text:
Just came across this build, awesome work. I always loved me some 300zx.
Just came across this build, awesome work. I always loved me some 300zx.
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for providing updates, I had almost totally forgotten about this awesome build!
Great build! I'll watch for this car around NEO.
Sweet write-up and awesome girlfriend.
My favorite kind of threads on TCL - thanks!
Impressive build, and as has been stated--if you can tackle this, you can tackle anything. How about an M-B twin turbo V12 for your next project?
With all due respect to Dan, a Z32 300ZX is a car I'll never own and ownership I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. My best friend is the biggest Nissan nut you'll ever run across, and worked as a tech at a Nissan dealership from 2000-2004 (the time these cars were getting out of warranty). A couple of the other tech's had Z32's and I often gave a helping hand working on them. I'd rather re-run vacuum hosing on a TT FD than do just about anything further than basic maintenence on a TT Z32. The TT Z32 is still the most pain in the ass vehicle I've ever worked on. If I remember correctly, the last Z32 I turned a wrench on was to replace a turbo, and it took 4x removing engine and installing engine to get all leaks stopped and everything fitting properly.
With that said, when they are put together, they are damn fun cars. I used to bracket race with Brad Grodi @ ZSolutions. I don't know if he's still in business but back in '07-'08, he was running 700-800whp and driving his Z everyday.
Roll Tide & War Eagle but stuck in LSU Country
UAB Blazer Basketball
Saints - WHO DAT! ROAD WIN?!
NOLA Pelicans
Orioles - Thank You Showalter & all the O's!
Pretty much the only 2 cars I've spent any real time working on are my 300zxTT and my Golf VR6. Everyone told me that the Golf would be a pain because it was a 6 cyl engine in a bay built for a 4 cyl. I don't see either as a pain to deal with.
I love both of my cars, and the work I have to do is the cost of owning the car. I love EVERYTHING about the 300zx. I love the exterior, how it feels to sit in the driver seat, how the rush of power feels when the turbos kick in (and that was stock power levels before...haha).
The way I see it is if I ever need to work on an 'easy' car...I'll be set. I have learned more than I ever thought in the 3 years I've had the Z. Case in point, I wasn't into cars at all when I started college, but all my friends were complete gearheads, so I absorbed what I saw and heard. My best friend is/was a Nissan freak, and I helped him find his 300zx slicktop. After I got a ride in that car I was hooked. I bought my TT a few years later. He was the one helping me reinstall my new motor last weekend. After we got the motor in we realized that the water pipes that run under the lower plenum and between the heads wasn't bolted down completely (letting RTV cure) and it was sandwitched up against the firewall. We already had the motor and trans installed and in place. (sorry pat) He thought we were hosed and wasn't really sure what to do. I removed a heater core hose, grabbed a 3/8" U joint, a 1/4" wobble joint, 1/4" u joint and 1/4" extension and snaked the fittings onto the bolt head with my fingertips and managed to get all 4 bolts torqued down.
Ask me to do that two years ago? No way would I have figured that out. I guess another way of looking at it is: if you have to do it every day, and don't know anything different....its not bad; its just normal. Plus, when you have all the bypasses and deletes done AND a top feed fuel system, most of the biggest PITA's no longer exist.
1990 300ZX TT, 2004 Mini Cooper S, 2006 Volvo V70 2.5T, 2002 Jetta TDI, 1997 Golf GTI Truck - RWD
I agree 100% with you. My best friend (former Nissan tech), is the most ingenuitive tech I've ever known.
Roll Tide & War Eagle but stuck in LSU Country
UAB Blazer Basketball
Saints - WHO DAT! ROAD WIN?!
NOLA Pelicans
Orioles - Thank You Showalter & all the O's!
Originally posted 3-22-12
I found my 02 connector last night. But more about that later.
First of all....my new Mishimotor radiator, Z1 silicone coolant pipes, and replacement boost tester showed up from Coz last night!!! And I had to wait until 8pm to play with them. It was 85 degrees in Northeast Ohio....softball comes first.
When we got home I installed the radiator which I was afraid of based on all the horror stories I've heard about aftermarket radiator fitment. I left the intake hoses on the passenger side installed throughout, and it took all of 30 seconds to figure it out. I just had to put the driver side of the rad in first, lowering the radiator tab below the metal intercooler pipes. Once I was able to slide it over and down, the whole radiator moved into position. Nothing had to be removed or loosened. Hooray! I'll have to take a picture tonight, the radiator seems to sit pretty high, but the hood does close.
Once I lubed up the silicone hoses they slid right on. I had to trim the radiator side of the upper pipe about .25" to get it to fit, since this rad is so much thicker.
After my rad install I attempted a boost leak check and couldn't build pressure even with the regulator set at 50psi or so on my compressor. Gah! Need to figure that out before I try to start it tonight.
Task number 3: Hook up heater core valve properly. This was a pain in the @$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ $! I had the heater core installed last fall when I did the bypass, but I never hooked up the spring and cable to the valve. It took me about 30 minutes lying on my back under the pedals to get this thing hooked up. I had to pull the valve back off the heater core, thread the cable through the valve handle, and spin and contort it to get the valve back on the heater core AND back into the rubber bypass hose. There should be pics of this earlier in the thread. Unfortunately I didn't have my phone on me to get any last night.
Last task: Missing 02 sensor plug. For some reason I felt like I had both 02 sensor plugs in the harness despite using a wideband 02 in place of the PS 02 sensor. I had to backtrack my bees nest of wiring behind my 300 degree triple gauge pod and below the radio. I traced all the wires coming out of the firewall from the LC-1 unit, followed all the leads until I found the one that didn't go to the gage or ground/power and found it running back to the firewall. However I couldn't find that wire in the engine bay side. Turns out I spliced it within a few inches of hte firewall grommet. I found the wire spliced to my old 02 sensor connector, which somehow got stuck on top of the turbo. It was COMPLETELY hidden from view. I snaked it out and plugged it into the wiring harness.
At the start of the night I was bummed again because I thougth I had a few problems that were going to take a lot of work and delay this project even more.
Tonight I need to keep hunting down my boost leak (no hints last night, no whistling or anything) and then I can fill up the rad and start it up and hopefully let it idle for 20 minutes to FINALLY break this motor in.
Neighbors may not like me as I have no exhaust. :-)
1990 300ZX TT, 2004 Mini Cooper S, 2006 Volvo V70 2.5T, 2002 Jetta TDI, 1997 Golf GTI Truck - RWD
Present Day
Yet another update! You can tell I want to get this done because updates are more frequent.
I had another large group of tasks yesterday. First of all, I got some generic 2.5" test pipe gaskets yesterday at Advance Auto Parts so I could make a bit of an adapter between my test pipes and my H pipe. As I mentioned earlier, for some reason my test pipes were mismatched lengthwise by a little less than .250". They were great last year, but nothing I did would get them flush, so I stacked a few gaskets on the shorter one and bolted everything together. The exhaust has never been a PERFECT fit, it always took a little force to get everything lined up, and this was no exception. But I was comfortable with how it all ended up.
Afterwards I needed to reinstall all the AC piping and etc in the interior, I had never reassembled it after my heater core replacement last year. (Big mistake) I found 5 of the plugs, but couldn't figure out where the last 2 go. And nothing works unless its ALL plugged in (so I am told) and I need to have the climate control working so I can bleed the air out of the cooling system. Once I realized I was missing a large section of the plumbing (I tossed it in the hatch) I saw it had 2 connectors. Figuring out how to install it was a pain in the ass. It only took about 10 minutes, but theres no good way to do it by yourself. It consistes of two plastic...tubes...I guess, which are loosely connected, and they have to be installed at the same time. You have to get them in position while lying on your back, and then with one hand hold them in place, get back up in the drivers seat, and stick a screwdriver through the center console and pry them into place and make sure they fit right. It took a while to figure that out. Again...another pain but got it sorted out.
Lastly I filled the radiator with coolant and tried to start the car yet again. No luck. Still can't build pressure in the intake system and cant hear any source of leaks. Even with my compressor regulator set at 60psi. Unfortunately after ALL of the times I have tried to start it so far, I have forgotten to pull codes every time. Damnit. Anyway, it still failed to run pro
perly. It stumbled quite a bit, seemed to be misfiring, and ran very lean according to the WBO2 (hard to tell, have a bad ground with my gages now).
Last thing I did was start to pull the plenum. Thankfully with my top feed injectors a plenum pull takes all of 10 minutes. Tonight I will be removing all the intake plumbing (that we have touched during this project) and reinstalling EVERYTHING one piece at a time making sure it is all clamped down. I'm sure we missed a hose or something. I hope thats all it is.
Every night the car doesn't start I get discouraged and I'm stressed out. But by the time I stop thinking about it and wake up in the morning I realize I'm really close and its just a little bit more and I'll be there.
I JUST WANT TO BE DONE!!!!!!! Yay. Ugh. Maybe this weekend. Car goes back on insurace today (in case I get everything sorted out and drive it this weekend) and collectors plate paperwork gets filed on Monday.
New rad installed. Look how high it looks! Luckliy the hood closes.
1990 300ZX TT, 2004 Mini Cooper S, 2006 Volvo V70 2.5T, 2002 Jetta TDI, 1997 Golf GTI Truck - RWD
Nice to see the progress!
2018 Alfa Romeo Giulia Ti Sport Q4 | 2018 RAM 1500 | 2000 Cobalt 246 w/454 Mag MPIOriginally Posted by admirallaserbeam
Present day
Last night I pulled the plenum again, determined to find whatever could be causing a massive vacuum leak. Sadly, it looks like this was my fault. The passenger side accordion pipe was loose to the turbo inlet. The driver side didn't budge when I pushed on it. While I was in there I rerouted much of the wiring harness and vacuum lines to the boost solenoids. We tossed everything together pretty quickly the first time, so vacuum lines weren't tucked properly and everything was pretty much a cluster. I stuck the solenoids under the battery and BMC, and ran all the vacuum lines under all the intake hoses. Much nicer.
I tightened EVERY clamp from the turbos forward and put everything back together. Luckily with my top feed setup I can do a full teardown and rebuild of the plenum and intake pipes in a little over an hour.
I think we missed a ground on the first attempt because when I started it up it sounded like it was running on 3 cylinders. Code 42, forgot to plug in the fuel temp sensor. Tried again, still 3 cylinders. Code 42 and 21. I swapped PTU's to a spare, and it ran much better. Unfortunately this time cylinder 2 wasn't firing. I swapped coilpacks with no luck.
Gonna run through code 21 diagnostics today after I visually check for spark. SO SO SO close. I do still have a small vacuum leak for some reason, at the back of the motor, I can hear it whistling. The GF is gone for the weekend so I'll be looking for parts on craigslist nearby (shh don't tell her) and trying to troubleshoot these issues. I forgot to get insurance put on the car yesterday, and its raining so I can't do much driving with the Z anyway.
Also I got myself a cheap OBDII bluetooth transmitter which I intend to play with in my Golf today. If anyone has any idea why just one cylinder won't fire with what looks to be a good PTU, I'm all ears.
1990 300ZX TT, 2004 Mini Cooper S, 2006 Volvo V70 2.5T, 2002 Jetta TDI, 1997 Golf GTI Truck - RWD
engine tear-downs chronicled on the internet always remind me of this comic
Present day update
I've been avoiding this thread because its been nothing but bad news. But after last night I guess I'm ready for an update.
No spark was caused by a loose PTU connector it seems. That has been sorted out.
The vacuum leak and inability to build pressure with a boost leak test is another story. I put worm gear hose clamps on every hose instead of the nissan OEM clamps to try and stop the leaks. No go, found one of my injector rings leaking. Took care of that, and the leak jumped to the upper plenum gasket, and after that was taken care of.....................it moved to the lower intake manifold gaskets.
More on that in a second. I did manage to get it running decently (it seemed so at least) and I drove it 5 miles down the street to test out everything without power steering. Big mistake. And after I pulled out of the garage I noticed puddles of water under the exhaust, and a small puddle of oil at the rear of the engine where it mates with the trans. I was pretty upset at that point. And to top it off halfway through the drive I noticed the heater core was leaking and there was a loud ticking noise coming from the engine bay AND it was misfiring because of a lean condition. I was pretty upset. This would be the reason for no update in 2+ weeks.
Back to the solutions:
I pulled everything to retorque the head studs, and found a few that were LOOSE. Retightened everything and hoped that was the source of the water out the exhaust. The plenum came on and off about 5x trying to hunt down vacuum leaks.
After that I tried eliminating my injector vacuum leaks, but the lower manifold I'm using had two stripped holes in the center (which I didn't notice until the car was practically done). I had to drill them out and helicoil them, which worked fantastically........but didn't help with the leak.
Why the @!#$% did I use the intake manifold gaskets I installed? I had a set of the bronzeish colored metal gaskets with rubber inserts lying around, and I used the ones made out of exhaust gasket material. WHY?! I'll post pictures later.
Sooo I was hoping I could pull the lower plenum without resetting the timing, we had the timing belt clamped and ziptied in place, with people on each gear holding them so they didn't move. It didn't matter, the belt still jumped. Which also didn't matter because I forgot about the rear timing cover on the passenger side which goes around the idler stud on the lower intake manifold.
Lucky me. So as of Thursday night I was in for a weekend of tearing everything down so I could reset the timing. Luckily I had no work Friday so I spent the day in the garage, with the exception of lunch. My girlfriend was stuck working so I delivered some Panera. Mmmm.
I had pretty much everything together by Friday night, I just needed the right size power steering belt to match my crank pulley. It only took 3 trips to autozone to get it right.
After checking everything and checking again, I FINALLLLLY tried to start the car again at about 6pm Sunday. Before the initial crank however, I gave her one last boost leak test. Lower intake manfiold: Sealed. Injectors: Sealed. Upper intake manifold: Sealed. Balance tube: forgot to bolt down. Oops. What I don't get is despite not having any leaks...I still can't build any pressure in the system. The car ran great (minus the 02 sensor issue I've been having. More on that later also), pulled 22mm/hg vacuum at idle and despite a full bottle of soap and water I couldn't find a single leak. I can hear air flowing what sounds like inside the plenum, but no leaks. And nothing out the exhaust according to my ears.
As I said the car ran great, until it reached 167*F. At whichpoint the RH 02 sensor would peg at 1v, then slowly reach stoich, then peg at 1v, and repeat. And while its doing this it would rev higher, and sputter back down, and run real lean when gently cruising. I tested my 02 sensor theory by forcing the ECU to run in closed loop mode (fuel maps only) by unplugging my wideband 02 from the wiring harness (yes I'm using the 1v output from the LC-1). After that it ran MUCH better. Still slightly lean, but not to the point it was misfiring.
No leaks from the heater core, no leaks from the engine bay that I can see, and nothing from the exhaust. I'm starting to feel better. Tonight my Z gets its face back! First time in 13 months. Then its another drive to get me near 50 miles and another oil change. Gotta put 500 miles on this as quicky as possible so I can get it tuned in Cincinatti in May.
In the meantime I need to teach myself Nistune so I can set up my spare ECU and fiddle around to see if I can figure out what's going on with my 02 feedback. I was thinking of getting 2 new OEM sensors and relocating the wideband to see if that helps. I'm kind of stumped at the moment.
Pics are boring for this post. Shows my retapping setup for the lower intake manifold along with the finished result.
1990 300ZX TT, 2004 Mini Cooper S, 2006 Volvo V70 2.5T, 2002 Jetta TDI, 1997 Golf GTI Truck - RWD
Small update. Pissed I keep forgetting to upload photos, they're all on my old phone and camera at home. Rule #1, I know
I've put over 300 miles on it so far. First 300 or so were gentle, no boost, no higher than 3500 RPM, lots of engine braking. I changed the oil at 50 miles, 250ish miles, and I'll probably change it again at 500 or so. Currently using 5w30 conventional, and after about 200 miles the oil seems to thin out and at idle oil pressure drops below where im comfortable with. I was running 15w40 Mobil 1 in the old motor, and I'll probably go back to that after the breakin is fully complete. I need to do some more research on proper oil for new VG30DETT's.
I drove a lot this weekend, and the heater core started leaking again. The hose I used to splice the connections was too short, and as I tightened the clamp, it slid between the connection and just clamped the hose shut. Coolant all over. I fixed it Monday night and I really hope to not have any more problems with it.
Last night I took it out again to check my heater core fix and see if I remembered what boost feels like. I feel like I babied it enough for the first 300 miles, and now it was time to get a little more agressive. I still kept it under 60% throttle, but let boost get up to 5psi and 4500 RPM. Felt great! SMOOOOOOTH power delivery. Although it does smell a bit 'burny' after I boost which concerns me. I'm not gonna worry until I drive it a little more and maybe switch to a heavier oil.
Oh right, this weekend I filled up for the first time since November of 2010 (ouch). 15.7mpg! Not as good as I was hoping for, but this involved lots of idling and a pretty massive fuel leak after I pulled the motor (clamp on the fuel line let go and fuel siphoned out for hours).
I'm really hoping to see low to mid 20's after I get this tuned properly.
Next update will include pictures, I promise.
Last edited by megaDan; 04-18-2012 at 09:07 AM. Reason: Added details
1990 300ZX TT, 2004 Mini Cooper S, 2006 Volvo V70 2.5T, 2002 Jetta TDI, 1997 Golf GTI Truck - RWD
you're a beast and this thread makes me want a TT Z32 even more...always been my attainable dream car. Hope you get everything sorted out asap man
You're a brave, patient man.
I'd have given up in frustration long ago. Glad you didn't, though.
Thanks for all the positive comments guys. Its definitely been trying at times, especially dealing with all the stuff that has gone bad which I took for granted *cough* headwork *cough*.
The work itself is pretty easy, although my definition of 'easy' is probably skewed based on the two cars I own. It just comes down to a little basic knowledge, a factory service manual, some DIY guides on the internet, and tools. I bet I've spent less than $500 bucks on tools for everything I've done here (engine hoist and stand are borrowed). It all started with a 200 some piece Craftsman set I got for xmas a few years ago.
Don't let the apparent scale of the work deter you. As long as you have some free time, a space in your garage, and a few extra dollars, you can tackle just about any project. Hell, I work 45-50 hours a week, marathon train on the weekends, play softball, ultimate frisbee, and have a (awesome supportive) girlfriend, and I've still got time to repair both my cars
As promised, here are some pics I took last week with our new DSLR. Still learning; and its been a few weeks since I had used it so I forgot most everything I read. Unfortunately no shots of the interior or the engine bay; they're still a work in progress while I sort out these little issues. The exterior looks pretty good though for an original 23 year old car.
1990 300ZX TT, 2004 Mini Cooper S, 2006 Volvo V70 2.5T, 2002 Jetta TDI, 1997 Golf GTI Truck - RWD
Awesome man! Your build shows that you have MUCH more patience than i ever would haha
Lets get some more photos of her
And a video or two?
Im curious how it sounds!
R32 racing http://youtu.be/qqSN4RrPsCA?t=50s
R32 causing trouble
Oh there will be LOTS more photos this summer. It hasn't been waxed in almost 2 years now soooo....it'll look better. I've got a friend that is gonna teach me how to do a REAL detail (polish etc) which I am excited for.
I'll shoot some video after I get it tuned. Right now I'm trying to hunt down an off-throttle rattle. I'm thinking exhaust, but when I kicked the exhaust last night it didn't make any noise
Maybe I'll post a video of that and some sleuths here can help figure it out.
1990 300ZX TT, 2004 Mini Cooper S, 2006 Volvo V70 2.5T, 2002 Jetta TDI, 1997 Golf GTI Truck - RWD
The bad headwork would've made me absolutely crazy. There's no excuse for sloppy work like that. I don't know which is worse, the fact that they didn't set the valve height correctly or the junk under the ports. Both are pretty unforgivable.
Have you put a magnetic drain plug in it? They're great for engine break-in, as they hold the little bits of ring that tend to grind away when you're firing. For the same reason, always drain the oil hot!
As far as that elusive rattle, was the engine hot when you kicked the exhaust system around? That can make a huge difference.
Keep the faith, man.
Originally Posted by Boyz in da Park
I bent the brand-new mower blade on my riding mower the other day, right after I got it home from having a bracket welded back up at the shop, and I very, very nearly flipped it over, shot holes in it, and set it on fire I was so frustrated. Cant comprehend all the (what, 20?) assemble/disassemble/reassemble troubleshooting steps youve done.
Car looks great. Best of luck with the rest of the shakedown/ironing-out process. In spite of all my better judgement, everything I have heard, and the things I have just seen you go through, I still want one.
50 miles into my drive I pulled up to a stoplight and it was misfiring at idle and at 18-19 AFR.
After I babied it home I found a vacuum cap had popped off. and At least it was nothing major. Put a new one on with RTV this time.
.................................................. ......................................
There were more than a few occasions when I didn't wanna deal with the car, which is partly why I put it back into storage in the fall instead of trying to finish it up. Especially when its just myself doing the work. But the turning point was my buddy Pat coming to help for a weekend. Just getting the motor to fire was BIG motivation; even if it required more 'redo' work afterwards.
AND...now that I've done it this many times...its not as much of a hassle. If it wasn't for all the coolant in the system and not wanting to make a mess, I could probably do a timing belt job in 3 hours now. Shutoff to restart.
If you're on the fence..go get one now. Before they're ALL molested. Its not that bad :-)
1990 300ZX TT, 2004 Mini Cooper S, 2006 Volvo V70 2.5T, 2002 Jetta TDI, 1997 Golf GTI Truck - RWD


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Law Enforcement Day Brings Nationally Known Criminal Investigation Expert to SUNY CantonTuesday, April 30th, 2013
Retired New York State Police Crime Scene Investigator and Court TV expert guest analyst Tom Martin will be the keynote speaker at SUNY Canton's Law Enforcement Day.
Martin, who has investigated thousands of forensic cases throughout his career, has appeared on the Court TV series "Trace Evidence," "Forensic Files," and "On the Case with Paula Zahn." He has also appeared on the HBO series "Autopsy" and has written several books.
Martin will discuss blood spatter analysis as part of the daylong event that begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday, May 7, in the Richard W. Miller Campus Center's Kingston Theater. Martin's presentation will begin at 1 p.m. Other scheduled speakers and topics are:
- Stephanie Schuckers, Ph.D., associate professor at Clarkson University, will discuss fingerprint recognition software at 9 a.m.
- Dr. Robert Stoppacher, medical examiner for Onondaga County, will discuss death investigations at 10 a.m.
- Dwayne Wisbey, forensic document examiner for the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department and adjunct instructor at SUNY Canton, will discuss document analysis at 11 a.m.
"Law Enforcement Day gives our students and community members the chance to hear from seasoned criminal investigation experts," said Susan E. Buckley, department chair of the SUNY Canton Criminal Justice, Law Enforcement Leadership and Criminal Investigation programs. "The guest presenters will be discussing the most modern tools used to solve crimes."
The annual event, sponsored by the College's student chapter of the American Criminal Justice Association, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Buckley at firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Gridlock in Washington will lead to gridlock across the country if lawmakers can't quickly agree on how to pay for highway and transit programs, the Obama administration warned Tuesday.
States will begin to feel the pain of cutbacks in federal aid as soon as the first week in August — peak summer driving time — if Congress doesn't act, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a letter to states. That's because the balance in the federal Highway Trust Fund is dropping and will soon go below $4 billion, the cushion federal officials say is needed for incoming fuel tax revenue to cover outgoing payments to states.
The cuts will vary from state to state, but will average about 28 percent, Foxx said at a breakfast with reporters. By the end of August, the trust fund's balance is forecast to fall to zero and the cuts could deepen.
Obama raised the issue briefly in a Cabinet meeting, and was expected to expand on it further at an event at Washington's Key Bridge later in the day.
"We could potentially put people to work all across the country, rebuilding roads and bridges, putting construction workers back to work. That could boost our economy enormously," Obama told Cabinet members. "And now is the time to do it, but that requires congressional action."
Revenue from federal gas and diesel taxes continue to flow into the fund, but the total is expected to be about $8 billion short of the transportation aid the government has allocated to states this year. Over the next six years, a gap of about $100 billion is forecast if transportation spending is maintained at current levels.
At the same time, transportation experts and industries that depend on the nation's highways to get their products to market are calling for greater spending on transportation to shore up aging roads, bridges and tunnels and to accommodate population growth.
"This cliff is coming. I've been saying this for six months and I worry that we may be running over it," Foxx said.
Already some states are cutting back on construction projects because of the uncertainty of federal funding, he said.
Communities depend on federal aid to get large, important projects done, Foxx said, but "projects aren't even being put on the table — projects that will reduce congestion, projects that will improve the quality of life."
The reason for the shortfall is that revenue the federal 18.4-cents-a-gallon gasoline and 24.4-cents-a-gallon diesel tax haven't kept pace with transportation needs. The taxes haven't been increased in more than 20 years, while construction and other costs have continued to go up.
The most obvious solution is be to raise fuel taxes, which is what several blue-ribbon commissions have recommended and business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Trucking Associations have urged. But neither party or the White House wants to get out front on a proposal to raise taxes in an election year. Foxx didn't rule out Obama signing legislation that raises the gas tax, but he indicated the administration doesn't believe there is enough support in Congress to pass a gas tax increase.
"We have said if Congress acts on something, we'll keep an open mind," Foxx said.
Instead, the administration is pushing a plan to close tax loopholes and use the revenue to pay for increased transportation spending for the next four years.
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House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Michigan, floated a similar proposal in April. But many Republicans say they'd rather offset increases in transportation spending with cuts to other government programs rather than tax increases. And many lawmakers have said they would like to continue to the trust fund's "user pays" principle by raising money from people who most use the roads, if not through a gas tax then some other means.
Nearly dozen proposals to address the problem have been floated in Congress, but lawmakers have been unable to settle on a solution that's politically acceptable to both parties.
House Republicans recently proposed a short-term patch based on savings associated with ending Saturday mail delivery by the postal service. The plan died a quick death when it became clear that many GOP lawmakers wouldn't support it.
Highway crisis looms as soon as August, US warns
WASHINGTON (AP) — Gridlock in Washington will lead to gridlock across the country if lawmakers can't quickly agree on how to pay for highway and transit programs, the Obama administration warned Tuesday.


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text:
General Education
1. What classes do I need to take?
Consult the
or an advisor in Academic Advising & Retention Services. A list of required General Education courses can be found in the schedule of classes.
2. How can I get a list of GE courses?
A list of required General Education courses can be found in the schedule of classes.
3. How can I get a Degree Progress Report to see which GE classes I have already completed?
Check your mySJSU account for a Degree Progress Report. See the IT Help Desk's webpage for information on how to access this report. If your transfer credit does not show up, make an appointment for an unofficial GE checklist at Academic Advising & Retention Services or wait for the Evaluation Department to send you an official one (which can take two semesters or longer).
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Yes, only in rare cases has the WST been waived.
5. What will happen to me if I don't pass the WST?
You will not be able to take the SJSU Studies courses. If you fail the WST once, you must take English 100A or LLD 100A. Failure to pass the WST will delay your graduation. Workshops on the WST can be found at the Peer Connections webpage. You can only take your required 100W course after you pass the WST, and many majors require you to successfully complete your 100W requirement before taking any major upper division coursework.
6. When should I take the WST?
You should take the WST immediately after successfully completing English 1B.
7. What are SJSU Studies courses?
SJSU Studies courses are additional GE classes you have to take after you pass the Writing Skills Test (WST). Students must have sixty units in order to take Advanced GE courses. Please check with your major department regarding the Area Z course that is appropriate for you.
8. How do I know if my classes are transferable from a community college?
Consult the articulation website or speak with a General Education and/or Major advisor.
9. If I have passed the WST and English 1B can I take SJSU Studies courses even if I'm not a junior?
Registration for SJSU Studies courses is blocked for students who have completed less than 60 units. Students who have met ALL other published requirements for 100W/SJSU Studies may petition for the ability to register as upper division students on the first day of classes at the office of Office of Undergraduate Education.
10. I took History 15AB and it counted for the GE categories D2, D3, and F1,2,3 that satisfy graduation requirements. My English 1B class at a community college counted in the Critical Thinking area. Can I use it for A3 and C3?
No, Units can only be counted in one GE area.
11. I have a lot of trouble in Math and English. Should I take these classes at the community college over the summer?
Email firstname.lastname@example.com for more information.
12. Is a C- considered passing?
Yes, however, if the course is a prerequisite or a major course you need to consult a major advisor for approval. Also, General Education courses in areas A1, A2, A3 and B4 must be completed with a C- grade or higher.
13. Can I take courses from my major and apply them to GE categories even though the courses are not on the GE list?
No, you can only take GE courses listed in current schedule of classes.


text:
When Bike Boy brought home my new phone (which I still love like a fourth child), he handed me a printed sheet of paper with a smug grin. As part of the deal - the deal that cost us ZERO, mind you - T3lstra were giving away a free movie ticket every week for a year. My husband knows how much I like a trip to the movies!
So after registering online and waiting, waiting, waiting.... I finally got my first ticket this week and I'm off to see Black Swan tonight. Next week, maybe The Fighter. Or something light like How Do You Know? Definitely NOT Hereafter, thanks to Debstar's grim review. And 127 Hours may be a little too gruesome for my liking.
I doubt there'll even be 52 movies over the next year that I'll want to see, but I'll make sure I squeeze in as many visits to the cinema as I possibly can.


text: The Tent Embassy in Canberra has for decades been symbolic of the tensions in Australian cities about recognition, reconciliation and land justice. Dylan Wood/AAP October 5, 2016 How can we meaningfully recognise cities as Indigenous places? Libby Porter, RMIT University Imagine if we did urban development in a way that honours Indigenous histories, knowledge and relationships with those places.


text:
Collins Barrow announces Baker Tilly International launch of succession planning research
Feb 01, 2013, 13:54 ET
TORONTO, Feb. 1, 2013 /CNW/ - Collins Barrow, an independent member of Baker Tilly International, today announced that it is participating in a global research project on succession planning and is inviting owners of privately-held and family-owned businesses to participate via an online survey.
"Succession planning is a key issue for businesses in Canada and around the world," says Dan Longlade, Chairman, Collins Barrow National. "In the next decade an unprecedented number of owners will retire, leading to a massive shift in wealth, ownership and control."
"Such is the scale of impending succession that the way in which the ownership of these businesses is transferred will determine not just the wealth of the individual and family involved, but the future prosperity of the economies in which they operate," he adds.
"Many of those retiring currently have no exit strategy and need to understand the many complex family, individual and business issues that must be addressed in the succession process if they are to realise the best value possible for their business," says Rob Kolton, Marketing and Branding Liaison, Collins Barrow National.
How to take part
Business owners who would like to take part in the research can click here to access the questionnaire, which should take around 15 minutes to complete.
Those completing the survey will receive a copy of Succession Planning, a Baker Tilly International guide for closely held and family businesses. They will also receive, early next year, a copy of the report based on the survey findings, supplemented by high-level analysis and commentary, which will provide valuable insight into the succession planning challenges in Canada and allow regional and global comparisons.
The closing date for submissions is March 15, 2013.
To find out more about succession planning or the survey, please contact our National office at [email protected].
SOURCE: Collins Barrow National Cooperative Incorporated
For further information:
Janice Chan
Media Relations
Collins Barrow National


text:
the bull
by the horns
Stockyard owner Wendy Cantrell's
can-do attitude takes her to new levels
in the male-dominated world of
cattle buyers
the bull
by the horns
Stockyard owner Wendy Cantrell's
can-do attitude takes her to new levels
in the male-dominated world of
cattle buyers
by Heather Berry
It's 10 a.m.
and Wendy Cantrell is just sitting down for breakfast in the Cattlemen's
Choice Café across the hall from her
office. She lights a cigarette, places two phones on the table and orders.
One phone rings and a minute later a call comes in on the second phone.
As she hangs up, someone runs in with another phone — and another
call for Wendy.
"This is how
much of my business is done," she
says, nodding toward the growing pile of phones. "People call
me and I get to spend their money. I get to do that because they trust
my judgment."
Wendy is a licensed,
bonded livestock order-buyer. Her job is to take orders for cattle,
scour the country for quality livestock to fill the orders and buy
them on behalf of clients.
According to the Missouri Department of Agriculture, Wendy is one
of only a handful of women in the state who own their own sale barn.
the cattle industry used to be exclusively a man's world, women
are now running farms and getting a handle on the new technologies
that make the job easier. According to the latest USDA Census of Agriculture,
women run one in every 10 farms in America.
"Women are losing
their husbands, either by death or divorce, and choosing to take over
the farms," Wendy says. "But they need help. One
of my goals is to help them any way I can."
Wendy's husband,
Dan, says she often gets calls from women who find themselves with a
cattle operation and aren't sure what to do with it. So she'll
go to their farm to offer any help she can.
"That's just the
way Wendy is," says Dan. "She wants
everyone to succeed."
Her can-do attitude has helped her carve a niche in a business that's
been predominately a man's world for decades.
Wendy shakes her
head. "A
lot of times I'd come home bawling and
squalling to Dan because the men would always point me toward the
lounge whenever I walked into a sale barn," she says.
I hung in there. I'd be sitting there, smiling and listening
to their 'oh honey' this-and-that while I was buying
the cattle they wanted. Finally, the guys decided I must be there
for the long haul and they accepted me, but it took about a decade."
stockyard's logo, a little snorting black bull, represents
determination. Her barn's motto, "We take the bull
out of selling cattle," reinforces Wendy's no-nonsense
business approach.
"Down home
they call me a 'little
bulldozer' because I'm
headstrong and I don't take no for an answer," she
says, smiling.
Wendy, 51, has been
wheeling and dealing in the cattle industry since she was a youngster
in southwest Missouri. As one of nine children growing up in rural
Buffalo, Wendy feels as if she practically grew up in sale barns while
helping her dad with his import/export Holstein cattle business.
recalls riding wild ponies as a youngster at the sale barns for potential
buyers, to see if the ponies were broke to ride. According to Wendy,
nothing could buck her off.
Wendy's dad passed away when she was 11, leaving the tomboy on
her own to finish learning the cattle business. By age 16, some of her
dad's cattle
buddies decided to take the time to show her the ropes.
buying cattle in central Missouri nearly all her life, Wendy felt the
area could use a new sale barn. So last January, she bought a defunct
elk barn and 60 acres of land near Eldon and launched Miller County
Regional Stockyards.
The stockyard held
its first sale in May, drawing 850 cows and calves for sale. Nearly
200 buyers and sellers sat in the auction arena's comfortable
theater seats to watch a seven-hour sale. While she won't
reveal numbers, Wendy says the first sale was a huge
Since then, Miller
County Regional Stockyards has been host to sales every Monday. Special
cattle auctions are also held during the week if there's a need
for one.
A few weeks ago,
Wendy held a special feeder-calf sale that brought tremendous prices.
"The cattle brought a higher price per pound that day than prices in Oklahoma
City, Tulsa, Joplin and Springfield," says
Dan. "She had 15 out-of-state
buyers for that sale, too. And it's because
she had not just quantity, but quality calves for
Wendy also offers
horse auctions. "It's
what the people around here want, so we're
offering it."
When Dan isn't
helping with sales in Eldon, he runs the couple's
4,200-acre, 600-cattle operation in Republic.
Here, the couple prepares calves for feedyards across the United States.
says Dan has always been supportive of her dream to build a sale
barn of her own because he knows Wendy's good at what she does.
More importantly, the barn offers Wendy a solid business for her future.
got a brain tumor," Wendy says somberly. "After
one surgery, we've decided to take
life one day at a time and live it to the
Smart real estate
deals, wise investments and good luck have allowed
Wendy to build her nearly $4-million
stockyard. From the onset, Wendy envisioned offering
new technology and up-to-date information
to cattle producers. Wendy offered source
verification to her clients from the
start. This technology allows buyers
and sellers to track livestock through
a national database. Anticipating the
U.S. Department of Agriculture's plan to implement
an electronic identification system one
day, Wendy offers this service to everyone.
"By source-verifying
cattle, we're able to find out if the cattle
were home raised, what their history
of vaccinations is and more," says
the Three Rivers Electric Cooperative
member, "which in turn brings the
seller more money."
Long hours
and "eight-day work weeks," as
she puts it helps keep Wendy at the
forefront of her industry.
don't believe in failure," she
says. "You have to
work hard, hustle and just make it
Miller County Regional Stockyards holds cattle sales every Monday at
10 a.m. except on holidays. Horse and tack consignment sales are held
one Friday each month. For more information, call (573) 392-5572 or (573)


text:
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text:
Carrie Prejean (Miss California) Carrie Prejean Bout To Walk Off Larry King Live Due To Larry Being "Inappropriate"
08 reports "In a strange moment, Carrie Prejean On Larry King Live threatens to leave the show because she feels Larry is being "Inappropriate" "
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text:
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text:
Some of the greatest lies from history have now become our cherished truths.
One such modern ideology has the sweetest public veneer, yet this poison represents the most powerful destroyer of children and learning on this Earth. Its putrid name is Compulsory State Public Education.
The beginning part of the name gives it away entirely, Compulsory State. The second part continues the lies however. It is not public – since it forces itself through political will, top-down, or legal fiat, on both unwary citizens – and even non-citizen residents. Nor has it anything to do with real education. It is actually the opposite of education. Compulsory education actually mutates human consciousness.
This same ideology, and its willing institutions, the schools and education bureaucracies, have structurally combined into forming a slaughterhouse of useless knowledge.
Compulsory State Public Education is the modern state's most powerful arsenal in the indoctrination and destruction of children's lives.
It indoctrinates through bogus class divisions between students, such as learning levels, arbitrary class assignments and testing schemes. It destroys young lives through prison-like rule making, dividing students into cliques for greater control, and the institutionalization of boredom, while it severely punishes those who refuse to surrender to such a system, or those recalcitrant rebels who maintain their wills and autonomy after so much legal harassment.
This diabolical system encourages a gross ignorance of our actual reality, while accepting acquiescence towards criminal authorities. Compulsory State Public Education does not produce brave citizens – instead, it encourages pathetic minds, mindless consumers and potential wage slaves.
Parents ought to beware. How did we get to this state of living where the criminal state now parasites off our children's minds and bodies?
The stories that hurt me the most, in relation to this ideology, are the ones concerned with bullying. I too suffered bullying when I was kid, and I also participated in such bullying against other kids. Many of us fell into this institutional hell. We were stuck in minimum security jails for kids.
But it is the stories of the kids that eventually kill themselves after so much intolerable bullying at school, and then the school administrators suffer no consequences afterwards. The parents even resign themselves to the loss of their sacred children because it was simply their kids at the wrong place and the wrong time. Then there are the school shootings that have taken place. The most famous one was at a Columbine High School in Colorado.
The reasons for such outbreaks of violence are because Compulsory State Public Education has become the full embodiment of institutional violence, similar to bad paying retail-service sector jobs, local jail-minimum security prisons, and yes, even the army base with its soldier barracks.
Compulsory State Public Education rashes forth from the sewers of Liberalism, which is an ideology more violent, and bursting forth with a greater sacks of lies, than the Psychobabble Quack Cult. The ideology of Marxist Materialism-Socialism-Communism also loves compulsory state schooling. Most of our modern ideologies that worship the State, the government, political hacks, bureaucratic parasitism, authorities, social control, surveillance and the murder of happiness, also support the school institutional system.
Compulsory state education forces the wage slaves living under it to hand over their children, or the prisoners, for a greater part of the day. But some might ask, is it not free?
No, it is never free. The wage slaves are also the taxed and fined 'citizens,' and they must hand over even more payments and fees, in order to invest in their own enslavement. This is how our modern capitalist-liberal, 'free market system' works.
There is freedom – but only for the political-economic elites who run and game the system. They receive the second chances, while the prisons and the enlisted ranks of the military never touch them.
Super rich parents never send their kids to those state schools. Rather, their children often attend the elite prep-private schools, on the elite private university track. How do you get the children of the losers to support such an unjust and brutal system that regularly destroys their lives? The answer lies in compulsory schooling's incessant propaganda as a 'national necessity for a functioning Democracy.' Compulsory Education now ranks up there in the State echelons, with the cops-police gangs of the State, the military, the flag, the president and the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the street mugger uses brazen violence to get what he wants, while the state mugger uses institutions to hide its crimes. The street mugger eventually winds his way into the prison system, yet the state mugger wins even greater power, prestige, accolades and control.
There are three institutional criminal syndicates that run this particular monster. The first group surrounds the state politicians who continue to pass laws transforming the schools into the growing prison gulag. The methods include increasing the mandatory ages of forced schooling from four to eighteen, augmenting the state minimum requirements in learning useless crap, extending the school year from August to July, imprisoning both teenagers and parents for truancy, imposing regular police officers to watch, arrest and imprison unruly students, creating gun free-drug free school zones while giving students' names and addresses to military recruiters, so that they can become cannon fodder during the coming war.
The second junta call themselves 'education leaders,' or administrators, where they actually receive bogus degrees from flim flam university graduate programs. These are the chancellors and superintendents, their assessors and their advisers, and a whole slew of desk sitting, e-mail sending positions who teach no classes, rarely visit the schools, do no useful work – yet mandate 'educational policies.' They are the commandeering class with the annual increases of six figure salaries, excellent benefits and generous life pensions.
Under them are the junior officers, or the school principals and vice principals. All of whom eventually aspire to those Board of Education office desk positions with beginning six figure salaries, great state benefits and even greater state pensions – all paid by the same tax slaves.
The third cabal culminates with the teacher's unions. The newer teachers are actually at the bottom rung of the hierarchy.
After doling out thousands of bank loaned money to the university fraud 'education school,' in order to become 'certified,' the beginner teachers have to work very long hours, and often receive the worst classes.
The reason for this underhanded tactic is that the unions run themselves just like the corrupt Boards of Educations. The union bosses also receive six figure salaries, with wondrous benefits and even greater pension plans. The bosses don't care about the saps that owe money to the state and to the banks. Many of those first year losers get burned out from the terrible work and terrible pay. They rightfully escape teaching altogether.
This rotten institution leaves the few survivors who eventually receive 'seniority benefits,' and who often become jaded, brutally cynical and even transform into crazy people. This small group of 'teachers' possessing seniority, in due course, earn stable salaries, not exactly six figure salaries, but enough money to make rent paying easier, and they finally receive the cushion teaching jobs, like library positions or a desk at the principal office.
The union hacks support these teacher-parasites because they have already paid thousands of union dues money into the syndicate. After so much teacher turnover, there are not many of these hanger-ons left. This also means more personal money left over for the union 'jefe' crooks.
The compulsory state school system has become its own self-sustaining political economy, and now it is one of the most important management systems inside the decaying Amerikan Empire run by Sociopaths. If one travels in most small towns and rural counties across the western US, this crooked system is the biggest employer around. It doesn't just have teachers and administrators, but also includes yellow bus school drivers, road guards, school board councils, school janitors and class-hall aid monitors.
The compulsory state school political economy is up there with the other big, exploitive employer-institutions around town: the Medical-Hospital-social services-HMO-Insurance complex, both the state and private prison system, the regional state university, civilian contractor-US military base structure, housing construction, which hires both legal and illegal workers, and general service industry jobs: legal front staff workers of waitresses and bartenders, while most back kitchens hire illegals. Meanwhile, structural inflation and unemployment continue to grow exponentially.
Compulsory State Public Education is a modern phenomenon. It has always aligned itself closely with the growth of the Modern State. The Modern State did not coalesce into its current malformations until the late eighteenth-century and during entire nineteenth-century, from 1790-1890.
From the fanatical Liberalism of the French Revolution, the dictator Napoleon began the process of a centralized, nationalist-identity curriculum, in order to further patriotism with a proud 'national spirit' for future wars. The Prussian Empire, first defeated by Napoleon, and later, helping to defeat the Beast, with the British and other nationalities at Waterloo, perfected this same putrid 'educational system' representing total control and bogus authority.
The Prussian State, implying its military machine, maintained complete power over the mental formations of its children. It imposed an imperial wide, centralized curriculum, and an instruction led and managed institution through teachers and administrators, called 'gymnasiums.'
This rotten system included rote memorization schemes, punishments for slower students, military bells between classes, and constant repetition of movement while shuttling between rooms. This kid jail transposed the modern army manual to the actual classroom dynamic. You were either a good obedient student-slave, or a dysfunctional rebel-loser. Woe unto the ones who didn't conform – German culture would hound them mercilessly until they dropped dead of shame and hopelessness.
While this militarist-statist imperial system coalesced, American copycat intellectuals visited the German Prussian provinces for some ideas. Two such intellectuals were Horace Mann and Henry Barnard from Massachusetts. These two rightly understood that Massachusetts Bay Colony had been the first colony to institute forced schooling for children, and so they infiltrated the state government of Massachusetts and set up a legal system for mandated compulsory schooling. This was during the 1840s-50s.
Another state bureaucrat emerged on the political scene, always anxious for more power with a good pay scale: the educator. The educator cabals in many other states also instituted compulsory schooling laws – but to their detriment, they had no way of enforcing them.
Most young people in the early American republic either learned at home, while working on the farm or plantation, or they worked as apprentice-journeymen for master artisans. Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain were two such people. These great men often attended school for a short time, or for no time at all.
With the growth of Progressivism in the late nineteenth-century, American capitalist magnates, such as John D. Rockefeller, called for reforms to the system in order to save Capitalism from its downturns. Owner potentates worked with 'social justice reformers' to end the use of child labor, and thereby allow moderate union influences, or company unions, within certain industries.
Some American Federation of Labor, (the AFL), union bosses joined the Reformist call, and so the US Congress enacted it first anti-child labor laws. The union hacks thought that this would open more jobs for men, and especially with all the recent immigrants to the country. As usual, they were wrong.
The capitalists had another card up their sleeves – women workers. What to do with all the children out of work, while many of these immigrants lived in urban slums? The capitalists rallied for a better educated workforce that could read diagrams and do simple math equations. They joined with the Social Justice Reformers in supporting state compulsory schooling. The robber barons never sent their children to such schools, of course.
Everything changed after World War I. In the 1920s, with the institutionalization of a National Income Tax, a federal political police, the FBI, and the First Red Scare against anti-war radicals, state governments also created enforcement agents to persecute the anti-compulsory schooling people, called 'truancy officers.'
During President Roosevelt's National Socialist program in the 1930s, most state compulsory schools changed their names to 'public schools,' and they all had state Boards of Educations enforcing not just attendance requirements, but also state-wide curriculum standards. One such monstrous school ritual introduced was the so-called 'Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag' with students giving a Fascist-like arm salute!
The culmination of compulsory schooling's power was President Carter's increasing the federal government bureaucracy with the nefarious Department of Education in the 1970s – whose agents now carry lethal weapons. The Department of Education has always been in the forefront of promoting National Standards Education, testing programs, placement systems, remedial classes, disciplinary sanctions, Special Education sections, High School Graduation to University Access, and other dubious rackets. Those federal bureaucrats only care about amassing more power and increasing their own six figure salaries with full federal benefits and pensions.
For most of us, our compulsory schooling experiences have been horrible and traumatic – and for good reason. Parents who truly love their own children don't let them rot and torture within such hideous state operations. They often home school them, send them to private academies, set up Free Schools, or they have their children attend particular charter schools.
The bureaucrats are not finished however. They still persecute homeschoolers and seek to force alternative education programs, such as Summerhill, Montessori and Sterner schools to align their studies with garbage state mandates. So far, homeschooling resistance in the States has refused such cowardice.
As long as we demand our own autonomy as human agents, then we must always resist the Modern State and its Compulsory State Public Jail-Schools. Children are not enemies for subjugation, nor good consumers, nor future wage slaves, nor even potential state assassins in the military – they are humans just like us, and deserve such respect.


text:
The im5P is a simple I/O module. Its design makes it compatible with iMod ports, but it can be used for other applications as it can be mounted on a standard 0.1" grid prototyping board.
It makes five ports available via a 3.5mm Terminal Block connector; a plug-in screw terminal block is included. Additionally, there is space on the bottom of the PCB for two TVS protection diodes that can be assembled if required. The five ports are marked 2, 3, 4, 5 and X on the PCB.
Each port has a 1kOhm resistor in series with it. This helps protect the microcontroller port from over-voltages. Solder jumpers 2, 3, 4 and 5 on top of the board allow each of those ports' 1kOhm resistors to be bypassed individually.
On most products with iMod ports, iMod ports 2, 3 and 4 are Relocatable Ports many also include port 5. On the im5P module, these four iMod ports (pin headers 2 through 5) are routed to Terminal Block ports 2, 3, 4 and 5 (marked on the PCB behind the terminal block). They can be configured on the host system to perform many different functions, like PWM outputs, UART Serial Port (TTL UART), SPI port, Capture input, Interrupt input, etc.
iMod ports 5 and 6 (pin headers 5 & 6) are Analog Input or general-purpose I/O ports on most products with iMod ports. On the im5P module, these two ports (routed to Terminal Block ports 5 and X) can be used as general-purpose I/O or as Analog Inputs.
For information about the iMod pinout, download this iMod Overview. Find other iMod modules in our iMod Category.
Below the header option selector, you will see checkboxes for adding additional header strips (e.g. in case you want to populate all six pin pads on both sides) as well as socket strips that will mate with the Round Swiss pin header type. If you want to install the socket strips on your prototype so that you can plug in this module with Round Swiss pins, make sure to change and Update the quantity of sockets to 2 during checkout.


text:
News & Notes: Game 84
Buffalo Bisons
43-40, 3rd(-4.0)
Dillon Gee (7-5, 5.00)
Syracuse Chiefs
47-37), 2nd(-0.5)
Erik Arnesen (2-4, 4.08)
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Alliance Bank Stadium – Syracuse, NY
Radio: WWKB AM 1520, bisons.com
TODAY'S GAME: Tonight, the Buffalo Bisons face the Syracuse Chiefs in the first game of a four-game series from Alliance Bank Stadium (6:30 p.m.). The Herd is coming off a 4-1 homestand that included a two-game sweep of the Chiefs, June 29-30. Buffalo also won two of three from Rochester to pull within four games of first place Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in the IL North division.
vs. THE CHIEFS: The Bisons are 3-5 in the first eight games against Syracuse this season. The Herd won only one of the first six contests before a two-game sweep of the Chiefs at Coca-Cola Field, June 29-30. Buffalo is 0-2 at Alliance Bank Stadium this year and 2-8 in Syracuse since last season.
GOLLY GEE: RHP DILLON GEE is coming off maybe his best start of the season. The righty allowed just one run on three hits in seven innings of work on Tuesday against Syracuse. He struck out six in that start and now has 85 punchouts this season -6th most in the International League. The last time a Bisons pitcher fanned 100 batters in a season was RHP HYANG-NAM CHOI, who struck out 103 during the 2006 campaign.
PADDING STATS: OF JORGE PADILLA enters tonight's game on a seven-game hit streak. In the last week, the outfielder has averaged .429 (12-28) with three doubles, five RBI and seven runs scored. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Padilla was 5-8 (.625) with three doubles and four RBI in two games against his former team, Syracuse. Padilla hit .367 (114-311) with 25 extra-base hits in 95 games with the Chiefs last season.
BULLY FOR THE PEN: RHP MANNY ACOSTA has been all but unhittable of late. The reliever has given up just two hits over his last seven appearances. Since June 20, Acosta has allowed only five base runners while striking out 11 in 7.2 innings of work. Acosta has converted his last three saves opportunities.
BULLY FOR THE PEN 2: RHP JOSE DE LA TORRE has been equally impressive. The reliever has also given the Herd seven consecutive scoreless appearances since June 15. Since then, De La Torre has not issued a walk and struck out nine in his last seven innings of work.
METS UPDATE: The Mets (45-36) loss to the Nationals, 6-5, yesterday in Washington. Former Bisons RHP R.A. DICKEY allowed just two unearned runs in seven innings but did not earn a decision. C JOSH THOLE had a pair of run-scoring hits for New York, but the Nationals rallied for three in the ninth for the win. The Mets take on Washington again today at 1:35 p.m.
Follow the Herd:
Listen to the Game:CLICK HERE!
Bisons Baseball Network: CLICK HERE!
Broadcast Team email: CLICK HERE!
Everything about the Herd: CLICK HERE!
Get to a Game: CLICK HERE!


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In this week's lectures and materials we tackled the group obstacles to innovation as well as the often misused innovation tool: Brainstorming. In speaking of the group we're referring to the immediate work-group or direct organization that one works in whether it's a division, subgroup, project group, etc. Within the group Owen's identifies 4 major constraints:
- Emotion
- Culture
- Environment
- Process
- These constraints include relationships that prevent trust, free sharing and productivity in the group. Sometimes even loyalty can cloud our judgement about people's actual skills or capabilities.
- Also the emotion of fear (of rejection) can prevent us from willingly volunteering new ideas. If we're afraid that we may be ridiculed or even ignored, we will stop sharing. Fear of being blamed for mistakes acts as an innovation killer.
- Emotional and relationship conflict can cause team dysfunction. Lack of trust can destroy group dynamics.
Culture includes how the group both perceives and behaves. Culture defines what the group values. Here's a really simple parable of how events in the past effect a group's view of change. This view may prevent a group from finding new solutions. For example, let's say Group X tried a new implementation Method Y to produce Product Z under the leadership of a new manager who had good intentions. Unfortunately, the group was not properly trained or prepared in the implementation method, and there was an old guard who was quite married to their way of doing things and the decided to openly resist using the new methodology. Consequently Product Z failed miserably.
Upper management decided to blame not only the new manager and those who advocated for Method Y. From this time forward, in order to avoid conflict or shame, employees in this group avoided suggesting new ways of doing things unless they were blessed directly by upper management. This group consequently became married to 'their tried and trusted ways' of doing this. This account may be slightly exaggerated but I'd be willing to bet many people working in business have seen a similar scenario some time in their career.
Cultural constraints can be the hardest to overcome when suggesting innovation or change because there's some real hearts and minds stuff behind people's investment and even pride in how they do things. Also, as in the example above, fear of the consequences of making mistakes within a group's culture can be a negative constraint.
This constraint is quite simple to explain if you don't have the right environment and tools, you may have a difficult time collaborating. Even having a document management system or an online collaboration system or tool that meets the group's needs is important. Also, if there is no comfortable physical space to meet and work together the group will have a difficult time being productive as a group.
Owen's in his lectures this week spent a great deal of time explaining this constraint and how to overcome it. Owens notes that groups can sometimes be so married to their process and focus on achieve efficiency in this process that they get stuck on a track. The problem with this again, is it makes the group less likely to adopt new ways of doing things when rapid change is needed. This puts the group at risk of experiencing a process that may cause a bottleneck in their ability to change and be innovative.
But to overcome process constraints Owens recommends a few remedies that make a great deal of sense.
First is to use a process, but a simple one that can be adaptable to the group. Owens suggests a Seven phase process that has different levels of engagement from the group as a group and as independent workers. In phase 1 the problem is identified and in phase 2 as many ideas to solve the problem are identified. There's emphasis here in finding or listing as many ideas as possible. As you travel down the path, this list naturally will be will be whittled down. But here's the great part: The group doesn't have to be involved as a whole in every step of the process. Those committee meetings that caused projects to inch through the calendar like a limestone parade float – those are forbidden if any true innovation is to happen.
The second suggestion I walked away with was that it is important to analyze the problem or issue that requires innovation and determine if radical innovation is needed. If so, it's important to assign the right kinds of people to the innovation team. But how do you do this? One answer: assign the right people on your team of innovators.
Owens explains that there are two types of Innovators (Team R & Team A). Their qualities can be described as follows:
The "R-type" innovator can be characterized as the person who often sees radical or even unconventional solutions, They are people who are good at laying a number of seemingly unrelated ideas or solutions down. They might also question how things are done. Which can be frustrating to co-workers who don't want to challenge the status quo.
The "A-type" innovator can be end-product focused. I worked with someone who was like this in a past worklife. He was highly detail-oriented and would manage the process every step of the way, making sure that each step had a milestone and the group would do want ever it could to accomplish it. I would use him has a springboard to find the possible execution problems in a project because of his broad analytical thinking and his meticulousness. However, not everyone saw his detail-orientation as I saw it and sometimes thought of him as being contrary to their process flow.
Initially I thought I was an "R" but then I realized after working at my last group I became the "A" person, always looking for a defined process, measurements, ways to determine or measure our success… because they didn't seem to follow any process or even understand that one was necessary. I wanted to have an end product to shoot for. This group was still struggling to define the product they wanted and would often rely on their upper leadership to set the tone. This was fine when leadership had a clear picture and was well-informed about what they wanted. When it comes down to it, I'm probably a hybrid of the two types.
Owens teaches us that as innovation leaders we should be able to tell when to use the "A's" and the "R's" in a project timeline. As he illustrated in the diagram below, both the A's & R's have their place in a project and should be leveraged by the leader to work in harmony with each other. Now that's something worth learning.
I forgot to add some resources I found earlier that related to this week's topics:
Article from Fast Company: "Five Ways Process is Killing your Productivity"
How Collaboration can Kill Creativity:
What are the disadvantages of Project Management:
One word from the author of this post = "Obsession"


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When I saw Passion in 1994 with Eric Besner (a fellow law student at the time -- and a Sondheim scholar: here's his article for The Sondheim Review on the revisions to Passion during the previews), I was blown away. (I actually liked it better in the raw state before Sondheim's changes -- but that might just be the result of how it affected me emotionally at the time.)
Fosca is the ultimate producer of Magical Thinking Romance Theater. That's my term for the sort of imaginary romantic relationship where one person doesn't know the relationship even exists. I wish I could find it now, but I saw a T-shirt in law school that said, in effect,
Before he can wine and dine you,
Before he can fall in love with you,
Before he can propose marriage,
Before he can father your babies...
He has to call you!
Leap-frogging over inconvenient truths, assuming that there's more than casual friendship in someone's smile, envisioning a rosy future when the other person has other plans -- that's all evidence of staging a Magical Thinking Romance Theater production.
I used to be a lot more active in Magical Thinking Romance Theater myself, a long time ago, so I know the signs. But by the time I saw Passion, I lived less in my head. Seeing Fosca -- this plain, awkward woman in mid-19th century Italy who imagines herself madly in love with a gorgeous army officer -- wear her heart so blatantly on her sleeve gave me a frisson of recognition.
Then she sings about why she reads:
I do not read to search for truth
I know the truth, the truth is hardly what I need.
I read to dream.
I read to live. In other people's lives.
I read about the joys, the world
Dispenses to the fortunate,
And listen for the echoes.
I read to fly, to skim -
I do not read to swim.
But there's one aspect of reading that Fosca didn't touch on: the cathartic read. Some of my favorite comfort reads are ones that make me cry.
I don't think that's inconsistent with Fosca's reading style. We want relief from our own unhappiness, and we can get that both from reading about other people's happiness, but also from discharging a little of our own pain while reading about their fear of loss.
Of course, this only works for me if there's a happy ending. I don't want to close a book and still feel bad about the characters. It also doesn't work for me if the book is emotionally uninvolving, perhaps because the protagonists are annoying or the prose doesn't prompt that cathartic response. I would imagine that this is very reader-specific. The books that reliably make me cry might well leave other people dry-eyed, and vice-versa.
Plus, I like to cry. I expect a lot of people don't enjoy it as much, rather in the way that some people don't enjoy being scared on roller-coasters.
Just more proof that what we read, why we read it and why we praise it, can be so personal.


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Is good news from Red Hat really good news for Red Hat?
The enterprise Linux maker revealed some stonkingly good quarterly figures last week, laughing in the face of the global downturn and making the Linux vendor that relies on Microsoft's trust fund money (Novell, in other words) look like a right old Charlie.
Red Hat announced revenues of $174 million for its first quarter ending May 31st, up 11 percent on the same period last year. Underlying that were subscription sales the lifeblood of the company up 13.8 per cent to $148.8m, although training and services revenues were down slightly. And the company was profitable: overall Red Hat made $18.5 million in the quarter up 7.1 per cent over the same period last year.
So what's the problem?
The first thing you have to wonder about is where all this business will keep coming from. On Red Hat's earnings call the top bods in the company were apparently keen to write off OpenSolaris, putting forward the argument that businesses that desert Solaris aren't moving to Sun's pet open source project, and instead are deserting Sun's Unix for Linux, and Red Hat in particular.
How long can that boost to business last? The global move from Unix to Linux is no longer a new phenomenon and one that can't be relied upon to fuel Red Hat's growth in the future. Sooner or later it will have to confront the beast of Redmond. Matt Asay puts it like this on his Open Road blog:
"Today very little of [Red Hat's] sales come at Microsoft's expense. At some point in the not-so-distant future, the UNIX-replacement business will slow and Red Hat will need more than JBoss to compete with Microsoft."
You've got to be big to compete with Microsoft, and it's unlikely that Novell, maker of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, is up to the task. Not least because it relies on Microsoft's generosity in subsidizing SLES. A company the size of Oracle/Sun might be able to go toe to toe with Redmond, but Red Hat certainly cant.
Unless, of course, someone big buys Red Hat. You have to admit that it has that air of inevitability about it. Right now the market values Red Hat at $3.8 billion rather a lot really when you realize that there's really just a small software vendor hiding underneath that hat which, let's face it, doesn't make a whole lot of money.
The market must be inflating the company's worth for a reason. If the future for systems is integrated platforms, as Timothy Prickett Morgan posits in The Register, then, "Dell has to buy Red Hat, since it has no operating system, middleware, or database of its own."
I don't know about Dell, but there must be a few companies looking at Red Hat and running through the numbers right now. Red Hat's results may look encouraging, but that doesn't mean that the company's days as an independent aren't numbered.
Paul Rubens is a journalist based in Marlow on Thames, England. He has been programming, tinkering and generally sitting in front of computer screens since his first encounter with a DEC PDP-11 in 1979.


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Intent is a newly proposed open source project under Mylyn. Intent 0.7 is available as part of the Eclipse Juno Release Train.
Intent allows teams to easily keep documentation up-to-date with any development artifact (e.g. models, code, environment). The documentation, integrated with other Eclipse tools, then becomes truly useful and is no longer a burden that developers have to carry to please their customers or project manager.
Don't know where to start? Check out our useful links or the project summary.
Based on Donald Knuth's Literate Programming concepts and allowing collaborative work around design tasks, Intent was presented at Agile ALM connect 2012 and EclipseCon Europe 2012.
"Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs: Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do."
Donald Knuth, Literate Programming (1984)
Intent Overview
The following pages provide an overview of the Intent project :
- Mission Statement - General presentation
- Architecture - Design choices and extensibility
- Demos - Intent demos (video clips included)
- Use Cases and Scenarios - Step-by-step use cases with screenshots
- 2012 Release Plan - See what's planned for Intent 0.7 (Juno)
- Buzz - Articles and blogs about Intent
- Intent Useful links - Useful links to understand what Intent is about
Getting Started
- Intent Useful links - Useful links to understand what Intent is about
- User FAQ - Can't find the answer you're looking for? Just ask.
- Installation Guide - How to install Intent
- Tutorials - Tutorials to get started with Intent
Getting Involved
- Customize and Extend Intent - Make Intent fit your needs
- Further Readings - Books, articles and papers used to create Intent
The Intent Project
Currently in incubation phase, it is part of the Mylyn's Docs project.
- 05/11/2012 : New post : The Shape of Things to Come (Kepler roadmap)
- 26/10/2012 : Transcript of the EclipseCon Europe 2012 talk
- 28/06/2012 : Video Record of the Intent talk at Eclipse DemoCamp Juno is available (in french)
- 27/06/2012 : Intent 0.7 released with Juno Release Train
- 04/04/2012 : Transcript of the Agile ALM 2012 talk
- 02/12/2011 : Intent will be at Agile ALM Connect 2011
- 08/11/2011 : Transcript of the EclipseCon Europe 2011 talk
- 04/11/2011 : Intent will be at EclipseCon Europe 2011
- 02/09/2011 : Intent Nightly Builds in place
- 04/07/2011 : Intent is now on github
- 11/04/2011 : Intent website has been created
- 22/03/2011 : Talk at Eclipse con : Mylyn meets Intent...
- 17/03/2011 : Intent Creation Review succeeded
- New post : Mylyn Intent @ EclipseCon 2011
- 01/02/2011 : Intent proposal has been published
- 27/12/2010 : Intent will be at Eclipse Con 2011
- New post : Intent Discovery - Part 1 : the intents behind softwares


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Duo gives $100,000 prize to launch Day One Project, build nursery at Malawi hospital
Rice University bioengineering professors Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Maria Oden, the winners of the 2013 $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation, are donating their prize money toward the construction of a new neonatal ward at the African hospital that has helped implement Rice's low-cost, student-designed health care technologies since 2007.
The Lemelson-MIT Program today announced that Oden and Richards-Kortum won the prestigious award in honor of their life-saving inventions and pioneering efforts to inspire and lead Rice students to invent and deliver low-cost technological innovations to improve health care for people in developing nations.
"When Maria and I learned we had won this award, we both knew exactly how we wanted to use the prize money," Richards-Kortum said. "Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) in Blantyre (Malawi) is an extraordinary place that is committed to caring for the world's most vulnerable patients. The physicians there have shown us how simple innovations can dramatically improve neonatal health, and they've inspired us to engage our students in solving the challenges of newborn care in low-resource settings."
Oden and Richards-Kortum are two of the driving forces behind the Rice 360° Institute for Global Health Technologies and Rice 360°'s award-winning, hands-on engineering education program Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB). BTB is an engineering-design program founded in 2006 with support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. More than 10 percent of Rice undergraduates — including many non-engineering students — have participated in BTB, which has produced 58 low-cost health technologies, including two that are already being broadly distributed by national health authorities in the developing world.
"Each year, more than 3 million babies die within the first month of life," Oden said. "Ninety-nine percent of those deaths happen in the developing world, and many of them could be prevented if hospitals in low-income countries had access to a few low-cost technologies that combat the most common causes of infant mortality."
Oden and Richards-Kortum said the new QECH nursery will provide excellent care for newborns and serve as an innovation hub for the design, evaluation and implementation of Rice 360°'s Day One Project, an ambitious $375,000 effort to improve the lives of newborns in the developing world from the day they are born. Through the Day One Project, Rice 360° aims to create a collection of low-cost, neonatal technologies that a district hospital serving 250,000 people can implement for about $5,000.
"Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Maria Oden have applied outstanding research and motivated our innovative students to use simple technology to improve health care in the world's poorest regions," said Rice President David Leebron. "As teachers, they have challenged their students to become leaders who use their skills in the service of others and betterment of our world, in this case saving babies' lives, and that is a fundamental part of Rice's mission."
Richards-Kortum, the Stanley C. Moore Professor and chair of Rice's Department of Bioengineering, also directs Rice 360°. Oden, professor in the practice of bioengineering and director of Rice's Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, coordinates the technical design efforts of BTB students.
BTB students work in teams to design technologies that address health care challenges identified by clinicians in the developing world. Each summer, about a dozen Rice students take the year's most promising BTB designs to Africa and Latin America for evaluation under the guidance of physicians and nurses in clinics and hospitals. More than 90 percent of BTB summer interns plan to incorporate global health activities into their careers after graduation.
The Lemelson-MIT Program celebrates outstanding innovators and inspires young people to pursue creative lives and careers through invention. The program recognized Richards-Kortum and Oden for several BTB technologies, including Rice's "bubble CPAP" system, or bCPAP, a respiratory support system for newborns that uses low-cost aquarium pumps to generate "continuous positive airway pressure" (CPAP).
CPAP technology helps keep a child's lungs inflated and makes it easier for them to breathe. The technology, which is particularly beneficial for premature newborns with immature lungs and for infants who are fighting severe respiratory infections, is widely available in the developed world, but the machines there cost about $6,000 and are too expensive for most developing world hospitals.
Doctors at QECH challenged Rice's BTB students to come up with a lower-cost alternative, and they created bCPAP, a $400 system that delivers the same therapeutic flow and pressure as systems used in the developed world. BTB evaluated the device at QECH in a clinical trial funded by Saving Lives at Birth, a joint program of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Norwegian government, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada and the World Bank. The clinical trial found that bCPAP greatly improved the survival rates for premature babies. BTB is now working with Malawi's Ministry of Health to implement Rice's system in all of the country's hospitals.
Richards-Kortum and Oden said the Day One Project is designed to replicate the success of bCPAP. Day One uses the methods pioneered in the bCPAP project to refine, implement and evaluate other neonatal technologies developed at Rice that will address the primary causes of infant mortality.
"We are accepting the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation on behalf of all of the people at Rice, the Texas Medical Center and around the world who have helped to make BTB's work possible," Oden said. "Our decision to donate the prize money to QECH is a way to recognize the efforts of our students and collaborators, while ensuring that more life-saving technologies like bCPAP will be used to improve neonatal care in the developing world."
Other BTB innovations recognized by the Lemelson-MIT Program include:
- DoseRight Syringe Clips, which improve dosing accuracy in the delivery of AIDS-fighting drugs that must be delivered in precise quantities to prevent the transmission of HIV from infected mothers to their babies. The clips are being used in Swaziland, Africa.
- A low-cost fluorescence microscope that uses a battery-powered LED flashlight. The Global Focus Microscope can be manufactured for about one-10th the cost of a conventional fluorescence microscope. Some 20 prototypes of the device are in field tests worldwide.
"What is striking about these great professors is their vision that undergraduates can develop robust, inexpensive, technical solutions to solve real problems, and that the students can go to places like Malawi, deploy their prototypes and make the necessary modifications and improvements to deliver sustainable, practical, working devices," said Ned Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Rice's George R. Brown School of Engineering.
The Lemelson-MIT Program and its awards are named for Jerome H. Lemelson, one of U.S. history's most prolific inventors. Lemelson and his wife, Dorothy, founded the Lemelson-MIT Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994.
"By introducing their undergraduate students to the health care challenges that exist in low-resource areas, and training those students in the invention process both inside and outside of the classroom, Rebecca Richards-Kortum and Maria Oden have created a group of young inventors who are developing solutions that save lives," said Joshua Schuler, executive director of the Lemelson-MIT Program. "The Lemelson-MIT Program's award winners are chosen based on their own technological inventiveness and their ability to inspire the next generation of inventors. With several inventions in the field and many of the Beyond Traditional Borders students going on to include technology and global health as a focus of their careers, Rebecca and Maria are outstanding award winners and role models."