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- Description
Titan Power Wheelchair, manufactured by Drive Medical, is a comfortable and stylish power wheelchair that provides mobility indoor and outdoor.
The Titan uses a unique front wheel set-up that positions the drive wheel forward at the user's center of gravity, making it extremely stable and high performing over small obstacles. The Titan features a 25 inch turning radius that allows it to navigate tight, enclosed spaces with ease. This product features a unique design with it's ability to change the color panels to red or blue whenever you want.
The Titan is ideal for user's on the go with it's simple disassembly. This product can be disassembled with no tools and converts into components that can be loaded into a car, truck or van without the need of an additional vehicle rack. The seat provides comfort and is height adjustable with recline ability of 125 degrees. The wheels are anti-tip, non-marking and flat free, so that you can go about your day with confidence.
This scooter features padded, removable armrests that can facilitate patient transfers and usability. The footplate can be flipped up or used as is giving you the option to rest your feet or not. Get to where you want to go in the style you want when you want. BUY Titan Power Wheelchair from Vitality Medical today.
Titan Power Wheelchair Features and Benefits
- Simple No Tools Disassembly Height Adjustable Swivel Seat with Fold-Down Backrest
- Interchangeable Color Panels of Red or Blue
- Seat Back Reclines and Includes Adjustable Headrest
- Adjustable-Length Controller Mount
- Padded Arm Rests are Adjustable and Removable
- Adjustable Flip-Up Footplate
- Positioning Belt Included
- Programmable Controller
- Anti-Tip and Flat-Free Non-Marking Wheels
Titan Power Wheelchair Specifications
- Width: 25 Inches
- Length: 40 Inches
- Seat Depth: 18 Inches
- Weight Capacity: 300 lbs.
- Top Speed: 4 mph
- Maximum Range: 15 Miles
- Turning Radius: 25 Inches
- Climbing Angle: 6 Inches
- Ground Clearance: 2.5 Inches
- Floor-To-Seat Height: 20.5 to 23 Inches
- Controller: Dynamic Shark 40A
- Motors (2): 24V x 35AH x 3900 RPM
- Battery: 12V x 35AH (U1)
- Charger: 3A Off Board
- Brakes: Electromagnetic
- Caster Wheels: 6 x 2 Inches Solid
- Drive Wheels: 10 x 3 Inches, Flat-Free
- Base Weight: 68 lbs.
- Battery Weight (Pair): 44 lbs.
- Seat Weight: 43 lbs.
- Total Weight: 158 lbs.
- HCPCS Code: H0821
- Titan Power Wheelchair Warranty: Frame: Lifetime, Electronics and Drive Train: 14 Months, Batteries: 6 Months
- Titan Power Wheelchair Item Numbers: TITAN18CS, TITAN20CS, TITANLB18CS
- Additional Information
Additional Information
Manufacturer Drive Medical Ships Free Yes
- Reviews
- Community Q&A
Product QuestionsThis product can be disassembled with no tools and converts into components that can be loaded into a car, truck or van without the need of an additional vehicle rack.
How is this achieved?Question by: premlata on Apr 23, 2016 4:11:00 PMWe've added a manual that will show how to properly attach and detach the chair and its parts.Answer by: Shain Gillet (Admin) on Oct 23, 2017 9:22:00 AM


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The Owners
McGrath Contracting in Campbell River is a family owned business established in 2007 and incorporated in 2012. Jason has been Sheetmetal Red Seal certified since 2003 and has worked in the farm and construction industry for over 15 years.
Jason's role as a hands-on owner is that of estimator, shop foreman and supervisor. Melinda supports all aspects of the business and can usually be found working in the office, keeping all the adminstrative functions of the company working smoothly.
Over the years we have had the pleasure of working on the following contracts...
- Quinsam Coal Corporation – fabricate and install industrial ventilation, fabricate and install custom steel-framed doors for prep plant, build new pump house, clad exterior of various buildings onsite.
- Corporation of Delta – fabricate and install custom steel fence panels to form 370' feet of cedar post and black steel fence in a Delta public park.
- Comox Valley Regional District – install cladding and flashings on exterior of arena.
- Village of Port Alice – major exterior retrofit on the arena; including painting, door fab & install, roof re-structure, etc.
- Seagate Hotel, Port Hardy – fabricate & install hidden fastener metal roofing panels on 12,000 sq foot roof, build new roofed entrance.
- Crowne Pacific Development Corp – fabricate and supply commercial flashings for two large condominium projects.
- Defence Construction Canada – supply & install HRV units for the PMQ's on Comox base.
- Marine Harvest Canada – retrofit a portion of bull rails on dock at Inglewood division.
- Discovery Passage Aquarium – fabricate & donate hidden fastener roofing for aquarium build.
- Ministry of Environment – deconstruct and reconstruct cedar foot bridge, steel abutments and approaches in Paradise Meadows – all materials flown in and out by helicopter.
- Pacific Marine Construction – Custom flashings for floating buildings of all sorts.
McGrath Contracting LTD. Campbell River, BC
Family Owned. Serving North Central Vancouver Island including remote areas & islands.

subset: commoncrawl


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- rosecut
- 4 years ago
I was thinking instead of STD cards or magnets, i could send a tea towels with the info on it. I would like to do it myself and stamp the info on with fabric paint…but getting a customized STD stamp might be expensive. so it might be easiest to just order one (http://shop.weddingchicks.com/kitchen-towels/) but they are really costly!
would a tea towel be too much? should i diy mine? [we dont want to invite much more than 50 people]


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Take It Interns (Edinburgh Fringe)
1945 Productions' new musical comedy is a stand-out at C Venues, says Kieran Johnson
It's not just the witty title that makes this show one of the stand out new musicals at this year's Fringe.
Its simple yet effective storyline coupled with its clever, witty and humorous songs and an incredible live band make for a thoroughly enjoyable musical comedy from 1945 Productions.
Set in a flashy advertising agency, five young interns are given much more responsibility in their placements than they first imagined. With a job offer at the end of the internship, the youngsters learn to work together in the face of competition under their laid back managers and eccentric Chief Executive.
This new, young, fresh and relevant production is reminiscent of cult musical Avenue Q, with its lewd humour and genuine laugh out loud moments for the youthful audience. And touching on religion in the song "What Would Jesus Do?", it seems that The Book of Mormon has already inspired some new writing.
The ensemble cast each have their own moments to shine with the staging and direction allowing each character to develop their storylines with ease. The musical numbers are memorable, catchy and well thought-out which allowed the story to progress, rather than just as an excuse for an interlude.
If there is only one new musical you see at Edinburgh this year, make it this one. I cannot wait to see what is next in store for this incredible production. My advice: keep a close eye on Take It Interns.
Take It Interns continues at C Venues until 26 August


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Monday, November 30, 2015
MEMORIES: Suncoast Motion Picture Company
Most people probably don't anticipate their first job with much excitement. Most teenagers figure they'll get a job at a fast food joint or a big box store so they can have gas money and some walking-around cash. Not me. I knew where I wanted to work and couldn't wait for the day when I reached the right age. Suncoast Motion Picture Company was a place I spent a lot of time at when I was around twelve or thirteen years old. My love of film can be directly linked to it. I made friends there. Probably about half of my DVD collection was bought there. I really wanted that to be my first job. Unfortunately, the place went out of business before I could get that job. The last remaining Suncoast in the area, about an hour's drive from my current home, closed up shop a little over a year ago. They're all gone now. So let me regale you with the tragic tale of Suncoast Motion Picture Company.
For those too young to remember… Back in the days before you could just stream anything you wanted on Netflix, people actually had to go to video stores to buy movies. You could find VHS tapes, and later DVDs, most anywhere. However, if you wanted something a little rarer, one had to seek out a video store: Mysterious, long gone businesses with names like Sam Goody, Tower Records, Media Play, or Suncoast. As you who where there may recall, these stores were usually located in malls. Mine was just up the road in the next major town, about a fifteen minute drive from my high school. These stores usually sold all sorts of items, like music or computer games. Suncoast was unique, in its total devotion to movies. The only other items they sold were related to the movies, such as film magazines, posters, or toys.
Also setting Suncoast apart from similar businesses was its atmosphere. At least the one I frequented, anyway. The store front had a large black border, shiny and partially transparent. The store name was above the entrance in red-pink neon lettering. A huge display window was to the left, displaying items usually tying into whatever the big release was that week. My Suncoast was located right outside of the J.C. Penny's, so the glowing sign could be seen as you entered the mall. Moreover, the atmosphere of the business was entirely different then other video stores. There were monitors overhead, usually playing movies or TV shows. The sound was down though, to a soft murmur. The lighting was low, relaxing and calm. The general mood was laid back. Unlike other stores, where there's usually loud music playing to encourage a mood of brash commercialism, Suncoast seemed to encourage customers to hang out for a while.
Something to remember though: It's never the places but the people in them. My Suncoast had the friendliest staff I've ever known. The store manager was a guy named John, a jovial balding man in glasses that loved to converse with shoppers. John had a resounding, friendly voice that greeted anyone who stepped inside. My Mom and I were in the place often enough that it didn't take long for John to be on a first-name basis with us. He liked a lot of the same movies I do, weird-o horror movies and eighties action flicks. He was friendly enough to joke around with. I can recall one time, I asked if they had Fritz Lang's "M" in stock. John grabbed a copy of the crappy remake of "The Fog," a release that week, quickly taping a piece of paper with "Fritz Lang's M" written on it. I can recall another time discussing "High Tension," a new release at the time, and giving him a hearty recommendation.
Book of the Dead" edition of "Evil Dead," I can recall Scott sharing an anecdote about a friend freezing his copy for some reason, giving it a really weird texture and smell. (That was an experiment I didn't replicated.) Leslie was a short, heavy-set lady with thick black hair. She was more sardonic then her co-workers. She had enough problems in her life that I can remember my mom, a naturally empathetic person, having long conversation with her, discussing her strife and troubles. Johnathan was a sprightly young guy, a dancer and a singer. I can recall him leaving for two weeks, traveling to New York to audition for a Broadway musical. I also remember him returning later in the month, after learning he didn't get the part, his ever-present confidence shaken slightly. There are other names I remember, like Bethany, a tall and skinny, fair-skinned redhead with a bubbly sense of humor. Or faces with names I can no longer recall, like the younger guy with the thick-rimmed glasses. Not all of them stayed for long but I remember them nevertheless.
Something Suncoast would do in order to bring in customers was give away free stuff with pre-orders of popular titles. Packed away somewhere in my basement are the 3-D lithographs I got from pre-ordering "X-Men" and "Titan A.E." I've got framed film stills of "Shrek" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" around here somewhere, for the same reasons. One of my favorite freebies was Mez-Itz – small Lego-style figures – of Freddy and Jason that I got with "Freddy vs. Jason." This was a routine that was eventually discontinued for whatever reason. A memory that especially sticks with me is, after receiving a pre-order of some sort, my mother jokingly asked for "free stuff." John, grabbing whatever was on the desk, tossed a handful of stuff at us. This included a "Goodfellas" pin, a Mickey Mouse magnet, and one of those rubber sliders you put under furniture. This is but one example how the employees made shopping fun.
Part of the appeal of Suncoast and other specialty stores was things you couldn't get at any of the big boxes stores. My earliest memory of the place is a rotating wrack of Godzilla movies, my fingers thumbing over the colorful box covers. The huge wall of anime-related VHS tapes is something else I'll never forget. At the time, anime was only beginning to wiggle into the mainstream. Suncoast was the only place you could get "Tenchi Muyo!," "El Hazard," "Darkstalkers," or a hundred other titles. To a developing young nerd, that made it essential.
Gazing over huge walls of obscure titles provided a sense of discovery that's hard to replicate today. As DVD replaced VHS as the primary format, Suncoast shifted the store's layout around. Separated by genre, the movies sat sideways on shelves arranged through the store. The horror section especially appealed to me. That shelf faced the inside of the room, across from the action section. I can't tell you how many hours I wasted looking through the DVDs. I don't know how much of my current collection I owe to that place. Lots of it, I'd bet. One memory that sticks out concerns a birthday spending spree, which sent me home with a lot of titles but especially Peter Jackson's "Dead/Alive." On one day, my mom and I ended up hanging out there until the close of business, unaware of how much time had passed.
Inevitably though, things end. As Amazon gained prominence, more and more video stores were put out of business. We heard rumbles from John and friends that many Suncoast chains were closing down. Somehow, our local Suncoast stayed in business for years after these mass closures. Yet for a long time, the threat of going out of business hung over our favorite store and the employees we had made friends with. It happened, eventually, and bummed me out far more then a store closing should've. I don't remember how John or the others reacted. I mostly remember being really sad about it. Any time I would be in that mall in the years afterwards, I would always notice the black frame that surrounded the entrance and think of the place that gave me so many happy memories. A Build-A-Bear store was there for a time before it became an athletic equipment business. Last time I was in that mall, the space was unoccupied, a sad reminder of what once was.
Now, the Suncoast Motion Picture Company is totally extinct. We live in an age of unbridled access. If you can't stream a movie, you can probably buy it and have it at your house in a few days. Sure, that convenience counts for something. Yet I miss the human element. I miss being able to strike up unlikely friendships with someone behind a desk. Or learning the names of those who work there, their personality and quirks. As silly as it is, that Suncoast store was a special place for me. If there are video stores in heaven, they probably look something like it did, comforting, friendly, and always opened.
2 comments:
- Jill Young said...
I use to love Suncoast Video. They had one in my local Phillipsburg Mall, NJ for years! I was craving for all those Anime DVDs/VHS back then. They also had a big Disney and WWE section back then. I use to buy all that stuff. I still own most of it. I wish I never sold my collections on ebay. ebay is evil. Once you sell it, cannot get it back. Prices went up over the years. I remember I use to have a whole Sailor Moon collection of the 1st season on DVD and Pokemon VHS from 1st season on VHS. Now they cost a fortune on Amazon! Might re-buy back my collection someday. Since now I moved on from DVD to Blu-Rays. I still own some DVDs. I use to have like 200 movies and now I am down to 70! I remember the prices for DVDs for 5 episodes use to be $20 and VHS 4 eps for $25. Also Disney DVDs use to be $30. Now they cost $20 at Walmart and Amazon.
Since the birth of the Internet in late 90s, I stared to shop on Amazon like 4 years ago. 2 years under my friend's account and 2 years under my own account - after I created one. I bought some old Nostalgia of films. I've upgraded from DVD to Blu-Ray as I mention. I still buy DVDs from time to time. Even the Disney Vault is super hard to get!
Anyways, I still miss Suncoast Video. I also miss FYE which was similar to Suncoast. I use to buy Animerica Magazine's each month. Haha, one of my art works got submitted years ago in the one issue. I did a cosplay drawing of Sailor Moon as Jedi from Star Wars. I was shocked. But I don't remember the issue number. If anyone can help me remember what cover issue, I would be glad to re-buy it online! My old address is Belvidere, NJ so it would say that. I believe I was 20-21 when I entered that contest.
That is what I use to love from Suncoast, I would get all the magazines and look at the artwork. Especially Pojo's, Beckett and Animerica back in those days! That inspire me to draw anime!
-- Jill Marie Young https://www.facebook.com/jillmarieyoungarc
- April 24, 2016 at 7:23 AM
- Ron Compestine said...
I worked for 2 different Suncoast locations in Washington State while i was in college off and on between 2001-2005. When I started working there we were owned by Best Buy so i also got to use my discount there. I bought a ton of DVD's during that time. It was a fun job and i met a lot of great customers that were just as crazy about movies as I was.
- December 14, 2017 at 3:07 PM


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BBM for PC/ BBM Download: Blackberry messenger or BBM as it is widely known is Blackberry's real time instant messaging service and one of the biggest reasons against why Blackberry has remained a popular choice over iPhone & android phones.
We all know BlackBerry Messenger is one of the biggest hooks the BlackBerry platform has. Research In Motion originally made its mark in the world with push email, but in recent years it is BBM that has become the killer feature the company gets the most kudos for. Especially in the consumer space, BlackBerry Messenger is the must-have application that attracts people to buying a BlackBerry Smartphone and keeps them from switching to another platform when it comes time to upgrade. I'm not going to try and calculate where RIM would be today if they did not have BBM – all I know is they would not be in nearly as good a position.
Ever wonder who actually invented BlackBerry Messenger? That's Gary Klassen, a Software Developer at Research In Motion for over 10 years now, and he is the man who literally wrote the code for version 1.0 of BlackBerry Messenger.
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It's been a strong year for US indies – The Squid And The Whale, Junebug, Forty Shades Of Blue, Brick – and now the eventual release of this compelling 2004 character study from writer/ director Lodge H Kerrigan.
We first meet William Keane (Damian Lewis) in New York's Port Authority bus terminal, where he's frantically showing a newspaper clipping about a missing girl to passers-by. His own daughter was apparently abducted from that location months earlier and his feelings of guilt, paranoia and recrimination are jeopardising his sanity.
Together with Lewis' riveting central performance, much of Keane's power derives from its intensely naturalistic style, favouring stifling close-ups, long unbroken takes, downbeat New York locations and real compassion for an individual struggling to survive on society's margins. Recommended.


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Once again, we offer you a warm welcome to the Bookshelf of the Barn Door Book Loft.
And before we announce these eight winners we'd like to offer a special thanks to:
Raelee May Carpenter who offered her Young Adult book: The Lincoln High Project.
Misty M. Beller who offered her Historical Romance The Lady and the Mountain Man.
Virginia Tenery who offered her Inspirational Romance And Then There Were None.
Lillian Duncun who offered her Mystery/Suspense Redemption
Patricia Bradley who offered her Romantic Suspense A Promise to Protect.
Kimberly Rose Johnson who offered her Romance A Holiday Proposal.
Jodie Bailey who offered her Romance Quilted by Christmas.
Sherry Kyle who offered her Historical Romance Watercolor Dreams.
And Bill Garrison who offered his Time Travel Mystery The Day She Died.
And now: We're pleased to announce this week's winners:
Patricia Bradley has won Raelee May Carpenter's Young Adult: The Lincoln High Project.
Danie Walther has won Misty M. Beller's Historical Romance: The Lady and the Mountain Man.
Deanna Stevens has won Virginia Tenery's Inspirational Romance: And Then There Were None.
Kelly Y has won Lillian Duncun's Mystery/Suspense: Redemption
Diana Flowers has won Patricia Bradley's Romantic Suspense: A Promise to Protect.
Angela Holland has won Kimberly Rose Johnson's: A Holiday Proposal.
Ann Payne has won Jodie Bailey's: Quilted by Christmas.
Mary Zander has won Sherry Kyle's Historical Romance: Watercolor Dreams.
And b100 has won Bill Garrison's Time Travel Mystery: The Day She Died.
Congratulations Winners! Remember, it's your responsibility to contact me sharonalavy {at} gmail {dot} com) with your address so the author can send you a book.
Be sure to check past winners posts. Subscribing by email will ensure you don't miss seeing the winners list.


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Portions of the inspector general's interview with Toni Laster, housekeeper and event coordinator at the Governor's Residence, on March 10:*
Portions of the inspector general's interview with Toni Laster, housekeeper and event coordinator at the Governor's Residence, on March 10:*
M = Investigator Craig Mayton
L = Laster
M: Now, let me ask you - is there a cabinet where they store either liquor or wine at the residence?
L: We have a wine cellar, and we have a refrigerator.
M: Well, let's start with the wine cellar. Where's that?
L: In the basement.
M: Is that an area where the inmates are - use the bathroom and have access to?
L: Only people that should be using the bathroom downstairs are the two in the kitchen. ... And the wine cellar is way around on another side of the basement and is locked.
M: Was it always locked? And who had access to the keys?
L: I think they let (inmate cook) Ron (Reichenbach) use the keys, the one - the chef.
M: Ron, the chef, had the keys?
L: Yes, 'cause he would have to stock for the parties.
M: We talked about the wine cellar, then you said there's some sort of refrigerator area. Where's that?
L: Well, the refrigerator in the kitchen ... there's beer and stuff like that in the refrigerator in the kitchen.
M: And who has access to that?
L: We all do. And then the inmates are in the kitchen.
M: Now, do inmates other than - you got the two cooks, Ron Reichenbach, Mr. Hoaja ... are there other inmates that come in the kitchen from time to time?
L: They can get coffee. They're allowed to get coffee.
M: Now, you mentioned another storage area. So we talked about the refrigerator, we talked about the wine cellar. Now, where's this third area?
L: Over the sink in the kitchen. ... There is wine bottles up there ... in the cupboard.
M: Now, is that cupboard locked?
L: No.
M: You say there's two places in the kitchen where there would be wine. ... What are they, two different cabinets?
L: The one on the other end of the kitchen, the other side of the kitchen.
M: Is there any hard liquor stored anywhere?
L: There is hard liquor on the other end of the kitchen It's like vodka or something like that.
M: And is that locked?
L: No.
M: No? So the inmates have access to that too?
L: I guess they could.
* This interview was edited by The Dispatch to remove extraneous comments and compressed to focus on relevant portions.
Source: inspector general's report


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SCAM ALERT: Hunter Valley Concertgoers Ripped Off
They bought tickets on Viagogo..
A fresh warning has been issued about online ticket reseller Viagogo after dozens of people were left out of pocket at the Stevie Nicks concert in the Hunter Valley last Saturday.
It's understood more than 40 fans couldn't get through the gates at A Day On The Green at Bimbadgen, because the tickets they'd bought on the Swiss-based website were duplicates or fakes.
They also paid much more than those who purchased tickets through Ticketmaster.
Minister for Better Regulation Matt Kean says Viagogo is notorious for dodgy dealings.
"I'm alarmed but not surprised to learn that there were ticket problems at this event. Viagogo is notorious and I've issued numerous warnings about their shonky practices," he said.
"Viagogo seems to specialise in delayed delivery, event cancellations, heavily marked up prices, hidden fees and failure to provide refunds."
NSW Fair Trading has received 284 complaints about Viagogo so far this year.
Anyone caught up in a Viagogo ticketing scam is urged to call Fair Trading on 13 32 20 or lodge a complaint at fairtrading.nsw.gov.au.


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Fossil forms from woven Kelp and clay fired to burn out the organic material and release salt into the clay body.
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The axis' of the graph of space form cubes, burrowed like wormholes, like water through ice.


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Jonathan Hurst likes to go running at night. It's harder to see the ground then – harder to make out the roots, gullies and sidewalk lips and bound over them without tripping.
"I do it to understand the robots better," he says.
Hurst is assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Oregon State University. He designs machines that walk and run on two legs, and do it without vision sensors. Going for 9 p.m. jogs helps him make sense of how his own body can navigate rough and rolling paths without even seeing them.
"Once, we were playing capture the flag in a field," he recalls. "It was getting dark. At some point, I realized I had just run over a ditch, and I was shocked to still be running.
"Humans can run blindfolded. We have this inherent stability that keeps the whole thing going. I think people assume it's simple because it's common, but science hasn't unraveled the puzzle."
Two-legged locomotion is one of robotics' next frontiers. For thousands of years, humans have been sketching machines shaped in our image. For centuries, we've been building them. But only in the past few decades have we developed a capacity to make them move like we do.
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Most of the entries are humanoids, even though humans' primary mode of transportation is one of the hardest to get right. What makes it so difficult? How are researchers doing it? And why, when bipeds are among nature's rarest and most precarious designs, are a host of engineers set on mimicking them?
Jessy Grizzle, Michigan Engineering professor, programmed MABEL, the world's fastest running robot with knees. He says engineers have a long way to go before rescue robots become reality.
One of the world's most advanced person-shaped robots stands at the foot of four cinderblock stairs. This iteration of "Atlas" is 6 feet 2 inches and 330 pounds, with laser eyes, hydraulic line muscles and lean legs wrapped in titanium cages. It's named for the Greek Titan who holds up the sky.
In what looks like slow motion, the robot shifts its weight and leans to the right. It bends its left leg, lifts and sets it down on the first step. Then it hoists the rest of its frame up and stops.
"Now Atlas is going to contemplate life for a while and determine its next move," says Jessy Grizzle, the Elmer G. Gilbert Distinguished University Professor of Engineering and the Jerry W. and Carol L. Levin Professor of Engineering in electrical and computer engineering and mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan.
Grizzle worked with Oregon State's Hurst to make the world's fastest two-legged robot with knees. In Grizzle's lab, he's playing videos of other people's robots.
It takes Atlas more than seven minutes to ascend four stairs. That'd be a long time in a burning building. As he watches the robot, Grizzle is underwhelmed and impressed at the same time.
"This is a fantastic machine!" he says. "If it were mine, I'd be running around the block telling everyone how proud I am."
Atlas was built by Boston Dynamics, one of Google's acquisitions. At least six copies, each programmed by a different team, are competing in the DARPA Challenge finals. The one in the video won second place in the semifinals.
"I would show you the winner," Grizzle says, "but all its videos have been sped up by 30 times."
To be fair, the DARPA Challenge isn't just about speed, at least not at the level of the individual events in what's been called the robot Olympics. In the semifinal course inspired by the Fukushima nuclear disaster site, mechanical competitors had to drive a car, step over obstacles, move debris, open a door, climb a ladder, break through a wall with a power tool, turn valves, and connect a fire hose to a hydrant. While they were allowed half an hour for each stage in the initial round, in the finals, they'll have just one hour to do the whole course. That's an average of 7.5 minutes per stage.
Where speed matters more is in how fast engineers could get their machines up to the tasks. When DARPA announced the contest in 2012, no known robot could do all this with minimal supervision in unpredictable situations. The agency expects technological leaps over a few short years. That's what its Grand Challenge in 2007 did for self-driving cars.
But disaster-response robots have a long way to go. Even at this Atlas model's deliberative pace, its team was nervous as it climbed the stairs in 2013.
"Walking is our bread and butter, so we really wanted to do that well," said Doug Stephen, research associate with the Florida Institute for Human Machine Cognition.
"We got a perfect score, but the whole time we were on the edge of our seats."
Researchers at the institute have been building bipeds for decades. The approach makes sense, Stephen says, if you want robots that can operate in a world built for people.
"We have all these places designed for two legs," Stephen says. "Bipeds are definitely harder, but a robot that looks like a human is going to be about as versatile as a human once we get the technology where it needs to be.
"But you have to make the assumption that there's something that's right about the human form."
Milford Wolpoff, an anthropology professor at U-M, studies human and primate evolution. He questions why engineers would want to mimic a travel approach that he sees as flawed.
Shelves of skulls line Milford Wolpoff's lab walls. They're casts from our ancestors. The drawers and bins hold primate pelvises, australopithecine teeth and human leg bones.
Wolpoff is a paleoanthropology professor at U-M. He questions the engineers' approach, and kind of gleefully.
"Why design a human?" Wolpoff asks. "We're not the fastest runners. We're not the most stable. We're not anything special in our locomotion. Natural selection works with what's already there and we have ancestors who were not human."
Our forebears lived in the trees like modern chimpanzees. They walked on branches and hung from them. The first hominid to mainly walk upright on the ground – a trait that separates us from the apes – lived about four million years ago.
Human bodies changed over the eons to accommodate this new way of traveling. Our feet arched. Our ankles and knees strengthened. Our leg bones cantered in. Our pelvises pivoted. Our spines curved.
This evolution also left scars, Wolpoff says.
"How many people do you know that have bad backs?"
He's one of them. In Wolpoff's opinion, humans don't have enough vertebrae to support the curves in our spines. We could use about five more. He knows robots don't need vertebrae. He's making a point – that people aren't necessarily good models.
If rescue robots need to carry things, why not give them four legs and two arms instead of making them balance upright on two legs? Or three legs seem more stable than two. A tail could also work. That's how the theropod dinosaurs kept their balance. Don't forget, he says, they were bipeds too.
Do these robots need legs at all? Engineering researchers say yes because legs are more nimble than wheels or tracks – capable of stepping over rubble and up stairs.
Many researchers are looking to other animals for inspiration. Two of the DARPA Challenge contestants are modeled more after chimps than people, for example. And there's another contingent that's using a clean slate. To Wolpoff, that seems like the best approach.
"If you start from scratch," he says, "you could make a much better self. These engineers are freer than they think they are. I think they're far more constrained than they need to be."
Maybe it can't be helped, in a sense. Sara Kiesler, a professor of computer science and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, points out drawings of people on cave walls and primitive dolls.
"This is something that's ancient," Kiesler says. "Humans have an impulse to create art, objects, sculptures and artifacts that look like the things they're most interested in – themselves."
In the 15th century, Leonardo da Vinci designed the first humanoid robot in Western civilization. It was a typical Italian suit of armor outside, but inside was a network of wood, leather, brass and bronze that, when operated by cables, could sit up, wave its arms and move its head. So writes Manuel Silva in his 2007 "A Historical Perspective of Legged Robots." The knight couldn't walk, but it did have two legs.
Modern research on bipedal machines picked up in the 1950s. In the 1970s, Japanese engineers built the first working prototype, dubbed WL-5. The 1980s saw early versions of Honda's ASIMO – which today can run and climb stairs under the right circumstances – and the precursors of Atlas from the MIT Leg Lab.
Today, the DARPA Challenge is showcasing the cutting edge. The bleeding edge is at universities like Michigan and Oregon State.
In a lab at Michigan Engineering, Kaveh Akbari Hamed, electrical and computer engineering research fellow, walks MARLO, the college's newest bipedal robot.
MARLO's body looks like Darth Vader's helmet. It doesn't have arms. Its black, carbon fiber legs are about as light as the dried femurs in the paleoanthropologist's office. They rest on bare prosthetic feet that help keep things balanced and give the robot a certain casual air.
This is Grizzle's newest lab mate. It arrived in late 2013 from Hurst, who designed and built it along with two others just like it. Hurst calls them the ATRIAS series, which stands for Assume The Robot Is A Sphere. (For those familiar with the spherical cow joke, Hurst isn't kidding.) That's a principle he followed when designing it to match a very simple dynamic model of locomotion so that the team could readily understand and control it.
One ATRIAS stayed in Oregon with him, and another went to Carnegie Mellon. Grizzle named Michigan's MARLO. (Naming the robots just seems right, Grizzle says. He chooses female names because he thinks that makes them sound approachable – not like killing machines.)
Each research team has a different charge and together they aim to demonstrate in three dimensions what their last robot did in two. In 2012, Popular Mechanics listed Grizzle and Hurst among the magazine's "10 World Changing Innovators" for "teaching robots to walk." MABEL, their last collaboration, could jog at a 9-minute-mile pace, step down from an unexpected 8-inch stair and navigate wooden planks in her path, but only in circles in a lab. She was connected to a stabilizing boom.
At 135 pounds, the ATRIAS robots are designed to walk and run efficiently in free space.
Guiding the researchers' efforts is a theory of two-legged locomotion that Grizzle penned for MABEL and her predecessor, the French robot Rabbit. What's special about the theory is it can reconcile in a walking system both the continuous aspects – one foot in front of the other in front of the other – and the discrete parts – when a foot hits the ground and sends impact shocks into the system.
It also treats locomotion as a "nonlinear" phenomenon, which it is. In a nonlinear system, what comes out isn't directly proportional to what goes in. If you were to graph such a system, you couldn't represent it as a straight line. It's difficult for engineers to program robots with nonlinear controls, so usually they don't. With linear control, they can still create walking and running behaviors, but not very life-like ones. Honda's ASIMO, designed to be an in-home aid one day, uses linear control. Its steps are fluid, but it has a crouching stance and isn't able to react in real time to surprises in its path, Grizzle says.
Grizzle plays another video. This one's of Dutch kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen's Strandbeest.
It's an assemblage of PVC pipe that can walk down the beach by itself like a giant centipede.
"Pretty amazing, huh?" Grizzle asks.
The sculpture helps illustrate his theory. The Strandbeest might have a hundred legs, but they all pivot around one point.
"You see all these different angles on all these different legs, they're all commanded by one central crank," Grizzle says. "What we do in my lab is use sensing, computation and actuation, or motors, and feedback algorithms to replace the physical connections to the crank with virtual connections."
His theory gives rise to equations that can describe how people walk. The geometry he's modeling is shaped like a stick figure.
"You're a biped," he says. "You have a crank and a crank angle. It's the line between your hip and toe. And all of your joints move as a function of this angle. Fundamentally that's what walking is about – synchronizing your joints."
When Grizzle's robots walk, sensors measure the crank angle and feedback algorithms tell it how to move its joints as a function of that angle. The gait is human-like in its form and flexibility.
Grizzle shows a video of MABEL walking along on her indoor track. Students toss plywood slabs at her feet.
"Look at how mean the students are!" Grizzle says. "He keeps stacking it up, but she just stomps on it and keeps on going. MABEL's not contemplating life trying to estimate where the obstacles are. She has a control system that has a high sense of balance to walk across rough terrain."
MARLO will too, says Brent Griffin, a doctoral student in Grizzle's lab.
"MARLO walks more like a person than a lot of other robots," he says. "Humans aren't necessarily in control of every single link and coordinate of our body at a given time. We're kind of falling from step to step. But that's OK because we have a good periodic orbit." Our crank cycles in a steady, repeating pattern.
A timelapse of a turkey hopping over an obstacle. Engineers at Oregon State observed this behavior in order to model it in robots.
While he runs to put himself in his robots' shoes, Hurst, who built MARLO, is most inspired by birds. Ground-running ostriches, turkeys, quail and guinea fowl are the descendants of upright dinosaurs.
"Humans have been on the ground for a lot less time than they have," Hurst says. "Though the fundamental principles are the same, I believe that a lot about our gait is not as well-evolved. We're more grounded hairless monkeys than we are refined legged locomotion machines."
To design the ATRIAS robots, Hurst simulated birds' running dynamics and measured the forces their steps exerted on the ground. Then he made mechanical legs that act as springs and can reproduce those forces. He recently demonstrated that ATRIAS is the first robot that exerts the same forces on the ground that an animal does when it's walking.
Grizzle and Hurst each program their robots differently. Hurst treats ATRIAS'stepping motion as akin to a pogo stick. He lets it bounce along its own path and uses a light touch on the controls to help it rebound, after, say, stepping off a surprise curb.
While it's not particularly important to Hurst that the legs or the gait look familiar to an onlooker, Grizzle has convinced him it matters. When the two were working on MABEL, for a time each had half of the robot in his lab as a one-legged hopper they called Thumper. Hurst designed it so its knee bent backwards, like a flamingo's.
"Jessy had an important insight," Hurst says. "He turned his knee around. Practically and pragmatically it worked better the other way, but people didn't like it as much."
People care more about something when it looks human, Hurst says. Students get excited about it. Reporters write stories about it.
"Then when you're applying for grants, funders already have an introduction to your scientific claims," he says. "And that's how you keep a research program going. Never again will I build a machine from purely an engineering stance."
So it's partly psychological – why humanoids are designed as they are. Grizzle hints at this when he describes what it's like to watch MABEL run.
"It's simultaneously familiar and bizarre to see a machine move like you," he says. "The legs are moving like yours, but it's weird. It's metal. It's banging around. Its shape is sort of like yours, but not really. Yet it moves with grace like it has a sense of purpose in there. You root for it."
Studies have shown what he knew instinctively. Robots that resemble living beings, and especially people, can evoke feelings in a way that other mechanical devices don't. A lot of this has to do with the machines' shape in both positive and negative space.
Selma Sabanovic studies "social" machines that might one day be companions or pets. As an assistant professor of informatics and computing at Indiana University, she has spent time with the Japanese researchers at the Humanoid Robotics Project sponsored by the nation's government. Like Honda's ASIMO, researchers envision the HRP series as domestic or office helpers. HRP machines might also serve as construction workers.
"What I find fascinating," Sabanovic says, "is that these robots are embodied and they're designed to inhabit the same space as humans. They're in a different realm than a cell phone or a computer, and that has a significant psychological effect on people."
People interact with robots in a way that's different from other mechanical devices. (It's hard to even call a robot a "device.") They often treat them kindly and expect others to do the same.
Robots might belong to a unique category that's in between a person or animal and a thing. Where this line is and how technology is blurring it is a focus of Rachel Severson's research. Severson is a developmental psychologist and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia.
Usually by the age of seven, children understand what's alive and what isn't, Severson says. They know how to classify trees even though they don't move.
"But we're finding that well beyond this age when they should have figured it out, they're attributing internal states to the robots, like emotion. They believe they can think, they can be friends and they deserve to be treated in a way that is moral."
In Severson's studies, adults don't admit this when they're interviewed, but they show signs when she watches how they interact with robots. They seem on some level to believe they have a will.
In some cases, this is what their designers intended.
"I wouldn't say this is true for all of them, but for some roboticists I know, there's a real curiosity around recreating the human form and the technical challenges it involves," Severson said. "There's a real curiosity around creating life."
Researchers say there are a host of reasons to make robots that walk on two legs and move like humans. It seems practical from both engineering and psychological standpoints regardless of whether the machine would be rescuer or butler.
People-shaped robots fit more seamlessly into our world – a world that's full of constraints, just like our bodies and the machines we make with them. Whether or not there's anything "right" about the typical human form, it's the most sophisticated form we know. Or at least we often think it is. It's the only form we're aware of that can use its intellect to extract from its environment the means to make anything in its own image. So perhaps the answer to "Why are we doing this?" is "Because we can."


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Outdoor Research's Molecule bivy features their own waterproof and breathable Ventia fabric - its tough but probably not as breathable as other fabrics.
Outdoor Research says:
One of the most tricked-out in our collection, the classic clam-shell Molecule Bivy sports and overlapping zipper for easy breathing, a durable, waterproof, anti-fungal-coated 70D floor, a vented foot box and a no-see-um net to keep the bugs out. Small, lightweight and weather ready, this is perfect for light solo missions.
|Click here for more info on Outdoor Research, product updates and New Season information.
Outdoor Research's Molecule Bivy is a tough general purpose bivy made from their own Ventia fabric with a 70D weave - that's more than double the thickness of the materials they make their other bivys out of. We think that will compromise breathability, even with the foot venting, so while the Molecule will be tough and long lasting there will be more condensation than other alternatives.
If you don't mind a bit of condensation then this could be a good choice as its certainly waterproof. the price is low and it has some key features, such as the mesh panel option for keeping the bugs at bay.
- Reviewed by Ultralight Outdoor Gear
By placing quality first, we can offer the finest guarantee in the industry for each and every product – the Outdoor Research Infinite Guarantee™. We believe so strongly in the quality of the apparel and gear we make that if our product fails to meet your needs at any time, we are happy to replace it. Our products are guaranteed forever.


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Smooth unruly hair types with the Bamboo Smooth Anti-Frizz AM Daytime Smoothing Blowout Balm from Alterna. The treatment is designed with SmoothSeal technology which works to protect and strengthen locks, helping to seal the fiber and provide intense smoothing and superior humidity resistance. The balm offers heat protection up to 232˚C/450˚F and leaves hair sleek and shiny, all day long.
Paraben Free
**Winner! Best Haircare Brand 2017 as voted for by SkinStore customers.**
Apply a small amount throughout towel-dried hair prior to blow drying. Follow with straighteners to seal in smoothness.
Water (Aqua), Cyclopentasiloxane, Cetearyl Alcohol, Cyclohexasiloxane, Behentrimonium Chloride, Phenyl Trimethicone, PPG-3 Benzyl Ether Myristate, Propanediol, Sclerocarya Birrea Seed Oil, Aleurites Moluccanus Seed Oil, Bambusa Vulgaris Extract, Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) Seed Oil, Glycerin, Ascorbic Acid, Phospholipids, Polyquaternium-46, Superoxide Dismutase, Polysilicone-15, Amodimethicone, Hydroxypropyltrimonium Hydrolyzed Corn Starch, Saccharomyces/Magnesium Ferment, Saccharomyces/Copper Ferment, Saccharomyces/Silicon Ferment, Saccharomyces/Zinc Ferment, Saccharomyces/Iron Ferment, Tocopherol, Pentaerythrityl Tetra-di-t-butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate, Isopropyl Alcohol, Caprylyl Glycol, Phenylpropanol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Potassium Sorbate, Sorbic Acid, Phenoxyethanol, Fragrance (Parfum), Citronellol, Limonene, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Linalool.
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1 Min Read
China Aviation Supplies Holding Co said on its website on Thursday:
* it will purchase 260 Boeing B-737s, 40 B787s and B777s in a deal worth more than $37 billion Further company coverage: (Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk)
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.
© 2018 Reuters. All Rights Reserved.


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posted by Eugenia Loli on Tue 20th Mar 2007 10:26 UTC
Windows Vista has had something of a troubled birth. Hyped features were pulled, and the project as a whole took far longer to complete than expected, partly due to standing still while MS dropped everything to work on WinXP Service Pack 2, but in part also due to a decision to "reset" and scrap much of the new development. This has led some commentators to dub the project a "train wreck."


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Directions to the Inn
Hacienda Vargas Bed and Breakfast Inn and Wedding Chapel is located 20 minutes north of Albuquerque Airport and 35 minutes south of Santa Fe. Take I-25 to the Algodones Exit 248 (approximately 5 miles north of Bernalillo); head west to El Camino Real (Hwy 313); then south on Hwy 313 (Historic El Camino Real & Historic Route 66). Hacienda Vargas is the first house on the right. Book your stay with our fantastic inn ideally located near Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico!


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project collaboration site
In the Ricoh forum, because Lanier is one of the Ricoh brands.
Lanier is a Ricoh brand, therefore the Unix/Linux support for the Lanier printers comes primarily from Ricoh and this support is excellent. See also the Ricoh FAQ.
Also Ulrich Wehner from Lanier does excellent work. He answers user questions on the openprinting.org forums and provides test PPDs/scripts/drivers/instructions to the users, before they get released on openprinting.org.
Yes, the printer supports Postscript. Free driver available at http://www.openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Lanier-2138. All printer options are supported, including 1200dpi.
This printer is a PostScript printer. It is confirmed to work with CUPS.
The printer supports both PCL and PostScript Level 3.
Yes, the printer uses port 9100, or LPR for printing.
Yes. There is a webpage atLanier.com.


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Your MVP is About Discovery – Not Product
Summary: Many entrepreneurs believe the key to an MVP is identifying the right minimal features for the right customers. It turns out this is mostly a fool's errand because an MVP isn't about product features – it is about the next phase of Discovery. The real value of an MVP is that getting a basic product in the hands of customers allows you to Discover your Business, Customers, and Passion – and it allows customers to Discover your Commitment to their problems.
Readers note: If you've been reading my blog for awhile or we've met through one of my Startup Help Calls, I'm trying something new this week. I'm flattered to have been asked by Ryan Hoover to participate in startupedition.com, so this week I'm responding to the group question: How do you define an MVP? I'm responding based on my own experiences and hundreds that you have shared with me.
The Myth of the MVP
One day an entrepreneur has an idea, so she reads Running Lean, takes Steve Blank's Udacity Course, and learns how to find and interview customers. Over a few weeks she finds and interviews dozens of people and eventually identifies a real problem. Instead of building a complete product, she identifies the most enthusiastic customers and builds the most basic product solves some of their problems: a Minimum Viable Product, or MVP.
She's done such a great job identifying the most important features that these customers pay for the MVP. With this validation she raises her first round of funding, hires a team, and then starts making her product better and better, getting more customers and revenue on her way to fame and fortune.
Years later, she looks back and attributes her success to early traction from that MVP – the product with a few carefully-selected features that solved a white-hot pain point for early adopters.
If you've been reading anything about Lean Startup in the past few years you probably assume that Lean practitioners are following a similar path. I know that was my expectation when I started.
MVP Reality: Never This Straightforward or Easy
Unfortunately I've never seen an MVP like this. I've followed Lean Startup practices as diligently as anyone and my MVPs haven't worked anything like this.
If you're planning on building an MVP you're probably struggling with one or more of the following:
- How do I know when I've talked to enough people to start building?
- I get inconsistent, confusing feedback. How do I know what to build first?
- Neither potential customers – nor I – know whether they'll use it until they have it. How do we talk about pricing before that point?
Sound familiar? If so, don't worry – I have these same questions with every new product. So do the hundreds of entrepreneurs I've helped in the past few years.
Unfortunately the real world isn't as simple as this Myth of the MVP caricature I describe above. In the real world people selectively listen in conversations, give us inconsistent feedback, change their minds, and think about problems differently. Products are difficult to scope and hard to build.
If a few weeks of conversations were enough to identify a market need someone would have already solved it.
Don't Worry About These Details – Remember the Big Idea
When you find yourself struggling with these type of questions take a step back and take some advice that Steve Blank gave me1:
Don't fall in love with my process – fall in love with the Big Idea
–Steve Blank, Beijing 2013
What's the Big Idea? Startups are about discovery: searching for a scalable model, not executing on an idea. So let's talk about how your MVP will actually work.
Reality – What to Expect from Your MVP
Here's the reality: your MVP – as a product – is going to suck.
No matter how well you know your market, neither you or nor you potential customers really understand what is needed until both of you have months and years working together. It takes…time.
You can sit back and build a product for 2 years before putting it into the hands of customers. You map out everything beautifully, have a great UI, complete test suite, documentation, etc. And your product will…suck. Or you can get something basic in the hands of potential customers ASAP and it will…suck.
So stop worrying if you don't have the MVP as a "product" figured out. The point isn't the FEATURES or QUALITY of the MVP – the point is that getting an MVP in the hands of earlyvangelists is part of the DISCOVERY process.
That's it, the one point of this post. Your MVP isn't about the Product, it's about what you discover when you get people using it.
Discover Your Business with the MVP
Most of what is written about MVPs concerns continuing the Customer Development process – learning the details about customer problems and how to solve them. What features matter, what don't, what they will pay for, and how to sell.
People ask for things during Customer Development they will never use. They assume you'll include things they never mentioned. They promise to pay…then don't. The only way to know is to get them using something.
Discover Your Customers with the MVP
Something interesting happens when you go from talking about a problem to solving it: some of the most passionate people you meet in interviews never even try the product – never download the app, never complete the website registration. You'll be shocked by their apathy and wonder what you did wrong. Turns out it isn't you – it's them. Some people like talking about problems but don't do much about them when presented a solution, especially an imperfect one.
And you'll find apathetic – and even very negative – people who become your most passionate customers when they start using a product.
I've recently experienced all of these situations with SoHelpful. It turns out there was a bigger pattern at work that I didn't understand until I gave people something to try. Talking alone didn't get me there.
Discover Your Commitment with the MVP
No, I don't mean that YOU will discover your commitment – I'm quite sure you're committed to your startup (at least for now). I mean that CUSTOMERS will discover your commitment.
I can't tell you how many times I've recently heard from people, "wow, I'm surprised to see you actually built a product with SoHelpful." This didn't happen 10 (or even 5) years ago. Turns out that tons of people are talking about entrepreneurship today – talking and not doing.
Prove that you're different. Let Customers discover your commitment to them and their problems by taking action. Build them an MVP – and when they're disappointed, keep making it better.
Discover Your Passion with the MVP
Finally – and I would argue most importantly – building an MVP will help you discover about you. Do you really want to spend the next 5-10 years working on this problem? For these people?
You won't really know the answer until you get a couple of nasty emails and some negative feedback – and you won't get these until you've frustrated someone who tried to use your MVP.
I found this out when I tried building a startup in the automotive industry – turns out that I don't really like cars or working for car dealers. But neither customers nor I knew this until I gave them a product to test. Fortunately for both of us we found out early.
So Take the Pressure Off of Your MVP
If you find yourself getting into debates about "what is and isn't an MVP", take a pause and remember the Big Idea: startups are about search and discovery, not executing an idea.
You're not going to discover the truth by talking – you'll find it by doing. So stop worrying about the ideal set of product features and make your best guess with the information you have and get an MVP – however you define it – in the hands of customers. It's the only way to keep the Discovery process going.
I'm Here to Help if You – Yes You – Need It
I know, trying to make sense of all of this can be maddening – especially if you don't live in an active startup community. If you find yourself frustrated, just grab some time with me and we can chat about your situation over Skype.
I promise you that I've helped others dealing with similar problems.
About the Photo
I decided to look for a photo about space for this post and found this awesome one by Skiwalker79. Space makes me think about Discovery better than anything else.
- If you're not familiar with Steve's work, he introduced the concept of the MVP in 4 Steps to the Epiphany ↩


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Key activities
Key activities and functions of AMRC are:
- To assemble and make available key data and information on developments within the Mekong Region, including policy papers, reports and maps.
- To promote and undertake policy-oriented research aimed at capacity-building, network facilitation and public understanding.
- To provide training in research, development management and GIS for staff of governmental agencies, universities, NGOs and students in the region
- To support and promote focused postgraduate and undergraduate Honours research on the Mekong, bringing together students from countries within the region and from Australia. We also have provision to host visiting researchers from other institutions in Australia, the Mekong Region, and elsewhere, including post-doctoral staff.
- To make available information to media, NGOs, governmental agencies, academics and others with an interest in the Mekong Region.
- To share scientific data and policy advice with non-government groups
- To provide a forum for dialogue, discussion and debate on Australia and other international actors' roles within the region.
- To provide an Australian "node" in the international network of interest in Mekong issues.
- To develop a stakeholder approach among diverse interest groups working in the Mekong Region, with a primary focus on the development/environment nexus.
More information on AMRC activities is available on the following links:


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About Us
Beer On Tap
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Welcome To Freedom Kegerator
Engineering & manufacturing mobile beverage dispensing equipment is our passion. From the beginning, our design team were fully committed to producing the best performing kegerator system on the market... but we knew we had to do more. So we combined conventional kegerator designs with innovative "rechargeable battery" technology... Voila - The World's First Hybrid Kegerator was born! Now our clients can take vending profits to higher levels that were not possible by traditionally designed kegerators


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Gotta love this post by Balko about a woman who embezzled $2.3 million from her boss while spending $6000 a day on lottery tickets. He cites the article about the situation as saying:
Gambling experts say lottery splurges are among the most common types of compulsive gambling.
And deadpans:
And yet the states spend millions promoting their own lotteries, while sending SWAT teams after anyone who dares to challenge their monopoly over games of chance.
I would only add that it's even more absurd than that: they spend millions promoting games that are purely games of chance – lotteries – while sending SWAT teams to stop people from playing poker, a game of skill. Apparently, it's only immoral and dangerous to bet against one another in a game where your skill has some control over the outcome; it's perfectly fine to bet against the government in a game that they are guaranteed to win.


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Reviews | Written by J. R. Southall 18/10/2015
DOCTOR WHO Series 9, Episode 5 'The Girl Who Died'
Speaking of which, that's the other thing Steven Moffat and by extension Jamie Mathieson are doing here: as much as Maisie is the omnisexual Time Agent, she's also the two-episode character Adam from the middle of Series One in antithesis. For just as Adam is an empty vessel who is taken aboard the TARDIS before being rejected for his lack of potential, so Ashildr is all potential who is abandoned to realise that potential on her own – entirely on her own – and her second episode will (probably) revolve around whether that was the right decision – just as the decision to take Adam to Satellite 5 proved to be the wrong one. And just as the crux of The Long Game was Rose's first indication that travelling with the Doctor could be a temporary situation, so the pivotal scene in The Girl Who Died was the Doctor's failure to see Clara as a potentially permanent appointment; things aren't looking too good for the character at this point. Her reaction to the Doctor's double gift to Ashildr was unspoken and underplayed, but will doubtless have ramifications later on.
The Girl Who Died was also yet another iteration of both the Fixed Point and the Time Lord Victorious ideas, with the current regime treating each as personal choices dictated by the present Doctor's sense of honour – very different to the story told about the Tenth Doctor in his final series and the specials, and yet again, it seems like the Twelfth Doctor's impulsiveness this time might come back to haunt him, albeit probably next week. It was nice to see David Tennant and Catherine Tate back on the screen, however briefly, in flashback though; a reminder that we are still watching the same programme from six years ago, and a footnote to the casting of a Doctor who's previously appeared in the series in another role. Funnily enough, the explanation given doesn't take too much extrapolation to account for Colin Baker's appearance as Maxil, either, both characters being bullish and with an extra level of determination.
After two two-parters that have rather stuttered between instalments, it was a relief to get back to an episode that resolved its plot within the 45 minutes, in spite of the "To Be Continued..." tag at the end. Moffat and Mathieson's fairly lightweight episode mixed Dad's Army with The Seven Samurai to good effect, and is proof if any be required that it doesn't take 90 minutes to introduce a set of characters that the audience can care about. Beyond Ashildr, there were a number of other Vikings in the village who evoked both compassion and comedy, often at the same time, and both the script and direction were sympathetic to the characters and their situation, and yet light enough on their feet to introduce tonal shifts that felt natural and unforced. If the resolution to the Mire aspect of the plot was rather swift, then that's just a function of the shorter story length and didn't feel in any way like a sleight from the plot. Besides, there was plenty to make up for it; this was possibly the funniest episode we've seen this year, and with the exception of the first half of Toby Whithouse's two-parter easily the most consistent – and there were two or three moments of complete audacity that fairly took the breath away. It's a shame the dragon's appearance had been spoiled in the trailers, as it would otherwise have been just as perplexing, as unexpected and yet as amusing as Odin's face in the sky.
And that's what The Girl Who Died was, really; a tribute to the Third Doctor's era in the way that Robot of Sherwood could almost have been last year. While Mark Gatiss' episode featured the Doctor and his companion tied up in a dungeon in the manner Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning regularly were, this week we had clunky machinery role-playing as a giant lizard, and a plot that resembled The Time Warrior rather than having just occasional nods to it in its mechanisms. Yet if The Girl Who Died lacked in originality, it more than made up for it with brio and bonhomie. I'd have happily spent another hour in the company of the villagers, and Peter Capaldi gave perhaps his smartest and most good-natured performance yet. Now that his character has settled into self-awareness and a certain contentment with what he does, he's an absolute delight to have around; he feels like a distillation of all the best bits of the first handful of classic Doctors, but with writing that addresses the series' internal concerns that's consistent with modern television, and with a character who's still looking to be a better person, a better Doctor; the best of both worlds without a doubt.
The Girl Who Died even managed to find some proper pathos before its end, and while having a character die and be resurrected is hardly novel in Doctor Who, especially latterly, this time it's being done in order to tell a story about that very thing – another instance of Moffat addressing criticisms of his writing by tackling those things that are being criticised in a tangential manner. The story also managed to find a resolution that involved both magic – Ashildr's second sight being put to use in order to frighten the Mire into leaving – and mechanics, with the electric eels being used as the more functional aspect to the victory. It's the last five years in a nutshell; there's rationality there if you want it, and yet if you'd prefer a little magic you can read it that way too. Last year in Mummy on the Orient Express, Jamie Mathieson managed to squeeze the entire series arc into a single episode's worthy of analogy, and this year he's done it with the programme itself rather than just a year's worth of it. And he's still been able to do it without sacrificing any of the humour or the heart that makes great Doctor Who so abiding. The Girl Who Died was far more than the sum of its parts, and when those parts are quite so enjoyable, that's quite a thing to be.


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DALLAS, TXâiKonix Studios, a web design Dallas team, has been globally recognized for excellence through a nomination for the prestigious online Awwwards.
The OverDrive Marketing.com, a website developed and built by iKonix Studios, received a nomination in Awwwardâs Site of the Day category. A jury panel and 35 qualified users evaluated the site in the areas of design, usability, content and creativity. However, the siteâs resulting scores placed it lower than the No. 1 spot required to capture the prize.
âAlthough we did not win, we are proud to just get nominated,â says iKonix Studios CEO Derek Veillon. âThe nomination process is intensive and by being nominated we know that we are delivering quality web projects to our clients.â
The website, developed using the codeignitor CMS framework and CSS3 design, features custom graphics that resonate with the marketing companyâs auto industry user. The siteâs home page features...


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Browsing on the internet is usually a popular and valuable way of discovering utilized automobiles available. This is a great arena for car or truck dealers and private sellers to advertise their vehicles, and for buyers to view next hand automobiles without the inconvenience of travelling spherical garages and listening to product sales pitches. Buyers can search autos at leisure from their own individual properties and also have time for you to feel clearly regarding their choices in lieu of staying rushed into shopping for within a superior tension problem. Car sellers who advertise on the internet may also minimize overheads, especially in the volume of product sales people utilized.
Employed auto listing websites
There are plenty of great motor vehicle used cars for sale. One particular these kinds of web site is Obtaining Motors which supply the option of viewing made use of autos available by make, entire body kind, price assortment, gasoline type and gearbox. Future potential buyers also can do localised searches to search out a vehicle they should buy around home. This web site specials with U.K. utilised car or truck revenue.
When viewing made use of auto sales on the net possible consumers can look at pictures and likewise electronic mail the vehicle vendor or proprietor with issues with regards to the car. That is a way more productive system than having to go and satisfy the individual to discuss the vehicle whenever you are merely for the perusing phase. Naturally, in case you do intend to invest in the vehicle from your labeled promotion internet site, it really is incredibly crucial to satisfy the vendor, check out and test travel the vehicle, and maybe convey together a vehicle mechanic to examine that every thing is in proper doing the job buy.
Car or truck dealership's web-sites
Some car or truck sellers supply incentives to prospects who look for their web sites prior to buying through the actual dealership, like supplying on the internet discount. This also allows possible customers to watch an auto dealership's existing stock on-line and establish if their showroom is worth a take a look at or not. Acquiring prospects which have already checked out their made use of autos available for purchase online cuts down on the dealer's time and manpower in addition. On the internet ads also give vehicle sellers considerably higher protection in the 2nd hand autos they are really making an attempt to market and widens their selection of consumers, probably bringing them a lot more small business.
On-line exploration
One more considerable advantage of the web when checking second hand automobiles on the market, could be the capability to obtain a great deal of info inside a short room of time. You are able to acquire a detailed report of the car or truck by publishing the automobile identification range to Carfax. This may offer you with info on the car's homeowners, any mishaps and any key mechanical issues. This equips you along with the understanding necessary to make an informed conclusion so you decide on the very best car or truck on your finances and needs. Obtaining the same info offline may take as much as two weeks.
Save time and expense
With reputable websites that publicize applied automobiles for sale, there's no extended the necessity to entirely count around the time-consuming process of going round motor vehicle sellers and pouring over newspaper ads. You are able to use on the net applications to slim the research to your tastes of make, model, selling price, fuel kind and so on and carry out the majority of your investigation and correspondence together with the vendor on the net. Obtaining collected a great deal of info on the vehicle you'll choose to obtain along with other comparable types of applied vehicles also can provide you with bargaining electricity. The vendor will probably be informed that you just know a lot with regards to the car or truck as well as the worth of comparable employed automobiles.


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At Animal Emergency Clinic of Champaign County, We Care All Night Long!
When your pet is sick or injured after hours, having access to reliable, professional emergency veterinary care is crucial. For more than a decade, Animal Emergency Clinic of Champaign County has served as the area's emergency pet clinic of choice, offering friendly, caring, and cost-effective after-hours and emergency veterinary care.
Our highly trained team of veterinarians and staff is dedicated to providing experienced veterinary services, and we have the capability to care for all your pet's emergency needs. From surgical veterinary services to critical care for pets, each of our emergency services is administered with your companion's health and well-being as our number one priority.
At Animal Emergency Clinic of Champaign County, we value the trust you place in our emergency pet care services, and we pledge to provide you and your pet with the care and compassion you deserve during your time of need.
Thank you so much for taking care of our baby girl when she came in. Thanks to your efforts we have some more time with our Annie! Your business is a blessing! ~ Tony & Tammy
Latest Clinic News
What's New
July 26 2012
Welcome To Animal Emergency Clinic of Champaign County
Clinic Tour
Take a tour of our clinic
Critical Care
Does my pet require a trip to the emergency room?
Seasonal Hazards
Learn how to protect your pet from seasonal hazards.
Case of the Month
Read about some of our special patients.


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Arts Council of York County: 27th Annual Juried Competition
Location: Rock Hill, SC
The Arts Council of York County presents the 27th Annual Juried Competition. The Juried Competition is open internationally to artists 18 and older. Only original work, created in the last two years, and not previously shown at the Center for the Arts, Dalton Gallery, will be accepted. Judging this year's competition is artist, educator, and filmmaker, Seth Gadsden. Click here for more information.
Deadline: May 13
Wonderroot: The Walthall Artist Fellowship
Location: Atlanta
The Walthall Artist Fellowship is WonderRoot's signature professional development program for artists at pivotal stages in their careers. In its fifth year, the Fellowship seeks to impact the participating artists by providing them with the necessary tools, resources, community base, and access points to significantly advance and define their careers. Through a competitive application process, 12 artists who demonstrate both success and potential to have a working career as an artist in Atlanta are selected for this yearlong program. The program is open to artists who work in a variety of disciplines. Head here for more information. Program elements include:
– Monthly symposia with Atlanta's leading arts professionals. Topics include understanding contracts and intellectual property, working with institutions, marketing, and building a portfolio.
– Monthly roundtables in which Fellows lead discussions about their practice.
– Individualized one-to-one informal mentorships for each Fellow.
– A 5-day residency on Ossabaw Island.
– A group exhibition featuring all 12 fellows at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia.
Deadline: May 15
Location: Saugatuck, MI
Ox-Bow's AIR program offers artists and writers at various stages in their career the time, space, and community to encourage growth and experimentation in their practice. The Arts Faculty and MFA residencies are held during the summer while core classes and community programs are in session. The small group of residents is a part of Ox-Bow's community of students, faculty, and visiting artists. The Fall Artist Residencies are held for five weeks in September and October. This larger group of artists enjoys a more intimate community. Please head to the website for more information.
Deadline: May 15
Location: Austin, TX
MASS's Hotbox residency program—now in its fourth year—transforms the gallery space into a working studio for one month in the summer. This residency program is for artists interested in participating in self-directed residencies in Austin, TX. Up to two individual residency spots over a 4-week period, with the length of each residency determined each applicant. While applicants may be at any stage of their career, MASS is particularly interested in nurturing projects that would not be realized otherwise. MASS's goal is to provide our gallery as studio space, give artists the opportunity to explore new ideas or practices, and allow the participating artists to engage with the Austin community. Due to space limitations, applications from groups or collectives will not be accepted. MASS offers a studio space furnished with a work table and chair, 24/7 access to the studio, air conditioning, wireless Internet, Austin-area resources via MASS connections, and an $800 honorarium. MASS offers no production workshops of any kind but, if necessary, can assist in finding available options to satisfy specific project needs and/or other desired resident activities. Each resident will be financially responsible for transportation costs to and from Austin as well as for housing, living expenses, local transportation, production costs and any additional materials. For a complete list of requirements and application instructions or to see what past Hotbox residents have accomplished in our space, please visit massgallery.org.
Deadline: May 20
The Center for Craft Creativity & Design
Location: Ashville, NC
The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design seeks proposals from artists, makers, designers and performers in all disciplines to engage audience members in a site-specific 24-hour take over during our 20thAnniversary celebration on August 11, 2016. Accepted artists will receive a $1,000 stipend for materials and travel expenses. All applications are due Tuesday, May 31 2016 (5pm EST). For more details and application visit : CCCD website
Deadline: May 31
WonderRoot's CSA Season 09 Artist Proposals
Location: Atlanta, GA
We are thrilled to announce that Michael Rooks, the High Museum's Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, will review the CSA Season 09 artist proposals and select this season's six artists. Season 09 will take place from August 2016 – October 2016. The six selected artists will create 30 works of art each, give one artist talk, be compensated $1,500 and enjoy exposure to art collectors and the art-interested public throughout metro Atlanta; we hope that, by participating in the WonderRoot CSA, artists are able to grow their collector bases and make lasting connections with local artists and collectors. Please head here for more information.
Deadline: June 1
Location: Headlands, CA
The Artist in Residence (AIR) program awards fully sponsored residencies to approximately 45 local, national, and international artists each year. Artists selected for this program work at the cutting-edge of their field, are at a critical stage in their career, and express a desire to work within Headlands' unique physical environment and peer-to-peer community. Artists in Residence work in all media, including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, new media, installation, fiction and nonfiction writing, poetry, dance, music, interdisciplinary, social practice, and architecture. Residencies of four to eight weeks include flexible studio space, chef-prepared meals, comfortable housing, and travel and living stipends. Learn more.
Deadline: June 3
Headlands, Chamberlain Award $5,000 Cash Prize
Location: Headlands, CA
Named for visionary artist and former Headlands Program Director Ann Chamberlain, the Chamberlain Award is a fully sponsored artist residency and cash prize designed to support an artist who displays exceptional merit working in the discipline of social practice. This award supports artists whose creative work, through a range of nontraditional or non-studio based media, encourages socially engaged interaction, participation, and investigation that directly inspires change for individual lives and communities. Learn more.
Deadline: June 3
Chiaro Award: Headlands Fully Sponsored Residency and $15,000 Cash Prize: Mid Career Artists
Location: Headlands, CA
The Chiaro Award is a fully sponsored artist residency and cash prize for an accomplished midcareer painter residing in the United States. As definitions of the medium have expanded, the Chiaro Award aims to support an individual whose investigations are yielding innovative approaches and solutions to painting's possibilities. The award is designed to have a meaningful impact on the life and career of one artist per year, by both recognizing past success, and by fostering their ability to continue to produce exceptional and exemplary work in the medium of painting. Head here for more information.
Deadline: June 3
Location: Atlanta, GA
En Route is looking for two (2) Supporting Artists for the upcoming phase of the mural project at H.E. Holmes MARTA Transit Station.
En Route is a community-based public art project that creates meaningful, aesthetically imaginative, high quality, text-based murals that explore issues of access, mobility, and public transportation. More about En Route here. Each Supporting Artist will work under the supervision of Lead Artist, Fahamu Pecou, to execute the project and will be involved in all relevant aspects of the fabrication and installation process. The lead artist will produce the conceptual design proposal. This opportunity is open to students, and emerging and professional artists residing in the Atlanta area with a connection to the H.E. Holmes Station, who meet the certain requirements. Please check out the website for more information.
Deadline: June 5
July 2016
APG to ATL: Airport 2016
Location: Atlanta
The Atlanta Photography Group will begin taking submissions for their 6th annual "Airport" exhibition May 16. Juror Amy Miller, the Executive Director of Atlanta Celebrates Photography, will select two photographs each from 15 photographers to exhibit in the central atrium of the world's busiest airport: Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The ATL has an average of 260,000 visitors a day making this an opportunity to have your photographs seen by, literally, millions of travelers from all over the world! Exhibition Dates Sept. 30 – November 30. Must be an APG member to enter. See website for more info and to submit: http://www.atlantaphotographygroup.org/events/2016/5/11/call-for-entry-airport-show
Deadline: July 4 2016
Please send information on other residencies to firstname.lastname@example.com.


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To keep track of what's happening, first we need a map. Rather then fuss over getting a nice big map or anything like that, I decided it would be just as easy to print one out from MegaMaps. Keep in mind that when you print out Australia it will not be broken down into states. You'll have mainland & Tasmania. So rather then print it as large as we did for Europe we went with a slightly smaller version with only 16-25 pages. Even if you know the landscape it might be a wee bit tricky to put together because of how it prints out, but the results are worth it.
Once we have our map pulled out it's pretty easy to simply mark the places our studies take us. Referring to an atlas to be sure you mark it correctly is often a big help, but remember if you mark lots of the little bays & inlets that are mention in My Father's Islands or other explorer books you may find they've changed names a few times over!
Lastly, our library has this lovely set of books entitled Our Australia. They are put out by Australian Geographic, but considered fictional & are located in the Junior section of the library. There are 12 books in the series, & each book takes you to a new place around Australia. It's written in story form, but loaded with facts, fun, & historical information. There's true snapshots of locations, icons, peoples, & animals common to the area.
The true facts are mixed into the fictional story, all though in the back of the books are some extras. Things like Aussie Slang, Aussie Jokes, & a few extra Aussie Facts. All up, they're pretty fun little books which will add some nice geography to our Australian studies!
Something else to keep in mind is that if you nip over to the lovely Our Australia website you'll find some lovely pages to go along with each of the little books if you want to include them in your studies. There's maps for the children to use if they want small ones for their notebooks, comprehension questions, links for more information, and other little goodies to use.


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Tamron announced new
telephoto lens with tamron key "Di", "LD", "IF", AF Lens. Tamron
AF 180mm
Macro Lens is one of the ideal lens with "Di-Design", offer superb optical
presentation. Tamron 180mm is combined with superior optical system, minimizes
the present day issues pertinent with modern photography. It is equipped with
special Tamron's Low Dispersion-(LD) glass elements, powered with excellent, Internal Focus system
for quiet and soft autofocus and minimizes aberration effect. For
specifications and more technical details refer to the table below.
Tamron 180MM LD-IF/Di f3.5 Macro AF Telephoto (Nikon-Mount) Lens
Tamron AF 180mm Lens Hood
Case and Lens Cap (Front and Rear)
Instruction Manual
The Tamron AF 180mm macro is above all a great lens. Good (excelent?) image quality, nice construction and a usefull tripod foot.
On the downside a plastic feel, slow focus but accurate, and no focus limiter. But don't be overlooked by these cons because this telephoto macro lens is easy to use both in the field and in the studio, providing great image quality at all distances, plus a longer working distance. It has a special LD glass and internal focusing (IF), it has a moving filter ring for adjusting polarizing filters (that drives me nuts some times) and an AF/MF ring for easier switching from manual to auto-focus.
I must say it's the only non Nikkor lens in my gear!
Stunningly sharp lens, actually clearly sharper than the industry standard AF Micro-Nikkor 200mm. The tripod collar looks bit flimsy but works very well and smoothly. The autofocus is not fast but you would not want to use it anyway with close-up work. The lens hood is excellent, has really maximum depth and will improve contrast in certain situations.


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Central Christian College Athletics Director, Chad Kerr, announced the resignation of Mike Reimer as women's soccer coach in a press release Wednesday.
Central Christian College Athletics Director, Chad Kerr, announced the resignation of Mike Reimer as women's soccer coach in a press release Wednesday.
Reimer is a 1991 graduate of Central Christian College. He and his wife Jill returned to McPherson in 1994 when Mike joined the CCC team as an admissions counselor and an assistant to the CCC men's soccer program. Two years later, Reimer became the director of the financial aid department and at the same time, took over the women's soccer program. He has spent the last 17 years in both positions.
During his tenure as head coach, Reimer amassed 140 wins, the most of any CCC men's or women's soccer coach, coached over 15 NCCAA All-Americans, and went to the NCCAA national tournament twice.
"Mike has been a huge part of Central Christian College, and the athletic department for a long time," Kerr said. "He has been very helpful to a lot of students and coaches including myself. Though I am disappointed he is leaving, I truly respect and support Mike in his decision and this exciting new chapter in his family's life. We all wish Mike the very best."
Reimer will be moving with his family to Newberg, Ore., to be closer to Jill's family there, and his family in California.
In the interim, Neva Morales, who played for Reimer and has coached alongside him the past five seasons, will be taking over the team as the head coach.
"I am excited to name Neva as the Interim Head Coach for the short term, until we get things in line for the long term," Kerr said. "She is more than ready for the task of being a head coach, and I look forward to working with her more closely as we move forward."
A national search for a permanent head coach will begin immediately.
The Tigers went 2-15 (0-7 MCAC) in 2012. Both wins came at home.


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Career Fair sign-up
You need help, we've got talent.
The next Engineering & Engineering Technology Career Fair will be held on Tuesday, October 2, 2018 from 10am to 3pm in the Student Union.
Engineering candidates from all disciplines (Aerospace Systems, Biomedical, Chemical, Civil, Computer, Corrosion, Electrical, Mechanical, and Polymer Specialization), along with students from the Engineering Technology areas (Automated Manufacturing, Construction, Electronic, Mechanical, and Surveying and Mapping) will be in attendance. These candidates will range from freshman through senior levels.
If you have any questions, please contact our office. We look forward to seeing you there.
If you are interested in hiring Business, Computer Science, Information Technology, and all Arts & Sciences majors, please contact Career Services at 330-972-7747 or firstname.lastname@example.com for the UA Internship and Career Fair on October 3, 2018.
Registration for the Fall 2018 Engineering & Engineering Technology Career Fair is closed!
Please visit the following site to sign up: https://uakron.joinhandshake.com/login. Once you create your account/sign in to your existing account, you will be taken to a page of events at UA, where our career fair will be listed.
Note: you will need to create an account on Handshake to register for this fair. Here is a link to help with that process: https://support.joinhandshake.com/hc/en-us/articles/218693348-How-do-I-register-for-a-career-fair-#label-two
Also note that there are a few slight changes from our previous fairs, so please read the registration information carefully.
The registration fee ($350) covers participation at the fair for 2 representatives. Additional company participants are $25/rep.
If you have any questions prior to registering, please contact Erin Elosh at 330-972-7847 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Payment Information
Pay by check: Make checks payable to The University of Akron and mail to Engineering Co-op Office, The University of Akron, ASEC 224, Akron, Ohio 44325-3902.
Receive an invoice: To receive an invoice by email, check the "invoice" option when registering. Once your registration is approved, an invoice will be sent to you.
Note regarding refunds: Cancellations made on or after September 18th and/or no shows the day of the event are NOT subject to a refund. Employers who have not paid and cancel on or after September 18th or don't show the day of the event will receive an invoice for the registration fee.