Updates from the HS sports space

Dan found this article about HighSchoolSports.net re-branding their website through USA Today.  Take a read:

USA TODAY Sports Media Group Re-launches and Re-brands highschoolsports.net as USA TODAY High School Sports

The USA TODAY Sports Media Group today announced the re-launch and re-branding of its high school sports website, highschoolsports.net, as USA TODAY High School Sports (www.usatodayhss.com), which will anchor the group's comprehensive national coverage of all boys and girls high school sports throughout the country, as well as for the more than 100 local media properties within the Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI).

As part of the re-launch of the site, Ben Sylvan has been named executive producer in charge of all content creation, as well as curation within Gannett's more than 100 local media sites. In addition, David Weiss has been named the property's vice president of Sales, leading the nationwide Sales efforts for USA TODAY High School Sports.

Both Sylvan and Weiss are veterans of the high school sports space. Sylvan spent more than seven years with ESPN's multi-media teen sports property RISE, where he served in various roles including digital editor-in-chief, managing editor and senior writer. He also covered sports for Associated Press, Sports Illustrated and a variety of other media companies. Together, Sylvan and Weiss helped build RISE, which was purchased by ESPN. Weiss was a founder at RISE, previously serving as publisher. Most recently, he led the Sales and Marketing efforts at ESPN High School.

Dick's Sporting Goods, Gatorade and Under Armour are re-launch partners for the new USA TODAY High School Sports website.

"High school sports are an inherently local experience, and with Gannett's long-standing presence in more than 100 communities across the country, no media company is better positioned to serve high school sports fans than we are. Gannett's local-to-national advantage, along with our relationships with nearly 7,000 athletic directors across the country who subscribe to our ScheduleStar software, enable us to provide the in-depth, real-time news and information that matters most to high school athletes and fans, along with our Super 25 and All-USA Team rankings which have become the industry standard," said Tom Beusse, president of the USA TODAY Sports Media Group.

Digital agencies The Wonderfactory and PERFECT SENSE Digital led the re-design of the improved website, which now offers new features, including more user-generated videos and photos, as well as trend analysis, comparison tools and training tips for athletes. 

Between the proprietary ScheduleStar athletic management system and Gannett's local media properties, USA TODAY High School Sports has relationships with more than 11,000 high schools across the country. Visitors to usatodayhss.comcan receive news stories, athletic and fitness training, videos, photographs, scores, driving directions and more for their favorite teams locally, regionally and nationally.

Thanks for Air Conditioning!

We borrowed this from The Quirky Blog. Interesting reading for a hot day!  Thanks Baron. You can ready more quirky blogs at http://www.quirky.com/S

This is Why I’m Cool: A History of Air Conditioning

posted 11 days ago by baron

Since Neolithic man first raised a disapproving glance towards the summer sun, humanity has been locked in an annual battle to stay cool and dry. From rural Malaysia to the streets of Manhattan, heat is the world’s biggest party pooper, and as we struggle with summer’s first heat wave, Quirky would like to give props to a gift that makes it all tolerable. That sweetest of amenities, our proverbial ninth wonder: the air conditioner has brought more joy to the world than candy and Nintendo combined, and it’s only fair that we pay tribute to the brave (and sweaty) inventors who brought it to life.
The Earliest AC
The tyranny of heat is nothing new, and it is hardly surprising that humanity began to devise solutions right from the start. Though centuries away from complex mechanics, ancient cultures devised a number of clever ways to keep a room’s temperature low, using the clever application of both air and water circulation. In ancient Rome, wealthy homeowners would reroute water from aqueducts through their walls, which cooled the rooms within. Farther east, the Persians used a similar circulation system called a badgir (also called a windcatcher) that channels wind into interior rooms, cooling by improved circulation.

A modern example of a badgir in Central Iran

The first mechanical solution to heat didn’t arise about until the second century A.D., when the Chinese engineer Ding Huan invented the first rotary fan. His design featured seven ten-foot-wide fans, which provided significant cooling: however, since it was manually powered, this first design required that at least one person be thrown under the bus (think of pulling four-hour fan duty at the family BBQ). Luckily, further advancements made this technology more efficient, and rotary fans were still a staple product in China a millenium later.

The Industrial (Cooling) Revolution
While the concept of a rotary fan was toyed with for centuries, the next step in atmospheric comfort didn’t come until 1820, when British scientist Michael Faraday discovered that the evaporation of compressed ammonia could be used to rapidly cool water, allowing for ice to be manufactured anywhere. 22 years later, a physician from Florida named John Gorrie developed a plan to harness this artificial ice as a means of cooling an environment. Not content with placing a bucket of ice in front of a fan, Gorrie imagined a system that could cool a hospital (he believed that warm, fetid air was the cause of many diseases), and later expanded his vision to large, centralized cooling systems that could keep entire cities chilled. However, while Gorrie was able to build a working prototype of his device, he was plagued by financial troubles from the start, and the venture ultimately ended in failure. While there are several theories regarding the reason for the flop —the ice importer Frederic “Ice King” Tudor was rumored to have launched a smear campaign against the device— Gorrie nonetheless died an impoverished man in 1855, and his dream of an air-conditioned life would lie abandoned for the next 50 years.

A model of John Gorrie’s first air cooler, which used artificial ice to chill the air in a room

The Great Leap Forward
The foundation for modern air conditioning was laid in 1902, by an American engineer named Willis Carrier. While working for the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company, Carrier was given a very specific task: in order to maintain paper density and ink alignment in their printing rooms, he was asked to design a device that fully regulated both temperature and humidity. Gorrie was familiar with the concept of heating air by running it through warm coils, and theorized that the system would work as well for cooling: by running air through coils filled with cold water, he was able to regulate the air’s temperature, and consequently, the amount of moisture it could hold.

Willis Carrier with the first model of his “Apparatus for Treating Air”

After four years and a biblical amount of hustle, Carrier presented Sackett-Wilhelms with his patented “Apparatus for Treating Air”, considered the first true air conditioner for its ability to alter both cool and humidify/dehumidify. The design worked brilliantly, and Carrier began to refine his product for the home and automobile, forming the Carrier Air Conditioning Company of America in 1915 to meet rising demand. In 1928, the development of Freon provided a safer alternative to the toxic gases first used in the cooling process, and by the 1950′s the consumer air conditioner had become a household standard. For anyone who’s ever experienced a Manhattan summer without the blessing of AC, the positive impact of this movement knows no measure.
Sources: