Month: August 2022

Categories
tech

Material Resources And Their Future

We are in an age of incredible breakthroughs in science and technology. If we were to pause for a moment to think about the growth of human civilization, we would find that the pace of social and economic growth has been closely linked with peoples ability to use and shape materials. Man has blazed a trail into outer space, harassed the energy of atomic nucleus, built “thinking” machines and unraveled the mystery of the living cell. Today this proficiency has become the bedrock of a country’s development.

We are moving into ever and fascinating fields, but there is one field of activity which, while being old as the hills, is no less fascinating. This field is metallurgy, the production and working of metals and alloys. Light-weight high-performance materials and alloys have developed in the making of aircraft, satellites, launch-vehicles and missiles. Our houses are full of modern materials: stainless steel vessels, shaving blades with special coatings, special non-sticking and slow-heating frying pans: plastic and fiber-glass products. Musical instruments and audio-visual equipment, including television, depend crucially on certain advance materials.

Down the ages people were first familiar with only a few metals to be followed by the newly discovered elements when the range of useful metals extended as well. Now-a-days many implants to replace the broken bones are made of modern materials like titanium; the catheters used to save patients with blocked blood vessels are made of special metallic wires coated with plastic materials. Many biomaterials are also now emerging.

The explosive development of technology is the hallmark of the 20th century, a time when instrument-making, chemistry, aviation rocketry, electronics and nuclear power-all started to place order for new materials with unique properties. This is what prompted the scientists to delve deeper into the world of rare metals. A careful study of those “recluses” revealed that many of them were quite “gifted”. Thus began the advent of rare metals in the industry.

Today it is seen that not a single new area of technology can do without rare metals, their alloys or compounds. We find fine-filament suspensions for navigation instruments of high precision are made from rhenium alloys; a thin layer of indium deposited on ball-bearings protect them from erosion and increases their service life; gallium goes into the manufacture of the so-called liquid seals in the vacuum equipment and high-temperature thermometers; cesium is the most important is the most important component of photocells used in flaw detectors; hafnium is the material from which control rods of nuclear reactors are made and is also promising as a component of super Aluminum-based Master Alloy being developed for aviation and rocketry. Such examples could be listed indefinitely.

Is it necessary to have good material resource-base metals and minerals to become a developed country? U.S.A has a rich base in resources: so does Russia:China’s mineral resource is of great helping its speedy economic growth; Australia too is well off in this regard. Most of Africa is endowed with some of the best mineral ores but most of the liberated colonized countries are still poor since they did not bother about local growth. However it is only Japan, which has practically no mineral resource base of significance, has proved to be avowedly the economical and technological leader of the 21st century. The Japanese mastered the technologies to use their minerals and materials for economic and practical gains. High- cost products flow from Japan to other countries which have supplied them the raw materials and minerals. That is how the economic strength of nations which have mastered technologies is built up.

There are instances of some developed and industrialized nations denying products derived from the ores to the very countries from which they got the ores in the first place, on the grounds that these products derived are of strategic use. During the seventies when we required a few beryllium products for making gyroscopes required for the guidance systems; both America and Japan declined to supply. It turned out that India has one of the richest stocks of beryllium ores, which it also supplies to developed countries. The denial of the beryllium products was one of the early lessons for India. Now, of course, India does not have to beg others for beryllium products. The stride in the technologies of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has set up a beryllium machining facility at Vashi, Mumbai. Indian ore is finding its way to Indian space, atomic energy and industrial projects.

Fortunately, India has a number of excellent mineral resources. It has very good iron deposits, manganese deposits, etc. As for the wonder modern metal titanium, India tops the list of countries having this resource. We have one of the best quality bauxite ores of the world. We also have several rare-earth strategic and high value mineral resources. We have rich beryl ores to supply beryllium and abundant resources (about three million tones) of monazite, a source for many rare metals.

Considering India’s natural resources as well as our industrial and R&D capabilities, we can narrow down thirteen areas for special attention. These thirteen areas are steel, titanium, aluminum, rare earths, composites, ceramics, building materials, photonic materials, super conducting materials, polymeric materials, nuclear materials, biomaterials as well as a generic technologic area of surface engineering. These are the areas in which India can excel and can have a long term and sustainable and competitive advantage over many decades.

Categories
home

Catch the Excitement of Sporting Events This Fall

Fall is finally here, and that means football season is in full swing! Root for your favorite team at one of the many sporting events happening this fall. Cheer on the runners as they cross the finish line at the marathon or race around the track yourself at a track meet. Watch the best athletes in the world raiders vs chiefs tickets compete at the World Series or Olympic games. There’s something for everyone this fall when it comes to sports events. So catch the excitement and cheer on your favorite team!

The strong reactions online to my recent examination of how private “travel” baseball clubs are replacing nonprofit, volunteer-based leagues suggests that youth baseball is in a crisis that might require radical reform.

“I’ve parented, coached, and umpired at every level from t-ball to college-showcase/travel ball—in urban, suburban, and rural settings—and it all rings true,” wrote Jeff Uphoff on Twitter, referring to my America article.

Parents are frustrated at having to pay thousands of dollars a year to private club owners, and the result is fewer children playing baseball. “Travel ball has been a pox on the sport,” tweeted Dan McClinton.

This is a shame, because a lot of Americans still love baseball. Recently, I met with Casey Cole and Tito Serrano, two Franciscan friars who have resolved to visit all 30 Major League Baseball stadiums this summer.

“St. Francis said to go where the people are,” Father Cole told me. “In America in the summer, that’s baseball games.” But Father Serrano noted that “at ballgames, you don’t meet that many people who’ve actually played baseball.”

Ten-year-old Nathan Weaver in Limestone, W.Va., is enjoying his town’s Little League season, said David Weaver, his father. The fee for the season is around $100, and the players’ dads are coaching. “When I grew up, my dad didn’t even believe in Little League,” said David. “He thought that kids should be out there with a stick and a rock.”

But the Weavers know that it won’t last forever. The better players on Nathan’s team are headed for travel teams. Even in small-town West Virginia, the private sports economy is taking over. There’s a new complex where young athletes can train—and spend money.

As the elder Mr. Weaver pointed out, that’s not the worst form of economic development for a community. And there are plenty of volunteer-based leagues where the environment is far from idyllic. “I’ve noted a contentious vibe between coaching staffs in some of my 6-year-old’s games,” said a friend of mine who is a head college baseball coach. “And there are some [private] clubs that do a really nice job.”

But overall, the declining interest in recreational youth baseball suggests that it’s time for some changes not only to the structure, but to the game itself, since that’s what will attract children in the first place. (Major League Baseball, which has been struggling to retain fans, has been implementing reforms of its own.)

The key is fostering love. Our children should play baseball because they love it, because it offers a safe, stimulating and fun place to play, and not because Mom or Dad is making them play. “The first experience needs to be fun,” said Amos Huron, executive director of the Anderson Monarchs, which runs baseball teams for over 200 children in Philadelphia. “Baseball needs to make a good first impression.”

In that spirit, here are nine ideas for helping young people fall in love with baseball:

1. Nonprofit clubs on public fields. The United States could take a lesson from Europe, where nonprofit clubs oversee most sports and playing fields are typically open to the public. Parents pay an annual fee of a few hundred dollars, pricier than Little League but much less than privatized sports clubs, since owners are not siphoning profits off the top.

2. Payment for coaches. Little League Baseball, which did not return a request for comment, has had a longstanding rule against paying coaches, but there’s nothing so wrong with the practice. Baseball is a difficult, complicated sport. You wouldn’t expect free violin lessons, would you?

3. Smaller teams. The structure of all-volunteer coaching staffs leading teams of 12 to 14 kids for 15 games a season might be outdated. “Youth baseball games have become too long, slow and boring,” says David Klein, a California entrepreneur who runs a youth baseball organization called Speedball. In Speedball, teams have four or five players, and the rules are modified to keep the game moving. Speedball is a for-profit company, with seasonal fees over $1,000. But Mr. Klein says he offers scholarships, and his innovations should be an inspiration to all baseball organizers. “We create an experience that kids love,” he says.

4. A ban on walks. The scourge of any youth baseball game is pitchers struggling to throw strikes while 25 other kids just stand around and watch. Youth baseball coaches and organizers need to legislate against this. They could institute a rule mandating an easy-to-hit lob from a coach to a batter after four balls, or use a machine to throw strikes. In any case, there’s no reason walks should be a part of youth baseball.

5. A “two strikes and you’re out” rule. Ideally, a baseball game should have a rhythm, a quickness, where the ball is always moving. One way to do that is to establish the imperative of swinging at almost every pitch and putting balls in play faster by allowing only two strikes before an out. It would be better to have coaches lob balls and enable contact on every pitch than to give children the option of standing there watching pitches.

6. Softer or smaller balls. One reason kids get scared away from baseball is the ball itself. The little white rock can be a menacing weapon. There have been some calls for smaller baseballs for younger leagues, in the same way that basketballs are adjusted for different ages. It’s worth trying.

7. Coaches as catchers. The objective of every youth baseball game should be a steady stream of balls put into play that force action on the field. Organizers should fix the weakest links. Many youth leagues work with coaches pitching. So why not have coaches catch as well? When I have tried this, it has given the pitcher confidence to throw strikes, has eliminated passed balls that slow down the game and has set a faster tempo.

8. Playing five-on-five with three bases. Baseball suffers from the perception that you need 18 players to have a game. There is no reason you can’t play five-on-five with two or three bases, to cite the example of “BeeBall,” a recent experiment invented by the Dutch Baseball Federation. The traditionalists will groan, but baseball became America’s national sport by changing rule after rule to add excitement and tension.

9. Playing catch. Bring back catch-playing as a fundamental unit of social interaction. It can happen everywhere from schools and playgrounds to backyards and corporate team-building venues. There will be no more youth baseball of any kind in America unless kids learn to play catch. Give every schoolchild a glove and set aside 15 minutes in the playground every day to throw the ball back and forth. John Thorn, a historian of Major League Baseball, likes to say that this is the soul of baseball: “Your hand and the ball it grips become one, and you send a piece of yourself into the ether, confident that it will find its mark and be returned.”

Whatever happens with youth baseball, we can be sure that it will look different from our idealized version of childhood athletics. But in every community, people still have a choice about how to oversee their children’s play. And if you care about passing on baseball to your children, I have an answer that is also a beginning: Go play catch.

Categories
home

Hockey Tickets

Hockey tickets are entry tickets to watch hockey games and championships. Earlier, the tickets were made of cheap quality paper but now the tickets are very colorful and made from good quality paper. A range of ticket packages are available on the Internet

Many ticket brokers sell hockey tickets through ticketing agents and also through online ticketing sites. Some packages, apart from match tickets, include hotel stay, adventure sports, ship cruises, and other events. Fans of all professional teams buy tickets early, to see their favorite players in action. Watching the match live sitting in a stadium is certainly more interesting and entertaining than watching it on TV.

The best way to get a hockey ticket today is through any of the ticketing sites on the Internet. These sites book huge blocks of seats available for a game of hockey and resell them to customers on a first come first serve basis. These tickets are usually priced above their face value and include profit and expenses of the seller. Discount packages are also offered to customers buying tickets in huge lots. Very few tickets are offered directly to the general public for matches played at major tournaments such as the Stanley Cup. Most of them are given as passes to VIPs and sponsors.

The game of hockey has become very popular in North America, Canada, and other European countries. With an increase in fan following of various professional teams, the demand for hockey tickets has also increased. Enthusiasts of the game buy hockey tickets online to watch players of their favorite teams live in action in a stadium filled with cheering and shouting fans.

As the game of hockey itself has changed with time, the process of selling tickets has also changed over the years. Even the presentation elements of the tickets such as the color and texture have changed overtime. Ticket sales have increased considerably and it is expected to grow even further. This trend is good for the game as well as the ticket sellers.

Categories
tech

How Could You Save Money Using Used Auto Parts?

Are you running your own car? If it is yes, then obviously you have to do regular maintenance of your car that requires you purchasing several parts at a regular interval. During this time, you should consider purchasing used auto parts rather than new auto parts that may cut a huge from your annual maintenance cost.

There are some advantages of replacing damaged auto parts of your car with used parts. Among various benefits, cost saving gets the top priority. If you want to purchase new parts, you may have to pay double than the used parts. This is the main reason why auto owners want to purchase old parts. Sometimes, it may save half of the price of new parts.

However, if you have any plan to replace your old car within one or two years, then it would be better for you to invest less on it. In such cases, you should give priority to purchasing a used one. But, you have to remember that you can’t replace all damaged parts with used parts. There are some obstructions replacing parts like spark-plug and ECU sensors. You have to think about parts, which are durable and won’t bother at all using for long time like engine head, cylinder, piston, and crankshaft and so on.

In some cases, new parts can rarely be managed from the manufacturer and even too much costly. You can easily find a good replacement of new parts from your nearby junkyards. Some automotive parts remain in good condition even though the car is damaged. If you can manage your required parts from the junkyard, then it would save a huge from your budget.

Some junkyards also sell used auto parts online leaving an option to you to find your required one easily from home. You can easily take that option to manage a good used one for the maintenance of your car. If you spend a little bit time online, you may find some junkyards selling auto parts at a very low cost.

You may also find some auto part stores selling used parts that have been machined by Auto parts machining or re-manufactured. Actually, they do machining of parts like damaged shaft and damaged gear teeth, and offer to customers at a very low cost. Though, these are technically used parts, but have got a new look and structure after machining. You can also think about such parts to cut your vehicle maintenance cost.