Stayin’ Alive
From our earliest days, we are constantly warned about various dangers in our lives, and we can all remember advice like the “stop, look and listen” before crossing train tracks or avoiding taking candy from strangers. And each of these have obvious physical signs, such as being wary of people you don’t know or hearing the clanging bells, flashing/swinging semaphores and the unmistakable Doppler shift from the roar of an approaching freight train. All good reasons to think twice.
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The Oklahoma Twister Relief Concert
On May 20, 2013, a massive and powerful tornado stuck the town of Moore, OK, a suburb located about halfway between Norman and Oklahoma City. The twister was given the maximum EF-5 strength rating by the National Weather Service. Tragically, the aftermath of its two-mile-wide swath of fury left hundreds of injuries, some two dozen deaths (including seven children killed when a school collapsed) and entire neighborhoods flattened, with more than an estimated billion dollars in damage to homes and businesses.
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Generators and Portable Power, Part 3
In the July 2013 issue of FRONT of HOUSE, our second article on portable power distribution discussed grounding and bonding specifics of portable generators, including small generators that are “floating neutral” configured. This third article should not be viewed as independent of the other two, and readers are encouraged to read the articles in the June and July issues. In this third article we’ll focus on proposed changes to the 2013 National Electric Code that, if enacted, will have ramifications for generators 15 kW and below.
Read More »My Day with the SSL Live Console, Part 1
Lsst week, I had the unique privilege of spending the day with Fernando Guzman, Solid State Logic product specialist and point man for the Live console project here in the USA. Jay Easley, SSL’s new vice president of live consoles in the Americas, joined us in our listening tests. The SSL Live (solidstatelogic.com/live) is still in its Beta version, and a few hardware and software functions are still “under construction.” However, the desk has evolved enough from its Alpha stage to allow for an honest listening test.
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A Recording Studio Tackles Live-Sound Education
It’s a tough economic time for music, but if you have to be in that business, live music is where you want to be. While the overall U.S. music industry can expect to see annual growth of just over 1 percent through 2017, according to a recently released PricewaterhouseCoopers industry analysis, the report projects that the concert business will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3 percent through the same period. In other words, live-performance music revenues are projected to be triple those of the music industry as a whole going forward.
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Tetris, Anyone? The Art and Mystery of Truck Packing
Did you ever play the video game Tetris? Tetris was released in the mid-1980s and is reportedly the first video game ever to be exported from what was then the Soviet Union to the United States. It’s one of the most popular video games of all time (even I’ve played it), and has been ported to game consoles ranging from the Commodore 64 computer to Game Boy to the iPhone.
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