Competitive Robotics club members battle it out at the Engineering Expo

Minutes before a tournament began, Sacramento State Competitive Robotics members can be seen preparing robots by tightening screws, examining movements of motors or testing"munication between robot and remote controller.The Engineering Expo Sunday featured eight 1-pound robots that were deployed into a glass encased arena to battle, using various weapons and techniques, including spinning, saw blades, or using  body weight to ram opponents against the glass walls."It is a nice way for students to be able to take some of their ideas and knowledge about science and mix it in freely with creativity, and not have to worry about harsh deadlines, grades and how they perform against their peers," said Daniel Fraga, mechanical engineering graduate student. "When you take that pressure away from students, it is amazing what they can"e up with."

Sophomore mechanical engineer David Sarver took first place. His robot, Jimmy No. 2, used a spinning technique that attacked by cutting into its opponents with blades.Although the matches last three minutes or less, the planning phase for the robots begins months in advance.For junior electrical engineering major Nitish Khazane, the brainstorming phase began after the last robot tournament fall 2013. It took three robot design drafts before he was inspired by a drill bit he found laying around in the shop."Think of a scorpion," Khazane said while describing his robot. "With a tail end that can rotate on a rod. At the end of the scorpion tail, I have a drill bit attached that will spin and lash out like a scorpion would."

'Scorpios" weapon is an offensive technique that seeks to capitalize on the exposed tops of robot rivals. Khazane began building the frame of the robot after winter break.Khazane, also vice president for Competitive Robotics at Sac State,  joined the club as a sophomore and has participated in the robot tournament every semester since. His a"plishments, he said, are in part to experienced club members whom have helped develop tool craftsmanship and club management.

The articulate and affable DeCoud always gave thoughtful and helpful responses

He started 15 games and had 83 tackles and two interceptions.
In 2011, the Falcons re signed DeCoud to a five year $17.5 million contract.General manager Thomas Dimitroff calls them "salary cap casualties," and it's a league wide practice.
"I believe in the NFL today, so-called cap casualties are an issue for every team unless you're at the top of the heap with $30 million to $40 million dollars available," he said. "It's something that we will get into as we continue to analyze and re-evaluate this roster as it stands."The Falcons have already cut veterans Asante Samuel, Stephen Nicholas and Garrett Reynolds. Also, running back Jason Snelling retired after seven seasons in the league.

A major part of DeCoud's contract was set to b"e guaranteed on March 15.Releasing DeCoud, 28, would save the Falcons $3 million.Last season, DeCoud took to social media to vent his frustrations with this season.Not because it had damaged the environment Earlier in the season, defensive coordinator Mike Nolan said DeCoud was in a slump and Nolan hoped that he'd pull out of it.On his verified Twitter account, @TwentyAte28, DeCoud wrote, "By no means am I sittin here acting like I'm balling' out there… but if you don't know those three things I state.. you really have no room talk…" He linked to what appeared to be a journal entry through Instagram that read: "I understand that someone has to be the lightning rod for everyone's frustration ... but if you don't know the huddle call....

 The rules of our defense... or our game plan…you have no clue what's goin' on out there... I don't care how much football you THINK you know...it's a lot more going on than you can fathom."DeCoud was known to appear in all of the open locker room sessions and was more than generous with his time, was selected as the Falcons' 2012 Good Guy Award winner by the local chapter of Professional Football Writers of America.
The articulate and affable DeCoud always gave thoughtful and helpful responses.The Good Guy Award is given to a player for his qualities and professional style in helping pro football writers do their jobs.DeCoud was apart of Dimitroff's first draft class in 2008. He was selected in the third round out of California.

Not because it had damaged the environment

 Citing "great inner city organizing against it" and an LA City Council-adopted resolution in support of a statewide fracking moratorium, Hayden sees increased prospects for moratorium legislation this year.Like nuclear fission power, fracking has a somewhat frightening sound to it. But after Brown blocked a huge pro-nuclear surge in the '70s, nuclear fission power in California declined not because of a serious deleterious impact on the environment but because it was inefficient. The San Onofre plant outside San Diego, where I once spoke at a huge anti nuclear rally in the early '80s, has finally been closed by the utility that owns it.

 Not because it had damaged the environment, as most of the rally speakers claimed it would, but because a history of problems with equipment, which caused it to be off line for much of the state's ballyhooed electric power crisis early in the last decade, finally made it more trouble than it was worth.If the oil and gas industry can get ahead of the curve on fracking by taking steps to make it clear the industry is confident in its technology and practices, and if Brown and other state leaders make sure the state is exercising clear oversight, fracking could have a promising future in California.

In the meantime, the future is back in California, with the state's people contemplating and debating things off in the distance, free from having to constantly worry about the state's chronic operating budget deficit.A study last month from the policy center Schwarzenegger started a year and a half ago, the USC Schwarzenegger Institute on State and Global Policy, released at a forum featuring MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, strongly suggested that political reform initiatives pushed by the former governor tamed the wild beast of "hyper partisanship" and created a more moderate and productive state legislature.The USC prof who conducted the study used floor votes on Chamber of Commerce priority bills to gauge this end of gridlock in California even as Congress was b"ing more gridlocked and polarized. The finding?

The new faces have to step up their game if they're going to catch up

Do not doubt RuPaul. The goddess has a plan. While I stand by my opinion that splitting the queens into two groups led to a lackluster first half of the sixth-season premiere, that decision pays off big time in "RuPaul's Big Opening: Part Two," which uses the events of last week's episode to turn up the pressure for a group of queens that is simply more memorable than what showed up last week. Nobody in part one was as shady as Bianca Del Rio, as fishy as Courtney Act, as ballsy as Milk, or as large as Darienne Lake. And there was definitely nobody that was a hotter mess than Magnolia Crawford, who is incredibly easy to hate thanks to her busted appearance and disastrous attitude. The personalities are bigger, the looks are bolder, and the noses are way thinner, making this episode a triumphant return to form for TV's best reality'petition.

"RuPaul's Big Opening: Part Two" begins by checking in with the queens from last week after Kelly Mantle's elimination, who walk into the workroom to discover a party set up to celebrate their safety. While everyone is drinking champagne and eating cupcakes, Gia scrawls "Beware Bitchez" in lipstick on the mirror, an ominous message that encapsulates why the two-group dynamic ends up working so well. Six of the contestants have already made it through the first challenge before this week's queens even debut, and one of them has already gone home. When tonight's group learns what happened last week, the stakes raise dramatically, because not only are they immediately reminded of how real the risk of elimination is, but they also now know that there are six queens that have a head start on them.

 The new faces have to step up their game if they're going to catch up, and that leads to a considerable increase in energy for the second part of the season premiere.The girls are having a great time celebrating victory and building sisterly bonds, but the party's over when Mama Ru'es down in her curlers, face mask, and pink bathrobe and orders her girls to go to bed because she's expecting'pany in the morning, Her first guest to arrive is Bianca Del Rio, 37,A lot of the show had that same 'wait, why? an insult'ic queen who immediately establishes herself as the person to beat this season, bringing a fiercely hilarious personality, beautifully polished clothes, and a wildly exaggerated paint job that emphasizes her huge expressions.

A lot of the show had that same 'wait, why?

and Italy's The Great Beauty took Best Foreign-Language Feature; these awards weren't exactly preordained, but neither did they really surprise anybody.I was more surprised when 20 Feet From Stardom took Best Documentary over The Act Of Killing. Yes, 20 Feet From Stardom is entertaining and bouncy, but The Act Of Killing is a work of art, and the Documentary category is one of the slots that's often able to reward genuinely exceptional filmmaking. Not this year, though … but 20 Feet's win did lead to the sight of Darlene Love belting out a gospel tune from the stage of the Dolby Theater, triggering the evening's first truly enthusiastic standing ovation.

Yeah, about the show itself. Ellen DeGeneres was a game host, her self-effacing manner nicely undercutting the enormous self-regard of the evening … but after the first 90 minutes, she was just another drag on the running time, fumbling through an undercooked bit about serving pizza to the hungry people in the front row and taking a selfie with her Samsung phone in the night's second most awkward piece of product placement. The first was the shameless pimping of The Wizard Of Oz – now available on Blu-ray in a restored 75th-anniversary edition, folks!  with Judy Garland's famous and less famous children being serenaded with a rendition of Over The Rainbow by Pink. Good song, good performance, entirely unnecessary to the evening.

A lot of the show had that same 'wait, why?" quality: the evening was organized around a theme of heroes that never quite gelled, but allowed for two lengthy montages of movies that somehow typified heroism – the first built around films based on true stories, the second on superheroes that found a way to include clips from Jaws, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Back To The Future. Maybe the night's real hero was Steven Spielberg.It certainly wasn't Rob Ford, who spent the hours before the Oscars wandering around Hollywood Blvd. in the general vicinity of the Dolby Theater'plex, hoping people would recognize him and buying a cheap tuxedo for a cameo appearance on Jimmy Kimmel's post-Oscar show.Is this the first time in the entire evening we have heard someone refer to God and thank Him?

Tool Add More Dates to March 2014 Tour

If you're a Tool memorabilia collector, you might want to check out the band's contribution to Clive Barker's Kickstarter project for a hardcover art book. They donated some signed custom tour posters. Only one is left, and it can be yours for a pledge of $2200.The status of a new Tool album remains up in the air. The band is working on new music, but a timetable hasn't been set. Keenan stated in a recent interview that the creation of a Tool album was "a long process." He also added that he doesn't write the instrumentals and was waiting on his bandmates to bring their songs to him.Work has begun on a brand new Tool album, with frontman Maynard James Keenan recently describing the process as 'tedious', expressing his nuisance and having to wait for band members to pen music for new tracks.

"I don't write the music. They write the music," he told Rolling Stone in November 2013. "I wait for them to bring music to me. They tend to go back over and over stuff. It's a long process. For a person like me, it can be a very tedious process. In some ways, they are bigger perfectionists. But you can only help support their talent so long. They don't have to go through it 700 times. They can trust that first thought. But that's their process, so you gotta let them do it." And is that process happening? "I couldn't tell you."The band's new shows will place in Fresno, Las Vegas, San Diego, Austin, Houston and Phoenix. There are still no UK shows confirmed, but hopes are high the band will bring their show to our shores before the end of 2014. Tool's full 2014 dates are below. Additional dates are in bold.

The veteran Los Angeles alternative rock band, which this year celebrates its 24th anniversary, will perform March 16 at Valley View Casino Center. The four-man group, which has won three Grammy Awards, has previously headlined at such major festivals as San Diego Street Scene, Lollapalooza and Bonaroo.Alternative-rock sensations Tool, fronted by Arizona winemaker Maynard James Keenan, will bring their latest tour to US Airways Center on Thursday, March 27.Formed in 1990, Tool released a double-platinum debut called "Undertow" in 1993 but really hit their stride with 1996's triple-platinum "Aenima" and 2001's double-platinum "Lateralus." Their biggest rock-radio hits include "Sober," "Schism," "Parabola," "Vicarious," "The Pot" and "Jambi."

Into the Wild With a Tool Belt

The dead of winter may not seem like the liveliest time in the real estate business, but on television one segment of the new-construction market is booming: the cabin-in-the-woods market.On Tuesday night the National Geographic Channel serves up "Mennonite Made," about a Mennonite business in Salem, Mo., that makes custom-designed log cabins. It joins the channel's "Building Wild," a workplace reality series that began last month, about two guys who call themselves the Cabin Kings. Apparently being monarch of the forest is a thing, because Destination America has announced a series for next month, imported from Canada, called "Timber Kings." Trees everywhere are quaking in their boots, or roots.

Maybe it's a sign of economic recovery that television is showcasing cabin building, since these structures are often retreats rather than primary residences. Or maybe it's a sign of the opposite. Television has been marketing fantasy since "Queen for a Day," back in the 1950s. "Spend an hour indulging in the fiction that you, too, can afford a second home," these cabin shows may be saying to the income-stagnated among us. "Though, of course, you can't."In any case, "Mennonite Made" features a charming group of men who use old-fashioned construction methods — Lincoln Logs, the children's toy, may come to mind —NCAA recognizes Snapchat as'munication tool for recruiting to create a 1,600-square-foot cabin for a customer in Estes Park, Colo. The wrinkle is, Missouri and Colorado are about 1,000 miles apart. They first build the structure on their home ground, then dismantle it and truck the pieces to Colorado for reassembling. Since each hand-cut log is unique, that requires a detailed system of labeling; it's a 3-D jigsaw puzzle.

There has been quite a run of Amish-themed reality programming in the past few years, a lot of it not particularly complimentary. Mennonites are somewhat different in their beliefs from the Amish, including not being averse to using power equipment, and "Mennonite Made" shows these men in a respectful light. All of them are appealing on camera. Now that "Duck Dynasty" has lost its luster, there's an opening for personable bearded men of faith on TV. "Mennonite Made" is a one-shot special, but, by its end, you may find that you wouldn't mind seeing more of these fellows.