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Sundance doc looks at man behind the modern bulletproof vest
Richard Davis was a bankrupt pizzeria owner when he got the idea for a bulletproof vest in 1969 Michigan.To get more news about hard bulletproof vest, you can visit bulletproofboxs.com official website.
Body armor was nothing new, of course, but Davis had an inkling that he could make something lighter that could be worn, undetected, under clothes. Kevlar, he’d discover, was the answer. And to prove that his invention actually worked, Davis, a former Marine and born showman, went to some extraordinary lengths: He shot himself over 190 times.
Somehow, that’s not even the wildest part of his story, which is chronicled in the lively documentary “2nd Chance,” which premiered this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival.
Utilizing new interviews with Davis, friends, enemies and ex-wives, the film charts the formation of his company Second Chance, its triumphs (saving hundreds of lives) and tragedies, including the death of a police officer after the company started using Zylon in its vest.2nd Chance” is the documentary feature debut of Ramin Bahrani, the Iranian-American filmmaker whose films often explore and dismantle notions of the American dream, including “Chop Shop and “99 Homes.”
He was editing his last feature, “ The White Tiger, ” when several producers approached him about making a narrative film about Davis. But Bahrani surprised them when he said he’d rather make a doc.
“I tried to go there not knowing and not having a set plan and just waiting for the people to tell me things,” Bahrani said. “With the short docs I had made, I remember calling Werner Herzog and asking him what’s the approach? His advice was don’t pre-interview people on the phone, don’t talk to them before you meet them. Just start rolling the camera and get those immediate interactions.”
Davis is an eccentric character who is at times shockingly candid and other times a wholly unreliable narrator, which Bahrani explores with a clear-eyed empathy.
“Some of what he says can be uncomfortable to hear and I don’t agree with his positions. But at the same time, he was charming, he was friendly. When we showed up every day and we would show up to meet him, he cooked mac and cheese for the crew and fed us cookies,” Bahrani said.
“What was interesting for me in Richard was, you couldn’t pin him down to just wanting to make a lot of money. I kind of agree with his second wife that he wasn’t motivated necessarily by money. But I do think he enjoyed being the star. There is a narcissism to him. There is an ability of believing his own deceptions that did remind me of a lot of people in power even in this country,” Bahrani continued.
“It reminds me of some modern or harsh version of Arthur Miller’s ‘All My Sons,’ where the father has a successful factory making airplanes for the war and the son comes to understand that some of these planes are faulty and resulted in the death of pilots. The father ends up really hitting a moral force from the son and it ends up in a suicide. There’s a moral center to the play. Here, somehow that moral center within Richard’s own world seemed absent. He started another company that was even more successful, or just as successful. There’s something disturbing in that.”
How'd You Start A Bulletproof Vest Company?
How did you start a bulletproof vest company? This is the first question people ask. It isn't a simple story, but you're reading and I'm writing so I will try to tell it as quickly as possible.To get more news about hard armor panels, you can visit bulletproofboxs.com official website.
After Engineering School I went to work for a Helicopter company. There I became a Test Engineer. Test Engineers see if things work properly. One assignment I had was to test a new fuel tank liner. Instead of a Kevlar liner, they were switching to polyethylene to save money. The new liner was only 30% of the cost of the Kevlar one. If it worked, it would save a bunch of money. I think the difference was $100,000 vs. $30,000. I was on the team that did much of the testing and it worked really well. We all received little certificates for our desks that said we helped the company save money. At the time, I looked at bulletproof vests, they cost $1,000 and were made of Kevlar. I wondered if they could switch to polyethylene and get the price to $300.
After working for the helicopter company I went to work for Ford where I became a business planning analyst. It was at Ford that I learned to make things inexpensively. The Helicopters at my old company were $50,000,000 and didn't include any electronics. A fairly complex car or truck was less than $20,000. Ford knew how to build great things at a low price, it was a great place to learn. I left Ford in 1998 to start a company, but tried to keep that knowledge handy.
Fast-forward to 2012 and I was in a store that sold bulletproof vests. I noticed that vests were still $1,000 but now they were made of polyethylene. I was surprised. Why hadn't the price dropped?
I smelled an opportunity. Why were vests so expensive? Could you make them for less? Would anyone buy an affordable bulletproof vest? Would this be a good business for me to launch? Could you make a vest for less? Yes. The manufacturing of the vest for less wasn't hard, but could you make, market, and find customers for an inexpensive bulletproof vest.
Who would be interested in an affordable vest? It didn't seem like police departments would be that interested, even Detroit's police department who was just about bankrupt didn't want to buy vests that were customized, and every department we spoke to couldn't believe that we wouldn't send a representative to visit them. But, we did find a second market for vests. Security Guards. Security Guards need protection, but they don't get a federal subsidy, nor are they issued a vest by their job. They have to buy their own vest and $1,000 is two weeks take home pay for them. That is far too expensive.
Could you sell an affordable bulletproof vest? Yes, in fact some people already were. Army/Navy stores all over the country were selling expired bulletproof vests for $300-$450. These were vests with no guarantee they will work, no liability insurance, and no warranty. None of the stores seemed to know if these vests will still work, yet they were selling for as much as we thought we could sell a brand new vest for. The only problem, Army/Navy stores were paying as little as $50 per vest for the product.
Chinese Characters Are Futuristic and the Alphabet Is Old News
On a bright fall morning at Stanford, Tom Mullaney is telling me what’s wrong with QWERTY keyboards. Mullaney is not a technologist, nor is he one of those Dvorak keyboard enthusiasts. He’s a historian of modern China and we’re perusing his exhibit of Chinese typewriters and keyboards, the curation of which has led Mullaney to the conclusion that China is rising ahead technologically while the West falls behind, clinging to its QWERTY keyboard.To get more news about chinese alphabet, you can visit shine news official website.
Now this was and still is an unusual view because Chinese—with its 75,000 individual characters rather than an alphabet—had historically been the language considered incompatible with modern technology. How do you send a telegram or use a typewriter with all those characters? How do you even communicate with the modern world? If you’re a Cambridge-educated classicist enamored with the Greeks, you might just conclude Chinese script is “archaic.” Long live the alphabet.
Mullaney is the author of two forthcoming books on the Chinese typewriter and computer, and we discussed what he’s learned while researching them. His argument is pretty fascinating to unpack because, at its heart, it is about more than China. It is about our relationship to computers, not just as physical objects but as conduits to intangible software. Typing English on a QWERTY computer keyboard, he says, “is about the most basic rudimentary way you can use a keyboard.” You press the “a” key and “a” appears on your screen. “It doesn't make use of a computer’s processing power and memory and the cheapening thereof.” Type “a” on a QWERTY keyboard hooked up to a Chinese computer, on the other hand, and the computer is off anticipating the next characters. Typing in Chinese requires mediation from a layer of software that is obvious to the user.
In other words, to type a Chinese character is essentially to punch in a set of instructions—a code if you will, to retrieve a specific character. Mullaney calls Chinese typists “code conscious.” Dozens of ways to input Chinese now exist, but the Western world mostly remains stuck typing letter-by-letter on a computer keyboard, without taking full advantage of software-augmented shortcuts. Because, he asks, “How do you convince a person who's been told for a century and a half that their alphabet is the greatest thing since sliced bread?”
It’s China’s awkward history with the telegraph and the typewriter, argues Mullaney, that primed Chinese speakers to take full advantage of software when it came along—to the point where it’s now faster to input Chinese than English.
When the telegraph came to China in 1871, the Chinese first had to bend their language to Western technology. The solution, devised by a Dutch astronomer and a French customs officer, was to assign a four-digit code to each character, which was then translated into the dots and dashes of Morse. This worked, but it put Chinese at a disadvantage. Numbers in Morse code contain five dots or dashes and letters only one to three, which made Chinese telegrams both more expensive and less efficient. By some accounts, when former Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was on the road, sending telegrams was his biggest expense.
The Chinese typewriter was a cumbersome object, too. It had a tray bed of more than 2,000 common characters. A typist selected characters by maneuvering a chassis on top of the tray bed, pushing a lever that struck the chosen character against the page. If you wanted to type an uncommon character, you had to go hunting for it among thousands in a secondary tray bed.
At the same time, dozens of inventors tried their hand on better ways to send telegrams or build typewriters. To do so, they had to come up with new ways of indexing Chinese characters, breaking them into subunits. Take, for example, the “four corner method,” which notes the shape in each corner. Ten different shapes are assigned a number 0 through 9; going around the corners in a clockwise direction gives you a four-digit code to send telegrams or to organize characters in a typewriter. If you don’t write Chinese, this might not seem particularly profound. But in fact, it is a complete rethinking of the Chinese character.
It would be like, if instead of spelling an English word letter by letter, you represent it by noting the number of letters that are ascenders (d b l h), descenders (p y g j), or neither. The idea of choosing characters by inputting an abstract code was part of Chinese technology from the start.
Chinese backer for ‘Top Gun’ pulled out over movie’s pro-US message: report
A multi-billion dollar Chinese tech company pulled out of financing the new smash sequel “Top Gun: Maverick” because it was worried about angering Communist Party officials due to the film’s overtly pro-American theme, according to a report.To get more news about chinese movie, you can visit shine news official website.
In 2019, Tencent Holdings gave a commitment to Paramount Pictures that it would provide financial backing for the film in which Tom Cruise reprises his role as hot-shot naval aviator Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.
Tencent was expected to help Paramount market the film to domestic audiences in China, where movie executives hoped that the sequel to the 1986 hit “Top Gun” would gross some $80 million.
In exchange for its multi-million dollar investment, Tencent, the internet giant whose holdings include dozens of Asian startups in the video game, social media, and venture capital space, was due to receive a 12.5% stake in the film.Tencent’s involvement in the project was doomed in late 2019 as diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing deteriorated rapidly over the course of the last three years, the Journal reported.
At the time, Chinese companies were under pressure to swear loyalty to the Communist Party as part of President Xi Jinping’s so-called “anti-corruption crackdown.”
Cruise, 59, still has the star power to headline a major box office smash hit.
In its first three days in North American theaters, the long-in-the-works sequel earned an estimated $124 million in ticket sales, Paramount Pictures said Sunday.It was the first time in Cruise’s illustrious acting career that he starred in a film that generated more than $100 million at the box office during opening weekend.
But the film has not yet been approved for screening in China, a country of 1.4 billion people, and it appears Paramount has for the time being given up on its hopes of the movie being shown there.American companies, including major Hollywood motion picture studios, have been eager to do business there, but the geopolitical headwinds have complicated the situation considerably.
US firms have been criticized for bending over backwards to please Chinese authorities.
The Walt Disney Co. was slammed by conservatives for “whitewashing” Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang after the making of the live action version of “Mulan.”
Nest Home Security Review (2022 Guide)
Although Nest began as a smart home thermostat company, it has branched out into home security. In 2014, Google purchased Nest Labs and merged it with the rest of its Google Home products, so Google Nest now offers an integrated suite of products, including security, entertainment, energy, and lighting.To get more news about smart home security products, you can visit securamsys.com official website.
The Nest name still applies to the line of security products, including indoor and outdoor security cameras, video doorbells, sensors, and more. Nest offers a wireless home security system with optional 24/7 monitoring through Brinks Home Security.
In this review, we’ll dive into Nest home security and help you determine if it is the best home security system for you and your home.
Nest Home Security Packages and Equipment
Unlike traditional home security systems, Nest equipment is easy to install and move from place to place. You can choose whether to self-monitor the system or pay for professional monitoring, as well.
Sorting through Nest’s variety of hardware can be a little confusing, since everything is given a branded name that isn’t necessarily intuitive—do you run the system from the Nest Protect or the Nest Hub?
Nest Home Security Monitoring
You can use Nest as a basic alarm system without any monthly fees. However, if you have a Nest Cam and want to have access to the full capabilities of any of the cameras, you’ll need to pay for a Nest Aware subscription.
Alternatively, you can connect the Nest Hub and any cameras to 24/7 professional monitoring from Brinks Home Security. You won’t need to sign a contract with Brinks to engage their services, but there is a discounted monthly fee if you do.
Nest Home Security Pricing
The overall cost of a Nest system will depend on which pieces of equipment you buy. There are a couple of package deals with Nest you can pick. One is the Front Door Package, which comes with the Nest Hello Video Doorbell and the Nest Hub. This package costs $288.99 or $12.04 for 24 months.
Another is the Nest Outside Security package. This provides you with a Nest Hello video doorbell, Nest Cam Outdoor, and a Nest Mini for $427 upfront or $17.79 per month for 24 months.
Home Security & Safety Market Research Report 2022
The Global Home Security & Safety Market size was estimated at USD 78.92 billion in 2020 and expected to reach USD 84.98 billion in 2021, at a CAGR 8.04% to reach USD 135.66 billion by 2027.To get more news about home security product, you can visit securamsys.com official website.
In this report, the years 2018 and 2019 are considered historical years, 2020 as the base year, 2021 as the estimated year, and years from 2022 to 2027 are considered the forecast period.
The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects.
The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others.
The Competitive Scenario provides an outlook analysis of the various business growth strategies adopted by the vendors. The news covered in this section deliver valuable thoughts at the different stage while keeping up-to-date with the business and engage stakeholders in the economic debate.
The competitive scenario represents press releases or news of the companies categorized into Merger & Acquisition, Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership, New Product Launch & Enhancement, Investment & Funding, and Award, Recognition, & Expansion.
CAD Drafting & Custom Home Design Launches CAD Based Architecture
CAD Drafting & Custom Home Design, a locally owned architecture and home design company, has recently launched an architecture and drafting service that uses computer aided design (CAD) software. The company primarily operates in Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri where it designs, constructs, and remodels both residential and commercial buildings. The CAD architecture and drafting service will include formulating a plan for all parts and stages of construction including elevations, floor plan, electrical plan, dimension plan, and others.To get more news about basic drafting software, you can visit shine news official website.
CAD Drafting & Custom Home Design works closely with clients to understand the design and vision they have for their new home. It uses the latest technology in premier architectural design CAD software called "Chief Architect" to keep the quality of their project plans top-notch. From modern homes to colonial style characterized by luxe features, to simple houses that emphasize space and function, there is no style of architecture that is beyond the designing capability of the company.
One of the major benefits of using CAD software for home architecture and design is that it cuts down the time significantly compared to traditional methods. This allows a home construction project to begin early, reducing the wait time for clients. 3D displays allow clients to have a better perception of the design and architecture, especially when it comes to the spaciousness and depth of different rooms. If there is any part that does not match the client’s vision, it can be altered or redrafted in a short span of time to avoid delaying the project’s schedule.
During the launch, the company’s founder Dennis Zillig said, “From the technical aspects of drafting, architecture, and contracting to building quality homes and businesses, we give 100% to every job we do! We believe in putting the same qualities into our customer service and public relations skills too. We understand the importance of the building codes as to how they relate specifically to each project. Working with the local building department is always our priority and our plans typically are approved from the very first submittal. All of our clients can appreciate the ease and speed, with which we help them navigate this process of their building project.”
About CAD Drafting & Custom Home Design: CAD Drafting & Custom Home Designs is a locally owned architecture and home design company operated by Dennis Zillig. It provides home design services for all types of residential and commercial construction to help meet the unique needs of clients in Northwest Arkansas and Southwest Missouri.
How cloud is assisting emergence of robotics as a service in the region
Companies worldwide are now required to be agile in their customer service and development processes to compete in their sector due to the ongoing trend of digitisation, especially in the post pandemic era.To get more news about GRS, you can visit glprobotics.com official website.
Nowadays, firms must reconsider their strategy to meet the modern digital era as competitiveness demands efficiency in various activities. It is evident that the world needs a sustainable and automated solution that meets both the customer and the owner-stakeholder requirements.
To get more news about xxx, you can visit glprobotics.com official website.
One promising strategy for businesses to automate operations, manage work seamlessly, and reduce costs is to implement robots as a service (RaaS) model. The RaaS model is continuously gaining momentum within several organisations to combat operational challenges in the new era.
Automated machinery has always been one way to boost productivity and manage operations whenever human skills have been limited or unavailable onsite and in time.
Present day advanced robots are sufficiently intelligent to complete many well defined, repetitive manual tasks inside households, commercial establishments, large enterprises, and sprawling communities.
Typical use cases for service robots include hospitality, cleaning, delivery, inspection, quality control, sanitisation, entertainment, security, across retail, healthcare and logistics hubs, amongs others. Service robots are also designed by manufacturers with the primary function as collaborative, domestic, medical, entertainment and educational, among others.
However, service robots are seldom utilised around the clock and are significantly capital extensive. The robots must be programmed to recognise their physical parameters, the tasks they carry out daily, the owners and the customers. These factors may have been limiting regional and global ramp-up.
Selected service providers in the GCC region have found a solution to this challenge through robotics as a service.
RaaS offers a flexible alternative for small and medium enterprises considering employing robots but lacking the expertise or internal resources to maintain such robotic solutions.
By renting robotic equipment and using a cloud-based subscription service, RaaS enables a business to enjoy the advantages of robotic process automation.
An ABI Research estimates that there will be 1.3 million installations of robotics as a service or RaaS by 2026, generating $34bn in revenue.
A technical explanation provided by Wikipedia explains robotics as a service to be a cloud computing unit that facilitates integration of a robot and embedded devices into a cloud computing environment.
In terms of service-oriented architecture, a RaaS unit includes services for performing functionality, a service directory for discovery and publishing, and service clients for user’s direct access.
RaaS is intriguing the interest of businesses because it is more flexible, scalable and affordable than traditional robotics initiatives. Given how expensive robots are, it may be years before businesses see a return on their investment. This has discouraged many businesses from making robot investments. Small and medium sized firms can use robots and automation without making this initial investment thanks to RaaS. Additionally, it enables businesses to easily and quickly scale up or down in response to shifting customer and market demands. RaaS offers less initial startup capital and more predictable costs.
Wet Wipes Machines Market
A recently released report on Wet Wipes Machines Market research sheds light on the major players in the market, its growth, size, share, obstacles, trends, and cost structure. The report's in-depth analysis of the restraints illustrates how they differ from drivers and leaves potential for tactical planning.Get more news about wet wipes making machine automatic korea,you can vist our website!
Worldwide "Wet Wipes Machines Market" 2022-2028 is expected to grow significantly during the forecast period 2021-2027, Wet Wipes Machines Market report offers insights into the latest growth and trends. It summarizes key aspects of the market, with focus on leading key playerâ??s areas that have witnessed the highest demand, leading regions and applications. It also offers qualitative as well as quantitative information regarding the factors, challenges, and opportunities that will define the growth of the market over 2022-2027, The Report Contain Many Pages With Detailed Analysis. The report aims to provide an additional illustration of the latest scenario, economic slowdown, and COVID-19 impact on the overall industry.
A wet wipes machine is a set of equipment that convert spunlace non-woven fabric into pre-moistened wipes that often come folded and packed in a soft pack or in or tubes with pull through lids. With proper packaging, the wipes remain moist throughout their shelf life. On the other hand, the automated process will increase production speed and reduce packaging time.
The features that are covered in the report are the technological advancements that are made in the Wet Wipes Machines market, the sales made in the global market, the annual production, the profit made by the industry, the investments made by the manufacturers and the initiatives that are taken by the government to boost the growth of the market.
The report covers the key players of the industry including Company Profile, Product Specifications, Production Capacity/Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin Sales with a thorough analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information on vendors and comprehensive details of factors that will challenge the growth of major market vendors.
The research report has incorporated the analysis of different factors that augment the market’s growth. It constitutes trends, restraints, and drivers that transform the market in either a positive or negative manner. This section also provides the scope of different segments and applications that can potentially influence the market in the future. The detailed information is based on current trends and historic milestones. This section also provides an analysis of the volume of production about the global market and about each type. This section mentions the volume of production by region. Pricing analysis is included in the report according to each type from the year, manufacturer from, region from and global price from 2022 to 2028.
Keep Intruders Out With the Best Front Door Handles
Our homes are supposed to be our sanctuaries. More often than not, however, these sanctuaries get invaded by uninvited guests in the form of burglars. One of the best ways to deter burglars and keep your home safe is by investing in a good quality front door handle. A front door handle is the first line of defense against intruders, and it’s important to choose one that is both strong and aesthetically pleasing. Get more news about Door Handle,you can vist our website!
Although very trivial, people realize the importance of a good handle and that is precisely why you need to find one that fits your needs exclusively. To help you out with that, we have gone ahead and put in extensive research to compile a list of the highest-rated front door handles of 2022. Once you go through this guide, we assure you that you will be able to get your hands on something that will protect your home in the best way possible!
What Is a Front Door Handle?
A front door handle is a device that is used to open and close, well, the front door. It consists of two parts — the knob and the deadbolt. The knob is the part that you use to grip and turn to open the door, while the deadbolt is the part that locks and unlocks the door.
Why Is Having a Front Door Handle Important?
There are several reasons why having a front door handle is important. In this section, let us go through some of them:
It provides security: A front door handle with a deadbolt is a critical security feature for your home as it stands in between intruders and a break-in.
It keeps out pests: If you have a front door handle, it will be difficult for pests to enter your home. This is because the door will be properly sealed, and they will be unable to find any gaps or openings.
It adds to the aesthetics of your home: A front door handle can add to the overall look of your home. It can make your home look more elegant and stylish.
It is easy to use: A front door handle is easy to use. You just need to grip the knob and turn it to open or close the door.
What Are the Different Types of Front Door Handles?
There are several types of front door handles available in the market. In this section, let us go through some of the most popular ones:
Lever handles: Lever handles are the most common type of front door handle. They are easy to use and can be operated with just one hand.
Knob handles: Knob handles are another popular type of front door handle. They are also easy to use but require two hands to operate.
Deadbolt handles: Deadbolt handles are the most secure type of front door handle. They are challenging to break into and provide a high level of security for your home.
Electronic handles: Electronic handles are the latest type of front door handle. They come with a keypad or a fingerprint scanner that is used to unlock the door.
Remote-controlled handles: Remote-controlled handles are the latest type of front door handle. These handles are the most expensive but offer the highest level of security.