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Not only are these more lightweight, cheaper, and customizable, the drones are also applicable to the military, agriculture, service industries, and disaster relief.
The article at this link written by Charles Goulding is an indepth look at the development behind 3D printed drones. Well worth a read.
| A CADPRO Systems release || Wednesday 30 August 2017 |||
It's the Asia Cup and Pakistan are playing their arch-rivals India. They need nine to win from 4 balls with one wicket in hand and 'Boom Boom’ Shahid Afridi is facing Ravichandran Ashwin. A short ball on off-stump is thumped with mighty force by Afridi. The ball catches the outside edge and sails over the cover boundary. 73m six.
3 off 3 now.
Another short ball, this time on the stumps. Afridi once again edges the pull but the ball travels over long-on and Pakistan win. The Pakistani fans erupt into celebrations as Lala has done it yet again for them.
If this match were played some decades ago, India would have been the ones celebrating. Top edges don't go for sixes in the Bradman-era. 73m would be way inside the boundary line. But this is another era, the era of sixes, the era of short boundaries, the era of gigantic bats.
Those pieces of wood which the likes of Ranjitsinhji, Wilfred Rhodes and WG Grace used have quadrupled in size. Not surprising though. The only things that have grown shorter in cricket are Dhoni’s hair, Sir Richard Hadlee's run-up and boundary ropes. Bats have just grown bigger, bigger and bigger since.
David Warner's Kaboom bat (Gray Nicholls Kaboom) has a depth of 85mm. Considering the number of bats modern cricketers use, if David Warner hadn’t played cricket, there would have been a willow forest in New South Wales.
Warner isn't the only modern cricketer to carry such bats. The likes of Chris Gayle, Kevin Pietersen and MS Dhoni carry pretty deep wood bats and it has been a subject of a lot of discussions in recent times.
The MCC eventually brought in some changes and outlined a set of permissible dimensions for the cricket bat. "We have talked for the last couple of years about concerns that the committee has had about the size of bats and where the size of bat is going to go in the next five-ten years," Ricky Ponting, a member of the committee, had a as revealed by ESPNCricinfo. "So we have actually come up with some dimensions that we are comfortable with as a committee."
The new permitted dimensions will be 108mm in width, 67mm in depth and 40mm edges. That would mean Warner's 85mm bat is 18mm above the permissible limit, which is quite outrageous considering that the balance between bat and ball is heavily compromised.
The history of the cricket bat
The earliest cricket bat used was believed to be in 1620 when a batsman hit the fielder with a bat to prevent him from catching the ball. The shape of the bat was thought to be similar to modern hockey sticks since rolling the arm over wasn't yet practised at the time.
It started taking a rectangular form in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The laws had by then changed and bowlers were allowed to roll their arms over like they do in modern cricket. There were no restrictions on the size or the shape of the bat at that point of time.
The width of the bat was set at four and a quarter inch by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the copyright holder of the Laws of Cricket in early 18th century. This came on the back of an Englishman, representing Ryegate, walking in to bat against Hambledon in 1771 with a bat as wide as the stumps.
The bats were believed to be around £5 then, and were made from English Willow trees, specifically the heartwood portion which was dense and hence appeared darker.
Bat manufacturing in the late 1900s became an art. Credits: Play Better Cricket
The process changed by the late 1800s when bat manufacturer CC Bussey, from England used the sapwood trees. This made bats lighter and hence easier to wield. The manufacturing process changed from then on as more and more manufacturers preferred the sapwood, called the 'white willow' at the time.
The advent of the 20th century saw players like Don Bradman, Vijay Merchant and Wally Hammond emerge. They used bats similar in size and shape but the weight varied. The average bat was two pounds two ounces. Billy Ponsford, though, was famous for using a 2.9lbs bat, called the “Big Bertha” bat. But by the 1960s, players like Clive Lloyd and Graeme Pollock started using bats heavier than 3 pounds.
This made playing certain shots particularly difficult, a reason why several players still preferred lighter bats. The Great Ranjitsinhji discovered the leg glance courtesy a light bat which could be steerer quite easily as against a heavier willow.
Cricket spreading to other countries was also instrumental in the development of bats. Manufacturers started experimenting with local timber and the English Willow was tried to be grown in Australia and New Zealand with little success.
The distribution of weight and the sweet spot
From the mid 1900s, the big bat revolution began. The Kashmiri willow became famous in India and Pakistan as it was approximately the same in terms of weight as the English kind, although it was believed to be less durable.
The real change came when the distribution of weight turned into something bat manufacturers experimented with. Gary Nicholls and John Newberry were the pioneers of this movement and it resulted in “Super Scoop” bats.
There was a large hollow at the back of the bat and more timber at the edges. This distribution brought the “sweet spot” into focus.Immense precision goes into the preparation of a bat. [Credits: Izismile]
In those times, the middle of the lower half of the bat was the sweet spot, where the timber would be dense. This allowed the bat to induce maximum power on the ball. These days, bats have so many sweet spots that they could very well be mistaken for a bakery.
Once the sweet spot was settled, the focus turned into reducing the weight of bats. The likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Lance Klusener used monstrous bats that played a part in back injuries. The emphasis as such turned into making lighter bats which generated as much power.
The dryness of the willow was considered a crucial factor here. Reducing moisture content of the willow allowed bats to become lighter while maintaining the same effectiveness in terms of power. Modern day bats are actually lighter than those used in the 1960s but have bigger edges and greater depth.
The material at all times remained wood after Mike Brearley complained of Dennis Lillee’s aluminium bat in 1979. A graphite reinforced bat was used by Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey as part of an experiement by Kookaburra but it did not last.
Durability vs Strength
The durability of the bat was a huge concern in the early 1900s but that is no longer pondered about. Cricketers carry around a lot of bats and are believed to use more than 10 bats a season. Herschelle Gibbs once revealed that he went through 47 bats in one season (Source: The Guardian), although that is quite rare.
The amount of time the wood is pressed contributes to the efficiency of bats. The more it is pressed, the less efficient the bat is although it becomes more durable. Modern bats aren't pressed much at the demands of cricketers and as such it is less durable but superlatively effective.
A willow store room. Credits: Telegraph
All in all, this has contributed to enormous bats in the 21st century largely tilting the balance in favour of batsmen.
he MCC has rightfully intervened to restrict bat sizes which will be effective from October 1 this year.
“The time has come to restrict the size of bat edges and the overall width [depth] of bats," Mike Brearley, chairman of the MCC, had said as revealed by ESPNCricinfo. "It was pointed out to us that, in 1905, the width of bats was 16mm and that, by 1980, it had increased to 18mm. It is now an average, in professional cricket, of 35-40mm and sometimes up to 60mm. That shows how fast the change has been."
As the limitations take effect, we would probably get to know the kind of impact these humongous bats have made in the past decade or so.
| A SportSkeeda release || August 30, 2017 |||
New Zealand’s major national rural health group says they are happy the government has committed to ensuring 74,000 more rural further homes to be connected for mobile phone reception.
The Rural Health Alliance of Aotearoa New Zealand (RHAANZ) says all the homes to get fibre wi-fi are in small and tiny rural towns as well as extending urban edges. The alliance has concerns and wants assurances that there will not be any extra costs to small town New Zealand to subsidise high costs for rural connections.
The Government announced today it is investing $270 million to roll out Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) to 190 more small towns and extend rural broadband to another 74,000 households and businesses.
More than 300,000 rural homes and businesses already have access to improved broadband – about half the population of rural New Zealand.
The announcement will provide important coverage to remote parts including State Highway 1 in Northland and SH6 on the West Coast.
“This is a positive move to see rural connectivity investment for Rural New Zealand. It’s great to see a consortium of three mobile companies pooling resources to ensure the roll out is extended beyond anything any one mobile provider could do. We are also happy that wireless providers are receiving funding to help rural areas where geography obstructs the roll out of fibre,” RHAANZ chair Martin London says.
“Having 87 percent of the New Zealand population to have access to fibre continues to move us higher on the OECD table for connectivity. But we feel for the many thousands of rural Kiwi households still without broadband.
“We are keen to see government to keep focusing on providing broadband in rural areas where Kiwis help contribute so much to the nation’s economy.
“When you consider the government is providing extra funding to ultrafast broadband to reach 87 percent of New Zealanders in 190 cities and towns by 2022 that’s really heartening.
“But why should New Zealanders who don’t live in cities be the last to be supported? The lives of rural New Zealanders are at risk every day because of poor connectivity and inequitable health services.
“And just because we have good fast internet we need to make sure all rural Kiwis know how to make good economical use of it.”
Dr London says government needs to help remove barriers so rural people’s health be considered just as important as those who live in cities.
RHAANZ has 47 national member organisations encompassing rural health providers, agribusiness groups, universities, rural community groups and local government.
Rural New Zealand makes up at least 600,000 people, effectively New Zealand’s second largest city, and is an important constituency from an economic and political perspective.
Agriculture and tourism are the powerhouses of the economy, London says. Each year, more than two and a half million tourists visit rural New Zealand. In 2011-2012, $40 billion, or 19 percent of GDP, was generated directly or indirectly by the agri-food sector.
For more information contact RHAANZ chair Martin London on 027 4641191 or Make Lemonade editor-in-chief Kip Brook on 0275 030188.
| A REal Lemonade release || August 30, 2017 |||
The Reserve Bank’s monetary policy has been an important driver in the last five years behind above-trend growth in the economy and employment, Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler said today in a speech.
Speaking to the Northern Club in Auckland, Mr Wheeler said that the New Zealand economy has generally performed well in the last five years.
“It’s been a remarkable five years, especially with the challenges thrown up by the global economy and an over-heated domestic housing market. On the international front we’ve seen increasing use of unconventional monetary policies, sluggish international trade, sharp swings in commodity prices, a continued rapid build-up in global debt, and unexpected political developments in Europe, the UK and the US.
“Back home we’ve experienced the strongest migration surge since the 1800s, probably the longest period of negative tradables inflation since the Great Depression, a 75 percent decline in dairy prices before recovering, a major shift in resources to the non-tradables sector to support the Canterbury rebuild, and annual national house price inflation reached 21 percent.”
Despite these challenges, Mr Wheeler said, GDP growth has averaged 2.8 percent and employment growth 2.5 percent. Both exceed the trend rate of growth for the period of flexible inflation targeting up until 2012. Headline CPI inflation averaged 1 percent due to 4½ years of negative tradables inflation, while core inflation averaged 1.4 percent.
“Over the past five years, the Bank’s monetary policy has been an important driver behind the rate of output and employment growth, and the path of non-tradable inflation and inflation expectations. Long-term inflation expectations remain well anchored at the target mid-point of 2 percent.”
Mr Wheeler said that New Zealand has also had a stable financial system. “LVR restrictions have reduced financial stability risks as house prices became increasingly stretched. Requiring new borrowers to have a greater equity contribution in their house purchases reduced the overall riskiness of banks’ mortgage portfolios.
“Nationwide annual house price inflation has declined to 1 percent due to LVR restrictions, the tightening in bank lending, the rise in mortgage rates and increasing concerns about housing affordability.
“LVRs are not expected to be a permanent measure, but their removal would require a degree of confidence that financial stability risks won’t deteriorate again. However, debt-to-income ratios have risen in recent years, and with the underlying drivers of housing demand (population growth, low interest rates) remaining strong and demand outstripping supply, there’s a risk of a housing market resurgence (and a sharp lift in high LVR lending) if LVRs were removed at this time.”
Mr Wheeler said that, in the absence of major unanticipated shocks, prospects look promising for continued robust economic growth in New Zealand over the next two years.
“The greatest risk we face at this stage relates to the inflated global asset prices and the continuing build up in global debt.
“If growth in the global economy slows, we have some scope to buffer our economy. We’ve greater room for monetary policy manoeuvre than central banks in many advanced economies. Our official cash rate is 1.75 percent – above the zero and negative interest rates of several advanced country central banks – and the Bank has not grossed up its balance sheet by buying domestic assets. With a budget surplus and low net debt relative to GDP, there’s also flexibility on the fiscal policy side.”
Read the speech: Reflections on the stewardship of the Reserve Bank
| A RBNZ release || August 30, 2017 |||
A new $400,000 scholarship programme to build global expertise on climate change, agriculture and food security will boost New Zealand’s contribution to agricultural greenhouse gas research say Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett and Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy.
The scholarship, announced today at the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA) Council meeting in Tsukuba, Japan, is a joint initiative of the GRA and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.
“Finding new ways to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions is crucial to meeting our ambitious 2030 Paris Agreement targets. This scholarship builds on the $20 million a year we already invest in agricultural emissions,” says Mrs Bennett.
“Our farmers care deeply about our environment and we have some of the best environmental farming practices in the world,” says Mr Guy.
“Given a growing global population, it’s in everybody’s interest that we are successful in producing food more efficiently and sustainably. We need all major food producers and the international scientific community to be fully involved.
“Using science and research is a far more sensible approach for tackling agricultural emissions than that of Labour and Greens who would punish farmers and growers by including them in the ETS. This would add a cost that no other country imposes, and ironically mean that consumers buy more products from overseas farmers who are not as environmentally efficient as us.”
New Zealand funding support will enable up to 40 recipients to be hosted in research centres of GRA partners and member countries over the next three years. New Zealand has been a long standing donor of the CGIAR, most recently committing a further $11 million over two years to its network of research institutes around the world.
For more information see www.globalresearchalliance.org.
| A Beehive release || August 30 2017 |||
Auckland, New Zealand – FUSION, the worldwide leader in marine audio engineering, announced today its partnership with Sea Pro Boats to offer their industry-leading purpose built marine entertainment systems, Signature Series Speakers and Amplifiers and True-Marine Speakers on all 2018 Bay Series and Center Console Deep V Series boats.
“Sea Pro has been making serious waves with its The Next Wave-branded boats,” said Chris Baird, managing director, FUSION Entertainment. “At Fusion, it’s the next sound wave that we take seriously, and that’s why we are so excited to be able to offer Sea Pro customers our latest and greatest, state-of-the-art stereos and speakers.”
Originally founded in 1987, Sea Pro Boats was purchased by Brunswick Corp. in 2005. In 2015, Jimmy Hancock, one of the original owners of Sea Pro, along with Tidewater Boats’ founder Preston Wrenn, re-launched the company with an all-new incarnation of the Sea Pro brand – ‘The Next Wave.’ The line currently features six models with two new models expected in late 2017/early 2018. Sea Pro Boats are made in America in the company’s 200,000-square-foot Whitmire, S.C., facility.
“We’re pleased to offer our customers FUSION signature sound for our 2018 model year,” said Hancock. “FUSION stereos and speakers are renowned for their exceptional audio quality and True-Marine design, and we’re confident our customers will get maximum enjoyment from them on the water.”
Designed for the marine environment by some of the finest engineering minds in the industry, Fusion systems are built from the ground up with world-class industrial design, high-quality componentry, intelligent and intuitive functionality, and with an unwavering vision of producing exceptional audio systems for those seeking a superior listening experience. With an elegant finish, FUSION systems perfectly blend with the decor of any vessel, are discreet yet refined and suitable for both internal and external installations.
For more information on FUSION or its entire line of marine audio products, visit fusionentertainment.com. To learn more about Sea Pro Boats, visit seapromfg.com.
| A Boating World release || August 29, 2017 |||
After being an integral part of SB Global Logistics’ business for more than two decades, DB Schenker and SB Global Logistics have entered into a definitive agreement under which DB Schenker will acquire SB Global Logistics from 24th September 2017. DB Schenker and SB Global Logistics have a longstanding relationship as network partners in New Zealand.
Mark Harrison, Director of New Zealand, DB Schenker AU/NZ commented “DB Schenker NZ has enjoyed a 20 year relationship with SB Logistics, from which we have seen both companies grow together off the back of mutual respect and confidence in service. This relationship has endured through many challenging global climates, always showing resilience and trust in achieving the foundations of our agreement. The backbone of this relationship has led us to today where we begin our process of merging the two organisations with absolute confidence given our extensive knowledge of how each work.”
With this acquisition, DB Schenker NZ will extend their presence into the South Island, strengthening their offering to customers and becoming a truly national operation. DB Schenker’s global network, now servicing both the North & South Islands, will be supplemented by SB Logistics’ local strengths adding an additional 50+ staff to the New Zealand operation along with a state of the art facility in Christchurch which opened in 2014.
“This purchase has been well thought out with due consideration to the future of SB Global Logistics business, staff and customers”, said Stephen Bateman, Director, SB Global Logistics. “SB Global Logistics Christchurch has grown over the past 27 years to become a well-respected and trusted organisation. This is a credit to a team of people who have shown tremendous dedication and resilience, and always striving to achieve a high level of service”.
The operations of SB Global Logistics Christchurch will continue ‘business as usual’ under new owners, DB Schenker, ensuring that customer requirements continue to be met. SB Global Logistics’ management team, will remain in the business and ensure a smooth transition.
About DB Schenker: DB Schenker (www.dbschenker.com) is the transportation and logistics division of Deutsche Bahn AG (www.deutschebahn.com). With 65,000 employees and about 2,000 offices in 130 countries around the world, DB Schenker is one of the world's leading providers of integrated logistics services, offering land transport, air and ocean freight as well as comprehensive logistics solutions and global supply chain management from a single source.
Schenker Australia Pty Ltd was established in 1962 in Sydney, has 1,091 employees in Australia and almost 100 in New Zealand.
| A DB Schenker/SB Global Logistics joint release || August 24, 2017 |||
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242