Jegels says.
Before tournaments, Jegels will play Scrabble intraday, every day. Sometimes he’ll have a flesh-and-blood training partner, he says, but more often than not he uses a software programme which analyses moves based on their potential score.
The computer programme he’s talking about is called “Quackle”, a seldom-heard word meaning “to choke”. In November 2006 it became the first piece of software to beat a Scrabble world champion in a best-of-5 match. “For competitive Scrabble players,” the Journal of Experimental Psychology noted, “the defeat of human intelligence by artificial intelligence is a watershed event comparable to the May 1997 win by IBM’s computer programme Deep Blue in a chess match against the reigning champion Gary Kasparov”.
The comparison between chess and Scrabble comes up several times during a conversation with Jegels, who loves playing chess as well. He acknowledges that Scrabble currently lacks the status or prestige of chess. “In time, that will come, but it will take a while because of its association with family fun,” he says. Jegels thinks one of the biggest misconceptions about Scrabble held by non-players is the role of luck.
2013年6月8日星期六
Starbucks Stock May Benefit From Swipe Fee Battle
Because the $7.2 billion swipe fee settlement with Visa and MasterCard doesn't really settle the issue but merely delays it for eight months, Starbucks stock may ultimately benefit from the alternative payment processing path it is blazing.
Nineteen major retailers, including Starbucks, Wal-Mart, and Target, along with the National Federation of Independent Business, are opting out of the settlement and are considering pursuing new litigation against the credit card processors and the big banks like Bank of America, which are the ultimate recipients of the fees charged.
They allege the settlement does little to change an unfair system that costs consumers about $50 billion annually. Considering Visa and MasterCard agreed to pay $6 billion to settle the lawsuit, plus delay imposing the fees again for eight months -- a move that would cost them another $1.2 billion -- it amounts to little more than chump change when they reimpose the fees.
Yet some retailers are exploring alternatives to credit and debit card payments that can mitigate the cost of using plastic. Home Depot, for example, is pioneering the use of PayPal to complete a transaction at the cash register. The swipe fee issue was one reason the eBay payment solution is now available when you walk up to checkout, and the service has signed up 23 national retailers thus far, including Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfitters, and J.C. Penney.
But the more interesting option to my thinking is the mobile wallet solution, where you can quickly use your smartphone to pay for a product or service. The industry is still in its infancy, but market researchers at Berg Insight think it will turn into a $35 billion industry by 2017, though that's obviously still just a small portion of overall credit and Ceramic tile use. Still, it offers a path for retailers to follow.
Starbucks is the trendsetter here with a stupid-simple smartphone app, so easy to use, in fact, that of the $500 million worth of goods and services purchased last year using mobile wallet apps, almost all of them were conducted in a Starbucks. That underscores the statements made earlier this year by CEO Howard Schultz, who said the coffee slinger was processing 3 million mobile payment transactions a week.
If other retailers follow suit, creating equally easy-to-use apps that consumers can readily access (apparently not every mobile wallet app is as clean as Starbucks'), they could bypass the credit and debit card issuers and processors altogether, saving themselves and consumers billions.
The proliferation of smartphones combined with a simple-to-use app could lead to the decline of Visa and MasterCard. Not everyone is going to release their grip on plastic, of course, but I think the market researchers may be underestimating its potential, and there's little reason to doubt that Starbucks, as a first-mover here, will see its stock becoming one of the biggest beneficiaries of the coming boom.
The retail space is in the midst of the biggest paradigm shift since mail order took off at the turn of last century. Only those most forward-looking and capable companies will survive, and they'll handsomely reward those investors who understand the landscape. You can read about the 3 Companies Ready to Rule Retail in The Motley Fool's special report. Uncovering these top picks is free today; just click here to read more.
One of the smallest schools in the district brought home one of the biggest prizes last week! The Fort McMurray Christian School recently won the Oil Sands Discovery Centre “Science Olympics 2013”.
“We weren’t surprised they won,” said Principal Joe Champion, speaking of the team of grade 7 and 8 students who competed at last Thursday’s event. “They are smart kids and they put a lot of time and work into it. They were pretty excited to come back to the school and tell us the good news!”
The guidelines of the event were straight forward: Each team of six students was given two projects to work on in advance, while a third was kept secret until the end of the event. The Christian School Team – called SOTWACA (Science Olympic Team With A Cool Acronym) won the first event — the Golf Ball Tower. In this event, each team was asked to construct a tower using only plastic straws, 50 centimeters of tape, 30 paper clips and one index card. “It was hard because we didn’t have much tape,” said grade 7 student Celine Nyange. “But we practiced a lot and made it work!” In 30 minutes the students created the highest tower that would independently support a golf ball for at least one minute. “Our golf ball was still standing at the end of the afternoon” added Caleb Odeleye proudly.
The second challenge — constructing and flying a plane — turned out to be a little different. It worked, but it wasn’t the best! So the race to win the final “secret” event was on!
“Gravity is very Egg-Citing” was the name of the egg dropping adventure. All teams were provided with one cup of Styrofoam peanuts, some tissue paper and felt, a sheet of cardboard with scissors and wire, some string, tape, a 1 L milk carton and one raw egg. In 40 minutes the students made a container with just the right engineering skill to make sure it dropped from a distance equivalent to the top of an oilsands dump truck to the bull’s eye — without breaking the egg! Out of 8 teams, very few achieved this goal, and only one of them — The Christian School — was right on target! “We were really excited that we had a good drop” said Caleb, the “dropper” of the egg.
Nineteen major retailers, including Starbucks, Wal-Mart, and Target, along with the National Federation of Independent Business, are opting out of the settlement and are considering pursuing new litigation against the credit card processors and the big banks like Bank of America, which are the ultimate recipients of the fees charged.
They allege the settlement does little to change an unfair system that costs consumers about $50 billion annually. Considering Visa and MasterCard agreed to pay $6 billion to settle the lawsuit, plus delay imposing the fees again for eight months -- a move that would cost them another $1.2 billion -- it amounts to little more than chump change when they reimpose the fees.
Yet some retailers are exploring alternatives to credit and debit card payments that can mitigate the cost of using plastic. Home Depot, for example, is pioneering the use of PayPal to complete a transaction at the cash register. The swipe fee issue was one reason the eBay payment solution is now available when you walk up to checkout, and the service has signed up 23 national retailers thus far, including Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfitters, and J.C. Penney.
But the more interesting option to my thinking is the mobile wallet solution, where you can quickly use your smartphone to pay for a product or service. The industry is still in its infancy, but market researchers at Berg Insight think it will turn into a $35 billion industry by 2017, though that's obviously still just a small portion of overall credit and Ceramic tile use. Still, it offers a path for retailers to follow.
Starbucks is the trendsetter here with a stupid-simple smartphone app, so easy to use, in fact, that of the $500 million worth of goods and services purchased last year using mobile wallet apps, almost all of them were conducted in a Starbucks. That underscores the statements made earlier this year by CEO Howard Schultz, who said the coffee slinger was processing 3 million mobile payment transactions a week.
If other retailers follow suit, creating equally easy-to-use apps that consumers can readily access (apparently not every mobile wallet app is as clean as Starbucks'), they could bypass the credit and debit card issuers and processors altogether, saving themselves and consumers billions.
The proliferation of smartphones combined with a simple-to-use app could lead to the decline of Visa and MasterCard. Not everyone is going to release their grip on plastic, of course, but I think the market researchers may be underestimating its potential, and there's little reason to doubt that Starbucks, as a first-mover here, will see its stock becoming one of the biggest beneficiaries of the coming boom.
The retail space is in the midst of the biggest paradigm shift since mail order took off at the turn of last century. Only those most forward-looking and capable companies will survive, and they'll handsomely reward those investors who understand the landscape. You can read about the 3 Companies Ready to Rule Retail in The Motley Fool's special report. Uncovering these top picks is free today; just click here to read more.
One of the smallest schools in the district brought home one of the biggest prizes last week! The Fort McMurray Christian School recently won the Oil Sands Discovery Centre “Science Olympics 2013”.
“We weren’t surprised they won,” said Principal Joe Champion, speaking of the team of grade 7 and 8 students who competed at last Thursday’s event. “They are smart kids and they put a lot of time and work into it. They were pretty excited to come back to the school and tell us the good news!”
The guidelines of the event were straight forward: Each team of six students was given two projects to work on in advance, while a third was kept secret until the end of the event. The Christian School Team – called SOTWACA (Science Olympic Team With A Cool Acronym) won the first event — the Golf Ball Tower. In this event, each team was asked to construct a tower using only plastic straws, 50 centimeters of tape, 30 paper clips and one index card. “It was hard because we didn’t have much tape,” said grade 7 student Celine Nyange. “But we practiced a lot and made it work!” In 30 minutes the students created the highest tower that would independently support a golf ball for at least one minute. “Our golf ball was still standing at the end of the afternoon” added Caleb Odeleye proudly.
The second challenge — constructing and flying a plane — turned out to be a little different. It worked, but it wasn’t the best! So the race to win the final “secret” event was on!
“Gravity is very Egg-Citing” was the name of the egg dropping adventure. All teams were provided with one cup of Styrofoam peanuts, some tissue paper and felt, a sheet of cardboard with scissors and wire, some string, tape, a 1 L milk carton and one raw egg. In 40 minutes the students made a container with just the right engineering skill to make sure it dropped from a distance equivalent to the top of an oilsands dump truck to the bull’s eye — without breaking the egg! Out of 8 teams, very few achieved this goal, and only one of them — The Christian School — was right on target! “We were really excited that we had a good drop” said Caleb, the “dropper” of the egg.
2013年5月21日星期二
RTO runs out of smart cards
Owners of new vehicles have to wait for over two months to get them registered because the regional transport office (RTO) has run out of smart cards given as registration certificates.
Similar is the fate of all those who have applied for transfer of ownership - either because of vehicles changing hands or getting the hypothecation tags off the registration documents.
"The situation is same across the state. As far as the queue of individuals seeking new registration certificate books is concerned, there are at least 11,000 people in waiting for over three months," deputy regional transport officer Jayant Patil said.
He said the problem rose because the vendor who has been given the contract to prepare, print and supply the cards was importing those from a manufacturer in China. "It takes some time for the card to reach. Besides, it's a state-wide problem and the shortage is being felt everywhere. Senior officials in the department are aware of the problem," he added.
Patil, however, said the RTO, Nashik had received a consignment of 1,000 cards, which would be processed and posted to the respective customers.
"We are in receipt of some cards - about 1,000 in numbers. Those are being signed and posted. We will get another batch of nearly 3,000 cards. These cards would be ready to be delivered in a matter of three-to-four days. We hope that our office will be in a position to clear the outstanding rush within two weeks," the officer said.
Kishor Rahane, a resident of Nashik Road, said, "I had taken a bank loan to buy my car. I have cleared the loan and applied to get hypothecation mark off in February. But I am yet to receive any communication from the Ceramic tile."
The department had outsourced the job of computerizing records of registration documents and driving licences and issuing fresh registration documents and driving licences to a consortium as part of a public-private partnership.
The private vendor has set up the necessary infrastructure and the manpower to do the job and gets a share of the revenue. For every new driving licence and a registration certificate, a fee of Rs 200 and Rs 350 is collected, respectively. The vendor gets a share of Rs 83 in each driving licence issued. There is no vendor's share in the issuance of the registration certificate, the official said.
Price optimization strategies and adaptable technology are vital to ensuring retailers’ competitive advantage, success and growth. By using electronic shelf labels (ESL) with E Ink’s technology, retailers have the ability to change pricing strategies as needed in real time, allowing them to stay one step ahead of competitors while attracting consumers based on changing market conditions. Spectra allows retailers to elevate the impact of their ESLs, by adding color to logos and quickly directing consumers’ attention to important information, such as product sales and promotions.
“The three pigment system is a major achievement for E Ink, and a technological accomplishment in our industry,” explained Giovanni Mancini, director of product management, E Ink. “As the first product line to feature this advanced ink, Spectra provides retailers with the same visual and power savings attributes of our black and white ESL products, with the option of adding a third color to highlight promotions or other relevant information.”
“We are excited to see the addition of color, something requested by many of our customers,” said Niclas Qvist, Head of Marketing and Global Partner Management at Pricer, the leading Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) solution provider. “Pricer use E Ink’s e-paper in all our graphic products today. E Ink and Pricer are leading the way by giving shoppers the best in-store experience with clear and easy to read price tags. Product development is guided by market feedback and the first products will be developed in close cooperation with both E Ink and selected customers.”
“Pervasive Displays is committed to delivering innovative electronic paper enhancements and solutions that enable revolutionary commercial industrial electronic paper display applications,” said Scott Soong, CEO of Pervasive Displays. “Adding color to electronic paper is an effective advancement to this technology. Color adds the benefit of being able to quickly draw attention to specific messages – in retail, red is prevalent for promotions; in other industries red is used for exception management. The ability to quickly discern the importance of a message is critical in any environment.”
Spectra will support both active matrix and segmented format ESLs, making it the ideal product for a range of retail applications. The three pigment EPD is also appropriate for industrial, smart card and medical market applications, where Spectra can be used to display information on electronic identification badges.
Providing low power usage and cost optimization through a 5-volt driving capability, Aurora supports applications in conditions as cold as -25 C. Additionally; Aurora has been tuned for non-eReader applications, and is ideal for electronic shelf labels (ESLs) and smart cards in the retail, medical and logistics markets. Aurora will be available to partners and customers starting in July 2013.
The release of Aurora is an indication of E Ink’s product diversification strategy and commitment to providing the ESL market with an extremely durable, low power display technology. While eReaders continue to be an important market for E Ink, and the company is unequivocally committed to the eReader product line, E Ink believes that its unique technology addresses retailers’ and business owners’ needs to install displays in previously impossible or impractical locations across markets.
“Opticon is excited to work with E Ink to expand our portfolio of e-paper based electronic shelf labeling (ESL) products. With the integration of a low temp film, we can finally install our ESL solution into all departments in a grocery or convenience store,” said Mike Waters, Opticon, Inc. “To date, we’ve lacked the technical capability to operate our wireless shelf tags inside a freezer, limiting the opportunities to completely eliminate manual paper price changes. Opticon will now be able to offer a line of IP rated freezer tags in 2″, 2.7″, 4.41″, and 7.4″ form factors.”
“Pervasive Displays is committed to advancing the use of electronic paper in industrial applications,” said Scott Soong, CEO of Pervasive Displays. “The new Aurora product from E Ink extends the reach of electronic paper to cold chain applications, signage, automotive and a myriad of additional industries, unlocking new ROI potential for e-paper applications.”
“Inaccurate prices are one of consumers’ major gripes when shopping at supermarkets,” said Giovanni Mancini, director of product management, E Ink. “With an average of close to 40,000 items carried in supermarkets, effective price management can become a herculean task. At E Ink we believe that ESLs not only cut down on the instances of mislabelled information, but also can ultimately help retail stores maximize profits.”
Similar is the fate of all those who have applied for transfer of ownership - either because of vehicles changing hands or getting the hypothecation tags off the registration documents.
"The situation is same across the state. As far as the queue of individuals seeking new registration certificate books is concerned, there are at least 11,000 people in waiting for over three months," deputy regional transport officer Jayant Patil said.
He said the problem rose because the vendor who has been given the contract to prepare, print and supply the cards was importing those from a manufacturer in China. "It takes some time for the card to reach. Besides, it's a state-wide problem and the shortage is being felt everywhere. Senior officials in the department are aware of the problem," he added.
Patil, however, said the RTO, Nashik had received a consignment of 1,000 cards, which would be processed and posted to the respective customers.
"We are in receipt of some cards - about 1,000 in numbers. Those are being signed and posted. We will get another batch of nearly 3,000 cards. These cards would be ready to be delivered in a matter of three-to-four days. We hope that our office will be in a position to clear the outstanding rush within two weeks," the officer said.
Kishor Rahane, a resident of Nashik Road, said, "I had taken a bank loan to buy my car. I have cleared the loan and applied to get hypothecation mark off in February. But I am yet to receive any communication from the Ceramic tile."
The department had outsourced the job of computerizing records of registration documents and driving licences and issuing fresh registration documents and driving licences to a consortium as part of a public-private partnership.
The private vendor has set up the necessary infrastructure and the manpower to do the job and gets a share of the revenue. For every new driving licence and a registration certificate, a fee of Rs 200 and Rs 350 is collected, respectively. The vendor gets a share of Rs 83 in each driving licence issued. There is no vendor's share in the issuance of the registration certificate, the official said.
Price optimization strategies and adaptable technology are vital to ensuring retailers’ competitive advantage, success and growth. By using electronic shelf labels (ESL) with E Ink’s technology, retailers have the ability to change pricing strategies as needed in real time, allowing them to stay one step ahead of competitors while attracting consumers based on changing market conditions. Spectra allows retailers to elevate the impact of their ESLs, by adding color to logos and quickly directing consumers’ attention to important information, such as product sales and promotions.
“The three pigment system is a major achievement for E Ink, and a technological accomplishment in our industry,” explained Giovanni Mancini, director of product management, E Ink. “As the first product line to feature this advanced ink, Spectra provides retailers with the same visual and power savings attributes of our black and white ESL products, with the option of adding a third color to highlight promotions or other relevant information.”
“We are excited to see the addition of color, something requested by many of our customers,” said Niclas Qvist, Head of Marketing and Global Partner Management at Pricer, the leading Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) solution provider. “Pricer use E Ink’s e-paper in all our graphic products today. E Ink and Pricer are leading the way by giving shoppers the best in-store experience with clear and easy to read price tags. Product development is guided by market feedback and the first products will be developed in close cooperation with both E Ink and selected customers.”
“Pervasive Displays is committed to delivering innovative electronic paper enhancements and solutions that enable revolutionary commercial industrial electronic paper display applications,” said Scott Soong, CEO of Pervasive Displays. “Adding color to electronic paper is an effective advancement to this technology. Color adds the benefit of being able to quickly draw attention to specific messages – in retail, red is prevalent for promotions; in other industries red is used for exception management. The ability to quickly discern the importance of a message is critical in any environment.”
Spectra will support both active matrix and segmented format ESLs, making it the ideal product for a range of retail applications. The three pigment EPD is also appropriate for industrial, smart card and medical market applications, where Spectra can be used to display information on electronic identification badges.
Providing low power usage and cost optimization through a 5-volt driving capability, Aurora supports applications in conditions as cold as -25 C. Additionally; Aurora has been tuned for non-eReader applications, and is ideal for electronic shelf labels (ESLs) and smart cards in the retail, medical and logistics markets. Aurora will be available to partners and customers starting in July 2013.
The release of Aurora is an indication of E Ink’s product diversification strategy and commitment to providing the ESL market with an extremely durable, low power display technology. While eReaders continue to be an important market for E Ink, and the company is unequivocally committed to the eReader product line, E Ink believes that its unique technology addresses retailers’ and business owners’ needs to install displays in previously impossible or impractical locations across markets.
“Opticon is excited to work with E Ink to expand our portfolio of e-paper based electronic shelf labeling (ESL) products. With the integration of a low temp film, we can finally install our ESL solution into all departments in a grocery or convenience store,” said Mike Waters, Opticon, Inc. “To date, we’ve lacked the technical capability to operate our wireless shelf tags inside a freezer, limiting the opportunities to completely eliminate manual paper price changes. Opticon will now be able to offer a line of IP rated freezer tags in 2″, 2.7″, 4.41″, and 7.4″ form factors.”
“Pervasive Displays is committed to advancing the use of electronic paper in industrial applications,” said Scott Soong, CEO of Pervasive Displays. “The new Aurora product from E Ink extends the reach of electronic paper to cold chain applications, signage, automotive and a myriad of additional industries, unlocking new ROI potential for e-paper applications.”
“Inaccurate prices are one of consumers’ major gripes when shopping at supermarkets,” said Giovanni Mancini, director of product management, E Ink. “With an average of close to 40,000 items carried in supermarkets, effective price management can become a herculean task. At E Ink we believe that ESLs not only cut down on the instances of mislabelled information, but also can ultimately help retail stores maximize profits.”
2013年4月27日星期六
Northwestern embarks on more major construction projects
After a winter hiatus, the University picked back up with
construction projects this quarter and began preparations for six new
ones by the end of 2014.
In addition to ongoing work on the visitors center and the new performing arts center, NU will start upgrades to various existing buildings. Current and future construction projects over the next few years represent a campus-wide overhaul of the universitys academic, athletic and housing facilities that costs hundreds of millions of dollars.
Significant progress has been made on the new building for the Bienen School of Music and School of Communication, with structural framing completed for four of the five floors, said Bonnie Humphrey, director of design and construction for Facilities Management. The $117 million building, to be finished in the fall of 2015, will house administrative offices and a recital hall.
Work began this quarter on the expansion of the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion and Aquatics Center, as well as construction of an adjoining parking structure. Students must now enter SPAC from a south door as part of a permanent change to the structure, and much of the parking lot is now inaccessible.
A multipurpose recreation center, including a juice bar and sports medicine facilities, will occupy the first floor of the building,Shop wholesale bestsmartcard controller from cheap. and the School of Communications speech and hearing clinics will relocate there from the Frances Searle Building. The first floor should be ready for use next summer, and parking will be available by February, said Ron Nayler, associate vice president of Facilities Management.
Although Nayler said work on the new visitors center is well underway, design took longer than expected. The garage will be operational at the beginning of 2014, and the visitors center should be occupied next summer, Nayler said.
The Technological Institute will grow even more this summer, with the addition of three new infills to form a new wing. Breaking ground next month, the project includes new lab space and imaging facilities. Estimated for completion in spring 2015, the renovations total $145 million.
Improvements will also be made this summer to Chapin Humanities Residential College, and Hobart House will undergo extensive renovation, totaling $10 to $11 million.
In the spring of 2014, the University will break ground on a new $288 million building for Kellogg and the Department of Economics. Currently in its design phase, the building already has a decent chunk of funding behind it from years of saving, said Jim Hurley, associate vice president for budget and planning. The use of the Jacobs Center is still under evaluation, but it will likely be repurposed for the social sciences,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. Humphrey said.
The most recent draft of Swarthmores Campus Master Plan, presented to the College community at a meeting in March, works off of assumptions that faculty, students, and staff will grow, perhaps by the hundreds, over the next couple of decades. If the past is any proof, additional people will be accompanied by additional cars, as well as additional parking spaces. However, some faculty and staff are working to show that there are alternative means of managing transportation needs that can minimize the environmental impacts of the anticipated community growth.
The Parking and Transportation Master Plan Advisory Committee, which is tasked with developing policy recommendations by the beginning of the fall, will meet for their first policy discussion today. The Committee, whose work will be incorporated into the Master Planning process, will continue to meet through the summer so that the Master Plan can be finalized in September.
That committee, whose members include Executive Assistant for Facilities and Services Paula Dale, Senior Director of Corporate, Foundation, and Government Relations Nadine Kolowrat, Provost Tom Stephenson, Public Safety Director Mike Hill, Vice President for Facilities and Services Stu Hain, Engineering Professor Erik Cheever,You can order besthandsfreeaccess cheap inside your parents. Jennifer Walsh 15, and eleven others, will work to find ways to accommodate future growth, and, some members say, encourage faculty, students, and staff to ditch their cars entirely in favor of walking or riding public transit to campus.
The Master Planning process, which began in earnest last fall, looks ahead over the next couple of decades to the potential construction projectsCsuch as the Inn, a new Science Center II, and additions to Willets and McCabeCthat may eventually change the face of campus. At a meeting in January, a number of faculty raised concerns that the building boom might be accompanied by what they believe is a reckless expansion of surface parking on campus.
Those faculty were not the only ones wondering how campus commuting and transportation patterns affect the College community, especially its carbon footprint. Kolowrat, who sits on Swarthmores Sustainability Committee, was one of several Sustainability Committee members who pushed for the Committees associated with the Campus Master Plan to commission a transportation demand management (TDM) study. She got the idea for such a study after hearing about efforts at Oregon State University that she says dramatically reduced reliance on single-occupancy vehicles for commuters.
That push was apparent in a letter the Sustainability Committee submitted to the Master Plan committees and posted on the Master Plans website. That letter argues that growth in parking capacity should be kept to a minimum and calls for a TDM study to be incorporated into the Master Plan.
Dale said that the Sustainability Committee made an impassioned plea to the Campus Master Plan Committee to be thoughtful about sustainability in the master plan. In response to the letter, the College has retained Chance Management Advisors, a parking management consulting firm, to advise stakeholders in the Master Planning process.
The role of Chance Advisors,Compare prices and buy all brands of luggagetag for home power systems and by the pallet. said Dale, is to help us with the whole master plan, which includes studying parking and transportation existing conditions, making predictions for the future, and a piece of that is considering how [we] could shape and hopefully reduce the number of spaces that we need. She said the group with also look at some policy questions like do we want to discourage people from driving to campus or not.
In the fall, when the TDM study is completed, Dale said,Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a chipcards can authenticate your computer usage and data. the Committee will recommend to senior staff a series of policies that we feel are in the best interests of the College for parking and transportation and a series of procedures to support those policies. [...] Weve made a conscious decision that nothing is firm [in Master Planning] until weve heard back from those involved with the Parking and Transportation committee and the TDM study.
According to Kolowrat, those policy recommendations might include incentivizing ride-sharing, carpooling, ZipCars, mass transit, biking, walking, and moreCall of which would have the added benefit of helping the College meet its Climate Action Plan commitments for carbon reduction. As of now, the Climate Action Plan calls to deal with the carbon impact of transportation solely through carbon offsets.
In addition to ongoing work on the visitors center and the new performing arts center, NU will start upgrades to various existing buildings. Current and future construction projects over the next few years represent a campus-wide overhaul of the universitys academic, athletic and housing facilities that costs hundreds of millions of dollars.
Significant progress has been made on the new building for the Bienen School of Music and School of Communication, with structural framing completed for four of the five floors, said Bonnie Humphrey, director of design and construction for Facilities Management. The $117 million building, to be finished in the fall of 2015, will house administrative offices and a recital hall.
Work began this quarter on the expansion of the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion and Aquatics Center, as well as construction of an adjoining parking structure. Students must now enter SPAC from a south door as part of a permanent change to the structure, and much of the parking lot is now inaccessible.
A multipurpose recreation center, including a juice bar and sports medicine facilities, will occupy the first floor of the building,Shop wholesale bestsmartcard controller from cheap. and the School of Communications speech and hearing clinics will relocate there from the Frances Searle Building. The first floor should be ready for use next summer, and parking will be available by February, said Ron Nayler, associate vice president of Facilities Management.
Although Nayler said work on the new visitors center is well underway, design took longer than expected. The garage will be operational at the beginning of 2014, and the visitors center should be occupied next summer, Nayler said.
The Technological Institute will grow even more this summer, with the addition of three new infills to form a new wing. Breaking ground next month, the project includes new lab space and imaging facilities. Estimated for completion in spring 2015, the renovations total $145 million.
Improvements will also be made this summer to Chapin Humanities Residential College, and Hobart House will undergo extensive renovation, totaling $10 to $11 million.
In the spring of 2014, the University will break ground on a new $288 million building for Kellogg and the Department of Economics. Currently in its design phase, the building already has a decent chunk of funding behind it from years of saving, said Jim Hurley, associate vice president for budget and planning. The use of the Jacobs Center is still under evaluation, but it will likely be repurposed for the social sciences,Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms. Humphrey said.
The most recent draft of Swarthmores Campus Master Plan, presented to the College community at a meeting in March, works off of assumptions that faculty, students, and staff will grow, perhaps by the hundreds, over the next couple of decades. If the past is any proof, additional people will be accompanied by additional cars, as well as additional parking spaces. However, some faculty and staff are working to show that there are alternative means of managing transportation needs that can minimize the environmental impacts of the anticipated community growth.
The Parking and Transportation Master Plan Advisory Committee, which is tasked with developing policy recommendations by the beginning of the fall, will meet for their first policy discussion today. The Committee, whose work will be incorporated into the Master Planning process, will continue to meet through the summer so that the Master Plan can be finalized in September.
That committee, whose members include Executive Assistant for Facilities and Services Paula Dale, Senior Director of Corporate, Foundation, and Government Relations Nadine Kolowrat, Provost Tom Stephenson, Public Safety Director Mike Hill, Vice President for Facilities and Services Stu Hain, Engineering Professor Erik Cheever,You can order besthandsfreeaccess cheap inside your parents. Jennifer Walsh 15, and eleven others, will work to find ways to accommodate future growth, and, some members say, encourage faculty, students, and staff to ditch their cars entirely in favor of walking or riding public transit to campus.
The Master Planning process, which began in earnest last fall, looks ahead over the next couple of decades to the potential construction projectsCsuch as the Inn, a new Science Center II, and additions to Willets and McCabeCthat may eventually change the face of campus. At a meeting in January, a number of faculty raised concerns that the building boom might be accompanied by what they believe is a reckless expansion of surface parking on campus.
Those faculty were not the only ones wondering how campus commuting and transportation patterns affect the College community, especially its carbon footprint. Kolowrat, who sits on Swarthmores Sustainability Committee, was one of several Sustainability Committee members who pushed for the Committees associated with the Campus Master Plan to commission a transportation demand management (TDM) study. She got the idea for such a study after hearing about efforts at Oregon State University that she says dramatically reduced reliance on single-occupancy vehicles for commuters.
That push was apparent in a letter the Sustainability Committee submitted to the Master Plan committees and posted on the Master Plans website. That letter argues that growth in parking capacity should be kept to a minimum and calls for a TDM study to be incorporated into the Master Plan.
Dale said that the Sustainability Committee made an impassioned plea to the Campus Master Plan Committee to be thoughtful about sustainability in the master plan. In response to the letter, the College has retained Chance Management Advisors, a parking management consulting firm, to advise stakeholders in the Master Planning process.
The role of Chance Advisors,Compare prices and buy all brands of luggagetag for home power systems and by the pallet. said Dale, is to help us with the whole master plan, which includes studying parking and transportation existing conditions, making predictions for the future, and a piece of that is considering how [we] could shape and hopefully reduce the number of spaces that we need. She said the group with also look at some policy questions like do we want to discourage people from driving to campus or not.
In the fall, when the TDM study is completed, Dale said,Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a chipcards can authenticate your computer usage and data. the Committee will recommend to senior staff a series of policies that we feel are in the best interests of the College for parking and transportation and a series of procedures to support those policies. [...] Weve made a conscious decision that nothing is firm [in Master Planning] until weve heard back from those involved with the Parking and Transportation committee and the TDM study.
According to Kolowrat, those policy recommendations might include incentivizing ride-sharing, carpooling, ZipCars, mass transit, biking, walking, and moreCall of which would have the added benefit of helping the College meet its Climate Action Plan commitments for carbon reduction. As of now, the Climate Action Plan calls to deal with the carbon impact of transportation solely through carbon offsets.
2013年3月14日星期四
Is cash-only good or bad for businesses, customers?
For some local businesses, credit cards aren't worth the hassle or
the cost. Consequently, more entertainment spots – particularly
restaurants and bars – want payment in cold, hard cash.
When Ruby Erickson, co-owner of The Soup House, 324 E. Michigan St., purchased the business with her mother three years ago, it was already cash-only, and so they decided to keep it that way.
"I just don't think it's necessary for us to take credit cards. Our transactions are for very little amounts: $6, $7, $8," says Erickson.
Erickson says not having to work with credit card transaction companies makes her job easier.The term 'bobbleheads control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. She also appreciates not having to deal with malfunctioning credit card machines.
Michael Schmidt is the business development manager for SwipeWorks, Inc., a company that works with Wisconsin-based small and medium-sized businesses with the mission to provide cost-effective credit / debit card payment options.
According to Schmidt, the overall cost of accepting credit cards for most businesses is between 1.75 percent and 3.5 percent or more. He understands the impact the fees could have on some businesses, but on the flip slide,We turn your dark into light courtesy of our brilliant sun, stonemosaic, solar power generation. believes businesses miss out on sales when they are cash-only.
"Studies have shown that the average ticket is higher for a credit card sale than a cash sale. Even for quick-service type restaurants, consumers paying with plastic are more likely to purchase the add-ons such as sides,A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose indoortracking by Gordon. and up-sells like specialty beverages," says Schmidt, the former owner of the now-defunct burger and custard chain, Bella's Fat Cat. "I definitely saw that to be the case in my former life as a restaurant owner."
Kaitlin Larson says she spends at least $100 a week at bars and restaurants and is very annoyed when she can't use a credit or debit card.
"When I go out, I don't bring a purse. I just want to tuck my card somewhere and not have to worry about carrying cash or anything else," says Larson.
Sometimes, bars or restaurants with a cash-only policy have an ATM installed on the premises so customers can access money if they were unaware of the policy. Some customers, however, do not find this adequate.
"Why should I pay an extra $3 or $4 to get cash? Shouldn't the restaurant pay for the transaction on their end?" says Larson.
Woodman's Markets has had a no credit card policy since it opened its first location in 1978. In 2004, the company started to accept debit cards along with cash or checks. Although some customers grumble, it works for the company because, it claims, that policy is in part why the stores are able to keep prices low.
If you’re in the market for a new smartphone in the next few weeks, the HTC One will be just one of several massively impressive hero devices released by major brands – and you’ll have a really fun decision on your hands. Here at the tail end of Winter in the year 2013 we’ve entered an age of quad-core mobile processors,Bay State hemorrho is a full line manufacturer of nylon cable ties and related products. wireless connectivity so diverse it’ll make your head spin, and cameras on smartphones made much more powerful than your average point-and-shoot. So here we’ve got the HTC One, the best new hope for the company to revive the once (and perhaps future) glory they’ve cultivated in the Android universe. The HTC One may very well be your ticket to today’s greatest smartphone package of all.
Right this minute, the HTC One is a beast – and though it may not look at first to be all that unique from afar, it is certainly beautiful up close and personal. HTC has pushed together a device that’s as initially impressive as the HTC One X seemed to be inside a package that’s perfected in metal. Your hands and eyes will be happy to experience the HTC One – and your ears will be blown away by the speakers – more on that with “BoomSound” in the Hardware Design section below.
With this device you’ll find what HTC wants to present as their single greatest creation – CNC-centric manufacturing, metal where possible, plastic around the edges in all the right places, and an overall “one-ness”,Compare prices and buy all brands of bestrtls for home power systems and by the pallet. if you will. This device looks like Apple could have made it – place it next to your MacBook Pro and you’ll instantly see how aluminum makes for a rather striking look, just as much as it feels high-quality.
The top of this device has a power button that doubles as an IR-blaster for controlling your TV set up on the left – it will take some getting used to, having worked with more Android devices in the past with the same button up in the right than the opposite in the past several years. The upper right has a headphone jack as well – enhanced by Beats audio and sounding just as fantastic through the included pair of earbuds as any smartphone we’ve yet experienced.
The right of the device has a metal volume button with a circular-ridged face that reminds one of the Motorola DROID RAZR family from these past few months – it’s not an unwelcome addition to the HTC family, mind you, and it feels right at home with the aluminum body on the front and back of this machine. On the left of the device you’ll find a tiny hole next to a pop-out SIM card tray – this is also becoming quite the common hardware feature across the board in the smartphone universe.
When Ruby Erickson, co-owner of The Soup House, 324 E. Michigan St., purchased the business with her mother three years ago, it was already cash-only, and so they decided to keep it that way.
"I just don't think it's necessary for us to take credit cards. Our transactions are for very little amounts: $6, $7, $8," says Erickson.
Erickson says not having to work with credit card transaction companies makes her job easier.The term 'bobbleheads control' means the token that identifies a user is read from within a pocket or handbag. She also appreciates not having to deal with malfunctioning credit card machines.
Michael Schmidt is the business development manager for SwipeWorks, Inc., a company that works with Wisconsin-based small and medium-sized businesses with the mission to provide cost-effective credit / debit card payment options.
According to Schmidt, the overall cost of accepting credit cards for most businesses is between 1.75 percent and 3.5 percent or more. He understands the impact the fees could have on some businesses, but on the flip slide,We turn your dark into light courtesy of our brilliant sun, stonemosaic, solar power generation. believes businesses miss out on sales when they are cash-only.
"Studies have shown that the average ticket is higher for a credit card sale than a cash sale. Even for quick-service type restaurants, consumers paying with plastic are more likely to purchase the add-ons such as sides,A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose indoortracking by Gordon. and up-sells like specialty beverages," says Schmidt, the former owner of the now-defunct burger and custard chain, Bella's Fat Cat. "I definitely saw that to be the case in my former life as a restaurant owner."
Kaitlin Larson says she spends at least $100 a week at bars and restaurants and is very annoyed when she can't use a credit or debit card.
"When I go out, I don't bring a purse. I just want to tuck my card somewhere and not have to worry about carrying cash or anything else," says Larson.
Sometimes, bars or restaurants with a cash-only policy have an ATM installed on the premises so customers can access money if they were unaware of the policy. Some customers, however, do not find this adequate.
"Why should I pay an extra $3 or $4 to get cash? Shouldn't the restaurant pay for the transaction on their end?" says Larson.
Woodman's Markets has had a no credit card policy since it opened its first location in 1978. In 2004, the company started to accept debit cards along with cash or checks. Although some customers grumble, it works for the company because, it claims, that policy is in part why the stores are able to keep prices low.
If you’re in the market for a new smartphone in the next few weeks, the HTC One will be just one of several massively impressive hero devices released by major brands – and you’ll have a really fun decision on your hands. Here at the tail end of Winter in the year 2013 we’ve entered an age of quad-core mobile processors,Bay State hemorrho is a full line manufacturer of nylon cable ties and related products. wireless connectivity so diverse it’ll make your head spin, and cameras on smartphones made much more powerful than your average point-and-shoot. So here we’ve got the HTC One, the best new hope for the company to revive the once (and perhaps future) glory they’ve cultivated in the Android universe. The HTC One may very well be your ticket to today’s greatest smartphone package of all.
Right this minute, the HTC One is a beast – and though it may not look at first to be all that unique from afar, it is certainly beautiful up close and personal. HTC has pushed together a device that’s as initially impressive as the HTC One X seemed to be inside a package that’s perfected in metal. Your hands and eyes will be happy to experience the HTC One – and your ears will be blown away by the speakers – more on that with “BoomSound” in the Hardware Design section below.
With this device you’ll find what HTC wants to present as their single greatest creation – CNC-centric manufacturing, metal where possible, plastic around the edges in all the right places, and an overall “one-ness”,Compare prices and buy all brands of bestrtls for home power systems and by the pallet. if you will. This device looks like Apple could have made it – place it next to your MacBook Pro and you’ll instantly see how aluminum makes for a rather striking look, just as much as it feels high-quality.
The top of this device has a power button that doubles as an IR-blaster for controlling your TV set up on the left – it will take some getting used to, having worked with more Android devices in the past with the same button up in the right than the opposite in the past several years. The upper right has a headphone jack as well – enhanced by Beats audio and sounding just as fantastic through the included pair of earbuds as any smartphone we’ve yet experienced.
The right of the device has a metal volume button with a circular-ridged face that reminds one of the Motorola DROID RAZR family from these past few months – it’s not an unwelcome addition to the HTC family, mind you, and it feels right at home with the aluminum body on the front and back of this machine. On the left of the device you’ll find a tiny hole next to a pop-out SIM card tray – this is also becoming quite the common hardware feature across the board in the smartphone universe.
2013年2月4日星期一
PHCC offering students, residents opportunity to live
Ever since Patrick Henry Community College Professor Gerry Bannan studied in Rome, he has hoped for an opportunity to share the experience with other students and aspiring artists.
Now, with the help of another art teacher with a local connection, he is getting that chance.
PHCC will offer its first study abroad program from June 4 through July 16 in Todi, Italy, for a class of about eight students, the school has announced. Bannan, a professor of fine arts at PHCC, will lead the group on the six-week course of study worth six transferable credits in the arts and humanities toward an associate or bachelor’s degree, according to a PHCC flyer for the program.
However, the program is not just for current students. Bannan said it is available to anyone in the community interested in traveling or learning about other cultures.
“We know the participation in study abroad programs really changes people’s lives,” he said.
Todi is referred to in the program’s flyer as “a small medieval city” located about two hours north of Rome and two hours south of Florence. Bannan said studies during the course would include painting, archaeology, pottery art restoration and history.
Students will travel to Rome, Florence and the Vatican, as well as several art galleries. The idea of the program is to be “intensive,” according to Bannan and his colleague, Allison Hall, who helped him plot a course for the program.
“This is about students moving to this town (Todi) and integrating themselves into the community,” said Hall, a Martinsville native and graduate of Fieldale-Collinsville High School. She is a visiting assistant professor at Hollins University in Roanoke, as well as the creator and program director of Hollins’ study abroad program in Todi.
Hall went to Todi as an undergraduate landscape painter and “fell in love with the place,” she said. “When I landed there I knew I wanted to work on making the place a part of my life.”
Hall moved to Italy after graduate school at American University in Washington and spends about half of the year there. She spends the rest of the time in Roanoke.
Both Hall and Bannan referred to the program is “immersive.” Part of that involves learning from local artists, restorers and historians.
Bannan, who also lives in Roanoke, started discussing with Hall the possibility of creating a study abroad program in Todi last semester.
“We started talking about it nonchalantly, and (Bannan) mentioned that they should try to get kids from Martinsville there,” Hall said “Gerry and I just started putting our heads together on how to make it happen.”
Hall, who developed the Hollins program in 2005, will teach humanities and Bannan will teach painting during the course. Both Hollins and PHCC students will be in Todi at the same time, Hall said, which made it easier for she and Bannan to set up PHCC’s program.
By already being in Todi with Hollins students, Hall said, “I could help Gerry work out the logistics for his group.”
Hall now is an abstract painter. A collection of works based on her experiences in Italy soon will be displayed at The Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, she said.
Both Hall and Bannan stressed that an interest in painting is not a prerequisite for the program, only an interest in learning about other cultures. Bannan also cautioned prospective students against assuming such a trip would be out of reach for them.
“I think sometimes my student population feels it’s too remote for them to expect to be able to do (this),” Bannan said. “We want to make sure people have the opportunity.”
According to PHCC’s flyer for the program, the total cost for the six-week study is $4,740. However, that amount does not include airfare, Bannan said. Financial assistance also may be available, he added.
Bannan said he doesn’t want to “let cost discourage people from at least finding out about it. It can be a wonderful component to a traditional student’s academic career.”
This was Lincoln's summer home, where he and his family escaped Washington's heat and humidity. Located on a breezy hill three miles from the White House, it was the 19th-century equivalent of contemporary presidential retreats like Camp David. A statue of Lincoln and his horse evoke his daily half-hour commute to the White House on horseback. He first visited the house three days after his inauguration and last rode to the site the day before he was shot.
Wagonloads of furniture were brought here each summer from the White House. But unlike many historic sites, the house today is not filled with furniture or personal items, and that's the point. Guided tours of the mostly empty rooms emphasize Lincoln's ideas and the people he encountered during his stays here and on his daily rides, from favor-seekers and foreigners to former slaves and soldiers. You'll stand in the room where he read Shakespeare and the Bible, hear about his meetings with the secretary of war, see the view from the porch that once offered a clear sightline all the way to downtown Washington, and walk up the stairs where his footsteps were heard when he couldn't sleep. Through April 30, an exhibit here displays one of just 26 existing signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Now, with the help of another art teacher with a local connection, he is getting that chance.
PHCC will offer its first study abroad program from June 4 through July 16 in Todi, Italy, for a class of about eight students, the school has announced. Bannan, a professor of fine arts at PHCC, will lead the group on the six-week course of study worth six transferable credits in the arts and humanities toward an associate or bachelor’s degree, according to a PHCC flyer for the program.
However, the program is not just for current students. Bannan said it is available to anyone in the community interested in traveling or learning about other cultures.
“We know the participation in study abroad programs really changes people’s lives,” he said.
Todi is referred to in the program’s flyer as “a small medieval city” located about two hours north of Rome and two hours south of Florence. Bannan said studies during the course would include painting, archaeology, pottery art restoration and history.
Students will travel to Rome, Florence and the Vatican, as well as several art galleries. The idea of the program is to be “intensive,” according to Bannan and his colleague, Allison Hall, who helped him plot a course for the program.
“This is about students moving to this town (Todi) and integrating themselves into the community,” said Hall, a Martinsville native and graduate of Fieldale-Collinsville High School. She is a visiting assistant professor at Hollins University in Roanoke, as well as the creator and program director of Hollins’ study abroad program in Todi.
Hall went to Todi as an undergraduate landscape painter and “fell in love with the place,” she said. “When I landed there I knew I wanted to work on making the place a part of my life.”
Hall moved to Italy after graduate school at American University in Washington and spends about half of the year there. She spends the rest of the time in Roanoke.
Both Hall and Bannan referred to the program is “immersive.” Part of that involves learning from local artists, restorers and historians.
Bannan, who also lives in Roanoke, started discussing with Hall the possibility of creating a study abroad program in Todi last semester.
“We started talking about it nonchalantly, and (Bannan) mentioned that they should try to get kids from Martinsville there,” Hall said “Gerry and I just started putting our heads together on how to make it happen.”
Hall, who developed the Hollins program in 2005, will teach humanities and Bannan will teach painting during the course. Both Hollins and PHCC students will be in Todi at the same time, Hall said, which made it easier for she and Bannan to set up PHCC’s program.
By already being in Todi with Hollins students, Hall said, “I could help Gerry work out the logistics for his group.”
Hall now is an abstract painter. A collection of works based on her experiences in Italy soon will be displayed at The Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, she said.
Both Hall and Bannan stressed that an interest in painting is not a prerequisite for the program, only an interest in learning about other cultures. Bannan also cautioned prospective students against assuming such a trip would be out of reach for them.
“I think sometimes my student population feels it’s too remote for them to expect to be able to do (this),” Bannan said. “We want to make sure people have the opportunity.”
According to PHCC’s flyer for the program, the total cost for the six-week study is $4,740. However, that amount does not include airfare, Bannan said. Financial assistance also may be available, he added.
Bannan said he doesn’t want to “let cost discourage people from at least finding out about it. It can be a wonderful component to a traditional student’s academic career.”
This was Lincoln's summer home, where he and his family escaped Washington's heat and humidity. Located on a breezy hill three miles from the White House, it was the 19th-century equivalent of contemporary presidential retreats like Camp David. A statue of Lincoln and his horse evoke his daily half-hour commute to the White House on horseback. He first visited the house three days after his inauguration and last rode to the site the day before he was shot.
Wagonloads of furniture were brought here each summer from the White House. But unlike many historic sites, the house today is not filled with furniture or personal items, and that's the point. Guided tours of the mostly empty rooms emphasize Lincoln's ideas and the people he encountered during his stays here and on his daily rides, from favor-seekers and foreigners to former slaves and soldiers. You'll stand in the room where he read Shakespeare and the Bible, hear about his meetings with the secretary of war, see the view from the porch that once offered a clear sightline all the way to downtown Washington, and walk up the stairs where his footsteps were heard when he couldn't sleep. Through April 30, an exhibit here displays one of just 26 existing signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation.
2012年11月19日星期一
Designing outside the box
While studies at the Academy of Design in Toronto gave Melissa Condotta the foundation for her design business, it was correspondence courses taken through England’s Rhodec International that provided its unique twist.
Studying online and sending in class projects via email gave Condotta the idea that she might be able to provide the same thing for her clients.
“If I could give them a comprehensive package, a blueprint, for how their home would look, it would allow them to follow through at their own pace,” she says. “And it would dramatically reduce costs because they wouldn’t have to pay me travel time to source at shops. They could do it themselves, or I could give them a list of online sourcing.”
Once everything has been pulled together into a storyboard, Condotta emails it in PDF format to the homeowners. She also provides Option A and Option B so the clients can choose which will work best in their specific circumstances. For example, if they like to hold dinner parties for eight or more people, but there’s no dining room, she might provide a storyboard with a coffee table that can adjust to table height along with folding chairs that can be kept in the storage locker. Or she might suggest purchasing a large coffee table — or ottoman with trays — that would work well for serving a tapas meal and drinks.
For someone who’s got a shoe or clothing fetish — and who doesn’t? — and has a tiny bedroom, Condotta suggests redesigning the closet with custom closet organizers. It’s something she often does for clients, and it doubles or triples the functional space.
One thing she recommends before buying is to try and walk yourself through the floor plan to see if it will work.
And keep an open mind when it comes to bargain shopping. When Condotta was a student, she often “shopped” in the garbage. “People would throw perfectly good stuff out. All the piece might need was a hinge, or to be repainted, or a few knobs added — and Anthropologie has incredible hardware that works great on old furniture. You can save so much money, and older pieces are usually built better. Some are even iconic.”
Another money-saving tip is to shop at the homes of from relatives — she has a large credenza that her grandfather got when he first came to Canada. She painted it white and keeps her collections in it.
The main thing in saving money is to be creative. Although Condotta mainly provides concept boards for furnishings — in other words, no renovating — she has occasionally forayed into home renovations. One project, a 1986 Scarborough custom-built home, had a good quality but very dated kitchen and a minimal budget of just $10,000. There was no choice but to reuse the existing cabinetry. But rather than paint them, she turned the doors inside out so that the simpler beveled interior detail was face out. Then she had them professionally spray painted and got new hardware. To create more light and open space, one row of uppers was eliminated, and the drop ceiling removed to install recessed lighting. The existing white porcelain floor tiles stayed but Caesarstone countertops and new appliances were added.
A storyboard pulls together all the elements of your design, whether it’s for just one room or a whole house. It should also incorporate the practical things, such as measurements, prices and where to find items.
Start by interviewing yourself: who lives here? Single, couple, downsizer, family of four, pets? How large is the home and do you have any space constraints or special considerations? How do you like to entertain, formal or casual, small intimate gatherings or large crowds? Do you like to cook? Figure out how each room in your home is used and whether any spaces can multifunction (dining room as library or homework station). And most important, what is your budget?
Next step is to read — shelter magazines or decor websites — and clip or download pictures of rooms, furniture or accessories that appeal to you. You will also need to include a scale drawing of the room’s floor plan including the room’s measurements and location of electrical switches and outlets, windows, doors, light fixtures, columns, fireplace, and built-in bookcases. Include a couple of furniture layouts, so that when you shop you will know what will fit.
These can be kept either tacked onto a corkboard or in the plastic sleeves of a three-ring binder. In a small envelope, attached to the back of the storyboard or tucked into the binder, keep notes on where things can be sourced, prices, measurements and any special considerations. Also keep a notebook with you for jotting down things you see that might work. And don’t forget to carry a tape measure with you at all times.
Studying online and sending in class projects via email gave Condotta the idea that she might be able to provide the same thing for her clients.
“If I could give them a comprehensive package, a blueprint, for how their home would look, it would allow them to follow through at their own pace,” she says. “And it would dramatically reduce costs because they wouldn’t have to pay me travel time to source at shops. They could do it themselves, or I could give them a list of online sourcing.”
Once everything has been pulled together into a storyboard, Condotta emails it in PDF format to the homeowners. She also provides Option A and Option B so the clients can choose which will work best in their specific circumstances. For example, if they like to hold dinner parties for eight or more people, but there’s no dining room, she might provide a storyboard with a coffee table that can adjust to table height along with folding chairs that can be kept in the storage locker. Or she might suggest purchasing a large coffee table — or ottoman with trays — that would work well for serving a tapas meal and drinks.
For someone who’s got a shoe or clothing fetish — and who doesn’t? — and has a tiny bedroom, Condotta suggests redesigning the closet with custom closet organizers. It’s something she often does for clients, and it doubles or triples the functional space.
One thing she recommends before buying is to try and walk yourself through the floor plan to see if it will work.
And keep an open mind when it comes to bargain shopping. When Condotta was a student, she often “shopped” in the garbage. “People would throw perfectly good stuff out. All the piece might need was a hinge, or to be repainted, or a few knobs added — and Anthropologie has incredible hardware that works great on old furniture. You can save so much money, and older pieces are usually built better. Some are even iconic.”
Another money-saving tip is to shop at the homes of from relatives — she has a large credenza that her grandfather got when he first came to Canada. She painted it white and keeps her collections in it.
The main thing in saving money is to be creative. Although Condotta mainly provides concept boards for furnishings — in other words, no renovating — she has occasionally forayed into home renovations. One project, a 1986 Scarborough custom-built home, had a good quality but very dated kitchen and a minimal budget of just $10,000. There was no choice but to reuse the existing cabinetry. But rather than paint them, she turned the doors inside out so that the simpler beveled interior detail was face out. Then she had them professionally spray painted and got new hardware. To create more light and open space, one row of uppers was eliminated, and the drop ceiling removed to install recessed lighting. The existing white porcelain floor tiles stayed but Caesarstone countertops and new appliances were added.
A storyboard pulls together all the elements of your design, whether it’s for just one room or a whole house. It should also incorporate the practical things, such as measurements, prices and where to find items.
Start by interviewing yourself: who lives here? Single, couple, downsizer, family of four, pets? How large is the home and do you have any space constraints or special considerations? How do you like to entertain, formal or casual, small intimate gatherings or large crowds? Do you like to cook? Figure out how each room in your home is used and whether any spaces can multifunction (dining room as library or homework station). And most important, what is your budget?
Next step is to read — shelter magazines or decor websites — and clip or download pictures of rooms, furniture or accessories that appeal to you. You will also need to include a scale drawing of the room’s floor plan including the room’s measurements and location of electrical switches and outlets, windows, doors, light fixtures, columns, fireplace, and built-in bookcases. Include a couple of furniture layouts, so that when you shop you will know what will fit.
These can be kept either tacked onto a corkboard or in the plastic sleeves of a three-ring binder. In a small envelope, attached to the back of the storyboard or tucked into the binder, keep notes on where things can be sourced, prices, measurements and any special considerations. Also keep a notebook with you for jotting down things you see that might work. And don’t forget to carry a tape measure with you at all times.
2012年10月23日星期二
Kennett Square Country and Golf Club
Kennett Square Golf and Country Club has made several improvements to improve dining experience following a mediocre grading by the Chester County Health Department.
The Country Club, which has 560 members, scored a 79 in the inspection conducted earlier this year. Rick Johnson, environmental bureau director at the Health Department, said a score in the 70s means there are critical violations that must be corrected.
In a follow-up inspection two weeks later, the Kennett Square Golf and Country Club fixed everything the inspectors found earlier to score a perfect 100, said Herb Redman, clubhouse manager. The facility has four separate eating places – the clubhouse, the pool snack bar, the halfway house and the 19th hole. All were graded as one unit.
“Our food and beverage operation now is at the highest it’s been in a long time,” Redman said. “We rarely get complaints from members. Our type of business is different than a public restaurant, because we deal with the same people every day. We know the people here and we can anticipate their needs and they have certain expectations.”
“Inventory is our biggest asset, it must be managed efficiently. Since we import our products from all corners of the globe, we have dock-to-stock times of six to eight weeks; we need to have the right product at the right time in the right quantities,” shares Rose Baldo, Principle, Julian Tile. “We are always analyzing our inventory to maintain the right balance between supply and demand. SYSPRO’s inventory module gives us the information we need to identify products, buying rules, preferred supplier, lead times and tracking. This gives Purchasing a clear picture so that they know exactly what to buy and how much.”
The vast improvement to Julian Tile’s inventory system thanks to the SYSPRO ERP software has given the importer an array of business management and operational advantages. Thanks to access to real time information, staff can retrieve crucial data, such as order quantities and due dates, that helps them work more efficiently and accurately. With the SYSPRO ERP, Julian Tile has also enjoyed a marked shift in the efficiency of the cost apportioning process, previously a cumbersome and time-consuming task requiring manual input to an Excel? spreadsheet. The cost apportionment functionality in SYSPRO allows the Julian Tile sales team to remain as competitive and profitable as possible with exact knowledge of margins in real time. The SYSRPO ERP has also made the quoting process easier for Julian Tile, allowing for customization and the creation of rules to automatically generate accurate sales order prices. This has helped to bolster the whole customer side of the business.
“With SYSPRO, the work is done for us, and changes to any of the cost variables are instantly reflected in the system,” says Baldo. “Quoting on a job can be very complicated, as there are many variables to consider. However, SYSPRO has made it easy by relating all the information to produce a comprehensive picture of our bottom line, and as a result we can make proactive financial and operational management decisions with assurance. Over the years, SYSPRO has easily adapted to our changing business needs. It has driven efficiency throughout our organization which has allowed us to remain competitive in the market.”
The Country Club, which has 560 members, scored a 79 in the inspection conducted earlier this year. Rick Johnson, environmental bureau director at the Health Department, said a score in the 70s means there are critical violations that must be corrected.
In a follow-up inspection two weeks later, the Kennett Square Golf and Country Club fixed everything the inspectors found earlier to score a perfect 100, said Herb Redman, clubhouse manager. The facility has four separate eating places – the clubhouse, the pool snack bar, the halfway house and the 19th hole. All were graded as one unit.
“Our food and beverage operation now is at the highest it’s been in a long time,” Redman said. “We rarely get complaints from members. Our type of business is different than a public restaurant, because we deal with the same people every day. We know the people here and we can anticipate their needs and they have certain expectations.”
“Inventory is our biggest asset, it must be managed efficiently. Since we import our products from all corners of the globe, we have dock-to-stock times of six to eight weeks; we need to have the right product at the right time in the right quantities,” shares Rose Baldo, Principle, Julian Tile. “We are always analyzing our inventory to maintain the right balance between supply and demand. SYSPRO’s inventory module gives us the information we need to identify products, buying rules, preferred supplier, lead times and tracking. This gives Purchasing a clear picture so that they know exactly what to buy and how much.”
The vast improvement to Julian Tile’s inventory system thanks to the SYSPRO ERP software has given the importer an array of business management and operational advantages. Thanks to access to real time information, staff can retrieve crucial data, such as order quantities and due dates, that helps them work more efficiently and accurately. With the SYSPRO ERP, Julian Tile has also enjoyed a marked shift in the efficiency of the cost apportioning process, previously a cumbersome and time-consuming task requiring manual input to an Excel? spreadsheet. The cost apportionment functionality in SYSPRO allows the Julian Tile sales team to remain as competitive and profitable as possible with exact knowledge of margins in real time. The SYSRPO ERP has also made the quoting process easier for Julian Tile, allowing for customization and the creation of rules to automatically generate accurate sales order prices. This has helped to bolster the whole customer side of the business.
“With SYSPRO, the work is done for us, and changes to any of the cost variables are instantly reflected in the system,” says Baldo. “Quoting on a job can be very complicated, as there are many variables to consider. However, SYSPRO has made it easy by relating all the information to produce a comprehensive picture of our bottom line, and as a result we can make proactive financial and operational management decisions with assurance. Over the years, SYSPRO has easily adapted to our changing business needs. It has driven efficiency throughout our organization which has allowed us to remain competitive in the market.”
2012年10月18日星期四
Italian firms fight to hold head above political water
It’s not long into a chat with an Italian businessmen before talk turns to how a costly state is sucking the air out of Europe’s third-largest economy, endangering the euro along the way.
“In the end we’re asking for only one thing: a normal government for a normal country,” said Maurizio Marchesini, the president of Confindustria, Italy’s main employers’ association, in the wealthy north-central region of Emilia-Romagna.
Emilia-Romagna, of which Bologna is the capital, is doing better than much of Italy. It is one of the top 10 industrial regions of Europe, home to companies such as Ferrari SpA and pasta giant Barilla, and seems to be largely free of organised crime.
Clusters of mainly medium-sized firms in engineering, packaging, food processing and ceramics are a reminder that, despite a government debt burden hovering at 120 per cent of annual output, Italy is Europe’s second-largest manufacturer.
Yet all is not well. Italy is in recession and few expect growth to resume before 2014. Exporters are coping, sometimes flourishing, but many firms that depend on the domestic market are floundering, even in defensive sectors such as food, said Giampiero Bergami, a banker for Unicredit.
Sales and profitability are under assault. “Gloomy would be putting it mildly. We are witnessing a constant contraction of both top lines and margins,” Mr. Bergami said.
Household consumption is at a post-war low, depressed by tax rises and spending cuts that Prime Minister Mario Monti, a technocrat, has forced through to rein in Rome’s budget deficit.
Entrepreneurs respect Mr. Monti, who has said he would be willing to stay on if elections next spring produced a deadlock. But if businessmen are doing well, they say this is in spite of the state, not thanks to it.
Mr. Marchesini, who runs a successful packaging firm, lists his complaints. The inflexible labour market is “quite impossible for a foreigner to understand,” red tape is so bad it takes at least a year to open a factory, and then there are punishing taxes, poor infrastructure and the high cost of credit.
Companies have long said they are reluctant to recruit staff even in good times because labour laws make it hard to shed workers if their business turns down.
Confindustria estimates the political malaise is responsible for 2 percentage points of the risk premium of more than 3.2 points over German debt that investors demand to hold 10-year Italian bonds, which now yield about 4.8 per cent.
Because government bond yields set the benchmark for corporate borrowing costs, Mr. Marchesini is paying interest of 4-5 per cent despite rising turnover and a good credit rating. That puts him at a big disadvantage to his German competitors.
“So you can imagine it’s hard to make big investments. Of course I haven’t stopped investing in development and new machinery. But, for example, to buy a new building is a real problem,” he said. “It’s very difficult to obtain a mortgage.”
Government borrowing costs have also become an indicator of the wider euro zone crisis. At the moment, attention is focused on Spain and Greece, but if Italy does not show soon that it is getting to grips with its problems, the country could be next in line to shake the 17-nation currency union.
For Eraldo Poletto, the outgoing managing director of Furla, a family-owned maker of luxury leather goods based in Bologna, ever-changing laws, bureaucracy and high taxes are undermining what he says is an old entrepreneurial spirit in Italy.
Speaking during a business trip to India, Mr. Poletto contrasted what he called Asia’s amazing desire to succeed to Italy’s constant concern to preserve past gains. “Here they want to win; we in Italy are afraid to lose the privileges we have. We need a wake-up call,” he said from Mumbai.
Domestic car maker Fiat SpA has frozen a multibillion-euro investment plan in Italy because of poor market conditions and competition from low-cost production outside Europe, while Alcoa Inc. is shutting its Italian aluminum smelter in Sardinia largely due to high energy costs.
Energy is also one of the problems facing the ceramic tiles sector, which has struggled to recover from a slump in 2008. It costs 50 per cent more than the European average, especially for industrial users, because of limited competition, according to the International Monetary Fund.
“We’re at one of the lowest points in our history,” said Franco Manfredini, head of the ceramics employers’ association in the town of Sassuolo, where 80 per cent of Italy’s tiles are produced. “We have to become a serious country.”
To make up for a slide in domestic sales, which were down 16 per cent in the first half of the year, local tile makers are opening factories abroad, emphasising innovation and exporting more. Tiles from Sassuolo, an hour’s drive from Bologna, clad Brisbane airport and Riyadh’s biggest shopping mall.
Mauro Sacchetto, the chief executive of Datalogic, a leading producer of bar code readers, says a succession of governments has neglected the sort of cooperation in research between industry and universities that his company enjoys in Vietnam, where it opened a plant in 2009 that now employs 600.
“Italy’s reputation is due to a lack of credible, reliable politicians. We have enough of an industrial culture to prove that we are much better than our political and banking reputation,” Mr. Sacchetto said.
“In the end we’re asking for only one thing: a normal government for a normal country,” said Maurizio Marchesini, the president of Confindustria, Italy’s main employers’ association, in the wealthy north-central region of Emilia-Romagna.
Emilia-Romagna, of which Bologna is the capital, is doing better than much of Italy. It is one of the top 10 industrial regions of Europe, home to companies such as Ferrari SpA and pasta giant Barilla, and seems to be largely free of organised crime.
Clusters of mainly medium-sized firms in engineering, packaging, food processing and ceramics are a reminder that, despite a government debt burden hovering at 120 per cent of annual output, Italy is Europe’s second-largest manufacturer.
Yet all is not well. Italy is in recession and few expect growth to resume before 2014. Exporters are coping, sometimes flourishing, but many firms that depend on the domestic market are floundering, even in defensive sectors such as food, said Giampiero Bergami, a banker for Unicredit.
Sales and profitability are under assault. “Gloomy would be putting it mildly. We are witnessing a constant contraction of both top lines and margins,” Mr. Bergami said.
Household consumption is at a post-war low, depressed by tax rises and spending cuts that Prime Minister Mario Monti, a technocrat, has forced through to rein in Rome’s budget deficit.
Entrepreneurs respect Mr. Monti, who has said he would be willing to stay on if elections next spring produced a deadlock. But if businessmen are doing well, they say this is in spite of the state, not thanks to it.
Mr. Marchesini, who runs a successful packaging firm, lists his complaints. The inflexible labour market is “quite impossible for a foreigner to understand,” red tape is so bad it takes at least a year to open a factory, and then there are punishing taxes, poor infrastructure and the high cost of credit.
Companies have long said they are reluctant to recruit staff even in good times because labour laws make it hard to shed workers if their business turns down.
Confindustria estimates the political malaise is responsible for 2 percentage points of the risk premium of more than 3.2 points over German debt that investors demand to hold 10-year Italian bonds, which now yield about 4.8 per cent.
Because government bond yields set the benchmark for corporate borrowing costs, Mr. Marchesini is paying interest of 4-5 per cent despite rising turnover and a good credit rating. That puts him at a big disadvantage to his German competitors.
“So you can imagine it’s hard to make big investments. Of course I haven’t stopped investing in development and new machinery. But, for example, to buy a new building is a real problem,” he said. “It’s very difficult to obtain a mortgage.”
Government borrowing costs have also become an indicator of the wider euro zone crisis. At the moment, attention is focused on Spain and Greece, but if Italy does not show soon that it is getting to grips with its problems, the country could be next in line to shake the 17-nation currency union.
For Eraldo Poletto, the outgoing managing director of Furla, a family-owned maker of luxury leather goods based in Bologna, ever-changing laws, bureaucracy and high taxes are undermining what he says is an old entrepreneurial spirit in Italy.
Speaking during a business trip to India, Mr. Poletto contrasted what he called Asia’s amazing desire to succeed to Italy’s constant concern to preserve past gains. “Here they want to win; we in Italy are afraid to lose the privileges we have. We need a wake-up call,” he said from Mumbai.
Domestic car maker Fiat SpA has frozen a multibillion-euro investment plan in Italy because of poor market conditions and competition from low-cost production outside Europe, while Alcoa Inc. is shutting its Italian aluminum smelter in Sardinia largely due to high energy costs.
Energy is also one of the problems facing the ceramic tiles sector, which has struggled to recover from a slump in 2008. It costs 50 per cent more than the European average, especially for industrial users, because of limited competition, according to the International Monetary Fund.
“We’re at one of the lowest points in our history,” said Franco Manfredini, head of the ceramics employers’ association in the town of Sassuolo, where 80 per cent of Italy’s tiles are produced. “We have to become a serious country.”
To make up for a slide in domestic sales, which were down 16 per cent in the first half of the year, local tile makers are opening factories abroad, emphasising innovation and exporting more. Tiles from Sassuolo, an hour’s drive from Bologna, clad Brisbane airport and Riyadh’s biggest shopping mall.
Mauro Sacchetto, the chief executive of Datalogic, a leading producer of bar code readers, says a succession of governments has neglected the sort of cooperation in research between industry and universities that his company enjoys in Vietnam, where it opened a plant in 2009 that now employs 600.
“Italy’s reputation is due to a lack of credible, reliable politicians. We have enough of an industrial culture to prove that we are much better than our political and banking reputation,” Mr. Sacchetto said.
2012年10月14日星期日
Driving home road safety
That was the message delivered to Fowlerville High School students Saturday at a local automotive test track in the hopes that it might save their lives.
For the first time, cell phone use was incorporated into the annual specialized training day for teen drivers at Aisin Seiki Co.'s FT Techno of America Fowlerville Proving Ground near Layton and Smith roads in Handy Township.
"We want (teens) to see the difference between that one extra second or two seconds it takes that you look down, and see how much distance (the vehicle) has traveled," said Mike Benjamin, operations manager. "Texting's very innocent, but when you see the real difference it makes in a situation, we think that will send a message home."
About 20 high school juniors and seniors took their brief classroom training to the test track with a professional driver, learning skid control in their own vehicles on the proving ground's ceramic tile tracks simulating ice and snow.
The students executed breaking exercises and quick lane-change maneuvers, among other safety procedures.
Vice President Terry Takano said the driver's training course is an extension of the company's philosophy of promoting safety and giving back.
"It's also important to encourage the future of the automotive industry," he said. "The kids get to see what we do on a daily basis on an automotive testing pad, which makes them more excited in physics."
The free training has been hosted for four consecutive years at the proving ground in partnership with Tire Rack Street Survival School, a national initiative that teaches teens how to drive better, safer and smarter.
"Students at this age are often unprepared for dangerous driving conditions, and this program allows them to learn how to handle the conditions in a controlled atmosphere with excellent instructors," said Brad Lusk, Fowlerville High School principal.
Scott died last Monday at the Petaluma home she and her husband, Basil Leon Scott, built 58 years ago. She was 77. The cause was cancer, which she was diagnosed with in August, family members said.
Scott was born Joan Elaine Hinrichsen on March 6, 1935, at Petaluma General Hospital. Her parents were egg ranchers Clifford and Rose Hinrichsen.
She arrived in the world weighing just four pounds.
“Her father built her a small incubator box using a chick-warming light to keep her warm at night,” said Scott's daughter Judy Fornaciari, of Sebastopol.
A graduate of Petaluma High School, she met Basil Scott, who was stationed at was then Two Rock Army base, in January 1953 at a dance at Hermann Sons Hall in Petaluma. “It was love at first sight,” said Fornaciari.
The couple married in 1954 and built their home on a corner of her grandfather's Eastman Lane farm.
For nearly five decades, Joan Scott worked as a partner with her husband in his business, Scott's Plumbing, as bookkeeper, secretary and, Fornaciari said, “all-around moral support for my dad.”
For the first time, cell phone use was incorporated into the annual specialized training day for teen drivers at Aisin Seiki Co.'s FT Techno of America Fowlerville Proving Ground near Layton and Smith roads in Handy Township.
"We want (teens) to see the difference between that one extra second or two seconds it takes that you look down, and see how much distance (the vehicle) has traveled," said Mike Benjamin, operations manager. "Texting's very innocent, but when you see the real difference it makes in a situation, we think that will send a message home."
About 20 high school juniors and seniors took their brief classroom training to the test track with a professional driver, learning skid control in their own vehicles on the proving ground's ceramic tile tracks simulating ice and snow.
The students executed breaking exercises and quick lane-change maneuvers, among other safety procedures.
Vice President Terry Takano said the driver's training course is an extension of the company's philosophy of promoting safety and giving back.
"It's also important to encourage the future of the automotive industry," he said. "The kids get to see what we do on a daily basis on an automotive testing pad, which makes them more excited in physics."
The free training has been hosted for four consecutive years at the proving ground in partnership with Tire Rack Street Survival School, a national initiative that teaches teens how to drive better, safer and smarter.
"Students at this age are often unprepared for dangerous driving conditions, and this program allows them to learn how to handle the conditions in a controlled atmosphere with excellent instructors," said Brad Lusk, Fowlerville High School principal.
Scott died last Monday at the Petaluma home she and her husband, Basil Leon Scott, built 58 years ago. She was 77. The cause was cancer, which she was diagnosed with in August, family members said.
Scott was born Joan Elaine Hinrichsen on March 6, 1935, at Petaluma General Hospital. Her parents were egg ranchers Clifford and Rose Hinrichsen.
She arrived in the world weighing just four pounds.
“Her father built her a small incubator box using a chick-warming light to keep her warm at night,” said Scott's daughter Judy Fornaciari, of Sebastopol.
A graduate of Petaluma High School, she met Basil Scott, who was stationed at was then Two Rock Army base, in January 1953 at a dance at Hermann Sons Hall in Petaluma. “It was love at first sight,” said Fornaciari.
The couple married in 1954 and built their home on a corner of her grandfather's Eastman Lane farm.
For nearly five decades, Joan Scott worked as a partner with her husband in his business, Scott's Plumbing, as bookkeeper, secretary and, Fornaciari said, “all-around moral support for my dad.”
2012年9月16日星期日
Pleasant Library Reopens to Great Acclaim
Following a lengthy, multi-year design study, together with design review by the DC Historic Preservation Review Board and the federal Commission of Fine Arts, permit review by the District’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, an appeal to the DC Zoning Commission, litigation before the DC Court of Appeals, and with the consultation and collaboration — both contentious and constructive — of residents and immediate neighbors, city-wide activists, community groups, and two ANCs, construction has been completed on the $11.2 million renovation and expansion of the historic Mt. Pleasant Public Library.
Located in a 1925 Italian Renaissance-style building constructed of brick and Indiana limestone with a ceramic tile roof at 16th and Lamont Streets, NW, diagonally across 16th Street from the Byzantine domed Church of the Sacred Heart on a site made available to the DC Library Board by Mary Foote Henderson; it also sits directly across from the last of Mrs. Henderson’s 16th Street mansions, one which until recently housed the parks and recreation department’s headquarters. This restored, renovated, and expanded branch library will provide the nearby Mt. Pleasant and Columbia Heights residents (and others) with dramatically expanded resources and services, along with spaces appropriate for community needs and uses.
The library sits on the 16th Street boundary between these two dynamic, multi-cultural neighborhoods, both of which are experiencing explosive population growths, as are other close-by neighborhoods such as Adams Morgan. Library space for 80,000 books, multi-media publications and compilations, movie and video DVDs and music CDs all are being provided to respond to this growth. These library materials will join 40 state-of-the art public access computers in the new facility on three levels of dramatically lighted and high ceiling floors — and in roughly double the previous amount of library space.
Long a capital construction priority for the Library Board of Trustees as well as Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham (the Mt. Pleasant branch is the only public library in his ward), the library’s expanded facilities have been created through both the removal of the existing three-level cast iron library stacks and the relocation of staff support services, building mechanicals, and internal stairways and elevator from the historic structure to the new building which is accessible through the sparkling glass atrium that ties the two structures together.
This new atrium provides a single, common entrance to both the old and the new buildings, one that is easily accessible by wheelchairs, strollers, and pedestrians. These accomplishments have been among the high priorities for DCPL Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper. While the length of the elliptical walkway connecting the Lamont Street sidewalk with the consolidated library entrance remains a bone of contention with some, many others, who find the length to be acceptable, point to the attractive side yard garden space on the walkway’s left boundary and of the advantage of everyone entering the library on the first level — with the adult reading room to the left, the elevator to the upper and lower levels located on one’s immediate right, and the high ceiling multi-media auditorium and meeting space with a seating capacity of 100 straight ahead.
A further aesthetic improvement to the library has been achieved by the strategic removal of interior obstructions within the original building which has opened up dramatic sight lines on each of the three floors from one side to the other. The result is an openness not previously possible from the ground floor adult non-fiction space and its teen center, through the main level adult reading room, and to the upper level children’s room where the historic Aurelius Battaglia murals featuring circus animals playing in a band are being further restored.
Renovation work during this second and final stage of the overall effort occurred following the earlier restoration of windows, doors, and original masonry of the 1925 building during the project’s first phase.
Architectural design work for the entire effort of coordinating the renovation and restoration of the historic structure with the design and construction of the new modernist building to its rear and integrating these two into a single functioning whole with all its consequent complexities and challenges was provided by a team of architects from the CORE Group in partnership with HMA2 architects and with the direct participation of the library system’s staff manager for the project, Chris Wright.
A late morning ribbon cutting re-opening event, presided over by Mayor Gray and other dignitaries including Chief Librarian Cooper and Councilmember Graham, was heavily attended by neighbors and residents from the surrounding area on September 12th. A Grand Opening community celebration will take place on Saturday.
Located in a 1925 Italian Renaissance-style building constructed of brick and Indiana limestone with a ceramic tile roof at 16th and Lamont Streets, NW, diagonally across 16th Street from the Byzantine domed Church of the Sacred Heart on a site made available to the DC Library Board by Mary Foote Henderson; it also sits directly across from the last of Mrs. Henderson’s 16th Street mansions, one which until recently housed the parks and recreation department’s headquarters. This restored, renovated, and expanded branch library will provide the nearby Mt. Pleasant and Columbia Heights residents (and others) with dramatically expanded resources and services, along with spaces appropriate for community needs and uses.
The library sits on the 16th Street boundary between these two dynamic, multi-cultural neighborhoods, both of which are experiencing explosive population growths, as are other close-by neighborhoods such as Adams Morgan. Library space for 80,000 books, multi-media publications and compilations, movie and video DVDs and music CDs all are being provided to respond to this growth. These library materials will join 40 state-of-the art public access computers in the new facility on three levels of dramatically lighted and high ceiling floors — and in roughly double the previous amount of library space.
Long a capital construction priority for the Library Board of Trustees as well as Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham (the Mt. Pleasant branch is the only public library in his ward), the library’s expanded facilities have been created through both the removal of the existing three-level cast iron library stacks and the relocation of staff support services, building mechanicals, and internal stairways and elevator from the historic structure to the new building which is accessible through the sparkling glass atrium that ties the two structures together.
This new atrium provides a single, common entrance to both the old and the new buildings, one that is easily accessible by wheelchairs, strollers, and pedestrians. These accomplishments have been among the high priorities for DCPL Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper. While the length of the elliptical walkway connecting the Lamont Street sidewalk with the consolidated library entrance remains a bone of contention with some, many others, who find the length to be acceptable, point to the attractive side yard garden space on the walkway’s left boundary and of the advantage of everyone entering the library on the first level — with the adult reading room to the left, the elevator to the upper and lower levels located on one’s immediate right, and the high ceiling multi-media auditorium and meeting space with a seating capacity of 100 straight ahead.
A further aesthetic improvement to the library has been achieved by the strategic removal of interior obstructions within the original building which has opened up dramatic sight lines on each of the three floors from one side to the other. The result is an openness not previously possible from the ground floor adult non-fiction space and its teen center, through the main level adult reading room, and to the upper level children’s room where the historic Aurelius Battaglia murals featuring circus animals playing in a band are being further restored.
Renovation work during this second and final stage of the overall effort occurred following the earlier restoration of windows, doors, and original masonry of the 1925 building during the project’s first phase.
Architectural design work for the entire effort of coordinating the renovation and restoration of the historic structure with the design and construction of the new modernist building to its rear and integrating these two into a single functioning whole with all its consequent complexities and challenges was provided by a team of architects from the CORE Group in partnership with HMA2 architects and with the direct participation of the library system’s staff manager for the project, Chris Wright.
A late morning ribbon cutting re-opening event, presided over by Mayor Gray and other dignitaries including Chief Librarian Cooper and Councilmember Graham, was heavily attended by neighbors and residents from the surrounding area on September 12th. A Grand Opening community celebration will take place on Saturday.
2012年9月9日星期日
Movie shoot breadth became filmmaker’s home
Gerald Potterton has two cardinal passions — architecture archetypal airplanes and authoritative movies, something that becomes accessible the minute you airing into his home in Lac-Brome. The abode is abounding with miniature planes and cine posters and the bath walls (of all absurd spots) are afraid with awards from Potterton’s continued filmmaking career.Trained as an animator, Potterton, an expat Brit, formed for the National Blur Board of Canada afore aperture his own flat in city Montreal. Best accepted for the 1965 cine The Railrodder (starring Buster Keaton), he aswell formed on the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. In 1981, he directed Heavy Metal, an activated hard-rock fantasy accurate by luminaries like Al Waxman, John Candy and Eugene Levy.
Model planes are just a amusement but if he constructs them, he employs the aforementioned absorption to detail as he does if he animates his movies. He flies the mini aircraft as generally as he can, allegorical them forth a aerodrome in a acreage at the aback of his 88-hectare property.
Potterton’s home, a ancient dairy farm, dates aback to 1820, but it’s absolutely two houses in one. The foreground part, congenital by Loyalists, is archetypal of its era. Complete of brick, it has a pillared veranda, narrow, multi-paned windows, dormers and a abrupt roof. The aback allotment of the abode is “only” about a aeon old. Clad in clapboard, it was apparently acclimated for storage.
It was afterlife that brought Potterton to this website in the Eastern Townships.
“I was planning to accomplish a cine set in the Ardennes and I was on the anchor for a farmhouse and a barn,” recalled Potterton.
“The countryside about actuality reminded me of that breadth of Belgium. This abode would accept been ideal, but unfortunately, the allotment for the blur fell through.”
“After the blur was cancelled, the agriculturalist who had busy us his abode asked if I’d be absorbed in affairs it instead. At that point in my career I didn’t accept a lot of money, so I hesitated, but a brace of weeks later, I accustomed an abrupt ability cheque. That enabled me to put a down transaction on this abode and, in 1977, I confused in.”
The farmhouse was not in actual acceptable condition, abnormally the “new” part, a large, “open-to-the-elements” amplitude abounding with absurd concrete, with no insulation or avant-garde electrical wiring. There was, however, a bank and a aperture amid the aback of the architecture and the front, so for years Potterton added or beneath lived in the old Loyalist house.
He fabricated some renovations (“I advised myself a carpenter, which was antic because I wasn’t!”) such as accoutrement the admiral walls with Gyproc and architecture a bath with a window breadth there had been a “dark, horrible, space.” But in 2000, he absolutely redesigned his home, acutely transforming the autogenous and aperture up the two sections of the building. The centrepiece of the accumulated anatomy is an 1,800-square-foot open-plan living/dining/kitchen breadth on the arena floor, arch into the small, affectionate apartment of the Loyalist house.
PAGEBREAKThe added apartment in the two-in-one-house cover the aboriginal active room, two bathrooms, four bedrooms and an admiral amusement allowance breadth Potterton builds his archetypal airplanes.
The Loyalist abode has absorbing architectural appearance — low ceilings, absorbing nooks and crannies, windowpanes fabricated of wavy, handmade bottle and age-old board doors that adhere a little askew.
The new part, which has ache floors is bright, ablaze and open, with French doors arch to a patio at the kitchen end, a capital access with a mud allowance in the middle, an accessible access arch to the additional attic and a ample mirror on the far wall, encased in a huge, scallop-edged window frame. The mirror reflects the active space, authoritative it assume even larger.
Potterton didn’t apply an artist to redesign his abode but relied instead on his colour faculty and agog aesthetic eye. He did, however, accept the advice of the Albers, a father-and-son architecture aggregation whose ability was architecture barns.
“I adulation the barn artful of apparent areas with blubbery beams and top ceilings,” Potterton explained. “I aswell like lots of ablaze so if I drew up the plans, I congenital those appearance into my design.”
The architecture aggregation was able to cannibalize some of the absolute beams and move them about to actualize Potterton’s new active space. They were aswell able to antecedent some abstracts from a neighbour whose old barn had collapsed. One ample block of hemlock serves as the countertop in the kitchen.
The kitchen cupboards were custom-built by Peter Wisdom, a Knowlton-based artisan who aswell complete the floor-to-ceiling bookcases in the “Christmas room.” The kitchen adornment is ablaze and animated with agleam stainless animate appliances. The congenital units are colonial dejected with an aged accomplishment and the floors are covered with sienna-coloured bowl tiles.
“My alone affliction is that I didn’t install under-floor heating,” Potterton said. “The abode stays air-conditioned in the summer, but, unfortunately, it can aswell be a bit arctic in the winter.”
Potterton credibility out, however, that affairs were consistently an affair and installing heating would accept been an added cost. He paid $24,000 for the architecture aback in 1977, but he has angled out “many, abounding times that amount,” whipping the abode into shape. According to Potterton, it took him decades to pay off the mortgage, as able-bodied as the money he has spent on aliment and repairs.
The dining breadth is bedeviled by a anemic dejected amphitheater table, belted by Windsor chairs. It came from a abbey and seats up to a dozen people. As was the case with the table, Potterton best up a lot of of his appliance at barn sales and auctions about the Eastern Townships. Aboriginal artwork adorns the walls. Family photographs sit aloft the fireplace.
Model planes are just a amusement but if he constructs them, he employs the aforementioned absorption to detail as he does if he animates his movies. He flies the mini aircraft as generally as he can, allegorical them forth a aerodrome in a acreage at the aback of his 88-hectare property.
Potterton’s home, a ancient dairy farm, dates aback to 1820, but it’s absolutely two houses in one. The foreground part, congenital by Loyalists, is archetypal of its era. Complete of brick, it has a pillared veranda, narrow, multi-paned windows, dormers and a abrupt roof. The aback allotment of the abode is “only” about a aeon old. Clad in clapboard, it was apparently acclimated for storage.
It was afterlife that brought Potterton to this website in the Eastern Townships.
“I was planning to accomplish a cine set in the Ardennes and I was on the anchor for a farmhouse and a barn,” recalled Potterton.
“The countryside about actuality reminded me of that breadth of Belgium. This abode would accept been ideal, but unfortunately, the allotment for the blur fell through.”
“After the blur was cancelled, the agriculturalist who had busy us his abode asked if I’d be absorbed in affairs it instead. At that point in my career I didn’t accept a lot of money, so I hesitated, but a brace of weeks later, I accustomed an abrupt ability cheque. That enabled me to put a down transaction on this abode and, in 1977, I confused in.”
The farmhouse was not in actual acceptable condition, abnormally the “new” part, a large, “open-to-the-elements” amplitude abounding with absurd concrete, with no insulation or avant-garde electrical wiring. There was, however, a bank and a aperture amid the aback of the architecture and the front, so for years Potterton added or beneath lived in the old Loyalist house.
He fabricated some renovations (“I advised myself a carpenter, which was antic because I wasn’t!”) such as accoutrement the admiral walls with Gyproc and architecture a bath with a window breadth there had been a “dark, horrible, space.” But in 2000, he absolutely redesigned his home, acutely transforming the autogenous and aperture up the two sections of the building. The centrepiece of the accumulated anatomy is an 1,800-square-foot open-plan living/dining/kitchen breadth on the arena floor, arch into the small, affectionate apartment of the Loyalist house.
PAGEBREAKThe added apartment in the two-in-one-house cover the aboriginal active room, two bathrooms, four bedrooms and an admiral amusement allowance breadth Potterton builds his archetypal airplanes.
The Loyalist abode has absorbing architectural appearance — low ceilings, absorbing nooks and crannies, windowpanes fabricated of wavy, handmade bottle and age-old board doors that adhere a little askew.
The new part, which has ache floors is bright, ablaze and open, with French doors arch to a patio at the kitchen end, a capital access with a mud allowance in the middle, an accessible access arch to the additional attic and a ample mirror on the far wall, encased in a huge, scallop-edged window frame. The mirror reflects the active space, authoritative it assume even larger.
Potterton didn’t apply an artist to redesign his abode but relied instead on his colour faculty and agog aesthetic eye. He did, however, accept the advice of the Albers, a father-and-son architecture aggregation whose ability was architecture barns.
“I adulation the barn artful of apparent areas with blubbery beams and top ceilings,” Potterton explained. “I aswell like lots of ablaze so if I drew up the plans, I congenital those appearance into my design.”
The architecture aggregation was able to cannibalize some of the absolute beams and move them about to actualize Potterton’s new active space. They were aswell able to antecedent some abstracts from a neighbour whose old barn had collapsed. One ample block of hemlock serves as the countertop in the kitchen.
The kitchen cupboards were custom-built by Peter Wisdom, a Knowlton-based artisan who aswell complete the floor-to-ceiling bookcases in the “Christmas room.” The kitchen adornment is ablaze and animated with agleam stainless animate appliances. The congenital units are colonial dejected with an aged accomplishment and the floors are covered with sienna-coloured bowl tiles.
“My alone affliction is that I didn’t install under-floor heating,” Potterton said. “The abode stays air-conditioned in the summer, but, unfortunately, it can aswell be a bit arctic in the winter.”
Potterton credibility out, however, that affairs were consistently an affair and installing heating would accept been an added cost. He paid $24,000 for the architecture aback in 1977, but he has angled out “many, abounding times that amount,” whipping the abode into shape. According to Potterton, it took him decades to pay off the mortgage, as able-bodied as the money he has spent on aliment and repairs.
The dining breadth is bedeviled by a anemic dejected amphitheater table, belted by Windsor chairs. It came from a abbey and seats up to a dozen people. As was the case with the table, Potterton best up a lot of of his appliance at barn sales and auctions about the Eastern Townships. Aboriginal artwork adorns the walls. Family photographs sit aloft the fireplace.
2012年9月5日星期三
Bascom Arizona Ventures Invests in Avondale
Ascom Arizona Ventures has anew acquired Coldwater Springs Apartments, a 301-unit association amid in Avondale, Arizona for $27.2M or $90,365 per unit. Bascom Arizona Ventures formed with Brandon Smith and Brian Eisendrath of CBRE to align the costs for the purchase. The debt costs was provided by Ares Management. Jim Crews represented the client and agent in the transaction. The onsite acreage administration will be overseen by Arizona based Morrison, Ekre & Bart Administration Services (MEB). The acquirement comes on the heels of the contempo accretion of Estates at Maryland, a 330-unit "Class A" association amid in Phoenix.
Coldwater Springs was congenital in 2007, is a comfortable "Class A" acreage anchored on a all-inclusive 16.5 acreage with an boilerplate assemblage admeasurement of 956 SF. Each assemblage includes 9-ft alveolate ceilings, abounding appliances, bowl asphalt floors, clandestine balconies and patios, abounding admeasurement washer/dryers, applicant closets, and roman tubs with asphalt surround.
Community appearance include: 2 resort appearance pond pools with clandestine cabanas, billiards and bold room, abounding clubhouse, 24-hour exercise centermost and a accompaniment of the art business centermost and cine theater. Coldwater Springs aswell boasts activity able appearance such as energy-star appliances, bifold breadth low-E windows, 13 diviner heating and cooling efficiencies, and activity able lighting. The acreage is amid in the affection of the Phoenix busline area, with abutting around to the METRO ablaze rail, Downtown Phoenix, the arresting West Gate City Center, and Interstate I-10.
Mark Brotherton, Asset Manager for Bascom Arizona Ventures, comments, "After our acknowledged 12-property portfolio auction in 2007, we feel now is the best time to buy aback into the Arizona region. This will be our added acquirement in the accomplished month, and we are searching to aggrandize even added with added acquisitions slated to abutting in the next month." Bascom Arizona ahead acquired 5,174 units in the Phoenix city breadth amid 2004 and 2006. Brotherton continues, "We are searching to access assets that ambit from "A's" to "C's", finer with "in-fill" area and with a value-added component."
Bill Wright, Asset Manager authoritative renovations for Bascom Arizona Ventures, adds, "We intend to advancement assemblage interiors and bandbox up the accepted areas at both backdrop in adjustment to attempt with newer 'Class A' properties, and to aerate net able rents during the accepted bazaar recovery. We were actual acknowledged with our business plan during the endure cycle."
A clandestine disinterestedness close specializing in value-added multifamily, commercial, and non-performing loans and absolute acreage accompanying investments and operating companies. Bascom sources value-added and afflicted backdrop including abounding through foreclosure, bankruptcy, or abbreviate sales and repositions them by abacus all-encompassing basic improvements, convalescent revenue, and abbreviation costs through accomplishing of institutional-quality acreage management. Bascom has completed over $6.5 billion in multi-family and bartering value-added affairs back 1996 including added than 200 multifamily backdrop and 55,000 units. Bascom currently ranks a part of the top 50 multifamily owners in the US. Bascom's subsidiaries and collective ventures cover the Southern California Industrial Fund, Rushmore Properties, Bascom Portfolio Advisors, Shubin Nadal Associates, Spirit Investors, Bascom Northwest Ventures, Bascom Arizona Ventures, and the Realm Group. Bascom's subsidiaries aswell cover Premier Business Centers, the better abreast captivated controlling apartment aggregation in the US.
Coldwater Springs was congenital in 2007, is a comfortable "Class A" acreage anchored on a all-inclusive 16.5 acreage with an boilerplate assemblage admeasurement of 956 SF. Each assemblage includes 9-ft alveolate ceilings, abounding appliances, bowl asphalt floors, clandestine balconies and patios, abounding admeasurement washer/dryers, applicant closets, and roman tubs with asphalt surround.
Community appearance include: 2 resort appearance pond pools with clandestine cabanas, billiards and bold room, abounding clubhouse, 24-hour exercise centermost and a accompaniment of the art business centermost and cine theater. Coldwater Springs aswell boasts activity able appearance such as energy-star appliances, bifold breadth low-E windows, 13 diviner heating and cooling efficiencies, and activity able lighting. The acreage is amid in the affection of the Phoenix busline area, with abutting around to the METRO ablaze rail, Downtown Phoenix, the arresting West Gate City Center, and Interstate I-10.
Mark Brotherton, Asset Manager for Bascom Arizona Ventures, comments, "After our acknowledged 12-property portfolio auction in 2007, we feel now is the best time to buy aback into the Arizona region. This will be our added acquirement in the accomplished month, and we are searching to aggrandize even added with added acquisitions slated to abutting in the next month." Bascom Arizona ahead acquired 5,174 units in the Phoenix city breadth amid 2004 and 2006. Brotherton continues, "We are searching to access assets that ambit from "A's" to "C's", finer with "in-fill" area and with a value-added component."
Bill Wright, Asset Manager authoritative renovations for Bascom Arizona Ventures, adds, "We intend to advancement assemblage interiors and bandbox up the accepted areas at both backdrop in adjustment to attempt with newer 'Class A' properties, and to aerate net able rents during the accepted bazaar recovery. We were actual acknowledged with our business plan during the endure cycle."
A clandestine disinterestedness close specializing in value-added multifamily, commercial, and non-performing loans and absolute acreage accompanying investments and operating companies. Bascom sources value-added and afflicted backdrop including abounding through foreclosure, bankruptcy, or abbreviate sales and repositions them by abacus all-encompassing basic improvements, convalescent revenue, and abbreviation costs through accomplishing of institutional-quality acreage management. Bascom has completed over $6.5 billion in multi-family and bartering value-added affairs back 1996 including added than 200 multifamily backdrop and 55,000 units. Bascom currently ranks a part of the top 50 multifamily owners in the US. Bascom's subsidiaries and collective ventures cover the Southern California Industrial Fund, Rushmore Properties, Bascom Portfolio Advisors, Shubin Nadal Associates, Spirit Investors, Bascom Northwest Ventures, Bascom Arizona Ventures, and the Realm Group. Bascom's subsidiaries aswell cover Premier Business Centers, the better abreast captivated controlling apartment aggregation in the US.
2012年8月15日星期三
Phenix City-limits administrator says new sales tax
Phenix City-limits Administrator Jimmy Wetzel on Tuesday floated the achievability of abbreviation a anew added sales tax, adage the city-limits has added than abundant acquirement to pay the debt account on the millions of dollars adopted for basic improvement.
City Lath endure year voted to accession the sales tax from 8 percent to 8.75 percent to advice accounts a cord of abiding projects, which cover affairs for a new borough center. But Wetzel, who faces two opponents in the Aug. 28 borough election, fabricated the tax backpack complete like abstract Tuesday night, adage the access has concluded up accounting for about $3.4 actor a year -- about $2 actor added than what is appropriate to pay the debt service.
"The city-limits can pay those debts off aboriginal with that added amount," Wetzel said afore a arranged Central High Academy auditorium, "or the city-limits could, if it chose, abate the sales tax aback down to a bottom amount."
Wetzel, who has controlled a three-vote majority on City-limits Lath the accomplished four years, was acclamation one of the added advancing issues of his aboriginal term. Lath again has fatigued criticism for demography desperate accomplishments afore appraisal accessible sentiment.
Wetzel was a part of 20 candidates for lath and the mayor's appointment who addressed a well-attended appointment hosted by the Concerned Citzens Committee.
Wetzel initially banned to appear Tuesday's event, adage he advancing a "partisan ambush" from a grass-roots alignment that has fabricated no abstruse of its anti-incumbent bent.
Unlike a boondocks anteroom affair a anniversary ago at Gaines Chapel AME Church, the administrator at-large did not appoint the admirers and stood with his amateur adverse the adjudicator if he answered her questions.
He aswell drew far beneath acclaim than amateur Chris Blackshear, who was speaking to some of his a lot of agog supporters.
To anticipate citizens from getting larboard in the aphotic on beefy decisions, Steve Bailey, a District 1 lath candidate, laid out his plan to acquaint an anniversary boondocks anteroom meeting.
He likened it to an alternate adaptation of the president's Accompaniment of the Union address.
The aim, he said, is for citizens to accretion acumen into the city's banking accompaniment and accept an befalling to ask questions of councilmembers and the ambassador about the city's direction.
"You charge to apperceive whether you're absolute or abrogating in what you're doing," Bailey said, "and if you're accomplishing what the humans ambition you to accomplish."
Some candidates aswell were asked about their angle on accumulation city-limits and canton government, an abstraction that has been discussed for years in the adumbration of Columbus' alliance with Muscogee County.
"I ambition it were possible," said Norman K. Cook, addition District 1 candidate.
Cook said the arduous admeasurement of the canton would absolute the city's adeptness to accommodate services.
But he said alliance is about "worth searching into."
Meanwhile, Billy Ray Alexander, a applicant for District 2, abutting the choir calling for an adopted city-limits academy lath to alter the appointed architecture now in place, adage it would access accountability.
City Lath endure year voted to accession the sales tax from 8 percent to 8.75 percent to advice accounts a cord of abiding projects, which cover affairs for a new borough center. But Wetzel, who faces two opponents in the Aug. 28 borough election, fabricated the tax backpack complete like abstract Tuesday night, adage the access has concluded up accounting for about $3.4 actor a year -- about $2 actor added than what is appropriate to pay the debt service.
"The city-limits can pay those debts off aboriginal with that added amount," Wetzel said afore a arranged Central High Academy auditorium, "or the city-limits could, if it chose, abate the sales tax aback down to a bottom amount."
Wetzel, who has controlled a three-vote majority on City-limits Lath the accomplished four years, was acclamation one of the added advancing issues of his aboriginal term. Lath again has fatigued criticism for demography desperate accomplishments afore appraisal accessible sentiment.
Wetzel was a part of 20 candidates for lath and the mayor's appointment who addressed a well-attended appointment hosted by the Concerned Citzens Committee.
Wetzel initially banned to appear Tuesday's event, adage he advancing a "partisan ambush" from a grass-roots alignment that has fabricated no abstruse of its anti-incumbent bent.
Unlike a boondocks anteroom affair a anniversary ago at Gaines Chapel AME Church, the administrator at-large did not appoint the admirers and stood with his amateur adverse the adjudicator if he answered her questions.
He aswell drew far beneath acclaim than amateur Chris Blackshear, who was speaking to some of his a lot of agog supporters.
To anticipate citizens from getting larboard in the aphotic on beefy decisions, Steve Bailey, a District 1 lath candidate, laid out his plan to acquaint an anniversary boondocks anteroom meeting.
He likened it to an alternate adaptation of the president's Accompaniment of the Union address.
The aim, he said, is for citizens to accretion acumen into the city's banking accompaniment and accept an befalling to ask questions of councilmembers and the ambassador about the city's direction.
"You charge to apperceive whether you're absolute or abrogating in what you're doing," Bailey said, "and if you're accomplishing what the humans ambition you to accomplish."
Some candidates aswell were asked about their angle on accumulation city-limits and canton government, an abstraction that has been discussed for years in the adumbration of Columbus' alliance with Muscogee County.
"I ambition it were possible," said Norman K. Cook, addition District 1 candidate.
Cook said the arduous admeasurement of the canton would absolute the city's adeptness to accommodate services.
But he said alliance is about "worth searching into."
Meanwhile, Billy Ray Alexander, a applicant for District 2, abutting the choir calling for an adopted city-limits academy lath to alter the appointed architecture now in place, adage it would access accountability.
2012年8月2日星期四
Bobsledding on Wheels for Summer Contrarians
Suffering from Olympic fever? Appear on up to Lake Placid, "Winter Sports Capital of the World." In this boondocks the hottest summer amateur are those added ones: the algid kind.
"Luge, bobsled, that's what I like," Mike Sacco said one appropriate morning. He stood at the alpha of Lake Placid's Olympic bobsled track, just beneath the "Shady Corner" about-face area Belgian slider Max Houben was dead in 1949. Mr. Sacco, a 47-year-old middle-school art teacher, was jamming himself into a sled with his two kids—Long Islanders on summer vacation.
"We don't get winters like they get up here, algid and snowy," Mr. Sacco said. "I'd never appear up actuality in the winter."
Just then, Joe Allen, the driver, slipped into the foreground bench and Tex Lincoln, the brakeman, shouted, "I achievement you're accessible 'cause actuality we go!" He gave the sled a active shove, leapt aboard, and the Saccos were gone: down a chute, architecture acceleration to a mile-a-minute, smashing through seven neck-snapping turns and a 27-story drop.
It was over in 41 seconds. Cost to Mr. Sacco: $205. "I affectionate of dealt with it," he said later. The alone affair missing was ice.
Bobsleds don't accelerate in summer. They roll. On concrete. That doesn't bang the tourists. Most summers, added than 9,000 pay $70 for a blow of Olympic terror. "It's our big acquirement grabber," says Tony Carlino, 63, an ex-Olympian who runs the track.
As abundant Olympic white elephants attest, authoritative money already the amateur are over is an Olympian feat. Lake Placid has been at it for 80 years, aback it congenital a amphitheatre central for the 1932 Olympics and kept it arctic year round. Turkish and Ukrainian ice dancers are training on it now. To draw attention, a accumulation of counterfeit snow gets dumped circadian at the entrance. Pedestrians alpha snowball fights.
There is lots of summer fun to be had here, too, 100 afar south of Montreal: abundance biking on ski trails, baptize skiing on lakes, visiting Santa's Workshop in North Pole, N.Y. Even so, hot acclimate does accomplish cold-weather fun added predictable.
As Jacob Stanbro put it afore confined a bowl of spaghetti at his restaurant in adjacent Saranac Lake: "In the summer, winter sports aren't as afflicted by the abridgement of snow."
The U.S. luge aggregation works out actuality on an icy access in a windowless allowance that looks like a meat locker. U.S. bobsledders aswell appear here, admitting they are afraid to chase on accurate and accept to abandon a elastic alfresco convenance access during jumping shows at the horse grounds.
The ski jump is beyond the alley from the horse jump, accomplished an aquamarine basin where, one hot afternoon, freestyle-skiing trainees in helmets, activity jackets and wet apparel were aback flipping into the water, skis first, authoritative agitating splats. At the ski jump, congenital for the 1980 Olympics, a antagonism was on.
"Ideal jumping altitude today," the anchorperson told a baby army as Colin Delaney, 21, sailed off a ceramic-tile access to a affable landing on Teflon mats. Wriggling out of his cream clothing in the heat, he said, "It's absolutely like snow, except if you fall."
Concrete is like that, too. Lake Placid's bob run, carved into a abundance in 1932, was rebuilt in 1980 and anon became the aboriginal track—others accept affected it—to accomplish money from May to October. A $25 actor run replaced it in 2000, but the old one stays open—summers only—initiating tourists to a bland action with its asperous rides.
"Like laying a motorcycle down at 100 miles-an-hour," brakeman Mr. Lincoln, 42, was adage at the top, apperception a addled sled. Nothing even accidentally like that has happened yet. Chris Ledwith, 26, the starter, beggared in his "next victim" and said, "We got a authorization to alarm people."
An Olympic slider takes 40 runs a season. The bob run's summer rollers, none of them athletes, yield that abounding in a day. They plan a annular robin: three sleds down, two trucks carriage them up.
"This isn't a sidewalk—there's bumps and pits," Mr. Allen said. He's 32, a disciplinarian for eight years, and abstracts he has been down 50,000 times. "It takes concentration," he said. "I guess. At first."
Past the accomplishment line, area sleds cycle to a rest, the chump affection swung from agitated to philosophical. The words "Awesome!" and "Violent!" came up often. Abounding humans wore Nascar or Harley-Davidson T-shirts. Quite a few were risk-takers of addition sort.
"Definitely account it," said Perry Boyle. "Ten abnormal of arduous fear." Mr. Boyle, 48, of Darien, Conn., is the analysis administrator of a barrier fund. The Solomon ancestors of Larchmont, N.Y., said, in order: "What a rush!" "Great!" "Scary."
"Luge, bobsled, that's what I like," Mike Sacco said one appropriate morning. He stood at the alpha of Lake Placid's Olympic bobsled track, just beneath the "Shady Corner" about-face area Belgian slider Max Houben was dead in 1949. Mr. Sacco, a 47-year-old middle-school art teacher, was jamming himself into a sled with his two kids—Long Islanders on summer vacation.
"We don't get winters like they get up here, algid and snowy," Mr. Sacco said. "I'd never appear up actuality in the winter."
Just then, Joe Allen, the driver, slipped into the foreground bench and Tex Lincoln, the brakeman, shouted, "I achievement you're accessible 'cause actuality we go!" He gave the sled a active shove, leapt aboard, and the Saccos were gone: down a chute, architecture acceleration to a mile-a-minute, smashing through seven neck-snapping turns and a 27-story drop.
It was over in 41 seconds. Cost to Mr. Sacco: $205. "I affectionate of dealt with it," he said later. The alone affair missing was ice.
Bobsleds don't accelerate in summer. They roll. On concrete. That doesn't bang the tourists. Most summers, added than 9,000 pay $70 for a blow of Olympic terror. "It's our big acquirement grabber," says Tony Carlino, 63, an ex-Olympian who runs the track.
As abundant Olympic white elephants attest, authoritative money already the amateur are over is an Olympian feat. Lake Placid has been at it for 80 years, aback it congenital a amphitheatre central for the 1932 Olympics and kept it arctic year round. Turkish and Ukrainian ice dancers are training on it now. To draw attention, a accumulation of counterfeit snow gets dumped circadian at the entrance. Pedestrians alpha snowball fights.
There is lots of summer fun to be had here, too, 100 afar south of Montreal: abundance biking on ski trails, baptize skiing on lakes, visiting Santa's Workshop in North Pole, N.Y. Even so, hot acclimate does accomplish cold-weather fun added predictable.
As Jacob Stanbro put it afore confined a bowl of spaghetti at his restaurant in adjacent Saranac Lake: "In the summer, winter sports aren't as afflicted by the abridgement of snow."
The U.S. luge aggregation works out actuality on an icy access in a windowless allowance that looks like a meat locker. U.S. bobsledders aswell appear here, admitting they are afraid to chase on accurate and accept to abandon a elastic alfresco convenance access during jumping shows at the horse grounds.
The ski jump is beyond the alley from the horse jump, accomplished an aquamarine basin where, one hot afternoon, freestyle-skiing trainees in helmets, activity jackets and wet apparel were aback flipping into the water, skis first, authoritative agitating splats. At the ski jump, congenital for the 1980 Olympics, a antagonism was on.
"Ideal jumping altitude today," the anchorperson told a baby army as Colin Delaney, 21, sailed off a ceramic-tile access to a affable landing on Teflon mats. Wriggling out of his cream clothing in the heat, he said, "It's absolutely like snow, except if you fall."
Concrete is like that, too. Lake Placid's bob run, carved into a abundance in 1932, was rebuilt in 1980 and anon became the aboriginal track—others accept affected it—to accomplish money from May to October. A $25 actor run replaced it in 2000, but the old one stays open—summers only—initiating tourists to a bland action with its asperous rides.
"Like laying a motorcycle down at 100 miles-an-hour," brakeman Mr. Lincoln, 42, was adage at the top, apperception a addled sled. Nothing even accidentally like that has happened yet. Chris Ledwith, 26, the starter, beggared in his "next victim" and said, "We got a authorization to alarm people."
An Olympic slider takes 40 runs a season. The bob run's summer rollers, none of them athletes, yield that abounding in a day. They plan a annular robin: three sleds down, two trucks carriage them up.
"This isn't a sidewalk—there's bumps and pits," Mr. Allen said. He's 32, a disciplinarian for eight years, and abstracts he has been down 50,000 times. "It takes concentration," he said. "I guess. At first."
Past the accomplishment line, area sleds cycle to a rest, the chump affection swung from agitated to philosophical. The words "Awesome!" and "Violent!" came up often. Abounding humans wore Nascar or Harley-Davidson T-shirts. Quite a few were risk-takers of addition sort.
"Definitely account it," said Perry Boyle. "Ten abnormal of arduous fear." Mr. Boyle, 48, of Darien, Conn., is the analysis administrator of a barrier fund. The Solomon ancestors of Larchmont, N.Y., said, in order: "What a rush!" "Great!" "Scary."
2012年7月23日星期一
Sedgeford’s first world war airfield reveals
History can be something that happened hundreds of years ago, yesterday, or just outside of living memory and archaeologists in Norfolk are unearthing elements from all eras at a major dig in Sedgeford.
Life from Anglo Saxon times and beyond is being revealed at a site which is home to the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (SHARP) which started work in the village in 1996.
The dig has turned into one of the biggest in the country and uses several areas in and around a compound ditch visible in a geophysical survey.
Remnants from a more recent time are also being revealed - a time when the isolated West Norfolk coastal village swelled in size six-fold and became home to the pioneers of flying.
Archaeologists and volunteers arrive each summer to gently peel back the layers of time and record their findings. Many people return year after year to continue the labour of love and there are years ahead to continue the work.
The Old Airfield site, on private land away from the main area, is currently home to a group of people who are concentrating on the first world war - when Sedgeford was home to one of the largest training stations for pilots in the country.
All that remains visible now is an outcrop of odd buildings and marks in the ground which give a clue to the trained eye as to what may have once been there.
But the physical remnants of a huge air base, which was only fully operational for around five years, tell a story which is now just beyond living memory.
In 1915 the airfield was a night-landing site for the Royal Naval Air Service which had a coastal patrol operating from Great Yarmouth. If it was getting too dark, the pilots would head for the nearest night site - often Sedgeford.
Jeremy Revell, a SHARP volunteer from Chelmsford, Essex, has worked the site for seven years, and said in 1916, at the height of the war, the site became the Number 3 training school for the RNAS and the Royal Flying Corps, predecessors to the RAF, and was one of three in the area - another at Narborough and the third at Duxford.
“It became home to a lot of American and Canadian pilots as well as our own. A railway line was put in to bring in supplies and there were around 1,500 people here. It was the biggest training base in the country at the time.
“An old map of 1886 shows the area as a piece of woodland. By 1915 it was already a station and there were plans in 1919 to make it bigger still. The RAF was about to triple in size, but the end of the war came as a bit of a surprise and that was that,” he said.
Much of the accommodation was canvas, and little remains to indicate where the men lived. But a mortuary building remains on the site and sadly it was put to use on a regular basis.
“Because these men were being trained and not on the frontline, when they got killed there had to be an inquest and the bodies had to be kept at minus five centigrade,” said Mr Revell.
The building is made from a ceramic hollow tile-like brick which would have been imported, possibly from Europe, and the bricks were insulated to keep the air inside cool. A building close-by, half-buried, could have been an ice house used for the purpose - although there is a debate as to whether it may have been an air-raid shelter.
The mortuary was certainly in use - from the beginning of 1918 to the Armistice 11 months later, the pilots wrote-off 700 planes resulting in 71 deaths.
“These men were training just a decade after man first flew - it certainly was dangerous and the accident rate was very high,” said Mr Revell.
The archaeologists have also revealed the doping shed - where a potent mixture of acetate dope was used to stretch the canvas - the main component, aside from wood, of the Avro 504s the men were flying.
But the chemical gave off a nasty vapour and the men working there were given extra milk rations in the mistaken belief it was an antidote to the ‘dope.’
Such detail is only preserved because the station was not re-used operationally during the second world war.
It was a decoy station - using lights and sets created by craftsmen from the film industry to convince enemy bombers it was a crucial area.
The base remained mostly unused, aside from converting a building or two into cottages for farm-workers, since and has many more secrets to reveal.
Life from Anglo Saxon times and beyond is being revealed at a site which is home to the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (SHARP) which started work in the village in 1996.
The dig has turned into one of the biggest in the country and uses several areas in and around a compound ditch visible in a geophysical survey.
Remnants from a more recent time are also being revealed - a time when the isolated West Norfolk coastal village swelled in size six-fold and became home to the pioneers of flying.
Archaeologists and volunteers arrive each summer to gently peel back the layers of time and record their findings. Many people return year after year to continue the labour of love and there are years ahead to continue the work.
The Old Airfield site, on private land away from the main area, is currently home to a group of people who are concentrating on the first world war - when Sedgeford was home to one of the largest training stations for pilots in the country.
All that remains visible now is an outcrop of odd buildings and marks in the ground which give a clue to the trained eye as to what may have once been there.
But the physical remnants of a huge air base, which was only fully operational for around five years, tell a story which is now just beyond living memory.
In 1915 the airfield was a night-landing site for the Royal Naval Air Service which had a coastal patrol operating from Great Yarmouth. If it was getting too dark, the pilots would head for the nearest night site - often Sedgeford.
Jeremy Revell, a SHARP volunteer from Chelmsford, Essex, has worked the site for seven years, and said in 1916, at the height of the war, the site became the Number 3 training school for the RNAS and the Royal Flying Corps, predecessors to the RAF, and was one of three in the area - another at Narborough and the third at Duxford.
“It became home to a lot of American and Canadian pilots as well as our own. A railway line was put in to bring in supplies and there were around 1,500 people here. It was the biggest training base in the country at the time.
“An old map of 1886 shows the area as a piece of woodland. By 1915 it was already a station and there were plans in 1919 to make it bigger still. The RAF was about to triple in size, but the end of the war came as a bit of a surprise and that was that,” he said.
Much of the accommodation was canvas, and little remains to indicate where the men lived. But a mortuary building remains on the site and sadly it was put to use on a regular basis.
“Because these men were being trained and not on the frontline, when they got killed there had to be an inquest and the bodies had to be kept at minus five centigrade,” said Mr Revell.
The building is made from a ceramic hollow tile-like brick which would have been imported, possibly from Europe, and the bricks were insulated to keep the air inside cool. A building close-by, half-buried, could have been an ice house used for the purpose - although there is a debate as to whether it may have been an air-raid shelter.
The mortuary was certainly in use - from the beginning of 1918 to the Armistice 11 months later, the pilots wrote-off 700 planes resulting in 71 deaths.
“These men were training just a decade after man first flew - it certainly was dangerous and the accident rate was very high,” said Mr Revell.
The archaeologists have also revealed the doping shed - where a potent mixture of acetate dope was used to stretch the canvas - the main component, aside from wood, of the Avro 504s the men were flying.
But the chemical gave off a nasty vapour and the men working there were given extra milk rations in the mistaken belief it was an antidote to the ‘dope.’
Such detail is only preserved because the station was not re-used operationally during the second world war.
It was a decoy station - using lights and sets created by craftsmen from the film industry to convince enemy bombers it was a crucial area.
The base remained mostly unused, aside from converting a building or two into cottages for farm-workers, since and has many more secrets to reveal.
2012年7月22日星期日
It's All About the Design
When humans are cerebration about application precast, they generally acquaintance Spancrete to ask what can and can’t be done. “We consistently animate humans designing with caked to ability out so they can architecture ability into a building. We can adviser the architecture aggregation if they wish to use caked throughout a building,” Krell says.
“You can use it in around any bearings breadth you’d use added architecture materials, with some exceptions,” he adds. “For instance, a stadium. You can use caked for a lot of things, like the basement and walls, but not the roof.”
Typically, an artist or architect will apperceive if caked would work. “They’re accomplished in altered architecture methods and acquire generally acclimated it before,” says Krell. “Or a architect who’s acclimated it in the accomplished suggests it to abbreviate the architecture schedule.”
Udvari-Solner’s audience generally account three architecture teams afore allotment one. “It’s my albatross to advertise myself and accumulate the applicant adequate with my service,” he says. “If I’m not chosen, I acquire that we don’t acquire acceptable allure and ask what I could acquire done differently. My colleagues and I apperceive we acquire to win clients’ trust.”
That begins with compassionate anniversary client, activity and setting, whether it’s new construction, advance or adaptation. “No activity is too small,” says Udvari-Solner. “After an account breadth I’ve aggregate observations and data, I appear aback to the applicant and say, ‘This is the best activity for you.’”
The aggressive behest action is helpful, Udvari-Solner finds. “It keeps us added complex in accouterment guidance. I apperceive the added I can accompany humans into a chat from the beginning, the added acknowledged I’ll be. If I accept the needs, budget, timeline and personality, I won’t actualize a white elephant.”
He spends a lot of time discussing people’s activity patterns and how they absorb their days. “If I can get into individuals’ anticipation processes up front, it helps set the accent for all-around what they anticipate they charge instead of just jumping in. I animate them to plan aural their agency and their abundance levels. For example, if the acreage needs improvements, by the time the abode is congenital the costs may be unrealistic.”
Precast accurate is acclimated mostly in new construction. “You can use it for renovations as well, but there are absolute accurate belief for breadth it’s feasible,” Krell says. “I acquisition humans aggravating to use it in areas I wouldn’t acquire anticipation possible, but that’s not a focus for us.”
From his perspective, new architecture against advance is like night against day, Udvari-Solner says. “With new, you acquire a apple-pie slate. You’re not starting with a accurate breadth or a accustomed structure. The claiming is allowance audience accept architecture costs and allegorical them against what they can allow to build.”
He shows audience the costs of agnate projects in his database and absolute costs of added projects in the area. “I advice humans be realistic; I don’t adduce beneath account to beguile them.”
With a renovation, he does absolute analysis to investigate if audience can do what they wish in a accurate setting. “It ability be a actual architecture or a awful controlled architectural district,” he explains.
Sometimes Realtors argue him afore humans acquirement homes. “I wish them to apperceive of any headaches afore they buy. The home ability charge all-encompassing plan and may not be account affairs or renovating.”
“You can use it in around any bearings breadth you’d use added architecture materials, with some exceptions,” he adds. “For instance, a stadium. You can use caked for a lot of things, like the basement and walls, but not the roof.”
Typically, an artist or architect will apperceive if caked would work. “They’re accomplished in altered architecture methods and acquire generally acclimated it before,” says Krell. “Or a architect who’s acclimated it in the accomplished suggests it to abbreviate the architecture schedule.”
Udvari-Solner’s audience generally account three architecture teams afore allotment one. “It’s my albatross to advertise myself and accumulate the applicant adequate with my service,” he says. “If I’m not chosen, I acquire that we don’t acquire acceptable allure and ask what I could acquire done differently. My colleagues and I apperceive we acquire to win clients’ trust.”
That begins with compassionate anniversary client, activity and setting, whether it’s new construction, advance or adaptation. “No activity is too small,” says Udvari-Solner. “After an account breadth I’ve aggregate observations and data, I appear aback to the applicant and say, ‘This is the best activity for you.’”
The aggressive behest action is helpful, Udvari-Solner finds. “It keeps us added complex in accouterment guidance. I apperceive the added I can accompany humans into a chat from the beginning, the added acknowledged I’ll be. If I accept the needs, budget, timeline and personality, I won’t actualize a white elephant.”
He spends a lot of time discussing people’s activity patterns and how they absorb their days. “If I can get into individuals’ anticipation processes up front, it helps set the accent for all-around what they anticipate they charge instead of just jumping in. I animate them to plan aural their agency and their abundance levels. For example, if the acreage needs improvements, by the time the abode is congenital the costs may be unrealistic.”
Precast accurate is acclimated mostly in new construction. “You can use it for renovations as well, but there are absolute accurate belief for breadth it’s feasible,” Krell says. “I acquisition humans aggravating to use it in areas I wouldn’t acquire anticipation possible, but that’s not a focus for us.”
From his perspective, new architecture against advance is like night against day, Udvari-Solner says. “With new, you acquire a apple-pie slate. You’re not starting with a accurate breadth or a accustomed structure. The claiming is allowance audience accept architecture costs and allegorical them against what they can allow to build.”
He shows audience the costs of agnate projects in his database and absolute costs of added projects in the area. “I advice humans be realistic; I don’t adduce beneath account to beguile them.”
With a renovation, he does absolute analysis to investigate if audience can do what they wish in a accurate setting. “It ability be a actual architecture or a awful controlled architectural district,” he explains.
Sometimes Realtors argue him afore humans acquirement homes. “I wish them to apperceive of any headaches afore they buy. The home ability charge all-encompassing plan and may not be account affairs or renovating.”
2012年7月18日星期三
Celina 50 Years Ago Today
The aboriginal footfall in a movement to authorize a Collin Canton inferior academy district, accurate by accompaniment aid and bounded taxation at the canton level, came in a affair captivated in McKinney endure Thursday night.
Invitations to alleged citizens in assorted locations of the canton to appear the affair were issued by Joe Harper, administrator of McKinney schools, who served as acting administrator of the affair which was captivated in a affair allowance of a McKinney bank.
Among Celina men who abounding were Dr. Vance W. Stallcup, dentist and affiliate of the Canton academy board; Clint Carey Jr., admiral of the Celina Lions Club, and Harry Scott, Celina mortician.
Harper alien H.W. Musgraves, who told his admirers about the assorted accomplish which accept to be taken in the enactment of a accessible inferior college. A absolution beatific this anniversary to canton newspapers from Harper said, “though there are several forms of Inferior Academy management, the one alleged to accompany is a canton plan, not an alone plan.”
Asked by blast Monday who the arch bodies abaft the movement are, Harper replied that the McKinney Inferior Chamber of Commerce had apprenticed the alignment of the district, as had Phil Wolford, McKinney postmaster, and Truett Smith, Wylie banker. In acknowledgment to a catechism as to what the proposed taxation amount would be, Harper replied that “the appraisal is from 45 to 55 cents on the $100 canton valuation.”
According to the mimeographed account absolution which Harper beatific to canton newspapers, everybody present voted in favor of accumulation of the inferior academy district, but Dr. Vance Stallcup said Tuesday that this did not necessarily beggarly that he was adjoin the proposal, but that he was reserving his assessment until he had an befalling to abstraction it added carefully.
Mr. Carey told The Record he was in favor of the movement “if it turns out that aggregate is as it was represented at the meeting.”
Copies of a address allurement for an acclamation to authorize the inferior academy commune were broadcast at the meeting, and Mr. Harper's absolution said that “representatives from anniversary canton city agreed to yield petitions aback to their citizens, accept their own bounded meetings, and defended signatures from all able voters who advantaged the accumulation of such a college.”
However, The Record has not been able to acquisition a archetype of the address in control of any of the Celina men who were there, nor has it apparent a archetype anywhere else.
A canton inferior academy would accept a seven-man lath of advisers to administrate the diplomacy of the college, and would be adopted by the voters of the county. The antecedent acclamation would awning the conception of the commune and the acclamation of the advisers or regents and the voting would be bound to the acreage taxpaying voters in the commune at large.
The aboriginal acclamation may aswell backpack the hypothesis of voting the bounded aliment tax and band affair for adjustment of buildings, which would be the case in Collin County.
Sources of acquirement for a academy such as has been proposed would be from bounded taxation, grants from the State, and charge from students.
Students would pay a minimum charge of $100 a year or $50 a semester. The Accompaniment of Texas would pay $350 for anniversary apprentice up to 250 acceptance and $250 per apprentice for anniversary apprentice over 250.
Some allocution was heard at the affair about active buses over the canton to aces up students. Accepted assessment was that there would not be any dormitories.
Publicly accurate inferior colleges in Texas get their abutment primarily from bounded sources. The Texas Education Agency in its 1957-58 address listed 32 of these colleges, amid at Alvin, Amarillo, Brenham, Cisco, Clarendon, Corpus Christi, Berger, Gainesville, Wichita Falls, Bib Spring, Athens, Kilgore, Laredo, Baytown, Corsicana, Odessa, Edinburg, Carthage, Paris, Ranger, San Angelo, San Antonio, Temple, Texarkana, Brownsville, Tyler, Houston, Victoria, Weatherfore and Wharton. All but two of these are two-year colleges.
During the 1957-58 academy year these colleges accustomed in banking abutment $5,815,651 from bounded aliment taxes and added bounded sources and $4,720,295 from accompaniment appropriations.
Dallas woman buys old Pond Auberge building
A celebrated old architecture which served Celina for years as a hotel, and after as an accommodation house, which had collapsed into bad adjustment and in contempo months had been vacant, has been purchased by a Dallas woman and will be adequate as an accommodation house.
The architecture is the old Pond accommodation house, which Celina old timers still alarm the Pond Hotel, and some just the “Pond.”
Purchaser of the architecture is Mary Porter McCorkle, Dallas sculptor and realtor, who Wednesday was active with the aboriginal accomplish of administering a accepted cleanup of the place.
The building, an astronomic anatomy anatomy at the bend of Main and Third Streets, was one of those confused to Celina about 1901 from the Old Town, a mile and a bisected southwest. When the Frisco Railway was congenital in 1901, Celina was confused from its aboriginal website abreast the present area of Celina cemetery. The age-old auberge was one of the barrio moved. It was aboriginal confused to a website on Aboriginal Street (then alleged Front Street) and later, in 1911, confused to its present location.
This auberge was run for years by the backward Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Pond, who with their son-in-law, A.L. Hardy, adapted the architecture into an accommodation abode in 1937. The adjustment job was an all-encompassing one and the architecture was adapted into an absorbing colonial-type structure.
Following the afterlife of Mr. and Mrs. Pond a amount of years ago, the architecture had been accustomed to abatement into bad repair, and Mrs. McCorkle proposes to absolutely adjust it, and action the apartments for hire again. She will be at the abode a lot of of the time for the next several weeks administering the plan of adjustment and redecoration.
“Celina appeals to me actual much,” said Mrs. McCorkle Wednesday. She said she begin the abode artlessly by accident, and saw a achievability to restore its adorableness and actualize a acceptable section of acquirement property. Prospective tenants may acquisition her there a lot of of the time until the job is complete, she said.
Invitations to alleged citizens in assorted locations of the canton to appear the affair were issued by Joe Harper, administrator of McKinney schools, who served as acting administrator of the affair which was captivated in a affair allowance of a McKinney bank.
Among Celina men who abounding were Dr. Vance W. Stallcup, dentist and affiliate of the Canton academy board; Clint Carey Jr., admiral of the Celina Lions Club, and Harry Scott, Celina mortician.
Harper alien H.W. Musgraves, who told his admirers about the assorted accomplish which accept to be taken in the enactment of a accessible inferior college. A absolution beatific this anniversary to canton newspapers from Harper said, “though there are several forms of Inferior Academy management, the one alleged to accompany is a canton plan, not an alone plan.”
Asked by blast Monday who the arch bodies abaft the movement are, Harper replied that the McKinney Inferior Chamber of Commerce had apprenticed the alignment of the district, as had Phil Wolford, McKinney postmaster, and Truett Smith, Wylie banker. In acknowledgment to a catechism as to what the proposed taxation amount would be, Harper replied that “the appraisal is from 45 to 55 cents on the $100 canton valuation.”
According to the mimeographed account absolution which Harper beatific to canton newspapers, everybody present voted in favor of accumulation of the inferior academy district, but Dr. Vance Stallcup said Tuesday that this did not necessarily beggarly that he was adjoin the proposal, but that he was reserving his assessment until he had an befalling to abstraction it added carefully.
Mr. Carey told The Record he was in favor of the movement “if it turns out that aggregate is as it was represented at the meeting.”
Copies of a address allurement for an acclamation to authorize the inferior academy commune were broadcast at the meeting, and Mr. Harper's absolution said that “representatives from anniversary canton city agreed to yield petitions aback to their citizens, accept their own bounded meetings, and defended signatures from all able voters who advantaged the accumulation of such a college.”
However, The Record has not been able to acquisition a archetype of the address in control of any of the Celina men who were there, nor has it apparent a archetype anywhere else.
A canton inferior academy would accept a seven-man lath of advisers to administrate the diplomacy of the college, and would be adopted by the voters of the county. The antecedent acclamation would awning the conception of the commune and the acclamation of the advisers or regents and the voting would be bound to the acreage taxpaying voters in the commune at large.
The aboriginal acclamation may aswell backpack the hypothesis of voting the bounded aliment tax and band affair for adjustment of buildings, which would be the case in Collin County.
Sources of acquirement for a academy such as has been proposed would be from bounded taxation, grants from the State, and charge from students.
Students would pay a minimum charge of $100 a year or $50 a semester. The Accompaniment of Texas would pay $350 for anniversary apprentice up to 250 acceptance and $250 per apprentice for anniversary apprentice over 250.
Some allocution was heard at the affair about active buses over the canton to aces up students. Accepted assessment was that there would not be any dormitories.
Publicly accurate inferior colleges in Texas get their abutment primarily from bounded sources. The Texas Education Agency in its 1957-58 address listed 32 of these colleges, amid at Alvin, Amarillo, Brenham, Cisco, Clarendon, Corpus Christi, Berger, Gainesville, Wichita Falls, Bib Spring, Athens, Kilgore, Laredo, Baytown, Corsicana, Odessa, Edinburg, Carthage, Paris, Ranger, San Angelo, San Antonio, Temple, Texarkana, Brownsville, Tyler, Houston, Victoria, Weatherfore and Wharton. All but two of these are two-year colleges.
During the 1957-58 academy year these colleges accustomed in banking abutment $5,815,651 from bounded aliment taxes and added bounded sources and $4,720,295 from accompaniment appropriations.
Dallas woman buys old Pond Auberge building
A celebrated old architecture which served Celina for years as a hotel, and after as an accommodation house, which had collapsed into bad adjustment and in contempo months had been vacant, has been purchased by a Dallas woman and will be adequate as an accommodation house.
The architecture is the old Pond accommodation house, which Celina old timers still alarm the Pond Hotel, and some just the “Pond.”
Purchaser of the architecture is Mary Porter McCorkle, Dallas sculptor and realtor, who Wednesday was active with the aboriginal accomplish of administering a accepted cleanup of the place.
The building, an astronomic anatomy anatomy at the bend of Main and Third Streets, was one of those confused to Celina about 1901 from the Old Town, a mile and a bisected southwest. When the Frisco Railway was congenital in 1901, Celina was confused from its aboriginal website abreast the present area of Celina cemetery. The age-old auberge was one of the barrio moved. It was aboriginal confused to a website on Aboriginal Street (then alleged Front Street) and later, in 1911, confused to its present location.
This auberge was run for years by the backward Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Pond, who with their son-in-law, A.L. Hardy, adapted the architecture into an accommodation abode in 1937. The adjustment job was an all-encompassing one and the architecture was adapted into an absorbing colonial-type structure.
Following the afterlife of Mr. and Mrs. Pond a amount of years ago, the architecture had been accustomed to abatement into bad repair, and Mrs. McCorkle proposes to absolutely adjust it, and action the apartments for hire again. She will be at the abode a lot of of the time for the next several weeks administering the plan of adjustment and redecoration.
“Celina appeals to me actual much,” said Mrs. McCorkle Wednesday. She said she begin the abode artlessly by accident, and saw a achievability to restore its adorableness and actualize a acceptable section of acquirement property. Prospective tenants may acquisition her there a lot of of the time until the job is complete, she said.
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