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Companies worth more than $4 trillion have promised to reduce their impact on the world's forests, and more than one-third of the new pledges came just last year, which more than doubled 2013's total. Now comes the hard part: keeping those promises honest, and helping smaller suppliers adjust to the new demand. Here's how REDD finance can help.
1 June 2015 | Fast-food companies get a bad rap, but with good reason. Their beef often come from farms and fields that were tropical rainforests just a few short years ago. So does the soy they feed their chickens, and so does the palm oil they use to make their shortening bread. Even their coffee and the paper they use to make their packaging often come at the expense of forests – and let's not even talk about the Styrofoam. But "often" isn't the same as "always", and ultimately, it's we, the consumers, who drive demand – because we do have a choice.
McDonald's, for example, stopped buying beef from the Brazilian Amazon a decade ago, and on Earth Day of this year, it announced that all of its beef, poultry, coffee, packaging, and palm oil would be "deforestation free" within the next five years. On top of that, scores of other companies signed the New York Declaration on Forests late last year, vowing to cut deforestation in half by 2020 and end it by 2030.
But do such pledges matter? And how do we know which ones work and which ones don't? Holly Gibbs of the University of Wisconsin-Madison says there's evidence that voluntary, large-scale moratoriums work – and work faster than REDD under the right circumstances; while the Ecosystem Marketplace initiative Supply-Change.org shows that some individual efforts are, in fact, delivering as well – while others are just beginning to take root, and the basic answer is: it's complicated.
To begin with, consumer-facing companies like McDonald's and Wal-Mart don't raise their cows and soybeans themselves – they buy from middlemen who most of us have never heard of: like Brazilian meatpacking giant JBS (a $45-billion-per year behemoth that's the largest meat-processing company in the world) or Marfrig Global Foods (Brazil's third-largest meatpacker, with a still-stunning $8 billion in yearly sales).
Then there's the legal framework. Brazil has pretty good laws backed by a world-class space agency, but a Forest Trends study showed that about half of all deforestation globally happens illegally – making it hard for companies know what's clean and what isn't, even if they really want to.
Ultimately, what's emerging is a mosaic of market-based mechanisms and legal interventions, all enabled by new technologies and growing consumer awareness. Some of these efforts are already delivering results, while others need to be nudged along – and that may be where performance-based financing like REDD comes into the picture.
Promises Kept
Earlier this year, the Global Canopy Programme published the Forest 500, a list of the 500 entities – private and public – that have the power to end deforestation, and it ranked them according to their deforestation pledges. Shortly afterwards, Ecosystem Marketplace published Supply-Change.org to help everyone track the actual actions that companies are taking to meet those pledges. While these two initiatives where shining a light on individual efforts, Gibbs published research into the effects of two massive, voluntary moratoriums on beef and soy from the Amazon. These weren't individual – and often undefined – promises like the New York Declaration, but binding moratoriums with clear deadlines and means of verification.
The first study looked at the effects of a voluntary 2006 moratorium on chopping trees in the Amazon to plant soy. It was published in January and showed that only 1 percent of new soy production in Brazil came at the expense of the forest. "Before the moratorium, 30 percent of soy expansion [in the Brazilian Amazon] occurred through deforestation, and after the moratorium, almost none did," said Gibbs.
The second study, published in May, looked at the effects of a 2009 moratorium imposed by consumer-facing meat buyers and less well-known but equally critical meatpackers like Brazil's Marfrig Beef. Under the agreement, the meatpackers agreed to stop buying from ranchers who chop the forest, and Gibbs found that deforestation had, in fact, plunged dramatically on participating ranches – but it also increased elsewhere.
Plugging the Gaps
Taken together, the two reports demonstrate the power that demand-driven actions can have – as well as the limitations. In the case of soy, deforestation plunged dramatically within the Amazon under the moratorium, but it increased in the Cerrado grasslands and savanna east of the Amazon. In the case of beef and cattle, some deforestation simply moved down the supply chain – to farms that raise calves and sell them to "fattening farms", which then sell them to slaughterhouses.
"In practice, the agreements regulate only direct purchases from supplying farms, thus ignoring calving ranches and other indirect parts of the supply chain," the beef report says. "Cattle fattened on noncompliant properties with deforestation can leak to slaughterhouses that lack full monitoring systems; these cattle can also be laundered by moving them to a compliant ranch for direct sale to a slaughterhouse."
The biggest problem, however, isn't cattle from deforested land "leaking" into participating slaughterhouses; it's simply the fact that even the global buyers now participating in the moratoriums don't have universal reach – as evidenced by the fact that 80% of Brazil's beef is consumed domestically.
"We monitor more than 8,000 suppliers, but we've cut 2,000 of them off because they don't meet our criteria," says Mathias Almeida, Sustainability Manager at Marfrig Beef, which is a signatory to both moratoriums. "So, we eliminated 2,000 ranches, but they're all, as far as I know, still in business – because someone else has stepped up to buy from them."
For Dan Nepstad, that's where jurisdictional REDD+ comes in – as well' see in a bit.
From Trickle to Torrent
A forester by training, Nepstad has been working in the Amazon for 30 years and now runs the Earth Innovation Institute, an environmental NGO focused on sustainable forest management and rural economics.
"It's great that companies are taking on ambitious goals like zero deforestation supply chains, but when they start implementing that, they bump up against the limits of the farm-by-farm approach," he says. "It's really expensive, and if you have to segregate your product – meaning you're dealing with soy, palm, beef, etc. in separate streams – then it's more expensive."
He says sustainability officers are just now beginning to wrestle with that expense – and the complicated nature of supply chains in general – as they seek to keep the promises their bosses have committed to.
Gibbs agrees on the complication front, but she says the cost of monitoring has been overstated.
"In both the case of soy and cattle, we don't see that these agreements are limiting production or limiting economic growth," she says. "For example, following the soy moratorium, the soy area planted doubled. Following the cattle agreement, JBS' profitability more than doubled, and the number of slaughterhouses in the Amazon increased by 350% – from 9 slaughterhouses in 2008 up to 32 in 2015."
If companies are continuing to invest, she says, it's because the cost of monitoring isn't much of a burden; but there are, she adds, other challenges that smaller suppliers are struggling to meet – challenges that could overwhelm them if.
And those challenges are about to explode: early analysis of data from Supply-Change.org, published as Corporations, Commodities, and Commitments that Count, indicates that, while a gaggle of companies have achieved admirable success, it took most of them more than five years to do so. The new wave of companies scrambling to get green have set ambitious – but perhaps overly optimistic – goals to be achieved by 2020.
"It's the dawn of a new decade," the report notes. "It's a nice even number. For the 65 companies that made new commitments in 2014, a commitment year of 2020 was five whole years away. For those stepping up to the plate in 2015, it's only four years away. Then three years in 2016, two in 2017, and so on – until companies should logically consider later target years. But until now, only three in 198 companies report post-2020 goals."
And, the report notes, the number of "goals" with no target date has tripled since 2009 – indicating a lot of talk but little walk. On top of that, roughly 85% of companies making zero-deforestation pledges believe they can simply buy products that are certified low-deforestation.
"That's disturbing," says Nepstad. "It shows a demand for simple, low-cost solutions – but if you look at the complexity of the supply chain and the challenges that a company like JBS (Brazil's largest meatpacking company) is facing, you realize how hard it is to meet that demand."
He's proposing an approach somewhere between the biome-wide a moratoria that Gibbs tracked and the farm-by-farm certification programs currently underway.
Jurisdictional Certification: a Partial Solution?
Nepstad would like to see states – or jurisdictions within states – use REDD finance to build jurisdiction-wide certification programs, so that buyers can trust purchases of several commodities from thousands of suppliers in a given region.
"This way, a company like Marfrig doesn't have to do the farm-by-farm filtering itself, and a buyer in Europe doesn't have to try and understand this complex process," says Nepstad. "Instead, they would know that if they buy from this jurisdiction or that, then they're safe."
Gibbs sees the allure, and says that REDD+ could help top the process off down the road, but she'd rather see an immediate focus on more moratoria.
"REDD+, particularly at the jurisdictional level, is still developing, and shouldn't be viewed as a replacement for farm-by-farm filtering that has been demonstrated effective for soy and cattle in the Brazilian Amazon," she says. "Jurisdictional REDD+ could be an 'add-on' for supply-chain solutions, but the farm-by-farm monitoring of the Soy and Cattle Moratoria have been demonstrated to lead to changes within months, whereas REDD+ has been a very slow boil over many years."
Low-Emission Rural Development
Beyond the Brazilian Amazon, the governments of Norway, the United States, and the United Kingdom are using REDD to support sustainable agriculture through the Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (BioC ISFL), which funnels REDD payments through the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund to smaller forest countries or to individual states within larger nations, beginning with Ethiopia's Oromia State and Zambia's Luangwa Valley. The activities they cover include everything from certification of sustainably-harvested commodities to community conservation, and the amounts are based on how much the countries can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
Like Acre, the payments aren't offsets – none of the countries will use the reductions to lower their own footprints – and Nepstad advocates the use of the term "LED" (Low-Emission Rural Development). It's a term that The Nature Conservancy and others have also used, and which Nepstad broadly defines as the use of carbon finance to "improve rural livelihoods, create jobs, improve services, increase market access and investment, and protect and restore natural capital."
A Mosaic of Solutions
Peruvian indigenous leader Juan-Carlos Jintiach says LED is a cornerstone of his REDD+ Indigena Amazonico (RIA), or "Indigenous REDD" initiative.
"If you look at a state like Acre, you see that they used REDD income to support indigenous land-use practices," he says. "I think we can apply a similar strategy in Igarapé Lourdes (the indigenous territory shared by the Arara and Gavião of Rondônia), but we still have some work to do."
The key, he says, is identifying low-cost, high-impact activities that can nudge a state's agriculture sector in a more sustainable direction – and that probably means a mosaic of market-based mechanisms and legal interventions, all enabled by new technologies and growing consumer awareness.
Targeted Spending
Gibbs is leery of regional certification programs, which she says can end leading to pockets of intensified destruction.
"The jurisdictional approach could reward municipalities that could easily comply," she says. "For example, a municipality with little remaining forest or with strong NGO involvement in recent years could be seen as a model, low-risk jurisdiction. The problem is that the high-risk municipalities closer to the forest frontier and with less governance will continue with business as usual, while the moratoria led to change across the entire Amazon including those high risk locales".
She'd rather see REDD finance directed into programs that help small ranchers develop simple technologies that can help them become more efficient.
"We've been encouraging producers to stop clearing forests by intensifying production for years, and they always respond with, 'How?'" she says. "They've repeatedly asked for 'more technical know-how and more financing,' so in my mind, that's something that jurisdictional REDD could provide."Almeida agrees.
"We have huge amounts of degraded land in the Amazon that can be recovered both for cattle production in a more intensive way or crop production," he says. "REDD can be used to promote technical systems and technology for producers who are engaged in land recovery and intensification."
He also said he'd like to see financial guarantees for take-off agreements to encourage long-term purchasing arrangements with ranchers who follow good practices.
"Right now, all of our purchases are short-term – like week-to-week," he says. "If we need to buy, or if a rancher needs to sell, we pick up the phone and call around. He sells to the highest bidder, and we buy from the lowest."
Like Nepstad, he also advocates jurisdictional efforts, and offered the state of Pará's Green Municipalities Program (Programa Municípios Verdes – PMV) as an example. Developed in partnership with municipalities, NGOs, and the private sector, the PMV helps entire municipalities develop green supply chains by offering tax incentives and also withholding subsidies – which are, to many, the elephant in the deforestation room. A working paper by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) identified nearly $500 billion in agricultural subsidies worldwide, compared to just $8.7 billion committed to avoiding deforestation.
Laws and the Cost of Compliance
Many countries have laws to protect their forests, but the challenge is finding the money to enforce them. Under Brazil's Forest Code, for example, landowners in the Amazon can only deforest 20% of their land, while those in the Cerrado can only clear 35% for agriculture. The same law requires all private lands be listed in the Rural Environmental Registry (Cadastro Ambiental Rural, or CAR), and it restricts finance in municipalities with less than 80% of the properties registered.
"Public enforcement of environmental laws is a formidable task in the Brazilian Amazon, which covers an area six times the size of Texas," says Gibbs. "But these market-based interventions are leading to rapid changes in the beef industry within a period of months, even in very remote areas."
In 2013, The Nature Conservancy used satellite data to compare deforestation rates São Félix do Xingu, a municipality in the Brazilian state of Pará, to CAR registration rates and found higher registration correlated with lower deforestation.
Gibbs found the same correlation – but she also found surprising results when she looked to see who was cheating and who was playing fair.
"Only 115 people out of several thousand soy farmers have violated the Soy Moratorium since 2006, but over 600 of them have violated the Forest Code," she says. "So, this same group of farmers is five times more likely to violate the governmental policy than they are to violate the private sector agreement."
She sees a role for REDD finance in helping governments build up their capacity to monitor the forest – a role that it is already playing, in Brazil and around the world – and adds that the one thing everyone agrees on is that no one has all the answers.
"We have a lot of tools now, and none of them are extraneous or irrelevant," she says. "I'm sure there is a need for all of these polices or approaches – but the question is: where and how?"
About This Series
Forest people have managed their land sustainably for hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of years. They have, as a result, contributed the least to climate change, but they may suffer the most from its consequences. If that happens, their suffering will become our suffering as forests degrade and disappear, releasing billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
That's why environmental NGOs created REDD to slow climate change by "Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation" (hence, the acronym). Thanks to REDD, companies, governments, and individuals have invested billions in conservation over the last quarter century, and now governments around the world have pledged more than $7 billion to REDD through the end of this year.
These seven articles from Ecosystem Marketplace offer an accessible introduction to REDD and how it works – and especially how it relates to indigenous people.
"REDD Dawn: The Birth of Forest Carbon" looks back at the world's first REDD project, which was conceived in 1988 by the World Resources Institute. It offers a brief introduction to the science of carbon accounting and an overview of REDD within the climate talks.
"Indigenous People Explore Many Shades of REDD" looks at how REDD has evolved on indigenous territories to-date, and how indigenous leaders believe it must change to truly deliver on its potential.
"Chocó-Darién: What Projects Can – and Cannot – Achieve" offers a deep dive into a project developed by the Afro-Colombian Tolo River People – and a primer on how REDD plays out on the ground.
"Indigenous Life Plans and Carbon Finance: Two Sides of the Same Coin?" examines the symbiotic relationship between indigenous "Life Plans" and REDD.
The Surui Forest Carbon Project: Lifeline For A Life Plan offers a detailed glimpse inside a pioneering indigenous project built on an indigenous Life Plan. Initially posted in 2013, it's a bit dated, but still a good read.
Jurisdictional REDD: Long Deferred, Soon Delivered examines the state of "jurisdictional" REDD programs – government-to-government programs that are designed to reduce deforestation across an entire state or country.
"REDD+ And Green Supply Chains: The Yin And Yang Of Saving Forests" examines role that REDD finance can play in helping to purge deforestation from corporate supply-chains.


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US District Court for the Northern District of California Forfeiture / Penalty Cases
Cases 1 - 4 of 4
Riley-Lee v. Igcor et al
as 3:2010cv02399
Plaintiff: Katri Riley-Lee
Defendant: Igcor, Cory Allen Ruler, Barbara Henerock and others
Cause Of Action: Fed. Question
San Francisco Technology, Inc. v. Adobe Systems Incorporated et al
as 5:2009cv06083
Plaintiff: San Francisco Technology, Inc., San Francisco Technology, Inc.
Defendant: Adobe Systems Incorporated, The Brita Products Company, Delta Faucet Company and others
Cause Of Action: Fed. Question
Freeman v. Employment Standards Administration Office of Workers' Comp Progams
as 3:2006cv04366
Cause Of Action: Fed. Question
Johnson et al v. California Conservation Core et al
as 3:2003cv03251
Plaintiff: Christine Grimes Johnson, Lameche Jewell Jordan
Defendant: California Conservation Core , U.S. Navy , U.S. Army and others
Cause Of Action: Fed. Question
Disclaimer: Justia Dockets & Filings provides public litigation records from the federal appellate and district courts. These filings and docket sheets should not be considered findings of fact or liability, nor do they necessarily reflect the view of Justia.

subset: commoncrawl


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From the 1924 book, A Popular History of American Invention. Original chapter title, "ELECTRIC CARS AND TRAINS."
TEARFULLY but bravely the young wife handed to her boyish inventive husband, "Tom," the silk dress in which she had been married only eight years before. He needed it in his work as an inventor. It had been carefully folded away in lavender by the beautiful bride when, in 1827, Thomas Davenport, the active but studious village blacksmith of Brandon, Vt., had so far forgotten his profound interest in the "galvanic magnet" of Joseph Henry as to fall in love and "settle down."
Only a few miles away, Professor Henry was making at the Albany Academy, his immortal discoveries in electromagnetic induction and the principles of the telegraph; and one or two of his novel magnets had been taken to the Penfield Iron Works, near historic Ticonderoga, for sifting magnetic ore. Rumor in those rural districts even had it that such a magnet could hold up an anvil, like Mahomet's coffin, 'twixt heaven and earth; and dreaming Tom Davenport felt he must see it and get one.
But trade at the Brandon forge was brisk, a little family began to grow up around it, and even a brick home was built.
Going across Lake Champlain to Penfield one day in 1833 to get iron needed in the shop—it could have been got nearer his village—poor Davenport yielded again to the charm of those wonderful magnets. Their spell was so strong that he took the pitiful little eighteen dollars he had brought, and carried back, instead of iron, an electromagnet and some batteries to excite it. How much more he needed that cheap little equipment!
Impatient customers with broken buggies and lame horses might wait angrily around his door, while he, forgetting the smithy, handled the mysterious magnet reverently, a humble worshipper at the shrine of Nature's secret. "Like a flash," he says, "the thought occurred to me that here was an available power which was within the reach of man."
Yes, it was there, and his was the superb insight of genius to detect that startling new fact. He was another Saul hunting for his father's strayed asses and finding a kingdom—another of the immortals selected in some superhuman way to be leaders of the human race—the power-bringers.
Within a year, still neglecting his smithy, Davenport had built his first electric motor, and discovered "the production of rotary motion by repeated changes of magnetic poles," which could be applied as a "moving principle for machinery."
His patent of 1837, the first of its kind in America, set all this forth, and was as broad as a papal bull granting a continent to Columbus. It was said in 1891, forty years after the patent had run out, that "if it were in force to-day, upon a fair judicial construction of its claims, every successful electric motor now running would be embraced within its scope."
Possibly by reason of poor insulation, the first little Davenport motor of 1834 did not work very well. Funds were fading away. Nevertheless another motor must be built; so into its insulation around the tiny coils of wire went the narrow strips of the delicate wedding-dress.
From that time on, never again was Davenport to know peace of mind, nor was his family to enjoy a quiet home of comfort. It is told that when Palissy, the famous French potter, closed in on the discovery of his beautiful enamel, he tore down the very woodwork lining the walls of his house and wrecked the furniture, to feed the fires of his kiln.
Madame Palissy did not quite like it. Can you blame her. In both instances, wifely devotion could go no further. It is a pity loyal Emily Davenport did not live to see how in these later, happier years, the successors of her husband by way of noble amends have brought in countless little electric motors to relieve the burden of drudgery in the household.
About this time, Jacobi, in Russia, had also begun to obtain rotary motion from electromagnets, and in 1838, with the help of the Czar Nicholas he propelled a small boat on the Neva at St. Petersburg. But meanwhile Davenport was already employing the first commutator on his motor of 1835.
A commutator is the device at the end of the revolving bunch of wires, called an armature in a motor or dynamo, literally a bunch of nozzles through which the current is collected or directed from each coil as it flies past the exciting poles. Next year he made the memorable advance of building both motors and tracks to show that a railroad could be run quite as well by electricity as by steam.
Davenport was ever as full of ideas as he was short of money. As one of its early passengers and critics, he had seen the pioneer steam railroad working since 1831 between Albany and Schenectady. It would seem that he even talked over electric traction, at Albany, with the great Henry, who kindly warned him to go slow when he proposed, in his competition with steam, to build motors up to a size of one horse-power.
At all events, when his native State had not one single mile of steam railroad, Davenport, all fire and enthusiasm, not only built his curiously prophetic little model of an electric road, but boldly asserted that such was the better way to do it. The car was shown travelling on a circular track twenty-four inches in diameter. It depended for "current" on primary batteries (dynamo-electric energy not then being available) placed on a tray at the centre of the track circle, with contact through mercury-cups; thus was foreshadowed the central power-house idea of modern operation.
Moreover, like the cars of to-day, not only did those primitive cars use the track for the return circuit, but the motors were shunt-wound, that is, the wires in the winding on the field-magnet poles were a "by-pass," through which current was shunted from the armature. Such a motor seemed to perform the feat of "hoisting itself by its own boot-straps," as our forefathers put it.
Beyond this, in order to raise capital for expensive trials and machines, Davenport organized, in 1837, his Electro-Magnetic Association, the first electric stock company in America, and probably in the world. Serving the great American public to-day, such companies are capitalized at a score of billions.
Surely the owners of the "one-hoss shays" might well wait outside the humble Brandon smithy while the blacksmith inventor was planning and building motors and tracks that were soon to show the way in putting horse haulage forever in the "discard."
It is part of another story how Davenport in 1839 was the first man to apply the electric motor to printing-presses and to publish, so printed, the first electrical journal; how, too, when he died in 1851, he was applying electromagnets to the vibration of piano-strings—the first production of music by electricity.
After Davenport came a large group of far-seeing men who bravely and cleverly struggled with the problems of electric railroading. None of them realized that their trouble lay in not having a cheap supply of electrical energy, or "current." They depended on current from "primary" batteries in which acids attacked metals, and that method involved, as it does now, enormous expense. Burning up zinc in a battery, for example, could never successfully compete in its results with the burning up of coal under a boiler, whether the steam drives a locomotive or operates an engine in a factory.
Unfortunately, none of these early workers realized that the discoveries of Faraday and Henry in magnetic attraction and repulsion could be applied not only to produce Davenport's motor but also the more wonderful machine, the modern dynamo, now called the "generator."
No matter how they use it, the great applications of electricity all turn to the generator as the source of their current energy. It might possibly be said without fear of contradiction that had the dynamo been invented twenty-five years or so earlier, the course of history would have been vitally changed.
While the steam locomotive, then entering upon its triumphant career, began to traverse continents with its seven-league boots, the feeble electric locomotive was left to a stern chase for fifty years. The primitive electric car-motor, draining chemical primary batteries of their costly supply of vital energy was about as helpless as a baby sucking at its bottle.
In Scotland, in 1838, an engineer named Robert Davidson, tried out such an electric locomotive on the Edinburgh-Glasgow Railway. Patents on various modifications of the basic idea were granted in England and the United States, and many pretty little models of the Davenport type were exhibited by wandering lecturers. They rarely took in enough "gate-money" to pay the rent of the hail in which to show their scientific freaks and curiosities. Perhaps their only success was that they set thinking young geniuses such as Edison.
About 1847-8, a famous American inventor, Moses G. Farmer, who twenty years later did arrive at a clear-cut vision of the dynamo, built an admirable experimental car—using battery power, of course—which carried two passengers.
Three years after, a brilliant man, Professor C. G. Page, successor to the great Henry at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, ran a car on tracks from that city to Bladensburg, Maryland, using the current from no fewer than one hundred cells of primary battery. He actually got up to a speed of nineteen miles an hour before the jars of the overworked batteries cracked under the unendurable strain. That was the end of Page's electric car as well as of his costly attempts to get to Baltimore.
Forty years elapsed before Leo Daft brought a successful electric car to the Maryland city, and sixty years before such cars shuttled swiftly between it and Washington in regular hourly trips.
It is to be noticed that all these early workers and experimenters dealt with railroads and not with street-railways of any kind. Utterly unknown then were such modern necessities as the "trolley," the "L," and the "Tube," all of which still lay many years ahead. Perhaps they were not greatly wanted by our more tranquil forebears, when land travel, if not afoot, was done on horseback or behind the horse in a coach, and sometimes, even in towns of good size, by oxen.
Paris, one of the very first cities in the world to have a public system for lighting its streets, was also the first city to enjoy the luxury of an omnibus, or "carryall," something akin to the stagecoach that plied on the ill-paved robber-haunted highways across France.
With Pascal, in 1662, or Baudry, in 1827, may have originated the idea of the "omnibus," and thus also of the street-car, which is nothing more or less than a "bus" on rails. Another fruitful idea was embodied in the light railroads of the two Outrams, father and son, built in England for mines, and nicknamed "tramways" after them.
In 1830, the sprawling young city of New York had proudly reached a population of 200,000. Lively, active people they were, increasing by thousands and pushing "up-town" at the rate of several "blocks" each year. They must have street-transportation lines out to their newer suburbs. Hence that year the famous Broadway stages were started from the Bowling Green.
Not so very long ago one could still experience the perils and hardships of a ride in one of those gaudy old "stages," in appearance much the same as a Barnum circus parade-wagon, and about as comfortable.
But ambitious Manhattan Island had no sooner thrilled with the excitement of dashing along by omnibus at six or eight miles an hour than, in 1832, it had at its service the first horse street-car line in the world. It was called the New York and Harlem Railroad, organized in 1831, and it extended a few miles up Fourth Avenue from near the City Hall to Murray Hill, where now stands the Grand Central Terminal.
Thus in the "John Mason," as the street-car, in honor of the first president of the company, was named, the omnibus and the "tramway" had been merged in the one vehicle on flanged wheels. As it jogged over the uneven rails before the inquiring eyes of the citizens of New York it presented the fun appearance of a couple of "stages" squeezed together.
Moreover, by a strange coincidence, this first street-car bore on the panel of its door the words "Stephenson's Patent." That trade-mark, however, applied not to the great Englishman who had harnessed steam for traction, but to a clever American mechanic, John Stephenson, first of the horse-car builders, a man of ready ingenuity whose business still bore his name full fifty years later.
His jolting juggernaut and the strap-rail laid on stone ties constituted the first passenger street-railway. It was not until nearly, twenty years later that another street-car system made its appearance in New York.
Then the present trolley era began with horse and mule, and between 1850 and 1855 half a dozen American street-railways were built, although not until 1860 did Europe get its first street-railway, when an erratic American, George Francis Train, secured a franchise to operate one at Birkenhead. By that time, the United States had nearly forty such railways, and over eighty more were built between 1860 and 1870.
When the first census of street-railways was taken in 1890, no fewer than 769 were in operation in the United States. That great jump forward was due wholly to the fact that electricity had at last come into its own. In furnishing energy and service for the streetcar, the horse, cable, and steam or compressed air were now obsolete and left behind.
It has been proved beyond all question that no agency but electricity can handle the surging millions of people massed in the great cities of our twentieth century. One hears a good Deal about "jitney" gasolene buses as competitors of the trolley.
Any one could soon figure out how many scores of thousands of jitneys would be needed in New York to carry those of its 6,000,000 citizens who must travel daily. From them and from people coming into town are collected every twenty-four hours more than 6,000,000 fares, giving the right on most lines to journey more than fifteen miles for five cents at a speed of twenty miles an hour.
One would like to tell more about the dynamo because it is the source of all current for its counterpart, the motor; but that is told in the chapter on "The Rise of Electricity." No sooner was it realized that by spinning the armature coils of wire in front of the electromagnets, a ceaseless inexhaustible supply of cheap current could be obtained from them, than all the modern electrical arts sprang into being. To this is due the remarkable fact noted above that, when electricity became available soon after 1870, the street-railway industry increase six-fold in the twenty years to 1890.
Sometimes the generator which delivers current to the distant car is driven by a steam-engine, sometimes by a gas-engine, often by a water-wheel. The result is the same. We have the generator driven by power and developing electricity and then the motor receiving the electrical stream and developing mechanical or motive power.
Clerk Maxwell, the great British physicist, called the dynamo "the most important discovery of modern times." So far as traction was concerned, however, it was only an improvement on what Davenport, Davidson, Farmer, and others had already done. To them goes the credit for the pioneer work; without their indefatigable genius the activity of the generator might have been limited.
On the other hand, with the coming of the generator we reached an absolutely new starting-point. In the same way, when artificial gas was piped for lighting, it displaced all that had before been done by oil lamp and tallow candle.
About 1875, a poor mechanic, George Green, of Kalamazoo, Mich., appears to have built one of the old-fashioned pre-dynamo street-cars, with an overhead wire from a battery. Three years later he built a bigger car, and, in 1879, at the dawn of the new era, he secured a patent with such broad trolley claims as to make him look like a Moses at the frontier of the Promised Land.
In 1877, came Stephen D. Field, who, living in hilly San Francisco, thought that electric power could be used instead of the noisy expensive cable, employed to haul cars on the stiff inclines of that city. For such severe work, equal to that of an office-building elevator, the cable has many merits. It can still be found on a few mountain roads, but even then the electric motor frequently drives the cable drum.
Stephen D. Field, a nephew of the famous untiring advocate of the Atlantic telegraph cable, was a talented, harum-scarum inventor, and as courageous as his uncle. He ordered one dynamo from Europe for his experiments, lost it at sea, then bought another, and soon found himself bankrupt on the shores of the Pacific.
Nothing daunted, the young engineer returned East full of his novel scheme, there to round up friends and funds. In 1874, he filed in the United States Patent Office what is called a "caveat," followed up by a regular "application" the next year.
These disclosed plans for an electric railway, using current from a stationary dynamo, delivered through a third rail or insulated conductor to the car-wheels and traffic rails, which, divided into sections, formed the return circuit. Just Davenport over again, with improvements.
At the same time, the Siemens firm of Berlin, one of the first great builders of dynamos and motors in Europe, were operating at a local exhibition near the River Spree, a little electric car, resulting from some abandoned experiments made by Doctor Werner Siemens. Their little electric locomotive, with third-rail supply and track return, pulled briskly for a third of a mile its train of three cars and twenty passengers at a rate of eight miles an hour. It was as much a world sensation as were airplane flights before the Great War.
Similar ventures to that introduced by the Siemens in Berlin were soon in operation at exhibitions in Brussels, Frankfurt, and Düsseldorf. On May 12, 1881, a permanent line, the first of its kind, was put in operation from Berlin to Lichterfelde; but it left out the third rail, the two track-rails being the plus (+) and minus (—) of the little system. And then the rush began in the Old World.
Overlapping the plans of Field and the experiments of Siemens came the work of Thomas A. Edison, unwearied and fresh from his glorious triumphs with the quadruple telegraph, the carbon telephone, the phonograph, the incandescent lamp, and a few other such miracles. The great inventor could not resist the opportunity of further success offered by the electric railway.
In the spring of 1880, trying out some ideas conceived over a year before, he built at the back of his Menlo Park laboratory an interesting little railroad. At this time he was still plunged deep in all the problems of his electric-lighting system.
Edison's first locomotive was, in fact, merely a lighting dynamo used as a motor, laid flat instead of set upright; and the power from the armature shaft was simply applied to the car-axle by friction pulleys, afterward changed to pulleys and belts. The two track-rails were the conductors, one set of wheels being insulated.
It is noteworthy that the motor had a capacity of not less than twelve horse-power, and that in describing the primitive "road" the New York 'Daily Graphic' published a sketch of a hundred-horse-power locomotive which Edison even then, with wonted audacity, was planning for the Pennsylvania Railroad to ply between Perth Amboy and Rahway.
In fact by the time President Frank Thomson of the Pennsylvania came out to risk his life on the ramshackle "road" at Menlo Park, Edison, to use his own language, "was getting out plans to make an electric locomotive of 300 horse-power, with six-foot drivers, with the idea of showing people that they could dispense with their steam locomotives."
Henry Villard wanted that locomotive for the wheat-fields and the mountain divisions of his grand new Northern Pacific Railroad. Of one of the demonstration trips Grosvenor P. Lowrey wrote: "The train jumped the track on a short curve throwing off Edison's assistant, Kruesi, who was driving the engine—with his face down in the dirt. Edison was off in a minute, jumping and laughing, and declaring it was a most beautiful accident."
"Kruesi got up, his face bleeding, and a good deal shaken; and I shall never forget the expression of voice and face when he said with some foreign accent: 'Oh! yes, pairfeckly safe !" That was the spirit which carried the new idea to victory."
Speaking of some other advances of the kind at that time, Edison remarks: "In the same manner I had worked out for the Manhattan Elevated Railroad a system of electric trains, and had the control of each car centred at one place—multiple control. This was afterward worked out and made practical by Frank Sprague." We shall speak of this later.
Electric-elevated railway practice was, as a matter of fact, first carried out in June, 1883, under the Field and Edison patents at the Chicago Railway Exposition, around the outer edge of whose gallery, over a three-foot gauge-track, ran "The Judge" locomotive of about fifteen horse-power.
This was the first electric railway constructed in America for business purposes; and its surprising success was a great advertisement. The road issued regular railway tickets and carried no fewer than 26,805 passengers in three weeks over an aggregate distance of 446 miles.
Rebuilt at the Louisville Exposition the same year, the feat was repeated on the same scale. Several aspiring young inventors lent a hand in assembling it. One of them, Frank B. Rae, afterward built many pioneer street-railways. Another was C. O. Mailloux, now president of the International Electro-Technical Commission.
Charles J. Van Depoele, born in Belgium, in 1846, acquired his mechanical and electrical knowledge under the guidance of his father, who was master mechanic in the railway shops of East Flanders. Fascinated by the batteries lying around the shop benches, young Van Depoele had soon mastered so thoroughly the principles of electricity that when only fifteen, he operated a crude electric light with current from forty cells.
But his father, impatient with such pottering, insisted he should have a real trade.Evident artistic ability led to his being apprenticed to a Paris cabinetmaker noted for his carving of altars and statuary. This did not hinder the young fellow from taking an electrical course at Lille, France, where his family now lived; here his enthusiasm aroused the interest of the teachers, although it continued to give offense to his father.
Sturdy young Van Depoele, visiting an aunt at Antwerp in 1868, and seeing his hopes blocked at home, slipped quietly away from that seaport and sailed for the United States. He headed for Detroit, which was then making its mark in furniture just as it has later done in automobiles. Being an artist to his fingertips, and knowing all about church fixtures, from pews to reredoses, he joined hands with a compatriot and there founded a factory which at times employed as many as 200 highly skilled craftsmen.
He did so well that he was able to bring the old people to America. Then, in 1877, he took an amusing revenge on his father by turning over to him the active management of his prosperous business. Freed from this responsibility, with unconcealed delight he spent his profits from the carving of saints on experiments in electric lighting.
Soon he evolved a novel dynamo, and with its current lit up a big arc-lamp, whose lurid glare in the overhanging fog from the lake caused a nervous citizen to turn in a frantic fire-alarm.
About 1878, Forepaugh's famous circus came to town and Van Depoele lit it up, making an immense sensation; in 1880, he had one of the earliest American electric-light companies going at full blast. A few years later the company began to dabble in electric traction, and in 1883 it built two little roads, one of which, toward the end of the year, ran for fifty days at the Chicago Interstate Fair.
Thus began Van Depoele's share in a new era of development, with inventions of which the United States courts said later: "Several patents cover highly meritorious inventions which have largely contributed to the successful practical operation of the trolley roads throughout the country."
He built early roads in all parts of the United States and Canada, and when he died, in 1892, he was the grantee of some 250 United States patents in all branches of electricity.
Many improvements have been made in electric railways since those days, but his idea of the little wheel at the end of the trolley-pole—dubbed by the poet Holmes "the witches' broomstick" still survives as a running contact under the overhead wire as the most economical and efficient method of picking up the current from the distant power-house.
Curiously enough, although Van Depoele has been called the "Father of the Trolley," he did not coin the word. It traces back to another pioneer, John C. Henry, a young telegraph operator, with courage and ideas of his own, one of which was that of suspending the supply conductor wire over the track by means of span wires supported in turn by the poles along the line.
Henry's first travelling contact for a line out of Kansas City to Independence, some ten miles away, was a little four-wheel carriage, which gripped onto and ran along the under-side of the overhead supply wire that fed current to the car motor.
It was virtually a baby's toy carriage turned upside down, and was hauled by a flexible cable, string fashion, connecting to the motor, which thus "trollied" it along. At first it was called a "troller." Then the street-car men and the passengers changed it to "trolley," and "trolley" it has ever since remained as a general popular name for all electric street railways.
Inventors and their efforts were rapidly increasing. One or two stand out in the historic perspective of the new art, and their efforts should briefly be noted since they began to mark out distinct lines of either experiment or success. Thus there was Leo Daft, a clever English photographer, who took the first large views made in America, and later gave New York City its first power circuits for operating electric motors.
Picturesquely he named his first electric locomotives after Morse, Volta, Ampere, and Benjamin Franklin. Beginning in 1883, Daft did some very interesting work on several roads, including the New York Elevated, and one, an Adirondack hill-climber, on Mount McGregor, where General Grant died and where regular railroad coaches were hauled by electric power for the first time.
Early in the spring of 1885, Daft began to equip the Hampden branch of the Baltimore Union Passenger Railway Company. This had a third rail with track return, and it was probably the first regularly operated street-railway in the country. The conditions of the contract required satisfactory operation before payment. A distinguished scientist said that only a knave or a fool would enter into such an undertaking; but the faith of Daft and his backers was strong. They blazed the way for other "fools" crowding in behind them.
In the early part of 1885, Professor Sydney Short, a young physicist at Denver University, began an interesting number of experiments out in the foot-hills of the Rockies. The "series" system was used, in which, as in the early arc-lighting, a constant current went through all the motors in series succession on the line. After a while it was found that the "multiple" was the better way to do it, with the motors, across the current circuit, like incandescent lamps; or, to use a simple comparison, like the rungs in a ladder between the two uprights.
But Short, undiscouraged, went on to great successes in "multiple" trolleys here and in England. He was very successful also with gearless motors, in which all energy-wasting gears between the motor armature and the driven car-axle were left out.
Another method of operation and its crude "try out" must here be mentioned. Short had worked with a "conduit" system, or concealed feed-rail, to prevent any fatal human contact with the really deadly high-voltage current he was using. Evidently this also avoided the use of the overhead-wire method which, though it had many objections, was long unfairly damned in the sensational newspapers as the "deadly trolley."
About this time, watching the successful cable street-railways of the day, with cars, like monster buckets, hooked on to the stout wire rope travelling in the slotted road-bed, two young patent lawyers, E. M. Bentley and W. H. Knight, put into operation a proposed rival. It may be regarded as the prototype of all the "conduit" street-railways operating successfully to this day on many busy thoroughfares from which the city fathers have barred the trolley overhead wires.
The two-mile stretch of the Bentley-Knight system on the East Cleveland, Ohio road gave new meanings to such words as "plough," "slot," "shoe," and "conduit." Operating quite well, even through the deep snows of the lake shore in the hard winter of 1884-5, it also may claim to have been one of the earliest lines to collect a five-cent fare as a commercial electric street-railway.
A brisk young lieutenant from Uncle Sam's navy now burst impetuously into the electric-railway field. As jury secretary of the famous Electrical Exposition at the Sydenham Crystal Palace, England, in 1882, Frank Julian Sprague had to use the smoky old London "Underground." He soon conceived the idea of running it electrically, as it now is run.
His clever plan was to have rigid rails overhead as well as underneath the car all in one plane, with current contact with the overhead rails by means of an upward-pressing wheel or cylinder. With that began an inventive career unsurpassed in brilliance and success.
Sprague came at the moment when the electric railway needed some great achievement to sum up all that had been done before, to enlist capital, and to shape things for the long future. Returning to America in 1883, Sprague entered the service of Edison, then improving his incandescent lighting system. But he was too full of his own ideas to be interested in those of any other man, or to bother about orders from anybody.
He cut loose! Napoleonic in temper and character, his moves and advances were made so swiftly that almost overnight the central station industry found itself with the gift from him of the motors so badly needed for its lighting circuits.
Sprague had as business partner Edward H. Johnson, who had been associated with Edison; the two kindred spirits flung themselves violently into the trolley industry with no delay and precious little money. Some of Sprague's first work was done on the Manhattan "L"; but mischance would have it that the great financier, Jay Gould, a little man physically, stood near the car-controller while the test car was being operated. An exposed safety-fuse "blew" with a startling flash. Gould tried to jump off at the risk of his life, and the "subsequent proceedings" did not interest him at all.
Nothing daunted by ill-luck, Sprague at once took on a street-railway job and soon had some minor work done. His great opportunity came at Richmond, Virginia, and the capital of the old Confederacy was assaulted with a Sprague determination that brooked no denial. The contract taken there would have been staggering to any but a sanguine inventor willing to gamble the very last dollar in backing up that in which he believed.
Completion was called for in ninety days of a street-railway with twelve miles of track, a central power-plant, the overhead line, forty cars with eighty motors, one on each car-axle, and all the needed controllers and appurtenances. This was nearly as many motors as were then giving uncertain railway service throughout the world. Moreover, grades of eight per cent were to be tackled, and no fewer than thirty of the cars were to be in use at one time.
The difficulties to be overcome were stupendous. The young inventor had barely signed the contract when he was
stricken with typhoid fever, and he had mighty little shot of any kind left in his locker when, in February, 1888, the road went into commercial operation.
But its success was instantaneous, as was also the effect on the public, on capital, and the whole range of electrical application. Watching those mysterious cars climb up the steep slippery grades of Richmond, an old colored man ejaculated his fervent blessing: "Fust dey freed de darky, and now dey freed de mule !"
"Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, ploughboy, potboy"—runs the old song snatch. And now just such another curious grouping had occurred around the trolley. Blacksmith, telegraph-operator, photographer, navy officer, carver of furniture and wooden saints, patent lawyer, college professor had been needed in the combination of "all the talents" to which is owing the modern electric railway.
Whatever may be the method of latter-day operation, including one or two variations and developments still to be noted, fundamental principles and appliances were now all clearly established, foreseen, or promised. Little or nothing could be added except by way of achievement.
Mark Twain said that without differences of opinion there could be no horse-races. Without radical differences of opinion, the modern street-railway would not have been developed.
Many things had to be tried before they could be discarded. One was the "series" method of operation. Another was that of carrying storage batteries on the cars, for current supply, so as to get away from use of all overhead or underground wires and contact. Julien, Reckenzaum, Arnold, Edison, and others did their best to make this latter method successful, but it failed.
Arnold, who as a boy had built an operative steam locomotive when only sixteen years old, was one of the earliest men to apply alternating current to regular railroads; a wonderful development. Another ingenious plan, still favored to-day, is that of sticking to the overhead wires but giving up the use of the track as a return conductor. As far back as 1882, Doctor Finney, of Pittsburgh, devised such a scheme for omnibuses and street-cars. It has been used in a scattering way ever since; and at the time of this writing the "trackless trolley" has been adopted for the suburbs of New York City.
At first electric street-cars ran singly, usually with one motor mounted over the floor or chassis. Then the motor was slung underneath, on the car bottom or the axles. Sprague hit on the now-universal "wheelbarrow" method of motor suspension in 1885. Pretty soon, owing to the enormous growth of traffic and increase in weight of cars with steel-girder frames, two motors were the approved practice, the car often hauling one or two "trailers," which had no motors.
A next step was linking the cars, even on the streets, into long trains, a dangerous practice, but the only way to carry the crowds of passengers unless there are elevated roads or subways that free the thoroughfare of such traffic. The train method has been a favorite with the numerous "interurban" trolley systems supplanting or supplementing ordinary steam railroads across country.
As we have seen, the elevated railway ("L") and the subway both antedate the electric street-car. Few cities ever adopted the "L," and those that did were compelled to endure its many disadvantages. At best a makeshift and not a great invention, the "L" will probably soon disappear, although it has done great service in sorely congested cities like New York, Berlin, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. The more important inventive and engineering feat was the subway.
But, for the "multiple control" or "multiple-unit" system, credit at least is due to the "L" as also to the versatile, energetic Sprague, who offered it for New York in 1891, and in 1897, actually put it in operation on the South Side Elevated of Chicago. As Colonel H. G. Prout remarks in his life of George Westinghouse, who did as good work in using compressed air for multiple control as he had done in the air-brake: "It is elementary in the art of land transportation that when the volume of traffic is large enough there is gain in massing the cars into trains."
Agreed, but the old-style locomotive must be dispensed with and the motive power placed in smaller units under each car. Then a highly novel and satisfactory condition arises if only the motors can but lock-step and all go off together. The train can start more quickly, stop more quickly, spread out its weight over more track, use less current for the work done, and "speed up the schedule" for all the headlong travel of city and suburb.
Sprague in applying electric elevators to office-buildings had adopted a plan of motor control from a distant "master" switch. Using to begin with, at Chicago, ordinary street-car controllers, such as you see the motorman operate in much the same way a steersman on shipboard does his wheel or tiller, Sprague brought the operation of all of these, no matter how many or how long the train, to a master controller handled by one man. In this, his principle harked back to the massing of power and the instant application of the whole energy of it, exactly as though it were concentrated in a big locomotive instead of being distributed in small units.
The application of such control in the electro-pneumatic form is best seen on the great subways of New York city, a system in extent and travel far beyond anything else in the world, and wholly impossible without electric traction. Other subways in Boston, Paris, and such cities, have followed its example, while in London, similar tubes, under American enterprise, have been put in operation 300 feet underground.
Downward, rather than upward and double-decking the streets, does the modern city find the possibility of living and travelling in layers, much as they did in the catacombs of ancient Rome.
Although as long ago as 1868 forty-two citizens of New York formed an underground railway company to build a line from the City Hall to the Harlem River, it was not until 1904 that the first of the "Tubes" got into operation. Since then the growth of the network has been incredibly rapid, and it is all tied in with the "L" system as well as with river tunnels and the main railway trunk-lines.
There are over 600 miles of "L" and Tube in the city, of which the Interborough Company's subways total no less than 222 miles. And yet it is said that if the mileage of track could at once be doubled, people would still suffer the discomforts of overcrowding during the "rush hours."
One means of relief is suggested by travelling sidewalks. At the Columbian World's Fair, outside Chicago in 1893, a motor-driven endless circular sidewalk was successfully operated on a long pier, where the boats landed sightseers from the city. It had two, or twin, platforms and some seats. Stepping first on the slower "walk," the passenger could either stay there, or hop on to the other going at twice the rate, six or eight miles an hour, equal to the speed of an ordinary street-car.
This was copied at the Paris World Exposition of 1900, with American motors under the decks; the elevated "sidewalk," which one could board at frequent stations, gave the passenger a fine view of the show and of Paris itself. More than once it has been seriously proposed to introduce the "flying" pavement into New York City, and the prediction is made that all the people who use it will jump right off to the faster "belt" as they get on the slower one.
When it is noted that the cars in Greater New York carry yearly twice as many passengers as all the steam railroads of the United States, it explains the confidence of electrical engineers that in a few years there will be no steam railroads left. A rising member of the profession once predicted that ten years later there would be no steam locomotives plying between New York and Boston.
Andrew Carnegie listening, nodded his head approvingly, but said with Scotch canniness: "Weel, it's fine for young men to prophesy but they shouldn't fix dates !" The process is already well advanced, and it involves no real changes in methods or conditions. Such invention as is needed is aimed rather at bringing the art abreast of the larger scale upon which everything has to be done, and this readjustment begins at the power-house itself.
The early reciprocating steam-engines driving direct current generators of a few hundred horse-power have been left behind by steam-turbine units—"turbo-generators"—of over 50,000 horse-power capacity, twice as efficient and occupying less than half the space.
Formerly the power-plants were non-condensing and stood on expensive ground at the city centre. Then they were moved to the water's edge where condensing water was free and gave cheaper current in greater volume. Now they are being put right at the pit's mouth so that no coal is carried, but its power essence is invisibly loaded on to a wire.
But most notably of all, water-power is being enlisted so that coal of ever-increasing costliness is saved. In 1914, coal for our railroad locomotives cost $235,231,481; in 1920 it cost just three times as much—nearly $700,000,000. Of course it is expensive to develop water-power, but a harnessed cataract is cheap to manage and maintain.
A coal-mine is soon plundered of its wealth, but Niagara has been tumbling millions of horsepower over the Horseshoe precipice for tens of thousands of years, and we have barely begun to tap its inexhaustible supply of energy and power. Getting in illimitable quantities the "white coal" of all such water-power, we can hurl their lightnings across a continent.
Where low voltages or pressure of electricity could be utilized only a few score miles with the direct current, "potentials" have been raised by means of the alternating current so that line pressures have been carried up to 100,000 and 250,000 volts; and power is already utilized several hundred miles from the spot at which it is generated.
The fog banks from the pacific Ocean caught on the Sierras spin the buckets of the turbo-generators, which convert the sparkling dewdrops into power for the electric locomotives of Southern California. The melting snows of the Rockies revolve the car-wheels of distant Denver. Similar conversions of sources of energy to electricity are going on not only in the leading countries of Europe, but in Central Asia, India, Japan, and Australia.
At present, but four per-cent of main-line railroad has been electrified in America. If fifty per-cent. of the 270,000 miles were converted there would be, to mention one item, an annual saving, chiefly in coal and tenders, of no less than 73,000,000,000 ton-miles. That volume of traffic is equal to over ten per-cent of the total revenue-producing freight handled. Meantime the good reasons that have shut the steam locomotive for human travel out of New York City are of equal force everywhere.
The electric locomotives supplied for the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul road were magnificent creations, the largest passenger-locomotives in the world, rated at 4,200 horse-power. Moreover, as they drop down-grade they "regenerate." That is, the motors become dynamos feeding current back into the line, so that they not only help brake their own descending train, but generously send out energy and give a lift-up grade to some sister train heavily climbing the mountains miles away. The actual saving in the total power consumption on the St. Paul road by this is from ten to fifteen per cent.
What would Thomas Davenport say of all this? Does it not outrun his boyhood dreams a century ago? Yet, did he not foresee the supremacy of electric traction?


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Private Companies/Organizations/Universities/Schools, invites applications from the eligible candidates for recruitment to the following posts in various trades in skilled across the state/country.
Total Number of Posts: 5 posts
Description of Job/Education/Grade/Salary/Age/Information in detailed:
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Engineering in Computer Sciences/Information Technology/Electronics and Communications/Electronics/BE/BTech/MCA.
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Moon on the porch thumps his tail when I climb
the stairs.
— from "Moon on the Porch" by Eloise Klein Healy
Say "porch." Say it heavy with O and R. Say it as if it has two syllables and two round Os. Say it without the R and make it more like a dog than ever. Say it, and I see.
I see a mountain cabin, grayed-off with age. Rocks or their new cousin cinderblocks holding up the corners. I see plank steps, and always a rocking chair. The pitch of a slanted roof hanging above. Sometimes an old washing machine.
A steep driveway runs up beside the place – gravel long washed to only the heaviest crumble. Two windows front the house behind, and inside, I know there's a potbelly stove.
Say "porch," and I see a porch I have never visited, not even with all my mountain living. Certainly, never a porch I've owned or lived behind. Not even now, in this farmhouse set against a mountain.
Say "porch" and I see the stories I have sucked in through my nostrils like so much sweet, tender pipe smoke. From Lick Creek and Big Stone Gap and the legends of the Appalachian places I cling to as home.
Stories shape memories. Build archetypes. Form what it is to be "porch" for me. Resonate, laden, setting and home.
You may see a Los Angeles bungalow, all Craftsmen peaks and roofs behind the steady perch of stuccoed pillars. Or maybe the stoop of a suburban Texas neighborhood, hanging baskets and patio pavers.
These images shaped by your stories or the ones you've let lick your mind until they become a part of the wrinkles in your mind.
A single word – molded by millions of stories – the hound dog of memory and fiction – and the beautiful, grayed-off space in between.
What words conjure up specific memories for you?


text:
The gonorrhea bacterium is the strongest known organism; it can pull the equivalent of 100,000 times its weight. more...
December 6 , 1877 : Edison demonstrated the first sound recording. more...
Learn something new every day
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The Nationwide Differential Global Positioning System (NDGPS) is hoped to make traveling safer and to reduce the problem of road congestion. NDGPS is a radio navigation system implemented by the US Department of Transport. It is used in conjunction with global positioning systems (GPS) already in use to provide a more accurate picture of travel conditions.
Recent reports have shown that almost 40,000 Americans die in auto crashes every year. Eighteen thousand of these deaths are due to single vehicle crashes. It is hoped that the use of NDGPS can greatly reduce these fatalities. NDGPS can tell drivers when they are leaving the roadway and exactly where they are in terms of the highway infrastructure.
By using this system, drivers can be informed in advance of congestion hotspots and potential and actual crash sites. Consequently, drivers will be able to navigate their journey with greater accuracy and safety. Drivers will also be able to save time by avoiding congested areas.
GPS will be far more accurate when combined with NDGPS than when used alone. A GPS system only has a range accuracy of 4 to 20 meters (about 13 to 66 feet). When combined with NDGPS, the accuracy is improved to 1 to 3 meters (3.3 to 9.8 feet). NDGPS improves on the accuracy factor by using fixed reference stations that can broadcast any inaccuracy given by the GPS satellite signal. NDGPS can compare the data and return the correct information to the driver.
NDGPS uses a low frequency radio broadcast process. This type of broadcasting has been used for many years in both maritime and flight applications. Low frequency broadcast is the most accurate type of signal over large areas and over areas where obstructions can occur.
NDGPS is already used in a broad range of applications. Transportation departments in many states use this system to map out their highway and road infrastructures. An inventory of a road grid using traditional methods can take days. By using NDGPS, the inventory can take only a few hours.
Police departments use NDGPS to identify road accident locations. The system is also used by environmentalists to collect data on endangered species and to record different types of locations, such as wetlands. The accuracy of the system is extremely useful in rough terrain such as forests and other hazardous environments. NDGPS is a free service that will not only save time, but could also save lives.
One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK!


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Casa San Luis Potosi, which opened in 2002, is located at 1646-50 S. Throop Street in Pilsen. It is a 12-unit complex that has:
Equal Housing Opportunity Statement
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the nation.
We encourage and support an affirmative advertising and marketing program in which there are no barriers to obtaining housing because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.


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The Ibb Hotel Andersia offers reception 24h, underground parking upon availability with extra charge, conference and banqueting facilities, fitness, SPA and indoor swimming pool. Situated in the heart of Poznan; in front of Stary Browar Shopping and Art and Business Centre.The hotel is located in front of Stary Browar - central point of the city centre. The surrounding offices of main banks and companies make the area a business centre of Poznan. The Old Town is located nearby.There are 171 spacious rooms: size 25-33m2 with twin beds, king size or queen size bed,LCD TV, heated floor in bathroom, chaise longue, work desk with lamp, hairdryer and air conditioning.
- Datos no disponibles.


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All Pretzel Crazy pretzels are created when your order is placed and packed to guarantee the freshness of your selection.
Some Pretzel Crazy pretzels are made with nuts/peanuts. Since all Pretzel Crazy pretzels are made in the same facility, there is a chance that any of our products may contain traces of nuts/peanuts. If you are allergic, we recommend you not consume our product. We apologize for this inconvenience.
Please view our Order Information page for additional details.
Shipping is at checkout using your total order weight. To give you an idea, our 4" pretzels and crazy bites are about .2 lbs and our 8" pretzels are .5 lbs.
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Dry Roasted almond pieces completely smother this Caramel/Chocolate coated pretzel and then a Lava-Like flow...
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ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at firstname.lastname@example.com.
- Frakes, David
- Ding, Liuyang
- 1 Adrian, Ronald J
- 1 Arizona State University
- 1 Herrmann, Marcus
- 1 Huang, Huei-Ping
- 1 Peet, Yulia
- 1 English
- Doctoral Dissertation
- 1 Moving Image
- 1 Public
- Dwarf Galaxies as Laboratories of Protogalaxy Physics: Canonical Star Formation Laws at Low Metallicity
- Evolutionary Genetics of CORL Proteins
- Social Skills and Executive Functioning in Children with PCDH-19
- Deep Domain Fusion for Adaptive Image Classification
- Software Defined Pulse-Doppler Radar for Over-The-Air Applications: The Joint Radar-Communications Experiment
Over the past three decades, particle image velocimetry (PIV) has been continuously growing to become an informative and robust experimental tool for fluid mechanics research. Compared to the early stage of PIV development, the dynamic range of PIV has been improved by about an order of magnitude (Adrian, 2005; Westerweel et al., 2013). Further improvement requires a breakthrough innovation, which constitutes the main motivation of this dissertation. N-pulse particle image velocimetry-accelerometry (N-pulse PIVA, where N>=3) is a promising technique to this regard. It employs bursts of N pulses to gain advantages in both spatial and temporal resolution. The performance improvement …
- Contributors
- Ding, Liuyang, Adrian, Ronald J, Frakes, David, et al.
- Created Date
- 2018


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Dave Goldman
Sports Director
I'm one of those lucky people doing exactly what I aspired to while growing up in East Meadow, New York. I spent memorable summers lifeguarding at country clubs on Long Island and as an usher at Shea Stadium for the New York Mets. I sat in a chair on hot summer days. Then I was told to get a job—so I became a sportscaster.
After graduating from the University of Maryland, the career began at CTV in Largo, Maryland, a Washington D.C. suburb--small station, large market. From the grass roots Mom and Pop events, to high schools, major colleges and pros, the lesson was clear—local, local local.
Along the way came play-by-play opportunities with Coppin State College and the University of Maryland-Baltimore for basketball and lacrosse, anchoring at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C. and reporting and producing the the Baltimore Sun High School Sports Show.
Learn how to do everything I was told. News has also been important to me. I covered all three crash sites following 9/11 and shot documentaries on education, crime, the ecosystem of South Florida, fracking in the Mid-Atlantic and U.S. Marine training in Parris Island, S.C. I've been in two hurricanes too. I got wet, the camera stayed dry.
In high school I lettered in soccer, wrestling and lacrosse and in July 2000 completed the Ironman Triathlon in Lake Placid, New York. That fits well with the Alaska spirit of the outdoors.
Here at KTVA, our department operates by a simple set of rules: be on time, give 100% and put the team first. It's amazing what happens when everyone works together without worrying who gets the credit. Watch our sportscasts and we have a different set of rules. Be professional, stay local and have fun. Stories about folks in the community are what we aim for and we consider the state of Alaska our community. Whether it's the Iditarod, Mount Marathon or high school ball, anything is game.
Business aside though, the greatest joy in my life is my family. I adhere to the principles my mother and father raised me on—doing what's right. They're the same values my wife Jenny and I now offer to our children Hannah and Sam. We absolutely love this place. It's home. Every day I'm thankful for coming to Alaska. The people in this state are wonderful and it was the smartest professional decision I ever made. And every day here at KTVA reinforces that.


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An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is exactly what it says it is: a precious landscape with a distinctive character and natural beauty so outstanding that it is in the nation's interest to safeguard it. There are three AONB's within the Causeway Coast and Glens and part of another:
These are areas, which have been identified as of high scientific interest "by reason of their flora, fauna, geological, physiographical or other features". They are designated by NIEA under the Nature Conservation and Amenity Lands (Northern Ireland) Order 1985. Most ASSI's occur on private land and are subject to management agreements between NIEA and the landowners. There are currently 88 ASSI's in the Causeway Coast & Glens Heritage Trust area.
Simply stated, biodiversity or biological diversity is the 'variation of life forms', incorporating all species of plants & animals from those that are widespread to those on the brink of extinction. So far, 1.75 million species have been identified but estimates range from 3 to 100 million. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity formally defines biodiversity as:
"The variability among living organisms from all sources including inter alia, terrestrial, marine & other aquatic ecosystems & the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species & of ecosystems"
The Environmentally Sensitive Area Scheme encourages landowners and farmers through area based payments to manage their land in an environmentally friendly way. The Scheme takes place in areas designated as "environmentally sensitive".
In total there are five areas within Northern Ireland designated as Environmentally Sensitive, one of which is the "Antrim Coast, Glens and Rathlin Island" area.
These are designated by local authorities under 'The Nature Conservation and Amenity Lands (NI) Order 1985'. The sites are designated in conjunction with NIEA and the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside (CNCC). There are 3 LNRs in the Causeway Coast and Glens Heritage Trust.
Nature Reserves are designated in areas where there are nationally important populations of plants, animals, birds or where the area is of outstanding geological interest. NIEA is responsible for declaring nature reserves under the Nature Conservation and Amenity Lands (Northern Ireland) Order 1985. There are currently 49 NNR's in Northern Ireland, 15 of which are in the Causeway Coast & Glens Heritage Trust.
The European network of designated SPA's and candidate SAC's.
These are globally recognised wetland sites of international importance. RAMSAR sites are found throughout the world and are named after Ramsar in Iran where an International Convention on Wetlands of International Importance was held in 1971. The UK government signed the Convention in 1973 and ratified it in 1976. There are 6 Ramsar sites within the Causeway Coast & Glens Heritage Trust area.
These are sites designated under the European Commission Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. They are sites identified by the UK government as being of international importance for breeding, over-wintering and migrating birds. The Causeway Coast & Glens Heritage Trust area has 8 SPA's.
These are sites designated under the European Commission Habitats Directive. Candidate Special Areas of Conservation (cSAC's) are chosen by the UK government and submitted to Europe as representative of the most seriously threatened habitats and species across Europe. There are 12 candidate cSAC's within the Causeway Coast & Glens Heritage Trust area.
Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Bruntland Report, World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987).
'places or buildings of outstanding universal value recognised as constituting a world heritage "for whose protection it is the duty of the international community as a whole to co-operate". The Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast is a World Heritage site.
See NIEA definition + 11in CCGHT area
See NIEA definition + 34 in CCGHT area


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More products from the same category
More from Beauty
- Hidden underneath luxurious velvet fabric, the invisibobble® SPRUNCHIE contains a classic ORIGINAL, therefore providing benefits that come with its super talent. Due to its spiral shape, the hair tie holds all strands of hair together and is still easy to remove. Available in two different colors, this new invisibobble® family member is your companion for the upcoming season. The soft pink of Prima Ballerina fits nicely to every hair color and outfit.
Material & Care
- Recycled Plastic, Velvet


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Thanks for visiting my home on the web. I've written this in third-person for use biographical introductions during public speaking and presentation events.
For the past 15 years, Ron has worked at the Kent Intermediate School District and Kent Career Technical Center both teaching in the classroom and supporting educator professional development. Ron provides educational technology support and consulting services to all of the local educational entities within the service area of the Kent ISD and REMC8.
Further, Ron is a board member of the Michigan Association for Computer Users in learning (MACUL), a Director of REMC 8 and a Regional Instructional Technology Specialist (RITS). He also served as the Michigan representative and board member of the National Association of Media and Technical Centers (NAMTC)
Ron is also an adjunct professor in the teacher education programs at Aquinas College and Michigan State University, where he teaches both pre-service and graduate courses.
He has many years experience in helping others understand and use technology to enhance their teaching and learning outcomes, and increase classroom engagement
Bring Ron To Your Conference or School:
I'd love to share my vision of teaching and learning in the second decade of the 21st Century with your group, large or small. I've presented locally, regionally and nationally and can energize, enthrall, and excite your staff and students.
My day job is helping students and teachers use technology to enhance their teaching and learning. In addition, I teach both online and face-to-face courses through two accredited colleges. I'm available to conduct professional development, where I'll teach your staff how to develop a classroom web sites, online portfolios, integrate interactive applications, Assistive Technology and Universal Design for Learning implementation and use social media tools for collaboration – or any combination of topics you would like. You can learn more about individual professional development opportunities below.
What I Bring To Your Event:
I'm a skilled presenter, unafraid to challenge conventional thinking and mindsets. As a seasoned educator and teacher with 14 years of both K-12 and higher education experience, I've been successfully integrating technology and social learning into everyday teaching and learning. I bring research-based and practical methods together in a way to help administrators, educators and students achieve at higher levels and meet their learning goals.
Where I've Presented:
Michigan Digital Learning Conference
Michigan Educational Leadership Conference
Michigan Association of Secondary School Principal's Conferences
Michigan Council for Exceptional Children Conferences
Student Council for Exceptional Children Conferences
Assistive Technology Industry Association
- Keynote addresses — I have numerous 30-60 minute keynote presentations on educational technology, UDL, Assistive Technology, social media, Project Based and collaborative learning ready to go. Each of these are customized for your group. I can present at conferences and school or college events.
- Concurrent conference sessions— I present engaging 45 to 60-minute sessions on just about anything related to technology enhanced teaching and learning.
- Professional Development To-Go – I will come to your school and work with your students and teachers on creating a technology enhanced classroom. This may include building a teachers or students web presence, using Google Apps for Education, using collaborative tools for project creation or just about anything else that a school might need. I focus the majority of our time on the practical application of tools and resources.
To ensure that the presentation is enjoyable for the audience and to make it a successful event, please review a few requirements:
Audio and Visual Needs
I will bring:
- My laptop (either a MacBook or a Windows 10 PC)
- Wireless slide presenter.
Clients should provide:
- A computer projector that can display at least 1024 x 768 screen pixels (1280 x 800 is preferred) and a screen of appropriate size for the venue.
- Power strip for laptop
- A high speed Internet connection (Ethernet or wireless), which is necessary for many of my presentations. Technical staff should also be on hand to assist in TCP-IP configurations.
- Good quality speakers or house audio for the computer with a stereo 3.5mm male plug. House sound is the best for most presentations.
- Wireless lapel microphone
- A small table or podium with enough room for a laptop and mouse.
- A couple of bottles of water or a Diet Coke 🙂
- As available, wireless Internet access for participants to enable collaborative note-taking or backchannel conversations during the presentation.
This policy is valid from July 2012
This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog does not accept any form of advertising, sponsorship, or paid insertions. We write for our own purposes. However, we may be influenced by our background, occupation, religion, political affiliation or experience.
The owner of this blog will never receive compensation in any way from this blog.
The owner of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.
This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.
To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org


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Morsi: 'I won't tolerate anyone working to overthrow a legitimate government'
The president's speech, which was aimed at restoring stability in the country, has ignited a new escalation in violence.
Several thousand anti-government protesters have stormed the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, breaking windows and furniture and setting the building on fire.
Protesters also reportedly torched, stormed and looted several Cairo offices of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, who responded with stones and Molotov cocktails. While tensions remain high, additional security personnel were deployed to the epicenter of the clashes.
Unknown men attack the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarter and try to to set it on fire on December 6, 2012.(Reuters / Stringer)
"I separate the legitimate opposition from the vandals who committed violence," Morsi told the nation. "The opposition thinks Article 6 is a problem. I won't insist on keeping it, and anyway, the decree ends after the referendum."
Morsi said he will form a new assembly to write the constitution if the current draft is rejected by the referendum.
Morsi mourned those who died in front of the presidential palace, saying his "heart is bleeding for the loss of innocent lives."
"I feel responsible for the riots in Egypt," he said. "My fellow citizens are one body that cannot be separated or torn apart."
Riot police form a line as protesters against Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi storm the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo December 6, 2012.(Reuters / Stringer)
The Egyptian president also attacked those who he says are serving the remnants of the Mubarak regime and trying to bring down the government. He said the reason behind the constitutional declaration was to protect Egypt from such conspiracies.
"These people became rich through the ex-regime and are now spending their fortunes to burn our homeland," Morsi said, claiming that some of those arrested during the clashes outside the presidential palace have links with opposition parties, while others were paid to add heat to the conflict.
"The ex-regime will not come back again, ever," Morsi stated.
The president has called for a Saturday meeting with the opposition to defuse the crisis, which he says can only be resolved through dialogue.
However, the April 6 group, a leading Egyptian pro-democracy movement which was in the forefront of the revolt against Hosni Mubarak, has rejected Morsi's call for dialogue, saying it would continue protests against the president.
Members of the Republican Guard block a road leading to the presidential palace as anti-Mursi protesters gather in front of barbed wire barricades in Cairo December 6, 2012.(Reuters / Amr Dalsh)
Protesters against Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi attack the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters after starting a fire inside the compound in Cairo December 6, 2012.(Reuters / Stringer)
Although Mohamed Morsi has promised to give up his sweeping powers after a new constitution is in place, the Egyptian president is not likely to practice what he preaches, Walid Phares, a counter-terrorism adviser to the US Congress told RT.
"It is all in the book of how the Muslim Brotherhood has made statements in the beginning of the Arab spring in Egypt," Phares explained. "For example, the Muslim Brotherhood said that they are not going to go to Tahrir square, they are going to allow the youth to go. Then they went. That they are not going to run for more than 30 per cent of the parliament. Then they ran massively. That Mr. Morsi himself said that he's not going to run for president."
"This is called a phased strategy," Phares added. "They move to one position, consolidate, then move to the next one. So basically once he has a referendum on the constitution there is no reason except his own to say 'I'm not going to use this power.'"
Anti-Mursi protesters shout slogans and scuffle with members of the Republican Guard in front of barricades around a road leading to the presidential palace in Cairo December 6, 2012.(Reuters / Amr Dalsh)
Morsi's address follows a wave of heavy clashes beginning on Tuesday between his supporters and opponents, in which at least seven people have been killed and over 640 injured.
A curfew has been introduced in Cairo after the country's military moved in tanks and armored troop carriers to quash the violence in the capital. Several tanks are guarding the presidential palace.
The recent wave of street violence is the worst in Egypt following Morsi's November 22 move to vastly expand his powers.
Protesters against Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi gather in front of the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters after starting a fire inside the compound in Cairo December 6, 2012.(Reuters / Stringer Egypt)
Riot police form a line as protesters against Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi stormed and started a fire at the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo December 6, 2012.(Reuters / Stringer Egypt)


text: 6 Stylish Gym Bags\\nDitch that generic duffel! Getting to the gym is a snap with these colorful bags you won't want to hide in your locker.\\nWith straps for your [yoga mat](/fitness/workouts/2010/06/sun-salutation-workout-slideshow) and a special pouch for sneaks, the Destined for Greatness Duffel ensures you won't have to swap sacks as often as you change your routine. $128; [Lululemon.com](http://www.lululemon.com)\\nSneak away to [Spin](/fitness/2009/12/spinning-master-class) during your lunch break with the Training Shine Cross-Body Hobo—it looks like a purse! $40; [Puma.com](http://www.puma.com)\\nA laptop sleeve for electronics and a pocket for sweaty duds in the Legend duffel keep your work separate from your workout. $75; [Nike.com](http://www.nike.com)\\nStylistas: This neon bag has your name (and Marc Jacobs's) written all over it. The mini-tote is perfectly sized for days when all you need is a clean change of clothes. Marc by Marc Jacobs Standard Supply Cargo. $198; [Nordstrom.com](http://www.nordstrom.com)\\nTame your mane on the go, then store a just-unplugged flatiron in the heatproof zipper slot of the Under Armour Shatter Gym Tote. $70; [UA.com](http://www.ua.com)\\nIf you bike to [boot camp](/fitness/workouts/2009/07/eight-minutes-to-slim-slideshow), you'll heart this no-hands Adidas by Stella McCartney Back Pack. Shine and a sneaky zip-open bottom make it tops. $130; [ShopAdidas.com](http://www.shopadidas.com)\\n\\n \\n__[How to Save Money on Your Gym Membership](/fitness/2012/01/gym-membership-savings-slideshow)__ \\n \\n__[10 Busy-Girl Buffer Moves](/fitness/workouts/2012/03/busy-girl-buffer-moves-slideshow)__


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Best known for content management system migration technologies, Kapow Technologies (news, site) also does web data services and feeds. In a recently announced partnership with StrikeIron, the vendor released Kapow Web Data Services v7.0, focusing on web data access for small and medium sized businesses.
Stefan Andreasen, Kapow CTO and founder, gave us a little tour around the new offering. Let's have a look.
The Kapow Tech Product Suite
The company's offering is a combination of 4 different modules:
- Web and Business Intelligence (BI)
- Portal generation (e.g., for IBM Websphere or Oracle)
- SOA/WOA enablement
- Content management system migrations
The SOA/WOA enablement part is the one that is relevant to this particular announcement. With this technology they take web-based applications housed inside the firewall and turn them into RSS feed, REST or web services, but leave the data at the source, according to Andreasen.
One of the examples of using Kapow Web Data Services would be to extract stock prices and generate a report using your customized data fields, eliminating the manual process of cutting/pasting data from a web browser.
Web Data for Everyone
The Kapow partnership with StrikeIron, a SaaS provider of data on demand as REST or SOAP service calls, introduces an on-demand or SaaS service, while taking a different approach to classical data integration methods, said Andreasen. Note that subscription, billing, account support and user handling is taken care of by StrikeIron. Kapow acts as middleware.
The model here is three-fold:
- Access
- Enrich
- Serve
That, plus the concept of robots, which are automated scripts that you "teach" how to interact with a website. Robots then execute a scripted behavior. One of the benefits is auto access to any data you see in the web browser as RSS feeds or REST services, even if that data is behind personal logins.
The robots you write can, for example, access your personal banking accounts (if you supply login information) and generate various reports based on the data and rules you put around it. Creating a robot is rather simple and looks like a flowchart in RoboMaker, a visual point-and-click desktop tool:
Kapow Tech's RoboMaker Desktop Application
You can do various things like branching, cut/paste as a new branch, undo, etc.; while utilizing a library of actions for looping, form submitting, set checkbox, .*dd tags for robust semantic information extraction -- with a lot of JavaScript and cookie handling happening behind the scenes.
RoboMaker's Libary of Actions
The robot is then published to a Kapow Tech server and can later be invoked to provide RSS data feeds or to respond to a REST service request. The output can be generated in a number formats, including XML, CSV and Microsoft Excel.
Why Kapow Tech's Data Services?
Web data access capabilities is something that many are looking for, but not many are able to get. Kapow wants to empower SMBs with the tools they need, yet at a reasonable price. Pricing is subscription-based and starts at US$ 84 per month.
Their Web Data Services offering can be quite useful in many scenarios, including the collection of real-time web intelligence and market data.
In the travel industry, the search and planning site GoWaza is one of the examples of how the service can be used. GoWaza collects data and makes it available to customers, who research travel providers to get the best deals.


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When you throw an adult Halloween party or want to surprise the kids with something extra special, GODIVA chocolate is a great idea. The sweet and delectable chocolate will add the refined touch to your night that will make people truly appreciate you as such a thoughtful host. Throw a costume contest and give away a box of chocolates or GODIVA's signature chocolate truffles to the winner. Now that's the kind of prize anyone can enjoy. Or be the best house on the block by giving small GODIVA chocolate bars to trick-or-treaters. Make this year's Halloween that much sweeter with GODIVA chocolates.
And if you're attending a party, make sure to not come by empty-handed. Bring by a Halloween party favor that will stand out from the crowd of those bringing chips and drinks. A box of fine chocolates will make everyone relive their early years of being excited about chocolate candy, but it will keep the atmosphere of the night classy. Before you know it, you would have started a new Halloween tradition with your Halloween favor. Once you find the perfect Halloween favor don't forget to also get some Halloween gifts for teachers and help your kids express their gratitude to their favorite educators.
If you happen to be celebrating Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), GODIVA chocolate can be an excellent treat to pick up as well. A Día de los Muertos chocolate gift can be a fun addition to all the traditional food and snacks you normally have this holiday. A decorative chocolate gift basket makes for an excellent Día de los Muertos gift idea if you have been invited to celebrate somewhere.
If you are going the traditional route on the Day of the Dead instead of attending a party, make sure to grab some chocolates for all the relatives who are no longer with us. If you know they loved chocolate, a small box of GODIVA chocolate is the best addition to the ofrenda (offering). With a plethora of colored ribbons to choose from, you can find their favorite chocolate that features their favorite color as well. But no matter what you decide to get, a box of GODIVA is always a great way to honor the deceased.