EXCHANGE student Catherine May may not have attained enlightenment at the Melbourne Buddha Day & Multicultural Festival on the weekend, but she certainly had fun.
Celebrating its tenth anniversary at Federation Square, The Buddha Day and Multicultural Festival certainly made the most of the space. Activities took place inside and outside with vegetarian food stalls lining the pathway towards the Yarra River.
It was the vegetarian Peking duck pancakes that particularly caught my eye down by the river, however more intriguing things were to be found inside The Traditional Chinese Art Hall. There, I was taught the ancient art of calligraphy (through the more basic act of tracing), and I also drastically failed to be taught the wonders of origami (the small boy telling me the crane was a simple structure was definitely misjudging my skill level). Fortunately the friendly volunteers ably assisted me in both these ventures and the hall offered a whole array of other arts activities including jewellery and doll making for a small donation.
Catherine tries her hand at origami.
Outside the Visitors Centre, everyone was given the chance to write a wish on the Bodhi Tree leaves which were then "planted" into the ground. Over in the BMW Edge a daily tea meditation session was held allowing visitors to discover the intimate experience of offering tea to the Buddha.
Other activities taking place over the two-day festival included regular bathing of the Buddha ceremonies on a stage set up in the middle of Federation Square as well as live performances on the main stage.
Do I feel I learned lots about Buddhist Culture or found spiritual enlightenment? Probably not, but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. What I can say is that I had an enjoyable time exploring this free event and that everybody involved in the festival was keen to share their knowledge and enthusiasm with you.


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Уильям Причард (; , Тиф-Ривер-Фолс, штат  — , ) — американский фармаколог, создатель антивирусного препарата римантадин.

Окончил Миннесотский университет, там же в 1939 году защитил диссертацию по органической химии, после чего поступил на работу в центральную исследовательскую экспериментальную лабораторию концерна DuPont в Уилмингтоне. Проработал там до 1979 года, выйдя на пенсию для ухода за заболевшей женой.

Важнейшее из достижений Причарда — полученный в 1963 году и запатентованный в США в 1965 году римантадин, ставший результатом исследования производных амантадина (патенты на химическую формулу , 1965 и на метод синтеза , 1967). Предложенные Причардом методы синтеза основывались на получении римантадина из кетоксима путём восстановления алюмогидридом лития.

Примечания

Фармакологи США

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Opinion Our View
Our View: IPT bill was based on poor foundations
By CM: Our View July 11, 2014 November 7, 2016 4 111
DEPUTIES did not approve of the new values for properties calculated by the government as part of its bailout commitments and have decided to keep 1980 valuations in place. So the annual immovable property tax (IPT) will once again be based on 1980 prices instead of current ones. The relevant bill, prepared by Disy, Diko and Evroko was approved by the House yesterday, Edek and Akel also backing it.
The main argument used by the parties against a tax based on current prices was that the main tax burden would fall on owners of medium-value properties. This, they claimed, was unfair which was why they decided to keep the 1980 benchmark. This argument is a bit difficult to comprehend, given that the tax-rate charged on current prices would have been lower. The government could not possibly have charged the same rates on current property values that would have been three or four times higher than those taxed last year.
In a rational world, the rate would have come down accordingly, with the government aiming to raise a similar amount to last year's. If everything was calculated proportionally, how would any group of owners shoulder a bigger tax burden than last year? This would have been the case only if the government wanted to increase, substantially, its revenue from the IPT. In theory it did not, as the primary objective was to re-evaluate and update property prices.
Of course, the very idea that the government bureaucrats could sit down and work out a formula for calculating the current values of all properties in Cyprus for tax purposes is ludicrous. Is it the state that determines property prices or the market? And at a time when the real estate market is plagued by uncertainty, prices are sliding and foreclosures are looming can there be an accurate valuation of properties? The new valuations cannot be but arbitrary.
Then again, the authorities' valuations of properties have always been arbitrary. Sellers have often paid tax based not on the price they were paid for a property, but on the arbitrary valuation made by Land Surveys Department officials. Nobody ever bothered to update the 1980 prices because they were an irrelevance. But now that the government is taxing property ownership, the prices have become of critical importance.
In a way, the political parties did the right thing to keep 1980 prices for the purpose of calculating the IPT. It would ensure nobody would have to pay more than they paid last year, which must be a good thing. Nobody could have trusted the government not to use the new prices as an excuse to squeeze even more money out of people.
Court to hear defendants in Dromolaxia case
Welfare overhaul as GMI approved
CM: Our View
Central bank independence: it's more than just about interest rates
Our View: Strong signs of double standards in recent uproar over rape allegations
Sight and sound and science
Our View: Unficyp mandate resolution irrelevant to future of Cyprus talks

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Faster Vaccines May Be Desired, But Are Hampered By Hurdles
Researchers reveal obstacles in the hunt for new vaccines
By Jason Tetro
Vaccines have come a long way since Edward Jenner first inoculated James Phipps back in 1796. Today, they are more effective, safer, and for the most part widely accepted. Yet even with these advancements, researchers continue to search for more effective ways to keep the public safe from at times lethal infections and diseases.
But vaccines are not easy to make and may require decades of effort before they are tested. In a world now dealing with emerging pathogens such as Ebola and Zika, the idea of waiting a generation is no longer palatable. Vaccines are needed sooner so more lives can be saved.
Ebola is one of the first targets for rapid vaccine development
One of the most encouraging concepts in rapid vaccine development is the peptide candidate. The process involves identifying small pieces of proteins from a vaccination target such as a virus, bacterium, or cancer cell, possessing the capability of stimulating the immune response. When used, the goal is to direct the immune system to recognize the fragment and then memorize it. Should the target ever re-enter the body – such as in the case of an infection – immunity will take over and ensure no harm is done.
Unfortunately, peptides are not particularly effective vaccine candidates as they simply do not have the ability to properly stimulate the immune system by themselves. In order for this to occur, the peptide has to be attached to a larger body, such as a virus. This technique has proved useful for larger proteins, such as those from Ebola and has shown some promise for peptides from diseases such as malaria.
The ability of the peptide to spark a reaction isn't the only concern. The carrier choice is also an issue as it may not drive the immune system in the desired way. Currently, there are several options being investigated ranging from oil particles to nanoparticles. Yet none have provided optimal results to give that perfect form of protection.
In many studies, the usual focus is on the peptide, the carrier, and the development of protection. While this is important from a public health perspective, there is sometimes one particular aspect missing: the type of immune response stimulated. Without knowing exactly how a peptide vaccine candidate affects our personal defense system, the complete picture simply cannot be realized.
With this objective in mind, a group of international researchers aimed to identify exactly how a peptide vaccine stimulates the immune response. They published the study earlier this month. The results clearly show a need to focus on the immune system in order to best understand how a vaccine candidate works inside the body.
The team focused on a peptide from Group B Streptococcus. The bacteria are known to cause a variety of infections and may be lethal in infants. A vaccine against this disease is a public health priority.
With the peptide in hand, the team then tried several different types of carriers. They stuck the peptide onto harmless viruses, known as Cowpea Chlorotic Mottle Virus (CCMV) and Cowpea Mosaic Virus (CPMV). They also attached the peptide to a larger protein known to stimulate the immune system, keyhole limpet hemocyanin (KLH).
Once they had their candidates, the team immunized mice and attempted to observe in real time the immunological response. As expected, within seven days, all the mice had developed antibodies to the peptide. However, this only represented one branch of the immune system. When the group examined the arm responsible for virus clearance and memory, there was a surprise in store.
When the peptide was attached to the viruses, the expected virus-fighting action was observed. This meant the immune system was properly stimulated and as a result, developed a strong response. However, when the peptide was attached to the KLH protein, another part of the immune response, the one that leads to allergies, was stimulated. This meant the protein carrier was not at all useful and indeed could be detrimental.
The results provided the team with some valuable information. In order to have a strong response, the immune system has to believe there is an actual microbial threat. The authors suggested that came in the form of genetic material, which was present in the viruses but not in the protein carrier. They didn't test this particular hypothesis yet there is evidence to suggest genetic material may indeed be involved in a strong immune response.
The overall outcome of this study reveals the importance of examining all steps in peptide vaccine development. The identification of a possible candidate is merely the first part of a long and at times arduous process. For example, in this study, even though the peptide attached to the virus did get the right response, there was no memory developed. In other words, in the context of vaccine development, it was a failure. Yet this underscores the difficult challenge public health officials must face when trying to make a vaccine.
More Under The Microscope


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In a four-decade-long music career filled with many achievements and much acclaim, Wendy Carlos played a significant role in getting popular music instrumentation to catch up to the radical ideas of the late 20th century's most revolutionary artists. Carlos primarily achieved this with her most well-known release, 1968's Switched-On Bach, an album that boldly reimagined classic musical and brought the sounds of esoteric electronic instruments (in this case, the Moog synthesizer) to mainstream listeners.
"By any sensible definition I'm a New Yorker, not a New Englander." So says Carlos on her web site. And since she had to deal with far more complex issues of identity and sexuality, who are we to say otherwise? But it's worth mentioning here that during a childhood spent in Pawtucket, R.I. (where she was born in 1939 as Walter), Carlos composed a "Trio for Clarinet, Accordion and Piano" at age 10 and at 14, won a Westinghouse Science Fair scholarship for building a personal computer in 1953!
After graduating from Brown University with a dual major in music and physics, Carlos earned a master's degree in composition at Columbia University's celebrated Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. She then landed a job as a recording engineer at New York City's Gotham Recording. There, she befriended Dr. Robert Moog, who was in the process of designing the analog synthesizer that later bore his name. Their relationship was responsible for Switched-On Bach, which Carlos labored on with Moog and producer Rachel Elkind. Believed to be the first classical album certified Platinum, Switched-On Bach cracked Billboard's Top 40 and won three Grammy Awards.
Nearly 50 years after its release, Switched-On Bach still sounds groundbreaking. By performing Bach's compositions on the Moog, Carlos gave new life to old forms. She maintained the music's sense of clarity and purpose while injecting a spirit of playfulness and unpredictability—like someone reproducing a Rembrandt with finger paints. This was Carlos advancing the fledgling genre of electronic music and doing so in a way that gleefully tweaked the seemingly untouchable classics. It was eye-openingly bold, to say the least.
Carlos' follow-up to Switched-On Bach was 1969's The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (the title was a play on Bach's influential music collection The Well-Tempered Clavier). The peculiar yet elegant album featured Carlos expanding the scope beyond Bach and doing Moog renditions of classical music written by other renowned Baroque composers.
Carlos' success with these albums is credited with giving her the financial means to undergo sex reassignment surgery in 1972. In an interview she did with Playboy in '79, Carlos—who recorded as Walter Carlos on the artist's first six releases—said she first became aware of her gender identity issue when she was just a child.
The same year of her surgery, Carlos issued Sonic Seasonings, a double LP that combined field recordings of retreating tides, screeching birds, and bellowing thunder with electronic synthesizers. Regarded as one of ambient music's landmark releases, Sonic Seasonings was equal parts spectral and soothing. The album was an extraordinary statement on the power of our natural world; it articulates the idea that human expression, no matter how inventive or anarchic, is no match for the savage and delicate expressions of nature.
The run of imaginative electronic music continued with a pair of film soundtracks. Carlos released a collection of songs composed or performed for Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Then came the soundtrack to 1982's Tron, which combined symphonic orchestra with digital and analog synthesizers. While strikingly different in content and tone, the music for both movies is trademark Carlos: illusory yet honest, spastic yet static, urgent yet emotive.
Ever the visionary, Carlos collaborated with Larry Fast in the 1990s to develop Digi-Surround Stereo Sound, a digital process for soundtrack restoration and surround stereo conversion. There was also a rather unexpected collaboration with "Weird" Al Yankovic: a spoof of Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf."
Carlos then spent five years digitally remastering her entire catalog. Her most recent release was 2005's two-volume Rediscovering Lost Scores, which featured previously out-of-print material and unreleased tracks.
(by Ryan Foley)
Robert Moog
American Mavericks Interview


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Mills has high hopes for Malvern Sports Medicine
E. Lotz and Mr. Mills / M. Droogan
Mike Droogan
Athletic Trainer Mr. Bill Mills shares aspirations to start an institute that would put Malvern at the forefront of high school sports medicine.
"No other high school in the country has what we plan on doing," Mills said with a sparkle in his eyes.
If you already feel bloated with information of Malvern's plans for the "21st Century," don't put your fork down yet because another serving of innovation is coming right up. Malvern is in the beginning stages of a plan to build a Medical Research Institute spearheaded by Bill Mills.
"The main goal of the Institute," Mills explained, "is to give students the opportunity to get ahead in the field of medicine, while contributing to the community."
Mills said that when he first started as a trainer at Malvern 28 years ago, it was commonplace to simply tape and treat injuries. All rehab was done by outsiders. "I started rehab here," Mills explained, "so that students could still feel a part of the team and stay on campus while recovering."
In addition to pioneering rehab, Mills brought in student interns. "To get into med school, you have to separate yourself from others and do something different," he said. He really enjoyed teaching these students, so he decided to teach a Sports Medicine class here at Malvern.
"It went well for about 10 years, but I just got too busy and had to stop it about 5 years ago, " he said.
Mr. Mills thought about the importance of research experience in college. He wondered, "Why can't we do research here?" The issue was, Mills didn't have any higher level education in statistics or research.
"My goal was to get accepted into a doctorate program so I can start a research program here," said Mills.
"Mills asked to earn his doctorate in Physiology," explained Head of School Christian Talbot, "and I agreed to support that graduate degree on the condition that he used what he learned there and applied it here to Malvern, ideally in the form of a sports medicine institute, but also to teach courses and run seminars."
According to the Malvern website, the school offers its employees 100% financial tuition assistance for approved graduate credits upon receipt of an "A" or "B" in the course.
Mills is now in the research program at Rocky Mountain University (RMU) in Utah, where he takes online classes. He plans to graduate in the next year or two.
Mills is specifically doing research on concussions and lacrosse. He noted that there are many studies on concussions in football and ice hockey, but not as many in lacrosse.
He has set up a system where players wear devices that test G forces. G forces are the forces acting on a object as a result of acceleration or gravity. If a hit reaches a certain number their balance will be tested and compared to baseline results.
However, this doctorate isn't just about the education. Mills has also built connections with others on his dissertation team. Some of these connections that he hopes to explore in the future of sports medicine at Malvern include the University of North Carolina, Pennsylvania State University, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Lankenau Hospital.
Once he gets his doctorate, Mills' first plan of action is to create a research method class elective for Seniors who are interested into going into either sports medicine or medicine in general.
In concurrence with this class, he would like to build a Sports Medicine Research Institute. It would be a state of the art facility for building up student-lead medical databases.
One difficulty with doing research is that an Institutional Review Board (IRB), an approval that human subjects can be used in research, must be obtained before any testing is started. Due to the connections Mills has made at RMU, CHOP has agreed to let Malvern do research under their IRB.
A specific facet of the institute that Mills has in mind is to develop a state of the art concussion baseline testing center. Mills described two possibilities for this program. In the first option, it might be funded by grants, and high schools from around the area could visit for free. The second option would charge a fee to participating schools.
With such ambitious plans, it will take a few years for this institute to come to fruition, but Mills is perfectly fine with that.
"I want to do this," Mills asserted. "I want to do this right."
Something that will come in to effect next year is the pre-screening of heart conditions using EKG's (Electrocardiogram). Mills originally planned to run a pilot on the rowing team with the Haverford School and the American Heart Association, but the heart association backed out due to the costs induced by the volume of students.
Luckily, Dr. Kowey and Dr. McGeehan, cardiologists at Lankenau Hospital who also work with many students, have agreed to take on this project, according to Mills.
Although Mills has some steps in place for next year, and high hopes for a Sports Medicine Institute in the future, Talbot emphasizes that these plans are still in the discussion phase.
"When Malvern has a big project that they would like to plan for, a strategic insight council – an assorted combination of trustees and non-trustees – is brought in to talk about the logistics of these plans," said Talbot. "This council is the signaling of the start of a project really getting the ball rolling."
To put some perspective on the uncertainty of future plans in Sports Medicine, Talbot noted that the strategic insight council has not been formed yet.
However, Mills is hopeful. "These are dreams," said Mills. "But realistic dreams."
New Head Squash Coach, Kama Khan, wants to take Malvern Squash, "to the next level"


Be the first player to score 121 points (see rule 8.11).
The basic game is for two players, and these rules apply to only the two-handed game in tournaments sanctioned by the ACC. Three-handed and four-handed versions of the game are played with essentially the same rules.
b. The four suits are considered equal.
The cribbage board is used to show the score accumulated by each player during the play of a game (front peg) and the amount of the latest incremental score (difference between front and rear pegs).
The following listed sequence is an outline of the actions performed in playing a game of cribbage and is intended for the benefit of those learning the game. It does not include any detailed playing rules, which are specified elsewhere in rule 1 and thereafter.
a. The pack is cut to determine which player will deal first in the first game of a match; the low card wins the deal. Thereafter the loser of the previous game deals first.
b. The dealer shuffles and, after a mandatory cut by the pone (nondealer), distributes one card alternately to each player, beginning with the pone, until each has six cards.
c. Each player discards two cards to form the crib, which belongs to the dealer.
d. The pone cuts the remainder of the pack to select a starter card, which is used in counting the value of each player's hand and the crib.
Players alternately play (place face up on the table) one card at a time, starting with the pone. The cumulative value of the cards played is announced as each card is played.
When a player cannot play a card without the cumulative total exceeding 31, that player calls "go", and the opponent continues to play all cards possible (not exceeding a 31-count). The player who calls "go" plays first in the following 31-count sequence.
Points are scored during this play of the cards (see scoring chart in rule 1.7).
f. When both players have played all their cards, the pone's hand is counted and pegged by the pone (see scoring chart). The dealer then does the same for the dealer's hand and then for the crib.
g. The deal alternates between the players until the game ends, which occurs when a player scores 121 points (see rule 8.11).
crib: Four cards (two from each player) set aside for the dealer to score after the dealer's hand.
cut card: (1) The starter card or (2) the card cut by either player at the start of the game or match to determine the dealer.
judge: A person authorized by the ACC or the tournament director to answer questions and settle disagreements between players relating to the rules of play.
muggins: The scoring of certain points that one's opponent fails to peg. It has no relationship to penalties. Muggins is played at the option of the tournament director, but must be listed on a sanctioned tournament flyer and announced prior to the beginning of play.
score: Any points earned by a player.
scoring: The earning of points.
shuffle: A random mixing of the cards, which could include riffling.
straight (or run), single: Sequence of three or more consecutive cards in any order during the play of the cards; for example, 3-5-6-7-4 (counts three when the 7 is played and counts five when the 4 is played).
* Double run: two three-card or four-card straights, including one pair; for example, A-2-3-3 or A-2-3-3-4.
* Double-double run: four three-card straights, including two pairs; for example, 8-8-9-9- 10.
* Triple run: three three-card straights including three of a kind; for example, J-Q-Q-Q-K.
* Only one of these scores can be earned with the play of a single card.


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Times Square Reborn
A quietly brilliant reconfiguration of Times Square shows how much can be achieved in city planning without gigantic financial outlays and dire social displacements.
Michael Grimm
Times Square, 2017
One of the stranger obituaries to lately appear in The New York Times marked the death of Richard Basciano, aged ninety-one and termed the "Times Square Sultan of Smut" for his "vast New York pornographic empire" of sex shops, peep shows, and X-rated theaters centered on the midtown Manhattan intersection that takes its name from the Newspaper of Record. This dubious valediction was a reminder of the proprietary attitude the Times has taken toward the city's most renowned public space since 1905, when the daily journal moved its headquarters from Newspaper Row near City Hall to a newly built skyscraper on the triangular lot bounded by West 42nd Street, Seventh Avenue, and Broadway.
Formerly called Longacre Square, this awkwardly shaped nexus—which resembles an upended, etiolated bowtie—is no square by any definition, but instead a result of the collision between a meandering Algonquian Indian trail that evolved into Broadway and Manhattan's grid plan of 1811. Along with its once seedy reputation, the area's tortuous traffic arrangements have always posed challenges for urban planners. This is part of the impetus behind a new project by Snøhetta, the Oslo-based architectural collaborative that has maintained a New York office since it was hired to design the National September 11 Museum in 2004.
Times Square, during the day and at night, 1908 and 1900; click to enlarge
In today's America of drastically reduced civic expectations, Snøhetta's quietly brilliant reconfiguration of Times Square is an exemplar of how much can be achieved in city planning without the gigantic financial outlays and dire social displacements that typified American postwar urban renewal projects. Although many New Yorkers feel that the 42nd Street vicinity—like the Statue of Liberty and One World Trade Center—is strictly for out-of-towners, there's no doubting the economic benefits that 45 million visitors each year bring to this so-called Crossroads of the World.
Improving its long-problematic circulation patterns was one aim of comprehensive traffic reforms begun under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In 2009, the city's transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan—a controversial figure who instituted some admirable changes, most notably a 250-mile network of bicycle lanes, but also other, less welcome decisions that are widely believed to have made congestion in the city much worse, especially replacing lanes on north-south avenues with concrete traffic islands—temporarily rerouted Broadway around Times Square and Herald Square (at West 34th Street) to create pedestrian plazas. The idea was so instantly popular—among those on foot, if not in cars—that a year later it was made permanent.
NYC DOT; Michael Grimm
Times Square before and after Snøhetta's renovation, 2009 and 2017
However, this is just the latest iteration of an area that has helped shape the identity of modern New York. By the early twentieth century, Times Square had become a hub of popular entertainment, from legitimate theaters, music halls, and movie houses to penny arcades, flea circuses, and freak shows. And thanks to the electric light "news zipper" that girdled the old Times building, this was where crowds congregated on momentous public occasions, most famously V-J Day. After World War II, Times Square descended from raucous raffishness—what the lyricist Al Dubin characterized as "naughty, gaudy, bawdy, sporty Forty-Second Street"—into downright sleaze. The Times took this degradation as a personal affront and prosecuted a decades-long cleanup campaign that drew on the newspaper's considerable civic influence to spur various renewal initiatives.
Ted Thai/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee with models of skyscrapers proposed for Times Square, circa 1984
The most ambitious of these was designed in 1984 by Philip Johnson and John Burgee, that odd couple of Reagan Era corporate architecture, whose unexecuted cluster of prissy, mansard-roofed high-rises was antithetical to the funky, super-scale electrical signage that defines Times Square more than any single architectural element. The subsequent advent of the LED Jumbotron made it even more evident that the enduring spirit of the place resides in spectacular electronic effects, as proven by the area's ability to survive even such crushing behemoths as John Portman's hideous New York Marriott Marquis hotel (1985), an inevitable fixture on lists of the city's ugliest buildings.
During the 1990s, when Mayor Rudolph Giuliani spearheaded a concerted effort to purge Times Square of its seamier elements, Basciano reaped a $14-million windfall after a number of his low-life properties were condemned to make way for more family-friendly businesses. Today the fully sanitized area is replete with generic chain stores and chain restaurants that can be found in countless other American cities.
The architectural density of Times Square—which makes large-scale demolition there virtually impossible—put an end to sweeping master plans, as did economic reality, especially after the World Trade Center attack of 2001, when so much public funding was diverted into the agonizingly slow, shamefully mismanaged reconstruction of Ground Zero. Major private developers much prefer a vast tabula rasa such as Hudson Yards, the $20-billion mixed-use complex now being erected atop a twenty-eight-acre platform over the old Pennsylvania Railroad tracks in far west Midtown, less than a half-mile from Times Square.
Snøhetta—a non-hierarchical, interdisciplinary practice completely unlike most big design offices, which reflect the corporate organization of their clients—began to attract widespread international attention with the opening of its Oslo Opera House in 2008. It was a scheme perhaps even more successful as populist urbanism than as an excellent music theater. An evident understanding of how people interact in public spaces—above all their desire to be seen as much as to see—made Snøhetta an obvious choice to revise Times Square. It was a stroke of luck for the city's department of transportation and department of design and construction, who together hired Snøhetta for this $55-million commission—hardly a huge budget these days, in contrast to such recent public works excesses as Santiago Calatrava's $4-billion World Trade Center Transportation Hub.
By closing off Broadway between 47th and 42nd Streets and rerouting southbound traffic to the adjacent and similarly southbound Seventh Avenue, 110,000 square feet—or two and a half acres—of new pedestrian space has been created. This expansive swath of found real estate—an immensely imaginative conceptual sleight of hand—is unified by precast concrete pavers in two tones of gray. The darker ones are embedded with rows of nickel-sized steel discs that catch the light and recall the round incandescent bulbs of Times Square billboards long ago.
Times Square concrete in two tones of gray, 2017
This ground treatment continues straight across the east-west streets that remain open to vehicles. The regularization of a former jumble of surfaces and disparate levels—and the removal of much long-disused infrastructural clutter that had accrued over decades—makes it finally feel like a fully defined public plaza, not merely a jumpy sequence of broad but overcrowded sidewalks.
The entire area is given strong yet subtle delineation by a series of ten fifty-foot-long, slightly tapering benches of polished dark gray granite, as elegant in their attenuated simplicity as Minimalist sculpture. They bring to mind the work of Scott Burton, whose monumental pieces of furniture-as-sculpture in stone or metal, a staple of outdoor public art installations during the decade before his death from AIDS in 1989, are now largely and unfortunately forgotten.
Apart from providing ample seating for people-watching, the new benches are angled to encourage efficient crowd flow. They are also internally fitted with electricity to provide power for street performers who require amplification, thus eliminating the need for long, hazardous extension cables to surrounding outlets. The benches, along with bollards added at other strategic positions, serve as protective barriers, a not inconsequential factor in designing public spaces in an age of random terrorism.
Alas, just a month after the plaza's dedication in April, a deranged and drugged driver plowed his car into a group of pedestrians on Seventh Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets, killed an eighteen-year-old tourist from Michigan, and injured twenty-two others. As Craig Dykers, a founding partner of Snøhetta, said in a statement issued after the incident, "We wanted to be sure safety measures did not define the public space while also creating highly effective protective features in the most populated areas," but went on to add that "without these considerations more people would have been affected by this tragedy."
However, as the Times reported on May 24, Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance advocacy group (one of the principal clients, along with the two aforementioned city departments), "asked Snøhetta in recent days to dust off old drawings and make preparations for adding additional barriers of some kind." This is a challenge that confronts urbanists worldwide now that even the most life-affirming re-imaginings of city life must take into account dark forces, both individual and institutional, that see such accessible and inclusive gathering spots as nothing more than inviting soft targets.
More by Martin Filler
Life in a Glass House
What went between Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Dr. Edith Farnsworth over the six years they worked to create the Farnsworth house?
Eileen Gray's Infinite Possibilities
Modernism, Inc.
Martin Filler's latest book is Makers of Modern Architecture, Volume III: From Antoni Gaudí to Maya Lin, a collection of his writing on architecture in these pages. (February 2021)
New York's Vast Flop
The World Trade Center rebuilding encapsulates everything that is wrong with urban development
Michael Kimmelman
The Craving for Public Squares
Why we need creative, open, inviting public spaces
J. Hoberman
New York in Slow Motion
James Nares's Street, an engrossing and celebratory hour-long video projection of life in New York City, captures those intensified moments of metropolitan existence that, save in the midst of catastrophe, we usually take for granted.
The Opening Editorial
Tobi Haslett
The City Strikes a Pose
A new collection of photographer Jamel Shabazz's work displays his wish to honor and flatter, to fashion touching tributes to a certain kind of black, urban life.
Where the Elite Meet to Mate
The first personal ad to appear in The New York Review of Books was published in the magazine's July 11, 1968 issue. "WIFE WANTED," it began. Ever since then the Review's personals have been a widely-followed (and much-parodied) part of the magazine.
Phillip Lopate
The Heroic Age of New York Movie Theaters
I have spent large chunks of my life in repertory movie theaters. A new study by Ben Davis, Repertory Movie Theaters of New York City: Havens for Revivals, Indies and the Avant-Garde, 1960–1994, with copious photographs, has just been published. I confess I approached it with trepidation, fearing it would…


Jonathan and I frequently talk about the people in our community who email us, comment here, chat in the clubhouse or message us on Facebook. The focus of our conversations is often the topic of what gets people stuck on their journey to location independence.
There are numerous things which people struggle with but one of the most common hurdles is generating a location independent income and setting up a location independent business.
We've tried a few things to help with this, including the Business Guide, the Freedom Roundtable and private consulting – but all of those things cost money and are therefore not available to everyone. We wanted to do something which is free, leverages our/your time as much as possible and which will help people take massive action and make massive progress towards their goal of location independence.
These conversations, in conjunction with others we have about where we want to be and what we want to achieve (especially Jonathan), have all resulted in this…the 12 Week Challenge.
In a nutshell, it's a 12 week "program" which is free to join. The aim of the game is to help you make massive progress towards becoming location independent by getting everything in place you need for a location independent business. It starts on Monday, 5th April.
Each week for 12 weeks, we'll post a task which you'll complete with the help of the tips & resources we'll be suggesting (look out for some pretty cool tips from people at the top of their game). At the end of each week, we'll round-up your progress (if you tell us about it) here on the blog. We'll be encouraging lots of cross-participation, community support and hoping to get you all commenting, cross-promoting and more on each others' sites and projects so everyone who joins will benefit from this community effort to make massive progress on an individual level.
The details are here but if you'd like to take part, let us know here in the comments or in the Clubhouse so we can feature you on the site when it starts and help you along the way. So if you've been struggling to become location independent, why not join us on the 12 Week Challenge and make MASSIVE progress on your own journey?


The captoe oxford is a classic shoe that needs no introduction. Gaziano & Girling's St. James is an elegant and refined take on the captoe that stands out in its Vintage Cherry Calfskin. Pair with a navy or grey suit and you'll be the sharpest one in the room.


The official reason for the change will be "scheduling conflicts," though it's all very last-minute and Pine has strong ties to the group, having begun his career at Williamstown (where Jenny Gersten is winding down her final season as artistic director before Mandy Greenfield takes over in the fall). The famed Berkshire Mountains stage is a star magnet (it's even the subject of Donald Margulies' Broadway-bound dramedy The Country House, currently in a pre-Broadway run at the Geffen Playhouse) with a long tradition of sending shows to Broadway. A 2012 revival of Bernard Pomerance's The Elephant Man, with Bradley Cooper in the title role, is about to open a limited run at the Booth Theatre, and last summer's big show, The Bridges Of Madison County, had a brief but Tony-winning run during the New York season that just ended. A New York transfer of Fool For Love is also contemplated — if Eddie and May strike sparks beyond the festival's Nikos Stage.


text:
Talk to Her 2002
Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas.
Stars: Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores, Javier Cámara, Darío Grandinetti, Mariola Fuentes
Director: Agustín Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar, Michel Ruben
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
American History X (1998)
Irreversible (2003)
I Love You Phillip Morris (2009)
Baise-moi (2000)
Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007)
Bad Education (2004)
Volver (2006)
Broken Embraces (2009)
High Heels (1991)
Ander (2009)
Ariel (1988)
With Aunt It's Not a Sin (1980)
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990)
Dark Habits (1983)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
Pepi, Luci, Bom (1980)
What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984)
The Cannibalistic Councillor (2009)
Live Flesh (1997)
Julieta (2016)
The Flower of My Secret (1995)
Kika (1993)
Cuidado con lo que deseas (2021)
Law of Desire (1987)
Copyright © 2023 bigmovies.org | All rights reserved


This resource is an adaptation of a Data Nugget that features real research from scientist Doug Schemske at Michigan State University (MSU). Doug and his research team carry out experiments with the plant species Mouse-ear Cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana. In this two-part activity, students use data collected by Doug and his research team to make predictions, create graphs, and state evidence-supported scientific claims. In part 1A, students make predictions about the outcome of Doug's reciprocal transplant experiment, which he used to test whether Arabidopsis is locally adapted to its environment. In part 1B, students examine data from Doug's freeze-tolerance experiment to see whether this trait was driving local adaptation.
This resource was used in an online, introductory, non-majors botany class as part of a unit on natural and artificial selection in plants. One learning objective of the unit was for students to describe similarities and differences between artificial and natural selection. The Data Nugget provided students an example of research looking at natural selection, which they could then compare to the process of artificial selection in agricultural crops.
The original Data Nugget is designed for use in a variety of teaching settings, including advanced high school or college undergraduate courses, and includes 3 different student versions that differ by the level of graphing skills that you would like students to practice.
Data Nuggets are free classroom activities, co-designed by scientists and teachers. They are an innovative approach to bring contemporary research and authentic data into the classroom. Data Nuggets include a connection to the scientist behind the data and the true story of their research process. Data Nuggets give students practice working with "messy data" and interpreting quantitative information. Students are guided through the entire process of science, including identifying hypotheses and predictions, visualizing and interpreting data, making evidence based claims, and asking their own questions for future research. Learn more about Data Nuggets by visiting http://datanuggets.org/ or the Data Nuggets group on QUBES.


Summer is a time to get outside and enjoy the nice weather! This means trips to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts, long drives to the community lake or ocean. This can all add up and if you're like me, then you don't magically make more money this time of the year. Summer has so much to do that it seems to add a level of stress to the books.
I found a fun read on some activities the whole family will enjoy that WONT break the bank!
Make sure to get the full story here!
Take advantage of nearby parks and have a picnic, fly a kite, throw a frisbee or kick a soccer ball. If it's too hot for fitness fun, spread out a blanket in the shade of a big tree and play board games, read books or just chat with one another.
You may have to pay a small fee to enter the beach area, but if you pack a lunch, water and plenty of snacks, you can have a full day of fun in the water for very little money. Just make sure to bring the sunscreen!
Who says all the fun has to happen when the sun is up? On those really hot days when you can't bring yourself to be anywhere but in the air conditioning, you can take advantage of cooler nights.
A blanket, a telescope (if you have one) and a star chart can provide plenty of excitement. Add some snacks and you've got a stargazing party!
Don't feel like creating your own scavenger hunt but want a little adventure? Try geocaching, a fun family activity that doesn't cost a thing.
Grab your smartphone or GPS, load the family in the van (or set out on foot if there's a geocache close enough to you) and find some treasure!
That last one, geocaching is a favorite activity of mine! My wife and I love to do it, especially when we are somewhere new! It gets you outside to explore and you have a log of all the places you've been. Get gas at a random place in Alabama? Boom you can see it on your list! It's the most fun I've ever had for free (or even more fun than most things that cost money).
Make sure to enjoy summer and pass these ideas along!


text:
Q: Integrate Client-side Validation EDIT
contacted the author of play-js-validation. Bleeding edge stuff; Play has to be compiled against scala virtualized on to-be-released 2.10, and nested case classes are not yet supported. Really impressive project, I hope it comes to fruition as the prototype does almost exactly what I was hoping for...
Found this:
https://github.com/namin/play-js-validation
Anyone know if there are plans for built-in client-side validation in Play 2.0?
I am currently generating controller, model (with form validation), and dao scala files based on an existing DB schema; would love to include client-side validation as part of that process!
Thanks for clues, insider knowledge, etc.
p.s. Play user group is, to say the least, busy; most posts seem to be completely ignored (of course, many Stackoverflow Play-related questions go unanswered as well, so this thread may be DOA...)

A: There's no such plans I'm afraid, at least didn't hear about (note: I'm not a dev team member, just Player)
Check tickets on Play's Lighthouse
On the other hand I doubt if this fits Play's assumptions at all. Client-side validation is done with some external JS solution which should not be determined by framework, nobody said that it should use ie. jQuery by default.
Finally, the only thing to use client-side validation is just to include the JS libs and add proper attributes to your form fields, ie it will create tag that you can validate with jQuery Validation plugin:
@inputText(entrantForm("identitynumber"),
    '_label->"Identity number",
    'class -> "required",
    'minlength -> "11",
    'maxlength -> "11")

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: How to update a separate components props after performing a mutation with Apollo With redux, when the state changes it updates any components props that is connected to the store with mapStateToProps. However with Apollo when performing a mutation, any component that is using the same data receive the new props.
I understand this is expected behaviour because Apollo doesn't know that the data sets are the same. Here's an example of what I'm getting at:
const query = gql`query { me { username } }`

@graphql(query)
class Header extends React.Component {
  render () {
    return <h1>{this.props.data.me.username}</h1>
  }
}

const mutation = gql`mutation updateAccount($username: String!) {
  updateAccount(username: $username) {
    me {
      username
    }
  }
}`
@graphql(mutation)
class Edit extends React.Component {
  render () {
    # ...
  }
  onSubmit(e) {
    e.preventDefault()
    this.props.mutate({variables: {username: this.state.username})
  }
}

The Header component renders out the username, where as the Edit component updates the username. I want to re-render Header when username changes. I'm not sure how to do this without polling the query.

A: Apollo keeps an internal cache of queries and is able to normalize the result sets with dataIdFromObject using the internal cache kept in the redux store.
In order to use the internal cache you must set dataIdFromObject when initializing your client:
const client = new ApolloClient({
  dataIdFromObject: o => o.id
})

Then when performing a mutation, ensure the id is returned in the return type:
const mutation = gql`mutation updateAccount($username: String!) {
  updateAccount(username: $username) {
    me {
      id
      username
    }
  }
}`

The query should also contain the id:
const query = gql`query { me { id username } }`

Apollo will recognise that the id is identical between the query and the return type of the mutation and update the query data accordingly.
I'm using Global ID's in my GraphQL API so the id is always unique across types but if you are using auto-increment ids or they are not unique then you can use __typename from the object:
const client = new ApolloClient({
  dataIdFromObject: o => `${o.__typename}:${o.id},`
})


text:
Prime Minister Gives Tribute to Outstanding Grand Bahama Businessman Laid to Rest
One of the most successful black Bahamian businessmen and a key figure in the development of Grand Bahama Island, Edgar J. Outten Jr. was laid to rest this past Saturday.
The celebration marking the life of the late Mr. Outten was held at the Community at Heart Tabernacle Church of God of Prophecy on Coral Road, Freeport.
Prime Minister the Right Hon. Perry Gladstone Christie headed a list of senior Government officials attending the service and paying his respects to the family.
Others included the Hon. Frederick A. Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, and the Hon. Dr. Michael Darville, Minister for Grand Bahama.
Mr. Outten was born January 20, 1936 at Little Caicos in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and passed away back on January 5th 2016.
He took up residency in The Bahamas in the early 50's. He married the former Alice Delancy in 1955.
From very humble beginnings and having lost his father at a very young age, he was determined to make enough money to look after his family, and also to help make The Bahamas a better place.
Through hard work and determination he built what many described as an empire on Grand Bahama, owning subdivisions, apartments, a construction company, and more.
His works were seen not just in the Freeport area, but in Pinedale, Hanna Hill, Eight Mile Rock and other areas outside the city.
In his tribute, Prime Minister Christie said Mr. Outten's passing closes yet another chapter in the story of that mighty band of pioneers who helped to make Grand Bahama the major force it is in our national life today.
"His passing serves as a poignant and instructive reminder that it was upon shoulders such as his that Grand Bahama was built. "He was truly a shining example of the great good that can come from unselfish dedication to the upliftment of one's community, one's island and one's nation. May the soul of this outstanding man rest in peace," the Prime Minister stated.
← Nottage Explains FBI Involvement
Former Senator Fined $15k →
Former AG Discusses Post Office Judicial Review July 22, 2019
University Mourns John's Death July 22, 2019
PLP Convention Begins Thursday July 22, 2019
Social Assistance Claims 'Erroneous' July 22, 2019
American Drowns in Abaco July 19, 2019


text:
Publications > Architectural Practice
7 Stars Healing Center Cannabis Dispensary
HOPSCOTCH INTERACTIVE LLC
This project entails the renovation of an existing office building in Richmond, California that was converted into a beautiful high-end cannabis dispensary. Our goal was to translate our client's vision to create a warm, modern atmosphere designed with stylish finishes to attract the cannabis consumer and to reflect 7 Stars Holistic Healing Center's brand, which is a patient-focused alternative healing cooperative serving the East Bay. The dispensary serves a large number of patients for medicinal use and has listened to their requests for a less clinical environment. Using our experience in retail, we responded with a more welcoming environment that speaks to an elevated experience that reflects the care and attention that both medicinal and recreational clients receive from 7 Stars Healing. Read More
AC Transit Customer Service Center Remodel is Now Complete
© 2021. Treve Johnson. All Rights Reserved. 510-841-0905
Interactive Resources has had the opportunity to work with the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit) on various projects over the past decade. Recently, Interactive Resources remodeled the AC Transit Customer Service Center located on the main floor of the district's General Office building at 1600 Franklin Street in Oakland, California. The Customer Service Center serves AC Transit riders with bus pass and clipper transactions for use on the public transportation system. Read More
A Parklet for Park Place
Kaleidoscope High Line Parklet Concept
Parklets are a growing trend in urban placemaking—public parking spaces that are converted to areas to congregate, dine and relax. This trend has been accelerated by public health guidelines during the pandemic, which in many cities mandate outdoor or take-out dining only. The City of Richmond is one of many local governments working with its business to increase their service capacity via official parklet programs. Read More
Major Capital Improvements for the Northern California Carpenters Regional Council
We are wrapping up a major capital improvements program for the Northern California Carpenters Regional Council (NCCRC) headquarters in Oakland, California. It's great to see to see the finishing touches come together! The NCCRC union represents more than 38,000 carpenters, pile drivers, millwrights, cabinet makers, drywallers and workers in associated trades. Read More
Michelle Obama Elementary School's Virtual Grand Opening to be held October 29th
Earlier this month, construction was completed on the brand new Michelle Obama Elementary School campus in Richmond, California. The new school is designed by Gould Evans and constructed by Overaa Construction. This Thursday, October 29th at 11am, the school will open its doors, virtually, for a grand opening celebration and tour on Facebook Live. We are proud to have had a role in the transformation of this school, and look forward to the state-of-the-art learning environment it will provide to our community's families. Read More
Cutting-Edge Laboratory Design Project in Richmond, California
We recently completed a cutting-edge laboratory design project for our client Zygo Corporation, a global leader in advanced optical metrology systems. The facility in Richmond, California produces optics including the len(s) for the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and the repair to the Hubble telescope. Read More
Essential Architecture: GSA, DGS & USPS
CC by ND – Department of General Services and General Services Administration Proposal Covers
During this challenging time, we are grateful to be hard at work. Many of our clients are designated as essential, and we have two new on-call contracts to announce: with the General Services Administration (GSA) and with the Department of General Services (DGS), both government agencies that we have decades of experience working with, dating back to 1990. And we are in the fourth year of an on-call contract with the United State Postal Service, which we have worked with since the mid-1980s. We are grateful to be able to help these entities maintain the services we need. Read More
Loma Prieta 30 Years Later
Candlestick Park in the forefront of this aerial of San Francisco, California, taken by Carol M. Highsmith
October 17, 1989, I was in my Point Richmond office talking to a client in a high rise in San Francisco. All of a sudden, he yelled, "holy shit," and I heard crashing in the background (It was his bookcases falling over). The phone went dead. A few seconds later, it hit our building, and we all spilled out into the street.
Later, we climbed to the top of Nicholl Knob where we could see the Marina District of San Francisco burning and the collapsed section of the Bay Bridge. I thought it looked like 1906 all over again.
I was in the office at daylight the next morning when I got the call from the head of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. "How soon can you get your engineers over here?" he asked. Read More
UC Berkeley's Women's Faculty Club Gets a New Roof of its Own*
Photo credit: Louis H.G., (CC BY-SA 4.0), taken before the roof replacement.
Interactive Resources has a long and successful practice of providing historic preservation services. We have designed and overseen the construction of hundreds of historic rehabilitation projects. One such recent project is for the University of California, Berkeley Women's Faculty Club, designed by architect John Galen Howard and completed in 1923. According to UC Berkeley, it is the only women's faculty club in the nation with its own building, and was conceived and formed through the initiative of Lucy Ward Stebbins, the second Dean of Women on the Berkeley campus, who began organizing with women faculty in 1919 (at the time, women were not allowed to join the existing Faculty Club). For nearly a century, it has served as an intellectual meeting place, residence and dining facility for faculty and students. Read More
Case Study: BART Waterproofing Project Saves Tens of Millions of Gallons of Drinking Water Annually
Reverse osmosis filtration takes place during a water reclamation project at Energy Center San Francisco. Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle
From 2011 to 2016, I was project manager for Interactive Resources on a project for BART to repair extensive leaks into the BART Powell Street Station that had plagued BART for decades and had stymied continuous previous repair attempts.
The solution ultimately involved injecting urethane grout through the ceiling of the station into the soil above to create a new waterproofing system to replace, or augment, the original Bentonite system that had failed.
Our investigation revealed a complicating factor that had played a role in both exacerbating some of the leakage as well as thwarting previous attempts to repair it. It turned out that there was an ultra-high temperature steam pipe running the length of the station above the ceiling in the soil above. Despite extensive insulation and encasement in concrete, the heat was raising the temperature of the surrounding soil and could even be felt radiating through the concrete ceiling. The steam pipe was operated by NRG and supplied steam to a number of buildings bordering Market Street. Read More
Who was Frank J. Hagel?
© 2018. Treve Johnson
Interactive Resources recently completed a six yearlong project for The Frank Hagel Federal Building in Richmond, California. The main tenant of this six-story structure is the Social Security Administration, and Interactive Resources was retained by the General Services Administration to investigate and report on ongoing water intrusion into the building's basement from the plaza above. You can read about our feasibility study, final report, schematic design, construction documents and cost estimates here.
We thought it would be interesting to learn about the person whose name is on this building we've spent so much time studying. Surprisingly, just googling Frank Hagel doesn't easily answer this question. Read More
Envelope Study & Improvements for UC Berkeley's University Hall
We recently completed a study for UC Berkeley's University Hall. This seven-story tower and adjoining two-story annex at the west edge of campus, designed by the well-known west coast firm Welton Becet & Associates and constructed in 1959, originally housed the University of California Office of the President. When UCOP relocated to Oakland, University Hall became home to the campus's Visitor Center and a variety of administrative offices. Read More
In the News: PowerPlant Park in Richmond
Our cannabis industry project PowerPlant Park is poised to bring hundreds of new jobs and millions of dollars in additional tax revenue for the City of Richmond, and the news media is taking notice. Read More
At the Vanguard of the Green Rush in Richmond – PowerPlant Park
PowerPlant Park is a planned cannabis agricultural community and campus, the first legal project of its kind in the State of California. Investors chose to locate on the Richmond shoreline for its sweeping unobstructed views of San Francisco Bay, and chose our firm for our specialization in architectural and engineering services for the cannabis industry. We are providing architectural, civil and structural engineering, and landscape architectural services for PowerPlant, Inc.'s 19+ acre community, which PowerPlant has modeled itself as a turnkey opportunity for craft growers and canna-investors. Read More
Trends in Cannabis Dispensary Design – Blooming Organics Case Study
CC BY-ND
The conventional retail concept of abundance of selection, in contrast with the elegant and orderly boutique experience, is the juxtaposition of design intent in the new field of cannabis retail. Read More
City of San Carlos Youth Center Gets a Makeover
© 2018. Eric Rorer
After an extensive remodel by Interactive Resources, The City of San Carlos' Youth Center has reopened its doors for service to the community. The Youth Center serves more than one hundred San Carlos middle-schoolers, and is home to a wide variety of after-school activities including music programs, sports, gymnastics, summer camp, special events and facility rentals. Read More
The Unique Mix of Cannabis Dispensary Design
Attribution-NoDerivs CC BY ND
I think the exciting thing about how the cannabis industry has been evolving in California is that legalization has provided a new way for all players to communicate with each other and share. I think there's plenty of room for innovation in the field (pun not intended). Read More
Interactive Resources' Cannabis Facility Design Expertise featured in October Issue of Professional Services Management Journal
Expansive New High Tech Cannabis Grow Facilities as a Trend
A modern cannabis facility design that combines the best of the new generation of growers and highly experienced architects. Read More
Cannabis Facility Design
Interactive Resources was an early entrant into and is a leading provider of architectural and engineering services for the cannabis industry. Our firm's specialization in this sector has deepened with the legalization of recreational marijuana in California, and we are involved in projects for large and small indoor cultivation activities, large-scale greenhouse projects, industrial-scale grow facilities, distribution centers, manufacturing facilities, dispensaries, and processing facilities. Read More
When Arts Education and Architecture Intersect
It is especially rewarding when a project leads to a lasting collaboration. In 2014, Interactive Resources provided schematic design, planning, design development and entitlements for a historic home project at 656 Quinan Street in Pinole, which involved raising an Italianate-style cottage constructed circa 1900 in order to provide office space below the residence. Today, the ground level is home to The Quinan Street Project (QSP), a nonprofit organization that provides visual and performing arts education to children in Contra Costa County and to public elementary schools in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. Read More
DGS, FMD Bay & Northern Area Architectural Retainer Services
We are happy to announce that State of California, Department of General Services (DGS), Facilities Management Division (FMD) selected Interactive Resources to provide architectural and engineering services for the Bay and Northern California regions. The FMD is comprised of the former Building and Property Management Branch and the Direct Construction Unit. FMD is tasked with ensuring the ongoing maintenance and management of several state-owned buildings. Read More
Window and Door Design and Installation Guide
This post explores basic information on the design, specifying and installing doors and windows. Techniques for installation of "punched" windows and doors have been evolving continually over the last two decades. For many years, the accepted standard involved four strips of flexible flashing integrated with a nailing fin and the water resistive barrier (WRB) at the window perimeter. This concept was easy to understand and implement because the window fins, the flashings and the WRB were typically all in the same plane. It is amazing, however, that so many designers and builders were still able to get it wrong. Read More
Plaza Deck Design Primer
Plaza Design, Frank Hagel Federal Building CC BY-ND
This primer points out key issues for designing and constructing a successful plaza deck system. A plaza deck is a walking surface, which sometimes can accommodate vehicles, typically waterproofed to protect the underlying structure and/or occupied spaces below. Common surface treatments include concrete, ceramic tile, stone or other paving material, usually with a bi-level drain used to accept both surface run-off and water at the waterproofing membrane level. Structural substrates are commonly wood or concrete. Read More
Westcon Tribune
Avoid litigation and achieve better design and construction, photo credit Joe Gratz. CC-ND
Architects and engineers become defendants in construction defect litigation because of allegations that they breached the standard of care – that is, they practiced in a negligent manner that caused or contributed to a construction defect that resulted in damage to someone. Tom Butt's presentation at the Westcon symposium included remarks about construction litigation in general, the design professional's standard of care, using standards to avoid litigation and achieve better design and construction, and tips to avoid waterproofing failures. Read More
Limiting Construction Failure Losses – A Challenge for the Insurance Industry
A primer on construction failures. Why do they occur? How is the insurance industry affected? Building failure litigation - who is responsible? Read More
American Institute of Architects California Chapter Proposes Changes to Certificate of Merit Law
American Institute of Architects, CC-ND
The American Institute of Architects California Chapter (AIACC) is pursuing an amendment to either the Senate or Assembly Judiciary Committee Omnibus bills that would modify the process for certificates of merit in litigation involving design professionals. Read More
The Practice of Architecture in California and Architectural Negligence
In litigation, the determination of architectural negligence, or malpractice as it is commonly known, has to be evidenced by testimony of expert witnesses. In assessing whether or not an architect conformed to the "standard of care," an expert witness must consider whether or not the architect used ordinary care and skill, that is, what a reasonably prudent architect would do in the same community and in a given time frame given the same or similar circumstances. Read More
Architect Disciplined for Designing a Flat Deck
Although the debate over substrate slope in protected membrane roofs may continue, a recent disciplinary action by the California board of Architectural Examiners seems to have ended any debate over surface slope. Read More
Architects Required To Use Written Contracts for Architectural Services
Photo by William S. Farrow CC-ND
A summary of the California State Law requiring written contracts for architectural services. Read More
WESTCON Roster Provides List of Bay Area Construction Consultants
WESTCON Construction Consultants Association website provides list of Bay Area construction industry consultants specializing in forensic, diagnostic, and repair services. Read More
ICBO Reports Now Available On-line Free
How to obtain up to date ICBO and other evaluation agency reports instantly on line at no cost. Read More
New Code Opinion Service Offered by ICBO
For the first time, the International Conference of Building Official (ICBO) is offering to the non-building official members of ICBO the opinion service that heretofore has been available only to member building officials of public agencies. Read More


text:
Everybody Knows Except for Mike Huckabee
Governor Huckabee Gets Ringing Endorsement by Citizens United Founders.
David Shedlock
Erik Erikson,
Fox News TV Show,
Huckabee Florida Home,
IowaRepublican,
RedState.Com,
Steve Deace
Yes, Mr. Deace, I See Huckabee Fading Into The Background...
Steve Deace of WHO Radio in Des Moines knows. Craig Robinson of the Iowa Republican knows. Erik Erikson of Red State (who is also a talk show host at Radio WSB in Atlanta) knows. The Des Moines Register used to know. What do they know that Governor Mike Huckabee doesn't know? That he isn't running for president in 2012.
Every one of the above has run polls or made predictions about how each of a number of candidates will fare during the upcoming Presidential primary/caucus season. Each has left out Governor Huckabee, even though he continues to lead when polled for favorability, and when in national or many state horse races. Do they do this because he has announced he is not running? No, they don't. The only announcement made was that he wouldn't make a decision until summer's approach. How do they know, then? These soothsayers use eight kinds of divination….
Halomancy – Divination using salt
Some pundits know, based on his diet, Huckabee isn't running. Seriously, they think he isn't running because he has put on a few pounds? Tell that to Chris Christie in New Jersey.
Uranomancy – Divination by consulting the heavens
Some of these folks are certain the stars have not aligned for Huckabee. They are able to take any poll and make the worst of it. For example, for the longest time Huckabee was leading polls only in conservative, "red" states, mostly in the south. This was proof he can't reach out to the moderates and independents and therefore he won't run. Recent polls show he has done well in California and New Jersey. This is proof now he isn't running because he is too moderate to win the GOP nomination.
Capnomancy – Divination by smoke
Some people can't understand or control Mike Huckabee. If he doesn't do things the way they think he ought, it is obvious he has no presidential ambitions. Take for example, the claim by some that if the Governor really wanted to win in 2012, he would participate in this week's CPAC convention. Never mind that he has already given principled reasons why he isn't going to participate. Even some former supporters are getting antsy. Mike Huckabee is a fun guy to have in Iowa; reporters love him. They hope they can goad him into coming to Iowa or their state more frequently. Six Stops in February in Iowa isn't enough.
Keraunoscopia – Divination using thunder
Mike Huckabee isn't running because his wife won't let him. And bad decisions on pardons will continue to haunt him. The talk show hosts are against him. He has a bad reputation with fiscal conservatives. He is too religious and wants to turn the whole country into Taliban II. Besides the slander that most of this involves, it is mostly wishful thinking. It is hearing what his opponents want to hear.
Ailuromancy – Divination by studying a cat's jump
Apparently there was some miscommunication between Governor Huckabee and Bob Vander Plaats, who announced last week that Governor Huckabee would be the speaker in the FAMiLY LEADER lecture series in June. Others are certain his cruise to Alaska is proof he won't run. His book tour in Iowa and South Carolina only means he can sell books there, not that he is reaching out to potential voters.
Botanomancy – Divination using plants
The former governor has moved to Florida. And he is building a big 2-3 million dollar house and obviously he can't pay that off and run for president. But who know what other arrangements he has made to pay it off. The talk show hosts don't know. But they have read the tea leaves. Others are sure that he won't run because every single campaign aide that could possibly help him in Iowa has already committed to other candidates. (The truth is that very few movers and shakers have publicly committed to other candidates, none of whom have announced).
Enoptromancy – Divination using a mirror
These are the folks who can't imagine they would ever give up a lucrative TV deal and all the money that goes with it. And that is doubly true for the the Hick from Arkansas, who can't resist the filthy lucre. They don't see his character, however; they only see their own.
Extispicy – Divination using entrails
This is the dissecting that goes on, and the gut feeling they get, as if they knew what was going on inside the belly of Governor Huckabee. They read recently that he paid off a few small lingering debts and closed his 2008 Huckabee for President organization and now they know he is not running.
Some of these things may be legitimate reasons to speculate he may not be running. And it is certainly fine to make guesses or predictions. But to say you know for sure? I won't play the game and say I know he is going to run for president. I don't know one way or the other. Maybe he doesn't know yet. And you don't need salt, a telescope, smoke, thunder, plants, mirrors, cats, or entrails to see that is a possibility.
Shane Vander Hart says:
I don't know Shedlock, you seem to know a lot about Diviniation. Do you have something you'd like to confess :).
We can make educated guesses, and candidates have more of a clue which way they're leaning than they let on. He's putting his foot in the door in some instances, but mostly he isn't acting like he's going to run.
Or he's taking Bob Vander Plaats' advice to get in after the Ames Straw Poll which I think you and I agree is bad, horrible, no good advice.
David Shedlock says:
I often see things after they happen (but not always)….
I see Fred Thompson getting in in September, skipping a debate the day he got in, and getting mocked by the other candidates…… NOT GOOD!
I see Giuiliani skipping Iowa, NH, Michigan, Nevada, and South Carolina getting trounced in Florida. NOT GOOD!
I see Mitt Romney spending bazillions of dollars, hours, and advertising space on WHO starting in early spring 2007 and getting nowhere. NOT HELPFUL
I think throwing your hat in during June is….. NOT BAD!.
Amen, for all candidates!
Texas Conservative says:
David, you forgot to mention the Purple Tie!
I am going to assume that Huckabee is running until he tells us that he is not running.
It's hard to wait, but we have been told that we have to. In the meantime, his supporters should be saving up their money so they can donate right away when he announces.
Saving my pennies…
The mark of a great leader is that his decision-making (while based on the counsel of others) is independent and not swayed by the superficial. Do we really want a president who lets such an important decision be arbitrarily dictated by pundits, bloggers and party leaders. Those folks have their own selfish reasons for wanting the '12 race to begin now. They want to be hired, they want to have their blogs read, they want to be important, be relevant…. From someone outside of Iowa looking in, quite frankly, most of it seems pretty silly. Even if Huckabee has made a decision, it seems pretty good strategy to keep the platforms he currently has for delivering his message. After all, once he jumps in he will lose that. Plus what does he really have to gain by announcing before the summer? He's leading in the polls (check out the RCP averages), he's releasing a new policy book and his book tour schedule has him at 6 stops in Iowa (the most of any state) and 5 in South Carolina. He just got back from another successful trip to Israel (his 15th). I'm no political expert but it appears to me that he is keeping the door wide open.
Lynn, who said you have to be a political expert? They have no higher rate of correctly predicting these things than say "palm readers".
Or it could be he just knows he'll sell a lot of books in those places…
You could be right. I knocked Robinson when he declared him out because he didn't speak at CPAC.
He is missing a lot of places where he could pack bookstores and sell a lot of books…he could have hit 2 cities in Iowa and SC and easily hit 3 other states.. I live in Indiana and he is not visiting my state nor Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, or Kentucky. We love him in the midwest and he knows that he would sell a ton of books here.
No, this tour schedule is very indicative IMO. I am baffled that you can't see that, Shane.
I just added an "or" possibility. Palin did a similar thing, but it isn't indicative that she'll run. You could be right though.
Iowans Rock says:
Love this post! Anyone who still has contact with Gov. Huckabee knows that he has not made a decision and he is not waiting for an earthly green light, but instead a different one.
Andersonde7 says:
Right on! Huckabee has said elsewhere he will not run unless he can see a clear path to the Presidency; that is, unless he has a reasonable chance of winning. As time passes, whether or not that path exists for 2012 will become more clear. Then he will decide.
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God has blessed David and his wife Judy with 5 boys, and 19 wonderful grandchildren. His…


A beautifully situated lakeside property near Sopron nestling in the rolling hills near the Austrian border(Lutzmannsburg).
The house is 90 m2 and is comprised of kitchen, dining/living area, five bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Set on an overall plot of 267,744 m2 For the maintenance of 5 hectares around the lake and the supervision of (card sales, and rental cottages) the facility has reliable staff on site.
In the 1980s, this lake was dammed as flood protection of the nearby town, and can now be used in many ways: whether as a holiday and recreation area or fishing paradise (current use) or for fish farming.
Natural and of the highest quality fish thrive in the lake carp, perch, pike, catfish and various other fish.
Horseback riding, golf, hiking, thermal baths Lutzmannsburg and Buk are supported by the culinary delights of Hungarian cuisine and so many noble Tropferl the surrounding vineyards.
This is a rare opportunity to purchase an anglers paradise.


The young professional clients of this central Soho shell space wanted us to make a make a spacious flat for entertaining out of a single room, ten meters by five.
A thin strip was partitioned off one side with sandblasted glass, to provide an entrance lobby, a shower room and a walk in wardrobe, above which is a double sleeping recess. A stainless steel faced kitchen was formed at one end of the room and a mirror clad study at the other to increase the apparent length of the space.
The translucent wall between the service strip and living area gives a mysterious feeling of space while the adjacent wall with windows provides access to the planted terrace and enables light to fill the room.
This total refurbishment and extension of a Victorian cottage was designed to maximise the sale value of the previously dilapidated property. Work included filling in the side return. This new addition features a long uninterrupted double glazed glass roof and underfloor heating.
Most of the structural work on this house centred on the basement. It was a dingy space, carved up into several rooms. By lowering the garden to the internal floor level and opening up the space, a light airy room was created with a conservatory as a buffer space between the house and the garden. The terrace is now a useable, year round addition.
The conservatory, made of structural glazing, including the spine beam, is fabricated from Solar Glass to reduce heat gain from the afternoon sun and the large, sliding, folding doors allow the full width of the rear of the house to be open to the terrace and garden.
The clients are keen cooks and we designed a linear kitchen, which like many of our kitchens, was purpose made by our joiners. It was completed with a Hi-Mac work surface and continuous backsplash. The floor is a poured resin over underfloor heating. Which is both comfortable and highly functional.
In addition to work here, we renovated the rest of the house retaining and enhancing the original Georgian features and making a more comfortable living space on all floors of the house.
Built in 1805, this Grade II listed Georgian building was originally constructed for artisans. We worked in collaboration with the client, Lesley Kingsbury. The original floor timbers, staircase and chimney breasts were all retained and where possible, incorporated into the new fabric. Conservation was of paramount concern, to both the owners and the local conservation officer, and many features and details of the building which had over the years been removed where painstakingly replaced with new, traditionally made elements. The basement rooms had very low ceilings and it was decided to excavate the ground thereby increasing the ceiling heights significantly. The walls where underpinned together with a re-inforced ground slab and the whole of the basement was opened up to provide a kitchen/living room with a small garden to the rear and a 'green wall'. This enabled light to penetrate the space, as well as enhancing the feeling of space.
The owners of two neighbouring houses both wanted to extend their homes at ground floor level so we designed the extensions to work together supporting the existing two upper story extensions on steelwork to give clear open areas between the party walls.
This house incorporates a gap in the terrace which had been partially filled with a single storey extension containing several congested spaces. This was opened up and altered to provide an additional office, workshop and utility space along one side of the dinning area. It can be closed off behind floor to ceiling height doors.
The problem with everyone wanting their own bathroom is that the traditional house does not accommodate this easily and in a listed buildings, the requirements of the Conservation department add further limitations. A self contained bathroom or shower room that could be placed in a room like a piece of furniture would solve the problem. Here, the smallest convenient shower room has been designed to do just this.
The floor, back and roof are made of acrylic resin Hi-Macs (similar to Corian) with the shower base and drainage grooves formed in it. The door and walls are of toughened glass (which would normally be sandblasted for privacy) with the door set behind. Elements of standard sanitary ware were used along with specially designed and engineered stainless steel columns incorporating Vola tap mechanisms.
As a practice we enjoy the challenge of designing elegant solutions for tricky problems like this one.
The site was the raised back garden of a large end of terrace house in Camden Square that faced onto a side street and also formed the corner of the mews behind. The covered entrance was cut into the site from the side street to give access to a garage/studio and to an orangery like entrance to the house at the garden level some 600mm above.
The original garden wall was rebuilt to full height, the garden paved and the floor tiled. Behind this wall an independent two storey, Iroko frame was built without metal fastenings but simply with wooden pegs. This frame sits on ceramic feet made by the tile manufacturer and laid as part of the tiling. The plan of the house consists of nine squares with the staircase core in the centre covered by a glass pyramid. Off this core the various rooms are arranged. Three sides, the external walls, are fully glazed with sliding Iroko window/doors , the partitions and upper floors are also of exposed timber faced with plywood and all clear finished. Thus the Iroko structure is dark and the Birch plywood is light.
The built in furniture follows the same discipline naturally.
This project was a total refit of an unloved Victorian house. The previously closed ground floor space was opened up and several levels were rationalised. Original features had been stripped out by previous owners so we designed and had fabricated good reproductions to take their place. The restricted palate included pale oak floors and putty coloured walls. This rather calm backdrop allowed splashes of colour to enliven the open plan room.
In 19... were asked by the City of Westminster to replace the windows in this tower block, as they were decayed and falling out, having been too exposed for their construction. We were expected to replace these with modern airtight double glazed windows, which would have reduced the ventilation, increased the temperature and resulted in serious condensation. In addition we were expected to arrange for this to be done from scaffolding, which would have been a threat to privacy as well as security.
By applying non flammable Rockwool insulation to the outside of the building and hanging the new windows over the existing ones from rising platforms we were able to avoid all these problems while giving the dated building a new look and improving the performance significantly. By informing the residents with the aid of the housing department we were able to initiate a neighbourhood watch and involve them in the decisions choices etc. Finally when the new cladding was in place the contractors were able to remove the old windows from inside so that residents were subjected to the minimum of inconvenience.
We chose to make all the components of aluminium to avoid rusting and wood because to this day it performs better than metal. The wood was protected from the elements by aluminium all of which was powder coated. The structure was picked out in red and the rest was coated pale grey. Red was chosen because it continues to look good even when not cleaned in addition to which the whole system was designed to be self-cleansing.
Finally the building that looked like an extrusion before was given a top by adding a maintenance cradle rail and a bottom by vandal proof tiling so that it now looks like a complete building.


text:
Johnday's Blog
Global Resource War
Externally Combusting,
Moon of Alabama has more about the Houthi attack with drones and cruise missiles on the largest refinery complex in the world, which is taking about half of Saudi oil production offline, a 5% reduction in world supply.
Abqaiq processes 6.8 million barrels of crude oil each day. More than two thirds of all Saudi oil and gas production runs through it. It is not clear yet how much of the widespread facility was destroyed.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/attacks-on-major-saudi-oil-installations-show-urgent-need-for-peace-with-yemen.html#more
Satellite images say it will take months to fix the extensive damage done by the drones and cruise missiles.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/declassified-satellite-images-reveal-it-would-take-months-fix-saudi-oil-facility
Moon of Alabama has more specific details of the precisely targeted damage today.
Damage At Saudi Oil Plant Points To Well Targeted Swarm Attack
Saturday's attack on the Saudi oil and gas processing station in Abqaiq hit its stabilization facility:
 The stabilization process is a form of partial distillation which sweetens "sour" crude oil (removes the hydrogen sulfide) and reduces vapor pressure, thereby making the crude oil safe for shipment in tankers. Stabilizers maximize production of valuable hydrocarbon liquids, while making the liquids safe for storage and transport, as well as reduce the atmospheric emissions of volatile hydrocarbons. Stabilizer plants are used to reduce the volatility of stored crude oil and condensate.
 The pictures show some 17 points of impact. There are cars visible in the second more detailed picture that demonstrate the gigantic size of the place. The targets were carefully selected. At least 11 of those were egg shaped tanks with a diameter of some 30 meter (100 foot). These are likely tanks for pressurized (liquidized) gas that receive the condensate vapor from the stabilization process. They all have now quite neat holes in their upper shells.
 The piping to and from the egg shaped tanks shows that these were configured in groups with double redundancy. Two tanks beside each other share one piping system. Two of such twin tanks are next to each other with lines to their processing train. There are a total of three such groups. Damage to any one tank or group would not stop the production process. The products would be routed to another similar tank or group. But with all tanks of this one special type taken out the production chain is now interrupted.
 Two processing areas were hit and show fire damage. At least the control equipment of both was likely completely destroyed...
 The hits were extremely precise. The Yemeni armed forces claimed it attacked the facility with 10 drones (or cruise missiles). But the hits on these targets look like neither. A total of 17 hits with such precise targeting lets me assume that these were some kind of drones or missiles with man-in-the-loop control. They may have been launched from within Saudi Arabia. (Distant launch with nearby control?)
 There is no information yet on the damage in Khurais, the second target of the attacks.
 The U.S. and Israel are able to commit such attacks. Iran probably too. Yemen seems unlikely to have this capability without drawing on extensive support from elsewhere. The planing for this operation must have taken months...
U.S. President Donald Trump was way more careful in attributing the strike than his Secretary of State.
 Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump - 0:50 UTC · Sep 16, 2019
 Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but  are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!
 Any direct attack on Iran would result in swarms of missiles hitting U.S. military installations in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Saudi water desalination plants, refineries and ports would also be targets.
 It is doubtful that Trump or the Saudis are ready to risk such a response...
 Saudi Arabia has no defenses against this kind of attacks. The U.S. has no system that could be used for that purpose. Russia is the only country that can provide the necessary equipment. It would be extremely costly, and still insufficient, to protect all of the Saudi's vital facilities from similar swarm attacks.
 Attacks of this kind will only end when Saudi Arabia makes peace with Yemen and when the U.S. ends its sanctions of oil exports from Iran. As Iran's President Rouhani said:
"If one day they want to prevent the export of Iran's oil, then no oil will be exported from the Persian Gulf"
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/damage-at-saudi-oil-plant-points-to-well-targeted-swarm-attack.html#more
Houthis Say It's Not Over - Saudi Oil "Still Within Range"; Iraq Denies Its Territory Used
 While US officials were quick out of the gate to allege an Iranian attack on Saudi Aramco facilities launched from Iraq early Saturday, a theory which the WSJ said was focus of an ongoing US-Saudi investigation, Iraq's government issued a firm denial on Sunday, which followed Iran's own denial that condemned Washington's "maximum lies".
 Saying there was no link to Iraqi soil and the attack which caused oil prices to spike to record levels the moment markets opened, initially surging to as much as 18% before retreating after President Trump authorized use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to "keep the markets well-supplied," the Iraqi government further vowed to "punish anyone who intended to use Iraq as a launchpad for attacks in the region."
 Despite Yemen's Houthis themselves claiming responsibility for the precision strike using ten drones, unleashing explosions that rocked Abqaiq facility and the Khurais field, US officials have long eyed Iraq's Shia paramilitary forces also as bad actors which Iran deploys as proxies from Iraqi soil.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houthis-say-its-not-over-saudi-facilities-still-within-range-iraq-denies-its-territory
"Iranian Weapons Used", Saudi Arabia (Duh)
 Update: It's official — after Trump over the weekend put the ball squarely in the Saudis' court, saying the US was "waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" — Saudi Arabia has responded by saying it was indeed Iran, confirming that "Iranian weapons" were used to attack its oil facilities.
 After the US apparently ruled out Iraq as a launching pad on Monday, following Baghdad's firm denial, it looks like Riyadh appears to be pointing to a potential direct cruise missile or drone attack from Iran.
Ilargi at The Automatic Earth, It's a "New World Order", Alright:
 Those winds just keep on shifting, no matter that the western press either doesn't see them shift, doesn't recognize them for what they are, or chooses to ignore them. But these winds bring tidings of a tectonic plate-shaking shift in the global political climate.
 The fires in Saudi oil installations, whether they were caused by drones or missiles, and whoever fired those, are a major story, and rightly so, because they could shake up economies in drastic ways. But they may still, not be the biggest story after all.
 Last Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to annex the Jordan Valley (already occupied territory, 65,000 Palestinians and 11,000 Israeli settlers live there). He did that to steal votes from the far right in next Tuesday's (Sep. 17) Knesset election. "Bibi" also called Donald Trump his "friend" every second word for that same purpose. Trump responded in kind. He may come to regret that. Choose your friends wisely.
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2019/09/its-a-new-world-order-alright/
Charles Hugh Smith says "The Black Swan is a Drone":
What was "possible" yesterday is now a low-cost proven capability, and the consequences are far from predictable.
Predictably, the mainstream media is serving up heaping portions of reassurances that the drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities are no big deal and full production will resume shortly. The obvious goal is to placate global markets fearful of an energy disruption that could tip a precarious global economy into recession.
The real impact isn't on short-term oil prices, it's on asymmetric warfare: the coordinated drone attack on Saudi oil facilities is a Black Swan event that is reverberating around the world, awakening copycats and exposing the impossibility of defending against low-cost drones of the sort anyone can buy.
(Some published estimates place the total cost of the 10 drones deployed in the strike at $15,000. Highly capable commercially available drones cost around $1,200 each.)
The attack's success should be a wake-up call to everyone tasked with defending highly flammable critical infrastructure: there really isn't any reliable defense against a coordinated drone attack, nor is there any reliable way to distinguish between an Amazon drone delivering a package and a drone delivering a bomb.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-black-swan-is-drone.html
Eleni sent thi "End of Israel" article by Gilad Atzmon a few days ago. It is staggering how much deep mistrust and fear of other Israeli Jews exists among Jewish political factions. Bibi can lose tomorrow, too. Then what?
https://www.sott.net/article/420301-Gilad-Atzmon-The-End-of-Israel
Gail Tverberg looks at the complex interwoven relationship between cheap oil/energy and cheap debt, to stimulate productive economy. Energy got more expensive, so interest rates had to come down (but can't really be paid off). That is now towards the end of it's rope. Not mentioned here is that Saudi oil has supported the Petro-Dollar since Nixon/Kissinger made those deals with King Faisal.
 All of the problems listed above are manifestations of an economy that is not producing sufficient total return. The laws of physics distribute the problem to many areas of the economy, simultaneously.
 A person wonders what could be ahead. We seem to be reaching the end of the line regarding the takedown of interest rates, as shown in Figure 13. If a takedown in interest rates is possible, it acts as a relief valve for some of the other problems the economy is facing, including too much wage disparity and energy prices that are too low for producers.
 In Section [10], we saw that when the relief valve of lower interest rates had disappeared, wars and depressions have taken place. We can't know the precise outcome this time, but our current situation doesn't look good. Will we encounter wars, or a serious depression, or financial problems worse than 2008? We can't know for certain. Or will we somehow find a way around serious problems?
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2019/09/12/our-energy-and-debt-predicament-in-2019/
The Long Now, Make, Protect, Teach, by Ben Hunt
Epsilon Theory site does not post a lot, but when it does post, it is worthy of deep consideration.
Romania may have been worse in some ways than Germany and the USSR in the Depresion/WW-2 epoch.
Impossible to say, isn't it?
A book was written where the citizens of a town turned into rhinoceroses one by one, until only one non-rhino was left, alone, in a destroyed town. Oddly, after a few citizens morphed, it became accepted as fairly normal. It matters not if this is left totalitarianism or right totalitarianism, the human pattern is the same. Normal humans change to become murderers, as in The Killing Fields. Normal. We can do this. Ben thinks we should nurture what is good and creative for the future that will come some distant day, after The Long Now. I agree. Details have not happened yet.
https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-long-now-pt-2-make-protect-teach/
On a brighter note, go outside and exercise. It's good for your health and state of mind. (It's what Mother Nature expected of you, too.)
https://www.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/article/4391?uic=ZZ7788D1E2C79C44CEA7CEFDC4D31E744E
Outside Dog
Posted by John Day at 7:42 AM
1958 baby boomer, Buddhist, bicyclist, military-brat, kitchen-gardener, public health doctor, interested in life, the universe and everything.
Eternally Vigilant
Sudden Reversals
Greta And Tulsi
Rich People Naked
Over The Cliff
Green Work Deal
Completely Different
Killer Drone Pacifism
Laughing Nervously
Rumors Of Wars
Talk Is Cheap
The Longer Wars
Same Day Again
Freeing Truth
Gray Champions
Political Changes
Comforting With Words
Big One Approaches