Now That’s Hedy

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , , , /by

My friends, the incredible beauty of Hedy Lamarr is her brains. In that second photo from the top is Hedy Lamarr on the left, Louis B. Mayer (Metro Goldwin Mayer) who introduced her to America and Rita Hayworth. Below that on the right she’s with Spencer Tracy. Second image from the bottom is her & arranger George Antheil’s patent drawing for frequency hopping. And, not to worry, there are no shortages of t-shirt options for Hedy Lamarr fans. Also check out the terrific video links at the end and a really great podcast made just for kids. 

I was chatting with a friend of mine the other day, and we started to discuss the genius behind great inventions.  Reflection, pondering, trial and error and sometimes just straight-out incredible ideas – it’s usually pretty tough to know where they come from.  Now, combine the mind of a great natural genius inventor with the beauty of a global superstar actress – and you get Hedy Lamarr – considered by some as the greatest looking actress of all times – and one of the greatest natural inventors.  Hats off to all the engineers out there – handsome, beautiful, or just another face in the crowd, I marvel at your ideas and passion.  Here’s a fun little recap of an amazing woman and an incredible life – filled with travel, inventions, movies, drama, marriages and more.  Enjoy!  And be sure to catch one of her great movies. Thanks Wikipedia, PBS and womenshistory.org.

  • Hedy Lamarr (/ˈheɪdi/; born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; November 9, 1914 – January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American film actress and inventor.
  • Her father was born to a Galician Jewish family in Lemberg (now Lviv in Ukraine) and was a successful bank director.  Trude, her mother, a pianist and Budapest native, had come from an upper-class Hungarian Jewish family. She had converted to Catholicism and was described as a “practicing Christian” who raised her daughter as a Christian.
  • As a child, Lamarr showed an interest in acting and was fascinated by theatre and film. At the age of 12, she won a beauty contest in Vienna.  While taking acting classes in Vienna when one day, she forged a note from her mother and went to Sascha-Film and was able to get herself hired as a script girl. While there, she was able to get a role as an extra in Money on the Street (1930), and then a small speaking part in Storm in a Water Glass (1931). Producer Max Reinhardt then cast her in a play entitled The Weaker Sex, which was performed at the Theater in der Josefstadt. Reinhardt was so impressed with her that he brought her with him back to Berlin.
  • In early 1933, at age 18, Lamarr was given the lead in Gustav Machatý’s film Ecstasy. She played the neglected young wife of an indifferent older man.  The film became both celebrated and notorious for showing Lamarr’s face in the throes of pleasure as well as close-up and brief nude scenes, a result of her being “duped” by the director and producer, who used high-power telephoto lenses. As you can imagine, it caused quite a sensation.
  • Although she was dismayed and now disillusioned about taking other roles, the film gained world recognition after winning an award in Rome. Throughout Europe, it was regarded an artistic work. In America it was considered overly sexual and received negative publicity, especially among women’s groups and was banned there and in Germany.
  • Fredrich Mandl, an Austrian military arms merchant and munitions manufacturer, was reputedly the third-richest man in Austria. He was obsessed to meet her. She fell for his charming and fascinating personality, partly due to his immense financial wealth. Her parents, both of Jewish descent, did not approve, due to Mandl’s ties to Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini, and later, German Führer Adolf Hitler, but they could not stop the headstrong Lamarr.  On August 10, 1933, Lamarr married Mandl. She was 18 years old and he was 33.
  • Mandl had close social and business ties to the Italian government, selling munitions to the country, and although like Hedy, his own father was Jewish, had ties to the Nazi regime of Germany, as well. Lamarr wrote that the dictators of both countries attended lavish parties at the Mandl home. Lamarr accompanied Mandl to business meetings, where he conferred with scientists and other professionals involved in military technology. These conferences were her introduction to the field of applied science and nurtured her latent talent in science.
  • Lamarr’s marriage to Mandl eventually became unbearable, and she decided to separate herself from both her husband and country. In her autobiography, she wrote that she disguised herself as her maid and fled to Paris, but by other accounts, she persuaded Mandl to let her wear all of her jewelry for a dinner party, then disappeared afterward.
  • After arriving in London in 1937, she met Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, who was scouting for talent in Europe.  She initially turned down the offer he made her (of $125 a week), but then booked herself onto the same New York bound liner as him and managed to impress him enough to secure a $500 a week contract. Mayer persuaded her to change her name to Hedy Lamarr, choosing the surname in homage to the beautiful silent film star, Barbara La Marr, on the suggestion of his wife, who admired La Marr. He brought her to Hollywood in 1938 and began promoting her as the “world’s most beautiful woman”.
  • Mayer loaned Lamarr to producer Walter Wanger, who was making Algiers (1938), an American version of the French film, Pépé le Moko (1937). Lamarr was cast in the lead opposite Charles Boyer. The film created a “national sensation.”  According to one viewer, when her face first appeared on the screen, “everyone gasped … Lamarr’s beauty literally took one’s breath away.”
  • Her off-screen life and personality during those years was quite different from her screen image. She spent much of her time feeling lonely and homesick. She might swim at her agent’s pool but shunned the beaches and staring crowds. When asked for an autograph, she wondered why anyone would want it.
  • She participated in a war bond-selling campaign with a sailor named Eddie Rhodes. Rhodes was in the crowd at each Lamarr appearance, and she would call him up on stage. She would briefly flirt with him before asking the audience if she should give him a kiss. The crowd would say “yes”, to which Hedy would reply that she would if enough people bought war bonds. After enough bonds were purchased, she would kiss Rhodes and he would head back into the audience. Then they would head off to the next war bond rally.
  • Although Lamarr had no formal training and was primarily self-taught, she worked in her spare time on various hobbies and inventions, which included an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated drink (think Coca Cola) for the soldiers.
  • Among the few who knew of Lamarr’s inventiveness was aviation tycoon Howard Hughes. She suggested he change the rather square design of his aeroplanes (which she thought looked too slow and boxy) to a more streamlined shape, based on pictures of the fastest birds and fish she could find. He actively supported her “tinkering” hobbies and put his team of scientists and engineers at her disposal, saying they would do or make anything she asked for.
  • During World War II, Lamarr learned that radio-controlled torpedoes, an emerging technology in naval war, could easily be jammed and set off course by the Nazis. She thought of creating a frequency-hopping signal that could not be tracked or jammed. She contacted her friend, composer and pianist George Antheil, to help her develop a device for doing that, and he succeeded by synchronizing a miniaturized player-piano roll mechanism with radio signals.  They drafted designs for the frequency-hopping system, which they patented.  Antheil recalled: “Although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until later, the principles of their work are incorporated into Bluetooth and GPS technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of CDMA and Wi-Fi.”
  • “We began talking about the war, which, in the late summer of 1940, was looking most extremely black. Hedy said that she did not feel very comfortable, sitting there in Hollywood and making lots of money when things were in such a state. She said that she knew a good deal about munitions and various secret weapons … and that she was thinking seriously of quitting MGM and going to Washington, DC, to offer her services to the newly established Inventors’ Council.”
  • In 1997, Lamarr and Antheil received the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award and the Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Bronze Award, given to individuals whose creative lifetime achievements in the arts, sciences, business, or invention fields have significantly contributed to society. Lamarr was featured on the Science Channel and the Discovery Channel. In 2014, Lamarr and Antheil were posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
  • During her film career, she was featured in over 30 films. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Lamarr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6247 Hollywood Blvd adjacent to Vine Street where the walk is centered.
  • Lamarr was married and divorced six times and had three children.

 

An interview with Denise Loder-DeLuca, Hedy Lamarr’s daughter.

A very old TV game show called “What’s My Line?”  Go to about 14:56 for the “MYSTERY GUEST: Hedy Lamarr”

And one podcast:
Have you heard of this Podcast: “Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls”? If you have kids, listen to it with them. This one is on Hedy Lamarr read by Tatiana Maslany.Gives a lot of great info in kid level writing. Runs 19 minutes.

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

SNAP

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Throwing the Perfect spiral isn’t easy but it can be learned. The pros do it. Kids and dads do it, too. It just takes practice, practice, practice. Don’t forget to check the videos at the bottom. Especially that last one with Drew Brees. WOW!!!

Hope you are enjoying this seasonal transition to fall and the upcoming … (can’t say it).  I’m guessing like you, I was drawn to the television this past weekend and watched my beloved Brownies lose another heartbreaker to those demons out east.  During the game, I was reminiscing on my much earlier days playing quarterback on the high school and college levels, and still marveled how the pros throw a football.  I went on line, and did some digging – for my engineering buds out there – and found some great info on the physics and details of throwing a perfect spiral.  (One of my favorite tips was “the final finger flip). One of my daughter’s can still throw the “perfect” spiral! On top of this, I considered what it takes to make a “perfect play” – when all 11 execute perfectly – and it reminded me of my great team here at KHT – everyone doing their job, in harmony, with perfect results (talk about a consistent delivery on your PIA (Pain in the @%$)Jobs!  Like the pros, we also consider the obstacles, plan a solution, practice/practice, all execute together, and bingo – touchdown!  Here’s some cool info on that crazy football pass and what it takes to make a perfect throw.  Enjoy, and thanks to cps digital.org, yahoo.com, wikipedia and You Tube for the info.

  • You may think throwing a football is one simple motion, but you would be wrong. When you release a football, if thrown well, it should spin at about 400-600 RPM’s, or revolutions per minute.
  • This spin creates a gyroscopic torque, which is when the axis of a spinning body is tilted. This creates a third axis that is perpendicular to the spin and the tilt axis. Gravity will try to pull the nose of the ball downward but will have a hard time, the ball is aerodynamic so the forces of wind counteract gravity and keep it in the air longer.
  • Newton’s laws help dictate the pattern of all moving objects, including footballs. The path of a football’s flight is not random, it is the result of the physical forces of inertia, air resistance and gravity. Newtons first law of motion states that an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. the basic flight pattern of a football is the shape of a parabola, this shows that there is a bend in the football’s movement through the air. Newton’s first law applies here because there are outside forces like air resistance to keep the ball from traveling in a straight line.
  • Newton’s second law states that the total change of an objects motion or position is equal to the sum of all forces acting on that object. As a football flies through the air the forces acting on it are constantly changing, except gravity. As the quarterback releases the ball inertia is the greatest force acting on it, that is why it travels upward. as the football reaches its high point inertia weakens due to air resistance. Gravity then takes over and pulls the ball back towards the earth.
  • Newton’s third law tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is shown through a football’s lift which helps it fly higher and longer, lift occurs when air is moving around an object. As a football moves sideways through the air, its upward motion forces more air under the ball which creates a buoyant force which is why quarterbacks throw at an upward angle.
  • (Did Newton play in the NFL??)
  • Looking back to some basic physics classes, we can understand that the way a ball flies depends on the launch angle and the speed it is thrown at. However, you can throw a football as hard as you want, that doesn’t guarantee that it will fly in a perfect spiral. In order to get a football to fly perfectly, we have to be a little more concerned with inducing gyroscopic precession.
  • Due to the gyroscopic effects of a spinning football, the way the ball behaves in the air actually varies based on whether the quarterback is right or left-handed. A ball thrown by a right-handed quarterback will curve slightly to the right, and one thrown by a left-handed quarterback would do just the opposite. Understanding this is essential to throwing an accurate pass.
  • Now, adding more spin to the ball isn’t all that throwing a good spiral needs. A faster-spinning ball will take up more proportion of the imparted energy to continue spinning than to continue moving forward. This means that quarterbacks can actually lose yardage when they impart more spin to a ball. It’s all about finding a happy medium. The ball needs the necessary amount of spin to attain proper gyroscopic motion, while also maximizing the forward velocity to maximize range.
  • The launch angle is another fairly simple aspect of a football pass, but one that is essential to mastering the game. Like any other trajectory, the maximum distance can be achieved with a launch angle of 45 degrees. At higher than 45, height will be maximized, and at lower angles, the ball will likely not travel as far as you need it to.
  • Throwing a perfect football may be easy to understand from a mathematics and physics perspective, but mastering the art is a completely different challenge. If you were to give any random physics student a problem involving a quarterback and a running receiver, it would likely be one of the most difficult parabolic motion problems they ever completed. Yet, good quarterbacks can perfectly take into account launch angle, velocity, and spin to perfectly place a football in the hands of a receiver down the field.
  • Baker Mayfield threw an absolute rocket of a Hail Mary on Monday night against the Baltimore Ravens.  Mayfield threw the ball from the Browns’ own 40-yard line and wound up overthrowing the end zone.  While it was ultimately incomplete, the pass landed in the history books as the longest ever recorded by Pro Football Focus.
  • The longest pass completion of 99 yards has been achieved on 11 occasions in the National Football League (NFL) and has always resulted in a touchdown. The most recent occurrence was a pass from Eli Manning to Victor Cruz, for the New York Giants against the New York Jets (all USA) on 24 December 2011.
  • In a given year, NFL quarterbacks throw about 20,000 passes, with a completion rate of 64.9%.
  • An average ball being passed travels about 60 mph.

Longest Passes in History
Browns Fans, Plug in your earphones & crank the audio. Watch Baker!!
Best NFL Passes 
The Physics of a Football Pass – UC Irvine 
How to Throw the Perfect Football Spiral – According to Physics 
Very, VERY Entertaining to Watch: Drew Brees Edition | Dude Perfect 

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

$1,500 A Pound?

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

If you’re hunting truffles, the nose knows. And you need to get a good one on your side. It used to be pigs that did most of the truffle hunting but they tended to want to eat them. So, man’s best friend, as it turns out, could be trained to sniff-out those ripe underground fungi. And dogs do it for the thrill of the hunt (and maybe a few treats). But they won’t eat the profits! Awesome!!  :-))))  So, you see, it only looks like poop. To truffle hunters those balls are 24 carat gold.

What in the world could cost fifteen hundred dollars a pound?  For those of you who are gourmet cooks, you’ve probably already guessed it.  I was listening to the radio this week and heard a report that it’s “truffle season” in Europe, and prices for the rarest white truffles are over $1,500 per pound.  As a curious sort, I had to learn more about this – and as a foodie, I was intrigued.  I’ll admit I’ve not eaten real truffles before and now my interest is peaked (but my commonsense wallet is not).  Special thanks to Wikipedia. If the weather cooperates  this weekend plan to head out to the beautiful parks with Jackie for a little hiking – never know when I may stumble upon some rare white “ohio” beauties. Now,  in full disclosure I really wouldn’t know what to look for!

  • A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus Tuber. In addition to Tuber, many other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including Geopora, Peziza, Choiromyces, Leucangium, and over a hundred others. These genera belong to the class Pezizomycetes and the Pezizales order. (yep, I paid attention in science class)
  • Some of the truffle species are highly prized as food. French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin called truffles “the diamond of the kitchen”. Edible truffles are used in French and numerous national haute cuisines.
  • Phylogenetic evidence suggests that the majority of subterranean fruiting bodies evolved from above-ground mushrooms. Over time mushroom stipes and caps were reduced, and caps began to enclose reproductive tissue. The dispersal of sexual spores then shifted from wind and rain to utilizing animals.
  • The first mention of truffles appears in the inscriptions of the neo-Sumerians regarding their Amorite enemy’s eating habits (Third Dynasty of Ur, 20th century BC) and later in writings of Theophrastus in the 4th century BC.  .
  • A truffle’s substance is pale, tinged with rose. Unlike truffles, terfez (known as the desert truffle) have little inherent flavor. The Romans used the terfez as a carrier of flavor, because the terfez tend to absorb surrounding flavors. Because Ancient Roman cuisine used many spices and flavorings, the terfez may have been appropriate in that context.
  • Truffles were rarely used during the Middle Ages. Truffle hunting is mentioned by Bartolomeo Platina, the papal historian, in 1481, when he recorded that the sows of Notza were without equal in hunting truffles, but they should be muzzled to prevent them from eating the prize.
  • During the Renaissance, truffles regained popularity in Europe and were honored at the court of King Francis I of France. They were popular in Parisian markets in the 1780s, imported seasonally from truffle grounds, where peasants had long enjoyed them. Brillat-Savarin (1825) noted that they were so expensive, they appeared only at the dinner tables of great nobles and kept women.
  • For discovering how to cultivate truffles, some sources now give priority to Pierre II Mauléon (1744–1831) of Loudun (in western France), who began to cultivate truffles around 1790. Mauléon saw an “obvious symbiosis” between the oak tree, the rocky soil, and the truffle, and attempted to reproduce such an environment by taking acorns from trees known to have produced truffles, and sowing them in chalky soil. His experiment was successful, with truffles being found in the soil around the newly grown oak trees years later.
  • These successful attempts were met with enthusiasm in southern France, which possessed the sweet limestone soils and dry, hot weather that truffles need to grow. In the late 19th century, an epidemic of phylloxera destroyed many of the vineyards in southern France and an epidemic killed most of the silkworms there, too, making the fields of mulberry trees useless.
  • Thus, large tracts of land were set free for the cultivation of truffles. Thousands of truffle-producing trees were planted, and production reached peaks of hundreds of tons at the end of the 19th century. In 1890, 75,000 hectares (190,000 acres) of truffle-producing trees had been planted.
  • In the 20th century, with the growing industrialization of France and the subsequent rural exodus, many of these truffle fields (champs truffiers or truffières) returned to wilderness. The First World War also dealt a serious blow to the French countryside, killing 20% or more of the male working force. As a consequence, newly acquired techniques of trufficulture were lost.
  • Between the two great world wars, the truffle groves planted in the 19th century stopped being productive. (The average lifecycle of a truffle-producing tree is 30 years.) Consequently, after 1945, the production of truffles plummeted, and the prices have risen dramatically. Today, they are a rare delicacy reserved for the rich, or used on very special occasions.
  • In the 1970s, new attempts for mass production of truffles were started to make up for the decline in wild truffles. About 80% of the truffles now produced in France come from specially planted truffle groves.
  • In 1999, the first Australian truffles were harvested in Tasmania, the result of eight years of work. Trees were inoculated with the truffle fungus in the hope of creating a local truffle industry. Their success and the value of the resulting truffles has encouraged a small industry to develop.
  • In June 2014, A grower harvested Australia’s largest truffle from their property at Robertson in South Wales.  It was a French black perigord fungus weighing in at 1.1172 kg (2 lb 7+7⁄16 oz) and was valued at over $2,000 per kilogram.
  • Tom Michaels, owner of Tennessee Truffle, began producing Périgord truffles commercially in 2007.  At its peak in the 2008–2009 season, his farm produced about 200 pounds of truffles, but Eastern filbert blight almost entirely wiped out his hazel trees by 2013 and production dropped, essentially driving him out of business.
  • The black truffle or black Périgord truffle (Tuber melanosporum), the second-most commercially valuable species, is named after the Périgord region in France.  Black truffles associate with oaks, hazelnut, cherry, and other deciduous trees and are harvested in late autumn and winter.
  • Tuber magnatum, the high-value white truffle or trifola d’Alba Madonna (“Truffle of the Madonna from Alba” in Italian) is found mainly in the Langhe and Montferrat areas of the Piedmont region in northern Italy, and most famously, in the countryside around the cities of Alba and Asti.  A large percentage of Italy’s white truffles also come from Molise.
  • In Spain, per government regulation, white summer truffles can be harvested only in May through July.
  • In the U.S. Pacific Northwest, several species of truffle are harvested both recreationally and commercially, most notably, the Leucangium carthusianum, Oregon black truffle; Tuber gibbosum, Oregon spring white truffle; and Tuber oregonense, the Oregon winter white truffle. Kalapuya brunnea, the Oregon brown truffle, has also been commercially harvested and is of culinary note.
  • The pecan truffle (Tuber lyonii) syn. Texense is found in the Southern United States, usually associated with pecantrees. Chefs who have experimented with them agree “they are very good and have potential as a food commodity”.  Although pecan farmers used to find them along with pecans and discard them, considering them a nuisance, they sell for about $160 a pound and have been used in some gourmet restaurants.
  • Because truffles are subterranean, they are often located with the help of an animal possessing a refined sense of smell. Traditionally, pigs have been used for the extraction of truffles.  Both the female pig’s natural truffle-seeking, and her usual intent to eat the truffle, were thought to be due to a compound within the truffle similar to androstenol, the sex pheromone of boar saliva, to which the sow is keenly attracted. Studies in 1990 demonstrated that the compound actively recognized by both truffle pigs and dogs is dimethyl sulfide.
  • I am simply letting everyone know,  I will not be walking a female pig through the forest looking for truffles anytime soon.   I would much rather be walking down a beautiful golf course looking for my ball!
  • If you are so inclined, here’s a recipe.

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Please STOP

/0 Comments/in , , /by

There are a lot of things we take for granted in this world but “stop signs” have got to be near the top of the list. And these marvelous inventions have kept a lot of us out of accidents! Trivia: Did you know that in Hawaii some of the stop signs are blue? Well, they are. Read on my friend. And never stop learning.  : )

On one of my runs the other day, I noticed a rather familiar sign up ahead – the STOP Sign.  Simple in design, easy to read, and clear of its intent. As I approached the intersection, I found myself “following directions” (something my lovely wife Jackie says I don’t consistently do – but that’s for another story). When I got to the office, I of course started searching for info on the design, and of course, was quite impressed with the thought, time and effort put into “managing” our road systems – talk about a PIA (Pain in the @%$) Job!  Today we have something like 160,000 miles of highway roads and about four million miles of public roads – just in the US.  Here’s some great information on STOP signs, road signs and road sign directional management I think you’ll enjoy – I for sure learned way more than I expected – and kudos to the designers, engineers and just “smart” folks who helped figure all this out. What’s cool is, we’re at a point in automobile management where the visual control systems we’re so accustomed to are gradually being replaced with “smart cars”, and “self-driving cars” – wonder if they read the signs like we do.  Special thanks to 99% invisible, Wikipedia and Dornbos Sign & Safety Company for the info and YouTube for the Mix.  Enjoy!

Put the Top Down, Crank It Up and just Drive Mix

  • Signs telling drivers to STOP are easy to identify in the United States — aside from the big block letters, their red backgrounds and octagonal shapes give them away (at least until you spot a blue one – Hawaii). But to understand why most are red, one needs to go back a bit further, to a time when stop signs were a wild new idea.
  • Road signs have been used since the time of the Roman Empire. Roads can be traced back to the Bronze Age, but the Romans were the ones who took the idea and ran with it. The system of roads they’ve built, including bridges and tunnels from Portugal to Constantinople, enabled them to move armies faster. This also allowed them to bring in more people and goods. This means that with a strong road system, Rome was able to become successful.
  • The very first road in Rome was the Via Appia, or also known as the Appian Way. This road was built in 312 B.C. At regular road intervals, milestones were placed, and these often stated who was in charge of the maintenance of that road portion and as well as the completed repairs. Aside from that, the Romans also built mile markers at intersections to specify the distance to travel to Rome.
  • During the Middle Ages different sign types were placed at crossroads to point or direct people toward different towns. However, after the fall of Rome, roads were no longer maintained, which made transportation more challenging.
  • Many inventions and progress in industry and transportation were seen in the 19th century. During this time, many travelers no longer need to ride horses to get across different towns. New modes of transportations enabled them to travel further and faster. These include bicycles 1418-1817 and automobiles about 1885.
  • One of the earliest organized signing systems was developed by the Italian Touring Club. By the early 1900s, the Congress of International Touring Organizations in Paris started considering standards for road signage. Nine European governments in 1909 chose four pictorial symbol signs to be used as a standard in those areas.
  • Born in 1848 in New York City, William Phelps Eno grew up in a world without stop signs. He saw firsthand the chaos of city intersections packed first with horse-drawn carriages and later with cars. As an adult, he wrote a key article on traffic issues in 1900 advocating for signage and other safety measures, then went to work on traffic plans for New York as well as Long Island and Paris. Eno is broadly credited with a number of traffic control innovations, including rotary junctions, pedestrian sidewalks and stop signs.
  • Early stop signs still were not the red-and-white affairs we are most familiar with nor were they all octagonal. Instead, they varied — one of the first recorded signs to go up in Detroit, for instance, had black lettering on a white background, presumably to maximize contrast.
  • Then, in 1923, the Mississippi Valley Association of State Highway Departments formalized the octagonal shape we associate with these signs to this day. The distinctiveness of the octagon was useful, but there was more to the decision than that — the designers making the call wanted to create and reinforce associations between geometry and safety.
  • Traffic shape designs were based on a simple, albeit not exactly intuitive, idea: the more sides a sign has, the higher the danger level it invokes. By the engineers’ reckoning, the circle, which has an infinite number of sides, screamed danger and was recommended for railroad crossings. The octagon, with its eight sides, was used to denote the second-highest level. The diamond shape was for warning signs. And the rectangle and square shapes were used for informational signs. (how cool is that!)
  • According to the Department of Transportation, each street sign must have an individual and varying shape. The DOT’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices actually defines the symbology of shapes. For example, the octagon is a cross-breed between a square and circle, which suggests power and complexity (so cool – now it all begins to make sense).
  • Still, even with the shape decided, it would be years before an official background color was designated. And when the time came, the first color chosen was not red but yellow. While red was often associated with stop and thus a logical choice, material science of the 1930s had not yet caught up — reflectivity was deemed more important than color, so yellow was chosen as it would work at night. Red took its place only when retroreflective reds became available.
  • Finally, in 1954, a red background with white letters became the new standard, which in turn brings us back to another color. Blue is much rarer, but there are some blue stop signs out there for one simple reason: they aren’t really stop signs, at least not officially.
  • In some places, laws or ordinances prevent the use of public signage on private property, so in parking lots or other privately owned paved spaces, blue is used as a differentiating tactic. The solution is simple, clever and effective — whatever color the sign may have, the distinctive lettering and shape will always send a clear message to stop.
  • Researchers found different shapes have different effects on our brains. People perceive the depth and forms of shapes in strange ways, as each shape conveys a different feeling and gives off a different message. By recognizing different patterns of various shapes, people are able to become more aware of how to interact with their surroundings and gain a better understanding of traffic flow on the road.
  • Early on, signs were dipped into paint, and the letterings, symbols, and borders were painted black. This made it possible for the signs to be created in larger quantities. The machinery used to make these signs, however, could only create signs up to 24 inches. Therefore, this became the standard size for road signs.  (now that’s great trivia!)
  • In 1948, after the 2nd World War, the round letter alphabet was used on road signs, and sign legends were simplified by eliminating unnecessary words. In 1954, the use of secondary messages on stop signs was prohibited, and the yield sign was introduced. It’s a sign that features a yellow triangle with the black wording “Yield Right of Way.”
  • In 1971, the use of symbols on signs expanded and has increased international uniformity. The color red was allowed to be used for additional regulatory signs. For guide signs, the colors white on green were made standard. The color orange was used for construction signs and work zone devices. School areas were also addressed, and the school sign with the pentagon shape was introduced.
  • The manual for road signs is always being revised to improve the safety and efficiency of travel. Today, you can see many different colors and shapes of road signs everywhere you go. And these differ in every place or country you visit. In the United States, here are some of the present-day road sign colors that you might encounter – see if you can guess the background colors:

White – for regulatory signs

Red – for stop, yield, and prohibition signs

Blue – for road service, evacuation routes, and tourist information

Green – for directional guidance and permitted traffic movement

Yellow – for general warning messages

Fluorescent yellow or green – for pedestrian and school crossing

Brown – for guides to recreational or cultural interest areas

Orange – for warnings and guides in construction zones

  • It’s amazing to know that road signs have been used for thousands of years, even before automobiles were invented. With the standardization of road signs, the roads and highways we have today are organized and safer to drive on. Thanks Mr. Eno!

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))  
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 

Bakes

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Ok, I am hungry!! (Ok, I’m always hungry.) But Cleveland Clambakes are one of the very best ways I can satisfy that hunger. Those food photos really get me going. I might try breakfast, lunch and dinner bakes one of these days. Yeah, that’s a good idea. I found those cool b & w photos from the Euclid Fish Company. And that pretty picture of clam digging on the coast in Washington. Then, see that photo of the giant clam above? It’s a Geoduck found in the Pacific Northwest. And a quick Google search revealed an abundance of t-shirts to express your love of the clambake. Read on and enjoy!!

Autumn in Cleveland is marked by three things: lots of football, crisp weather, and the return of the fill your belly backyard feast called the clambake.  And as a foodie, I just love ‘em. Now it has been a few years since I have been able to gather my extended family together for a Kowalski clambake! Digging out the giant pots from the attic, and from family, the special trip to the seafood store and farmer’s market, prepping the backyard and staging everything, the strategic timed layering, the great aromas, and just the fun of being outside with friends and family drawing the broth and enjoying the rewards.  Hot, savory fresh clam broth is amazing, along with steamed corn and chicken (chef meat and fish variations include fresh sausage (gotta try mine), and of course our close friend Stacy who makes the absolutely best chowder!   When my family gets together, we easily finish off 70+ dozen clams,  making me really hungry just writing this!  The last of the season’s corn, local sweet potatoes, and lots of “slaw”. Then we like to top it off with a selection of local brews – spice, pumpkin and Oktoberfests, and I’m in heaven.  Of course, lots of crunchy bread and butter to soak up the goodness – followed by the slow crawl to the festive desert table. (hungry yet)  I came across this article by Annie Zaleski for thrillist.com and just had to share some of local history around “bakes”.  I have to humbly admit,  Cleveland clam bakes are the best!!   Enjoy, and please share your own recipes and traditions – I’d love to hear ‘em. skowalski@khtheat.com

  • A Cleveland clambake is unique and distinct in both process and composition from those held elsewhere. Instead of being prepared the New England way — on a beach or near water, using a sandy process involving fire pits, rocks, and seaweed — all of the components are thrown into one big pot and steamed together. And Cleveland’s variation is characteristically hearty: a dozen clams, half a chicken, an ear of corn, a sweet potato, rolls and butter, and coleslaw.
  • According to John C. Young, president of Euclid Fish Company, the Cleveland “big pot” approach has been the staple of area clambakes forever.  And he would know: his grandfather, chef John J. Comella, helped kickstart the clambake as we now know it by formalizing the menu and making the bakes more accessible and portable through the family catering business.  “We feel that my grandfather really said, ‘OK, here’s the clams, half-chicken, ear of corn, sweet potato, rolls and butter, coleslaw. Let’s put it all together.”  According to Young, his grandpa loved to cook, loved to talk about food, loved to talk about making people happy through cooking food … and helped supply a ton of “bakes” with churches and social groups throughout town.
  • By all accounts, Comella developed this passion early. He spent his childhood in San Francisco shadowing his own father, a fisherman and produce dealer. The family eventually moved to Cleveland; sadly, Comella’s father passed away when he was 12. The young man shouldered the responsibility to support his family during the Depression — first by selling waffles from a wagon, and then by peddling clams and oysters. Interestingly, his “first love” was actually baseball, Young notes: “[He] actually was going to play for the Indians, but couldn’t pull it off because his family was totally dependent on him.”
  • In 1944, Comella opened a market at E. 185th St in Euclid, OH, under the name Chef Comella’s Fish and Clambake Company. (This eventually evolved into the Euclid Fish Company.) For the chef, clambakes were a family affair. In fact, Young says his uncle (who’s also named John) remembers being at Comella’s house on Hiller Ave in 1944, “going up and down the steps, husking corn and washing clams” from the basement.
  • “When I was a kid, it was a real small house, but everything in the planet took place in that basement,” Young says. “Like a lot of Italian families, everything revolves around the basement, cooking, and with food.” Things started progressing outside of the house after World War II ended when Comella traveled to Toledo and bought some army surplus aluminum pots, which expedited the growth of the catering business.
  • Back in the day, seafood traveled by trains, originating in New York City and moving west through Great Lakes cities — Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, and eventually Chicago — where it would be re-iced. During certain eras, when shellfish such as clams and oysters arrived in Cleveland, they would often be directed to Lake County, where many of the city’s elite families had summer homes and would throw parties on Little Mountain.
  • Guys would bring out clams and oysters to Rockefellers and all the big-name people in town, because that’s what they were looking for during the summertime.
  • Still, pinpointing the exact moment when Cleveland clambakes became a Thing is tough. References to these types of events pop up in the Plain Dealer archives going back to the 1860s. On October 15th, 1866, an article titled “Great Clam Bake at Camp Gilbert: A ‘Running Account’ Of It” included everything from guests taking generous doses of cholera medicine in between artillery practice to the anonymous author being told a “history of clams and clam bakes,” hinting that the parties were already ingrained. His verdict of the day ended with the “firm opinion that clam bakes were glorious institutions.”
  • A Plain Dealer account of the following 1867 Camp Gilbert feast confirmed this characterization: the paper printed a gluttonous clambake menu featuring a staggering amount of seafood, meat, vegetables, and a spread of pies for dessert. A July 15th, 1878, article, meanwhile, references “a grand clam bake” in the works for September at a Euclid Ave house.
  • His verdict of the day ended with the “firm opinion that clam bakes were glorious institutions.”  In the coming decades, clambake references continued to appear regularly, both in the society pages and event listings. (From the September 25th, 1938, Plain Dealer: “Lindsay’s Sky Bar will have a musical clam bake on Oct. 6.”) They became favorites of local companies and political figures, as archival photos, papers, and letters at the Western Reserve Historical Society’s Research Library reveal.
  • Black-and-white photographs dated from 1941, 1945, and 1949 show employees of the Halle Bros. Co. (aka the now-defunct department store lovingly known as Halle’s) having a grand old time at a clambake while playing horseshoes or tug of war and chowing down on food. Posed shots reveal men in dress shirts looking raucous and slightly rumpled, perhaps because some of them were holding what looked to be adult beverages.
  • In light of such historical references, it’s no wonder that by the time Randall Ruhlman wrote his article for The Clevelander, a monthly magazine published by the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, in 1950, clambakes were popular enough for him to be cheeky about their ubiquity.
  • “Clam bake season, the period of the expanding belt line, has come to an end for 1950,” he wrote. “It’s a mighty important period in our scheme of living and it runs concurrently with the corn-on-the-cob season in these parts… The average businessman, trade association member, lodge brother, union member, butcher, baker and candlestick maker attend at least two or three clam bakes a season.”
  • More library research shows that these weren’t necessarily always sedate affairs. The October 1957 Cleveland Clinic newsletter touted its annual clambake sponsored by the professional staff — whose 100 attendees reportedly “devoured” more than 1,500 clams — like so: “Clams and clam juice, lobster, sweet potatoes, chicken, pie, ice cream and strained ligaments met 100 members of the medical and administrative staff on Saturday afternoon, September 14, at Cyrus Eaton’s Acadia Farms in Northfield. And, of course, a dignified amount of beer.”  (A separate letter written a few days after the bake by Jay, Eaton’s grandson, casually mentioned: “I am pleased to report that Mr. Becker, our only casualty, felt fine the next day and apparently did not have any serious problem. It was a great help to have Steve drive him into the hospital.”)
  • Naturally, clambakes in Cleveland could have their political inclinations, going by former mayor Ralph J. Perk’s papers at the WRHS Research Library. In 1967, the then-Cuyahoga County Auditor had a sizable election deficit from the previous year that he was trying to reduce by holding “card parties and other functions” — for instance, a clambake. The Friends of Perk Committee sent out hard tickets to the bake with a letter referencing how much he still had to raise ($9,887.50, down from $21,000) that also touted how Perk was “one of the few public officials in modern times who refuses to have a 2% kick-back fund from his employees to pay his expenses.”  (Apparently the strategy was brilliant: judging by the stack of responses from law firms, banks, and individuals, many people who regretfully couldn’t attend often donated money to Perk’s cause anyway and also sent back tickets — which could be given away to other people, especially senior citizens, so they could attend).
  • According to meticulous records, Perk kept up the clambake for years to come, and turned it into an annual fundraiser for his various political campaigns. In 1970, the Friends of Ralph J. Perk Committee sent out tickets with a not-so-subtle bit of messaging: “You will show your appreciation to Mr. Perk for his continuing devotion to public service and his excellent record as County Auditor by properly distributing the enclosed tickets to your many friends. If you desire more tickets they are available, and we will appreciate any additional effort to make this an even greater success than in previous years.”
  • And a 1971 bake in advance of his successful mayoral run was promoted with a more sanguine nudge: “As you know, Ralph Perk is a candidate for mayor of Cleveland this year, and the support of his friends is greatly needed in his campaign to bring experience and integrity back to this city.”
  • Today, Euclid Fish Company honors its founder by proudly selling Chef Comella’s Original Clambake, complete with a returnable steamer. But Young knows that clambakes are malleable — in fact, this year the company is also offering three different seafood boils: Low Country, Portland, and Mid-Atlantic. “People are kind of varying it as people’s tastes have changed,” he says. “I look at it as if [whether] you’re going to cook salmon or clams: ‘OK, what’s your taste? What do you like?’ It’s a blank canvas. Cooking is like art.”
  • Michael Symon has touted a (tasty) variation on a Cleveland clambake, which features shrimp and kielbasa in addition to clams. Andy Dombrowski, the corporate chef for Zack Bruell Restaurants, says the company did a “pretty traditional, straight-up” clambake at Platform Brewery back in August to celebrate the brewery’s Yammy Yammy beer, but Bruell’s Alley Cat Oyster Bar is planning a clambake in October which will utilize salmon in addition to the usual seafood offerings.
  • For most, it’s all about friends and family.  According to Dombrowski, the appeal of clambakes is obvious. “To me, a clambake is more of a backyard thing than necessarily a restaurant thing,” he says. “I think it’s a time to get together and have a party in the fall, eat and drink, and have a good time with your friends and family.”
  • It’s also ideal for a party since clams “hold up to being cooked,” he notes. “It’s not like something like a lobster or mussels or other kinds of shellfish, like shrimp, that if you cook them and they hang out for 45 minutes, they’re tough and not very good. Clams are fine — you dip ’em in butter, and they’re good to go.”
  • “It’s all about being outside,” Young says. It’s all about being with your friends, and all about enjoying food. I think that’s what my grandfather really believed in.”

Special thanks to the Western Reserve Historical Society’s Research Library. Sources used in the story include MS. 4456, Ralph J. Perk Papers; MS. 3913, Cyrus Eaton Papers.

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Partly Sunny

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

From air, thin air, and no air in space to land and sea. Huge amounts of weather data is collected then algorithms and humans make sense of it. And BAM!!!!!! It’s on TV (or an App) in a form we mortals can understand so we know whether to wear a coat or sunscreen when we go out or to bring an umbrella. Amazing stuff!!!!  :)))))  Please…read on.

If you know me, I’m an optimist.  I prefer “partly sunny” to “partly cloudy” and wake up every day looking on “the bright side”, anxiously tackling your PIA (pain in the @%$) Jobs!  Today’s no different, enjoying a gorgeous morning sunrise as I look out over the lake from my office. I’m also intrigued by something that impacts us every day – the weather.  What we do, what we wear, what we talk about.  As we move into Fall, the weather around here is changing – cooler in the mornings and evenings, great cloud clusters, a different “blue” sky, and sometimes a bit unpredictable during the day.  Throughout the Midwest, farmers are harvesting crops, boaters are bringing in their boats, fishermen are targeting streams as fish head home to spawn, games are won and lost in the wind and rain, and most of us are moving our summer wear to the back of the closet.  Through technology, we can just ask our smartphone – “what’s the weather today”, and we get instant, detailed hour by hour response.  I looked up some history and found out the Nation Weather Service formally began today, over 150 years ago.  Through each decade, with the steady advancement of technology, our ability to track and better predict weather grows stronger each year.  Here’s some fun facts and trivia to expand your knowledge, along with a couple nice tunes for the day.  Enjoy, and thanks to noaa.gov, Wikipedia and You Tube for the info and videos.

John Denver – Sunshine On My Shoulders
Aquarius (Let the Sunshine in)
Good Day Sunshine (Remastered 2009)

  • On February 2, 1870, the United States Congress passed a resolution requiring the Secretary of War “to provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent and at other points in the States and Territories…and for giving notice on the northern (Great) lakes and on the seacoast by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms.” The Resolution was signed into law on February 9, 1870 by President Ulysses S. Grant, and the precursor to the Weather Bureau and National Weather Service was born.
  • The new agency, called the Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce, was formed under the U.S. Army Signal Service. The new weather agency was placed under the War Department because “military discipline would probably secure the greatest promptness, regularity, and accuracy in the required observations.” Because of the long name, the agency frequently referred to it as the national weather service or general weather service of the United States.
  • The new weather agency operated under the Signal Service from 1870 to 1891. During that time, the main office was located in Washington, D.C., with field offices concentrated mainly east of the Rockies. Most forecasts originated in the main office in Washington with observations provided by field offices.
  • During the Signal Service years, little meteorological science was used to make weather forecasts. Instead, weather which occurred at one location was assumed to move into the next area downstream. The weather forecasts were simple and general in content — usually containing basic weather parameters such as cloud and precipitation.
  • The Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce remained under the Signal Service until 1891. On October 1, 1890, Congress voted to transfer it to the Department of Agriculture and renamed the Weather Bureau.
  • Weather forecasters in the Signal Service and early Weather Bureau years primarily used information from surface weather observations. The early meteorologists were aware that conditions in the upper-atmosphere controlled surface weather conditions, but technology had not advanced to the point of taking upper atmospheric observations.
  • Around 1900, the Weather Bureau began to experiment with kites to measure temperature, relative humidity, and winds in the upper atmosphere. Kite observations were taken intermittently from about 1900 to about 1920 with a kite network of stations established during the 1920s and early 1930s. These pioneers (yes, Ben Franklin) were the first to observe classical meteorological features which significantly impacted weather over the United States. By the early 1930s, kites were becoming a hazard to airplanes in flight, causing kite observations to give way to airplane observations.
  • In 1931, the Weather Bureau began to replace kite stations with airplane stations. The use of the airplane as an upper-air observational tool continued to expand during the 1930s. Airplanes were an expensive and dangerous way to obtain upper-air data. Also, it frequently was impossible to use airplanes during bad weather; the time when observations were most important.
  • The development of the radiosonde was a benchmark to operational meteorology. With the relatively inexpensive instrument, the upper atmosphere could be sampled routinely and simultaneously in both bad and good weather. The radiosonde was one catalyst which increased meteorologists’ understanding of the weather. Following the implementation of the radiosonde, the science of weather forecasting began to improve substantially and steadily. How it Works
  • One of the more important advances for the Weather Bureau was the advent of the teletype system. The forerunner of the teletype, the telegraph, served the early needs of the agency, but it was readily apparent that this system was labor intensive and not reliable. The system contained many vulnerable areas, any of which could result in an important warning not being received or a critical observation not transmitted.
  • The teletype was introduced in the Weather Bureau in 1928 and its use spread rapidly. Within two years, teletype circuits covered 8,000 miles, mainly in the eastern part of the country, and by the mid-1930s, teletype circuits covered over 32,000 miles.
  • While under the Department of Agriculture, aviation weather services of the Weather Bureau expanded rapidly. Initiation of air mail flights and the increase of aviation activity following World War I placed a large demand on the Weather Bureau for forecasts of flying weather. In 1919, daily flying weather forecasts were started primarily for the Post Office and military aviation, but the most significant advances occurred with the passage of the Air Commerce Act of 1926 which made the Weather Bureau responsible for weather services to civilian aviation, establishing a network of stations across the United States to take surface and upper-air weather observations.
  • As the Weather Bureau became more associated with the aviation community, it became apparent that the agency belonged in the Department of Commerce. On June 30, 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt transferred the Weather Bureau to the Department of Commerce where it remains today.
  • During the late 1940s and 1950s, the main contribution to Weather Bureau operations was in the area of radar meteorology and computer models of the atmosphere. The military gave the Weather Bureau 25 surplus radars which subsequently were renovated to detect weather echoes. Information gained from the operation of these radars eventually led to the formation of a network of weather surveillance radars still in use today.
  • With the development of computer technology during the 1950s the way was paved for the formulation of complex mathematical weather models to aid meteorologists in forecasting. The first operational use of these computer models during the 1950s resulted in a significant increase in forecast accuracy.
  • The Weather Bureau entered the satellite age in the 1960s. The first weather photographs from space in the 1950s actually were by-products of films made to record the attitude of rocket nose cones. However, following the launch of Explorer in 1958, the importance of satellites to observing the world’s weather soon became apparent.
  • Most early weather satellites were low orbit versions which viewed small and different sections of the earth’s surface. In the 1970s, geostationary weather satellites were launched which provided meteorologists with continuous observations over much of the western hemisphere.
  • In July 1970, the name of the Weather Bureau was changed to the National Weather Service. At the same time, the National Weather Service was placed under the National
  • Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within the Department of Commerce where it remains.
  • The 1970s saw considerable expansion of technology and automation throughout the agency, led by the development of the Automated Field Operations and Services system, or AFOS. AFOS was designed to bring the NWS into the modern era, using alphanumeric and digital displays to view weather maps and compose forecasts and warnings.
  • In addition, radar technology and capability continued to expand. The NWS deployed new WSR-74S/C radar across the nation, while the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, experimented with Doppler radar technology. The Next Generation Radar Program, commonly known as NEXRAD, would revolutionize the NWS’ ability to forecast several weather.
  • A super-outbreak of tornadoes in April 1974 was a turning point for the agency, spurring what became the most ambitious and successful transformation in the agency’s history: the Modernization and Associated Restructuring, or MAR. Planned in the 1980s and implemented in the 90s, the MAR modernized the agency’s observational infrastructure. NEXRAD, a new generation of environmental satellites, the Automated Surface Observation System (ASOS), and a new Advance Weather Information Processing System (AWIPS) to replace ASOS, were centerpiece technologies.
  • The MAR was completed in 2000, and forecast capabilities continued to improve through the beginning of the 21s Century. However, another super outbreak of tornadoes in 2011 — eerily similar to the 1974 outbreak in both scope and lives lost — was a stark reminder that even timely warnings are only as good as the action people take in response to them.
  • From the “Critical Conversations” that followed between NWS and its partners in government, the private sector and academia, the concept of Building a Weather-Ready Nation was born and a refocusing of forecasting efforts toward “the Last Mile” with Impact-based Decision Support Services. The key to creating a prepared, resilient nation is connecting forecasts to the life-saving decisions that allow communities to withstand them. IDSS is all about delivering forecasts to emergency managers and public safety officials to ensure these decision-makers make informed decisions and understand the impending situation based on expected impacts.
  • The Weather Research and Forecasting and Innovation Act of 2017 codified the IDSS approach into law, authorizing the NWS to provide IDSS across federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels of government for the purposes of public safety and disaster management. As the NWS begins its next 150 years, the agency and its employees remain focused on one enduring mission that has remained consistent throughout its history: protecting lives and property and enhancing the national economy.

Additional Reading:

  • In addition to the hotlinks incorporated throughout this story, we invite you to learn more about NWS’ storied history by exploring the entirety of the NWS Heritage website.
  • Also, visit HERE for detailed history by decades.
  • Latest satellite imagery around the globe.

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

 

WOW

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Since its’ completion in 1965, the Gateway Arch has been a must-see monument to our westward expansion. And an opportunity to have fun with photography & Photoshop. :)))))))))))  Read on and be sure to check out the video link at the end. It shows the ride to the top of the gateway arch in a tram which is a mix between an elevator, a tram and a Ferris wheel. And the gateway to the west museum. What an engineering marvel!!! What a country we live in!!!!!

Splendid.  Impressive.  Enormous.  Majestic.  I could go on.  Having just returned from the Fall ’21 Heat Treating Show in St. Louis, (special shout out to all my peeps who took time to visit Peggy and I at the booth – so nice to interact with other humans face to face the old school way) one thing that is stuck in my “so, how was the show” response is the famous St. Louis Arch.  It is really something.  Not only does it match up with my love of engineering and architecture, it also triggers my love of PIA (Pain In The @%$) Jobs! – think about that first meeting – “hey Gang, let’s build a curving stainless steel monument to America’s westward expansion, make it the tallest in the world, and design it using about 900 tons of materials.  Buy the land – check.  Make some drawings – check.  Hire some engineers and builders – check. Work really hard to finish a structure that’s 630 feet long that visitors can travel INSIDE and then see about 30 miles off in each direction – WHAT?  It’s so cool, during my stay I made time to go for a run around downtown St. Louis making sure to go around the arch – simply awe inspiring especially in the dark!  So, I just had to do some info digging and share with you.  Enjoy! Special thanks to traveltrivia.com, Wikipedia and for the info.

The Gateway Arch is a 190-metre (623 ft) monument in St. Louis, Missouri, clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch.  It is the world’s tallest arch and Missouri’s tallest accessible building.

Built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States and officially dedicated to “the American people”, the Arch, commonly referred to as “The Gateway to the West” is the centerpiece of Gateway Arch National Park and has become an internationally recognized symbol of St. Louis, as well as a popular tourist destination.

The Arch was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in 1947; construction began on February 12, 1963 and was completed on October 28, 1965 at an overall cost of $13 million (equivalent to about $100 million today). The monument opened to the public on June 10, 1967 and is located at the site of St. Louis’s founding on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

The search for an architect for a new monument at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial took the form of a competition. Among the 170-plus submissions received in the 1947 contest was a design from acclaimed Finnish-American Eriel Saarinen featuring a tall stone gate. His son Eero also entered.  Several months later, a telegram arrived at the Saarinen offices intended to inform Eero that he had made the shortlist; however, it was addressed to Eriel by mistake. Father and son celebrated a family success with Champagne. When the administrative error was discovered, they opened a second bottle and toasted Eero instead, as in the end, it was Eero’s design vision which resonated most with the judging committee.

You’ve probably seen photos where the arch looks taller than it is wide, but it’s an optical illusion. The arch measures 630 feet tall, and if you measure from leg to leg at ground level, that’s also its exact width. But because the shape of the arch draws the eye upwards and narrows as it rises, our brains don’t accurately process the dimensions, and we convince ourselves the arch is taller than it actually is.

The cross-sections of the arch’s legs are equilateral triangles, narrowing from 54 feet per side at the bases to 17 feet per side at the top. Each wall consists of a stainless steel skin covering a sandwich of two carbon-steel walls with reinforced concrete in the middle from ground level to 300 feet (91 m), with carbon steel to the peak. The arch is hollow to accommodate a unique tram system that takes visitors to an observation deck at the top.

The structural load is supported by a stressed-skin design. Each leg is embedded in 25,980 short tons (23,570 t) of concrete 44 feet thick and 60 feet deep. Twenty feet (6.1 m) of the foundation is in bedrock.

Saarinen’s monument is the centerpiece of Gateway Arch National Park, dating back to 1935, when the National Park Service created a space to represent Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a transcontinental United States and St. Louis’ role as a gateway for westward expansion. Jefferson believed the American West was worth exploring, and not the empty wilderness that some of his contemporaries believed it was. During his presidency, he secured the Louisiana Purchase and sent Lewis and Clark to map the Missouri River and find a way beyond the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean.

The original name for Gateway Arch National Park was the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. The arch itself came several decades later, constructed between 1963 and 1965. It stands between the Mississippi River and the Old Courthouse, where the landmark Dred Scott case was tried. The monument honors both Jefferson and Scott and is dedicated to “the American people” overall. Six themed exhibits trace key events in U.S. history from 1764 to 1965, celebrating America’s pioneering spirit and the impact of westward expansion on landscapes and communities.

The arch is engineered to resist earthquakes and sway up to 18 inches in either direction, while withstanding winds up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h). The structure weighs 42,878 short tons (38,898 t), of which concrete composes 25,980 short tons (23,570 t); structural steel interior, 2,157 short tons (1,957 t); and the 6.3mm thick grade 304 stainless steel panels that cover the exterior of the arch, 886 short tons (804 t). This amount of stainless steel is the most used in any one project in history – (they should have called me to do the heat treating!!)

The arch is a weighted catenary—as a chain that supports its own weight is purely tension – its legs are wider than its upper section.  The geometric form of the structure was set by exact mathematical equations provided to Saarinen by Hannskarl Bandel.  A hyperbolic cosine function describes the shape of a catenary. A chain that supports only its own weight forms a catenary; the chain is purely in tension. The catenary arch is the strongest of all arches since the thrust passes through the legs and is absorbed in the foundations, instead of forcing the legs apart.

To get visitors to the top of the arch proved trickier than first thought, as Eero Saarinen demanded a solution that would not alter its exterior appearance. Engineers considered elevators, escalators, and even a Ferris wheel, but none of those options were practical. Finally, Saarinen hired an elevator parking specialist named Dick Bowser and gave him just two weeks to come up with a solution. Bowser presented his idea of a custom-built tram, and the puzzle was solved.  Two separate trams operate independently, one inside each opposing leg of the arch, and take four minutes to reach the top. Each tram consists of eight pods and holds five passengers. These pods begin their journey horizontally, suspended from a track above. As the track turns vertical, the pod pivots to ensure passengers remain upright, rotating 155 degrees in total. The trams use a series of cables, counterweights, and other features to function safely.

Though proponents envisioned a project that would revitalize the waterfront and stimulate the St. Louis economy, the plans to build the Gateway Arch National Park were met with opposition. Much of the financing came from federal funds, but some felt the money could have been better spent improving the lives of the people of St Louis instead.

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt approved the plans in 1935, he set in motion a chain of events which would lead to what one city engineer called “an enforced slum clearance program.” Amid allegations of vote-rigging, the order was given to raze several blocks of riverfront real estate to the ground. They contained many small factories employing around 5,000 blue collar workers.

That wasn’t the end of the controversy. When World War II came, the site stood derelict for a decade. Later, when construction of an interstate kick-started the redevelopment, it initially isolated the park from the surrounding neighborhoods. The issue that wouldn’t be fixed until 2018, when the CityArchRiver project, dubbed the “park over the highway” came to fruition and finally provided a pedestrian link to downtown St Louis.

Several U.S. presidents have visited Gateway Arch National Park, including Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. However, security concerns prevent a U.S. president from actually ascending to the top of the Gateway Arch. (In the confined space of the trams, they’d be vulnerable, but an exception was made in 1967 for Eisenhower).

While construction on the arch was completed in 1965, it wasn’t until July 24, 1967, that the inaugural public ride on the north tram took place. The attraction was then still a work in progress; the south tram wouldn’t be completed until the following year, while the landscaping and the Museum of Westward Expansion were still several years away.

In November 1967, Eisenhower accompanied Dick Bowser to the top of the Gateway Arch, going against the wishes of the Secret Service. Even so, there were certain conditions attached to his rule-breaking journey. It couldn’t be an official part of his itinerary (that way details wouldn’t be published in advance) and he’d have to visit outside regular opening hours to avoid the general public. Eisenhower agreed — and who could blame him for not wanting to miss out on such an experience?

The Gateway Arch is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the world with over four million visitors annually, of which around one million travel to the top. The arch was listed as a National Historic Landmark on June 2, 1987 and is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

VIDEO OF THE ARCH, TRAM AND MUSEUM

Construction of the Gateway Arch, St. Louis program (1965) Grab a cup of coffee, this baby is 29 minutes long.

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

O-H

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Ohio State Alumni and Ohio State fans are literally everywhere in the world. And they never miss an opportunity to display their O-H-I-O. Gotta love ‘em!!!!  :)))))))))))))))))))

I – O.  For anyone who is part of the college, either as an alumni, fan, or observer, this makes all the sense in the world.  Having attended and graduated from another university a bit farther southwest, I can still call myself a Buckeyes fan.  History, tradition, passion and buckeyes (yep, I eat them too), most just can’t say enough about OSU – the only university in the country the has the word THE in its name.  Today marks the anniversary of when the school opened so many years ago, so I scoured the net and found some fun trivia.  100+ year history, touching millions of lives each year (60,000+ enrollment yearly).  Enjoy, and thanks to OSU and Wikipedia for the trivia.  Enjoy!

Classic
Ohio State Battle Cry 

  • The Ohio State University was founded in 1870 as a land-grant university in accordance with the Morrill Act of 1862 under the name of Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. Initially, it was thought that one of Ohio’s two existing public universities (Ohio University and Miami University YEA!) would be designated as the land-grant institution, and each engaged in a vigorous competition to win over the state legislature.
  • At the strong urging of Republican stalwart Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, however, it was ultimately decided to establish a new university to be located near the legislature in Columbus. Hayes’ role in founding the university is recognized in Hayes Hall (named after Rutherford, not Woody), the oldest building still standing on the campus.  Hayes later noted that the founding of Ohio State was one of his two greatest achievements—the other being Ohio’s ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment.
  • The school was originally situated within a farming community located on the northern edge of Columbus and was intended to matriculate students of various agricultural and mechanical disciplines. The university opened its doors to 24 students on September 18, 1873.
  • In 1878, the first class of six men graduated. The first woman graduated the following year.
  • In 1900, in light of its expanded focus, the college permanently changed its name to the now-familiar “The Ohio State University”. Ohio State began accepting graduate students in the 1880s, with the university awarding its first master’s and doctoral degrees in 1886 and 1890 respectively. 1891 saw the founding of Ohio State’s law school.
  • From its inception, a debate was waged between those in favor of broadening the university’s focus to encompass the liberal arts and sciences and those who favored a more limited focus. Governor Hayes viewed the selection of the university’s location as key to keeping the university free of excess influence by the state’s agricultural interests.
  • The (“broad-gauge”) faction was led by university trustee Joseph Sullivant. When the votes were completed, it had been decided to offer seven fields of study: agriculture, ancient languages, chemistry, geology, mathematics, modern languages, and physics. Only the ancient languages curriculum came down to a close vote, passing by a margin of 8–7. Later that year, the university welcomed its first class of twenty-four students, including three women.
  • Two factors in Ohio State’s formative years would hinder the university’s immediate development: Fueled by the agriculture interests and the Springfield business community that supplied them, the attitude of Ohio farmers towards the university had turned from one of indifference to one of outright hostility. By 1880, this hostility had begun to make its presence felt in the state legislature.
  • By 1891, Ohio State had grown to a degree that Governor James E. Campbell recommended a permanent levy on the tax duplicate to support its continued growth. The significant role that the fledgling university had begun to play within the state, as well as the peace that Hayes had brokered with the state’s agricultural interests, was underscored by the fact that the proposal passed without opposition despite the insistence of Ohio State’s board of trustees that neither Miami nor Ohio universities be included in the bill.
  • In 1906, Ohio State President William Oxley Thompson along with the university’s supporters in the state legislature put forth the Lybarger Bill with the aim of shifting virtually all higher education support to the continued development of Ohio State while funding only the “normal school” functions of Miami and Ohio University. Although the Lybarger Bill failed narrowly to gain passage, in its place was passed the compromise Eagleson Bill, which determined that all doctoral education and research functions would be the role of Ohio State and that the two older institutions would not offer instruction beyond the master’s degree level. This arrangement would stand for the next fifty years until population growth had necessitated additional Ph. D programs in the state.
  • 1912 saw the formation of Ohio State’s Graduate School to coordinate the university’s burgeoning master’s and doctoral enrollments. In 1914, Ohio State’s college of medicine was formed through a merger with Starling Medical College. That year also saw the founding of Ohio State’s School of Dentistry. In 1916, the board of trustees approved the formation of a College of Commerce and Journalism.
  • Subsequently, Ohio State’s solidifying of its role as the state’s flagship, comprehensive university was fairly rapid, as demonstrated by its 1916 induction into the prestigious Association of American Universities. To date, it remains the only public university in Ohio to be extended AAU membership.
  • This momentum was further accelerated by Governor Harry L. Davis, who in his 1921 inaugural address declared that, “In Ohio State University the commonwealth has an educational institution which should become the largest and best state institution in the United States. This is evidenced by the development of the institution in recent years, and I desire specifically to ask the co-operation of the General Assembly in the effort which I propose to make to help the Ohio State University to attain that goal in the not too distant future.” He subsequently shepherded a one-eighth of a mill tax levy through the legislature to fund a university building fund. Seventy-two percent of the funds were earmarked for the Ohio State University with the remainder split between Ohio University and Miami University.  By decade’s end, the university’s enrollment stood at 15,126 a more than fourfold increase from just twenty years prior.
  • With the onset of the Great Depression, Ohio State would face many of the challenges affecting universities throughout America as budget support was slashed, and students without the means of paying tuition returned home to support families.
  • By the middle thirties, however, enrollment had stabilized due in large part to the role of FERA (the Federal Emergency Relief Administration) and later the NYA (National Youth Administration).[6] By the end of the decade, enrollment had still managed to grow to 17,568. Two important initiatives were also begun during this decade. Each would come to play increasingly important roles in the university’s development up to the present time. In 1934, the Ohio State Research Foundation was begun to bring in outside funding for faculty research projects. In 1938, a development office was opened to begin raising funds privately to offset reductions in state support.
  • In 1952, Ohio State founded the interdisciplinary Mershon Center for International Security Studies, which it still houses. In 2003, the United States Department of Homeland Security decided to base the National Academic Consortium for Homeland Security at the university.
  • The bitter and sudden formation of Ohio State University in Columbus commenced a centuries-long conflict for funds ensue between the state’s oldest, established institution and the new agricultural and manufacturing university. In one incident, Ohio State attempted to use Ohio University’s federally trademarked name “OHIO” on its athletic uniforms; however, during the subsequent legal dispute, presidents of the two schools agreed Ohio State should not be permitted the use of that name on uniforms.
  • Presently, the university has reached the ranking of becoming a Public Ivy, as well as receiving high rankings and awards from many institutions, including U.S. News, Academic Ranking of World Universities, The Lombardi Program on Measuring University Performance, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and The Public Accounting Report.
  • The university now provides education to about 68,262 students each year in eight campuses throughout Ohio and is governed by President Kristina M. Johnson.
  • In 2019 Ohio State’s attempt to trademark the word “the” was turned down by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
  • When alumni travel throughout the world, they love to send back pictures showing the famous hand gestures spelling O H I O.
  • The Ohio State vs Michigan yearly football contest is considered by most to be the greatest rivalry in college sports.   GO BUCS!

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

King’s Awakening

/0 Comments/in , , /by

(top to bottom) Hurricane Ida from the International Space Station by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet. And Ida from Bourbon Street. Destruction. Flooding. Displacement. Rescue. Reconstruction. But the levees held. (Check out this brief documentary on the Lake Borgne Surge Barrier. An amazing structure and system.) And of course the t-shirts are available online. Only in America.   :))

Engineers.  They are amazing.  Take a problem – a big problem, like we often do here at KHTHeat solving your PIA Jobs (Pain in the @%$ Jobs!), spend time figuring it out, measure, test, remeasure, retest, and then design and build something.  Simple, right? But honestly, who ever came up with the idea of a working levee system?  Stopping flood waters from the Gulf all the way up the Mississippi. Uncontrollable forces, hundreds of square miles, utilities, people, buildings and equipment.  When Hurricane Ida made landfall in New Orleans last Sunday, the destructive storm surges buffeted a system of levees and other flood barriers that had been greatly fortified since Hurricane Katrina crippled the city in 2005. This time, the levees held, thanks to $14.6 billion worth of improvements to southeast Louisiana’s storm-risk reduction system.  Amazing.  I was catching up on my “newspaper” reading and came across a great article by WSJ contributor Ben Zimmer. On the word levee and just had to share.  Bravo to all the engineers out there – you are a special breed, and I’m honored to have a few amazing ones here at KHT Heat. Special thanks to linguist and lexicographer Ben Zimmer for the insights, You Tube for the music and Wikipedia for the extra info.  Enjoy! (and be sure to crank up the Zeplin classic – I think it’s a whole lot better than the original).

For your listening pleasure:
When The Levee Breaks by Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie  – (1929)
Led Zeppelin’s Version – (1971)

A “levee” is a raised embankment that prevents a river from overflowing. Unlike flood walls, which are typically made from concrete, levees are built up from earthen materials. Like the structure it names, the word “levee” is intimately connected to the history of New Orleans, going back to its founding as a French colonial city in 1718.

The site for the city was chosen in part because it stood on relatively high ground, with a natural embankment that could protect it from floods along the Mississippi River. French maps dated to the 1720s labeled this embankment “La Levée,” running along the Mississippi—or the Saint Louis, as the river was then known. An English-language map of the time gave it a wordier designation: “Bank to preserve the Town from the Inundation.”  (check out the number of rivers off the gulf back in 1700’s – HERE

‘Levy,’ meaning ‘to raise taxes,’ comes from the same French root as its sound-alike ‘levee.’ The French word “levée” literally means “a rising” and is formed from the verb “lever,” meaning “to raise.” Ultimately, it goes back to Latin “levare” meaning “to lift up” or “to make lighter”

“Levee” came to be used for other more ceremonial purposes. Since the French verb “lever” could also be used for getting out of bed, it got attached to a morning routine by King Louis XIV at the palace of Versailles, where royal subjects would be received in his bedchamber. (I can’t imagine meeting my customers in my bedroom??).

The word “levee” was soon extended to other distinguished assemblages of visitors throughout Europe, then exported to the New World for formal receptions held by colonial governors. To this day, Canada maintains the tradition of the New Year’s Day levee, a reception hosted by the governor general and other officials.

In New Orleans, meanwhile, the use of “levee” for a river embankment crossed over from the French language into English. In 1770, Philip Pittman, a British Army officer who surveyed the Mississippi River, wrote, “the town is secured from the inundations of the river by a raised bank, generally called the Levée.”

The main purpose of artificial levees is to prevent flooding of the adjoining countryside and to slow natural course changes in a waterway to provide reliable shipping lanes for maritime commerce over time; they also confine the flow of the river, resulting in higher and faster water flow.

Some of the earliest levees were constructed by the Indus Valley Civilization (in Pakistan and North India from circa 2600 BC) on which the agrarian life of the Harappan peoples depended.  Levees were also constructed over 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, where a system of levees was built along the left bank of the River Nile for more than 1,000 kilometres (600 miles), stretching from modern Aswan to the Nile Delta on the shores of the Mediterranean.

The Mesopotamian civilizations and ancient China also built large levee systems. Because a levee is only as strong as its weakest point, the height and standards of construction have to be consistent along its length. Some authorities have argued that this requires a strong governing authority to guide the work and may have been a catalyst for the development of systems of governance in early civilizations. However, others point to evidence of large scale water-control earthen works such as canals and/or levees dating from before King Scorpion in Predynastic Egypt, during which governance was far less centralized.

Levees are usually built by piling earth on a cleared, level surface. Broad at the base, they taper to a level top, where temporary embankments or sandbags can be placed. Because flood discharge intensity increases in levees on both river banks, and because silt deposits raise the level of riverbeds, planning and auxiliary measures are vital. Sections are often set back from the river to form a wider channel, and flood valley basins are divided by multiple levees to prevent a single breach from flooding a large area. A levee made from stones laid in horizontal rows with a bed of thin turf between each of them is known as a spetchel.

After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the Mississippi levee system, built up by the Army Corps of Engineers, came to encompass both natural ridges along the river and artificial structures made from piling up soil.

Levees only seem to attract national attention when they fail. That was the case in 1927, when the Great Mississippi Flood—one of the worst natural disasters in American history—put the word “levees” in headlines around the country. The flood also served to inspire the country blues song “When the Levee Breaks” by the husband-and-wife duo Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, released in 1929. “If it keeps on raining, levee’s going to break,” as the lyrics go. Four decades later, Led Zeppelin would reinterpret the song for the band’s fourth album.

While New Orleans was fortunate this time that the levees withstood the battering of Ida, the continued threat of flooding from storm surges will guarantee that “levee” remains part of the city’s lexicon, more than three centuries after its founding on a bend in the Mississippi.

WANT TO SEE VIDEO ON HOW THE LEVEE CHANGED IN NEW ORLEANS!

Overview

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Word

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

Benjamin Day (top right) gave birth to the newspaper business (top left) and jobs for a whole lot of kids (under Mt. Day) in the US.  And while we may get a whole lot of information online these days, there is still nothing quite like a newspaper in your hand and a cup of coffee on the table.  :))

Habit. Ritual. Insights. Knowledge. Need to know. Comfort. World events. Gossip. Sports.  Comics. And more. I don’t know about you, but there’s just something special about sitting down and reading the newspaper.  Comfy chair, check. Hot coffee, check. Good lighting, check. Paper, got it.  Growing up I can remember Mom and Dad …reading both the morning and afternoon papers religiously. I usually read the comics first, and sometimes the sports page.  As a business person, I never tire of the stories, editorials, other business stories, the “sporty page” and future predictions. I can remember when traveling back in the day “everyone” had a copy of USA Today – in the airport, on the subway and in the hotels, delivered right to your door.  Today marks the anniversary of the first newspaper published in the US back in 1833, along with a unique method of distribution (my daughter would call this “a clever target consumer user engagement strategy”).  Now, I know I can get more than enough news on my phone and computer – it floods my inbox 24/7 – but it’s just not the same. Good for headlines and a paragraph or two, but not the same.  For those who know what I’m talking about, drop me a line (skowalski@khtheat.com) and let me know your habits.  (I know this is “e” blog/email – if you would like a hard copy, let me know!!)  Enjoy.  And thanks to quintype.com for the info and YouTube for the music.

Music while you read: Eddie Fisher

Newspapers have been an integral part of people’s lives for nearly 400 years. From the initial handwritten notes, to the advent of the printing press, print media has come a long way.

The history of written news dates back to the Roman empire around 59BC. Back then, Rome was the center of the western world and was the hub of innovation – from grid-based cities to the invention of concrete, Rome was leading the way. Most historians credit the birth of the regular written news updates to the Romans.

Acta Diurna (which roughly translates to daily public records) which was hard carved news on stone or metal sheets, covering politics, military campaigns, chariot races (wonder if drivers went to pre-season training camp?) and executions (now that’s something to follow – ugh), was published daily and posted by the government in the Roman Forum. The Acta which was originally kept secret, was later made public by Julius Caesar in 59BC.

The history of the printed newspaper goes back to 17th century Europe when Johann Carolus published the first newspaper called ‘Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien’ (Account of all distinguished and commemorable news) in Germany in 1605. You can access some of the digitised versions from 1609 here. Europe was the hub of printed newspapers in the 17th with quite a few of them starting operations in German, French, Dutch, Italian and English soon after.

The first newspaper to be printed in India was the Hicky’s Bengal Gazette in 1780 from a printing press in Calcutta.

Newspapers have been integral to society in recent history and have had a significant effect in shaping our political views. The initial newspapers were expensive and hence read only by the privileged few. The rapid evolution of the printing press brought down the costs of newspapers and helped print a lot more copies at much lower costs.

With the advent of advertising in the 19th century, the cost of newspapers fell significantly and was well within reach of a much wider population. As the circulation grew, so did the ad revenues. These were the heydays of print media — they were the innovators in using illustrations and images in storytelling, in using telegraph and telephone for rapid sourcing of news from across the world and setting up widespread distribution channels to reach their audience. Most of the publications were hugely profitable and owned by wealthy individuals who used these mediums to spread their political views. (by comparison, Google’s ad revenue last year was $85 billion – not a bad model to follow).

The American newspaper business as we know it was born on September 3, 1833, when a twenty-three-year-old publisher named Benjamin Day put out the first edition of the New York Sun. Whereas other papers sold for five or six cents, the Sun cost just a penny. For revenue, Day relied on advertising rather than on subscriptions. Above all, he revolutionized the way papers were distributed, selling them to newsboys in lots of a hundred to hawk in the street. Before long, Day was the most important publisher in New York.

Newspapers have faced competition from other media vehicles in the past. First, In the 1920s and 30s, when radio adoption was growing, and organizations started broadcasting news over radio transmission. News over radio was almost immediately available rather than waiting for the next day.

And then, in the 50s television was a new device in western homes and became the primary medium to influence public opinion. The news formats on television were a lot more engaging when compared to print or radio. The concept of primetime was invented, and people were glued to their television sets between 8pm – 10pm to catch the latest political, sports and weather updates in their country, and across the world.

While both these mediums did have an impact on newspapers initially, print didn’t face any existential threat from either of them. In fact, newspaper circulation continued to grow as television got more popular and they were largely considered parallel media rather than direct competition.

However, the last 20-25 years have not been that accommodating to print media in general. The rapid rise of digital media on the back of the internet and smartphone penetration has had devastating effects on newspapers worldwide, but advantages too, as it takes about 500,000 trees to make enough paper for one day of newspaper production.

Today most people get their news on their smartphones (news sites, aggregators, social, search etc). The industry is certainly facing its toughest time in history, much like the 90s and early 2000s when photography was disrupted through the invention of digital photography devices.

Of the estimated five billion newspaper readers in the world, three billion read print newspapers. Readers looking for a break from screen time have also been known to subscribe to larger print content. In certain niches and industries might prefer print over digital; this could be due to the internet penetration level and the nature of the population.

The 57th annual World Newspaper Congress, held in Istanbul in June 2004, reported circulation increases in only 35 of 208 countries studied. The significant increase in numbers came from the developing countries, notably China.

Top newpapers in the US today remain – The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, followed by LA Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and New York Daily News

In order for democracy to hold its essence, people will always need access to information. With “media mogals” buying up more local and national newspapers, we often wonder how “fact based” newspapers are these days as the political voice has shifted. This is being accelerated as the switch from mass media to personalized information is changing the very nature of content consumption.  See charting HERE.

Best print cartoons of the week HERE.
See how The New York Times Is Made HERE.

One last comment: Regardless of your political beliefs we all need to demand a free – fair uncensored press!

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

DO YOU LIKE CONTESTS?
Me, too.
As you may know the Kowalski Heat Treating logo finds its way
into the visuals of my Friday posts.
I.  Love.  My.  Logo.
One week there could be three logos.
The next week there could be 15 logos.
And sometimes the logo is very small or just a partial logo showing.
But there are always logos in some of the pictures.
So, I challenge you, my beloved readers, to count them and send me a
quick email with the total number of logos in the Friday post.
On the following Tuesday I’ll pick a winner from the correct answers
and send that lucky person some great KHT swag.
So, start counting and good luck!  
Oh, and the logos at the very top header don’t count.
Got it? Good.  :-))))
Have fun!!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::