Nancy Bartels driving the blogging machine here this morning. I am not by nature an alarmist, and I tend to ignore headlines that say (or imply) "OMG, we're all going to die!" On the other hand, when you smell smoke in the kitchen for longer than a couple of minutes, it can't hurt to assume something more than the toast is burning. Which brings us to this link from Dark Reading.

Here's a bit of help from our IT department. No, actually it comes from our resident wag, Joe Kaulfersch at Pepperl + Fuchs.

Ten Ways You Know Your Internet Connection Is a Little Slow

This month we introduce the newest three members of the Process Automation Hall of Fame. We also bust some myths about Foundation fieldbus, explore when to use guided-wave radar, and hear an argument in favor of multiple standards for the same technology. Access our issue now. Here it is in PDF format if you prefer that.

Consider the lowly pressure gauge. Consider it well. From it, all of the control and automation in process industries follows as a logical progression. Happy birthday to the folks who started it all.

Here's the press release:

Amid reports that US manufacturing has expanded for the 29th month in a row, and growing hope for a lessening of fear (or at least fear-mongering) in the European debt crisis, and hope that the Chinese will have engineered a "soft landing" for their no-longer-growing at hothouse rates economy, the automation giants are beginning to spend some of the great big gobs of cash they've been squirreling away for  that proverbial downpour. Apparently, they are beginning to think that we aren't going back into a recession, and they won't need that cash.

Advocates of sustainable business and manufacturing practices, including me, have been saying for years that a sustainable enterprise is not only possible and practical, but that it is profitable beyond the low hanging fruit of energy savings from replacing light bulbs and the like.

Here's an article from our sister publication @SustainablePlant that says we have not been wrong.

I, along with several other people, have been predicting the arrival of "lick and stick" sensors-- very inexpensive wireless sensors capable of being used in many industrial and building automation applications. Here's a press release from Omega Engineering that makes my case. Note the price.

This just in on a Friday:

Ah, the law of unintended consequences! It always works to bring a good idea back to reality. All we have to do is to make electric cars and the carbon problem and the pollution problem will go away! Well, not exactly.

Batteries are made of hazardous materials and must be disposed of. The electricity to charge and recharge those batteries must be made in coal- or oil- or natural gas- or nuclear-fired power plants. Each of them has wasteproducts and pollutants, although the least polluting obviously is nuclear.

Country rocker Toby Keith has a hit song called "Made in America" where the chorus goes, in part, "Spends a little more at the store for a tag in the back that says USA."