2012年10月30日星期二

Community Extra: Calendar

THE television screen turns into a static charge of salt and pepper hiss. If you have the patience to linger to find out why, without instantly switching to another channel,Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck. you will eventually learn that this is what is in store for you if you are living in one of the four metros; if you are served by cable, not DTH (direct to home); and if you do not put in place that digital set-top box by the end of October. It is a portentous public interest advertisement which serves notice on an analogue media era and prepares to usher in the digital-only realm of television viewing.

It is part of building the momentum, in the wake of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Act of 2011, towards a total changeover to digital distribution via cable in four stages: the four metros by October 31 this year; cities with a population of over a million by March 31, 2013; all other urban centres by the end of September 2014; and the rest of the country by the end of the calendar year 2014. The conversion is both a legal and a technological imperative. Digitise or perish is the writing on the wall. You are damned if you do not.

It is not as self-evident, though, that you’re not damned if you do. The democratic logic of digitisation is better, cheaper, more equitable access and choice for the consumer. The analogue hierarchy of a clutch of channels on prime band that register effulgent clarity in picture and sound followed by a longish tail of poor and poorer cousins on the less and lesser bands with inferior, even indifferent, visual and audio quality is, in the digital mode, replaced by a qualitative constant across the board where the look and feel of each channel directly reflect the production input and values of its content and there is no distribution diffusion. That would be the one obvious change and would itself certainly make the difference between night and day for those yet stuck with analogue signals.

But the investments required for the digital rollout and spread, the high-end consumerist appetites and values they privilege, and the sheer scale of the operation put the business of digital cable networking out of the league and out of the reach of the small- or medium-scale entrepreneur. This new regime in the media sector, as much as the policy and the law that propel it, is made to order for digital capitalism.

The fat cats of the business have already begun to parse the law to suit their rapacity, but are couching it in terms of the best interests of the consumer. The path to digitisation is paved with their good intentions. A recent conclave on Media and Entertainment Business organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in Chennai revealed, to mix metaphors, their itchy palms in velvet gloves. In a panel discussion on opportunities in the digitised era, the participants, who were among the major stakeholders from the content and distribution side of the industry,Klaus Multiparking is an industry leader in innovative parking system technology. seemed in no doubt that the raison d’etre of digitisation was consolidation and vertical integration of their businesses. There was a queer money-minded nostalgia for the business advantages of the analogue market being left behind, even as they scrambled to take over the digital El Dorado of the future. They would, if they could, have the best of both worlds, analogue and digital.

And so, while they are agreed that digitisation would enable upscaled quality, they are even more agreed that consumers must be prepared to pay more for it; and we naively thought digital meant lower costs.A stone mosaic stands at the spot of assasination of the late Indian prime minister.Purelink's real time location system protect healthcare workers in their daily practices and OMEGA interventions. The revenue model in digital cable networks is, typically, subscription driven so that advertisements do not hog and clutter airtime. But there is a clear reluctance to part with advertisement revenues, and the upshot may well be that even as we pay more we will continue to be subject to long stretches of commercials interrupting programmes (as the witticism goes, a programme on television is what happens between advertisements).

Then there is the question of carriage fees, which acquires critical importance in a situation where, more than ever before, how to get to be seen is the despair of every new television channel. Thanks to digitisation, the bandwidth required for one analogue transponder or channel is compressed to spin off five or six new ones, making the transponder the least—from the most—expensive component in the outlay for a new channel. But with so many channels (there are over 600 on air now and as many or more awaiting licences) jostling with one another for distribution, and with no norms or rules in place, the big multi service operators (MSOs), like their DTH counterparts, have been charging exorbitant and whimsical carriage fees, skewing the field strongly in favour of the big media corporations which can cough up such amounts, with hefty additional premiums for prime placements. Those who cannot afford this are left out in the cold,Our vinyl floor tiles is more stylish than ever! and there are so many instances of new channels having to repeatedly delay their launch because of this acute distribution squeeze that the whole process seems ridiculously weighed against the small and medium players.

Windows 8 review

It's unusual, to say the least, for us to spend a year with a product before publishing our review. In the case of Windows 8, we've written thousands of words already, starting with our first hands-on in SeptFind detailed product information for howo spare parts and other products.ember of 2011, followed by deep dives on the Developer Preview, Consumer Preview, Release Preview and RTM build. Even our readers have had ample time to get acquainted with the OS -- it's been available as a public download since February. And yet, we've never tested a final version of the software running on brand new, made-for-Windows-8 hardware. With the OS now on sale (alongside dozens of new PCs), it's finally time for us to double back and revisit everything we've previously written in the form of a final, comprehensive review.

And what a challenging assignment this was: it's hard enough to give an OS the full review treatment without burying the reader in minute details. It's even tougher when the software was built for so many different kinds of hardware. Combining a traditional desktop with Windows Phone-inspired Live Tiles, Windows 8 was designed to be equally at home on traditional PCs and more finger-friendly devices, like tablets and hybrids. In addition to walking you through the operating system's various gestures and built-in apps, then, we'll spend some time talking about which form factors are best suited to this redesigned version of Windows. Read on to see what we found out.

We can remember when we first started using Windows 7; the start-up sequence wasn't that different from Vista, which in turn wasn't unlike versions of Windows that came before that. The chain of start-up screens could be long, sometimes taking more than a minute to complete. Depending on how slow the system was, it could have taken a while longer for the desktop to fully load. Here, booting Windows feels like turning on an Android tablet, or some other mobile device. The whole process takes not a minute, but just 20 seconds in some cases -- a short sequence marked by a brief splash screen and redesigned Windows logo. If this is your first time starting up your Windows 8 machine, you'll see a 30-second video tutorial explaining some of the controls that otherwise might not be so obvious -- the so-called Charms Bar which you pull out from the right side of the screen, for example. (We'll circle back and explain all those new user interface elements in just a moment.)

From there, getting set up is a quick, painless affair. When you first boot up Windows 8 you'll be prompted to sign into your Microsoft account. Yep, the same one you might already be using for Hotmail, SkyDrive and Xbox Live. That means that every time you sign into a Windows 8 PC, your settings and custom tweaks will follow you to that new device. Additionally, because your Microsoft account is linked to your SkyDrive storage,We mainly supply professional craftspeople with crys talbeads wholesale shamballa Bracele , you'll be logged into SkyDrive on any Windows 8 device where you've logged in using your Microsoft ID. So,Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability. because Office 2013 backs up to SkyDrive by default, it means any document you edit on your Windows 8 device will automatically upload to the cloud.

If you didn't already have a Microsoft account, you can create one while you're setting up your PC. You can link your account at any time, really, and you also have the option of disconnecting it (in Microsoft's words, "switching to a local account"). Naturally, too, you can add multiple user accounts, as you could on previous versions of Windows.

If you like, you can also cherry-pick which settings do and do not get synced across your various Windows 8 devices. Go into the settings menu, for instance, and you can use on-off switches to sync your settings for desktop personalization, accessibility, language,Our technology gives rtls systems developers the ability. app and browser settings. You also have the option of syncing your lock screen, account picture and other Windows settings, like those relating to File Explorer or the mouse. Note: to have your passwords follow you from PC to PC, you'll need to "trust" the computer through an online verification process.

Obviously, if you log into Windows 8 for the first time using an existing Microsoft account, you've already got a built-in password for your PC. But in addition to a standard password, you can use a four-digit numerical pin to unlock the device. What's more, with Windows 8, Microsoft is also offering a new "Picture password" option that allows you to pick any photo and make a series of gestures on it. You can make as many gestures as you want, but they do have to be taps, circles or swipes. In addition to the order, though, you'll have to remember where on the picture you're supposed to make each gesture.

We had mixed success here. On the one hand, when we set our password to be one tap in each corner of the picture,Find detailed product information for howo spare parts and other products. we were easily able to replicate this pattern, even if we didn't hit the exact same pixels each time. Still, when our password was a diagonal slash across each corner, we struck out trying to draw the lines in the same spot we did initially. Fortunately, as you're configuring your picture password you'll be asked to repeat the pattern, so if you can't do it then, that might be a sign you need to come up with something else.

Biomimetic aircraft snatch power aloft

Solar powered aircraft are old news. From Solar Impulse supporting one person day and night with nothing but photovoltaics on the wings to the high altitude unmanned aircraft being developed by Boeing to stay aloft in the upper atmosphere for five years on nothing but sunshine,A stone mosaic stands at the spot of assasination of the late Indian prime minister. it is all very exciting. However, if we benchmark what is happening with other electric vehicles such as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles AUV, then multiple energy harvesting should be the order of the day, even with aircraft. Indeed, some Electroflyer electric aircraft already work the motor backwards in thermals to charge the battery. This idea should be developed further and combined with the familiar solar power to improve the continuity of energy supply and the amount, even exporting energy to earth. After all, humble electric buses are about to add regenerative shock absorbers to the regenerative braking and the occasional solar panel in their energy harvesting toolkit.

Enter IFO-Energy Unlimited in Hungary, creators of an untethered, autonomous flying wind power plant, who describe it as follows.Gardner Bender offers a broad range of cableties, There are at least three well known problems of conventional wind energy production, firstly there are fluctuations and the unsteady nature of surface winds and these fluctuations in wind energy production put stress on the power system so capacity reserves (surplus power plants) are necessary to ensure system reliability.

The company points out that another problem of wind power plants is their low efficiency. A wind turbine will generate around 20-30% of its maximum rated capacity depending on the location of the plant, which means that if we want to utilize wind power in large volumes we have to build wind power plants as far as the eye can see.

The third common problem is that wind power suffers from a lack of energy density, that is, not only large numbers of wind generators (and thus large land areas) are required to produce useful amounts of electricity but huge dimensions too. Therefore, the idea of harnessing high altitude winds blowing at 10,000 meters altitude seems to be promising.

Wind towers or tethered floating devices are not the only way to harvest energy from the atmosphere. Untethered flying units are also capable of harvesting wind energy. In order to do away with tethering, the device would need to use the updrafts and 'dynamic soaring' using the energy in wind gradients commonly used by soaring birds.

The storage of energy would need to be considered and according to one of the possibilities, an air liquefaction machine is set in motion letting the produced liquid air would be the energy storing medium. IFO-Energy believes that there is no need to forward the liquid air to the ground continuously,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. e.g. by means of a pipeline. It can be done in distinct doses, in so called "quanta", by means of GPS-guided parafoils. Another way is applying molten salt energy storage systems, utilizing heat of fusion. Research is going on all over the world to find even larger heat effects for energy storing, e.g. heat of formation of chemical substances instead of heat of fusion. These investigations are very promising also for IFO's project.

In the simplest case an untethered autonomous flying energy-harvesting unit as well as a receiver ground-station are integral parts of the complete system. These two physically detached parts constitute a logistic unit, and their collaboration according to a fixed timetable ensures the realization of the invention. A ground-station could support several flying units.We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory.

The IFO-Energy Unlimited invention is based on several well-known technical solutions, but the result of their synthesis and unique application yield new routes and so far unutilized possibilities in wind energy production. Some of these benefits and possibilities include greater intensity with smaller equipment and because the storing of energy as liquid air is the central idea of the invention that there could always be great reserves of liquid air available at the ground-station. The "warm" heat sink of this thermal power plant is the ambient air,Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck. so it does not need a heat up period prior to start. It is always ready to run and can function as a peak-load power plant.

By warming up the liquid air and expanding it we get work at the expense of ambient heat. When this work finally degrades into heat, the thermal balance of the local system is zero. The machines are running, but no waste heat is produced at the point where the energy is used.

2012年10月28日星期日

This tape obviously cannot be Anthony Karbo’s

How could you even suggest that it was Anthony Karbo spewing forth that nonsense on the tape? Have you forgotten the hand of Esau but the voice of Jacob in the Bible? Readers will recall a programme aired on TV3 (I have forgotten the title) in which actors mimicked their mentors and pretended they were the real persons speaking. The programme was won by the person who mimicked the voice of Rawlings. Readers will at the same time recall that the person who acted as Nana Addo also played his role very well and at a stage, it was very difficult to decide which of the two was mimicking the voice and mannerism of his mentor better than the other.

Do Felix Ofosu Kwakye and his so called Research Advocacy Platform want to tell us that if one goes round the country, one is not likely to come across two persons whose voices sound alike? Two of my brothers have similar voices and when you speak to one of them on the phone, it will be very difficult to determine which of the two is speaking. On many occasions, I have mistaken one for the other.

The scoundrels who authored the tape are indeed imbeciles. Wait and I will tell you why. They have acted like demented “malu” (cows) being led to the slaughter house. And since they have decided to shed off their human skin for that of animals, and not even better ones, they deserve no better treatment.

I am going to point out the “illogicalities” and arrogant stupidities in the fabricated lies being presented to intelligent and a much more discernining Ghanaian audience as facts and truths. Indeed they may appear as truths and facts to them because they have been indoctrinated to pander to the needs of their paymasters who are master in the act of Group mind manipulation.Selecting the best rtls solution is a challenging task as there is no global solution like GPS. By the time the scales fall off their eyes, it will be too late. Permit me to say that the fabricators of this phantom tape couldn’t have been born by any human being but beasts from the lowest abyss who unlike human beings breed their younger ones as animals are want to.

Four thinWe mainly supply professional craftspeople with wholesale agate beads from china,gs are obviously not right or logical. On the tape we hear the voice purporting to be that of Karbo telling his unseen audience that he would bring a group of bad boys from Libya,Gardner Bender offers a broad range of cableties, Benin, Togo and Liberia. At a stage, there is the mannerism of err… emm… as if the person is unsure of himself or which country he wanted to mention.

One let us interrogate other speeches by Karbo to see whether he has such notable mannerisms.
Again, let those ignoramuses who take Ghanaians for fools answer these pertinent questions.Find detailed product information for howo spareparts and other products. First which Government “rescued” Ghanaians from Libya during the crises? NDC Government! And do you think the people so rescued would turn their back on a government which had gone to their assistance at the most precarious period of their lives? Or was he suggesting he would recruit mercenaries from Libya to come and fight in Ghana? You see how infantile the brains of such desperados could be at times!

Such puerile argument is similar to the allegations that it was members of the UP tradition who gave the parcel bomb to the little girl to be given to the late President Dr Kwame Nkrumah when he arrived at Kulungugu. How do you allow an opposition party to be in charge of protocol when the life of the President is at stake? How do the bad boys from Libya arrive in the country without detection? How do they get to Ghana? By road, air or sea?

Again he talks about recruiting bad boys from Togo and Benin Republic to come and cause mayhem with their counterparts from Libya. How do those boys get to Ghana? By road through the Volta Region? They forget the fact that the Region is the strong hold of the ruling party and it will be almost impossible for a group of mercenaries to go through the long stretch of land in the Volta Region without detection.

Moreover it is getting to election period and any such Group movement by people will attract suspicion. This, the Felix Ofosu Kwakye and his perpetrators of such heinous crime never thought of that.

Again, let’s shift our attention to the so-called bad boys from Liberia. Do they think they will be so na?ve and stupid as perpetrators would want to portray to the whole world? Does the NDC not use pictures of atrocities committed in war torn countries like Liberia, Kenya,Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. Nigeria, Angola and the Congo to illustrate how hatred and mercenary activities could bring a country to its knees? The Liberians have tasted war and know of its harmful effects. Some of them have become refugees in other people’s lands. Does Felix Ofosu Kwakye in the wildest dream imaginable think Liberians would allow themselves to be used in such a dangerous enterprise again?

You see, Felix Ofosu Kwakye and members of his desperately assembled confused androids exhibited their shallow mindedness in their hurriedly arranged press release.

Then comes the mother of all revelations, and it is that Karbo talks of using the bad boys to attack State Institutions like the Police, Electoral Commission, the BNI and the Military. You see how senseless a group of people could degenerate into when defeat stares them right in the face. Hatred for the NPP and Ghanaians has permeated all their sense of reasoning so much so that they cannot for a moment think right.
How could someone think of attacking the Police to talk more of the Military? What weapons do they have to be able to carry out such offences against soldiers and policemen who are trained to turn their guns on harmless civilians? Ofosu Kwakye and his doom mongers might suggest that Karbo and the NPP have piled up arms and ammunition at a secret location. If that is so, it shows that the NDC regime has negated one of its cardinal responsibilities against mother Ghana and should step down immediately.

Do you envisage what would happen if one military installation is attacked? When someone molests one of their own members, what do the Police of Military do? They mobilize their other colleagues and move in to attack. Anthony Karbo has to be a member of Boko Haram or Al-Qaida to be able to perpetrate such senseless atrocities.

What would Karbo and others gain by such senseless destruction of lives and property if they went ahead and carry them out? Obviously there are likely casualties in a backlash that will result. No person of sane mind would undertake such a dangerous act and expect to come out alive. Assuming Karbo carries out such reckless act and is killed in the process (which is what exactly would happen) what will be his gain? Why should they attempt it in the first place?

Nobody these days carries out such senseless act and goes scot free. The International War Tribunal is there to make any criminal pay for his action. If Presidents of European and other countries could be indicted, arrested, tried and sentenced, what wouldn’t they do to a mere national youth organizer of an opposition party?

A Novel by Budd Schulberg

Originally, the book was titled simply Waterfront. It was no simple novelization of the film, "that bastard word for a bastard byproduct of Hollywood success," as Budd Schulberg states in his Introduction in the 1987 edition. The book was compared to the works of émile Zola and Theodore Dreiser by the critics because of its use of the 'naturalist style.' The naturalist school featured detailed realism, that in this case, suggested that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping the characters that populate books. The critics, after all the awards, praise, and kudos the film received, were surprised that there was still so much to say than a 90 minute movie could suggest.

Originally inspired by a 24-part series of articles in the New York Sun by Malcolm Johnson, called "Crime on the Waterfront," Budd Schulberg wrote a long piece for The Saturday Evening Post, titled "Father John Knows The Score." Schulberg took an unorthodox approach to writing the screenplay by not spending a month or two, but literally years absorbing the unique atmosphere of the New York Waterfront. He hung out at the west side Manhattan and Jersey bars that were the unofficial headquarters of the waterfront racketeers and Irish and Italian "insoigents." He spent nights drinking beer with longshore families in their $26.50 a month railroad flats. Along the way he interviewed longshore union leaders and the outspoken labor priests from St. Xavier's in New York's Hell's Kitchen, one of which the book is dedicated to; Father John Corridan described as "a rangy, ruddy, fast-talking, chain-smoking, tough-minded, sometimes profane Kerryman." it's a welcome antidote to the stereotypical Barry Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby "Fah-ther" that Hollywood was so fond of. Father Corridan's speech was a unique blend of Hell's Kitchen and baseball slang and he expressed an encyclopedic knowledge of waterfront economics and man's inhumanity to man. This maverick priest was the Father John of Schulberg's article for The Saturday Evening Post. Schulberg was surprised to find that just a few blocks west of comfortable watering holes like Sardi's there was this entire world that the rest of Manhattan didn't know existed.

Schulberg's 'escort' or protector, and his cover was one of Father John's most staunch adherents, Little Arthur Browne, Brownie as he was known. Brownie was one of the standup "insoigents" in the Chelsea local run by the fat cats and their "pistoleros." Brownie was probably the model for Runty Nolan of the book and Kayo Duggan of the film. Browne had been beaten up, had his nose flattened by "the cowboys" -the local union enforcers--been thrown through a skylight and even tossed in the river unconscious, all things that Runty endures in the book. Schulberg got most of the local dialect that he would write into the screenplay as well as the novel during Runty and his forays into the local bars which were, in places, ten to a block.

Schulberg had discussed with director Elia Kazan his research into the waterfront, and Kazan urged him to write a screenplay,One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. which was thrown back in Schulberg and Kazan's faces by one of Hollywood's leading moguls. So, he set out after this to write a novel when some smarter Hollywood mogul accepted the screenplay. The film was made after a few changes to the script, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history. The film was an astounding success. Filmed over 36 days on location in various places in Hoboken, New Jersey, including the docks, workers' slum dwellings, bars, littered alleys, and rooftops.Black gemstone beads is one of the most gorgeous treasures in the world. People are fascinated by its varied colors as well as impressed by its natural and simple quality and tones. Black gemstone, as mysterious as it is, continues being favored and pursued by many people. Furthermore, some of the labor bosses' goons in the film--Abe Simon as Barney, Tony Galento as Truck, and Tami Mauriello as Tullio--were actual former professional heavyweight boxers. Terry Malloy's (Brando's) fight against corruption was in part modeled after whistle-blowing longshoreman Anthony DiVincenzo, who testified before a real-life Waterfront Commission on the facts of life on the Hoboken docks, suffering a degree of ostracism for his deed.

The historical context of the film and the book are rooted in the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) which was established from the ashes of 19th century labor unions that organized dockworkers. In 1895, the ILA grew to adopt the Chicago (Great Lakes) Longshoremen's Union ideals as a model, and encompassed all of the U.S. and many Canadian longshoremen. By the turn of the 20th Century they become affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL).We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. By 1916, the ILA had become based in the Port of New York, which took in all of the harbor shore, including New Jersey. In 1918 Joseph Ryan became the president of the ILA's "Atlantic Coast District, and was later elected International president in 1927; it is he that the character of "Weeping" Willie Givens is based. Under Ryan's leadership, the ILA had become corrupt and was affiliated with Mafia characters such as Albert Anastasia and the Irish gangs. By the late 1920s, Anastasia had become a top leader of the ILA, controlling six union local chapters in Brooklyn. The character of Tom McGovern in the film and movie were modeled on the mobster Anastasia and the like, and Anastasia's Murder Inc. also figures promptly in both. Under the mobsters were the local union bosses, such as the Johnny Friendly of the story.

These corrupt men ruled "the greatest harbor of the greatest city of the greatest country in the world" and they ran it like their own private grab-bag. After the largely successful 83-day 1934 West Coast longshore strike,If you want to read about buy mosaic in a non superficial way that's the perfect book. Pacific coast longshoremen--who had rebelled against Ryan's leadership, first organizing the membership to reject the contract that Ryan had negotiated, then leading the strike over his objections--voted to secede from the ILA and join the Congress of Industrial Organizations as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Soon longshore locals in Baltimore (the 6th busiest port in the world), the Great Lakes,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. New Orleans, and everywhere else except the Port of New York Harbor, had bolted.

Soul SL300 Usain Bolt Signature Series Over-Ear Headphones Review

The headphones are loud, but the design is louder. The high gloss design is inspired by the Jamaican flag and Usain Bolt, as you can see him rocking out on both earcups. They’re bright, unique, and rich on eye candy. Take it up a notch and press a button to illuminate a ring around each ear cup badge. The SL300JAMs are over-ear headphones and have large oval-shaped earcups that completely cover large ears. They have a tri-folding design and easily collapse into their signature hard zippered carrying case.

The SL300s are considerably larger than the SL100 On-Ear Headphones we recently reviewed. While these SL300s are bigger and heavier, they’re a lot lighter than they look; incidentally this makes them feel kind of cheap. From the feel of it, they’re entirely plastic with exception of the earcup cushion and the headband cushion. We’re quite fond of the headband cushion; not only does it look super luxurious but it’s very cushiony and comfortable.

As with all active noise canceling headphones, batteries are required (but included). The cap on the right ear cup twists off revealing the 2-AAA battery chamber and a switch that changes noise canceling from low to high. There’s a switch on the outside of the earcups that turns noise canceling on and off. Noise canceling stays on as long as it’s switched on and there’s a small LED to remind you.

The Usain Bolt SL300JAM headphones are noise canceling, which means they can eliminate unwanted ambient sound and noise. Noise canceling makes for a much cleaner and clearer listening experience, it also allows you to listen to your music at lower volumes. Noise canceling requires batteries and can be turned on and off. Nicely, batteries aren’t required to listen to the SL300s regularly. The SL300s come with two audio cables, one for universal usage on phones, tablets, and audio devices, and the other is optimized for iPhone and iOS features. It includes an inline ControlTalk button with buttons and a microphone. There are volume buttons and a universal button that can control music,Allows you to securely organize any group of cable ties or wires. phone calls, and voice activation features (Siri). Most of these features should be compatible with Android too.

Soul notes that the SL300JAMs feature advanced drivers and circuitry design that produce superb bass, clear mids and highs, and a high precision audio balance.

Even if their lightness adds an inexpensive feel, these SL300s are quite comfortable. I can wear them for more than a couple hours, unlike the SL100s which applied an uncomfortable amount of pressure after an hour. The build quality is pretty decent considering the plasticky design. Collapseability is an important feature for large headsets, and Soul did a good job with the tri-fold design and the included carrying case.

Noise canceling can be hit or miss among users. Lots of people opt out of noise canceling because they don’t like the hiss. I found the SL300 noise canceling to be pretty subtle, in a very good way. Even on their high setting, it’s hard to hear a hiss or the anti-noise associated to the cancellation. Unless I’m sitting in a quiet room, I always turn noise canceling on. They really enable you to hear a much richer and detailed audio experience whether you’re outside or traveling in a plane, train, bus, or car. It’s surprising how much better noise canceling makes listening in any of these settings. The noise isolation in general is just okay; if I’m on the train I can turn on noise canceling rather than raising the volume to an unsafe level to hear my music clearly. The noise canceling batteries have lasted me weeks, which is surprising considering I oftentimes forget to switch it off.

These SL300JAMs are serious headphones. They provide an extremely rich audio experience and we wouldn’t be surprised if you claim they’re the best headphones you’ve ever listened to. Unlike Beats by Dre, Ludacris’s Soul’s don’t drown out your music with an overwhelming amount of bass; they’re much more balanced. You can hear the finer details in your music; individual instruments, chords, and notes. The bass still gets nice and punchy.Gecko could kickstart an indoor tracking mobile app explosion. The mids are my favorite quality, they’re detailed and lush. The mids are perfectly complemented by the precise highs. When noise canceling is turned on, the entire audio experience is slightly enhanced. You can hear the lows, mids, and highs all get a bit of extra oomph. We have yet to play a genre of music that doesn’t sound amazing on the SL300s. Rap, classical, rock,The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte. electronica, it doesn’t matter. They’re even pretty generous to low bitrate music (192kbps). Some songs with higher bitrate can completely blow your mid; if you listen to an unplugged song (acoustic) you can clearly hear the precision and extreme detail in every instrument as well as the subtleties like the artist breathing.

These Usain Bolt SL300s are very wild, and we love them for that. But don’t fret if you’re looking for something a little less flashy, the SL300s are available in a few other color schemes. We have to hand it to Ludacris and Soul Headphones, they know how to produce premium audio in a stylish package. The Souls we’ve reviewed so far have all provided a rich listening experience great for all types of music. With a retail price tag of $349, we were hoping they’d feel a little more solid and less plasticky. Luckily they’re collapseable and come with a hard shell travel case.Installers and distributors of solar panel, The lightweight design and ultraThe oreck XL professional air purifier,-soft cushion makes these headphones a pleasure to wear. We’re just hoping that they’ll survive the test of time. The SL300 Signature Usain Bolt Series Soul headphones are currently available on Amazon.com for $299; the SL300s can be purchased for as little as $182 if you don’t mind the gold. We’re also quite fond of the $215 Black/White model which looks a lot more sophisticated and less flashy.

2012年10月25日星期四

An Enigma Wrapped in Formica

The artist Richard Artschwager, who is having a second career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, had his first in 1988. And the timing of it, everyone said, was genius.

Mr. Artschwager was then in his mid-60s — he is now 88 — and had already been on the New York scene for three decades, with art that was, at different times, identified with Pop, Minimalism and Conceptualism, without landing squarely in any category. Part of his cachet was that no one quite knew what to do with him, this artist who made furniturelike sculptures covered with wood-grain Formica and paintings that appeared to be done with smudged soot. People called him an enigma so often that the word stuck to him like a middle name.

But in 1988 the moment of clarification seemed to arrive with the surfacing of a new art trend called Neo-Geo, a kind of Pop-Minimal-Conceptual mash-up with French theory thrown in. Mr. Artschwager’s actual link to the young artists involved — Peter Halley, Jeff Koons and Haim Steinback among then — was tenuous, amounting to little more than a shared use of certain materials (plastic, rubber) and a sardonic take on middle-class culture. But when the market wants history to sell, any connecting dots will do.

Mr. Artschwager was suddenly a patriarch, and here were his progeny.

His present Whitney survey,Thank you for visiting! I have been crystal mosaic since 1998. emphatically titled “Richard Artschwager!” arrives without such packaging and positioning, though there’s no question that the artist has pertinence to things going on today. His use of Formica to introduce faux-naturalism to sculpture is not so different from the way a young artist like Wade Guyton uses computers and inkjet printers to produce faux-paintings.

Both artists draw on technological innovations to step back from art, circle around it, and step in close again from another side, where there is no faux; all is authentic. Surely it’s no accident that Mr. Guyton’s first Whitney retrospective coincides with Mr. Artschwager’s second.

The question is how necessary this second retrospective is, considering the number of other worthy American artists who still languish for comparable attention. The show doesn’t add all that much to what we already know about Mr. Artschwager, who has had substantial New York gallery exposure over the past 20 years, of late with Gagosian Gallery, which has a way of getting museums to do its bidding. Anyway, the show’s here, and Mr. Artschwager remains an interesting subject.

The basic facts of his story are by now familiar. His parents were European immigrants. His father, a botanist, was from Germany; his mother, an amateur artist and designer, from Ukraine. The family made some big moves when Mr. Artschwager was a child: two extended stays in Europe followed by a relocation from Washington to Las Cruces, N.M. His early adult life would have a similarly unsettled rhythm.

Although deeply interested in art, he studied biology and math at Cornell University, leaving halfway through to join the Army in World War II. Wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, he recuperated in Europe and married there. Once back in the United States he wrapped up his college degree and moved to New York City to study art, supporting his family with a series of day jobs, as a baby photographer, a bank clerk and finally a furniture maker.

In the late 1950s his painting and drawing were good and strange enough to land him a few shows and decent reviews. A 1960 drawing titled “Road to Damascus,” the earliest work at the Whitney, catches the offbeat flavor of his work then and to come: in it a tiny,One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. blurry figure of man in a black coat sits behind a table as white and wide as a tundra while his eyes explode.

That same year he made his first sculpture.

Inspired, according to his own account,The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte. by a cartoon he saw on television, he hammered together a big stack of plywood boards and called the result “Portrait Zero.” The piece, which weighs hundreds of pounds, dangles from the ceiling at the beginning of the Whitney show.

After he’d gotten this bit of improvisation out of his system, he produced more sculpture, now with a furniture maker’s skill and finesse, and he started painting again, bringing experimental materials to both mediums. He added Formica, a decorative staple of American kitchens, to sculpture, and started painting on Celotex, a rough-textured fiberboard used on ceilings as acoustic paneling.

He also dropped a cold-call note, with slides, to the Leo Castelli Gallery, the city’s leading showcase for new art. And like other surprised artists before him, he was snapped up for a group show that included Lee Bontecou, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. He remained in Castelli’s protective commercial custody for 30 years.

In that context, as in all others, early and late, his work stood out for its blunt, mute weirdness. A 1963 sculpture called “Portrait II” was shaped like a bedroom dresser but it had no drawers and had a sheet of Formica in place of a mirror. The two facing seats in “Double Dinner,” from 1988, are covered with rubberized horsehair, another favored material. And the table in the 1993 piece “Table Prepared in the Presence of Enemies” looks like a low-rise guillotine.

Violence is implicit in a lot of Mr. Artschwager’s art, which may be the most intriguing thing about it, the element that gives bite to what would otherwise pass for Magrittean whimsy. The Whitney show, organized by Jennifer Gross, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Yale University Art Gallery, does a useful job in bringing this strand forward, both in the sculpture and in the Celotex paintings.

With its scored, bumpy surface patterns Celotex insures that any image painted on it will appear broken up, as if viewed through static or caught in the process of disintegration. In 1972 he used it for a series of seven paintings derived from sequential photographs of the demolition of an Atlantic City hotel. In the end the building comes down in clouds of dust, though it seemed to have been made of dust to begin with due to the atomized texture of the paint.

Like Warhol, Mr. Artschwager, in his work, casts an avidly noncommittal eye on most of life, including politics.

In 2002 and 2003, with Sept. 11 still haunting the news, he painted three identically framed head-shot portraits: of a smiling, plump-faced Osama bin Laden; a blank George W. Bush; and himself, his face grim and thin. Each painting looks cracked,We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. creviced and soiled, as if just dug up from rubble.

The other work in the gallery with these portraits — including a melty 2004 sculptural cross that seems to have been made by Mr. Softee — is strong and creepy and funny enough almost to justify a survey that covers a lot of familiar terrain. The very latest work in the final gallery doesn’t cohere in the same way but does give something new: a burst of bright color in a 2007 landscape painting of the American Southwest and in a bristling,Gecko could kickstart an indoor tracking mobile app explosion. canary-yellow sculpture of an exclamation point that brings over the span of the past.

Unprecedented 'black mold' meningitis a challenge

The black mold creeping into the spines of hundreds of people who got tainted shots for back pain marks uncharted medical territory.

Never before has this particular fungus been found to cause meningitis. It's incredibly hard to diagnose, and to kill requiring at least three months of a treatment that can cause hallucinations. There's no good way to predict survival, or when it's safe to stop treating, or exactly how to monitor those who fear the fungus may be festering silently in their bodies.

"I don't think there is a precedent for this kind of thing," said Dr. Arjun Srinivasan of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health officials and doctors have tracked down most of the 14,000 people potentially at risk for fungal meningitis, blamed for the deaths of 24 people and sickening more than 300.

"This is definitely new territory for us," he said.

The fungus' brown-black color signals an armor that along with being injected near the spine —helped this mold sneak past the immune defenses of otherwise healthy people, said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, a fungal disease specialist at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

"What we're dealing with here is fundamentally different" from a typical fungal infection, he said.China plastic moulds manufacturers directory. "This is a bug that most of us don't know much about."

But they're learning fast, piecing together clues that promise some hope.

Doctors are beginning to detail in medical journals the first deaths in this outbreak, and the grim autopsy findings make clear that treating early is crucial, before the fungus becomes entrenched. In one case, a woman died in Maryland after the fungus pierced blood vessels in her brain, leading to severe damage.

People getting treated earlier "seem to be doing OK," with fewer of the strokes that characterized the outbreak's beginning, said Dr. Carol Kauffman of the University of Michigan. She has advised the CDC and co-authored advice in the New England Journal of Medicine on how to handle the complex medication used in treatment.

People who got contaminated steroid shots made by a Massachusetts pharmacy have been told to be on guard for months for meningitis symptoms. But the CDC said Wednesday that the biggest risk for getting sick seems to be within 42 days of receiving one of the implicated back injections.

With the tainted shots recalled in late September, that means the period of greatest risk is nearing an end.Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck. And it should help doctors bombarded with calls from the worried determine who most needs a spinal tap to look for the very earliest signs of infection.

"We know the farther out you are from receiving an injection, the lower your risk becomes for developing meningitis or other infections. We want to emphasize that," CDC's Dr. Tom Chiller told a conference call for physicians on Thursday.

Still, public health officials recall a 2002 meningitis cluster linked to steroid injections contaminated with a different fungus; one of those victims got sick 152 days after the shot.

Fungal infections don't get a lot of attention, but they afflict millions around the world, said David Perlin of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, who is studying better ways to diagnose them.We are pleased to offer the following list of professional mold maker and casters. Most are skin infections like athlete's foot, but fungi also can cause pneumonia, sinusitis and other problems.

Serious infections tend to strike people with immune systems weakened because of cancer, AIDS or other problems. Fungus-caused meningitis in particular is extremely rareespecially in otherwise healthy people like in this outbreak and it's "very bad news," said Michigan's Kauffman.

While the more common bacterial and viral forms of meningitis tend to strike quickly with obvious symptoms, fungal meningitis grows very slowly and is hard to diagnose. Few antifungal drugs are absorbed into the central nervous system, limiting treatment options. Plus, human cells and fungal cells have a lot of similarities, making it hard to attack the fungus without side effects, Kauffman explained.

The main culprit in this outbreak is a black mold called Exserohilum rostratum, common in dirt and grasses. Only 33 human infections previously had been reported, mostly eye or skin infections in people with weak immune systems, Casadevall said.

Here's how scientists think it's sneaking into the well-guarded spinal cord and brain of a healthy person:

The steroid injected near the spine reduces inflammation,Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic rubber hose tubing, one of the immune system's defenses against contamination.

The mold grows quietly until enough accumulates for it to burrow a tiny hole, or abscess, into the lining of the spinal canal, said Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University. Reaching the spinal fluid inside offers a direct pathway to the brain.

The fungus' color signals how intractable it is. Brown-black molds produce melanin, the same chemical that helps human skin tan. It guards against the sun's mold-killing ultraviolet rays and inside people, it fends off both antifungal drugs and other immune-system attacks, Casadevall said.

The good news: Black mold is treatable with a drug named voriconazole, with far fewer side effects than the older treatment initially recommended when the outbreak began.

Still, Kauffman cautioned doctors to carefully monitor patients because differences in metabolism can make levels surge in the bloodstream, causing hallucinations, confusion, nausea and occasionally liver damage. On the flip side, their bodies may process the drug too quickly to battle the fungus. Plus, voriconazole can interact badly with a list of other common medications.

"It's not clear" how long to treat but at least three months is advised, Kauffman said. It begins with intravenous infusions that are hard to administer outside of a hospital. Then once the patient is stable enough,One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. pills can be used.

Windows 8 review

Microsoft has a lot riding on the latest incarnation of the globally dominant Windows software - with Windows 8 it must not only maintain its position, it must stave off the attacks from whole new categories of computing that are dominated by Google and Apple.This document provides a guide to using the ventilation system in your house to provide adequate fresh air to residents.

Windows 8 has now been around in public beta form for so long that it ought to be known and polished - unfortunately for Microsoft, it seems actually to be largely misunderstood and still, in little places, painfully imperfect.

So, many will be familiar with the idea of the software's new interface - a patchwork of 'live tiles' is the default new Start screen, replacing the Start menu; pinch to zoom in or out in a new function called 'semantic zoom'. That means items are tailored to look appropriate to the scale you're seeing them at,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. rather than just bigger or littler. And as that 'pinch to zoom' suggests, this is a new interface designed for tablets - and mobile phones - and which works with a really pleasing elegance on a touchscreen. Swipe the right of the screen to bring up that standard menu to search, share or adjust settings, called charms; the left cycles you through open applications and the bottom brings up contextual menus. Almost all of this is a joy to use.

That said, it is so different from what people have become accustomed to with Windows 7, Windows 8 is hard to compare. Is it an improvement? Definitely. Will people simply get cross? Possibly. Built in to Windows 8 is essentially all of Windows 7, hidden under a 'Desktop' tile. That means users can still run all the old software they're used to, from Adobe Photoshop to Apple iTunes. If you don't need all that, you can buy a tablet such as Microsoft's own Surface, which runs a cut down version of Windows 8 called Windows RT, but includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. What it lacks is a decent mail client, but Microsoft says one will be along soon.Allows you to securely organize any group of cable ties or wires.

Some critics have suggested that constantly flipping back and forwards between Windows 8's new interface and the more familiar one is a huge pain. In my extensive use of the software, I quickly found that it became a conspicuous compromise,If you want to read about buy mosaic in a non superficial way that's the perfect book. but not an inconvenience. More importantly,This document provides a guide to using the ventilation system in your house to provide adequate fresh air to residents. however, I was aware that what few true tablet apps there were largely offered excellent functionality. The forthcoming version of Office, for instance, features proper adaptations to, say, PowerPoint, that make it a lot more intuitive. For now, moving between different styles of interface is simply a fact of life, made all the more painful that good tablet apps are so much better in Windows 8 than desktop hangovers.

Where it did get annoying, however, was when, for instance, the keyboard didn't always appear in touchscreen mode - it can always be summoned manually, but that's not the point - or when there's such a painful lack of search options in some apps and such an extensive ability in others. Microsoft's idea is that you don't need to worry so much about filing - as in Gmail - but it'll never work until all apps are equal. That day will probably come sooner than we suspect; Adobe's Photoshop offers an excellent version for Android tablets already. But it underlines that Microsoft has had to take a leap here. It offers a whole new computing paradigm, but forces you to also use the old one at the same time.

Nonetheless, Windows 8 should do well - it is an operating system rethought from the ground up, and integrates touch right into its very heart. Those live tiles are superb windows on the world behind them, allowing you to see your latest emails or your friends' latest posts to Facebook at a convenient glance. Swiping between applications feels sophisticated in a way that previously only Apple has managed to achieve.

If, however, you have an existing PC that doesn’t have a touchscreen, Windows 8 is more of an enticement to buy a new one than it is a reason to upgrade. And if you’re thinking of upgrading, the new Surface is a beautiful device but it’s one that lacks basic functions because it doesn’t run the full version of Windows. In many ways, it serves to underline how vital Intel is to Windows’ success, and the Surface with Intel inside may yet be the most compelling device available when it arrives in January. If you are going to buy a Windows 8 device now, I would recommend either a touchscreen ultrabook such as those by Asus with the Zenbook, or a convertible such as those by Dell, Sony or Lenovo which let you use it as both a tablet and a laptop.

2012年10月23日星期二

Creativity Is Change

New thinking, original ideas, and artistic expression are the essence of creativity. The ways that others see the world makes us change how we think, comprehend, behave, communicate, and act. And while not all change is produced by creativity, creativity produces change.

Throughout its history, popular music has contributed to change. Today, musicians and artists provide a palate of new creative and technological platforms through which personal ideas and ideologies that can positively influence the entire world.

There are a handful of basic,Western Canadian distributor of ceramic and ceramic tile, yet vital principles required to yield positive impact through change—primarily the simplicity of the message, the clarity of the ways in which anyone can participate, and the setting and common understanding of clear and realistic goals. In other words, the classic rules behind any marketing initiative. Rarely supported by governments, musicians have applied such principles to many causes, whether political, social, or environmental, each with their own level of success.

In some cases, music does not raise awareness or support causes without the support of the authorities—it actively protests government actions. From the father of Afrobeat, Fela Kuti in 1970s Nigeria, to folk artist Billy Bragg’s protest songs targeting Margaret Thatcher’s crushing of the unions in 1980s Britain, musicians have been forceful in their views and inspired millions to act, even when in danger of their lives.

The most recent example is Pussy Riot, the all-girl Russian punk band that’s been sentenced to two years in prison for its anti-Putin stance and dancing to a “profane punk prayer” in a Russian Orthodox Church. At the heart of their message is the lack of personal freedom afforded to Russians and ongoing acute social injustices prevalent in the country under the Putin government.

The government’s heavy-handed response to the lyrics and stunts of Pussy Riot clearly illustrates its fear of music’s power to spread messages of dissatisfaction. Its response has already backfired—recent polls show that President Putin’s popularity has fallen 12% since his return in May.One of the most durable and attractive styles of flooring that you can purchase is ceramic or porcelain tiles. While other polls indicate that more Russians oppose Pussy Riot’s actions than approve of them, a huge number of that opposition believes that the Russian government has clearly gone too far in its response. As a result, dissatisfaction with the reaction of the government is coming from its supporters as well as its opposition, to a degree not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Looking back, the power of music has been effective in making significant changes to society, without government intervention or in direct opposition to its actions, in many ways for decades. Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Bob Dylan peacefully used the power of their art to support the Civil Rights Movement, highlight social inequalities, and protest the Vietnam War back in the ‘60s. Whether conscious or subconscious, by applying the basic principles of marketing to their own passionate causes, each of these artists influenced and inspired millions to protest in their own ways, and in turn, end wars, eliminate segregation, and promote social equality for minorities.

True innovators in music and culture led the utopian dream of the post-folk activist hippie counter culture, from the Grateful Dead to Allen Ginsberg. But while gaining the attention of the world, they were unable to achieve their vision. While its message of change was clear,We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. it ignored the principle of setting a clear goal.

The “failure” of the ‘60s to make huge change inspired a more politically motivated musician-led protest movement in the ‘70s. John Lennon used his power peacefully, yet somewhat provocatively to protest global injustice. Like Pussy Riot, he believed in the right to “tell it like it is,” leverage the media as his greatest asset, and protest peacefully but always with a sense of disruption. And, like the Russian punk band in Putin’s backyard, he came to be perceived as a significant threat to the American government who, without reservation or success, became intent on removing him from its shores. However, by that time his views were in every newspaper across the world,China plastic moulds manufacturers directory. motivating millions to stand up for their beliefs for the good of their common man.

Fellow former Beatle, George Harrison, instinctively understood the importance of the principles of change through artistry. Even though his personal beliefs were inspired by Eastern mysticism, he understood the need for simple ways for Westerners to participate in the change process and consequently set extremely clear goals.

Using these principles, George conceived and staged “The Concert For Bangladesh.” Through his fame as an artist, he generated concern and action for the devastation of Bangladesh caused by a life-shattering cyclone and ongoing civil war, which was receiving almost no government aid. By bringing together the stellar line-up of Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Ringo Starr, Badfinger and more, the youth of the world became aware of the plight of Bangladesh. Over $250,000 was raised through two live shows at Madison Square Garden, the release of the triple live album, and the movie of the event. George inspired millions to contribute in whatever way they could, and in the process, made significant changes to Bangladesh without any government actions.Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck.

Energy confirms tank leak at Hanford nuclear reservation

The Department of Energy has confirmed that its oldest double-shell tank is actively leaking radioactive and hazardous chemical waste from its inner shell.

DOE made the announcement Monday after a video inspection of the area between the shells Sunday showed more waste in one place than a video taken Thursday showed.

"It's a very, very small volume," said Tom Fletcher, DOE assistant manager for the tank farms. Although there's no good way to measure the amount, it could be a couple of tablespoons of additional waste between the video inspections.

Tank AY-102 is the first of Hanford's double-shell tanks known to have leaked waste from its inner shell.

The Hanford nuclear reservation has 28 double-shell tanks that are being used to hold waste from older single-shell tanks, many of which have leaked in the past. Together, the two types of underground tanks hold 56 million gallons of radioactive waste left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program.

Tank AY-102 is a year or two past its 40-year design life. However, waste will need to continue to be stored in at least some of the double-shell tanks until all the waste is treated for disposal, which may take another 40 years.

The waste is not believed to have leaked from the outer shell, which serves as secondary containment for the tank,The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte.Thank you for visiting! I have been cry stalmosaic since 1998. into the soil beneath it. No waste has been found in the leak-detection pit beneath the tank, DOE said.

Material first was discovered in the 30-inch space between Tank AY-102's shells in August, leading to more checks. After videocameras were lowered through 10 risers, or pipes that give access to the area between the shells, three suspicious spots were discovered in a survey of about 95 percent of the space between the tanks.

One spot, a mound measuring 2 feet by 2 feet by 8 inches, now is believed to be soil. It could have fallen into the space between the shells during construction repairs to the ventilation system, Fletcher said.

But two spots on near opposite sides of the tank are radioactive waste, Fletcher said. Remote-controlled sampling devices were modified and sent into the area between the tank's walls to take several samples of the material. Analyses reviewed by a panel of experts and senior managers confirmed the two spots hold waste consistent with what is in the tanks.

It's more probable than not that the bottom of the inner shell is leaking in one place, with the waste coming out in two places in ventilation channels in the space between the shell, Fletcher said. Tank AY-102 holds waste that generates heat, and the ventilation system is used to help cool it.

Just one of the spots is increasing in size. It now covers about three square feet of the 600-square-foot floor of the outer shell and is less than a half-inch thick. The second spot covers an estimated 40 square feet and is less than a quarter-inch thick.

A review of the tank's history has shown there were a number of difficulties with its construction, Fletcher said. It was the first double-shell tank built, and 36 percent of its welds were initially rejected as not meeting quality standards.The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. The welds were repaired and inspected before the tank was put into service in about 1971.

When the second double-shell tank was built, Tank AY-101, the weld rejection rate dropped to 10 percent.

DOE is planning next to inspect the six double-shell tanks that have similar construction and operating history to Tank AY-102, Fletcher said. Inspections are being accelerated and expanded, but it could take up to six months to finish videocamera inspections of them. Instruments in the tanks' risers will have to be removed to insert the videocameras and then reinstalled.Interlocking security cable tie with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals.

At Tank AY-102, DOE and its contractor Washington River Protection Solutions will continue videocamera inspections twice a week.The MaxSonar ultrasonic sensor offers very short to long-range detection and ranging. It also will continue to monitor liquid levels inside the tank and the space between its shells, which can detect only large changes in volume.

DOE will work with its regulator, the state Department of Ecology, on longer-term plans for the tank, Fletcher said.

One option is to empty the tank, which has a capacity of about 1 million gallons and holds 850,000 gallons of waste.

A gardener’s playground

As much as Jane Stewart and Neil Burkhardt, owners of McComb Gardens in Sequim, have invested in their own education, as well as promoting Washington State Nursery and Landscape certification of their staff, they work even harder on the concept that gardeners should be having fun. If gardeners aren’t, Neil and Jane suggest a change in some way: Reduce the size of the gardens, hire someone to help, take out that irritating tree that pokes you every time you pass it. They believe landscapes are installed; the garden is a playground. Experimentation, experimentation, experimentation is the name of the game, along with a strong dose of humility.

We gardeners need to recognize no matter how hard we try and to what degree we plan, we are going to make mistakes. Plants have their own genetic DNA of what they want to become and how much they want to sprawl. They don’t read plant labels about their mature size and often grow beyond a general descriptor, especially here in the Pacific Northwest where ideal growing conditions exist. In gardening, there is a constant tension between humans and plant life. Each has its own vision.

Neil and Jane’s nursery is a display garden, which showcases specimen plants, mostly at their mature growth. The nursery gives gardeners an opportunity to see size, proportion and habit so that they can imagine the plant in their own gardens. Jane and Neil have used professionals Dan Hinckley and Phil Wood to create parts of the display. Neil laughs and says that hiring outside help was cheaper than divorce since he and Jane see gardens from different perspectives; a third eye was mandatory.

Jane is the artist who looks for the same elements she uses in her paintings — repetition, pathways for the eyes, color combinations that work. Neil is more the plant expert and sees shapes and textures. In thinking of a design in a garden, he thinks of flowers last — the opposite of the way most gardeners purchase plants — and uses them to soften edges.

The two of them do, however, agree that landscapes are compositions, with variations of a theme or that transition from theme to theme. The basic design principles they follow are:

Repetition creates unity. Use both plants and colors for repeating patterns. They mentioned how yellow can be a strong color and a single plant of yellow can stop the eye. Use several other touches of yellow or use more of the same plant in the border so the eye can move through a landscape.

Before planting, first plan for paths, uses within the garden and utilities. Paths should be wide, enough for two or three people walking abreast or wide enough for a wheelbarrow. Let pathways meander rather than take simple straight lines from A to B. Soft pathways invite people to linger, as well as entice them to look ahead in expectancy as a path curves into the unseen. Figure out the watering systems and outdoor lighting, if you’re going to install them. Decide the mood you want your garden to project and where you want to sit and have a conversational or dining area.We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. Function should be well-established before any planting.

Specimen plants and trees are stand-alone plants that can become a focal point in a vignette of supporting plants. Use specimen plants for accents. Rather than thinking of a category of prized specimen plants, such as Japanese maples and Cryptomerias, consider that many plants/trees can be a specimen. Perhaps you need a plant that is highly textured and so the specimen plant can be the lowly Eryngium (sea holly), with its spiky amethyst flower heads.

Neil talks about a specimen plant he chose outside their bedroom window, which he wanted to have fragrance, have a light and airy habit and be a sanctuary for birds. From that criterion, he choose the Styrax japonicas (Japanese snowbell), which grows to about 25 feet high. Had he wanted something shorter, but with his criteria, he could have chosen the Korean spice viburnum

After a new display section had been planted,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. Jane wanted a tree to complete an area and set off a marooned Japanese maple. Together, they chose Robinia pseudoacacia (Tunisian locust) and its bright lime leaves and its proportion work perfectly in that area.

Create a welcoming entry. Let your personality emerge so that you, above all others,We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. love to enter the garden. Not only is it a design principle, but it also has an element of psychology. If the garden does not entice you to enter, you … and others … probably will stay out. Entries also define where the garden begins, suggesting, too, that there is an end point. Some gardens seem to splay out in all directions,Find detailed product information for Sinotruk howo truck. somewhat like a toddler lying on the floor, legs and arms akimbo.

Most people desire a sense of privacy, a retreat where they can move and relax unobserved by others or where they don’t have to look at others’ blue tarps or trash bins. Fences are the easiest way to create privacy. In their McComb Gardens, one can see a yew hedge that creates privacy. Of course, hedges take years to grow — at least four. If an immediate barrier is needed, hardscape is best.Find detailed product information for howo tractor 6x4 and other products. Neil pointed out that fences need not be continual. Panels, such as those at hardware stores, can be placed end-to-end but separated by equal distances and then with plantings in a repetitive pattern between the panels can soften the structure and, perhaps, save money.

Jane uses a personal principle that she’s not seen written in any books so far. She uses two of the primary colors (red, blue, yellow) and then if she needs a touch of the dramatic or a transitional element, she’ll use a single spot of the third primary color. Her sense is that the two primaries work together in a harmony that seems absent when too many colors compete.

2012年10月21日星期日

Terracotta Warriors, waiting to exhale

I find myself in the center of a massive pit, surrounded by thousands of rigid warriors tall enough to look down on me. Posture perfect despite their years – 22 centuries – they stand in defiant battle formation. Overwhelmed, I back up to photograph a wiseacre standing behind a warrior who is missing his head.Directory ofchina glass mosaic Tile Manufacturers, I accidentally bump against the warrior behind me. Down he goes. Then down go a hundred, like dominos. Thousands of warriors turn to face me, their expressions uniform in anger. Cavalry horses paw the earth and tug at chariots. Crossbows lock and load. I leap from the pit and only quit running when I’m in Kazakhstan, refrains from Traffic’s “Forty Thousand Headmen” playing in my head.

They may have feet of clay, but these mystery men still intimidate my dreams. Fierce terracotta warriors have transformed an impoverished Chinese countryside, where some people still dwell in caves, into a tourist Mecca. Beijing may have had the Olympics spotlight, but the foundations of Chinese history rest in this ancient capital, Xi’an, central China. Peasant farmers digging a well discovered the first terracotta warriors in 1974. The more archaeologists dug, the more stunned they were. Here the world awakened to the former splendor and mystery of China. Now they’re encased by a world class museum,We recently added Stained glass mosaic Tile to our inventory. Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s Mausoleum Site Park.

Hard to believe that work on the museum, still a work in progress, began in 1976, the last year of Mao’s life. Apparently, some Chinese communist was already thinking tourism. Perhaps Mao—China’s last emperor, loosely defined,Gecko could kickstart an indoor tracking mobile app explosion. and ruthless—felt some kinship to Qin.

So how did 8,000 warriors with armor and weapons, cavalry and horses, congregate here? Some 6,000 are in the largest pit, shielded by a protective hanger large enough to house an aircraft factory.

Qin, among the most ruthless of emperors, launched the endless Great Wall project. He created the first feudal, centralized empire in China, as the Qin Dynasty subjugated various states. It was a bloody business. Many tried to assassinate Qin.

He must have anticipated the need for an army to protect him in the afterlife, as angry spirits of murdered scholars he murdered, slaughtered opposing armies and the dead from his forced labor pools line up for revenge. He had many buried alive to maintain the secret of his tomb. Never mind the 3,The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte.000 barren wives and concubines—some revered, some tortured—many entombed to keep Qin company.

Qin became king at the age of 13. He started building his own tomb in a mausoleum complex spreading more than two square kilometers, constructed by 720,000 workers and craftsmen who eventually labored nearly four decades at what was for most of them, the ultimate thankless task.

This endeavor ran contrary to the Confucian custom, in which the son was to honor his late father with a grand memorial. When 460 Confucian scholars objected, Qin executed them, burning many of them alive. About this time, critics began to see the brilliance in the young emperor’s plan. Qin’s yet unopened tomb is said to have pearls in the ceiling for stars and small rivers and lakes filled with mercury.

An orchard surrounds Pit No. 5, a distant dig at the tip of a huge pit, mostly unexcavated.High quality mold making Videos teaches anyone how to make molds. It is thought to contain only armor suits, perhaps tens of thousands of them. Qin’s theory was rather simple: The armor honors those fallen in battle and not properly buried, so the spirits of the dead and dismembered might be placated and less inclined to track him down for vengeance.

More than 2 million people visit the museum very year, nearly a quarter of them foreigners. Commerce related to the warriors already generates nearly a fifth of the province’s income, not counting what the surviving peasants who discovered them, local heroes, make autographing museum books.

Warrior knockoffs of every size are on sale everywhere, including gas stations and roadside attractions. It’s an interesting contrast to the technical industries that have gained a presence not very far away. China’s first satellite and first integrated chip were created in Xi’an. Scores of state-run laboratories digest and apply technologies absorbed from around the world. The city itself contrasts of modernity with the old walled city within it, all subject to the dust and sand blowing in from the advancing Gobi desert. The Xi’an sky might be as much a signpost of global warming as the world’s defeated glaciers or blanched coral. The sky can be a brilliant blue, but in the morning it can be hard to tell if the dim globe is the sun rising or the moon. The sky has the feel of an empire reaching its limits, as empires inevitably do, just as the coal-polluted air assaults the terracotta flesh.

Newly opened Sparta school ‘happiest place on Earth'

For two years, the hallways of Mohawk Avenue School sat silent and dreary, marked by dark hallways, empty lockers and bare walls.

But,The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte.Selecting the best rtls solution is a challenging task as there is no global solution like GPS. now as the school year gets into full swing, the recently reopened school is alive again with the buzz of Halloween. In the foyer, jack-o'-lantern cutouts line the walls, while in classrooms, children make black cat and pumpkin shaped Rice Krispies treats in honor of the letter of the week -- R.

"It's a happy place now," Principal Laura Trent said.

Mohawk Avenue School, which was constructed in 1935 and expanded in 1950,Our vinyl floor tiles is more stylish than ever! was first a bustling junior high, followed by a school for fifth grade. However, in March 2010, Sparta, along with many affluent districts in the state, faced Gov. Chris Christie's massive aid cuts that made difficult decisions, such as closing schools, a reality.

Sparta's aid was cut by $2.7 million that year and the budget was defeated, so the district made the choice to discontinue classes in the school, while also cutting 79 teachers, eliminating courtesy busing and charging student activity fees. The Board of Education and administration's offices remained in the building, but the fifth grade students were moved to Alpine School.

The classrooms sat unused for two years before the district began talking last spring about reopening the school for the younger grades at a cost of about $585,000.

The principals recommended that Mohawk Avenue School be reopened for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes. The board agreed, although a proposal for full-day kindergarten was tabled for at least a year in order for the district to prepare financially for the approximately $750,000 to $1 million price tag.

In September, the school opened up to 218 children, and Trent said that it has been great ever since.

"It's been a very smooth transition," she said, explaining that over the summer extensive work was done to clean, add new ceiling tiles, and install a new intercom system and smart boards in the classrooms. "They did a phenomenal job getting this ready in the summer."

The school now has four morning and four afternoon half-day kindergarten classes, one full-day kindergarten and one full-day pre-kindergarten for special needs, a 2 to 3 year old pre-kindergarten morning class, and a 3 to 4 year old pre-kindergarten afternoon class. There are 12 teachers in the school, along with a nurse, speech therapist, occupational therapist, ESL teacher, school psychologist and social worker.

The young students fill only a small portion of the two-floor brick building, but they now have large classrooms and several dedicated spaces for art, music/library and physical education.The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte. This also leaves more space for the future if full-day kindergarten becomes a reality as planned.

Outside of the school, a new playground with four swings and slides was added with help from the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO), and a gym on the first level acts not only as an activity area but also as a drop-off/pick-up location.

While a bit young for lockers, each student has been each assigned one to act as a cubby for their backpack, jacket and snack. The locks have been removed for easy access and name tags were added on the fronts.

"This gives more space in the classrooms," Trent explained, adding that the students love using the lockers.

Trent, who has worked as an assistant principal and principal in Sparta for 12 years, said that the response for the opening of the school has been wonderful. She said that the students love having their own school and have great interaction with all of the staff since it is a more close-knit environment where "you really get to know all the students."

"I think the town is thrilled that it is open,Purelink's real time location system protect healthcare workers in their daily practices and OMEGA interventions. too," she said.

Trent has seen the children flourishing in the new school. On Friday, students in Amy Dolan's kindergarten class danced to music at their seats, a special treat that the children are allowed every "Fun Friday."

The students also dressed in green as part of the monthly character education training, in which green represents respect this month. In the foyer, large boxes of plastic bottle caps are being collected and sorted by color for a school-wide mural activity in the coming weeks.

Retired Florida deputy has second career probing dog attacks

Two Rottweilers killed an 83-year-old man in Alabama. A two-day old infant was mauled to death in Pennsylvania. A two-year-old girl died after she was bitten by a pit bull in West Virginia.

Jim Crosby has worked all of these cases as a canine crime scene investigator.

The retired Jacksonville sheriff's lieutenant relies on forensic tools such as bite molds and measurements, necropsy results and saline swabs. His goal: to determine why a dog mauled a person, and whether it should be rehabilitated or destroyed because of its behavior.

"I speak dog,We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs." said the 54-year-year-old Crosby, who lives with three curly coated retrievers and two miniature wirehaired Dachsunds. "No, it's not whispering. There's no whispering involved."

Crosby says dog bites are often far more complex than they appear, and they shouldn't be handled with a knee-jerk reaction of instantly killing the dog.

Among the few forensic experts on dog bites in the country, Crosby is writing a book called "Working the Worst: A Guide to Investigating Dog Related Fatalities." It's intended as a manual for detectives and animal officers.

"I found that nobody ever applied the kind of stuff we did in police work to dog attacks," said Crosby, who is also the breed rescue chairman of the Curly Coated Retriever Club of America.

There aren't many in his line of work.We mainly supply professional craftspeople with crys talbeads wholesale shamballa Bracele , Two men in California provide forensic evaluations and expert testimony during cases, and both are animal behavior experts. Crosby differs because he comes from a traditional law enforcement background.

His second career began soon after he retired in 1999 after 22 years with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. First he became a trainer. Then he started thinking about dog behavior and realized there weren't any standardized law enforcement investigation procedures for dog bites.

Now he travels the country to help animal control departments, lawyers and police agencies with dog-mauling investigations. He's worked on 17 fatal dog bite cases in recent years, paying his own way for some of those first consulting jobs. Now, he's getting paid by animal shelters, prosecutors and even defense attorneys to investigate. But he'd like to find a university,China plastic moulds manufacturers directory. insurance company or other business that will pay him to do research and forensic work.

Through his work, Crosby met Victoria Stillwell, a dog trainer and host of cable channel Animal Planet's "It's Me or the Dog," and a friendship blossomed. The two are scheduled to give presentations at the National Dog Bite Awareness Conference in Denver on Nov. 2.

"I'm more like his nurse, where I hand him the stuff, the saline and the swabs," Stillwell said recently on her weekly podcast. "Where he and I really work well together is that we watch the dog's behavior. We really find out why. What was in the dog's circumstance that made this dog do this?"

The cases Crosby investigates are often grim. In many, the offending dogs haven't been properly socialized or trained, and the victims are often children. So far in 2012, there have been 27 fatal dog bite cases reported nationwide; and thousands more non-lethal bites.

"It's usually a perfect storm of things," he said. "Most commonly, there's some kind of human failure."

He is currently working the case of an 83-year-old man in Leeds, Ala., who was killed by his neighbor's two Rottweilers.

Crosby is helping police and prosecutors build a manslaughter case against the dogs' owner, who was found to have 33 other Rottweilers on his property. Crosby has looked at photos of the attack, interviewed witnesses and analyzed necropsy results of the two responsible dogs, which were shot by officers after the attack.

In 2005, Crosby helped authorities prosecute a West Virginia man whose pit bull killed a 2-year-old girl. It was the first time a person in that state had been convicted of involuntary manslaughter as a result of a dog attack.We mainly supply professional craftspeople with crys talbeads wholesale shamballa Bracele , Crosby found the dog had been improperly cared for, poorly trained and not adequately socialized. He said the owner also encouraged aggressive behavior that led the dog to bite five adults before the fatal attack.

"These are specialized kinds of homicides," he said. "But the weapon is a semi-sentient being operating both under a person's direction and somewhat on its own."

Sometimes, Crosby's evaluations don't involve a death. In September, he evaluated a pit bull named Memphis in Bloomfield, N.J. The dog was picked up off the streets by the local animal shelter. A resident who is a dog trainer spent several days training Memphis in his home and wanted to adopt him -- but the shelter didn't feel the dog was ready for adoption and Crosby agreed.

Crosby, who was paid by the township to evaluate the dog, feels Memphis can be adopted with some additional training, but is "not ready for a run at an average Joe Blow home," either.

Earlier this year, Crosby was called to McKeesport, Pa. after a two-day-old infant was fatally mauled. The baby's mother had left the boy in a carrier. A husky named Helo and a pit bull were loose in the house and two other dogs were in the basement. Prosecutors thought Helo had killed the baby and a judge ruled that the dog should be put down, but the man who adopted the dog after the attack appealed.

Crosby found that investigators seized Helo and the pit bull but didn't look at the behavior of the other two dogs. He added that when he evaluated Helo, the dog was was "personable, friendly and non-threatening."

Pam Amicarella, the attorney representing Helo, said they trusted Crosby's assessment and would also have put the dog to sleep if he had recommended it. Instead, Helo was sent to live at an animal sancturary.

"If he had determined the dog was aggressive or dangerous, we agreed the dog would be put down," she said. "He was able, because of his background, to put together an opinion of what had occurred at the scene."

2012年10月18日星期四

First case history shows fungal meningitis

The case is the first to be described in medical detail, and shows that doctors need to act quickly if someone shows up with symptoms after having been given an injection that may have been contaminated with fungus.

She’d been treated for neck pain and a chronic condition called fibromyalgia that is defined by aches and pains all over the body and general weakness and fatigue. She had decided to try a new treatment, an injection in her neck of a steroid to help stop the pain there. It works in some patients – studies show it provides relief about half the time.

It should have been an in-and-out procedure. The steroid injections are considered very safe. The woman had no risk factors, Dr. Jennifer Lyons of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore reported. “She had not received injections previously, had no history of immune compromise or trauma, and was not taking any long-term medications,” they wrote in the report published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

A week later, she developed the severe headache – so bad it drove her to the ER. Now, of course, doctors know that anyone who has had a steroid injection and shows up with symptoms like a severe headache should be checked for infection. But this woman was one of the first affected, before word got out.

Headaches are a common side-effect of any injection to the spinal cord. The ER staff did a CT scan to make sure she wasn’t having a stroke or perhaps suffering from a brain tumor and she was sent home.

But she was back the next day, suffering from double vision and nausea. She was dizzy and off-balance – all classic symptoms of meningitis.HOWO trucks are widely used and howo spare parts for sale are also welcomed . But she didn’t have a fever and her blood looked normal: no evidence of the immune system reaction seen when meningitis is caused by bacteria or viruses. An MRI didn’t show anything amiss.

All this time, the fungus must have been spreading through the patient’s brain and spine. (She hasn’t been identified in the report to protect her privacy and that of her family). State and federal investigators have found three different types of mold in samples of steroid taken from the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts and from spinal fluid taken from some of the victims.

In the case of the 51-year-old woman,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. the steroid injection mainlined mold right into the fluid that bathes the brain and the spine.Selecting the best rtls solution is a challenging task as there is no global solution like GPS.

Her doctors didn’t suspect this,Directory ofchina glass mosaic Tile Manufacturers, although they did an MRI and checked for viruses or bacteria. As she deteriorated, losing her ability to speak and breathe on her own,If you want to read about buy mosaic in a non superficial way that's the perfect book. they dosed her with antivirals and antibiotics, as well as steroids. When they first checked her spinal fluid, it didn’t look that bad. Now doctors know that even small signs of inflammation might mean a patient is infected with these particular molds, and they should start immediate treatment with antifungals.

When she continued to worsen, mystified doctors transferred the patient to Johns Hopkins, where Lyons and a large team of colleagues took over.

There tested her for herpes, shingles, Epstein-Barr virus, West Nile and another virus called cytomegalovirus. They even checked for fungus – a type of yeast called cryptococcus and one called histoplasma that is found in animal droppings and that can cause an alarming type of pneumonia. Negative. It would not have occurred to them to test for a black mold more commonly known for infecting grains, and the tests probably would not have shown it, anyway.

Blade modular turbine wins Husum award

Skywind GmbH,Gecko could kickstart an indoor tracking mobile app explosion. a recent wind turbine manufacturer, was honored with the Windalliance Technology Award at the just completed Husum 2012 exhibition. This prize is an international award given to honor outstanding innovation in wind energy. Skywind received the award for their innovative 3.4-MW modular prototype turbine that allows for a new generation of turbine component testing, and eventually, a lower cost to wind energy.

A jury of four experts honored the Rendsburg (Schleswig-Holstein) based company. The company wins advertising and exhibition space at Hannover Messe 2013 and HUSUM WindEnergy 2014 to the value of €30,000.

New components for wind turbines are usually tested on a supplier’s test benches or at research establishments, which can only approach real operating conditions. The development honored here has created a modular test turbine in the multi-megawatt range with which manufacturers can test their products under real conditions. The wind turbine has a modular design which enables the main components – such as gears,An indoor positioning system (IPS) is a term used for a network of devices used to wirelessly locate objects or people inside a building. generators and main bearings – to be separately controlled, exchanged and tested during operation. This means it is possible to install components and very varied drive concepts from different manufacturers into the system without the need for cost-intensive customisation work. “Unique, ambitious and revolutionary”

The tower of the 3.4-MW system also serves as a crane. This means the turbine can be erected at not easily accessible locations with little effort, which also further reduces costs. For example, less clearing is required at high-altitude wooded sites, and also less transport effort and costs. The first test turbine is to be erected in summer 2013, prior to series production.

“SkyWind’s overall concept is unique, ambitious, and revolutionary”, said juror Alois Schaffarczyk, professor of mathematics and engineering mechanics at Kiel University of Applied Science. The four-person jury was unanimous in its decision to award the prize to SkyWind. “The concept is a milestone in cost reduction. We hope that our decision will give the wind industry motivation to develop further creative cost reduction solutions.”

In addition to SkyWind, the other nominated businesses, Münster-based Kenersys Europe and HOCHTIEF Solutions, represented by its centres of excellence for offshore wind and tunnel construction in Hamburg and Essen, presented their innovations to the public at the award ceremony in Husum,

For blades, the company turned to Global Blade Technology. GBT and Skywind inked the contract for designing blades for this innovative two-bladed turbine in September 2011. GBT was able to offer a fully-integrated blade solution that includes the design and production the molds, tooling, and prototypes needed for blade certification, as well as turbine testing and qualification.Find detailed product information for howo tractor 6x4 and other products.

The production of these blades will start in January 2013, just 15 months after the contract was signed, in an offshore facility in Emden in northern Germany. GBT says its integrated blade system delivers everything from blade design to production, in a short period.

“The SkyWind 52-m blade stands as a highly optimized design, with a balance between aero, loads, and structures,” says Mark Klaassen, GBT’s lead blade design engineer for the project.

State-of-the-art multi body simulation software (SIMPACK) was used to generate loads. Thanks to this software, lower loads were realized which resulted in a light, durable, and cost-effective blade.The MaxSonar ultrasonic sensor offers very short to long-range detection and ranging. GBT uses advanced design tools such as Ansys and FOCUS 6 in combination with tools developed in-house to shorten development time.“We are getting ready for production and although we are only building prototypes, six-sigma methods will be followed,” says Klaassen.The stone mosaic comes in shiny polished and matte.