Slow Auto Sales ?

Auto sales started out August on an upbeat note, with early trends showing the month could go down as the best so far this year. But as August winds down, it appears consumers were less eager to buy than first thought, despite the bevy of end-of-model-year deals.

In fact, August could go down as the slowest sales month in 28 years, Bloomberg News reported. Industry-wide, automakers are expected to report Wednesday that monthly sales totaled an annualized rate of 11.6 million vehicles, according to a composite estimate of eight analysts.

The last time auto sales were that low was August 1982, when the nation was mired in recession, according to researcher Ward’s AutoInfoBank. The rate is also 18% lower than the 14.2 million pace recorded during last year’s “cash for clunkers” rebate program, which boosted purchases and made August one of the best sales months in 2009.

Market Distortion From Cash for Clunkers

People aren’t buying because of the economy. With recovery seemingly stalled, Americans aren’t eager to take on more debt when their jobs may be at risk. Reduced home values and lower stock prices are also hampering auto sales, since households feel less wealthy.

Edmunds.com reports similar sales expectations for the month. The online car-buying guide predicts sales in August reached an annualized rate of 11.8 million, up from 11.5 million in July.

Comparisons between the current month and August 2009, are “a waste of time since ‘cash for clunkers’ distorted the market so badly last year,” said Jessica Caldwell, director of industry analysis for Edmunds.com. “It is likely that the current slow sales pace can be partly attributed to the thousands of ‘pull-ahead’ sales that last year’s CARS program stole from subsequent months.”

Despite a 1% boost in incentives for the month compared to July — to an average $2,864 for each vehicle sold — retail sales likely fell 7% in August compared to the previous month, according to industry tracker TrueCar.

Leaders and Laggers

TrueCar forecasts sales at Ford Motor ( F), Toyota Motor (TM), Mercedes-Benz and Honda Motor (HMC) rose during the month compared to July, with Mercedes and Honda each recording a 10% increase, while Ford’s sales climbed 5.6% and those at Toyota grew just 1%. Japanese automaker Mazda Motor may have enjoyed the best increase, with expectations that its U.S. sales jumped 21%, compared to July.

General Motors, Chrysler Group, Subaru and Hyundai Motor are expected to report flat sales, with Nissan Motors ( NSANY), BMW, Kia Motors and Volkswagen each reporting fewer vehicles sold.

Honda sales appear to have benefited from increased discounts and Toyota’s continuing recall woes. Honda boosted incentives by 66% from a year ago, Bloomberg reported, citing TrueCar data, while Nissan and Toyota raised discounts by less than half that amount.

Among domestic automakers, GM and Ford both increased incentives — 18% and 25%, respectively, in August, compared to a year ago. Chrysler, however, bucked the trend, reducing discounts 22%, compared to August 2009.

Summer 2010 heat !

Summer 2010 Intense Heat — U.S. and Globally !

(Aug. 1) — Summer 2010 is far from over, but extremely hot weather has been a major weather story to date, not only in the United States but also in other parts of the northern hemisphere. All-time record high temperatures have been tied or broken in more than a dozen nations.

Across Europe and the Middle East, a high pressure system in the summer is also common; however, its strength typically waxes and wanes. This summer, it’s been more persistently strong than it is during most summers, allowing the heat to occur with more frequency and intensity.

Posted by: Richard T. Mindler Jr. 8-1-10 http://mindleronline.com/

‘Plato Code Unlocked’

BP Oil Spill !

Mark Wilkie is a busy guy these days, and he has the BP oil crisis to thank. Wilkie, vice president of Sebastian, Fla.-based Granite Environmental, is working full-throttle to fill his Oklahoma and Florida factories with new employees to handle the crush of orders for cleanup equipment. The company’s already hired 24 new factory workers in Oklahoma and 14 in Florida, he told DailyFinance in an email interview Friday.

While the expanding oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to impact the environment for years to come, Granite is one of a dozens of companies seeing business boom as a result. The oil spill is drawing in a boatload of orders for equipment and services to mop up the mess, and that translates to a surge in hiring for the cleanup companies.

“I know from talking with a competitor that they brought on 6 Chinese plants,” Wilke says. “As for the trickle-down effects of logistics and materials vendors, that has exponentially grown as they have had to scramble to meet demand.”

Gaining from the Spill

“I’m booked up at both hotels and I’ve been trying to hire maids here since the spill,” says Melissa Taylor, an assistant business office manager for both inns. “We normally have two maids at Empire and could probably use five, and normally have four at Venice, but could use six or seven. In fact, I’ll be doing maid work at Empire because we’re short staffed. I’ve had to do that a couple times in the past month and a half.”

At this time of year, the two inns are usually only 60% full, with most rooms occupied by regular seasonal customers, such as oil-field workers and leisure fishermen taking advantage of the area’s chartered fishing trips. But now, the inns have no vacancies and 70% of their guests are involved in oil cleanup, she says.

Surrounding businesses, from barber shops to laundromats to grocery stores, are also posting more business as a result. Darren Fremin, co-owner of Fremin’s Food Market in neighboring Port Sulphur, La., is one such business. Since the oil spill, Fremin has increased his workforce to 50 employees from 40, he says.

The Cleanup Crew

As of Friday, approximately 25,000 workers have been assigned to the cleanup, including current BP employees and contractors, according to a BP spokesman. Contractors also do their own hiring for the cleanup too. On Thursday, for example, Ashland Cleaning Services interviewed 396 potential job candidates at a Louisiana Workforce Commission office in Houma, La. From that group, 392 were hired and received four hours of safety training before being shuttled 70 miles to Grand Isle, La., to report for work, says Curt Eysink, executive director with the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

And as more oil washes up on the states beaches and marshes, cleanup hiring is expected to escalate, potentially mitigating some of the joblessness that has hit particular sectors of Louisiana’s workforce. Since the oil spill, 12,000 Louisiana residents have filed unemployment claims, with most of the filings coming from the southern part of the state from folks displaced by the oil spill, Eysink said.

Those hit hardest have included sportfishing charter boat operators and related businesses, local fisherman and shellfish farmers along Louisiana’s coastline.

In an effort to pay bills, some of these boat operators are seeking work from the same company that created the record mess. In mid-May, for example, 1,113 fishermen had signed contracts with BP under its “ Vessels of Opportunity” program and another 147 were on call, according to U.S. Coast Guard Private Stephen Lehmann.

Fishing Industry Suffers

Charter fishing boats based off of Louisiana’s coast have sustained a large hit, as tourists have canceled their sport fishing trips due to the oil spill, says Louis Houvenaeghel, general manager of Delta Marina in Empire, La. He’s frustrated that so many would-be tourists assume the entire coast is closed for fishing, instead of just those areas that are actually affected. The timing couldn’t be worse: The disaster comes right as the area is headed into its peak fishing season, and Houvenaeghe says he’s having to consider layoffs as a result.

The absence of fishers is cutting into the $1.36 billion in tourism dollars that Louisiana’s nine coastal parishes contribute annually to the state’s $8.3 billion tourism industry. Those parishes provide 14,980 tourism-related jobs that add up to a payroll of $238 million, according to Jim Hutchinson, assistant secretary of the Louisiana Tourism & Cultural Department.

In an attempt to generate revenues, Houvenaeghel has spent the past 30 days sending out a constant stream of proposals to BP and other cleanup contractors to consider using The Delta Marina — with its fuel dock, hotel, restaurant and charter fishing business — as a base station for their work. He’s gotten no nibbles to date.

But Hutchinson is unenthusiastic about the idea of replacing seasonal tourists with oil-cleanup workers in any case. “This sounds good on the surface, but it’s not necessarily a good thing,” he says. “Sport fishermen aren’t benefiting and while the hotels and restaurants may be busy, if they’re turning away their regular customers, these customers may never come back, even after the oil’s cleaned up and the workers leave.

Posted By : Richard T Mindler Jr.

Rent or Buy ?

iPad

Today Apple’s iPad finally went on sale which means a bunch of you just scored one and now, the unboxing done, the device powered up, the initial exploration done, you’re looking at it and trying to figure out what you need to do next. Don’t worry, TiPb’s got your back:

• Get apps and games. Apple has unleashed almost 2000 of them already (seriously, we’ve stopped counting!). You can find them — all of them — on iTunes, either on your Windows or Mac, or right on the iPad App Store. We’ve covered a ton of iPad apps here already, and we’ll be reviewing some of our favorites this week, so keep your eyes peeled!
• Get accessories. The TiPb Store has just started offering iPad accessories for pre-order. If you want to protect that big, beautiful screen or wrap a case over that pristine aluminum shell, be sure to check them out! (And hey, don’t forget their 10% off coupon code!)
• Get talking. If you just want to talk about your new iPad and all those apps and accessories, or if you need help getting started (or to trouble-shoot bugs), or advice and recommendations, we have two new discussion groups just for you: iPad Device and Help Forum and iPad Apps and Games For

Richard T.Mindler Jr.

http://mindleronline.com/

Spring Break

This article is about Spring Break.

Spring break at Panama City Beach, Florida

Spring break, also known as March break, Study Week or Reading Week in some parts of Canada, is a week long recess from studying in early spring at universities and schools in the United States, Canada, mainland China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, and other countries.

Time of the year

In the United States, the timing of spring break in tertiary institutions may range from the middle of March to the later part of April, but many schools are in recess for at least one of the weeks in March. Some schools call this “March break” if it occurs in a middle week in March. Other schools call it “spring recess”, or “spring recession”.^[1][2][3] Many K–12 institutions in the United States coincide their spring break with Easter and Passover. In New York and Connecticut, most students have spring break in April.

Canada has a very similar practice of giving a week-long break to its elementary school and secondary schoolNew Brunswick, for example, holds their March break during the first week of March, Ontario, Nova Scotia and British Columbia, have theirs during the second or third week, while the break in Alberta usually comes in the last week of March. In the United Kingdom, the corresponding 2 weeks’ holiday are called the “Easter break” or “Easter holidays”, as it is scheduled for the weeks following and preceding Easter, and accordingly is often held in April. students in the month of March. The exact time of the month varies from province to province;

In many Canadian universities, the similar break in late February or early March is called Reading Week, and is ostensibly intended to allow students to relax from the stresses of their studies.

In Japan, the spring break starts with the end of the academic year in March and ends on April 1 with the beginning of a new academic year.

In Southern African countries like Botswana, South Africa and Lesotho, the break is held late February or early March, with University of Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and others coming together for a week long of games, music shows and city tourism. [2]

History

From the end of World War II until the 1980s, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was a notorious spring break destination in the United States. It was largely made so by the efforts of one man, George Warren “Bob” Gill Jr. who was called, “the Father of Fort Lauderdale spring break.”^[4] Prior to that, a few were coming to the area for a break from winter cold. On March 19, 2006, the New York Times reported that Fort Lauderdale’s reputation as a spring break destination for college students started when the Colgate University men’s swimming team went to practice there over break in 1935.^[5] Fort Lauderdale became even more popular due to the 1960 film Where the Boys Are, in which college girls met boys while on spring break there.

Common practices

In locales such as Cancún or Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, spring break activities traditionally include binge drinking, recreational drug use and casual sex.^{[citation needed]} In the past, residents of the Fort Lauderdale area have become so upset at the damage done by vacationers, that the local government passed laws restricting parties in 1985. At the same time, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was enacted in the United States, requiring that Florida raise the minimum drinking age to 21 and causing many underage college vacationers to travel outside the United States for spring break. By 1989, the number of college vacationers fell to 20,000, a far cry from the 350,000 who went to Fort Lauderdale four years prior.^[6]

Spring break party goers responded by moving to the more permissive community of Daytona Beach area (over 200,000 students traveled there each spring at its peak), but after Daytona’s local government undertook similar measures, the crowds of the mid-1990s and early 2000s had fallen to a point where “a few students still come, but officials don’t even estimate their numbers.” Panama City Beach, Florida remains a popular spring break destination due to its relative proximity to many Southern colleges and driving distances. The locals in Panama City Beach welcome Spring Breakers every year, and is a major factor in the city’s economy. South Padre Island, Texas and Fort Myers Beach, Florida are also popular Spring Break destinations among students from colleges in the south-central and midwestern parts of the country, as well as from the Northeast. One of the biggest in the Southwest, popularized by MTV is Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

Popular destinations outside the United States include Cancún, Cabo San Lucas, Acapulco, Barbados, Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta, Jamaica, the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Tour agencies have not only cited the lower drinking ages in these places, but also the fact that the drinking ages are poorly enforced. Some Tour Companies put on special chartered flights for Spring Break at discounted rates.

It is common for companies to market during spring break, for instance Coca-Cola, Gillette, MTV, and branches of the United States armed forces.

Posted by: Richard T. Mindler Jr.

Inside Radio

Uses of radio

Early uses were maritime, for sending telegraphic messages using Morse code between ships and land. The earliest users included the Japanese Navy scouting the Russian fleet during the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. One of the most memorable uses of marine telegraphy was during the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, including communications between operators on the sinking ship and nearby vessels, and communications to shore stations listing the survivors.

Radio was used to pass on orders and communications between armies and navies on both sides in World War I; Germany used radio communications for diplomatic messages once it discovered that its submarine cables had been tapped by the British. The United States passed on President Woodrow Wilson‘s Fourteen Points to Germany via radio during the war. Broadcasting began from San Jose, California in 1909,^[9] and became feasible in the 1920s, with the widespread introduction of radio receivers, particularly in Europe and the United States. Besides broadcasting, point-to-point broadcasting, including telephone messages and relays of radio programs, became widespread in the 1920s and 1930s. Another use of radio in the pre-war years was the development of detection and locating of aircraft and ships by the use of radar (RAdio Detection And Ranging).

Today, radio takes many forms, including wireless networks and mobile communications of all types, as well as radio broadcasting. Before the advent of television, commercial radio broadcasts included not only news and music, but dramas, comedies, variety shows, and many other forms of entertainment. Radio was unique among methods of dramatic presentation in that it used only sound. For more, see radio programming.

AM radio uses amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the transmitted signal is made proportional to the sound amplitude captured (transduced) by the microphone, while the transmitted frequency remains unchanged. Transmissions are affected by static and interference because lightning and other sources of radio emissions on the same frequency add their amplitudes to the original transmitted amplitude. In the early part of the 20th century, American AM radio stations broadcast with powers as high as 500 kW, and some could be heard worldwide; these stations’ transmitters were commandeered for military use by the US Government during World War II. Currently, the maximum broadcast power for a civilian AM radio station in the United States and Canada is 50 kW, and the majority of stations that emit signals this powerful were grandfathered in (see List of 50kw AM radio stations in the USA). In 1986 KTNN received the last granted 50,000 watt license. These 50 kW stations are generally called “clear channel” stations (not to be confused with Clear Channel Communications), because within North America each of these stations has exclusive use of its broadcast frequency throughout part or all of the broadcast day.

FM broadcast radio sends music and voice with higher fidelity than AM radio. In frequency modulation, amplitude variation at the microphone causes the transmitter frequency to fluctuate. Because the audio signal modulates the frequency and not the amplitude, an FM signal is not subject to static and interference in the same way as AM signals. Due to its need for a wider bandwidth, FM is transmitted in the Very High Frequency (VHF, 30 MHz to 300 MHz) radio spectrum. VHF radio waves act more like light, traveling in straight lines; hence the reception range is generally limited to about 50-100 miles. During unusual upper atmospheric conditions, FM signals are occasionally reflected back towards the Earth by the ionosphere, resulting in long distance FM reception. FM receivers are subject to the capture effect, which causes the radio to only receive the strongest signal when multiple signals appear on the same frequency. FM receivers are relatively immune to lightning and spark interference.

High power is useful in penetrating buildings, diffracting around hills, and refracting in the dense atmosphere near the horizon for some distance beyond the horizon. Consequently, 100,000 watt FM stations can regularly be heard up to 100 miles (160 km) away, and farther (e.g., 150 miles, 240 km) if there are no competing signals. A few old, “grandfathered” stations do not conform to these power rules. WBCT-FM (93.7) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, runs 320,000 watts ERP, and can increase to 500,000 watts ERP by the terms of its original license. Such a huge power level does not usually help to increase range as much as one might expect, because VHF frequencies travel in nearly straight lines over the horizon and off into space. Nevertheless, when there were fewer FM stations competing, this station could be heard near Bloomington, Illinois, USA, almost 300 miles (500 km) away.^{[citation needed]}

FM subcarrier services are secondary signals transmitted in a “piggyback” fashion along with the main program. Special receivers are required to utilize these services. Analog channels may contain alternative programming, such as reading services for the blind, background music or stereo sound signals. In some extremely crowded metropolitan areas, the sub-channel program might be an alternate foreign language radio program for various ethnic groups. Sub-carriers can also transmit digital data, such as station identification, the current song’s name, web addresses, or stock quotes. In some countries, FM radios automatically re-tune themselves to the same channel in a different district by using sub-bands.

Aviation voice radios use VHF AM. AM is used so that multiple stations on the same channel can be received. (Use of FM would result in stronger stations blocking out reception of weaker stations due to FM’s capture effect). Aircraft fly high enough that their transmitters can be received hundreds of miles (or kilometres) away, even though they are using VHF.

Marine voice radios can use single sideband voice (SSB) in the shortwave High Frequency (HF—3 MHz to 30 MHz) radio spectrum for very long ranges or narrowband FM in the VHF spectrum for much shorter ranges. Narrowband FM sacrifices fidelity to make more channels available within the radio spectrum, by using a smaller range of radio frequencies, usually with five kHz of deviation, versus the 75 kHz used by commercial FM broadcasts, and 25 kHz used for TV sound.

Government, police, fire and commercial voice services also use narrowband FM on special frequencies. Early police radios used AM receivers to receive one-way dispatches.

Civil and military HF (high frequency) voice services use shortwave radio to contact ships at sea, aircraft and isolated settlements. Most use single sideband voice (SSB), which uses less bandwidth than AM. On an AM radio SSB sounds like ducks quacking, or the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Viewed as a graph of frequency versus power, an AM signal shows power where the frequencies of the voice add and subtract with the main radio frequency. SSB cuts the bandwidth in half by suppressing the carrier and (usually) lower sideband. This also makes the transmitter about three times more powerful, because it doesn’t need to transmit the unused carrier and sideband.

TETRA, Terrestrial Trunked Radio is a digital cell phone system for military, police and ambulances. Commercial services such as XM, WorldSpace and Sirius offer encrypted digital Satellite radio.
From Wikipedia ( The free Encyclopedia )

Interesting Facts

Interesting Facts

For Your Warehouse of Useless Knowledge

1. 1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire a strung across the U.S.
2. 101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy) are the only two Disney cartoon features with both parents that are present and don’t die throughout the movie.
3. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
4. 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
5. 123,000,000 cars are being driven down the U.S’s highways.
6. 160 cars can drive side by side on the Monumental Axis in Brazil, the world’s widest road.
7. 166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in the U.S.
8. 27% of U.S. male college students believe life is “A meaningless existential hell.”
9. 315 entries in Webster’s Dictionary will be misspelled.
10. 5% of Canadians don’t know the first 7 words of the Canadian anthem, but know the first 9 of the American anthem.
11. 56,000,000 people go to Major League baseball each year.
12. 7% of Americans don’t know the first 9 words of the American anthem, but know the first 7 of the Canadian anthem.
13. 85,000,000 tons of paper are used each year in the U.S.
14. 99% of the solar systems mass is concentrated in the sun.
15. A 10-gallon hat barely holds 6 pints.
16. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
17. A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.
18. A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.
19. A cow produces 200 times more gas a day than a person.
20. A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.
21. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
22. A fully loaded supertanker travelling at normal speed takes a least twenty minutes to stop.
23. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.
24. A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.
25. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
26. A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it’s there.
27. A hedgehog’s heart beats 300 times a minute on average.
28. A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.
29. A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
30. A jellyfish is 95 percent water.
31. A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
32. A jumbo jet uses 4,000 gallons of fuel to take off.
33. A male emperor moth can smell a female emperor moth up to 7 miles away.
34. A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 6 years. Wow.
35. A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.
36. A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.
37. A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
38. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.
39. A Saudi Arabian woman can get a divorce if her husband doesn’t give her coffee.
40. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
41. A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
42. A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water.
43. A skunk can spray its stinky scent more than 10 feet.
44. A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
45. A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans!
46. A walla-walla scene is one where extras pretend to be talking in the background — when they say “walla-walla” it looks like they are actually talking.
47. A whale’s penis is called a dork.
48. About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.
49. About 70% of Americans who go to college do it just to make more money. [The rest of us are avoiding reality for four more years.]
50. According to a British law passed in 1845, attempting to commit suicide was a capital offense. Offenders could be hanged for trying.

Word Of The Year

(Nov. 30) — “Twitter” has been named the “Top Word of 2009,” beating out such contenders as “vampire,” “H1N1″ and “Obama.”

According to the Global Language Monitor, a Texas company that tracks word usage on the Internet, the name of the popular microblogging Web site was the most attention-grabbing word of the year.

“In a year dominated by world-shaking political events, a pandemic, the aftereffects of a financial tsunami and the death of a revered pop icon, the word Twitter stands above all other words,” said Paul JJ Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor.

According to the group, the 10 top words for 2009 were:

According to the Global Language Monitor, Twitter was the “Top Word” in 2009.

1. Twitter
2. Obama
3. H1N1
4. Stimulus
5. Vampire
6. 2.0
7. Deficit
8. Hadron
9. Healthcare
10. Transparency

Meanwhile, the 10 top phrases were:

So, congratulations, Twitter. Enjoy the honor while it lasts.