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Construction

A Nebraska Construction Company: 100 Years of Building Lincoln

2024-12-10

Lincoln, Nebraska has witnessed remarkable transformations over the past century. Among the constants is the Kingery Construction Company, which has played a pivotal role in shaping the capital city. Founded in 1924 by the Kingery family during the Great Depression, this construction firm has left an indelible mark on Lincoln's skyline.

The Impact on the Community

"Kingery Construction takes pride in its deep connection to the community. As Rick Wintermute, the current vice president, emphasizes, they strive to undertake projects that have a profound impact on the lives of Lincoln residents. Whether it's the Lied Center for Performing Arts or the university dorms, their work is visible everywhere. Taking kids down the streets and pointing out these structures gives a sense of pride and accomplishment. It's not just about building buildings; it's about adding value to the community."

Projects Throughout Lincoln and Beyond

Currently, Kingery is actively involved in multiple projects within Lincoln and Nebraska. They are expanding their reach by venturing out of the state for the first time to build an elementary school in Denison, Iowa. This shows their commitment to growth and innovation. Their diverse portfolio includes a wide range of structures, each with its own unique story and significance.

Bringing Awe to Every Project

"When people step into a building for the first time, there's an undeniable sense of awe. As Wintermute mentioned, while construction workers may not experience that initial rush personally during the two-year construction process, they know that others do. That sense of wonder is what makes their work truly rewarding. It's about creating spaces that inspire and leave a lasting impression."Kingery Construction continues to be a driving force in Lincoln, building not just structures but also memories and a sense of community. Their century-long journey is a testament to their dedication and expertise.

Planter maintenance is crucial for setting your crops up for success. Variations in spacing and depth can lead to significant corn yield losses. By following these nine essential steps during the winter, you can ensure your planter is in top condition when it's time to head to the field.

Unlock the Secrets to Optimal Planter Performance

Start With a Holistic Approach

Brad Niensteadt, lead product specialist at Kinze, advises operators to start at the hitch pin and work backwards. Examine all hydraulic lines for abrasion and kinks. Worn hoses can collapse during planting, reducing flow to blowers or vacuum motors. Look for abrasion and cracking on hoses, which can indicate heat buildup due to hose restrictions. Finish the hydraulic inspection by examining all cylinders for leaks.

Check tires for proper inflation. Kevin Kimberley, Successful Farming's Planter Doctor, emphasizes the importance of proper tire inflation. Write inflation pressures on rims to avoid confusion during the season. Check inflation daily as it affects down pressure.

Mind the Seed Meter

Regardless of meter type, completely disassemble each meter and clean all parts. Use a spray surface solvent like a mixture of 80-20 talc-graphite additive to minimize buildup. Examine all working parts of the meter for wear and tear using the owner's manual as a guide.

For finger pickup-style meters, Kimberley automatically replaces certain parts each year. During examination, look for warped baffles or elevator housing wear. Buff away rust and spray with slip plate or graphite. Pay particular attention to the meter's faceplate and replace it when the wear is into the second layer of metal to prevent overplanting.

Check the Disk Openers

Sharp disk opener blades provide better depth control and emergence. Change blades when they wear down to 14.5 inches in diameter. Niensteadt recommends replacing disk opener blades and the inner scraper as a set. When removing shims, replace them on the outside of the shaft for easy retrieval.

Check the owner's manual for the proper distance between disk openers. Measure the length where double disks touch at their leading edges. Use a small sheet of paper or a business card to mark spacing and check for wear. Keep in mind that disks on planters with hydraulic downforce wear out faster.

Inspect Depth Gauge Wheels

In transport position, grab depth gauge wheels and turn them to check for "operating slop" indicating worn eccentric bearings. More than a quarter inch of free play means it's time to replace the arm. Gauge wheel arms with bearings provide more even down pressure per row.

Loose gauge wheels won't press against disk openers, which is crucial for forming a true V-furrow. If bearings are sound but the wheel is loose, adjust the eccentric bearing. Finally, check for sharp lips on the wheels where they contact the disk opener and replace worn wheels.

Look at Seed Tubes

Seed tubes are often overlooked but need to be examined annually. Worn tubes have a small flap of plastic at the bottom. Any significant wear requires new seed tubes. While the tubes are out, check their straightness. Even brand-new tubes can be curved, causing seed ricochet and spacing problems.

Clean the eye of the monitor sensor in the tube and inspect cast guards for wear. Replace the seed tube protector. In high-speed planters, check the brushes for straightness and clear them of dirt or debris.

Examine the Drive System

Every component in the drive system, including the transmission, should be examined. Replace overly rusty, stiff, or kinked chains. A faulty chain can cause vibration affecting meter accuracy, especially for hard-to-plant seed sizes.

For cable drives, remove the unit and turn the cable to check for smooth rotation. Inspect connections in electric meters. After inspection and parts replacement, operate the drive in the shop to ensure smooth operation.

Inspect the Parallel Linkage

Although parallel linkage arms may seem reliable, their bushings wear and their arms can bend or twist, especially on sidehills or in wet conditions. Evaluate linkage by moving the row unit and looking for sloppy motion at the mounting points and twisted linkage.

Worn bushings increase chatter and affect depth placement. Check down pressure springs for tension and air bag fittings for leaks. Use a spray bottle of soapy water to detect air leaks.

Check the Closing Wheels

Closing wheels are often overlooked but have a significant impact on seed-to-soil contact. Examine the closing wheel assembly for looseness at the arm connections. Spin closing disks and press wheels to check for noise indicating worn bearings.

Inspect the press wheel assembly for bends or cracks. Planting on curves or hillsides can cause undue wear. Adjust the distance between closing wheels to get the correct gap. You can check and center closing wheels in the shop with a straightedge.

Calibrate Your Monitor

Run a seed tube sensor test to ensure all rows are counting. Double-check the selected seed plate in the system. Clean up old data from the display, including hybrids and fields.

In the realm of artificial general intelligence (AGI), a significant milestone has been reached. A well-regarded test, the ARC-AGI benchmark, which was introduced by Francois Chollet in 2019, is now closer to being solved. However, Chollet and his team claim that this development actually highlights flaws in the test's design rather than marking a genuine research breakthrough.

ARC-AGI: A Key Test for AGI Progress

In 2019, Francois Chollet, a prominent figure in the AI world, introduced the ARC-AGI benchmark. This benchmark, short for “Abstract and Reasoning Corpus for Artificial General Intelligence,” was designed to assess whether an AI system can effectively acquire new skills outside the data it was trained on. Chollet asserts that ARC-AGI remains the only AI test that measures progress towards general intelligence, although other tests have been proposed.Before this year, the top-performing AI could only solve approximately two-thirds of the tasks in ARC-AGI. Chollet attributed this to the industry's overemphasis on large language models (LLMs), which he believes lack true “reasoning” capabilities.“As LLMs mainly rely on memorization, they struggle with generalization,” he stated in a series of posts on X in February. “They fail when faced with anything not in their training data.”Indeed, LLMs are statistical machines. By training on a large number of examples, they learn patterns to make predictions, such as the typical sequence of “to whom” followed by “it may concern” in an email.Chollet argues that although LLMs may be able to memorize “reasoning patterns,” it is unlikely that they can generate “new reasoning” in novel situations. “If you need to be trained on numerous examples of a pattern to learn a reusable representation, you are essentially memorizing,” he contended in another post.To encourage research beyond LLMs, Chollet and Mike Knoop, the co-founder of Zapier, launched a $1 million competition in June to develop open-source AI capable of surpassing ARC-AGI. Out of 17,789 submissions, the best-performing model scored 55.5%, which is about 20% higher than the 2023 top scorer but still short of the 85% “human-level” threshold required to win.However, Knoop emphasizes that this does not mean we are approximately 20% closer to achieving AGI.Today, we are excited to announce the winners of the ARC Prize 2024. We are also publishing an extensive technical report detailing what we have learned from the competition (link in the next tweet).The state-of-the-art performance in ARC-AGI has seen a remarkable increase from 33% to 55.5%, the largest single-year improvement since 2020. This significant leap showcases the potential and progress in the field.In a blog post, Knoop pointed out that many of the submissions to ARC-AGI have achieved results through “brute force” rather than true intelligence. He suggested that a “large fraction” of ARC-AGI tasks “[do] not carry much useful signal towards general intelligence.”ARC-AGI consists of puzzle-like problems where an AI must generate the correct “answer” grid given a grid of different-colored squares. These problems are designed to force the AI to adapt to new problems it has not encountered before. But it remains unclear whether they are truly achieving this goal.Tasks in the ARC-AGI benchmark. Models must solve ‘problems’ in the top row; the bottom row shows solutions. Image Credits: ARC-AGIKnoop acknowledged that “[ARC-AGI] has been unchanged since 2019 and is not perfect.”Francois and Knoop have also faced criticism for overemphasizing ARC-AGI as a benchmark for AGI at a time when the definition of AGI is highly debated. One OpenAI staff member recently claimed that if AGI is defined as AI “better than most humans at most tasks,” then AGI has “already” been achieved.Chollet and Knoop plan to release a second-generation ARC-AGI benchmark and organize a 2025 competition to address these issues. “We will continue to guide the efforts of the research community towards what we consider the most important unsolved problems in AI and accelerate the path to AGI,” Chollet wrote in an X post.Fixing the shortcomings of the first ARC-AGI test will not be an easy task. If the flaws of the initial test are any indication, defining intelligence for AI will be as challenging and controversial as it has been for human beings.