A new material controlled by light may help scientists build better soft-bodied robots.
The developers of the gel say they were inspired by the way a plant grows to face the sunlight. Unlike plants, though, the gel can be made to flex and move almost instantaneously.
The UC Berkeley scientists created the gel using graphene and a synthetic protein similar to elastin, which is found in humans' blood vessels, skin and more.
The synthetic elastin, created from genetically engineered bacteria, absorbs water at room temperature, but at higher temperatures it expels the water and shrinks. [Read also: " Soft Robots Make World Safer for Humans"]
Graphene produces heat when exposed to near-infrared light. Together, the two materials make a light-controlled gel, said professor Seung-Wuk Lee of UC Berkeley's department of bioengineering. "The graphene is heated by the light, and then the elastin is responding to the heat induced by the light."
By making parts of the new gel less porous, the team could control how the material bends. The more porous side absorbed and expelled water faster, making the material shrink unevenly, which resulted in a gel that could bend in a predictable, repeatable way.
The material by itself ? which Lee and his team have only thus far assembled into tiny structures ? does not a robot make. So far, the "robots" built include a 0.4-inch (1 cm) "worm" that crawls when exposed to the infrared laser, and a roughly 0.8-inch (2 cm) hand that bends its fingers. But the proof of concept could someday be used to build complex robots, such as one that's shaped like and moves like an octopus, Lee said.
The octopus example is an apt one. For now, since the new material needs to absorb and expel water to flex and stretch, the experiments with the material were conducted while it was submerged.
If octobots seem farfetched, Lee suggests that the new material could be used for drug delivery. Perhaps the material could soak up a liquid drug, injected into a patient's bloodstream, and then squeezed out of the material's pores at the right place. Since infrared light penetrates skin, it's not impossible to imagine in the future.
Or, Lee said, why not use the shape-changing gel as a replacement for lost limbs? "We could replace our tissues" with a light-controlled gel, he said.
The study was published in the journal Nano Letters earlier this month.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Pictured L-R: Auralex? Acoustics Director of Operations Andy Symons, CEO Mark Henderson, and Director of Sales David Brune.
Auralex Acoustics, Inc. has announced several recent additions to its leadership team. The announcement was made by Auralex Founder and President Eric Smith and underscores Auralex?s ongoing global expansion.
Mark Henderson has been appointed CEO. Prior to joining Auralex Acoustics, Henderson had a successful global career with Dow AgroSciences, and also functioned as executive director of the Indiana Soybean Alliance and Indiana Corn Marketing Council, traveling abroad to grow both organizations? market share. ?Along the way, Henderson acquired experience with Six Sigma and other process and organizational re-engineering job assignments. Henderson received both his MBA and Bachelor degrees from Kansas State University.
Next, Dave Brune has been appointed director of sales. Brune brings over two decades of sales management and business development experience with leading global manufacturers including Sony DADC, Maxell Professional Media, Thomson Consumer Electronics, and Ampex Recording Media Corporation. Dave is a graduate of Indiana University with a degree in telecommunications.
Third, Andy Symons has been appointed director of operations. Symons brings with him 20 years of experience in operations and management as well as over 30 years of experience in the professional audio and music industries. With a degree in Telecommunications from Butler University, he began his career as a staff engineer (and later chief engineer and vice president) at TRC Recording Studios. He later joined World Media Group as mastering engineer, then plant panager and VP of Operations. Starting in 2001, he served as studio manager and marketing director for The Lodge Recording Studios. In the spring of 2011 he decided to return to college to earn an associate degree in IT/Networking, which he completed in late 2012.
He's a movie star and a rock musician today, but in his childhood, Jared Leto was "food-stamp poor," he tells style catalog and publication Mr. Porter.
Leto and his brother Shannon were raised by a single mom who moved often, but infused her sons with a sense of creativity and the arts.
"It was the 1970s, the age of the artist and the hippy, and my exposure to that shaped me in a really deep way," he said. "I had no concept of the word 'fame'; or a notion of success or money. We grew up very poor, so our world wasn't anywhere near that kind of stuff. You have to do what is important to you and protect that."
Leto is known to many as Angela Chase's crush Jordan Catalano in the 1994-1995 cult TV favorite "My So-Called Life." He's also starred in such films as "American Psycho," "Requiem for a Dream," and "Urban Legend," but his second love is music. Leto and his brother perform together as part of the rock group 30 Seconds to Mars.
The band's latest album, "Love Lust Faith and Dreams," features a song that harks back to Leto's childhood, as "Depuis Le D?but," the final song on the album, closes by featuring a music box playing the theme from "Swan Lake."
"My mother used to put my little brother and me to sleep by playing that exact music box," he said. "And we wanted to put a little bit of our life on there. The whole record is very personal and I hope it is an album that can be transformative."
NEW YORK (AP) ? Stocks fell on Wall Street Wednesday as investors assessed whether a rally that has pushed stocks to record levels this year has run its course.
The Dow Jones industrial average reversed all of its gain from Tuesday, when it closed at a record high. The index is still on track to end higher for a sixth straight month and is up 16.4 percent this year.
The Standard & Poor's 500 is on an even longer winning streak. The index is headed for a seventh consecutive month of increases, the longest winning streak since 2009. The S&P is up 15.5 percent this year.
After those big gains, investors may be thinking that stocks are due for a pullback, said Sam Stovall, chief U.S. equity strategist for S&P Capital IQ. The S&P 500 has had a decline of at least five percent every year since the end of the World War II, Stovall said. That hasn't happened yet in 2013.
"There's a vacuum of catalysts to continue to push equities higher," Stovall said. "They're now trying to figure out: 'Well, should I now take some profits and sit on the sidelines and then get back in?"
Though investors have been encouraged by positive signs on the economy, including sharp increases reported Tuesday in home prices and consumer confidence, they are also concerned that the Federal Reserve will start to ease back on its stimulus program as the economy improves.
Those concerns pushed the Dow and the S&P 500 to their first weekly decline in five on Friday. Bond yields have also risen sharply this month as traders anticipate that the Fed may slow its bond purchases.
The Fed has been buying $85 billion of bonds each month in an effort to keep interest rates low and encourage borrowing, lending and investing. That stimulus has also been a major factor supporting the rally in the stock market as investors seek alternatives to bonds.
The Dow was down 115 points, or 0.7 percent, to 15,294 as of 11:58 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The S&P 500 index fell 13 points, or 0.8 percent, to 1,647. The Nasdaq composite dropped 23 points, or 0.7 percent, to 3,465.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note edged down to 2.16 percent from 2.17 percent late Tuesday. The yield surged Tuesday to its highest level in 13 months as investors moved money out of bonds. The yield has risen sharply from 1.63 percent at the beginning of the month.
The increase in bond yields in May has prompted investors to sell stocks which pay high dividends, like utilities and phone companies. Those two groups, which many traders seeking income bought as an alternative to bonds, fell 2 percent Wednesday, the biggest declines of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500. Those groups are also down the most so far this month: Utilities have lost 10 percent in May, phone companies 5.6 percent.
Stock market volatility is starting increase. The Chicago Board of Exchange's VIX index, a measure of price volatility on the S&P 500 index, jumped 7.9 percent Wednesday, its biggest increase in more than a month.
In commodities trading, the price of crude oil fell $1.50, or 1.6 percent, to $93.55. Gold rose $8, or 0.6 percent, to $1,386.80 an ounce. The dollar fell against the euro and the Japanese yen.
There were no major economic reports scheduled on Wednesday.
Among stocks making big moves:
? Smithfield Foods surged $6.51, or 25 percent, to $32.49 after the company agreed to be acquired by meat processor Shuanghui International Holdings for approximately $4.72 billion.
? Stewart Enterprises rose $3.33, or 34 percent, to $13.08 after the funeral company agreed to be acquired by Service Corp International for $1.1 billion in cash.
? Sallie Mae jumped $1.04, or 4.6 percent, to $23.98, the biggest gain in the S&P 500 index. The company, which is formally named SLM Corp., announced a plan to split into two separate companies, one that manages student loans and a consumer banking business.
? Michael Kors Holdings rose 89 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $62.87 after the fashion company reported that its profit more than doubled on surging sales in the fourth quarter, capping another strong year for the upscale handbag maker.
The Pakistani Taliban's deputy commander was believed killed in a U.S. drone strike along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, according to Pakistani and U.S. officials.
The strike, which took place early this morning, comes just days after President Obama spoke publicly about the controversial drone attacks, announcing restrictions on how and where they would be used, including in Pakistan.
Pakistani officials said Wali ur Rehman was killed in the strike in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's lawless tribal region along the border. A senior U.S. official confirmed Rehman was targeted and was believed dead, but said there had been no official confirmation. U.S. officials often wait for confirmation from the Taliban themselves, but so far, the Taliban have not confirmed Rehman's death.
Rehman is the deputy commander of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, often referred to as the TTP. The U.S. State Department has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. The State Department describes him as "the TTP's chief military strategist" who "led several attacks against U.S., NATO, and Pakistani forces on either side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border." The department also accuses Rehman of recruiting new fighters to join the Taliban.
Pakistani officials have repeatedly denounced the controversial drone strikes, saying they're against international law and a violation of the country's sovereignty, although Pakistan's former prime minister and ex-military commander, Pervez Musharraf, recently admitted his government had signed off on a limited number of strikes. In response to today's strike, Pakistan's foreign ministry issued a statement expressing "serious concerns," but stopped short of denouncing it altogether.
Pakistan's newly elected opposition leader, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, strongly condemned the attack on Twitter. Both Khan and Pakistan's new Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, oppose the U.S. drone strikes, and Khan has previously suggested the drones should be shot down. Sharif's ruling party, the Pakistani Muslim League-N, won't officially be sworn into government until June 1.
When asked about drone strikes during his campaign, Sharif told ABC News the drones were "a violation of our sovereignty," but remained non-committal when asked if he would order the Pakistani military to shoot them down.
If the reports of Rehman's death are true, it would be a big blow to the Taliban and its senior leadership, though it is unclear how long lasting the repercussions will be. The Pakistani Taliban is a coalition of militant groups, each with their own tribal and ethnic loyalties. Infighting among the TTP is common, and each sub-group is primarily loyal to its own clan. Pakistani Taliban commanders have been killed in the past, only to quickly be replaced. Like most militant groups, the TTP has a hierarchical structure with others ready to move up the ladder.
Collectively, they operate in the lawless tribal regions, along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The area is generally off limits for journalists, making it difficult to independently verify information in the region.
The Pakistani Taliban generally focus their attacks primarily on targets within Pakistan, although they are believed to provide safe havens and safe passage for militants who conduct cross-border attacks on US targets in Afghanistan.
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May 30, 2013 ? A mystery of the moon that imperiled astronauts and spacecraft on lunar missions has been solved by a Purdue University-led team of scientists as part of NASA's GRAIL mission.
Large concentrations of mass lurk on the lunar surface hidden like coral reefs beneath the ocean waves -- an unseen and devastating hazard. These concentrations change the gravity field and can either pull a spacecraft in or push it off course, sealing its fate to a crash on the face of the moon.
"In 1968 these mass concentrations were an unwelcome discovery as scientists prepared for the Apollo landings, and they have remained a mystery ever since," said Jay Melosh, a member of the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, science team who led the research. "GRAIL has now mapped where they lay, and we have a much better understanding of how they developed. If we return to the moon, we can now navigate with great precision."
A better understanding of these features also adds clues to the moon's origin and evolution and will be useful in studying other planets where mass concentrations also are known to exist including Mars and Mercury, said Melosh, who is a distinguished professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences and physics.
"We now know the ancient moon must have been much hotter than it is now and the crust thinner than we thought," he said. "For the first time we can figure out what size asteroids hit the moon by looking at the basins left behind and the gravity signature of the areas. We now have tools to figure out more about the heavy asteroid bombardment and what the ancient Earth may have faced."
The team confirmed the standing theory that the concentrations of mass were caused by massive asteroid impacts billions of years ago and determined how these impacts changed the density of material on the moon's surface and, in turn, its gravity field. A paper detailing the results will be published online by the journal Science on May 30.
In addition to Melosh, Purdue team members include Andrew Freed, associate professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences, and graduate students Brandon Johnson and David Blair. Additional team members include Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; J. Andrews-Hanna of the Colorado School of Mines; S. Solomon of Columbia University; and the GRAIL Science Team.
"The explanation of mascons has eluded scientists for decades," Zuber said. "Since their initial discovery they have also been observed on Mars and Mercury, and by understanding their formation on the moon we have greatly advanced knowledge of how major impacts modified planetary crusts."
The mass concentrations form a target pattern with a gravity surplus at the bulls-eye surrounded by a ring of gravity deficit and an outer ring of gravity surplus. The team found that this pattern arises as a natural consequence of crater excavation, collapse and cooling following an impact.
The team determined that the increase in density and gravitational pull at the bulls-eye was caused by lunar material melted from the heat of the asteroid impact. The melting causes the material to become more concentrated, stronger and denser, and pulls in additional material from the surrounding areas, Melosh said.
The large asteroid impacts also caused big holes into which the surrounding lunar material collapsed. As the cool, strong lunar crust slid into the holes it bent downward, forming a rigid, curved edge that held down the material beneath it and prevented it from fully rebounding to its original surface height. This causes a ring with less gravitational pull because the mass is held farther below the surface, the top of which is what most influences the gravitational signature, he said.
The outer ring of increased gravitational pull comes from the added mass of the material ejected by the initial impact that then piles on top of the lunar surface.
The team combined expertise in specialized computer analysis methods called hydrocodes and finite element codes to create computer simulations that could show the physical changes occurring from microseconds to millions of years. The team analyzed the Freundlich-Sharanov and Humorum mascon basins.
Melosh is a pioneer in adapting computer hydrocodes -- computer programs originally created to analyze the flow of liquids -- to simulate how complex materials move when high-speed collisions occur, like that of a planetary collision. Hydrocodes can be used to study such phenomena on a time scale of microseconds to hours, but are not practical from time scales much longer than that, he said.
Freed is a leader in adapting finite element codes, like those used to study car crashes, to simulate the changes in density of complex materials upon cooling and the evolution of Earth and other planets on the time scale of hours to millions of years.
Using the GRAIL data set, which offers an unprecedented, detailed map of the distribution of masses in the moon, the team was able to put together a picture of how the moon's crust and mantle behaved and the development of the concentrations of mass in the aftermath of large asteroid impacts.
May 29, 2013 ? During the last ice age, when thick ice covered the Arctic, many scientists assumed that the deep currents below that feed the North Atlantic Ocean and help drive global ocean currents slowed or even stopped. But in a new study in Nature, researchers show that the deep Arctic Ocean has been churning briskly for the last 35,000 years, through the chill of the last ice age and warmth of modern times, suggesting that at least one arm of the system of global ocean currents that move heat around the planet has behaved similarly under vastly different climates.
"The Arctic Ocean must have been flushed at approximately the same rate it is today regardless of how different things were at the surface," said study co-author Jerry McManus, a geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Researchers reconstructed Arctic circulation through deep time by measuring radioactive trace elements buried in sediments on the Arctic seafloor. Uranium eroded from the continents and delivered to the ocean by rivers, decays into sister elements thorium and protactinium. Thorium and protactinium eventually attach to particles falling through the water and wind up in mud at the bottom. By comparing expected ratios of thorium and protactinium in those ocean sediments to observed amounts, the authors showed that protactinium was being swept out of the Arctic before it could settle to the ocean bottom. From the amount of missing protactinium, scientists can infer how quickly the overlying water must have been flushed at the time the sediments were accumulating.
"The water couldn't have been stagnant, because we see the export of protactinium," said the study's lead author, Sharon Hoffmann, a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty.
The upper part of the modern Arctic Ocean is flushed by North Atlantic currents while the Arctic's deep basins are flushed by salty currents formed during sea ice formation at the surface. "The study shows that both mechanisms must have been active from the height of glaciation until now," said Robert Newton, an oceanographer at Lamont-Doherty who was not involved in the research. "There must have been significant melt-back of sea ice each summer even at the height of the last ice age to have sea ice formation on the shelves each year. This will be a surprise to many Arctic researchers who believe deep water formation shuts down during glaciations."
The researchers analyzed sediment cores collected during the U.S.-Canada Arctic Ocean Section cruise in 1994, a major Arctic research expedition that involved several Lamont-Doherty scientists. In each location, the cores showed that protactinium has been lower than expected for at least the past 35,000 years. By sampling cores from a range of depths, including the bottom of the Arctic deep basins, the researchers show that even the deepest waters were being flushed out at about the same rate as in the modern Arctic.
The only deep exit from the Arctic is through Fram Strait, which divides Greenland and Norway's Svalbard islands. The deep waters of the modern Arctic flow into the North Atlantic via the Nordic seas, contributing up to 40 percent of the water that becomes North Atlantic Deep Water -- known as the "ocean's lungs" for delivering oxygen and salt to the rest of world's oceans.
One direction for future research is to find out where the missing Arctic protactinium of the past ended up. "It's somewhere," said McManus. "All the protactinium in the ocean is buried in ocean sediments. If it's not buried in one place, it's buried in another. Our evidence suggests it's leaving the Arctic but we think it's unlikely to get very far before being removed."
Reaching a top speed of 20 miles per hour, the Myrtle Beach Police Department have started using golf carts to increase their presence on Ocean Boulevard in downtown Myrtle Beach in a way that is safer than having them on foot. The officers have full police authority, even to pull a car over.?
An artist's concept of a commercial spacecraft collecting a sample rock off the surface of an asteroid.
By Robert Z. Pearlman Space.com
Commercial asteroid miners may find an initial market among meteorite collectors but the long-haul customers for returning space rock samples to Earth are more likely to be scientists, deep-space entrepreneurs say.
The suggestion that public interest can drive advances in science and profits in space was a running theme at this year's Spacefest, an annual meeting for all types of space and astronomy enthusiasts. The event brought together private space companies, government space explorers, academia and the public. Organized for the fifth year by Novaspace Galleries, a space art and astronaut autograph dealer based in Tucson, Spacefest was held May 24 to 27 at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort in Arizona.
"The process of getting involved in a financial enterprise, a commercial enterprise, can often further the technology, further the science, and that has happened so widely in meteorites," said Geoffrey Notkin, a meteorite hunter, host of the Science Channel TV series "Meteorite Men," and an adviser to Deep Space Industries, one of the two private companies now looking to mine asteroids for space-based resources and maybe provide sample return services. "It's a beautiful demonstration of how commercial companies and collectors and academia can work together, as happy as can be, because everyone benefits." [Mars Meteorites: Red Planet on Earth (Photos)]
"I hope and expect the same to occur with commercial space exploration," Notkin said during a panel devoted to asteroids.
Supply and demand Notkin explained that the number of meteorites cataloged for science has increased exponentially over the past few decades from fewer than 10,000 in all of history to more than 50,000, in part because of the incentive for collectors to cooperate with the academic community.
Meteorite Men / Geoffrey Notkin
Meteorite hunter Geoff Notkin (right) shows a lunar meteorite to Gene Cernan, Apollo 17 astronaut, at Spacefest in Tucson, Ariz., on Sunday.
"People find meteorites and they could just keep them or try to sell them discreetly, (but) that's not the right way to do it," Notkin said. "The right way is to contact someone in academia and say 'Look, I found a meteorite, can you classify it for me?' A piece (of the rock) is then donated to science permanently and the meteorite then has a name." [Most Famous Meteorites of All Time (Photos)]
"So academia benefits and the finder benefits because the meteorite that he or she found is now worth more money," Notkin said.
The value of asteroid samples may have more appeal to the scientific community than to collectors over the long term, the panelists said, in part due to the relative cost of returning the rocks to the ground.
"If you look at the cost that is being expended per gram for [NASA's asteroid sample return mission] OSIRIS-REx, if you want to use that metric, it's a wildly large amount of money for a relatively small amount of mass," said Chris Lewicki, president of the space mining company Planetary Resources. "I don't know how that necessarily scales that well."
"I would imagine that there would be part interest, whether it is for science or some aspect of collector," he added. "I often joke that there is probably some company, a vodka company, that would like to make vodka exclusively from asteroid water. I don't know how much they could sell it for per liter, but there's probably some who would buy it."
Lewicki cited the moon rocks and dust?that were returned to Earth in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the Apollo astronauts as a lesson in supply and demand. Four of the 12 men who collected those lunar samples attended Spacefest to sign autographs and meet with their fans.
"In many ways, those samples are so precious because as time marched on, we knew that we were probably not going to get any more any time soon," Lewicki said. "From a commercial standpoint, from the asteroids, if you go up and get it commercially, you probably know that there will be more soon. Who knows what kind of strange demand that would create in terms of the material."
Lewicki's counterpart at Deep Space Industries agreed.
"One of the things that is kind of important to remember is the business plans and the creative marketing ideas and things like that that we're dealing with, people in our field have been playing with since Apollo, whether it's the moon or asteroids," said Rick Tumlinson, DSI's chairman. "For example, there was a plan for a commercial lunar mission and they looked at what would be the value of moon dust, and what will happen on the commercial side."
"Whether you're going to have the Rolex asteroid watch, the hands will have a little asteroid material in them, that is mainly an early revenue stream that is going to diminish because the less rare (the material) is, the less value it is going to have," he added.
"There's a slightly different curve in scientific use because there's going to be a lot of demand and it's probably going to be more steady because there are all kinds of research that can be done,' Tumlinson said.
Provenance and population Lewicki said the metrics of supply and demand are why it makes more sense for his company to go to a number of different asteroids than retrieve a single large space rock.
"There is a lot more value in getting 500 different samples then there is a monstrous amount from one sample," he said. "And this is in the area of what we're looking at to make this stuff available; going out over the next decade and increasing the amount of asteroids we've been to by a factor of five."
"It would be of just tremendous scientific value for our understanding the diversity of these 50,000 (meteorites) we have gotten in laboratories to what they mean to the hundreds of thousands of objects that we have discovered so far in the solar system," Lewicki said.
Dan Durda, a space artist and planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., drew a comparison between what is important to collectors and what is important to scientists.
"Making an analogy with the collector market, the whole idea of provenance, part of bringing a sample back from an asteroid is the whole point of context," Durda stated. "Context means everything. If you know the parent body that it specifically came from it's of much more value then just a random sample delivered from a parent body that you don't know."
"I think from that perspective, just bringing a sample back from a known source, beyond even the collector market, just from a scientific market, would be valuable," he said.
Along those same lines, Notkin pointed out that the value of asteroid samples can differ based on whether they pass through Earth's atmosphere or not.
"A lot of the most scientifically interesting material cannot be collected as meteorites as all," he explained. "It is just too frail, just too fragile to survive the journey through the atmosphere."
"(But) one of the reasons that meteorites are interesting to collectors is because they've been altered by their journey through the atmosphere. They have often been melted into fantastic shapes. So if we get source material and bring it back to Earth, it has not gone through that process. It is different," Notkin said.
Continue reading at collectSpace.comabout the Spacefest V convention held May 24 to 27, 2013 in Tucson, Ariz.
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Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A home improvement project can be difficult if you do not know how to do it. If you are unclear about how to get started planning your project, take a look at these ideas for getting things off the ground properly.
Look out for sales on carpet installations at your local home stores. Some stores will offer free installation to boost their carpet sales. When you see this type of sale, it?s time to move as often full-priced installation can cost more than the carpet itself.
TIP! It is very crucial to replace the air filters. This will bring in healthier air and keep your air conditioners and heaters running efficiently.
You should always keep your air conditioner filter changed. Whenever the filter is dirty, your air conditioner will be forced to work harder in order to keep a cool home. As a result, more energy will be used, which means more money will be coming out of your pocket. The unit will also run for a longer period of time. You should change your filter at least once a month to prevent buildup.
Use empty two-liter bottles as storage containers for your kitchen. They are transparent and will preserve your dry goods. You can put them in the freezer or even in the fridge. It?s even simple when you need to pour out the contents in that all you need to do is twist off the cap.
Safety should be a top concern when improving your house. There is always an element of danger when working with power tools so make sure you are fully aware of what you are doing. You can find good tutorials online that will help you with your tasks.
TIP! When doing home improvement, watch the highly visible improvements. Potential buyers will go by what they can see, so you need to do what you can to make your house presentable enough to sell.
There are many options that you have when replacing a lock. This part actually does the locking. If your keys are lost, a cylinder replacement is a simple one. If, however, you are wanting to improve your home?s security or change the look, you will need to replace the whole locking unit.
You should make a list of everything you need before heading out to a home improvement store. Making a list of all the items you need to purchase ensures that you will not need to make multiple trips to the store and also helps to keep you organized.
Proper planning ensures that your home improvement project will go more smoothly. It is impossible to be cost and time efficient on home improvement projects without adequate planning, and disaster will probably be the result. When you plan ahead, you can complete your project quickly and easily.
TIP! Your family will be safer if you create escape routes that they are aware of. People are likely to panic in the event of a traumatic incident.
Remember to include landscaping in your home improvement plans. When people come to see your house, they will notice your front yard first, so it will pay to have a nice lawn. So make sure that you always fix up the front of your home and its landscape so that your home has nice curb appeal.
Keep your young children safe by padding the corners of your furniture. Corner protectors and foam tape are available to minimize those sharp corners and edges. As well, tape down any loose wiring, which could strangle your child.
If you feel you need to spruce up your living room, add a bold print to give it some style and personality. Try adding leopard or zebra print to your living room in the form of an accessory such as a small area rug, chair cushion, wall art or decorative pillow.
TIP! Make the most of an outdoor living space. Extend your living space to include part of the backyard.
An excellent investment for all homes is soundproofing the interior walls. Sound proofing is very expensive and therefore not an economical choice for many home owners. Bedrooms, bathrooms and equipment rooms are the most vital rooms to soundproof. The kitchen is a great area for soundproofing, unless the kitchen opens to a lot of areas.
When you want to put in new cabinets, try wooden ones. They are not only strong, but can withstand the test of time. Cabinets are commonly made of maple, cherry and oak. They all accept wood stains, and therefore it is quite simple to adjust their color.
Have an electrician install an electrical outlet in the cabinet above where you are going to have your microwave installed. This will allow you to hide the cord needed to plug your microwave into the outlet. An easy thing like that will eliminate hanging cords in the kitchen.
TIP! Use old baby food jars to add organization to your workspace. You can use screws or super glue to attach these jars underneath a shelf.
By using this home improvement advice, you?ll be fully aware of what it takes to successfully complete your project. Also, you can find out exactly what needs to be done to make sure the project is successfully completed.
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LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) ? A Marine killed after going on a shooting spree that left one person dead and several hospitalized in Texas also is suspected of fatally stabbing his wife, whose body was found in a North Carolina motel room hours after the rampage, police said Tuesday.
Rubi Estefania Smith of Bakersfield, Calif., was found dead Sunday afternoon in a motel room near Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, N.C., police said in a news release. She was the wife of Lance Cpl. Esteban J. Smith, a 23-year-old Marine who died Sunday in a gunfight with Texas authorities.
Police spokeswoman Beth Purcell said Rubi Estefania Smith appears to have died from a knife wound.
A veteran of two combat tours in Afghanistan, Esteban Smith is suspected in a West Texas shooting rampage that left one woman dead and five others wounded. An assault rifle, handgun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were recovered from Smith's vehicle.
Smith, who was also from Bakersfield, was stationed with the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune. Base spokesman Master Sgt. Jonathan Cress said investigators have determined the firearms used in the shootings were not issued by the military.
Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Maureen Krebs said Smith enlisted in November 2008. He returned from his second tour as an infantry rifleman in Afghanistan in November 2012. He was awarded several decorations, including a Combat Action Ribbon and the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Krebs said.
The Texas shootings began about 4:30 a.m. Sunday, when the gunman shot a motorist in the Eden area of Concho County, about 40 miles southeast of San Angelo and 210 miles southwest of Dallas. She was hospitalized in San Angelo with non-life-threatening wounds, Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger said.
Over the next 90 minutes, two more people were shot while sitting in a car at a convenience store in adjacent McCulloch County. Both were treated and released from a hospital, Vinger said.
Shortly after 6 a.m., Alicia Torres, 41, was found dead in her car in Eola, just east of San Angelo, Vinger said.
The suspect fired on the vehicle of Concho County Sheriff Richard Doane when the sheriff came upon him north of Eden, according to DPS. Doane, who suffered non-life-threatening wounds in the gunfire and hospitalized, was released from a San Angelo hospital early Tuesday, Shannon Medical Center spokeswoman Suzi Reynolds said.
Doane did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Rubi Smith's remains were found about 2 p.m. Sunday at the Sunset Inn, a motel advertising low rates and Jacuzzi tubs near the gates of the sprawling Marine base on the North Carolina coast. Purcell said Jacksonville police were called to the scene by authorities with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, who discovered the body.
An autopsy is underway to determine when she died but that evidence collected as part of the ongoing investigation "establishes that Esteban Smith appears to be responsible for his wife's death."
Without stops, it is more than a 22-hour drive from Jacksonville, N.C. to Eden, Texas.
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Why does this code displays a triangle, i'm curious, i'm not sure if it's something related to ASCII table. I'm just starting to learn my first language, and as i've heard from many PRO when you're learning a new language, write, read and play with the code, test new stuff, ask why... So there's my "code"
This post has been edited by GunnerInc: Yesterday, 09:15 PM Reason for edit:: Removed wacky font
Is This A Good Question/Topic? 0
Replies To: Why a triangle
#2 GunnerInc ?
Reputation: 723
Posts:1,982
Joined:28-March 11
Re: Why a triangle
Posted Yesterday, 09:16 PM
Why wouldn't it print a triangle, or any other character? You defined an array but did not initialize it, so it will contain whatever garbage is on the stack. It is called undefined behavior.
#3 OwllwO ?
Reputation: 0
Posts:5
Joined:Yesterday, 09:04 PM
Re: Why a triangle
Posted Yesterday, 09:26 PM
Thank you my friend, and sorry, maybe my qeuestio too dumb but i've just started readin Head First C, to learn C as my first language, actually i have done some "code" with Pascal, when i was in my Computer technician course, and i really the programming area, so i'm focusing on it, i've finished my course 2 years ago and i feel like i don't know nothing about programming, maybe due to my compulsion for learning a lot of things at the same time... Thank you
#4 baavgai ?
Reputation: 4895
Posts:11,296
Joined:16-October 07
Re: Why a triangle
Posted Today, 04:49 AM
Simply, you've defined a size 4 char array but didn't initialize it in any way. You then treat is as a string.
That array is filled with random crap. The printf expects a string and will stop printing when it hits '\0'. What this means is that it will start at the address referenced by your variable, which you've allocated four bytes to, and just keep printing, probably past those four bytes.
Given a completely random domain of 0..255, you actually only have a ~2% chance of hitting a particular char. You tend to do much better than that, because computers like to zero things out.
You see diamonds? Please tell me aren't using Turbo-C? If you are, stop.
There are, usually, 240+ visible characters. Less that 100 of those are your basics. The rest are specials for certain languages, but there are usually a few playful symbols. You're most likely seeing this one: ???? ( note, you may or may not see a few diamonds there. )
#5 OwllwO ?
Reputation: 0
Posts:5
Joined:Yesterday, 09:04 PM
Re: Why a triangle
Posted Today, 12:01 PM
baavgai, on 27 May 2013 - 04:49 AM, said:
Simply, you've defined a size 4 char array but didn't initialize it in any way. You then treat is as a string.
That array is filled with random crap. The printf expects a string and will stop printing when it hits '\0'. What this means is that it will start at the address referenced by your variable, which you've allocated four bytes to, and just keep printing, probably past those four bytes.
Given a completely random domain of 0..255, you actually only have a ~2% chance of hitting a particular char. You tend to do much better than that, because computers like to zero things out.
You see diamonds? Please tell me aren't using Turbo-C? If you are, stop.
There are, usually, 240+ visible characters. Less that 100 of those are your basics. The rest are specials for certain languages, but there are usually a few playful symbols. You're most likely seeing this one: ???? ( note, you may or may not see a few diamonds there. )
I'm using gcc and i have DevC++ installed too, but now i'm using just the gcc, everybody says it's good, so i'm trying to get used to it. I'm getting a triangle... Here's my "code" And my triangle By the way, i'm not having any trouble, it just happened by chance and i got interested to it
#6 JackOfAllTrades ?
Reputation: 5679
Posts:22,558
Joined:23-August 08
Re: Why a triangle
Posted Today, 12:13 PM
To find out what's in memory, add this after your printf:
int i = 0; for (; i < sizeof(msg); ++i) printf("%08x ", msg[i]); printf("\n");
What does that print?
#7 OwllwO ?
Reputation: 0
Posts:5
Joined:Yesterday, 09:04 PM
Re: Why a triangle
Posted Today, 12:24 PM
JackOfAllTrades, on 27 May 2013 - 12:13 PM, said:
To find out what's in memory, add this after your printf:
int i = 0; for (; i < sizeof(msg); ++i) printf("%08x ", msg[i]); printf("\n");
What does that print?
See for yourself
#8 JackOfAllTrades ?
Reputation: 5679
Posts:22,558
Joined:23-August 08
Re: Why a triangle
Posted Today, 12:34 PM
That's really all it prints? I would have expected three 8 hex digit numbers. On my Mac:
./test You entered You entered 0000007f 00000000 00000000
#9 ButchDean ?
Reputation: 883
Posts:3,358
Joined:26-November 10
Re: Why a triangle
Posted Today, 01:35 PM
OwllwO, on 27 May 2013 - 01:14 AM, said:
Why does this code displays a triangle, i'm curious, i'm not sure if it's something related to ASCII table. I'm just starting to learn my first language, and as i've heard from many PRO when you're learning a new language, write, read and play with the code, test new stuff, ask why... So there's my "code"
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baavgai, on 27 May 2013 - 04:49 AM, said:
