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Lynx Optare Tempo FD54JYF, snapped in Hunstanton bus station and framed appropriately by trees in the park opposite

Walmart Credit Card Reader Debit cards scanner device. Pics by Mike Mozart of TheToyChannel and JeepersMedia on YouTube. #Walmart #WalmartCreditCard #WalmartCreditCardReader #WalmartCreditCardScanner #CreditCardScanner #CreditCardReader

Flashing rear-end device

"The flashing rear-end device, or "FRED," (also called an end-of-train device, ETD or EOT) is an electronic device mounted on the end of freight trains in lieu of a caboose. They are divided into two categories: 'dumb' units which only provide a visible indication of the rear of the train with a flashing red taillight; and 'smart' units which also send back data to the crew in the locomotive via telemetry.[1] They originated in North America, but are also used elsewhere in the world." - wikipedia

IR HDR. IR converted Canon 40D. Canon 17-55 F2.8 IS lens. Shot at ISO 100, F16, AEB +/-3 total of 7 exposures processed with Photomatix. Levels adjusted in PSE.

 

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

 

High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI) is a high dynamic range (HDR) technique used in imaging and photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. The aim is to present a similar range of luminance to that experienced through the human visual system. The human eye, through adaptation of the iris and other methods, adjusts constantly to adapt to a broad range of luminance present in the environment. The brain continuously interprets this information so that a viewer can see in a wide range of light conditions.

 

HDR images can represent a greater range of luminance levels than can be achieved using more 'traditional' methods, such as many real-world scenes containing very bright, direct sunlight to extreme shade, or very faint nebulae. This is often achieved by capturing and then combining several different, narrower range, exposures of the same subject matter. Non-HDR cameras take photographs with a limited exposure range, referred to as LDR, resulting in the loss of detail in highlights or shadows.

 

The two primary types of HDR images are computer renderings and images resulting from merging multiple low-dynamic-range (LDR) or standard-dynamic-range (SDR) photographs. HDR images can also be acquired using special image sensors, such as an oversampled binary image sensor.

 

Due to the limitations of printing and display contrast, the extended luminosity range of an HDR image has to be compressed to be made visible. The method of rendering an HDR image to a standard monitor or printing device is called tone mapping. This method reduces the overall contrast of an HDR image to facilitate display on devices or printouts with lower dynamic range, and can be applied to produce images with preserved local contrast (or exaggerated for artistic effect).

 

In photography, dynamic range is measured in exposure value (EV) differences (known as stops). An increase of one EV, or 'one stop', represents a doubling of the amount of light. Conversely, a decrease of one EV represents a halving of the amount of light. Therefore, revealing detail in the darkest of shadows requires high exposures, while preserving detail in very bright situations requires very low exposures. Most cameras cannot provide this range of exposure values within a single exposure, due to their low dynamic range. High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard-exposure images, often using exposure bracketing, and then later merging them into a single HDR image, usually within a photo manipulation program). Digital images are often encoded in a camera's raw image format, because 8-bit JPEG encoding does not offer a wide enough range of values to allow fine transitions (and regarding HDR, later introduces undesirable effects due to lossy compression).

 

Any camera that allows manual exposure control can make images for HDR work, although one equipped with auto exposure bracketing (AEB) is far better suited. Images from film cameras are less suitable as they often must first be digitized, so that they can later be processed using software HDR methods.

 

In most imaging devices, the degree of exposure to light applied to the active element (be it film or CCD) can be altered in one of two ways: by either increasing/decreasing the size of the aperture or by increasing/decreasing the time of each exposure. Exposure variation in an HDR set is only done by altering the exposure time and not the aperture size; this is because altering the aperture size also affects the depth of field and so the resultant multiple images would be quite different, preventing their final combination into a single HDR image.

 

An important limitation for HDR photography is that any movement between successive images will impede or prevent success in combining them afterwards. Also, as one must create several images (often three or five and sometimes more) to obtain the desired luminance range, such a full 'set' of images takes extra time. HDR photographers have developed calculation methods and techniques to partially overcome these problems, but the use of a sturdy tripod is, at least, advised.

 

Some cameras have an auto exposure bracketing (AEB) feature with a far greater dynamic range than others, from the 3 EV of the Canon EOS 40D, to the 18 EV of the Canon EOS-1D Mark II. As the popularity of this imaging method grows, several camera manufactures are now offering built-in HDR features. For example, the Pentax K-7 DSLR has an HDR mode that captures an HDR image and outputs (only) a tone mapped JPEG file. The Canon PowerShot G12, Canon PowerShot S95 and Canon PowerShot S100 offer similar features in a smaller format.. Nikon's approach is called 'Active D-Lighting' which applies exposure compensation and tone mapping to the image as it comes from the sensor, with the accent being on retaing a realistic effect . Some smartphones provide HDR modes, and most mobile platforms have apps that provide HDR picture taking.

 

Camera characteristics such as gamma curves, sensor resolution, noise, photometric calibration and color calibration affect resulting high-dynamic-range images.

 

Color film negatives and slides consist of multiple film layers that respond to light differently. As a consequence, transparent originals (especially positive slides) feature a very high dynamic range

 

Tone mapping

Tone mapping reduces the dynamic range, or contrast ratio, of an entire image while retaining localized contrast. Although it is a distinct operation, tone mapping is often applied to HDRI files by the same software package.

 

Several software applications are available on the PC, Mac and Linux platforms for producing HDR files and tone mapped images. Notable titles include

 

Adobe Photoshop

Aurora HDR

Dynamic Photo HDR

HDR Efex Pro

HDR PhotoStudio

Luminance HDR

MagicRaw

Oloneo PhotoEngine

Photomatix Pro

PTGui

 

Information stored in high-dynamic-range images typically corresponds to the physical values of luminance or radiance that can be observed in the real world. This is different from traditional digital images, which represent colors as they should appear on a monitor or a paper print. Therefore, HDR image formats are often called scene-referred, in contrast to traditional digital images, which are device-referred or output-referred. Furthermore, traditional images are usually encoded for the human visual system (maximizing the visual information stored in the fixed number of bits), which is usually called gamma encoding or gamma correction. The values stored for HDR images are often gamma compressed (power law) or logarithmically encoded, or floating-point linear values, since fixed-point linear encodings are increasingly inefficient over higher dynamic ranges.

 

HDR images often don't use fixed ranges per color channel—other than traditional images—to represent many more colors over a much wider dynamic range. For that purpose, they don't use integer values to represent the single color channels (e.g., 0-255 in an 8 bit per pixel interval for red, green and blue) but instead use a floating point representation. Common are 16-bit (half precision) or 32-bit floating point numbers to represent HDR pixels. However, when the appropriate transfer function is used, HDR pixels for some applications can be represented with a color depth that has as few as 10–12 bits for luminance and 8 bits for chrominance without introducing any visible quantization artifacts.

 

History of HDR photography

The idea of using several exposures to adequately reproduce a too-extreme range of luminance was pioneered as early as the 1850s by Gustave Le Gray to render seascapes showing both the sky and the sea. Such rendering was impossible at the time using standard methods, as the luminosity range was too extreme. Le Gray used one negative for the sky, and another one with a longer exposure for the sea, and combined the two into one picture in positive.

 

Mid 20th century

Manual tone mapping was accomplished by dodging and burning – selectively increasing or decreasing the exposure of regions of the photograph to yield better tonality reproduction. This was effective because the dynamic range of the negative is significantly higher than would be available on the finished positive paper print when that is exposed via the negative in a uniform manner. An excellent example is the photograph Schweitzer at the Lamp by W. Eugene Smith, from his 1954 photo essay A Man of Mercy on Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his humanitarian work in French Equatorial Africa. The image took 5 days to reproduce the tonal range of the scene, which ranges from a bright lamp (relative to the scene) to a dark shadow.

 

Ansel Adams elevated dodging and burning to an art form. Many of his famous prints were manipulated in the darkroom with these two methods. Adams wrote a comprehensive book on producing prints called The Print, which prominently features dodging and burning, in the context of his Zone System.

 

With the advent of color photography, tone mapping in the darkroom was no longer possible due to the specific timing needed during the developing process of color film. Photographers looked to film manufacturers to design new film stocks with improved response, or continued to shoot in black and white to use tone mapping methods.

 

Color film capable of directly recording high-dynamic-range images was developed by Charles Wyckoff and EG&G "in the course of a contract with the Department of the Air Force". This XR film had three emulsion layers, an upper layer having an ASA speed rating of 400, a middle layer with an intermediate rating, and a lower layer with an ASA rating of 0.004. The film was processed in a manner similar to color films, and each layer produced a different color. The dynamic range of this extended range film has been estimated as 1:108. It has been used to photograph nuclear explosions, for astronomical photography, for spectrographic research, and for medical imaging. Wyckoff's detailed pictures of nuclear explosions appeared on the cover of Life magazine in the mid-1950s.

 

Late 20th century

Georges Cornuéjols and licensees of his patents (Brdi, Hymatom) introduced the principle of HDR video image, in 1986, by interposing a matricial LCD screen in front of the camera's image sensor, increasing the sensors dynamic by five stops. The concept of neighborhood tone mapping was applied to video cameras by a group from the Technion in Israel led by Dr. Oliver Hilsenrath and Prof. Y.Y.Zeevi who filed for a patent on this concept in 1988.

 

In February and April 1990, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the first real-time HDR camera that combined two images captured by a sensor3435 or simultaneously3637 by two sensors of the camera. This process is known as bracketing used for a video stream.

 

In 1991, the first commercial video camera was introduced that performed real-time capturing of multiple images with different exposures, and producing an HDR video image, by Hymatom, licensee of Georges Cornuéjols.

 

Also in 1991, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the HDR+ image principle by non-linear accumulation of images to increase the sensitivity of the camera: for low-light environments, several successive images are accumulated, thus increasing the signal to noise ratio.

 

In 1993, another commercial medical camera producing an HDR video image, by the Technion.

 

Modern HDR imaging uses a completely different approach, based on making a high-dynamic-range luminance or light map using only global image operations (across the entire image), and then tone mapping the result. Global HDR was first introduced in 19931 resulting in a mathematical theory of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter that was published in 1995 by Steve Mann and Rosalind Picard.

 

On October 28, 1998, Ben Sarao created one of the first nighttime HDR+G (High Dynamic Range + Graphic image)of STS-95 on the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It consisted of four film images of the shuttle at night that were digitally composited with additional digital graphic elements. The image was first exhibited at NASA Headquarters Great Hall, Washington DC in 1999 and then published in Hasselblad Forum, Issue 3 1993, Volume 35 ISSN 0282-5449.

 

The advent of consumer digital cameras produced a new demand for HDR imaging to improve the light response of digital camera sensors, which had a much smaller dynamic range than film. Steve Mann developed and patented the global-HDR method for producing digital images having extended dynamic range at the MIT Media Laboratory. Mann's method involved a two-step procedure: (1) generate one floating point image array by global-only image operations (operations that affect all pixels identically, without regard to their local neighborhoods); and then (2) convert this image array, using local neighborhood processing (tone-remapping, etc.), into an HDR image. The image array generated by the first step of Mann's process is called a lightspace image, lightspace picture, or radiance map. Another benefit of global-HDR imaging is that it provides access to the intermediate light or radiance map, which has been used for computer vision, and other image processing operations.

 

21st century

In 2005, Adobe Systems introduced several new features in Photoshop CS2 including Merge to HDR, 32 bit floating point image support, and HDR tone mapping.

 

On June 30, 2016, Microsoft added support for the digital compositing of HDR images to Windows 10 using the Universal Windows Platform.

 

HDR sensors

Modern CMOS image sensors can often capture a high dynamic range from a single exposure. The wide dynamic range of the captured image is non-linearly compressed into a smaller dynamic range electronic representation. However, with proper processing, the information from a single exposure can be used to create an HDR image.

 

Such HDR imaging is used in extreme dynamic range applications like welding or automotive work. Some other cameras designed for use in security applications can automatically provide two or more images for each frame, with changing exposure. For example, a sensor for 30fps video will give out 60fps with the odd frames at a short exposure time and the even frames at a longer exposure time. Some of the sensor may even combine the two images on-chip so that a wider dynamic range without in-pixel compression is directly available to the user for display or processing.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging

 

Infrared Photography

 

In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Film is usually sensitive to visible light too, so an infrared-passing filter is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (the filter thus looks black or deep red). ("Infrared filter" may refer either to this type of filter or to one that blocks infrared but passes other wavelengths.)

 

When these filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, "in-camera effects" can be obtained; false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance known as the "Wood Effect," an effect mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow. There is a small contribution from chlorophyll fluorescence, but this is marginal and is not the real cause of the brightness seen in infrared photographs. The effect is named after the infrared photography pioneer Robert W. Wood, and not after the material wood, which does not strongly reflect infrared.

 

The other attributes of infrared photographs include very dark skies and penetration of atmospheric haze, caused by reduced Rayleigh scattering and Mie scattering, respectively, compared to visible light. The dark skies, in turn, result in less infrared light in shadows and dark reflections of those skies from water, and clouds will stand out strongly. These wavelengths also penetrate a few millimeters into skin and give a milky look to portraits, although eyes often look black.

 

Until the early 20th century, infrared photography was not possible because silver halide emulsions are not sensitive to longer wavelengths than that of blue light (and to a lesser extent, green light) without the addition of a dye to act as a color sensitizer. The first infrared photographs (as distinct from spectrographs) to be published appeared in the February 1910 edition of The Century Magazine and in the October 1910 edition of the Royal Photographic Society Journal to illustrate papers by Robert W. Wood, who discovered the unusual effects that now bear his name. The RPS co-ordinated events to celebrate the centenary of this event in 2010. Wood's photographs were taken on experimental film that required very long exposures; thus, most of his work focused on landscapes. A further set of infrared landscapes taken by Wood in Italy in 1911 used plates provided for him by CEK Mees at Wratten & Wainwright. Mees also took a few infrared photographs in Portugal in 1910, which are now in the Kodak archives.

 

Infrared-sensitive photographic plates were developed in the United States during World War I for spectroscopic analysis, and infrared sensitizing dyes were investigated for improved haze penetration in aerial photography. After 1930, new emulsions from Kodak and other manufacturers became useful to infrared astronomy.

 

Infrared photography became popular with photography enthusiasts in the 1930s when suitable film was introduced commercially. The Times regularly published landscape and aerial photographs taken by their staff photographers using Ilford infrared film. By 1937 33 kinds of infrared film were available from five manufacturers including Agfa, Kodak and Ilford. Infrared movie film was also available and was used to create day-for-night effects in motion pictures, a notable example being the pseudo-night aerial sequences in the James Cagney/Bette Davis movie The Bride Came COD.

 

False-color infrared photography became widely practiced with the introduction of Kodak Ektachrome Infrared Aero Film and Ektachrome Infrared EIR. The first version of this, known as Kodacolor Aero-Reversal-Film, was developed by Clark and others at the Kodak for camouflage detection in the 1940s. The film became more widely available in 35mm form in the 1960s but KODAK AEROCHROME III Infrared Film 1443 has been discontinued.

 

Infrared photography became popular with a number of 1960s recording artists, because of the unusual results; Jimi Hendrix, Donovan, Frank and a slow shutter speed without focus compensation, however wider apertures like f/2.0 can produce sharp photos only if the lens is meticulously refocused to the infrared index mark, and only if this index mark is the correct one for the filter and film in use. However, it should be noted that diffraction effects inside a camera are greater at infrared wavelengths so that stopping down the lens too far may actually reduce sharpness.

 

Most apochromatic ('APO') lenses do not have an Infrared index mark and do not need to be refocused for the infrared spectrum because they are already optically corrected into the near-infrared spectrum. Catadioptric lenses do not often require this adjustment because their mirror containing elements do not suffer from chromatic aberration and so the overall aberration is comparably less. Catadioptric lenses do, of course, still contain lenses, and these lenses do still have a dispersive property.

 

Infrared black-and-white films require special development times but development is usually achieved with standard black-and-white film developers and chemicals (like D-76). Kodak HIE film has a polyester film base that is very stable but extremely easy to scratch, therefore special care must be used in the handling of Kodak HIE throughout the development and printing/scanning process to avoid damage to the film. The Kodak HIE film was sensitive to 900 nm.

 

As of November 2, 2007, "KODAK is preannouncing the discontinuance" of HIE Infrared 35 mm film stating the reasons that, "Demand for these products has been declining significantly in recent years, and it is no longer practical to continue to manufacture given the low volume, the age of the product formulations and the complexity of the processes involved." At the time of this notice, HIE Infrared 135-36 was available at a street price of around $12.00 a roll at US mail order outlets.

 

Arguably the greatest obstacle to infrared film photography has been the increasing difficulty of obtaining infrared-sensitive film. However, despite the discontinuance of HIE, other newer infrared sensitive emulsions from EFKE, ROLLEI, and ILFORD are still available, but these formulations have differing sensitivity and specifications from the venerable KODAK HIE that has been around for at least two decades. Some of these infrared films are available in 120 and larger formats as well as 35 mm, which adds flexibility to their application. With the discontinuance of Kodak HIE, Efke's IR820 film has become the only IR film on the marketneeds update with good sensitivity beyond 750 nm, the Rollei film does extend beyond 750 nm but IR sensitivity falls off very rapidly.

  

Color infrared transparency films have three sensitized layers that, because of the way the dyes are coupled to these layers, reproduce infrared as red, red as green, and green as blue. All three layers are sensitive to blue so the film must be used with a yellow filter, since this will block blue light but allow the remaining colors to reach the film. The health of foliage can be determined from the relative strengths of green and infrared light reflected; this shows in color infrared as a shift from red (healthy) towards magenta (unhealthy). Early color infrared films were developed in the older E-4 process, but Kodak later manufactured a color transparency film that could be developed in standard E-6 chemistry, although more accurate results were obtained by developing using the AR-5 process. In general, color infrared does not need to be refocused to the infrared index mark on the lens.

 

In 2007 Kodak announced that production of the 35 mm version of their color infrared film (Ektachrome Professional Infrared/EIR) would cease as there was insufficient demand. Since 2011, all formats of color infrared film have been discontinued. Specifically, Aerochrome 1443 and SO-734.

 

There is no currently available digital camera that will produce the same results as Kodak color infrared film although the equivalent images can be produced by taking two exposures, one infrared and the other full-color, and combining in post-production. The color images produced by digital still cameras using infrared-pass filters are not equivalent to those produced on color infrared film. The colors result from varying amounts of infrared passing through the color filters on the photo sites, further amended by the Bayer filtering. While this makes such images unsuitable for the kind of applications for which the film was used, such as remote sensing of plant health, the resulting color tonality has proved popular artistically.

 

Color digital infrared, as part of full spectrum photography is gaining popularity. The ease of creating a softly colored photo with infrared characteristics has found interest among hobbyists and professionals.

 

In 2008, Los Angeles photographer, Dean Bennici started cutting and hand rolling Aerochrome color Infrared film. All Aerochrome medium and large format which exists today came directly from his lab. The trend in infrared photography continues to gain momentum with the success of photographer Richard Mosse and multiple users all around the world.

 

Digital camera sensors are inherently sensitive to infrared light, which would interfere with the normal photography by confusing the autofocus calculations or softening the image (because infrared light is focused differently from visible light), or oversaturating the red channel. Also, some clothing is transparent in the infrared, leading to unintended (at least to the manufacturer) uses of video cameras. Thus, to improve image quality and protect privacy, many digital cameras employ infrared blockers. Depending on the subject matter, infrared photography may not be practical with these cameras because the exposure times become overly long, often in the range of 30 seconds, creating noise and motion blur in the final image. However, for some subject matter the long exposure does not matter or the motion blur effects actually add to the image. Some lenses will also show a 'hot spot' in the centre of the image as their coatings are optimised for visible light and not for IR.

 

An alternative method of DSLR infrared photography is to remove the infrared blocker in front of the sensor and replace it with a filter that removes visible light. This filter is behind the mirror, so the camera can be used normally - handheld, normal shutter speeds, normal composition through the viewfinder, and focus, all work like a normal camera. Metering works but is not always accurate because of the difference between visible and infrared refraction. When the IR blocker is removed, many lenses which did display a hotspot cease to do so, and become perfectly usable for infrared photography. Additionally, because the red, green and blue micro-filters remain and have transmissions not only in their respective color but also in the infrared, enhanced infrared color may be recorded.

 

Since the Bayer filters in most digital cameras absorb a significant fraction of the infrared light, these cameras are sometimes not very sensitive as infrared cameras and can sometimes produce false colors in the images. An alternative approach is to use a Foveon X3 sensor, which does not have absorptive filters on it; the Sigma SD10 DSLR has a removable IR blocking filter and dust protector, which can be simply omitted or replaced by a deep red or complete visible light blocking filter. The Sigma SD14 has an IR/UV blocking filter that can be removed/installed without tools. The result is a very sensitive digital IR camera.

 

While it is common to use a filter that blocks almost all visible light, the wavelength sensitivity of a digital camera without internal infrared blocking is such that a variety of artistic results can be obtained with more conventional filtration. For example, a very dark neutral density filter can be used (such as the Hoya ND400) which passes a very small amount of visible light compared to the near-infrared it allows through. Wider filtration permits an SLR viewfinder to be used and also passes more varied color information to the sensor without necessarily reducing the Wood effect. Wider filtration is however likely to reduce other infrared artefacts such as haze penetration and darkened skies. This technique mirrors the methods used by infrared film photographers where black-and-white infrared film was often used with a deep red filter rather than a visually opaque one.

 

Another common technique with near-infrared filters is to swap blue and red channels in software (e.g. photoshop) which retains much of the characteristic 'white foliage' while rendering skies a glorious blue.

 

Several Sony cameras had the so-called Night Shot facility, which physically moves the blocking filter away from the light path, which makes the cameras very sensitive to infrared light. Soon after its development, this facility was 'restricted' by Sony to make it difficult for people to take photos that saw through clothing. To do this the iris is opened fully and exposure duration is limited to long times of more than 1/30 second or so. It is possible to shoot infrared but neutral density filters must be used to reduce the camera's sensitivity and the long exposure times mean that care must be taken to avoid camera-shake artifacts.

 

Fuji have produced digital cameras for use in forensic criminology and medicine which have no infrared blocking filter. The first camera, designated the S3 PRO UVIR, also had extended ultraviolet sensitivity (digital sensors are usually less sensitive to UV than to IR). Optimum UV sensitivity requires special lenses, but ordinary lenses usually work well for IR. In 2007, FujiFilm introduced a new version of this camera, based on the Nikon D200/ FujiFilm S5 called the IS Pro, also able to take Nikon lenses. Fuji had earlier introduced a non-SLR infrared camera, the IS-1, a modified version of the FujiFilm FinePix S9100. Unlike the S3 PRO UVIR, the IS-1 does not offer UV sensitivity. FujiFilm restricts the sale of these cameras to professional users with their EULA specifically prohibiting "unethical photographic conduct".

 

Phase One digital camera backs can be ordered in an infrared modified form.

 

Remote sensing and thermographic cameras are sensitive to longer wavelengths of infrared (see Infrared spectrum#Commonly used sub-division scheme). They may be multispectral and use a variety of technologies which may not resemble common camera or filter designs. Cameras sensitive to longer infrared wavelengths including those used in infrared astronomy often require cooling to reduce thermally induced dark currents in the sensor (see Dark current (physics)). Lower cost uncooled thermographic digital cameras operate in the Long Wave infrared band (see Thermographic camera#Uncooled infrared detectors). These cameras are generally used for building inspection or preventative maintenance but can be used for artistic pursuits as well.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography

 

A CBP Officer checks a vehicle with a device that allows him to see the contents of a vehicle gas tank to insure that the owner is not bringing contraband material into the U.S. Photo by James Tourtellotte

Many of us who fly regularly have most probably seen a so-called winglet or wingtip device at the end of the wing of an airliner at least once. It is showing up more and more often on more and more types of aircraft, thus we felt it’s time to give an overview to our readers about these sometimes funny, sometimes cool and stylish looking aircraft parts.

 

History, Reason and Benefits

 

The initial theoretical concept goes back to times before even the Wright Brothers first took to the skies in 1905, but it was picked up and developed by Richard T. Whitcomb of NASA after the 1973 oil crisis – in order to reduce fuel consumption. The first tests were carried out in 1979/80 in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force. At almost the same time, but independent of any U.S. military organization, a private jet producer, LearJet exhibited a prototype in 1977: the LearJet 28 that featured the first winglets on a jet and a production aircraft. Flight tests made with and without winglets showed that the winglets increased range by about 6.5 percent and also improved directional stability for the LearJet- these two factors are the major reasons behind using this facility at any fixed wing aircraft ever since. A winglet is a (near) vertical extension of the wing tips. The upward angle of the winglet, its inward angle as well as its size and shape are critical for correct performance – this is why they can look quite different. Air rotating around the wing strikes the surface of the winglet that directs it in another direction – thus creating an extra force, basically converting otherwise wasted energy to thrust. This is a small contribution but can save a lot for an operator in an aircraft’s lifetime. Another potential benefit of winglets is that they reduce the strength of wingtip vortices, which trail behind the plane. When other aircraft pass through these vortices, the turbulent air can cause loss of control, possibly resulting in an accident.

 

Winglet Types

 

In general any wingtips that not end the wing simply horizontally are considered as some kind of a winglet. Even though in strictly technical terms Wingtip Fences are not real extensions of the wing, and Raked Wingtips do not have a vertical part, they are still widely considered as winglet variants.

 

WINGTIP FENCES are a special variant of winglets, that extend both upward and downward from the tip of the wing. Preferred by European plane-maker Airbus, it is featured on their full product range (except the A330/340 family and the future A350). The Airbus A300 was actually the first jet airliner to feature this kind of solution by default, but it was a very small version of the tool. Provided that most of the Airbus planes (including all A320 family jets) feature such wingtip fences, this may be the most seen and most produced winglet type. Even the new Airbus A380 double-decker features wingtip fences.

 

BLENDED WINGLETS (the real “Winglets”) are the most popular winglet type, leveraged by Airbus, Boeing, Embraer, Bombardier but also by Russian Tupolev and Iljushin. Blended winglets were first introduced on the McDonnel Douglas MD-11 aircraft in 1990 with launch customer Finnair (it also features a smaller winglet at the bottom side of the wing). In contrast to Airbus who applies the wingtip fences by default on most of their aircraft (and the winglets on the A330/340 family), blended winglets are considered by Boeing for example as an optional extra feature on their products, except for the Boeing 747-400. For some of the older Boeing jets (737 and 757) such blended winglets have been offered as an aftermarket retrofit, these are the newer, tall designs and do not connect to the tip of the wing with a sharp angle, but with a curve instead. These winglets are popular among airlines that fly these aircraft on medium/long haul routes as most of the real fuel savings materialize while cruising. Longer flights mean longer cruising, thus larger fuel savings. And they also server as marketing surface for airline logos or web addresses usually.

 

Just recently the Boeing 767-300ER has received 3.4 m high (!) winglets produced by Aviation Partners Inc. with American Airlines as the launch-customer with Air New Zealand and Hawaiian Airlines following with orders of 5 and 8 aircrafts respectively. 141 shipsets have been pre-sold already as the forecasted fuel savings range around 4%-6% for medium/long-range flights. Airbus earlier tested similar blended winglets designed by Winglet Technology for the A320 series, but determined that their benefits did not warrant further development and they stayed with the wingtip fences instead. Aviation Partners Boeing claims that winglets on 737s and 757s have saved a collective 1.2 billion gal. of fuel since they were introduced and 11.5 million tonnes of CO2 while reducing those types’ noise footprint by 6.5%. It has sold winglets to 140 airlines and 95% of all 737NGs are fitted with them. It is working on four winglet concepts for the 777 and hopes to finalize a design for that aircraft type by December, 2008.

G-FBEN - 405E65 - FlyBe - Embraer ERJ190-200SR (19000213)

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

 

Some background:

The Lavochkin La-7 (Russian: Лавочкин Ла-7) was a piston-engine Soviet fighter developed during World War II by the Lavochkin Design Bureau (OKB). It was a development and refinement of the Lavochkin La-5, and the last in a family of aircraft that had begun with the LaGG-1 in 1938.

 

By 1943, the La-5 had become a mainstay of the Soviet Air Forces, yet both its head designer, Semyon Lavochkin, as well as the engineers at the Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute (Russian: TsAGI), felt that it could be improved upon. TsAGI refined earlier studies of aerodynamic improvements to the La-5 airframe in mid-1943 and modified La-5FN to evaluate the changes between December 1943 and February 1944 and proved to have exceptional performance.

 

Using the same engine as the standard La-5FN the modified aircraft had a top speed of 684 kilometers per hour (425 mph) at a height of 6,150 meters (20,180 ft), some 64 kilometers per hour (40 mph) faster than the production La-5FN. It took 5.2 minutes to climb to 5,000 meters (16,404 ft). Main change was the use of more lighter but stronger metal wing spars to save weight.

 

The La-5, as well as its predecessors, had been built mostly of wood to conserve strategic materials such as aircraft alloys. With Soviet strategists now confident that supplies of these alloys were unlikely to become a problem, Lavochkin was now able to replace some wooden parts with alloy components.

Combat trials began in mid-September 1944 and were generally very positive.

 

However four aircraft were lost to engine failures and the engines suffered from numerous lesser problems, despite its satisfactory service in the La-5FN. One cause was the lower position of the engine air intakes in the wing roots of the La-7 which caused the engine to ingest sand and dust. One batch of flawed wings was built and caused six accidents, four of them fatal, in October which caused the fighter to be grounded until the cause was determined to be a defect in the wing spar.

 

Production of the first aircraft fitted with three B-20 cannon began in January 1945 when 74 were delivered. More than 2000 La-7 aircraft were delivered before the war's end, and a total of 5753 aircraft until production ceded in 1946.

 

Still, the basic concept had more development potential, and as soon as March 1945 work on further improvements for the La-7 started, while in parallel a new type was under development - the La-9, which would enter prototype stage in 1946. An interim type was needed - and this became the La-7bis. It was based on the proven La-7, but already incorporated crucial elements of the future La-9, e. g. its laminar flow wing shape as well as an increased share of light alloy in the construction.

 

Overall, the La-7bis was tailored to higher operation altitudes than the standard La-7 and was intended to intercept high flying bombers and reconnaissance aircraft like the Ju 388. Therefore the interim type incorporated many small refinements and changes, most notably a bigger wing and fin area, a four-bladed propeller and a pair of new 23 mm Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 cannons which considerably improved firepower and weapon range.

 

The La-7bis was built in parallel to the standard La-7, but only at Zavod Nr. 99 in Ulan-Ude, where 433 aircraft were built until 1946. Only a few La-7bis reached the front units during WWII in time, and in Soviet service the type was quickly superseded by the La-9. Many aircraft were used in flying schools and training regiments, though, or quickly handed over to allies like China and Korea.

 

With these operators the La-7bis actively took part in the Korean War and remained in service until the mid-Sixties, when piston fighters were finally replaced by the highly successful MiG-15.

 

Even though a sub version of the La-7, the type received the separate Air Standardization Coordinating Committee (ASCC) code "Flake" as it was initially mistaken as a new Lavochkin type.

 

General characteristics

Crew: 1

Length: 8.89 m (29 ft 1 1/2 in)

Wingspan: 10,16 m (33 ft 3 in)

Height: 2.41 m (7 ft 11 in)

Wing area: 19.59 m2 (210.2 sq ft)

Gross weight: 3,315 kg (7,308 lb)

 

Powerplant:

1× Shvetsov ASh-82FN air-cooled 14 cylinder radial engine with a two-stage supercharger and

fuel injection, 1.380 kW (1.850 hp), driving a 4-bladed VISh-110V propeller

 

Performance:

Maximum speed: 680 km/h (422 mph; 367 kn) at 6.000 meters (19.685 ft)

Range: 665 km (413 mi; 359 nmi)

Service ceiling: 11.500 m (37.667 ft)

Rate of climb: 17.25 m/s (3.410 ft/min)

Time to altitude: 4.8 minutes to 5.000 meters (16.404 ft)

 

Armament:

2 × 23 mm Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 cannons, 150 RPG, plus 200 kg (440 lb) of bombs

  

The kit and its assembly:

This whif was a bit of a spontaneous use of a Hobby Boss La-7 kit, part of a kit lot, for which I lacked any good idea. Anyway, I always had an eye on kits for the more streamlined La-9/11s – and then the idea was born to convert the leftover La-7 into something that would come close to the later types.

 

Biggest surgery concerned the aerodynamic surface; everything was modified:

• Outer wings from a Matchbox P-51D

• Stabilizers from a Heller P-51D

• Fin tip from an Academy Fw 190A

 

Wings were cut just outboard of the landing gear wells, while the Mustang wings were cut at the 2nd machine gun. Depth fits surprisingly well, only the La-7’s trailing edge had to be adapted, but that only a small effort.

 

Another mod is the new, for-bladed propeller, scratched from the spares box, and I added some cockpit details and a pilot torso (the canopy was to remain closed). I also removed the original tunnel oil cooler and moved this device into the wings’ leading edges, for a cleaner fuselage.

 

For the same clean look I left away any ordnance. Actually, when all major parts were in place, I even considered to make a race aircraft (Reno Unlimited?) from the kit, since the Lavochkin looks really fast, but then I reverted to the military use option. A North Korean whif was still missing!

  

Painting and markings:

When I started building there was no clear idea which country should use the La-7bis – I did not want Soviet markings, though. After some search in the decal stack I found spare North Korean markings, and from there things unfolded naturally.

 

The odd paint scheme was derived from real Korean La-11 fighters – a kind of tiger stripe pattern, dull green over a grey background with pale blue undersides. I used Humbrol 64 (light Sea Grey) and FS 34096 from Modelmaster, and FS 35414 from Modelmaster, too, for the undersides. Later, these colors were shaded with lighter tones. A yellow fin tip is the only color marking.

 

North Korean roundels come from a Print Scale MiG-15 decal sheet, the tactical code comes from the scrap box; the fine silver trim around the cowling and the black stripe under the yellow fin tip are decals, too, from generic TL Modellbau sheets.

 

All interior surfaces were painted with Humbrol 240 (RLM 02, plus a black ink wash), and to add some Soviet style the wheel discs were painted in dark green. The panels on the fuselage flanks were painted in a Metallizer Mix of Steel and Titanium.

 

The kit received a light black ink wash, plus some soot stains around the cannons and the exhaust shields. Finally, all was sealed with Revell’s acrylic matt varnish.

  

In the end, the La-7bis looks like less work than it actually was - one can argue if the effort has been worth it? The major transplantations are hard to discern and you have to look at least twice to recognize the differences between a La-7 and the later La-9 and -11. But that was intended – subtle and unspectacular.

 

A smart meter is very common in our house. With this device, we can control our electricity consumption and can use electrical devices in a better way to reduce consumptions. It is no denying that we are using gadgets every second.

 

For more information please visit our site: www.filteremf.com

The is a photograph from the 13th running of the Fields of Athenry 10KM took place on St. Stephen's Day, December 26th 2014 at 11:00 in Athenry, Co. Galway, Ireland. Just under 1,200 participants finished the race today under the Medieval Arch in the town. The weather was certainly not for the faint hearted. With temperatures of about 3C and a biting wind mixed with rain participants had to endure a very very cold race day morning. Heavy rain during the previous night had seen some flooding on the road between 6KM and 9KM. Regardless of this, as always, The Fields of Athenry Road Race rose to the challenge.

This is one of the leading 10KM road races in Ireland. It is hard to believe that the race is "only" thirteen years old. It's superb organisation, atmosphere, and great race history gives it the characteristic of a race that is many years older. The credit for this goes to the wonderful athletics club in Athenry AC and the Race Director for 2014 Frank Burke and his team of volunteers. The attention to every detail in the race which this year attracted over 1,200 participants means that the race has earned it's stripes as one of the leading road races in Ireland. This year the race coupled with Athenry Tidy Towns Committee. A contribution from the proceeds from this year's race will be made to support the work of the Tidy Town Committee.

 

The race started at the Railway station and then took in a loop of the famous fields of Athenry where it turns left and begins it's return to the town, passing the soccer club, over the railway lines, and finishing under the medival arch in Athenry town for a fittingly atmospheric finish to the race. Race HQ is in the Presentation College in Athenry. Post race showers, prize giving ceremony, and refreshments were provided in the College after the race.

 

We have a very extensive set of photographs from this year's event. The link to the full set of photographs on this Flickr photostream is here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157649881213766. There are some photographs of the race start and photographs of the race finish from the 1st across the line until the 50 minutes finish time. It just got too cold to continue at this point.

 

Viewing this on a smartphone device?

If you are viewing this Flickr set on a smartphone and you want to see the larger version(s) of this photograph then: scroll down to the bottom of this description under the photograph and click the "View info about this photo..." link. You will be brought to a new page and you should click the link "View All Sizes".

  

Some useful Internet links

 

The Athenry AC Website: www.athenryac.com/

 

The Athenry AC Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/athenryac?fref=ts (Requires Facebook Login)

 

The official website for the Fields of Athenry 10KM 2014 Website: www.athenry10k.com (This also provides access to the complete archive of results for the entire series of Fields of Athenry races)

 

The Finish of the 10km under the Medieval Arch on Google Streetview: goo.gl/maps/O2Sv1

 

Our Flickr set from the Fields of Athenry 2013: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157639022727644/

Our Flickr set from the Fields of Athenry 2012: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157632343684441/

Our Flickr set from the Fields of Athenry 2011: www.flickr.com/photos/peterm7/sets/72157628575384797/

 

Éirefoto.com will have professionally taken photographs of the 2013 Fields of Athenry and other race events in Galway and Connaught over the year: http://www.eirefoto.com/sports.htm

 

Edenhill77 also posts photographs from road race events in Galway to Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/edenhill77/sets/

 

Garmin Connect GPS trace of the 10KM Race Route: connect.garmin.com/player/61755378

 

Wikipedia Page on 'The Field's of Athenry' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fields_of_Athenry

 

The defacto definitive version of the famous song as sung by Paddy Reilly: www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9InnXP64To

 

The fields of Athenry as sung by the fans of the Republic of Ireland soccer team at Euro 2012 against Spain: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdZqpYX9eNk

   

Can I use these photographs directly from Flickr on my social media account(s)?

 

Yes - of course you can! Flickr provides several ways to share this and other photographs in this Flickr set. You can share to: email, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Tumblr, LiveJournal, and Wordpress and Blogger blog sites. Your mobile, tablet, or desktop device will also offer you several different options for sharing this photo page on your social media outlets.

 

We take these photographs as a hobby and as a contribution to the running community in Ireland. Our only "cost" is our request that if you are using these images: (1) on social media sites such as Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter,LinkedIn, Google+, etc or (2) other websites, blogs, web multimedia, commercial/promotional material that you must provide a link back to our Flickr page to attribute us.

 

This also extends the use of these images for Facebook profile pictures. In these cases please make a separate wall or blog post with a link to our Flickr page. If you do not know how this should be done for Facebook or other social media please email us and we will be happy to help suggest how to link to us.

 

I want to download these pictures to my computer or device?

 

You can download the photographic image here direct to your computer or device. This version is the low resolution web-quality image. How to download will vary slight from device to device and from browser to browser. However - look for a symbol with three dots 'ooo' or the link to 'View/Download' all sizes. When you click on either of these you will be presented with the option to download the image. Remember just doing a right-click and "save target as" will not work on Flickr.

 

I want get full resolution, print-quality, copies of these photographs?

 

If you just need these photographs for online usage then they can be used directly once you respect their Creative Commons license and provide a link back to our Flickr set if you use them. For offline usage and printing all of the photographs posted here on this Flickr set are available free, at no cost, at full image resolution.

 

Please email petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com with the links to the photographs you would like to obtain a full resolution copy of. We also ask race organisers, media, etc to ask for permission before use of our images for flyers, posters, etc. We reserve the right to refuse a request.

 

In summary please remember when requesting photographs from us - If you are using the photographs online all we ask is for you to provide a link back to our Flickr set or Flickr pages. You will find the link above clearly outlined in the description text which accompanies this photograph. Taking these photographs and preparing them for online posting does take a significant effort and time. We are not posting photographs to Flickr for commercial reasons. If you really like what we do please spread the link around your social media, send us an email, leave a comment beside the photographs, send us a Flickr email, etc. If you are using the photographs in newspapers or magazines we ask that you mention where the original photograph came from.

 

I would like to contribute something for your photograph(s)?

Many people offer payment for our photographs. As stated above we do not charge for these photographs. We take these photographs as our contribution to the running community in Ireland. If you feel that the photograph(s) you request are good enough that you would consider paying for their purchase from other photographic providers or in other circumstances we would suggest that you can provide a donation to any of the great charities in Ireland who do work for Cancer Care or Cancer Research in Ireland.

 

We use Creative Commons Licensing for these photographs

We use the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License for all our photographs here in this photograph set. What does this mean in reality?

The explaination is very simple.

Attribution- anyone using our photographs gives us an appropriate credit for it. This ensures that people aren't taking our photographs and passing them off as their own. This usually just mean putting a link to our photographs somewhere on your website, blog, or Facebook where other people can see it.

ShareAlike – anyone can use these photographs, and make changes if they like, or incorporate them into a bigger project, but they must make those changes available back to the community under the same terms.

 

Creative Commons aims to encourage creative sharing. See some examples of Creative Commons photographs on Flickr: www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

 

I ran in the race - but my photograph doesn't appear here in your Flickr set! What gives?

 

As mentioned above we take these photographs as a hobby and as a voluntary contribution to the running community in Ireland. Very often we have actually ran in the same race and then switched to photographer mode after we finished the race. Consequently, we feel that we have no obligations to capture a photograph of every participant in the race. However, we do try our very best to capture as many participants as possible. But this is sometimes not possible for a variety of reasons:

 

     ►You were hidden behind another participant as you passed our camera

     ►Weather or lighting conditions meant that we had some photographs with blurry content which we did not upload to our Flickr set

     ►There were too many people - some races attract thousands of participants and as amateur photographs we cannot hope to capture photographs of everyone

     ►We simply missed you - sorry about that - we did our best!

  

You can email us petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com to enquire if we have a photograph of you which didn't make the final Flickr selection for the race. But we cannot promise that there will be photograph there. As alternatives we advise you to contact the race organisers to enquire if there were (1) other photographs taking photographs at the race event or if (2) there were professional commercial sports photographers taking photographs which might have some photographs of you available for purchase. You might find some links for further information above.

 

Don't like your photograph here?

That's OK! We understand!

 

If, for any reason, you are not happy or comfortable with your picture appearing here in this photoset on Flickr then please email us at petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com and we will remove it as soon as possible. We give careful consideration to each photograph before uploading.

 

I want to tell people about these great photographs!

Great! Thank you! The best link to spread the word around is probably http://www.flickr.com/peterm7/sets

  

That's OK! We understand!

 

If, for any reason, you are not happy or comfortable with your picture appearing here in this photoset on Flickr then please email us at petermooney78 AT gmail DOT com and we will remove it as soon as possible. We give careful consideration to each photograph before uploading.

 

I want to tell people about these great photographs!

Great! Thank you! The best link to spread the word around is probably www.flickr.com/peterm7/sets

  

TriPollar™ POSE™ - clinical skin tightening device for body

A new, clinically proven, non-invasive, at-home treatment for skin tightening, boosting collagen, contour the body and reduce stubborn fat deposit and cellulite. TriPollar™ POSE™ uses advanced professional TriPollar™ technology to help you refine, reduce and reshape your body in the comfort of your own home.

 

Device - Canon PowerShot A470

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

  

If you would like to purchase high-quality prints of this picture, please email me at thereganphotography@gmail.com to discuss sizes and pricing.

 

Photograph © by Regan Photography (2014). All Rights Reserved. This photograph should not be used on websites, blogs or anywhere for that matter without my explicit written permission.

when sky turns yellow

,-)

Better on L.

View On Black

Found this unusual security lock on a gate to some farmland. I have never seen one like this before so.........up came the camera and click.

Shot in RAW, which I do now, then I used two textures.

Thanks to Skeletal Mess: www.flickr.com/photos/skeletalmess/

 

I know I have been tagged and I will try to do something about that soon.

For my coming Jabba's palace I've built some technical device. I've made an instruction to see how I used some SNOT-techniques.

WORKERS ARE LOADING PROPELLANT DEVICE INTO TEST HOLE BEFORE THE TEST.

 

GAS IS OFTEN FOUND IN FORMATIONS WHERE PERMEABILITY OF THE ROCK IS SO LOW THAT THE RECOVERY OF THE GAS IS DIFFICULT. EXPERIMENTS ARE UNDERWAY TO MAKE THE ROCK MORE PERMEABLE BY FRACTURING IT. ONE METHOD OF FRACTURING ROCK IS A TAILORED-PULSE METHOD, THE GAS-FRAC CONCEPT, BEING DEVELOPED BY SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES. THE GAS-FRAC USES PROGRESSIVELY BURNING PROPELLANT TO PRODUCE INTERMEDIATE PRESSURE RATES WHICH RESULT IN MULTIPLE FRACTURES MAKING THE ROCK MORE PERMEABLE AND THE GAS EASIER TO RECOVER. A SERIES OF TESTS OF THE GAS-FRAC AND OTHER FRACTURING METHODS WAS CONDUCTED AT THE NEVADA TEST SITE IN CASED, HORIZONTAL BOREHOLES DRILLED IN ASH FALL TUFF. THE SITE PROVIDED BOTH REALISTIC IN SITU STRESS CONDITIONS FOR THE TESTS AND ACCESS TO THE TEST AREAS BY MINE BACK FOR OBSERVATION OF THE RESULTS. IN THESE EXPERIMENTS, THE GAS-FRAC TAILORED PULSE METHOD PRODUCED THE DESIRED MULTIPLE FRACTURES IN THE ROCK.

 

For more information or additional images, please contact 202-586-5251.

Facebook Group meeting at British Motor Museum, Gaydon

Schirmer Farms (Batesville) Operations Manager Brandon Schirmer, sprays defoliant on one of the fields at his father's multi-crop 1,014-acre farm, in Batesville, TX, on August 12, 2020. Mr. Schirmer has already contacted the Texas Department of Agriculture to let them know that he will be spraying a defoliant to promote the cotton plant's leaves to drop off and bolls to open in preparation for harvest approximately 14-days later. The plant remains alive and will continue to produce cotton unless the field needs to be replanted for another crop to improve soil health or for economic opportunity. The sprayer vehicle has location and system data that is accessed by a smart-device app. The app allows him to show authorities detailed records of what, where, and how much was sprayed. He uses this historical spray data to improve future harvests. The liquid concentrates are carefully measured and safely poured into the sprayer's mixing system. Once in the cotton fields, the sprayer with its 90-foot-wide spray arms will deliver defoliant to the plants just below the nozzles.

Schirmer Farms operates in consultation with an agronomist for science-based recommendations for all soil, crop, and harvest management.

Brandon Schirmer is the sixth generation of the Schirmer farming family.

USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.

In the globe shaped device under the seat is a high rpm spinning device. It dampens the boat's beam ends rolling.

 

A fellow spectator remarked that the $30K expense would be well worth it to keep his wife from getting seasick.

 

This crappy old cordless phone broke, so I took it apart. Not to make any attempt to fix it -- I haven't the first clue how -- just for the hell of it.

 

One interesting thing I discovered: the little "antenna" protrusion on the headset casing didn't actually contain the antenna at all. It's just cosmetic; the antenna was fully inside the unit.

This is the Guidant defibrillator that was implanted in May of 2003 after I survived an episode of cardiac arrest, Whew! It replaced my old pacemaker, and is a pacemaker/defibrillator, better known as an AICD, Automatic Implantable Cardiac Device. This device was removed and replaced with a new one on March 21st, 2007, the 1st day of spring. That device was replaced on January 4th, 2012.

For my coming Jabba's palace I've built some technical device. I've made an instruction to see how I used some SNOT-techniques.

Image d'un circuit intégré contenant le BIOS (Basic Input Output System) d'un ordinateur. Cette image a été réalisée à partir de 33 photos (focus stacking).

For my coming Jabba's palace I've built some technical device. I've made an instruction to see how I used some SNOT-techniques.

Nokia launches Eseries messaging device with mass market appeal

November 12, 2008

   

Nokia E63 joins the successful Nokia E71 to form a compelling QWERTY messaging device range

 

Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced the latest addition to its Eseries range, the Nokia E63, designed for people who need to manage their business and personal lives equally well. Building on the success of the Nokia E71, the company's flagship messaging device, the Nokia E63 brings the QWERTY keyboard form factor to a broader audience at a great price. The Nokia E63 is expected to begin shipping in the coming weeks for an estimated retail price of EUR 199, before taxes and subsidies.

 

Our research shows that people want a device that deals with both their personal and professional lives, but helps them to separate the two. When someone sits down at lunch, they want to update their social network or browse their personal email account and they don't want work getting in the way of that. It's another great case of technology adapting to the people that use it," says Soren Petersen, Senior Vice President, Nokia. "The Nokia E63 is a new proposition for Eseries - a messaging device where people will be just as involved in their social network as they are in their business network."

 

Whilst appealing to a new group of consumers with a design that feels great in the hand and has two new colors, the Nokia E63 is still very much a member of the Eseries family. Petersen continues, "People use Eseries to access their corporate mail, review their calendar and work in their business network, so the Nokia E63 still includes Wi-Fi connectivity, easy access to Mail for Exchange and dedicated key access to contacts, calendar and email."

 

The Nokia E63 also has the ability to switch modes with a single key press, switching from a view of corporate mail, appointments and intranet data, to a personal mode with a picture of friends, personal email and shortcuts to favorite hobby blogs or websites. Petersen adds, "The amazing response we have seen to the Nokia E71, which has very quickly become the best selling model in its category, let us know that we are heading in the right direction. People want a rich experience when using messaging, social networks and the Internet. With the Nokia E63 you can enjoy the web, update your status and work meaningfully with multiple email accounts."

 

The Nokia E63 also includes Files on Ovi, a service where people can get remote access to their PC files even when their computer is offline. Anyone buying the handset will have access to 1GB of online file storage for free.

 

The Nokia E63 will be available in ruby red or ultramarine blue with a range of multimedia features. Record and view images and videos with the digital camera and bright landscape display, listen to music downloaded from the Nokia Music Store, or a number of other sources, via the standard 3,5 mm audio jack or customize the device through the thousands of applications available for download.

 

europe.nokia.com/link?cid=PLAIN_TEXT_1158658

  

Schematic of Advanced Photon Source canted insertion device configuration. Credit Argonne National Laboratory.

Spokane Wa. River Park Pavilion.

Everything under the sun must be in tune.

IMHM has an extensive collection of medical artifacts in storage. Due to space constraints, you won't be able to see these artifacts if you visit the museum, but we wanted to share a behind-the scenes look at some of our more interesting items.

I picked up my pandigital novel 7 at Radio Shack on sale. My theory is that I could get a lot of uses from my computer similar to a tablet computer at an inexpensive "e-reader" price. The theory has thus far proven valid. I've been able to install a youtube application (though the instructions with the device suggested I could not), to install an app for my mog.com subscription music account, to install TuneinRadio which streams lots of internet radio, and to add Kindle and Kobo e-reader apps to the in-built Barnes & Noble Nook app. In addition to the SlideMe marketplace, I've been able to download apps from the Amazon marketplace. This little device has been a lot of fun, and very useful.

IMHM has an extensive collection of medical artifacts in storage. Due to space constraints, you won't be able to see these artifacts if you visit the museum, but we wanted to share a behind-the scenes look at some of our more interesting items.

the unique urban artwork of phlegm, found on a wander around Sheffield with Steven

 

You can appreciate the scale of some of his artwork from this shot. It's massive. It's wonderful.

 

please press 'L' and view it large in the lightbox

Connected devices in the modern cloud. Data is shared everywhere.

 

When using this image please provide photo credit (link) to: www.bluecoat.com/

A visit to the National Trust property that is Penrhyn Castle

 

Penrhyn Castle is a country house in Llandygai, Bangor, Gwynedd, North Wales, in the form of a Norman castle. It was originally a medieval fortified manor house, founded by Ednyfed Fychan. In 1438, Ioan ap Gruffudd was granted a licence to crenellate and he founded the stone castle and added a tower house. Samuel Wyatt reconstructed the property in the 1780s.

 

The present building was created between about 1822 and 1837 to designs by Thomas Hopper, who expanded and transformed the building beyond recognition. However a spiral staircase from the original property can still be seen, and a vaulted basement and other masonry were incorporated into the new structure. Hopper's client was George Hay Dawkins-Pennant, who had inherited the Penrhyn estate on the death of his second cousin, Richard Pennant, who had made his fortune from slavery in Jamaica and local slate quarries. The eldest of George's two daughters, Juliana, married Grenadier Guard, Edward Gordon Douglas, who, on inheriting the estate on George's death in 1845, adopted the hyphenated surname of Douglas-Pennant. The cost of the construction of this vast 'castle' is disputed, and very difficult to work out accurately, as much of the timber came from the family's own forestry, and much of the labour was acquired from within their own workforce at the slate quarry. It cost the Pennant family an estimated £150,000. This is the current equivalent to about £49,500,000.

 

Penrhyn is one of the most admired of the numerous mock castles built in the United Kingdom in the 19th century; Christopher Hussey called it, "the outstanding instance of Norman revival." The castle is a picturesque composition that stretches over 600 feet from a tall donjon containing family rooms, through the main block built around the earlier house, to the service wing and the stables.

 

It is built in a sombre style which allows it to possess something of the medieval fortress air despite the ground-level drawing room windows. Hopper designed all the principal interiors in a rich but restrained Norman style, with much fine plasterwork and wood and stone carving. The castle also has some specially designed Norman-style furniture, including a one-ton slate bed made for Queen Victoria when she visited in 1859.

 

Hugh Napier Douglas-Pennant, 4th Lord Penrhyn, died in 1949, and the castle and estate passed to his niece, Lady Janet Pelham, who, on inheritance, adopted the surname of Douglas-Pennant. In 1951, the castle and 40,000 acres (160 km²) of land were accepted by the treasury in lieu of death duties from Lady Janet. It now belongs to the National Trust and is open to the public. The site received 109,395 visitors in 2017.

  

Grade I Listed Building

 

Penrhyn Castle

  

History

 

The present house, built in the form of a vast Norman castle, was constructed to the design of Thomas Hopper for George Hay Dawkins-Pennant between 1820 and 1837. It has been very little altered since.

 

The original house on the site was a medieval manor house of C14 origin, for which a licence to crenellate was given at an unknown date between 1410 and 1431. This house survived until c1782 when it was remodelled in castellated Gothick style, replete with yellow mathematical tiles, by Samuel Wyatt for Richard Pennant. This house, the great hall of which is incorporated in the present drawing room, was remodelled in c1800, but the vast profits from the Penrhyn slate quarries enabled all the rest to be completely swept away by Hopper's vast neo-Norman fantasy, sited and built so that it could be seen not only from the quarries, but most parts of the surrounding estate, thereby emphasizing the local dominance of the Dawkins-Pennant family. The total cost is unknown but it cannot have been less than the £123,000 claimed by Catherine Sinclair in 1839.

 

Since 1951 the house has belonged to the National Trust, together with over 40,000 acres of the family estates around Ysbyty Ifan and the Ogwen valley.

 

Exterior

 

Country house built in the style of a vast Norman castle with other later medieval influences, so huge (its 70 roofs cover an area of over an acre (0.4ha)) that it almost defies meaningful description. The main components of the house, which is built on a north-south axis with the main elevations to east and west, are the 124ft (37.8m) high keep, based on Castle Hedingham (Essex) containing the family quarters on the south, the central range, protected by a 'barbican' terrace on the east, housing the state apartments, and the rectangular-shaped staff/service buildings and stables to the north. The whole is constructed of local rubblestone with internal brick lining, but all elevations are faced in tooled Anglesey limestone ashlar of the finest quality jointing; flat lead roofs concealed by castellated parapets. Close to, the extreme length of the building (it is about 200 yards (182.88m) long) and the fact that the ground slopes away on all sides mean that almost no complete elevation can be seen. That the most frequent views of the exterior are oblique also offered Hopper the opportunity to deploy his towers for picturesque effect, the relationship between the keep and the other towers and turrets frequently obscuring the distances between them. Another significant external feature of the castle is that it actually looks defensible making it secure at least from Pugin's famous slur of 1841 on contemporary "castles" - "Who would hammer against nailed portals, when he could kick his way through the greenhouse?" Certainly, this could never be achieved at Penrhyn and it looks every inch the impregnable fortress both architect and patron intended it to be.

 

East elevation: to the left is the loosely attached 4-storey keep on battered plinth with 4 tiers of deeply splayed Norman windows, 2 to each face, with chevron decoration and nook-shafts, topped by 4 square corner turrets. The dining room (distinguished by the intersecting tracery above the windows) and breakfast room to the right of the entrance gallery are protected by the long sweep of the machicolated 'barbican' terrace (carriage forecourt), curved in front of the 2 rooms and then running northwards before returning at right-angles to the west to include the gatehouse, which formed the original main entrance to the castle, and ending in a tall rectangular tower with machicolated parapet. To the right of the gatehouse are the recessed buildings of the kitchen court and to the right again the long, largely unbroken outer wall of the stable court, terminated by the square footmen's tower to the left and the rather more exuberant projecting circular dung tower with its spectacularly cantilevered bartizan on the right. From here the wall runs at right-angles to the west incorporating the impressive gatehouse to the stable court.

 

West elevation: beginning at the left is the hexagonal smithy tower, followed by the long run of the stable court, well provided with windows on this side as the stables lie directly behind. At the end of this the wall turns at right-angles to the west, incorporating the narrow circular-turreted gatehouse to the outer court and terminating in the machicolated circular ice tower. From here the wall runs again at a lower height enclosing the remainder of the outer court. It is, of course, the state apartments which make up the chief architectural display on the central part of this elevation, beginning with a strongly articulated but essentially rectangular tower to the left, while both the drawing room and the library have Norman windows leading directly onto the lawns, the latter terminating in a slender machicolated circular corner tower. To the right is the keep, considerably set back on this side.

Interior

 

Only those parts of the castle generally accessible to visitors are recorded in this description. Although not described here much of the furniture and many of the paintings (including family portraits) are also original to the house. Similarly, it should be noted that in the interests of brevity and clarity, not all significant architectural features are itemised in the following description.

 

Entrance gallery: one of the last parts of the castle to be built, this narrow cloister-like passage was added to the main block to heighten the sensation of entering the vast Grand Hall, which is made only partly visible by the deliberate offsetting of the intervening doorways; bronze lamp standards with wolf-heads on stone bases. Grand Hall: entering the columned aisle of this huge space, the visitor stands at a cross-roads between the 3 principal areas of the castle's plan; to the left the passage leads up to the family's private apartments on the 4 floors of the keep, to the right the door at the end leads to the extensive service quarters while ahead lies the sequence of state rooms used for entertaining guests and displayed to the public ever since the castle was built. The hall itself resembles in form, style and scale the transept of a great Norman cathedral, the great clustered columns extending upwards to a "triforium" formed on 2 sides of extraordinary compound arches; stained glass with signs of the zodiac and months of the year as in a book of hours by Thomas Willement (completed 1835). Library: has very much the atmosphere of a gentlemen’s London club with walls, columned arches and ceilings covered in the most lavish ornamentation; superb architectural bookcases and panelled walls are of oak but the arches are plaster grained to match; ornamental bosses and other devices to the rich plaster ceiling refer to the ancestry of the Dawkins and Pennant families, as do the stained glass lunettes above the windows, possibly by David Evans of Shrewsbury; 4 chimneypieces of polished Anglesey "marble", one with a frieze of fantastical carved mummers in the capitals. Drawing room (great hall of the late C18 house and its medieval predecessor): again in a neo-Norman style but the decoration is lighter and the columns more slender, the spirit of the room reflected in the 2000 delicate Maltese gilt crosses to the vaulted ceiling. Ebony room: so called on account of its furniture and "ebonised" chimneypiece and plasterwork, has at its entrance a spiral staircase from the medieval house. Grand Staircase hall: in many ways the greatest architectural achievement at Penrhyn, taking 10 years to complete, the carving in 2 contrasting stones of the highest quality; repeating abstract decorative motifs contrast with the infinitely inventive figurative carving in the newels and capitals; to the top the intricate plaster panels of the domed lantern are formed in exceptionally high relief and display both Norse and Celtic influences. Next to the grand stair is the secondary stair, itself a magnificent structure in grey sandstone with lantern, built immediately next to the grand stair so that family or guests should not meet staff on the same staircase. Reached from the columned aisle of the grand hall are the 2 remaining principal ground-floor rooms, the dining room and the breakfast room, among the last parts of the castle to be completed and clearly intended to be picture galleries as much as dining areas, the stencilled treatment of the walls in the dining room allowing both the provision of an appropriately elaborate "Norman" scheme and a large flat surface for the hanging of paintings; black marble fireplace carved by Richard Westmacott and extremely ornate ceiling with leaf bosses encircled by bands of figurative mouldings derived from the Romanesque church of Kilpeck, Herefordshire. Breakfast room has cambered beam ceiling with oak-grained finish.

 

Grand hall gallery: at the top of the grand staircase is vaulted and continues around the grand hall below to link with the passage to the keep, which at this level (as on the other floors) contains a suite of rooms comprising a sitting room, dressing room, bedroom and small ante-chamber, the room containing the famous slate bed also with a red Mona marble chimneypiece, one of the most spectacular in the castle. Returning to the grand hall gallery and continuing straight on rather than returning to the grand staircase the Lower India room is reached to the right: this contains an Anglesey limestone chimneypiece painted to match the ground colour of the room's Chinese wallpaper. Coming out of this room, the chapel corridor leads to the chapel gallery (used by the family) and the chapel proper below (used by staff), the latter with encaustic tiles probably reused from the old medieval chapel; stained and painted glass by David Evans (c1833).

 

The domestic quarters of the castle are reached along the passage from the breakfast room, which turns at right-angles to the right at the foot of the secondary staircase, the most important areas being the butler's pantry, steward's office, servants' hall, housekeeper's room, still room, housekeeper's store and housemaids' tower, while the kitchen (with its cast-iron range flanked by large and hygienic vertical slabs of Penrhyn slate) is housed on the lower ground floor. From this kitchen court, which also includes a coal store, oil vaults, brushing room, lamp room, pastry room, larder, scullery and laundry are reached the outer court with its soup kitchen, brewhouse and 2-storey ice tower and the much larger stables court which, along with the stables themselves containing their extensive slate-partitioned stalls and loose boxes, incorporates the coach house, covered ride, smithy tower, dung tower with gardeners' messroom above and footmen's tower.

 

Reasons for Listing

 

Included at Grade I as one of the most important large country houses in Wales; a superb example of the relatively short-lived Norman Revival of the early C19 and generally regarded as the masterpiece of its architect, Thomas Hopper.

  

Victorian Kitchens

 

Pastry Room

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This unique healing device has two parts: a two inch thick dome of pure crystalline Himalayan Pink Salt and a hand-crafted rosewood base that both supports the salt dome and houses two small light bulbs.

Please scroll down at page`s end for product pictures

 

Himalayan salt works in a number of ways:

When the Himalayan Salt Detoxer is warmed, the salt helps release negative ions that are anti-microbial, air purifying, skin purifying and that promote a sense of well being. Purifying the air by binding positive ions helps dust and allergens to settle.

The warmth of the stone causes the feet to sweat, allowing the salt to purify and cleanse. Toxins are pulled out and minerals pulled in, thus decreasing unhealthy acidity. This also helps ease tiredness, aching, and symptoms of stress caused by over-exertion.

As well, the Himalayan Salt Detoxer softens and gently exfoliates the skin as it binds with the salt through the moisture on the hands and feet.

It is the source of many vital nutrients. Himalayan salt can contain as many as 84 natural minerals vital to health that can be absorbed through the skin.

 

The Himalayan Salt Detoxer helps to re-attune the body to the Schumann resonance, sometimes called the heart beat of Mother Earth which helps ease nervousness, insomnia and lack of concentration while helping to clear cancer causing free radicals from the body.

 

How to Use the Himalayan Crystal Salt Detoxer

The Himalayan Salt Detoxer is used for foot detoxification, localized skin care treatments, manicures and pedicures, among many uses. For instance, some people use it:

For manicures or pedicures. Rest one hand or foot on the Himalayan Salt Detoxer while attending to the other hand or foot.

 

To re-invigorate tired feet and legs after work or exercise.

 

To lessen the pain of carpal tunnel or arthritic conditions.

 

How Long the Himalayan Salt Detoxer Should Be Used for Each Session?

Initially we recommend 10 to 20 minute sessions. When this is comfortable, an individual may progress to 30 minutes to a maximum of 60 minutes. It can be used for one long session or for a few shorter sessions during the day. Please discontinue use if there is any discomfort.

How Do I Turn It On and Adjust the Temperature?

Heat is controlled by using the UL-approved dimmer switch. Before using the Himalayan Salt Detoxer turn the dial on the dimmer switch to the maximum level for 10-20 minutes. Then, once the salt is a comfortable temperature, turn the switch back to the mid-point. Periodic temperature adjustment of the unit, by rotating the dimmer control switch up or down, may be needed. This will maintain the preferred level of warmth. Salt is a temperature sink (which means it holds heat very well), but temperature changes are not immediate so please take care, especially if you feel the dome is too hot. Even when removed from the base it will feel warm for a number of minutes.

Are There Any Precautions Before I Begin to Use the Himalayan Salt Detoxer?

We firmly believe in the benefits of the Himalayan Salt Detoxer, but we make no medical claims to cure, treat or prevent any kind of disease. Before using the Himalayan Salt Detoxer please seek appropriate medical advice if you have symptoms that are of concern. Such concerns may include:

Pregnancy

Already being under medical supervision

Currently taking medication for a pre-existing condition

Are diabetic or have diminished sensation in your feet

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please do not use a very wet cloth as this will dissolve the salt gradually or cause it to crack.

What Should I Do If the Salt Surface Starts to Look “Crusty”?

This is usually due to the surface getting damp either from the moisture content in the air, from a hand or foot that has touched the surface or from water droplets that have gone undetected. To prevent “crusting”, the Himalayan Salt Detoxer should be wrapped in a plastic bag then sealed OR kept lit on low when not in use. To repair moisture damage, wipe off the crumbly salt and put the Detoxer on high for 30 minutes to make sure it is thoroughly dry.

For your safety:

Use only for hands or feet.

 

Never stand, sit on or apply full body weight to the Himalayan Salt Detoxer equipment.

 

Do not use if the dome is cracked or split.

Discontinue use and seek medical attention if your skin swells or becomes inflamed.

Keep away from water and places where the salt surface may come into contact with water.

Never use when the cord or plug is damaged.

If you are pregnant, under medical supervision, or taking medication, consult your physician before using the Himalayan Salt Detoxer . Not recommended for use by diabetics.

Disclaimer: We do not make any diagnosis or give medical recommendations. These products are not intended to cure heal or prevent diseases. Consulting with doctor is always recommended.

 

________________________________________________________

Himalayan salt rock detoxification blocks. If you’ve tried the detoxifying pads, you know they can be very expensive. This is not only a cost saving alternative, because the salt crystal blocks have anti-bacterial properties, the whole family can use them for a healthier body.

* Warm the salt block using one of the following method.

1. Oven: 200 degrees for 5 minutes

2. Microwave: 30 seconds with 5 seconds increments to achieve desired temperature

* Place a towel on the floor and put the blocks side-by-side on top of the towel.

* As you can sit down in a comfortable chair, rest your bare feet directly on the salt block.

* 15 minutes treatment is all that is needed. Repeat once daily, as desired.

Cleaning

Simply wipe the Himalayan Salt Block with the towel that the Salt Block rests on. No additional cleaning is required, since these salt blocks are antiseptic and hypo-allergenic.

Caution

Use caution when warming the Himalayan Salt Blocks. Test the temperature of the salt block prior to use. If temperature is too hot set the bock aside for 15-20 minutes to cool. Repeat this procedure as necessary. Do not allow children to use this product without adult supervision.

Each foot-shaped block comes in a terrycloth sock; the set arrives in a cotton canvas carrying case with zipper top and handles. Each block is 4 ½” wide, 11″ long, 1″ thick.

If you are pregnant, under medical supervision, or taking medication, consult your physician before using the Himalayan Salt Detoxer . Not recommended for use by diabetics.

Disclaimer: We do not make any diagnosis or give medical recommendations. These products are not intended to cure heal or prevent diseases. Consulting with doctor is always recommended.

The water heater is certainly a device that comes in handy during the colder months, or when you have just recovered from a fever and aren’t yet ready to take the plunge-literally or figuratively to a full cold water bath. It’s also a device that requires some level of maintenance. And owing to ...

 

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Microchip's OS81118 is the first MOST150 Intelligent Network Interface Controller (INIC) with a USB 2.0 high-speed device port and an integrated coax transceiver.

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The image of stethoscope isolated on white background

 

You can find and purchase/license this image and other my images at high resolution at microstosk agencies.

 

See links to my portfolios on my homepage: skobrik.com

San Francisco, CA - October 2017

Preventing deception is the job of anti-counterfeiting devices like the transparent window in the (all-plastic) Australian 10-dollar bill.

 

For Macro Mondays "deception" challenge.

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