Liberty Intercept Blog

For the first time in the nearly forty year history of the IEEE Milestones program, the group gave four awards in one day to the same company. That company is of course Bell Labs, currently a subsidiary of Alcatel Lucent. President of Bell Labs Marcus Weldon (center of photo) was there to receive the four awards for communications theory and networks, wireless and satellite communications, digital signal processing and computing, and solid-state and optical devices.

The end of the year is always marked by all sorts of lists and countdowns. I enjoy the symbolism of ending one chapter and beginning of another, and there is no more natural time than now to do this.

As a founding member of the worldwide trade association Intercept Technology Group, Liberty Packaging has a wealth of information to share when it comes to industrial packaging, corrosion, electrostatic discharge, insect inhibition, and shrink wrapping. Our Intercept group includes many talented people from varied industrial backgrounds, all willing to share and contribute to help companies from all across the globe solve problems, increase their product reliability, decrease costs, and hence improve your company's profits or help meet difficult budgets.

My yearly tradition includes reading a physics approach to examining whether Santa Clause could exist and could actually deliver presents to children. This article was published in 1990 by Spy magazine. Since then, it has become the foundation for many chat room arguments about the possibility of Santa, and has been, as I understand it, cross checked and rebutted against by many. Its numerical approach to the circumstances necessary for Santa to do his work is delightful, as is its comically abrupt ending. The physics and analysis are all in good fun and they force adults to think about things differently and put themselves, albeit briefly, back into the shoes of children, to possibly think of magic as an explanation to what they are considering.  I know it works on me.

In the packaging industry, as in any industry, it is sometimes necessary to perform tests of the validity of the product options. For packaging, the ideal tests would come from real world situations and many tests do. Of course, that is not always possible, which is why throughout the years, many standard tests have been developed and some have even been refined (which requires testing tests). ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials), ISO, militaries and other organizations keep track of these standard tests and suggest the standard approach for performing them. Many testing companies also add on to these standards or adjust them slightly for their own testing purposes.

The strength of Liberty Industrial Shrink Film is not only measured in tensile strength but also in film elasticity which is unequaled in the market today. A special blend of resins gives LISF the ability to resist punctures and tearing or become brittle in the cold weather, insuring your product is completely sealed from harsh weather.

Read part one

The objects inside the 1901 time capsule found in a wooden lion sculpture at the historic state house in Boston were finally examined after having been brought to a climate-controlled room.  Members of the Bostonian Historical Society were on hand to inspect the contents with the delicacy, scrutiny and context only historians can provide. Brian LeMay, President of the BHS, told NPR’s Audie Cornish, “The striking thing about the contents is how good condition they seem to be. So the stuff inside of it seems to be brand-new. It's as if it was put in there yesterday and has somehow reached us from a century ago in exactly the same condition that it is now."

I recently have been spending a lot of time thinking about the future of cars. The advances in electric and driverless cars have really stolen the show. All of this was brought about recently when I was hit by, non-driverless cars (ie. cars with drivers), I was actually hit twice, once on a bike and the other while stopped at a red light. Both were accidents, but both got me thinking that we sacrifice countless efficiencies when humans are in control of cars. The first one that comes to mind is fuel (and energy) efficiency. If we use computers to drive cars they can more effectively and more quickly communicate with other cars thus reducing time wasted at stoplights or waiting while another driver considers what he or she is going to do. A perfect world could look something like this. 

Introducing Intercept Technology “corrosion protection” message yellow tape. The purpose of this tape is to be wrapped around the finished Intercept package informing anyone who sees it that the product inside is protected from corrosion. The message is printed on the sturdy, high tack, high visibility yellow plastic tape which has the Intercept Technology logo printed on it followed by a message in 6 different languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese. The message reads: “Attention - Intercept corrosion protection packaging. These goods have been protected against corrosion using a protective packaging method. In order to not have any corrosion damage to the goods, the packaging must be sealed immediately again after opening.”

Exobiotanica is, from what I can tell, a project that sends various plants to 30,000 meters, or nearly 100,000, feet from the earth’s surface. Though I think the theory behind this project might be a bit avant-garde for my tastes, the end result of a photograph like this is nothing short of miraculous. An outer space setting, seemingly on the edge of our atmosphere, is cold and harsh. Not where I would expect to see any live entity thriving. But seeing this bonsai tree in a floating terrarium, which could just as easily be in my apartment, makes one dream of the possibilities…..