CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) -

Cincinnati is announcing a design competition, "Connect the Blocks," to establish a vision for the decks over Fort Washington Way between Main Street and Elm Street.

The goal of the project is to connect the Central Business District to the Banks.

The space could potentially be used as a park, commercial development, or entertainment district but is not limited to those uses.

The pile foundations for the decks were originally constructed during the improvements made to Fort Washington Way in the early 2000's.

Now, the city seeks to develop on those foundations.

The city will conduct a call for entries in a national design competition for design, architectural, and engineering experts to create design concepts and cost estimates.

Local professionals will act as judges in the competition.

The public is invited to share ideas and opinions through an online survey.

There are also two scheduled public meetings:

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Cincy looking for good ideas for Ft. Washington way deck

The San Mateo Bridge will be closed for two weekends in October as construction crews replace bridge decks and a cracked beam discovered two years ago.

Caltrans will shut down the bridge from 10 p.m. Friday until 5 a.m. Monday on the weekends beginning Oct. 19 and Oct. 26, said Peter Lee of the Bay Area Toll Authority.

During the shutdown, crews will remove and replace the bridge decks on the part of the span between the elevated segment and the trestles, along with a cracked beam - part of an expansion joint - discovered during a routine inspection in October 2010.

Caltrans conducted emergency repairs on the bridge, installing steel plates on both sides of the damaged joint. Fixing it permanently will cost about $3 million, which will come from toll funds.

Bay Area transportation officials had held off on publicizing the closures so they would not be confused with the Labor Day shutdown of the nearby Dumbarton Bridge, Lee said.

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San Mateo Bridge to shut 2 Oct. weekends

A construction delay that kept the northbound side of the Thaddeus Kosciuszko Bridge closed for the morning rush hour Monday is not expected to be repeated during five other weekends of similar roadwork, a state Department of Transportation spokeswoman said.

Steel plates on the Twin Bridges took longer to install than anticipated, causing the northbound lanes of the bridge to be closed to all traffic until after noon Monday. For the evening commute, a single northbound lane was again closed as crews tried to secure a steel panel to the bridge deck.

"I do advise commuters to continue to find alternate routes while construction is ongoing, but we don't expect this type of problem going forward," DOT spokeswoman Carol Breen said earlier Wednesday, before the evening lane closing.

Work on replacement of the northbound deck is planned for five out of the next six weekends, with no roadwork set for Columbus Day holiday weekend. Traffic will be steered into one lane in each direction on the southbound side of the bridge. Next spring, the southbound lanes will be closed on a series of weekends while the deck is replaced as part of a $29 million project.

Commuters expressed frustration with the unexpected traffic snarl, which sent drivers over to Route 9 and caused bumper-to- bumper traffic there.

"You can't take the busiest highway in the area and put it on Route 9," said Joseph Menditto of Troy as he stopped for gas at a Stewart's just over the Mohawk River bridge in Halfmoon.

Lauren Osterhout of Clifton Park was similarly upset.

"It's awful. I don't understand why they are doing it, especially during the week," she said. "That's pretty bad."

But Bob Ballard of Colonie said he wasn't surprised.

Delays are commonplace in any construction project, he said, and he thought the plan to get the work done over the weekend was overly ambitious.

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All Northway northbound lanes open at Twin Bridges

One northbound lane on the Twin Bridges is closed again due to roadwork, the state Department of Transportation just announced.

This comes right as the evening commute is about to begin. On Monday morning, work that was expected to be finished over the weekend continued until after noon, blocking all northbound lanes.

Contractors are having difficulty securing a steel plate on one section of the span, DOT spokesman Bill Reynolds said.

"Right now we're just working to secure this plate," he said.

While only one lane will be closed for the evening commute, he said, DOT recognizes that is not ideal and is trying to get the work done as quickly as possible.

"It is still going to cause congestion," he said.

One right lane was closed at 3:45 p.m. Monday between Exits 7 and 8.

Traffic was backed up on the Northway northbound as that side of the Twin Bridges remained closed following the first weekend of a multimillion-dollar construction project. One lane finally opened shortly after noon, and the state Department of Transportation announced at 2 p.m. that all the lanes were open in plenty of time for the evening rush hour.

Delays Monday morning were heaviest around the Thaddeus Kosciusko Bridge between Colonie and Clifton Park, where the highway was closed between exits 7 and 8. Drivers used Exit 7 to Route 9 north and re-entered I-87 at Exit 8.

Traffic was reduced to a single lane in each direction over the weekend, as the first phase of a $29 million project to rebuild the decks on the northbound side of the bridge over the Mohawk River began Friday night. The weekend construction was scheduled to be finished by 5 a.m., Monday but crews ran into unexpected delays, forcing workers to stay through the morning commute, said Carol Breen, a DOT spokeswoman.

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One Northway northbound lane opens at Twin Bridges

One day after a University City apartment deck collapsed, the owner is obtaining repair permits through code enforcement to ensure the safety of the apartments wooden balconies.

Joe Pries, who has owned units at the Colville Condominium complex for the past two months, said hes hired inspectors to check out the decks at eight units. Hes also contacted the people who live in those units and told them not to use the decks until they are inspected.

About 12:45 a.m. Sunday, one of the 12-foot-high decks, holding at least three people, plummeted to the ground and injured one.

Weve never had a problem ever, Pries said. This thing separated from the siding. It cut straight from the building. I said to myself, what could I have done differently? Now, Ive been taking a corrective course of action.

The injured person, Sopheavy Mao, 22, was taken to the Carolinas Medical Center-University Hospital, according to an incident report from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Mao apparently hurt his ankle and is expected to be fine, Pries said.

The incident report shows there were at least two other people on the deck, but they were not hurt.

The apartment complex is off Old Concord and Suther roads, not far from the UNC Charlotte campus. Apartments in the complex are advertised as a housing option for UNC Charlotte students.

Mao is not listed as a UNCC student and doesnt live at the apartment, but Son Hoang, who lives there and notified police, attends UNCC.

The deck and apartment were built in 1986, according to Mecklenburg County real estate records. Gene Morton, the Mecklenburg County director of inspections, said inspection records are expunged every five to seven years, but that the deck would have been inspected when it was built. The county does not reinspect older buildings once theyve initially been inspected, Morton said.

The owner is responsible to look and check construction, he said.

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Apartments’ decks off limits after collapse early Sunday

Five thousand years ago, the Egyptians used reef knots to fasten their belts. In the first century, Greek physicians employed both reef knots and clove hitches to tie surgical nooses. Today, these ancient knots are coming in handy on Mars.

On the decks of NASA's Curiosity rover, some of the most advanced pieces of equipment ever developed are being held together by some of the oldest forms of human technology: cleverly looped ropes. Apparently, when you're sending a robot millions of miles out of reach, time-tested tying methods win out over newfangled epoxies or ratchet zip ties.

Knot enthusiasts at the International Guild of Knot Tyers (IGKT) Forum have analyzed color photos that the Martian rover recently took of the equipment on its decks. As PopSci.com reports, the photos reveal some intricate knot work.

According to knot aficionado David Fred, NASA engineers appear to have primarily employed the "spot tie" on the Curiosity rover a combination of a clove hitch and a reef knot that works both to bind cables and affix cable bundles to tie-down points. The spot tie is a knot of choice in space missions, Fred explained, because it applies even pressure on bound material without getting overly tight.

"The inner profile of the clove hitch is smooth," Fred wrote on the IGKT Forum."Both turns bear on the bound object evenly throughout their contact. The contact area is increased by having two turns. When the reef knot is added, the ends are pulled up and away from the object. There is some extra pressure exerted by the reef knot on the riding turn, but this is distributed onto the two underlying turns." [The Mysterious Physics of 7 Everyday Things]

Furthermore, the knot remains secure without constricting cables or wearing them down over time, as zip ties are prone to do.

Fred noted that knots have almost always had a place in interplanetary missions. "If human civilization ends tomorrow, interplanetary landers, orbiters and deep space probes will preserve evidence of both the oldest and newest of human technologies for millions of years," Fred wrote.

The ongoing use of this proven technology, he continued, "is a testament to the effectiveness of properly chosen knots tied by skilled craftspeople."

This story was provided byLife's Little Mysteries, a sister site to SPACE.com. Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyoveror Life's LittleMysteries @llmysteries. We're also onFacebook&Google+.

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Ancient Knots Keep Mars Rover's Laces Tied on Red Planet

by Rick Broida, PCWorld

Editors Note: The following article is reprinted from the Simply Business blog at PCWorld.com.

If slide decks are part of your daily routine, you know what a hassle it can be to show them from a laptop: You have to connect a projector, wait an eternity for the PC to boot, run PowerPoint, load your slide deck, switch the laptop's video output to projector mode, and so on and so on. You can blow 10 to 20 minutes just getting set up for your presentation, which is not what I would call a productive use of your time.

Last year, SlideShark introduced an iPad app for viewing PowerPoint slides. Wednesday, the company unveiled SlideShark for iPhone, an app that effectively puts your presentations in your pocket.

Like the iPad version, the new app combines software and service. Both are free, though you'll have to see if you can get by on the 100MB of storage afforded by the Starter account. If not, pro-level plans start at $49 per year.

After installing the app and signing up for a SlideShark account (something you can do right inside the app, if you prefer), you simply upload a presentation file, and then wait a few minutes while the service optimizes it for iDevice viewing. SlideShark supports both .ppt and .pptx files.

Once that procedure is complete, you fire up the app and choose the presentation(s) you want to download. I like that SlideShark stores the presentations on your iPhone (or iPad) so you can run them offlineno Internet connection required.

You can review your slides on your iPhone, zooming as necessary for better views of the content, but obviously the real draw is connecting your iPhone directly to a TV or projector. For that you'll need Apples $29 Dock Connector to VGA Adapter or $39 Digital AV Adapter.

As with the iPad app, there are a few limitations. SlideShark doesn't support hyperlinks, embedded videos, slide transitions, and other fancy effects. In other words, you're stuck with fairly static slides (which is not necessarily a bad thing). The app does promise to preserve all fonts, images, and colors, plus some animations.

In my brief, informal tests, SlideShark did a great job converting most of my presentations. Your mileage may vary, especially with odd-sized slides, so be sure to spot-check any important presentations before actually, you know, presenting them.

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SlideShark puts PowerPoint in your pocket

IT WAS Friday the 13th, this past April, when 28 decks of playing cards left a manufacturing plant in Kansas City allegedly carrying a simple, fateful flaw.

That minute mistake in Missouri grew into a giant mess more than 1,000 miles away at the Golden Nugget, one of Atlantic City's newest casinos. The saga includes almost a million bucks in uncashed casino chips, accusations of racism and allegations that patrons were held against their will by some clandestine security force. At one point, one of the patrons was allegedly put in a headlock at a noodle bar and dragged away.

In an unprecedented play, the casino filed a lawsuit to recoup money it lost to gamblers who thought they'd hit the jackpot. After a contentious hearing Friday in Atlantic City, the Texas billionaire who owns the Golden Nugget appeared to have had a change of heart, and the whole bizarre story had a happy ending.

But a lawyer who represents nine defendants sued by the Golden Nugget says that Friday wasn't what it seemed.

"It's really almost too outrageous to believe it all," said Alan Feldman, the defense attorney.

The decks from Gemaco, the Kansas City-based playing-card manufacturer, were dealt on April 30 at 7:42 p.m. during mini-baccarat game No. 802. According to the Golden Nugget's lawsuit, casino employees quickly realized something was wrong, at least for the casino.

It was as if lady luck had changed her fickle ways and graced the gamblers at game 802, hand after hand, for two hours and 36 minutes. The players won a whopping 41 straight hands and the casino, according to the lawsuit, figured a "criminal conspiracy of swindling and cheating was under way." Floor managers, pit bosses and surveillance teams descended upon the table.

No one at the Nugget could decipher why the players were so lucky, though, and the casino let the game go on till 10:18 p.m. When it ended, the house had lost a little more than $1.5 million.

There was no complex scheme, but it wasn't lady luck, either. Someone in Kansas City allegedly had forgotten to turn on the automatic shuffler before the cards got shipped out. Since the cards were never shuffled at the plant - the casino doesn't shuffle them again - the same patterns kept repeating in game 802. The players noticed, kept on betting and upped their wagers.

"They saw a pattern and didn't know how long it would last," said Feldman, whose clients are Asian and speak little or no English.

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A.C.'s Golden Nugget in legal war with $1.5 million winners

LIBERTY HILL, Texas, Aug. 31, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Mike Byrum, owner of Docks and Decks, located at 15390 Hwy. 29, recently added UHaul truck and trailer rentals to the marina services business he has been operating since 1998.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090622/LA34860LOGO-b)

Click here to download the photo accompanying this press release.

Families needing the finest in moving services now will have increased convenience and a shorter distance to travel when moving, which not only will make their move easier but also will have the positive effect of reducing the amount of carbon emissions released into the atmosphere. U-Haul partnering with business owners across North America to increase convenience for customers while helping our environment is just one of the programs that support U-Haul Company's Corporate Sustainability initiatives.

Docks and Decks can now offer its customers a variety of moving equipment and supplies designed specifically for moving household furnishings, including moving vans, open trailers, closed trailers, furniture pads, appliance dollies, furniture dollies, tow dollies and auto transports. Docks and Decks also will offer sales items to protect their customers' belongings and make moving easier, such as heavy-duty boxes, which are made of up to 90 percent recycled content and are available in a variety of sizes.

"We decided to add U-Haul rentals to our business because we knew that it would not only benefit our business but also would benefit the city of Liberty Hill as well as surrounding areas. We look forward to the future with U-Haul," Byrum said.

"U-Haul is proud to be partnering with a quality independent business such as Docks and Decks," exclaimed Gary Bouillion, president, U-Haul Company of Austin. "Mike is a great example of the type of successful business relationship UHaul has established in order to build and maintain a strong network of more than 15,000 independent dealers across North America."

For more information, or to rent your moving equipment today, call 512-565-9982. Business hours of operation are: Mon. Fri. 9 a.m. 5 p.m. and Sat. 9 a.m. 1 p.m.

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Docks and Decks in Liberty Hill, Texas Adds U-Haul Rentals

Penny Organic is paving the way with environmentally friendly plasticskateboards

Updated: August 30, 2012, 7:27 PM ET

Penny Skateboards of Australia makes skateboards because of their deep love and passion for skateboarding. When Penny founder Ben Mackay was five years old he got his first skateboard at a garage-sale. Once Mackay and his father cleaned the bearings and the plastic garage-sale board could roll -- he was hooked.

Penny Skateboards make traditional wooden decks and had invested heavily in research and development with fiberglass and titanium, but it was the introduction of the Penny plastic board that have become a benchmark for the manufacturer. With the design based off that first board Mackay got at the garage-sale, the plastic decks were a hit from the get go.

This month Penny Skateboards continues their impressive evolution by introducing the first biodegradable plastic skateboard from the Penny Organics line. Rumors of an environmentally friendly plastic deck have been buzzing around the internet for months, but it sounded like an oxymoron -- "environmentally friendly plastic" -- it seemed too good to be true. With the release of the four color ways by Penny Organics, the skeptics have been silenced.

Penny's U.S. General Manager, Nick Timms, speaks to the original intention, "We really wanted to debunk any myths associated with plastic skateboards. As a result, we explored different options and twelve or so months later, we were able to refine the product so that we were truly happy with it. The Penny Organic range will definitely have a permanent home as a staple part of our seasonal offerings."

This biodegradable deck is as strong and fun as the original Penny plastic decks. However, when you're ready for a new set-up, after removing the trucks, you dig a hole in the yard and bury the board. Through an additive, which has been combined with Penny's Super Secret Penny Plastic Injection Molded Formula, over time the board will decompose as the additive reacts with a naturally occurring enzyme in the soil.

Penny's founder Mackay proudly explains, "We're continually trying to raise the bar with our products and the Penny Organic range is no different. We've put a lot of time and energy into making sure the boards ride well, are durable and of course look good. The result is a product that really challenges what's possible with plastic skateboards."

A buried Penny Organic board will fully decompose within a short amount of time compared to plastic bottles and dinosuar bones, but you choose not to bury your deck it'll last as long as a standard Penny plastic deck. When asked if burying decks is now a job requirement, Timms replied, "Of course! We're constantly looking to improve our product line and if it means that we need bury a few decks to ensure that our boards are up to par, then so be it!"

Hopefully there'll be a Skate and Biodegrade shirt to go along with the decks.

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Aussie company launches biodegradable decks