William Cooper
There are several people called William Cooper:
- William Cooper (Aboriginal Australian) (c1861 - 1941), Australian Aboriginal leader.
- William Cooper (businessman) (1761-1840), the Upper Canadian businessman [1]
- William Cooper (conchologist) (1798-1864), nineteenth century U.S. conchologist
- William Cooper (cricketer) (1849-1939), Australian cricketer
- William Cooper (judge) (1754-1809), the father of James Fenimore Cooper and founder of Cooperstown, New York
- William Cooper (novelist) (1910-2002), twentieth century British novelist
- William Cooper (politician) (1786-1867), the land agent and politician in Prince Edward Island [2]
- William Cooper (rapper)
- William Cooper, High Sheriff of Surrey - lived at Painshill Park from 1831- ca.1850
- William B. Cooper (1771-1849). an American farmer and politician
- William Bryant Cooper, Lt. Governor of North Carolina
- William C. Cooper (1832-1902), a U.S. Representative from Ohio
- William Heaton Cooper (1903-1995), British landscape artist
- William Raworth Cooper, member of the United States House of Representatives from New Jersey
- William Skinner Cooper (1894-1978), an American ecologist
- William T. Cooper (b.1934), Australian natural history illustrator
- Milton William Cooper (1943-2001), American writer, shortwave broadcaster, militia supporter and conspiracy theorist
The wrong kind of snow
The wrong kind of snow is a phrase coined by the British media in 1991 after severe weather caused disruption to many of British Rail’s services. People who did not realise that there are different kinds of snow saw the reference as nonsensical and the phrase became a byword for euphemistic excuses.
The phrase originated in a comment by British Rail’s Director of Operations Terry Worrall on 11 February 1991 that “we are having particular problems with the type of snow”. The cold snap had been forecast and British Rail had claimed to be ready for the coming snow. However, the snow was unusually soft and powdery, finding its way into electrical systems and causing short circuits and traction motor damage. For traction motors with integral cooling fans and air intakes pointing downwards—the type that is still common on British electric multiple units—the problem was made worse as the air intakes sucked up the loose snow. In addition, low temperatures resulted in problems with pick-up from the third rail and caused sliding doors and couplings to freeze.
Many electric services had to be substituted with diesel haulage and emergency timetables were introduced. Long delays were commonplace—up to eight hours in some cases.
Ironically, the snow was not deep enough for snowploughs or snow blowers to be effective.
Tire bead
Tire bead is the term for the edge of a tire that sits on the wheel. Wheels for automobiles, bicycles, etc. are made with a small slot or groove for the tire bead to sit in. When the tire is properly inflated the air pressure within the tire keeps the bead in this groove.
It is common amongst drivers of off-road vehicles to decrease the air pressure in their tires. This makes the tread of the tire spread out, creating more surface area for the tire’s tread to grip the terrain. If the pressure is too low there may not be enough pressure to keep the bead on the wheel thus causing the bead to pop off the wheel. This is often referred to as “losing a bead”. Beadlocks, which clamp the bead on the wheel, are often used in this case. Dreadlocks, despite their similar spelling, are unrelated.
Hydroplaning
Hydroplaning and hydroplane may refer to:
- Hydroplaning (tires), a loss of steering or braking control when a layer of water prevents direct contact between road vehicle or aircraft tires and the road or runway surface
- Planing (sailing), a method by which the hull of a boat skims over the surface of the water rather than plowing through it
- Any watercraft that is specifically designed to plane, including:
- Hydroplane, a fast motorized boat used in racing
- Hydrofoil, a boat with wing-like foils mounted on struts below the hull
- Any watercraft that is specifically designed to plane, including:
- Seaplane, an aircraft designed to land on water
- Diving plane, a submarine control surface used to help control depth, analogous to the elevators on the tail of an aircraft
- Hydroblading, a figure skating move sometimes referred to as hydroplaning
Randy Snow
Randy Snow (born 24 May 1959) is the first Paralympian to be inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. A native of Terrell, Texas, Snow was a state-ranked tennis player as a teenager, but at the age of 16, his spine was crushed by a 1000-pound bale of hay, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. After graduating, he enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin in 1977, where he indulged in the fraternity party life, until forming a wheelchair basketball team under the direction of Jim Hayes, the University of Texas at Arlington wheelchair sports director. Soon afterwards, he began wheelchair racing, and in 1980 transferred to Arlington in order to work with Hayes, eventually establishing himself as the best wheelchair tennis player in the United States.
In 1984, the Summer Olympics added a men’s 1500 meter wheelchair race as an exhibition event. Snow went into heavy training, relocating to Houston, Texas, to train on the same track as Carl Lewis. This was the first Paralympic event to appear before a large audience, and the public were unsure of their feelings for wheelchair-bound athletes. Snow received a silver medal, and the crowd gave the athletes a standing ovation at the end of the exhibition.
Snow went on to win gold medals in the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona for singles and doubles tennis (the only man in Olympic history to accomplish this), and in Atlanta1996 was a member of the bronze medal-winning wheelchair basketball team.
He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame on July 1 2004.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company is a United States based global company that specializes in the design, manufacture, marketing and sales of passenger car, light truck, medium truck tires and subsidiaries that specialize in motorcycle and racing tires, as well as tread rubber and related equipment for the retread industry. With headquarters in Findlay, Ohio, Cooper Tire has 59 manufacturing, sales, distribution, technical and design facilities within its family of companies located around the world. Cooper also owns the Avon Tyres brand, mostly used to produce tires for racing.
Its slogan is “The tire with two names….the company and the man who built it.”
In 1997, the tire business of Avon Rubber plc of Melksham in the United Kingdom was sold to Cooper Tire. This left Avon able to concentrate on its core businesses of automotive components, technical products, and protective equipment. The Cooper Tire site remains a major employer in central Melksham.
Cooper Tire became the official tire of the A1 Grand Prix, dubbed the World Cup of Motorsports, for the series’ initial 2005-2006 season. Cooper is under contract to produce slick tires and treaded rain tires for the series championship for the next two years as well.
Champ Car Atlantic Championship
Cooper Tire will become the official tire of the Champ Car Atlantic Championship beginning in 2007, and the company will also serve as the presenting sponsor of this open-wheel development series.
Cooper is heavily involved in the sport of drifting by supplying tires to several drifters in both the Need for Speed Formula D Drift series and U.S. Drift series.
Hydroplaning
Hydroplaning and hydroplane may refer to:
- Hydroplaning (tires), a loss of steering or braking control when a layer of water prevents direct contact between road vehicle or aircraft tires and the road or runway surface
- Planing (sailing), a method by which the hull of a boat skims over the surface of the water rather than plowing through it
- Any watercraft that is specifically designed to plane, including:
- Hydroplane, a fast motorized boat used in racing
- Hydrofoil, a boat with wing-like foils mounted on struts below the hull
- Any watercraft that is specifically designed to plane, including:
- Seaplane, an aircraft designed to land on water
- Diving plane, a submarine control surface used to help control depth, analogous to the elevators on the tail of an aircraft
- Hydroblading, a figure skating move sometimes referred to as hydroplaning
Snow emergency
A snow emergency is declared when a major snowstorm hits or is expected to hit a city. It indicates that certain major streets must be cleared of all automobiles, so that snowplows and other snow removal equipment can clear snow from the streets. This allows those important routes to stay open, primarily for emergency vehicles, but also for other traffic. The particular streets are marked with permanent street signs as snow emergency routes, and motorists who do not remove their cars from these streets within a reasonable time face traffic tickets and fines. Vehicles still parked on snow emergency routes during a snow emergency may even be towed away.
On other non-essential routes, additional parking rules may also come into effect, like parking on only a certain side of the street, such as the side with even or odd-numbered addresses, or not being allowed to park at the end of a cul-de-sac or dead end, and having to move and repark to the other side as each portion of a street is plowed and cleared.
Typically, the emergency is declared by the mayor or other high official. The declaration is usually issued before the storm hits, as drivers may be unable to move or even reach their cars after it has begun. This is not a product issued by the National Weather Service.
In case of extreme snow falls, a driving ban may be imposed when driving around becomes extremely difficult and hazardous. For example, when about 7 feet (2.1 m) of snow hit Buffalo, New York at the end of 2001, a driving ban was imposed for all but emergency vehicles. [1]
Snow fort
A snow fort or snow castle is a usually open-topped temporary structure made of snow walls that is used for recreational purposes. Snow forts are generally built by children as a playground game or winter pastime and are used as defensive structures in snowball fights. They are also built and used for make-pretend games such as “house” or “store”.
Along with the snowman, it is one of the two structures commonly built by children out of snow.
Snow structures made for sleeping are called igloos when made from snow blocks and quinzhees when made by hollowing out a pile of snow.
Snow forts consist of walls of piled and compacted snow. They may be “open” or “closed”, that is, a person in the snow fort may be completely surrounded by the walls on all sides, there may be a “door”, or the person may be completely exposed except in one direction. The last variation is used for snowball fights where opponents have forts facing each other and attack exclusively from their own fort. Existing structures such as the walls or concave corners of a building can be used as part of the snow fort, allowing for faster and easier construction. A snow fort can also be a tunneled-out burrow built in a large snow drift.
Snow forts are usually at least knee-height and one-roomed. Forts built for snowball fights may be higher, and ones built for “house” may have lower walls and multiple rooms. When used for snowball fights, snow forts often have sections where the wall is lower, through which the occupants throw snowballs.
The Backyardigans episode “The Snow Fort” has Mounties defending an elaborate version of such a fort while members of the ski patrol try to get in.
M416B1
The M416, the last of the military 1/4 ton trailers, can be distinguished from earlier 1/4 ton trailers by its squared fenders. There were two later versions, the M416A1 and the M416B1. The M416B1 used the smaller 6.00 X 16 tires on M422 wheels because it was designed to be towed by the USMC M422 ‘Mighty Mite’ instead of the M151 MUTT that towed the M416’s and M416A1’s[1].
In addition to the smaller tires, the M416B1 also had lifting rings for airborne operations and jerry can mounts on each side. Approximately 2000 M416B1 trailers were built.
