Jay Leno has a lot of old cars with a lot of obsolete parts. When he needs to replace these parts, he skips the error-prone machinist and goes to his rapid prototyping 3D printer. Simply scan, print and repeat. It’s an amazing way to fabricate parts. The 3D scanner next to Jay creates a digital model of this flanged nut from Jay’s EcoJet supercar. The nut takes 20 minutes to scan and reverse model and 3 hours to print in plastic. One of the hardships of owning an old car is rebuilding rare parts when there are simply no replacements available. My 1907 White Steamer has a feedwater heater, a part that bolts onto the cylinders. It’s made of aluminum, and over the 100-plus years it’s been in use, the metal has become so porous you can see steam and oil seeping through. I thought we could just weld it up. But it’s badly impregnated with oil and can’t be repaired. If we tried, the metal would just come apart. So, rather than have a machinist try to copy the heater and then build it, we decided to redesign the original using our NextEngine 3D scanner and […]
The number of US companies featured in a eminent business magazine’s annual list of the world’s top 500 global companies fell to its lowest level ever, Fortune magazine has said, while more Chinese firms appeared than ever before. Signaling the effects of the devastating financial crisis on the US economy, a non-US firm topped the list for the first time in over a decade, with Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell coming in first. The firm brought in 15 billion dollars (11 billion euros) more in sales than second place oil rival Exxon Mobil of the United States. China, Asia’s ever-soaring powerhouse economy, saw its fortunes rise across the board with a Chinese firm — oil giant Sinopec — appearing in the top 10 for the first time, the magazine reported Wednesday. Sinopec, also known as China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, supplies 80 some percent of China’s fuel. Overall, China had an unprecedented total of 37 companies featured on the list, with nine new entries and the others climbing in the rankings. The business publication meanwhile said US-based Wal-Mart Stores slid from last year’s top spot to third, with revenues of over 405 billion […]
WASHINGTON — After years of funding shortfalls, legal aid societies across the country are being overwhelmed by growing numbers of poor and unemployed Americans who face eviction, foreclosure, bankruptcy and other legal problems tied to the recession. The crush of new clients comes as the cash-strapped agencies cut staff and services. The nonprofit Legal Services Corp., which funds more than 900 legal-aid offices nationwide, says that the number of people who qualify for assistance has jumped by about 11 million since 2007, because of the recession. Roughly 51 million people are now eligible for assistance - individuals and families who earn less than 125 percent of the federal poverty level, now set at $27,564 a year for a family of four. The federal government budgeted an 11 percent increase in funding for legal aid this year. That increase, however, is more than offset by the growing demand for services and a recession-driven decline in state funding, charitable gifts and grants, which together traditionally make up half of legal service funding. That means that legal-aid programs will turn away roughly 1 million valid cases this year, advocates say, about half the requests for assistance they’ll receive. […]
WASHINGTON — Americans are getting heavier than ever, with more than 26 percent of the population now fully obese, the U.S. government reported on Wednesday. Despite warnings that the population must stop layering on the fat and frightening statistics that show two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, the weight trend continues, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. ‘The proportion of U.S. adults who are obese increased to 26.1 percent in 2008 compared to 25.6 percent in 2007,’ the CDC said in a statement. ‘If this trend continues we will likely see increases in healthcare costs for obesity-related diseases,’ said the CDC’s Liping Pan, who headed the study. ‘Obesity is a major risk factor for many chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes,’ the CDC’s Dr. William Dietz added in a statement. ‘As obesity increases among all age groups, we are seeing chronic diseases in much younger adults compared to a few decades ago. ‘For example, we now see young adults who suffer from heart disease risk factors and other conditions such as type 2 diabetes that were unheard of in the past.’ The agency used its Behavioral Risk Factor […]
AMSTERDAM — Chronic hunger may be ‘the defining human tragedy of this century,’ as climate change causes growing seasons to shift, crops to fail, and storms and droughts to ravage fields, an advocacy group said. Oxfam International released a report Monday as leaders of the Group of Eight wealthiest nations prepare to meet in Italy this week, with an agenda to include both food security and climate change. It says that as the weather changes, millions of people in areas suffering food scarcity will have to give up traditional crops, possibly leading to social upheavals such as mass migrations and conflict over water resources. Rich countries in temperate climate zones, such as northern Europe and parts of the United States, will benefit from warmer weather and more rainfall, but far more people in hotter, poorer countries will face more erratic and expensive food supplies, said the British-based nonprofit group. The report, ‘Suffering the Science: Climate Change, People and Poverty,’ was meant to add urgency to the G-8 meeting and to a broader group of 17 countries, the Major Economies Forum, which convenes later in the week to try to unblock negotiations on a new climate change […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
