Testing The Limits On Glass

The Skyslide, a glass slide fixed along the tallest building west of the Mississippi River, is open for business this weekend. Thrill-seekers can pay $25 to slide down 45 feet of bulletproof glass nearly 1,000 feet in the air. How do you clean the windows?

The incredible glass slide that's 70 floors high: Take a look at this glass slide in America which has been built on the side of a skyscraper. The Skyslide was built on the 70th floor of the US Bank Tower and gives riders a pretty incredible view of Los Angeles in America. It's made out of glass which is a thick as a book, and has been built to withstand strong winds and earthquakes. Would you be brave enough to have a go? Take a look at it in action...

Dramatic safety tests for glass-floor bridge in China: Theirs is a task perhaps few would envy. These courageous volunteers are making sure China's latest glass-bottomed bridge is safe to be opened to the public. At least one felt the need to shout "I love you mom" as she brought her sledgehammer crashing down. They were attached to safety harnesses just in case but none of the volunteers managed to smash right through.

Just to underline how much the structure can take a 15-tonne vehicle was driven over the bridge as well. At 300m above ground and 430m long, China's claiming this to be the highest and longest glass-bottomed bridge in the world. These safety tests might also be intended to reassure the public after a similar bridge in the same province was closed last year because of a cracked panel.

Killed By Falling Glass

Helpless family: The victim's brother and her mother were seen next to a schoolgirls body after she was killed by falling glass, from a window that was being cleaned at the time.

A piece of glass fell & killed a schoolgirl when a housemaid was cleaning a window from the 20th floor: The victim was pronounced dead at the scene in Zhuhai, China, on Saturday when she was struck while walking to an extracurricular class with her two siblings.

A 11-year-old girl has been tragically killed after a pane of glass fell from a 20th floor flat and hit her in the head in a Chinese city. The glass was thought to have dropped when a housemaid was cleaning a window in a residential high-rise in Zhuhai, southern China, on June 18, reported the People's Daily Online.

According to the report, the school girl was walking on Leyuan Road in Xiangshou District, Zhuhai, together with her two siblings. She was struck by the glass at around 10am.  An eyewitness, with the surname Luo, said he heard a loud bang from a distance. He said after he rushed over, he saw a girl lying on a pedestrian crossing covered in blood. Her siblings were crying in shock next to her.

Unexpected tragedy: The girl was on her way to an extracurricular class when the accident occurred.

An ambulance was immediately called by Mr Luo, but paramedics were unable to save the girl, who was pronounced dead at the scene. The victim's younger brother, who witness the tragic accident, told a reporter that the trio were crossing the road in front of the residential compound when his sister got struck. 

The Zhuhai Public Security Bureau confirmed the accident on June 18 through its official account on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter. A later post from the police authority confirmed the cause of the accident. It read: 'After initial investigation, the glass had fallen from a house on the 20th floor in building number 2 at Hengfu Court on Leyuan Road.' Chinese media suggested that a housemaid was cleaning the window for a family living on the 20th floor when the glass dropped. Further investigations are being carried out by the police. 

Window Washer Wang Wants Work

Window washer Wang wants more work.

Economic Slump Leaves Tough Choices for Shanghai Job Seekers (Shanghai): For many job seekers in China, opportunities for work are best found in coastal cities such as Shanghai, where more than half its 24 million people come from other parts of the country. But as the cost of living continues to rise and the Chinese economy slows, some are considering returning home to look for work. Those who do, though, are also finding it hard to leave.

Tough times; Wang Congran left his home in Henan province when he was 15 and has lived mostly in Shanghai since then. He tried working in a factory for a while, but once he switched to window washing, he was hooked and now prefers a different sort of production line. “I am used to the work and if I had to do something else, if I had to work in a factory, I don’t think I could stand it,” Wang said, adding that the pay for factory work is not that good.

For the past year or so, he said, finding window washing jobs has become increasingly difficult. China has more than 200 million migrant workers, individuals like Wang who flock to the cities for jobs and opportunities.

In many ways though, Shanghai has become his home. Wang and his wife live in the city, and like many other migrant worker couples, their children live hundreds of kilometers away with their grandparents in their hometown. He said the slowdown has affected his wife’s work too. Before, she could work 12 hours a day and get overtime pay. Now, he said, the TV factory where she works has limited her to eight hours a day.

The couple would like to stay in the city, but soon they may have to make a choice. Their current residence, which has been an affordable place to live until now, is slated to be torn down. “It’s hard to say [what will come next],” he said. “If the house my wife and I are living in is torn down, we may have no place to stay. Shanghai is much too expensive,” Wang said.

Window Cleaning Rescues & Suspicious Deaths

The aerial ladder platform (ALP) that was brought by the department of fire and emergency services to rescue us looked like a toy from the 22nd floor where we were stranded for almost 10 hours. "The emergency services personnel and others watching us from the ground floor looked so tiny," recalled Akbar Hussain, 22, one of the two window cleaners who were stuck outside the World Trade Centre in Yeshwanthpur for a large part of Monday evening.

Window cleaners stuck outside 22nd floor rescued after 9-hour operation (Yeshwantpur, Bangalore): Duo were dangling more than 200 feet above the ground in an open-air platform for nearly nine hours before being rescued by Fire Department. Dangling in an open-air platform more than 200 feet above the ground, two labourers clung on to dear life for nearly nine hours while rescue teams figured a way to extract them to safety. The window-cleaners were stuck outside the 22nd floor of the World Trade Centre at Yeshwantpur.

Wasim Ahmed and Akbar Hussain were stranded while working in the WTC at Yeshwantpur on Monday.

Wasim Ahmed and Akbar Hussain – from Uttar Pradesh – were lowered from the roof of the 32-storey building on a pedestal at 8 a.m. in a day-long exercise to clean the glass façade of the tower that houses numerous multi-national companies and consulates. The pedestal was being manoeuvred by a machine. Around noon, the apparatus got stuck at the 22nd floor. Their colleagues tried to fix the machine, but failed. Then they tried to hoist them to the roof, but did not succeed.

When all efforts to rescue the duo failed, the Fire and Emergency Services personnel were alerted. By then, it was 5.45 p.m. The extendable ladders of the two fire tenders fell short by a long margin. The ladders could reach a height of 175 feet. Wasim says, “We were stuck for nearly nine hours and were scared out of our minds. It was a long way down. But, we were confident that the wires holding the pedestal would not break. The fact that it was only the machine that was malfunctioning and there was no problem with the ropes gave us some measure of confidence.”

Eventually around 9 p.m., officials broke glass panes on the 22nd floor and pulled the duo to safety. A police officer, who was part of the rescue operation, said, “The glass had to be broken carefully to ensure neither the duo nor those below were injured during the process. The pieces would be blown a little distance by the wind – which is dangerous as the complex houses a mall – before they hit the ground.” An official of the Fire Department said the duo were not wearing helmets or safety gear. More detail here.

Window cleaner trapped on platform outside Canberra building: A window cleaner and a mechanic had to call the fire brigade for help when they became trapped on a raised platform in Canberra on Saturday morning. The men were working on the fourth floor on the top of a building on Constitution Avenue, in Campbell, when the platform stopped moving. They called triple zero shortly after 7am.

The Emergency Services Agency said it sent the ambulance, a pumper and the Bronto Aerial Platform to help. "A firefighter was able to fix the mechanical issue of the hydraulic platform they were working on," the agency said in a statement. "ACT Fire & Rescue did not have to use its Bronto Aerial Platform. The two men have been safely lowered to the ground." No one was hurt in the incident.

He had no identification on him but now, nearly two weeks later, the OPD has identified the man as Fallbrook resident, window cleaner, Mark Andrew Slaughter, 45.

Death of Fallbrook man called ‘suspicious’ (OCEANSIDE): A man found injured on an Oceanside bike path on New Year’s Day and later died was identified Wednesday as a Fallbrook resident. Mark Andrew Slaughter, 45, died under what police are investigating as suspicious, Oceanside police Lt. Leonard Cosby said. Slaughter was found along a bike path on South Coast Highway, near Eaton Street, about 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 1, police said. He had head and face injuries, and was taken to a hospital. He died a short time later.

Cosby said an autopsy was conducted but the Medical Examiner’s Office was not able to determine what caused Slaughter’s head injuries or what caused his death. Internet sites show Mark Slaughter as owner of Focus Window Cleaning Service in Fallbrook. Investigators are asking that anyone with information about the case or about Slaughter’s movements on Jan. 1 call them at (760) 435-4892.

Police cover the body of a domestic helper who fell out of the window of an apartment in Kowloon City on Wednesday.

Indonesian maid falls to death in window-cleaning accident: An Indonesian maid fell to her death on Wednesday when she was apparently doing some cleaning work at a window of an apartment in Kowloon City. The domestic helper, a 21-year-old who bears the first name Titik, came to Hong Kong just two months ago, according to Ming Pao Daily. The accident took place at midday at a building named Elite House on Argyle Street.

A security guard said he rushed outside the building after hearing a loud thud. He saw a woman lying on the ground unconscious, prompting him to immediately call the police. When the police and medical personnel arrived, they pronounced the woman dead on the scene. Blood stains and broken pieces of a flower pot were found on the floor. The police didn’t find any suicide note on the person or inside the flat, leading them to believe that the maid may have fallen from the window accidentally.

Cheung Kit-man, chairman of Hong Kong Employment Agencies Association, said that in the past two years there had been a total of fourteen cases of domestic workers falling out of windows. Domestic workers are often not careful, he said, noting that some maids tend to lean way too out from windows when cleaning. Under current law, the Hong Kong government requires an employer to buy insurance for their foreign domestic workers. Family members of the maid are eligible for compensation, and the cost of transferring the body back to homeland will also be covered.

Spate of suicides in China still largely unexplained: The unnatural deaths of seven government officials in less than a month have raised concerns among members of the public, as the causes of some of the deaths have not been explained. Yang Xiaojun, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said only limited information has been provided from official sources, and it’s not sufficient to stop the public from speculating. He said he believes the results of investigations into the deaths are a matter of public concern and that governmental departments need to explain the causes in a timely manner.

Earlier this year, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee issued a notice requiring the public release of detailed information about deceased officials. According to a report in Southern Weekly, 112 officials committed suicide from August 2003 to April 2014, with 39 percent of those dying in their offices, 33 percent at home and the rest at parks or clubs. Hao Zhuang, security chief in Jiaohe, Jilin province, died after falling from the window of his sixth-floor office on Monday morning. The local government made a statement, saying Hao fell from the window accidentally when he was cleaning the window glass and died of critical injuries despite emergency medical treatment. No other details were available.

Also on Monday, Wang Jinwei, 50, head of the finance bureau of Enshi, Hubei province, died after falling from the roof of the residential building where he lived. No explanation for his death has been released. According to a report by Legal Evening News, officials who died of unnatural causes recently include Xiao Wensun, mayor of Liuzhou in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, who drowned in a river on Nov 4; Zhang Jianwei, head of the disciplinary department of China Nation Offshore Oil Corporation, who died in his office on Nov 3; Wang Pin’gang, senior vice-president of China Shenhua Energy Co, who died on Oct 29, the same day the former head of the land and resources department in Xiamen, Fujian province, surnamed Lin, hanged himself in a park; and Chen Hongqiao, president of Guosen Securities, who committed suicide at his home on Oct 23.

Window Cleaner Witnesses Urban Growth

Zhang Shimin has witnessed the astounding urban growth of the Chinese capital, Beijing.

Dangling on ropes, cleaner has unique window to China’s urban growth: With almost 20 years experience as a window cleaner, Zhang Shimin has witnessed the astounding urban growth of the Chinese capital. “There was nothing outside the Third Ring Road when I first came to Beijing,” he said, perched on the roof of a 31-story building overlooking the ring road.

Zhang arrived in 1993 as a migrant laborer from a rural area of Sichuan Province. Since then, he’s witnessed many of the traditional bungalows that housed most of the Beijing residents replaced by tall apartment blocks catering to the city’s growing middle class.

With the boom came demands for exterior cleaning as residents could no longer reach the outside of their windows. A few daring migrant workers like Zhang chose to take the risk and dangle down on ropes in pursuit of higher wages. The most demanding periods of the year are from the middle of March to the end of May; then from the end of September until the bitter cold stops them from working.

The contrast between the humble dwellings of the migrant worker cleaners as compared to the homes they look into everyday could not be greater, but Zhang says he seldom looks into the windows while working. “I won’t compare myself with them while working, we are totally different groups.”

In spite of the ever-expanding buildings, business is not all that it should be. Zhang explains that China’s strict anti-corruption campaign has affected their window cleaning business this year. “People who were taking rebates in the cleaning projects are holding back now, so there is really not as much [work] as normal,” he said.

Zhang’s high rise career started in Chaoyang district, the thriving business center of Beijing, which was enjoying the soaring property opportunities for the first ten years of the century. Construction work has now expanded around the major axis of the city. New high rise apartment buildings along with the expansion are providing new opportunities for Zhang and his team.

SubStandard Glass A Killer

A resident of Tianjin, China, injured by glass shards following a massive chemical explosion in the city's port area on Aug. 12. 

Substandard Window Glass Increased the Injury Count in Tianjin’s Harbor Explosion: While over a hundred are confirmed dead and possibly thousands wounded in the conflagration and shockwave associated with the massive industrial explosions that struck the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin on Aug. 12, Chinese media are reporting that shoddily-built window glass in nearby residential buildings is the cause behind a large number of avoidable casualties.

An insider in the real estate business told Haixia Photography News that many developers cut corners in meeting state regulations. It is an open secret in the industry that windows claimed to be made of safety glass or double-layered glass are often, in fact made of plain materials.

Chinese construction ordinance promulgated starting 2004 stipulates that residences constructed that year and after must use safety glass for sizable windows and in public entrances and lobbies.

Upon impact, safety glass disintegrates into small, relatively harmless pieces, while conventional glass breaks up into dangerous shards. The safety risks went unnoticed until the disaster, which has killed at least 112 people, according to official estimates.

Fire and smoke rise from the site of a series of explosions in Tianjin, China, early on Aug. 13, 2015.

Many lives could have been saved had safety glass been installed in the affected housing blocs, according to Haixia Photography News, which published a photo essay and explanation to its WeChat account. HPN is a subsidiary of the Shangbang Media Group based in Fujian Province. Its WeChat account is not a formal news agency, but acts similarly to one.

The insider told an HPN reporter that while it is possible that some of the buildings in the New Binhai Area, where the blast took place, may have been constructed before the regulation came into effect, this is unlikely since the area was the site of heavy land development beginning only in 2005.

Many of the identified dead are firefighters. Initially dispatched to put out a blaze in the Tianjin harbor area, their efforts are believed to have triggered one or more chemical explosions, the fires from which are still being mopped up by a chemical warfare unit sent from Beijing. Official Chinese figures put the force of the blasts at 24 tons’ equivalent of TNT, but according to Sina, a Chinese online news portal, expert opinion says that the explosion was in fact in excess of 1 kiloton, hundreds of times the official figure.

According to professor Cheng Kang of Wuhan University of Technology’s school of civil engineering and architecture, a 1 kiloton-airburst will shatter glass 1640 feet away. In the Tianjin explosions, even windows located outside a 2,625 feet radius were damaged by the shockwave.

A residential building located near the site of the massive chemical explosion that leveled part of an industrial zone in Tianjin, a northern Chinese port city.

Jia Jia, a widely-read Chinese blogger, wrote in an essay that “Many people who lived near the Tianjin explosions were injured by the flying glass from their shattered windows. But if builders had used secure glass that conformed to safety regulations, these injuries could have been entirely avoided.”

Jia’s essay, entitled “You’ve Got Candles, I’ve Got a Whip,” was later posted on China Change, a website that features translations of Chinese-language texts from independent sources.

On Aug. 16, the state-run Beijing News reported that hundreds of residents in Binhai had gathered to demand compensation from the authorities for their damaged and destroyed property. The area is densely populated and was home to more than 5,600 households located within 3,280 feet of the blast site.

Chinese Window Cleaning Spiderman Most At Risk

"Spidermen" (window cleaners) clean windows outside a high-rise building in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

China's "spidermen" need more care, protection (BEIJING, Xinhua) -- Suspended from one or two ropes only as thick as a man's thumb, they hang like spiders hundreds of meters in the air, cleaning and maintaining the country's skyscrapers. A recent string of tragedies has drawn attention to the need protect China's fearless spidermen, low-tech workers who don't have the superpowers of the movie character and risk their lives every day to make a meager living.

In a highrise in Xi'an, capital of northwest China' s Shaanxi Province in late July, a sudden wind sent two dangling workers swinging. The spidermen, suspended at the 12th and 15th floors when the incident occurred, cried for help and struggled against the wind for more than 20 minutes before they were dashed against the building.

In another case, two window washers on the 91st floor of the 492-meter Shanghai World Financial Center, were injured when the cradle they occupied crashed into the skyscraper in early April. "Wind is our biggest enemy," said Chen Guofu, 40, a window-cleaner who has survived five years of high altitude and risk in Beijing.

He recalled the first time he stepped off the edge of a tall building. With sweaty palms and a vertiginous head, he carried a bucket of soapy water and a squeegee on a pole, with only a suction cup on a string to anchor himself to the window.

"If those two workers in Xi'an could have anchored themselves to the window, the tragedy may not have happened," said Chen who came to Beijing in 2003 from a village of neighboring Hebei Province. He changed jobs many times before he became a spiderman. "I have no choice since I don't have other skills," he said.

Like most spidermen, Chen is one of hundreds of millions migrant workers working in construction or cleaning to support parents and children. The current urbanization drive has brought a forest of city skyscrapers: Spidermen are important to the expansion. Their safety should also be better protected, said Zhai Jialiang, secretary general of Beijing's cleaning industry association,

More than 1,000 workplace deaths are reported each year in the construction industry, and over 60 percent of fatalities are caused by falls from high places and building collapses, said Huang Shengchu, head of National Institute for Occupational Safety under the State Administration of Work Safety.

Zhai Jialiang wants companies to establish complete management mechanisms including pre-job training for workers, regular equipment checks and emergency plans. Currently, there are more than 300 spidermen in Xi'an, fewer than 200 of whom have licenses to allow them to work aloft, said Wang Wenyong, manager of Xi'an Yunfei Property Management Company. The licenses he mentioned are either issued by China Occupational Safety and Health Association or the local work safety department.

"Without licenses, proper training and supervision, many spidermen don't even attach themselves to a backup line," said Chen Guofu. Xinhua reporters searched "high-rise window cleaning" on the Internet and found countless advertisements. Zhai told Xinhua that many are small firms and are poorly regulated. Liang said the government and association should strengthen regular supervision on cleaning and maintenance of highrise, issue clear regulations and punish companies who break the rules.

Two Chinese Window Cleaners Killed By Strong Winds

A witness shows a video clip taken when the two workers are blown to the sky by a gust of wind on July 24, 2015. The workers were hanging onto a lifeline on a high rise building in downtown Xi'an, the capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Shaanxi window cleaners die after gust of wind sends them flying into building: Two window cleaners at a high-rise in Xi'an, Shaanxi province died last Friday afternoon after a strong wind sent the dangling workers flying back and forth mid-air until they crashed into the building. The two workers were among about a dozen others who'd been cleaning the exterior of the 270-meter high Greenland Center commercial building when a strong wind picked up at around 5:20 p.m., according to a witness cited in an SCMP report.

“The men’s ropes might have become tangled after they were first blown around by the wind,” said the witness. The two workers cried for help and struggled in the wind for around 20 minutes before they were thrown against the building. “It was just like two pieces of clothes hanging there. I think the two died immediately,” he said.

The photo taken by a witness shows the smashed windows of a high-rise building in downtown Xi'an, the capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province on July 24, 2015. Two workers hang to work on the building crashed into the windows in a strong gust of wind on Friday.

The workers were on the 12th and 15th floors at the time of the incident, People's Daily reports. Local police confirmed that the cleaners died amid bad weather.

While it pretty much goes without saying, window cleaners have a terrifying job. In April, a viral video showed the moment a strong bout of wind sent an elevated working platform swinging through the air until it was flung against a window on the 91st floor of Shanghai's World Financial Center. The two window cleaners on the platform fortunately managed to walk away with only minor injuries.

World's Longest Glass Bridge - Who Will Clean It?

An artist's concept of people walking across the glass bridge high above the Zhangjiajie canyon in China. The glass bridge spans 370 m (1,214 ft), but who will be doing the window or glass cleaning?

World's longest glass bridge set to open in China next year: In a bid to attract more tourists to the region, Hunan Province in China has commissioned the architectural firm of Haim Dotan to produce a completely transparent glass bridge spanning 370 m (1,214 ft) across the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon. Dizzyingly high at about 400 m (1,312 ft) above the canyon floor, the span is claimed to be capable of holding up to 800 people at a time.

Dizzyingly high at about 400 m (1,312 ft) above the canyon floor, the glass bridge will carry up to 800 people at a time.

China seems to be enamoured with terrifyingly high, world-beating glass structures. Gizmag recently detailed the world's longest glass-bottomed cantilever skywalk in Longgang National Geological Park, Chongqing, for example, which extends 26.64 m (87.4 ft) over a straight drop of 718m (2,356ft), making it some 5 m (16 ft) longer than the Grand Canyon Skywalk in Arizona. The Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon glass bridge continues this trend of oneupmanship.

The glass bridge is touted to be a "Wonder of the World" by the Hunan Province.

Funded in part by the Tourism investment cooperation meeting at the Central China Expo in 2012, and slated for opening some time next year, the glass bridge is touted as a "Wonder of the World" by Hunan Province. Set to be constructed between the summits either side of the canyon, the deceptively fragile-looking structure will also have an added thrill for those that find the idea of walking across a sheer drop on a see-through bridge too tame.. a bungee jump. To be located in the middle of the structure, the bungee jump is also said to be another world-first for Hunan province as the highest bungee on the planet, at around 60 m (197 ft) or so higher than the current highest commercial bungee of 233 m (764 ft) on the Macau Tower.

Making Reverse Osmosis Membranes

Su Lv shows off a reverse osmosis membrane cartridge.

Making ultra-thin materials with holes the size of water molecules: While visiting GE's China Technology Center, we got to take a look at reverse osmosis membranes. Reverse osmosis is the most energy-efficient means of removing dissolved substances from water. It's what's used commercially for desalination, the process of producing drinking water from seawater.

The term "membrane" is typically used to mean a thin sheet of some material (in fact, the word "sheet" appears in the definition of the term). But for some of the things GE is using it for, the membranes were thin yet robust tubes, each one capable of supporting the weight of a bowling ball. Despite that toughness, features on the tubes are so fine that they can allow water molecules to pass through but reject many things that are roughly the same size, such as the salt ions found in seawater.

This all raises an obvious question: how do you actually produce anything like that? We decided to look into the process of making reverse osmosis membranes. It quickly became clear that the toughness of the membranes is a key feature. Water purification systems need to survive repeated cleaning cycles and go right back to use. We talked to Sijing Wang in Shanghai, who said that some membranes in the systems GE makes can be used for up to eight years.

That toughness, however, is provided by polymers that are microporous, in that they have features a thousand times larger than what is needed for reverse osmosis. These would do little to help remove salts from water, but they provide structural support for membranes that can. The large pores also ensure that water can easily flow through the system once it has passed through the membrane that acts as a filter.

 A test setup that allows Sijing Wang to see how membranes (held in the rectangular cases, lower right) respond to different types of waste material.

The interactions between that membrane and the water it's purifying help dictate the efficiency of the system. Since the membrane doesn't interact well with water, more water will flow through it when it's thinner. For reverse osmosis membranes, this layer is kept to a micrometer or less in thickness. The pores within it have to be kept small so that the ions of the salts in the water can't pass through a pore without interacting with the membrane, which will repel them. (Technically, the pores aren't small enough to physically block the ions from passing through, but the interactions between ions and the membrane keep them from getting too close to the pore opening.)

So you need to both layer a thin membrane across your support membrane and control the size of the pores that form within it, typically limiting them to less than 10 nanometers.

There are two methods of creating thin membranes. One involves forming a polymer but keeping it dissolved in a solvent that also mixes with water (often an alcohol of some sort). As you increase the fraction of water present, the polymer will eventually precipitate out. There are several ways of doing this. The simplest is to just heat the solution so that the solvent evaporates, which increases the fraction of water until the polymer precipitates. Alternatively, you can place the solution in a humid environment until the fraction of water goes up.

The most common method, however, is to create a viscous, 20 percent polymer solution and dunk it directly in water. The solution is so viscous that it won't mix into the water; instead, water infiltrates it and causes the polymer to drop out of solution. This process is often done on a continuous roll of material that's sent through a vat of water.

In all these instances, the action takes place at the interface between the polymer surface and the environment. As a result, the membrane primarily forms at this interface, creating the very thin barrier needed for reverse osmosis. Polymer deeper in the solution tends to form a larger, more open structure, which allows water to flow freely away from the membrane.

An alternative approach that functions in a similar manner is to use a building block for the polymer that dissolves in some solvents and a chemical activator that dissolves in an immiscible one. The two solvents will form two different layers (much like oil and water), and the building block and activator will only meet each other at the interface. As a result, polymerisation only takes place at this interface, resulting in a very thin layer.

How do you put holes in it? To a certain extent, the process takes care of that itself. As water begins to enter a solvent it's not fully compatible with, it will form tiny droplets that are held together by surface tension. The polymer will form around those droplets, leaving small holes behind. The size of these holes is determined by the speed of the process; the quicker it takes place, the smaller the water droplets will be and the smaller the resulting pores. By varying the solutions being used and the speed of the process, it's possible to have fine control over the pore formation process.

There are also additional layers of control possible. It's possible to include molecules that act as "pore generators" in the solutions, which are then removed when the membrane is rinsed later. Wang said most of the polymers GE uses are made of aromatic polyamine—which means a carbon ring that nitrogens are attached to. These chemicals do allow a certain degree of flexibility, in that they can be different sizes (one or more rings) and have slightly different chemical properties. (They're also carcinogenic before they're polymerised, but they're inert afterward. While water purification systems can be said to "contain a carcinogen," they pose absolutely no threat to human health.)

By adjusting the chemistry of the polymer, as well as the process by which it's formed, it's possible to have very fine control over the membrane that ultimately forms. This allows manufacturers to customise membranes for different tasks and to provide the durability that's needed for multiple years of use.

Sidney Loeb (left) with first RO membrane.

First Demonstration Of Reverse Osmosis: In the late 1940s, researchers began examining ways in which pure water could be extracted from salty water. During the Kennedy administration, saline water conversion was a high priority technology goal-"go to the moon and make the desert bloom" was the slogan. Supported by federal and state funding, a number of researchers quickly advanced the science and technology of sea water conversion, but UCLA made a significant breakthrough in 1959 and became the first to demonstrate a practical process known as reverse osmosis (RO).

At that time, Samuel Yuster and two of his students, Sidney Loeb and Srinivasa Sourirajan, produced a functional synthetic RO membrane from cellulose acetate polymer. The new membrane was capable of rejecting salt and passing fresh water at reasonable flow rates and realistic pressures. The membrane was also durable, and could be cast in a variety of geometric configurations. The impact of this discovery has been felt worldwide, ranging from applications in home demineralizers to "rivers of fresh water" in the Middle East and North Africa, where desalination facilities produce trillions of gallons of pure water every day. About 60 percent of the world's desalination capacity is located on the Arabian peninsula.

The process of osmosis through semipermeable membranes was first observed in 1748 by Jean-Antoine Nollet (pictured). For the following 200 years, osmosis was only a phenomenon observed in the laboratory. In 1949, the University of California at Los Angeles first investigated desalination of seawater using semipermeable membranes. Researchers from both University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Florida successfully produced fresh water from seawater in the mid-1950s, but the flux was too low to be commercially viable until the discovery at University of California at Los Angeles by Sidney Loeb and Srinivasa Sourirajan at the National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, of techniques for making asymmetric membranes characterised by an effectively thin "skin" layer supported atop a highly porous and much thicker substrate region of the membrane. John Cadotte, of FilmTec Corporation, discovered that membranes with particularly high flux and low salt passage could be made by interfacial polymerisation of m-phenylene diamine and trimesoyl chloride. Cadotte's patent on this process[4] was the subject of litigation and has since expired. Almost all commercial reverse osmosis membrane are now made by this method. By the end of 2001, about 15,200 desalination plants were in operation or in the planning stages worldwide.

Window Cleaning News

China exports unexpectedly fell in March: A window cleaner moves past an advertisement poster of a jewelry boutique in Beijing, China Thursday, April 10, 2014. China reported an unexpected contraction in exports in March, raising the danger of job losses as Beijing tries to overhaul its slowing economy.

Window cleaners hang from the facade of Ngee Ann city mall in Singapore - Xenophobia rears its ugly head in Singapore once more. Comments left on 'Say "No" to an overpopulated Singapore' refer to Filipinos as "f**king vermin", "scum", "shit heads of a third world country" and "undesirable underlings". Some are calling for Singaporeans to show up at the event to make trouble. One guy even called for men to "put on our number 4s with full battle order" to "surround the Pinoys".

Window Washer Critically Injured After 6-Floor Fall: A window washer has been hospitalized with critical injuries after falling six floors Thursday evening. Crews responded to the 1800 block of 7th Street NW around 6 p.m. for the accident. Police say the winow washer fell from the 9th floor of a building to the 3rd floor. An investigation is pending.

Workers abseiling from building: Falls from heights are a major cause of death and injury in Australian workplaces, according to Safe Work Australia.

Working at heights deaths: Self-regulation failing to prevent fatal building falls, unions say - Unions are calling for tougher safety regulations and enforcement to stop workers falling to their deaths at worksites, saying more people will be killed unless self-regulation is scrapped. Falls from heights are a major cause of death and injury in Australian workplaces, according to Safe Work Australia. Of the 800,000 Australians who work at heights, including tradesmen, cleaning, and maintenance workers, on average 26 of them fall to their death each year, and almost 8,000 are injured.

Working At Heights Association secretary Gordon Cadzow says regulators are not enforcing the safety standards. "It's the second largest cause of death in industry," he said. "There has to be a policeman and the policeman has to enforce the law. "Falling from height, there's no second chance. I've been close to fatalities in the past and I don't want to get close to them again." In 2011, 45-year-old West Australian builder Bernard Wills was on his first day on a new job - a high shed under construction near Esperance - when he fell through a skylight to his death. Late last year, Wills' employer was fined $65,000 for not following safety procedures. His family believes his death could have been avoided if safety standards had been strictly policed by regulators.

"The failure to do these safety measures resulted in his death and that's why he isn't here today," his sister Theresa Curley said. "I think that there's enough knowledgeable and experienced people within the whole industry, from the regulators right down, that can look at these problems with working at height risks and reduce the probability that someone who was so inexperienced would find themselves on that roof and have the opportunity to risk their life."

Lack of safety regulations likened to 'Wild West' - For those who work at heights, their lives literally depend on the ropes and anchors holding them up. There is a certification system to ensure their safety, but it is hopelessly unreliable and unregulated, with abseil anchor points often left untested. Peter Ferguson from the Australian Rope Access Association argues that people are being allowed to get away with not applying the rules. "It's pointless having regulations if they aren't policed, and the policing just simply isn't happening at the moment," he said.

Gren Hinton from Proaccess window cleaning says safety checks of equipment and structures are hit and miss. "Some of them will be tested, some of them won't be tested." "And there's no certification or accrediting body for the companies installing. You can't trust anything. It's basically the Wild West out there." Engineer Clive Austin and his team were hired to carry out maintenance on a Melbourne apartment building.  They checked the abseiling anchors and found that, while they were certified, they were woefully faulty. Mr Austin asked the building owners to replace the anchors. Instead, his company was replaced. He reported this to the regulator, which did nothing because the replacement team had not started. "We reported that to WorkSafe," Mr Austin said. "They said they wouldn't investigate because it didn't constitute a building site."

When put to Len Neist of the Victorian WorkCover authority that six workers required to do heavy maintenance on one site must surely constitute a workplace, he responded: "We have limited resources". But Mr Austin says that is not good enough. "There needs to be some sort of regulation to make sure that the anchors are safe," he said. "We want to come home."

Mr Cadzow says falls from ladders are another big risk. "When we looked at ladders, over 90 per cent inspected were not to Australian standards," he said "We've taken this data to the regulator and asked him to treat this as a serious matter. The response has been disappointing."Plumber Keith Dickman was working up a ladder on a construction site in Melbourne when he fell and died.  In 2012, the Victorian Coroner's Court found the defective ladder and unsafe work practices contributed to his death. 

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The Mole and Jersey Show Season 2 Episode 2 - This show just keeps on getting better & better!!

Victoria Police tougher on crime than grime as cleaning budget cut: Victoria Police has been forced to cut back on cleaning at police stations as it grapples with ''a difficult time of fiscal restraint''. A leaked email to staff from western region Assistant Commissioner Jack Blayney said cleaning services would be reduced at police stations and other Victoria Police buildings to slash costs. ''You will also be aware that we are moving through a difficult time of fiscal restraint. We are not the only organisation that needs to reduce costs,'' the email said. Mr Blayney said the force was investigating other ways to reduce spending and he would monitor the new cleaning regime - which may be an interim measure. A police spokeswoman said there would be no change to the cleaning of police cells, locker rooms, kitchens, bathrooms and toilets. ''However, general cleaning, including vacuuming, dusting, and internal window cleaning, has been reduced on average to three times a week.'' She said the cleaning cuts were expected to save Victoria Police about $1 million a year.

Window cleaner’s epic 48-mile Norfolk Coast Path run for Crohn’s and Colitis charity: Karl Warnes, from Castle Acre, ran almost 50 miles along the Norfolk coast path to raise money for in aid of Crohn's and Colitis UK. He was supported by his brother Craig Warnes and cousin Robin Clarke, who completed the journey on cycles. Karl Warnes, from Castle Acre near Swaffham, said he had never previously run more than 14 miles before taking on the epic 48-mile route from Hunstanton to Cromer on Good Friday. He completed the gruelling challenge in 9hrs 25mins, battling against wind, rain and difficult coastal terrain underfoot, including sand, loose shingle and muddy footpaths. The 24-year-old was backed by his brother Craig Warnes, also from Castle Acre, and cousin Robin Clarke, from Great Dunham, who both also completed the journey on bicycles, carrying much-needed supplies of water and energy snacks. The run has so far raised more than £800 for Crohn’s and Colitis UK – a charity founded to offer support and research into the bowel conditions which can devastate lives and have no known cure.

Mr Warnes’ 21-year-old girlfriend Rebecca Mack has suffered with Crohn’s for seven years. “It is important, because my girlfriend has Crohn’s so I wanted to raise awareness really,” he said. “I have only done about 14 miles before. I play football every other week and I go the gym, but I’ve only done proper training for a long run since Christmas. It has been whenever I have had time to run in the mornings or at the weekends. “I was hoping to do it in under 10 hours, so I’m very happy. Some of it was a pebble beach and the weather was pretty bad at times as well, which does not help. There was a lot of wind and heavy rain, that was the worst part.

One-Armed Biker Leads as Paulistas Take to Cycling: David Sousa was left for dead. At dawn on March 10, 2013, a car slammed into him while he was cycling on Sao Paulo’s main road. Only after finding Sousa’s severed right arm in his car did the hit-and-run driver stop. That’s when prosecutors say he tossed the appendage into one of the sewage-choked waterways that criss-cross the biggest city in South America. In fact, the 22-year-old Sousa survived. And after fellow cyclists took to Avenida Paulista, the scene of the injury, behind a standard of a plastic arm holding a fistful of flowers, Sousa became the face of a nascent biking movement. “Sometimes I wish I had a gas mask,” Sousa said during a recent ride in which a speeding car forced him into a storm drain. A few blocks later, another almost hit him while it was backing out of a driveway. Since getting back on his bike, rigged so he controls both front and back brakes with his left hand, Sousa has been knocked off twice by cars in collisions.
He hopes the case against the driver, whose lawyers dispute prosecutors’ allegation that he was under the influence of alcohol and that he was at fault in last year’s accident, brings compensation to help pay for business classes he began after losing his job as a window washer. The arm was never found after a six-day search by firemen. Sousa tried public transport to get to school from his home in eastern Sao Paulo, a region that has been largely engulfed by sprawling slums, known as favelas, but he can’t stand the long waits and overcrowding. “The bike facilitates my mobility,” said Sousa, who is riding a new BMW sent to him by an anonymous businessman who read about his accident in the newspapers. “On my bike, I can do what I want when I want.”

Traders are challenging shoppers to spend a fiver at local retailers to give their high street a boost. Supporters of the Totally Locally Cheadle scheme say if people spent just £5 a week at independent shops it would be worth an extra £2.9 million to the town's economy. The campaign was launched at the town's St George's Market on Saturday, following the success of Totally Locally in Leek. Marc Briand, who is co-ordinating the schemes in both towns, hopes Totally Locally will achieve similar results in Cheadle. "Research has shown that if you spend £10 at a supermarket it's worth about £20 to the local economy. But if you spend it at a local retailer that value rises to £50, because that business will use other local businesses, such as accounts, suppliers and window cleaners." A 'Fiver Fest' will take place in Cheadle on Saturday, May 10, coinciding with the next farmers' market. The event will see local retailers offering special £5 offers to help promote the campaign's message.

Watch This Window Washing Video, If You Dare … Chicago - WARNING: If you get dizzy standing on a chair, you might not like this video. However, if you are interested in what it feels like to wash high-rise windows, this video is totally for you. Armed with a brush and wiper blade, window washer Michael Kelly strapped a video camera to his helmet and posted to YouTube about 20 minutes of stomach-churning video as he slowly slid down a building in the Financial District at 175 W. Jackson on Monday. The view is fantastic, although disconcerting at times–especially if you get skittish at higher altitude. Using a suction cup as a grip, Kelly deftly moves from side to side around stone and brick pillars to attack his target. For the most part, the only sounds you here are the thudding of the suction cup and the sloshing of cleaning solution. It seems Mr. Kelly has done this a few times before. Sitting in a small seat and guided by a sturdy rope, Kelly quickly applies soapy water and swipes is wiper blade a few times and then bounces and slides along the side of the building, sometimes floating away from the building and looking down at the street below.

Pure Window Cleaning Reach and Wash on St Michael's Mount: It's a tough and challenging job when the annual spring clean for St Michael's Mount's windows comes along. Penzance-based Pure Window Cleaning Reach and Wash has had the task of cleaning the numerous windows every spring for the past three years. It is a job which takes three operators the whole day. The cleaning poles have to extend 25ft more than their usual length to reach up to some of the windows which are 60ft high. Owner Ian Strick said: "There are many factors that have to be considered when the annual clean comes along. "Tide times and wind speed have to be considered and because Saturday is the only day that the Mount isn't open to the public, it is the only day that we can clean them." Reach and Wash is a family-run business, established for 20 years and, added Mr Strick, it has three operating guidelines: remaining safe, staying green, and ensuring the privacy of the customer. He says that as the company uses a carbon fibre extendable pole, no ladders are needed to reach windows and so the safety of the cleaner and privacy of the customer are guaranteed. Reach and Wash stay green by the removal of chemicals; the filters used in the purification of their water are from natural sources and recyclable and due to the use of pure water, no detergent residue is left behind and the windows look cleaner immediately.

Name your price to do that job on new ‘Jobbers’ website: Window cleaning, garage sorting, boat cleaning ... the list of jobs on people’s to-do list is usually long, and there’s never time to do it. These are also times of unemployment and underemployment — and with the culture of entrepreneurship strong in Bermuda, Stafford Lowe has founded a new venture to bring jobs and job seekers together. It’s called Jobber.bm. Mr Lowe said: “Jobber.bm is a new ‘job auction’ website designed to connect the people who are struggling with their to-do lists of jobs with the heroes in their local communities who are able to help them out. “The website operates a bidding system where a job ‘poster’ can advertise the task they need help with and the maximum price that they’re willing to pay, and ‘jobbers’ can then put forward a bid to try to win the job. The poster remains completely anonymous to everyone except the jobber the poster ends up choosing for the job.”

Just one month old, the website has taken off beyond Mr Lowe wildest expectations with almost 200 people signing up for it, and several jobs completed. “And we have five to 10 new jobbers signing up every day,” he said. “If the poster doesn’t like any of the bids they have received, they can just let the job auction expire and re-post it again later.” Those people who have signed up will receive e-mail alerts whenever a job in an area they have expressed interest is posted, so they can bid right away. He said: “While jobbers are encouraged to bid aggressively, posters are often very discerning about reading both the jobbers’ personal statements and the specific reasons they put forward in their bid for why they should be chosen. “It’s not really about which jobber is willing to do the job for the least amount of money, but more about finding the best person available to help at a price that’s fair.”

At the age of 42, most boxers — with the exception of George Foreman and Evander Holyfield — are reminiscing about their careers. Jerry Schwickrath of West Deer, a 1989 Fox Chapel Area High School graduate, was just beginning his. Last month, the now-43-year-old claimed a Golden Gloves championship in the Masters Division (ages 35 and up) at Three Lakes Golf Course in Penn Hills. What makes the accomplishment even more impressive was that the win was his first official bout.
“About a year ago, a friend of mine who's a boxing trainer invited me down to the gym, and I guess they liked what they saw,” Schwickrath said. “They convinced me to enter the Golden Gloves, so I began training.” Part of the training involved competing in the Tough Mudder competition that was held in August in Ohio. “It's a 12-mile obstacle course in mud, basically,” he said. “They have many events, and they're pretty grueling. You have to run five miles in 40 minutes, and there are a lot of hills. You have to jump in ice water, run in fire and a lot of other tough obstacles. That got me in pretty good shape.” Schwickrath, who didn't compete in any sports in high school, also credits his job with keeping him in shape. “I own a window-cleaning business, and I've got over 2,000 customers,” he said. “There's a lot of climbing involved with some of the places I clean, and it's the main reason I've kept in shape.”

Bomb squad called in as unexploded WW2 hand grenade found in Crosland Moor garden shed: Window cleaner Tim Rees told how he saw the activity while on his rounds. He said: “I saw the vehicles and thought the worst that it was a crime scene and then I found out they had found a hand grenade. “They had sealed off the area and at first people didn’t know what had happened. “I’ve heard the couple who found it have only just bought the house from an elderly couple who had died. “They were clearing out the house and garden when they came across it.” Army bomb disposal experts were called to the scene. The device was made safe and the army left earlier this afternoon.

UK small businesses still struggling to stay afloat: Micro-businesses across the UK, whether window cleaners, self-employed hairdressers or taxi drivers, are simply struggling to make ends meet and find the funds needed to grow their businesses. A recent Amigo Loans study revealed a fifth (21 per cent) have no idea how they will grow the business in the future, and a further 15 per cent say growth just simply isn’t possible for them right now.

Quotes of the Day - Linda Robson: "People used to ask me what my husband did, and I truthfully said that he was a window cleaner. But I was told that wasn't posh enough. Now I tell them that he is a glazing hygienist" - Birds Of A Feather actress Linda Robson.

The Shetland branch of “Women for Independence” saw an encouraging turn out at its launch on Thursday night at Lerwick’s Isleburgh Community Centre. A gathering of around 25 (including two men) engaged in a wide ranging discussion about matters relating to the future of an independent Scotland over a selection of home bakes and hot drinks. As the evening progressed, the existence of several more special interest groups came to light, including Window Cleaners for Independence, Hairdressers for Independence and North Yorkshire for Scottish Independence.

Brooklyn may have a collective case of Winter Weather PTSD: The winter of 2013-14 will go down in the books as one of the worst in a generation. There were over 15 snowstorms, consistently cold days, bitter winds, and commensurate numbers of people injured from falls, sprains, and car accidents. The first storm started on November 12 2013 and the last storm, a "light snow event" took place on February 18, 2014. Winter went on for three months, going on three years, it seemed. A local window washing business, a mom and pop, says customers are delaying their spring wash. Some people are still walking around in winter coats despite 50 degree weather. You'd think we lived in Maine.  It's like everyone has a touch of weather-related PTSD. New York's an indoor/outdoor city, with a lot of office workers and also a lot of people who go to not just jobs but school, classes, events, cultural venues and to eat out and see friends.  And everybody's got a lousy story from this winter.

Glass, by Alex Christofi: Westland commented: “Glass is a brilliant debut from a hugely talented young writer. A completely winning story of a young man finding his way in the world, it features window-cleaning, skyscrapers, a cathedral, first love, last love, family bereavement, a closet fascist, and a German intellectual. And the most endearing lead character I’ve ever come across. Gunter Glass stole my heart, and is guaranteed to steal yours.”

Opening the doors: When completing her MA in Fine Arts, Grayson made a huge painting of someone washing windows as seen from the other side of the window - "like the painter is trapped behind the canvas". The popularity of this piece encouraged her to create another - seeing a figure through a shower door. She then had the idea of a collaborative effort where several artists all start from the same concept of using a door. She made a list of people who she thought produced interesting work and approached them. Doors Unhinged was born. 

Brighton motorists fined more than £3.5 million last year: City parking wardens issued fines worth more than £3.5 million last year. Motorists in Brighton and Hove were given 103,219 tickets for flouting parking regulations – boosting council coffers by at least £3.6 million if each ticket was paid within two weeks at £35.  Thirteen tickets were also waived because they were given to window cleaners. A spokeswoman for Brighton and Hove City Council said: “Window cleaners who are using equipment from a vehicle to carry out their work may apply to the council for a parking permit. “On seeing the badge the civil enforcement officer will check that window cleaning is in progress and if not a penalty charge notice (PCN) may be issued

It's a bird! it's a plane! No - it's somewhere in between. Melbourne researchers are developing drones that will detect and glide on natural air currents to conserve energy - something birds have been doing for millennia. In the right conditions, the drones could glide between buildings and skyscrapers for hours on end, barely expending any battery power, project leader Dr Reece Clothier of RMIT University says. He and his colleagues are working on specialised sensors that will enable autonomous drones to detect surrounding wind patterns in real time. The drones could use the information to navigate towards favourable updrafts, while also avoiding damaging eddies and turbulent air. "It's replicating what birds do," he says. "They know where these updrafts are, they fly to them and they hold their position."

The idea struck Dr Clothier and his research team as they watched birds surfing the updrafts between skyscrapers in Melbourne's CBD. "We thought, 'wouldn't it be great to develop an unmanned aircraft that could do exactly what those birds are doing?'" A prototype drone unveiled on Monday is named Kestrel - a homage to the falcons that hover on headwinds and then swoop swiftly on their prey. It's early days, but Dr Clothier says the technology could one day be integral. "Unmanned aircraft are likely to see a lot of applications that require them to fly in built-up areas," he says - from policing and inspecting buildings to surveillance and even window-washing. The research is focused on fixed-wing drones, but Dr Clothier says there's no reason it couldn't be extended to drones powered by rotors. The project is just the latest to look to nature for inspiration.

Finally – finally! – spring has arrived. The flowers are blooming, the trees are turning green again and – hey, how did those baseboards get so dusty? Amid all the joys of spring comes something not quite so inviting: spring cleaning. Done right, it can breathe new life into your home and free your spirit from the weight of clutter, soap scum and dog hair. “Spring is new beginnings,” said Beth Dannenhauer, owner of the Maid in Heaven cleaning service in Charlotte. “It kind of transcends into the house: ‘Let’s just give this a good cleaning.’ It’s good for the soul.” And, she points out, it’s also good for the body. Accumulated dust mites, airborne allergens and dust particles can make us sick, especially in today’s nearly air-tight homes.

“Healthwise,” said Dannenhauer, “it’s very important to get that house clean, get it disinfected, do those chores that you maybe don’t do but once a year.” But while most of us feel at least a tiny twinge of that spring-cleaning bug this time of year, not everyone actually rolls up sleeves and gets it done. We like the idea of a tidier, healthier home, but we don’t really like scrubbing baseboards. Geralin Thomas, owner of Metropolitan Organizing in Cary, says there are ways to make all those deep-cleaning chores feel less like, well, chores. “Sometimes it’s easier to do things in a group, surround yourself with people who are motivated and will keep you motivated,” she said. If your family members don’t quite meet that standard, enlist some friends or neighbors and create a traveling band of spring cleaners. One person’s house gets the deep clean one weekend, then it’s on to another group member’s house the next. Bring some snacks, play some music and be sure to indulge in a reward when it’s all done, maybe a night out or a glass of wine, Thomas said.

If you find yourself grumbling, instead of whistling while you work, keep in mind all the benefits a clean house offers the mind and body. “It’s very much like exercising,” Thomas said. “A lot of times you have to talk yourself into it, and then while you’re sweating it out it’s no fun. But the minute you’re done, you think, ‘I feel so much better! I’m glad I did it.’ ” Starting a spring-cleaning project can be overwhelming – so much grime, so little time. So we asked some experts, including Dannenhauer and Thomas, for their top five tasks and tips to inspire you to take out the mop and get moving. By the numbers - The American Cleaning Institute polled 1,777 adults about their spring-cleaning habits. Here are some highlights from that 2013 poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points: Washing windows: 80% 

Waiting game at the Anglo trial - The jury in the trial of three Anglo Irish Bank executives were tasked one week ago today with deciding whether to bring the first convictions against Irish bankers under specific laws. Waiting around for a verdict is tedious, but people watching and observing the everyday goings on – such as the mundanity of window washing, where three men scaled down the side of the building, swinging from side to side with wipers and suds, caught most people’s eye. TV3′s Brian O’ Donovan went outside to capture the scene as taking images is prohibited inside the Criminal Courts of Justice.

Living Smart: Don't let dirty windows obscure your view of nature in full spring glory. Whether you do the job yourself or hire an experienced pro, few home investments are as immediately satisfying as clean, sparkling windows. Here are expert DIY tips that my research team gathered from top-rated window cleaners:

Start with the right supplies. If your windows are standard glass, not leaded or stained, and they aren't tinted, you should be able to safely use commonly available window-cleaning products. But you can always just clean with hot, soapy water and rinse with water and a small amount of vinegar to improve shine. Or, you can try these options: Combine a cup of rubbing alcohol, a cup of water and a tablespoon of vinegar. For glass that's cloudy, try straight ammonia. (Don't combine vinegar and ammonia, as they cancel each other out.) Good wipe-down materials include paper or microfiber cloths and newspapers. Avoid plain, cotton towels, which will leave behind lint.

For cleaning hard-to-reach outside windows, consider an extendable tool with a telescoping handle that has a soft scrubber on one side and a squeegee on the other. Spray the scrubber with cleaning solution, clean the window and squeegee to remove the cleaner. To more easily see streaks that will require a second shot of elbow grease, wipe the inside of glass in a different direction than the outside. For instance, go side-to-side on the inside and up and down on the back. Here's a tip if you find that your lower windows, or siding, have dark stains. Your mulch may be to blame. Cheap mulch may be infested with a fungus that, when mature, shoots black spores that stick to glass and siding and are hard to remove completely. If you have problems with this, consider switching to higher quality mulch.

Ideally, it's best to clean windows twice a year. That may be reason enough to hire out the work, but there are other reasons to consider professionals, including the dangers inherent in working on a ladder. In addition, expert window cleaners have the right supplies to more readily remove paint, glue and other material from glass. They also have experience in cleaning other window components and areas, including screens and sills. They can also identify and deal with window problems, such as screen patterns etched on glass, sashes painted shut, screens that don't fit right, clogged channels, non-working or damaged window weights in older windows, wood rot and insect infestations. A pro may also be your best bet if you have specialty windows, including leaded glass, stained glass and tinted glass. Before you hire a window cleaner, do a little research, since anybody can claim to be an expert in this area. Make sure the company has positive reviews on a trusted site, is appropriately licensed and insured, has proven experience, and is willing to provide a free estimate.

Patient Lenox Barden, 5, gives a high five to Iron Man through a window on the fourth floor of WakeMed Children's hospital. Three window washers dressed as superheroes rappeled down the side of the building Wednesday, April 16, 2014 in Raleigh to bring a little fun and excitement to patients and staff. This was the second year that Batman, Iron Man and Spiderman have “dropped in” at the hospital.

Superheroes visit WakeMed Children's hospital patients: WakeMed Children’s Hospital patients and their family members, along with hospital staff, had a surprise visit from three superheroes who dropped in outside the fourth floor lobby window on Wednesday. Mild-mannered window washers from Scottie’s Building Services donned Batman Superman and Iron Man costumes to become superheroes for a day, fighting grime and cheering up young patients at the Raleigh hospital. Pediatric patients that felt well enough (and their families) gathered in the Children's Hospital lobby to see the superheroes up close, exchange high-fives through the glass and take photographs. The superheroes also made special window drops for kids that could not leave their rooms. This was the second year that the hospital hosted the heroes.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Superheroes washed windows at Charlotte's Hemby Children's Hospital Tuesday, delighting kids and their parents. “I hope they're careful and they don't fall off the ladder or something,” said 9-year-old Mae Rainey as Superman, Batman, Spiderman and the Hulk came into her room. Nah, these guys are superheroes. “They usually save the day or something like that. Were they saving your day?” – MB “No, I didn't have any trouble.” – MR They're not the only heroes you'll find here. Mychael Kitriss, 9, has spent the last month in the hospital fighting leukemia. “I’ve never been to a hospital before and I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said. It’s been hard for mom Lisa to watch. “There were a few days that she just didn’t think she was going to pull through it and I just kept telling her to fight like a girl.” She's getting her strength back, though nothing like her favorite superhero - the Hulk. “Every time he gets mad he had to go buy a new shirt. They’re just cool and they save other people and that’s really cool.” But Mom has a different take on the whole superhero thing. “She looks at those superheroes at being so much better. They do all these wonderful things and she has no idea how strong she’s been, and that she’s the ultimate superhero in all of this.” She's got the strength, now all she needs is the cape.

Metropolitan Window Cleaning’s Blake Dawson and Matthew Drape transformed themselves into Spider-Man and Batman to abseil down walls. Lachlan Fry, 5, in hospital for an infected broken arm, was already in Batman tracksuit pants and T-shirt, and couldn’t resist the chance to get a photo with the superheroes before going home for Easter. “He loves the hospital. It’s like a little hotel for kids,” said mum Kym. “They go to so much effort to make it not a scary place.”

Their superpowers? Boosting spirits at children's hospital: The superhero window washers made their first appearance at Lurie last year after Phil Kujawa, 46, the foreman of the crew, saw a news report about a similar event in another city. He mentioned the idea to his bosses at Chicago-based Corporate Cleaning and quickly got the green light. Then, Kujawa had the little issue of getting his crew to don the capes and tights. “At first, they were like, ‘I am not wearing that,’” Kujawa recalled. He emphasized how much it would mean to the kids, and eventually won over his crew. Each window washer, Kujawa said, was carefully selected for his experience and skill. (Because of the several architectural details on the building, Lurie Children’s is not an easy building to clean, he said.) What’s more, each man had to look like a hero.
Roberto Duran, 32, with a chiseled jaw and clean-cut good looks, would make a perfect Captain America, his bosses thought. Gerardo Vaca, 36, with a short, athletic build, seemed more a Spider-Man type. And Pedro Castro, 45 with a bushy mustache, was chosen to become Batman “as a little bit of a joke,” Kujawa said with a laugh. “We wanted to see what he would look like in a costume.” Now, he said, his team revels in the chance to assume the super identities. The heroes clean the windows, of course. But the real mission is to bring a bit of happiness to the kids.

At Lurie, officials built a whole day of events around the superheroes’ appearance. They call it “Superhero Day,” and send an advance alert to the staff asking everyone to don capes and masks. Though staff likely know what that super alert means, the arrival of the caped window-washers, via ropes from the roof, is kept secret from patients and families until the last moment. Video here.

£26k window cleaning bill for Leicester City Council - Leicester City Council spends £26,484 to have the windows of its buildings cleaned twice a year. Information about the council's contract with Ace Cleaning Company has been published following a Freedom of Information request by a member of the public. The council says it has 182 buildings – from offices to leisure centre, shops houses and residential homes – covered by its window cleaning contract, which will be up for tender in late 2016.

Police in Fermanagh have been helping householders to show doorstep criminals the door through a new scheme to keep rogue traders at bay. Using the new 'No Cold Calling Zone...no uninvited traders' window stickers, developed in association with Trading Standards, cold callers can now be warned away and a contact number provided to report those who ignore the sticker's warning to Trading Standards. The stickers have been distributed throughout Northern Ireland in recent months. While it should be noted that not all cold callers are rogue traders, the project has been developed by police to put a stop to those unofficial traders who may over-charge an unsuspecting and often elderly householder for poor quality work or work that is never completed at all.

The stickers give a householder the opportunity to warn cold callers that they are not wanted at their door, that ignoring that warning could constitute a breach of Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading regulations and that further action may be taken by Trading Standards. The project is not designed to apply to established callers such as a milk delivery or window-cleaners. Inspector Roy Robinson said: "Most callers at your door will be genuine but someone could be trying to gain access to look around your property or charge you far too much for shoddy or non-existent work.

Tall order to build platform at the peak of Burj Khalifa (Dubai): There is no questioning the bravery of the two base jumpers who leapt from the Burj Khalifa, but spare a thought for the team who had to erect a three-and-half-metre steel platform at the tiny peak of the tallest building in the world. The Burj Khalifa’s pinnacle has a circumference of just 1.2m and the base-jumping platform needed to support the weight of eight men during a day of base jumping, 828m off the ground. The task of ensuring this platform was put into place safely, and on time, fell to Megarme, a Dubai rope-access company, and its operations manager, Daniel Eede. “No one has ever built anything like this, it was completely new to everyone,” said Mr Eede, a UK national. “All in all we had 60 pieces of steelwork to build the actual platform and it all had to fit together perfectly. Obviously safety was our highest priority.”

The structure was taken piece by piece in lifts to the 159th floor, and then had to be hauled up the remainder of the structure using a cradle and, finally, by rope-hauling systems. The construction firm Eversendai built the platform itself, and every effort was made to ensure the stunt went off without a hitch. Prior to installation, a mock-up of the project was made at Eversendai’s building yard in Ajman, and minor adjustments were made to make it as safe as possible. Despite the unique event, Megarme is familiar with the world’s tallest building, as the company is responsible for the day-to-day window cleaning that takes place, and installing the fireworks on the structure for celebrations.

Mr Eede said the platform took four days to erect and he had been amused to see the online speculation about what was going on. “We started seeing people posting photos of the ‘mysterious platform’ and asking questions. But among the group we were all sworn to secrecy and we all found it quite funny.” He said that when the day finally came it was thrilling, and emotional. “These are two guys who are just living life to the fullest. Everyone says they are crazy but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. They were amazingly professional – and you saw the emotion when they landed safely.  “I have been involved in an incredible amount of rope-access projects – the Wembley Arch and London Eye – but this by far topped my career,” he said. He said that the pair of daredevils - Fred Fugen and Vince Reffet - went on to perform three more jumps that day.

On Earth Day Ash Burnell, president of Sun Valley Window Cleaners is holding the first annual Sun Valley Window Cleaners Downtown Cleanup. The event is being held in cooperation with the Downtown Kelowna Business Association and Powerplant Whole Foods (Martin McDermott). The two companies have come together to encourage residents and businesses to come out on Earth Day and make the downtown shine. Martin will be providing wholesome, organic raw food bars that day enticing shopkeepers and Kelowna residents to come out and pitch in. Ash does a fair amount of pressure washing and window cleaning in the downtown area for private businesses but noticed that there were many key areas that fell outside of anyone’s responsibility and are badly neglected. With the new revitalization of downtown, he feels that Kelowna residents and businesses should take ownership of this public space and keep it looking pristine. The entire crew of eight from Sun Valley will be volunteering downtown with their three commercial pressure washers and brooms cleaning up back alleys and key areas throughout downtown. The event will kick off at 9 a.m. at Kerry Park (across from Kelowna O’Bryan’s) and run until 4 p.m. The association will be coordinating the locations that are in greatest need and dispatching volunteers to those areas. Fuel up with a Powerplant bar and help Sun Valley Window Cleaners make this cleanup a Kelowna tradition.

Question: In the 100-year-old colonial house we bought, some Andersen windows used to have grids that are missing. You can still see the holes where the grids were fixed once. The other windows in the house are Pella windows with structured wooden grids on the interior glass, which look very nice. Who can install those missing grids on the other windows so that it doesn’t look cheap (not too flat), and at what cost? Andersen told us that they won’t do this. — Chevy Chase reader.

TW Perry, an Andersen dealer in Chevy Chase (301-652-2600; www.twperry.com), can order replacement grids for you. Lou Skojec, the sales manager, said the best way to be sure of getting the exact parts you need is to go to the store with two bits of data for each window. Etched into the glass near a corner, you should find the letters AW plus a code that identifies the year the window was made. And on the edge of a window screen, assuming your windows have them, you should find a four-digit numerical code that a window dealer can use to identify the window size. For example, “2032” on an Andersen window means it is 24 by 38 inches. If you don’t have screens, measure the daylight openings, the visible height and width of each glass pane.

Getting grids that fit requires both the date and the size because companies change their designs over the years, Skojec said. For a window with upper and lower sashes, expect to pay $30 to $60 for a pair of replacement grids, he said. Once you have the grids, you should be able to install them yourself. Check when you pick up the grids, but the process usually involves placing the bottom tab in the slot, then bowing out the grid slightly to get the top pin in place. Then you repeat this process on the left and right. If you’d rather someone else do the installation, a window-cleaning company can probably help you.

Death Notices for April 22: Ralph Whitlock, 53, high-rise window washer, died Monday. Services pending. Mark Griffith-Riverside, Sand Springs.

Sacha: Smear campaign against me: SACHA Singh, the woman whose assault allegations against Tourism Minister Chandresh Sharma resulted in his resignation yesterday, is claiming that a smear campaign has been launched against her by United National Congress (UNC) and supporters. She made the claim yesterday during a media conference held at the offices of her businesses AMS Biotech Security Concepts Ltd, Affordable Window Wash Ltd AWWL and AmSure Trinidad and Tobago Ltd at Piarco Plaza, BWIA Boulevard. Businesswoman Sacha Singh, who is embroiled in assault allegations against her former boyfriend, MP Chandresh Sharma, got a $60,000 contract to clean windows at state-owned National Petroleum (NP) long before she met Sharma. Singh told the T&T Guardian she landed the job late in 2011 and she met Sharma in January 2013. “NP’s records would show that Affordable Window Wash Ltd cleaned their windows during 2011 and 2012.” Sacha Singh, the ex-girlfriend of former tourism minister Chandresh Sharma, has the contract to clean glass windows at National Petroleum (NP), St Joseph MP Terrence Deyalsingh revealed yesterday.

The 30-year-old from Trincity and former Miss TT/India had reported to police that Sharma, her alleged then boyfriend, hit her and pushed her down at Grand Bazaar mall on March 12. Yesterday Sharma tendered his resignation and it was accepted by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. Yesterday at the media conference Facebook pages nude and semi-nude pictures were being posted. “And I hope and I plead to our honourable Prime Minister, who is a female, to please kindly...help me help these people to stop posting my personal pictures. It is really defaming my character,” she said.  She noted the pictures were taken from her personal laptop by former staff and business partners three months after they were fired, and posted last June on a sex site. She recalled Sharma and his legal advisers and cyber police who assisted in having the site taken down about eight months ago.

Man posed as window cleaner to try to con people out of money: A man “in the grip of heroin” called at houses pretending to be a window cleaner collecting payment, a court has heard. One of the people Benjamin Williams tried to trick was a woman who had recently lost her husband, a court has heard, and his call left her feeling vulnerable. Swansea Magistrates Court was told that 26-year-old Williams had called at houses in Heol Caerllion in Cwmrhydyceirw and in Lan Street and Clydach Road in Morriston in the evenings, trying to trick people by saying he was there to collect their window cleaning bills. Most people were suspicious of the caller and he left empty handed — but one person handed over £10. A probation report presented to the court said that at the time of the window cleaner frauds, Williams was smoking 3.5g of heroin a day.

Wilkes-Barre police recovered about 100 bags of heroin from a rental car after responding to a suspicious person call. Police were called to Wilkes-Barre Window Cleaning at 140 Lehigh St. around 1 p.m. on Friday for a report of a suspicious person parked in the business' lot, according to an affidavit. When police arrived, Dashawn McLendon, 19, of 153 Park Ave., told them the vehicle was his, but police said the gray Nissan Altima came back registered as a rental from New York. Police said they smelled a strong odor of marijuana and asked McLendon if he had been smoking. He told police he had "weed" on him once police told him they were going to pat him down. Police placed McLendon into custody after finding a small amount of marijuana in his pocket, according to the affidavit. Police then searched McLendon's car and found two bricks - or 100 bags - of heroin stamped "High Voltage," as well as two loose bags of heroin stamped "Magic City." Police also recovered $723 and two cellphones. McLendon was charged with possession with intent to deliver and possession of a small amount of marijuana and jailed Friday afternoon, unable to post $100,000 bail. 

Fake jobs conmen tricked Sunderland pensioner out of £5,000:  Two men who cheated a vulnerable man in his early 60s out of thousands of pounds have escaped jail. One of the men, Andrew Crosby, 38, struck up a friendship with the frail pensioner in October 2012 while washing his windows, and began to borrow money from him as well as overcharging him for menial jobs such as cleaning bins. Crosby, of Clovelly Road, Hylton Castle, Sunderland, charged as much as £90 each time he visited his victim. Realising the man was an “easy target”, Crosby then informed some other men, who began visiting the man and demanding money for jobs that had not been given the go-ahead. Another man, Dennis Middlemas, 49, was employed by these men to collect the money from the vulnerable man at his home in Sunderland. Judge John Evans said: “A total of about £5,500 was taken, not all by these defendants. “In essence, it was purported that they were doing work for him. “It’s clear that in addition excessive bills for window cleaning and wheelie bin cleaning were given.” The court heard that the victim became concerned about the never-ending bills and contacted the police.

CCTV released following Andover incidents: Police are appealing for two men to come forward following a number of incidents in Andover. On Friday 11th April the men entered a number of shops including Waitrose, Salvation Army and Noami House charity shop claiming to be window cleaners in order to access staff areas or get payment. A mobile phone was stolen from the staff area of one store and a charity box was stolen from the counter of another. Officers would like to talk to the men captured on the CCTV images about the incidents as they may be able to assist with the investigation.

A father who watched his son bravely tackle a burglar who ransacked a family’s home at Christmas says he’s “extremely proud”. Derek Shearer, 59, and his son stepped up to help on Christmas Eve when they spotted a gang racing away from a property in Selsey Close, Toll Bar End. Derek said: “This chap was knocking doors claiming to be a window cleaner. He was hopping about, it was a cold windy day. "He told me he was waiting to speak to a neighbour about cleaning her windows. I thought it was odd – he didn’t ask to clean ours.” In fact Jason Bradbury and unknown colleagues were burgling the house, and when they raced off Derek’s son brushed off his own health worries to follow them. Derek said: “My son told them they were going to get caught because of the CCTV. When they got abusive he backed off and they left. It shook him up. He couldn’t leave the house on Christmas Day.”

A predatory paedophile who advertised for his victims in a local paper and was described as a "monster in disguise" by one of the young boys he abused has had his sentence slashed - because he is ill and old. The 73-year-old, who cannot be named because it might identify his victims, was originally jailed for eight years for molesting three teenage boys in the early 1980s, including two he had employed for weekend work in a home handyman business in the western suburbs. He advertised in a local newspaper for boys to assist him as a handyman, window cleaner and gardener. During sentencing last year, a District Court judge said the offences against the three boys, aged between 13 and 14, had ruined their lives - with one of the victims going on to become a convicted child abuser himself.

In Mexico, Kidnapping is a persistent threat: Ransom demands here in Morelos, a small state just south of the capital Mexico City that by some counts tops the nation in kidnappings, have ranged from $13,000 to as low as $250, according to the state police. At such prices just about anyone can afford to be snatched. Becerra’s group is demanding the resignation of Gov. Graco Ramirez, who took office 18 months ago after campaigning on a vow to attack crime, particularly kidnapping. The group hopes to force a recall election in the fall, which if successful, would be Mexico’s first such removal of a governor by popular vote.
Some 1,700 kidnappings were reported across Mexico in 2013, nearly 10 percent of them in Morelos. Another 278 abductions were reported nationwide and 34 in Morelos in the first two months of this year, according to the government. Analysts say as few as 1 in 5 abductions are ever reported, in part because victims’ families fear police agents are involved with the gangs. Investigations and ransom negotiations frequently become complicated because victims are targeted by family members and acquaintances, Pineda says. Victims in such cases often are killed because they can identify their captors. Today, the remnants of those lieutenants’ gangs carry out many of the kidnappings, joined by newcomers who trade low-wage jobs for easier criminal profits.
“They’re the cartels of window washers and brick layers,” says Becerra, the anti-crime activist. Becerra’s group claims that Gov. Ramirez and his police have failed miserably — either from “stupidity or complicity” in their efforts to end the crime wave and must go. Ramirez, who is the state’s first governor from the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, says the complaints are politically motivated. He argues that he inherited the crime plague from predecessors who cut deals with gang bosses, giving them free rein.