City Readies New Tools For Superstorms

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Writer

Hurricane Jose didn’t end up hammering New Haven. But the city was ready with new 4,000-pound “bulk bags” just in case.

Chances are, the bags will be put into use soon when a different superstorm decides to sweep through the city and cause streets to flood.

In an interview, City Engineer Giovanni Zinn described new measures, like purchasing the bags, the city has taken this year now that climate change has made severe storms more common. And the city has been hustling to prepare. There have beensix floods in the last five years, including one conventional flood and two flash floods in May and June of 2014. Superstorm Sandy in 2012 cost the city well over $3 million to clean up.

As initial reports suggested that Hurricane Jose might veer closer to New Haven (than it ended up doing), top city officials huddled with the mayor this past Friday morning to chart storm prep — if not for Jose, for others in this season of tropical storms and then into the winter snowstorm season. Officials anticipate that we’ll be seeing higher sea levels, harsher hurricanes, and more frequent floods.

“There’s no question that certainly in the design of infrastructure and how we manage our infrastructure, climate change is a huge deal,” Zinn said during an appearance on WNHH radio. “We’re a low-lying coastal city. Our city drains by gravity —  all the pipes are pitched in a way to get down to the water. As that water

Article source: http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/infrastructure/

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Dragons’ Den viewers left shocked as Peter Jones makes five figure …

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Writer

PETER Jones shocked viewers on Dragons’ Den tonight, by offering up a five figure cash sum – despite choosing NOT to invest in a business.

Brothers Ben and Harry Tucker own a business which turns scraps from old aeroplanes into luxury furniture and bags.

Dragons’ Den viewers were shocked by Peter Jones’ unconventional offer in tonight’s show
The technology tycoon spent £10k on this chair – but chose not to invest in the company

Among their products was a £19,000 chair made from a plane engine – and it was this piece which really turned the technology tycoon’s head.

The siblings were after an £80,000 investment, in exchange for 10 per cent of their company, but their business model failed to impress in the den.

Which perhaps explains why new dragon Jenny Campbell looked quite so shocked when Peter offered those fateful words: “I want to make you an offer”.

But joker Peter went on to offer £1,000 for the chair, instead of the business investment the brothers were after.

Brothers Ben and Harry Tucker got a five figure cash sum and the sought-after handshake… but they didn’t bag the business investment they were after

Caught off-guard by the offer, one of the brothers explained

Article source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/4336194/dragons-den-viewers-shocked-peter-jones-offer-not-investing-business/

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aPriori Professional 2017 R1 Available

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Writer

CONCORD, MA, Sep 20, 2017 – aPriori, the leading provider of automated product cost management (PCM) software solutions announced that a new version of the company’s flagship aPriori Professional software is generally available. This new version of the software is designated as aPriori Professional 2017 R1.

aPriori Professional 2017 R1 provides manufacturability and cost driver guidance for additional manufacturing processes and expands the guidance available for those processes already available. Extended manufacturability and cost driver guidance helps engineers during the design phase understand the manufacturing impact of tolerances, identify areas of the design that may present manufacturability issues and evaluate features that are expensive / time consuming to make. Listed below are some of the key Design to Cost (DTC) highlights featured in the new version of the software:

  • DTC views are now available for die castings, sand castings, soft-tooled sheet metal components, and machined components analyzed in the 2-model machining process group.
  • The DTC view for plastic injection molded parts has been enhanced significantly to identify many additional manufacturability issues and cost drivers.
  • The DTC view for stock machining also has been enhanced to provide additional guidance related to potential manufacturability issues that inflate product cost.

aPriori Professional 2017 R1 also includes support for new processes and routings commonly found in the aerospace and defense industry verticals. Cost models have been added to simulate 3-roller-bending and 4-roller-bending processes, and the selection of roller-bending machines available in Regional Data Libraries. This will help customers accommodate estimating the cost for very

Article source: http://www.tenlinks.com/news/apriori-professional-2017-r1-available/

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Clean Energy Is America’s Next Frontier & Path to a Safer Climate

Posted on September 20, 2017 by Writer

This is part of a series of blogs on NRDC’s new report, “America’s Clean Energy Frontier: The Pathway to a Safer Climate Future”

NRDC’s new report, America’s Clean Energy Frontier: The Pathway to a Safer Climate Future, shows how the United States can meet our short- and long-term climate goals relying primarily on today’s proven clean energy solutions—and with tremendous climate and health benefits that far surpass the cost.

We can do it with a bold and rapid, but achievable, expansion of energy efficiency, renewable energy, electric vehicles and decarbonized buildings, all supported by a modernized grid. Plus, we don’t need to wait for breakthroughs—we can achieve our goals with the tools we already have.

By taking advantage of our nation’s vast renewable resources and reducing energy waste across the U.S. economy, we can slash our reliance on imported and dirty fossil fuels by at least 70 percent. And our ambitious, but feasible, build-out of clean energy also decreases our reliance on riskier or more costly strategies like nuclear power and biomass. The benefits of NRDC’s approach vastly outweigh the costs by 7 to 1—so we need to keep pushing forward—hard—on renewable, efficient, and electric technologies.

iStock

What we found

NRDC teamed with the internationally recognized Energy + Environmental Economics (E3) consulting firm to model how the U.S. can reduce total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80 percent by 2050. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Article source: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/vignesh-gowrishankar/clean-energy-americas-next-frontier-path-safer-climate

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Toys R Us Learns That The Free Market Isn’t All Fun And Games

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Writer

Competition: Almost exactly 20 years ago, a federal judge ruled Toys R Us had illegally used its market muscle to keep toy prices high. Today the company is filing for bankruptcy protection. In a free and open market, dominance yesterday guarantees nothing tomorrow.

Toys R Us once seemed like an unstoppable force. The number of stores in the U.S. more than doubled from 1987 to 1995, when it accounted for 20% of all toy sales in the country. People complained that it was driving mom-and-pop toy stores out of business.

It was seen as an international threat. In 1993, the Independent fretted that “in the eight years since the American-owned group transplanted its behemoths from the prairie to the U.K., Toys R Us has gobbled up more than 20% of Britain’s toy market.”

At the start of 1994, it announced plans to open 115 in the U.S. and abroad. The New York Times said it was “Building a Toy Empire.”

Then came the court ruling, and an order from the Federal Trade Commission to “stop engaging in illegal practices that keep toy prices higher and reduce choice for consumers.”

According to the FTC, the company had monopoly power in many local markets and “used its dominant position as a toy distributor to extract agreements from and among toy manufacturers to stop selling to warehouse clubs the same toys that they sold to other toy distributors.”

Despite all the government’s fretting about dominance and monopolies, the toy chain’s ability to control the toy market was always exaggerated.

Article source: http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/toys-r-us-bankruptcy-filing-shows-free-market-isnt-all-fun-and-games/

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New Release of Software Expands Design to Cost Capabilities Helping Engineers Identify Manufacturability Issues Early

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Writer

CONCORD, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–aPriori,
the leading provider of automated product cost management (PCM) software
solutions today announced that a new version of the company’s flagship
aPriori Professional software is generally available. This new version
of the software is designated as aPriori Professional 2017 R1.

aPriori Professional 2017 R1 provides manufacturability and cost
driver guidance for additional manufacturing processes and expands the
guidance available for those processes already available. Extended
manufacturability and cost driver guidance helps engineers during the
design phase understand the manufacturing impact of tolerances, identify
areas of the design that may present manufacturability issues and
evaluate features that are expensive / time consuming to make. Listed
below are some of the key Design
to Cost (DTC) highlights featured in the new version of the software:

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Darwin Simpson retiring from Spartanburg Downtown Airport

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Writer


Alyssa Mulliger Staff Writer @AMulligerSHJ

Darwin Simpson’s fascination with aircraft began as a child, fashioning model planes out of small sticks.

Simpson, now 74, has been flying airplanes for 53 years, including the one he keeps in a hangar at the Spartanburg Downtown Memorial Airport.

Nearly nine years ago, the retired U.S. Army general and former chemical company executive was approached about serving as the airport’s director.

His answer was simple – yes, because there wasn’t anyone else willing to improve it.

“I knew a lot about flying, and I knew a lot about government bureaucracy from my experience in the military, but I had really never run an airport,” he said. “I was sent to the airport to fix it.”

Simpson agreed to lead the airport for $1 annually in 2009.

At the end of this month, Simpson will retire from the post where he has worked tirelessly on projects to grow the airport as an economic asset in the city of Spartanburg.

Opened in 1927, the downtown airport was the first airport in South Carolina. Today, nearly 90 percent of airport operations relate to business, with about 10 percent relating to recreational flying, Simpson said.

As a general aviation airport, the downtown site caters to corporate jets, emergency medical transports, organ transplant program flights and cargo and military aircraft. The airport also assists with traffic watch, law enforcement operations, search-and-rescue missions and wildlife and forestry monitoring.

“I cannot emphasize enough how big of an economic machine that this airport is,” Simpson

Article source: http://www.goupstate.com/news/20170918/darwin-simpson-retiring-from-spartanburg-downtown-airport

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