If a tree falls …

Posted on by Ian C.

Reminiscent of the philosophical riddle, but rather more serious when it happens next door! While our neighbors Joanne and Earle are away, we’re watching their house – I check for working heat and no flooding from the heavy rain, but never thought to check for fallen trees! But their son Jason came home and found it … Luckily, the tree almost completely missed the house, so little to no damage; maybe just some shingles need work:

We assume it blew down last weekend when we had big wind and rain.

Google Reader and MotoringFile

Posted on by Ian C.

I happened to visit the actual MotoringFile website today to see if they’d got the latest MINI sales figures; my first reaction was along the lines of “EEK!” related to the formatting of that site (the bold and fat headline font disturbed me!):

But formatting is personal (yes, Robert, I’m thinking of you), so no doubt lots of MF folks like it …

My second reaction was “oh, lots of stories I don’t remember” … Turns out, the Google Reader feed I set up were using the MotoringFile Clippings feed which they appear to not support even though they offer the link – so it’s not had stories updated since mid last year!

Oh well, so I’ve updated the Google Reader feed and it now includes recent MotoringFile stories. I wonder how often a website feed breaks like that? I suppose to some extent, MotoringFile actually doesn’t want me to use the feed, since then I don’t see all their advertising – but I would have expected a broken feed link to give an error, rather than just give many month old data.
Having the non-clipped feed from MotoringFile is a bit disappointing, since they have a habit of blasting a HUGE amount of copied-from-press-release-and-not-edited stuff into a post sometimes, but overall I prefer to read newer news even if it’s a bit of a flood.

TITAN

Posted on by Ian C.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been working almost continuously on software for one of our customers newest developments, the TITAN machine – it’s an amazing combination of scissor vehicle, boom vehicle, self-leveling machine, and tele-handler. And they’ve just reached the point where they’re ready to show it to the world:

It’s hard to grasp how impressive this machine is – but check out this press release and the complimentary editorial comment from Vertikal:
… strengths of three machines into one adding the capacity of a telehandler at 4,000lb (2 tons!), to the work area of a large heavy duty scissor lift at 22′ by 7.5′ (a minibus!), and the reach, rotation and outreach of a 40′ boom lift …
… four wheel drive, four wheel steer and automatic platform leveling …
Comment
This is an exciting new concept which will prove popular for heavy duty applications … It is excellent to see something so radical at a time when most manufacturers appear to have slowed new product launches to a snails pace. The lift should give the California based company a real boost, in a quiet market.

I haven’t been out to California to see or work on the machine, but I will see it at the ARA show in Florida next week – hopefully I’ll have more pictures then (and maybe some video)