text:
Town Square
The MI process is now a farce
Original post made by Simon Firth, College Terrace, on Jan 6, 2007
Late on Friday, after the schools were done for the weekend, parents lucky enough to be in the know learned of a major change in the MI proposal—a change which raises a whole host of new issues.
That's just two working days before the public has its LAST scheduled opportunity to speak on the subject. And it's before many, many of the other questions raised by the original version of the study have been answered. This is policy making and planning insanity.
Just look at the bemusement of many posters to this forum—what are we to make of the new possibility that Ohlone house MI and that it run the program under its progressive 'connections' philosophy?
Has anyone addressed the question of what it means to run an immersion program in a 'progressive' setting? Is it realistic? Absurd? Has it been done before? Where's the research to support this decision? What happened to the concern that MI wouldn't work as a single strand?
Has anyone asked the Ohlone parent community how they feel about this idea? Is it right that they get one chance to react just days after this being mooted for the first time?
Add these new questions to the many others that the original feasibility study failed to address and you have not new clarity but more murk. How can all the questions that need to be addressed even be raised to the BOE by Tuesday and how can they be answered by Jan 30th?
To paraphrase Pauline from another thread: WHAT'S THE RUSH?
In particular, why are we trying to rush through a major decision about the direction of our District at the end of the current Strategic Planning cycle and in the middle of a major transition of the district's highest management team?
There is a new planning cycle about to start—surely, that's the time to address the question of language provision, and do it comprehensively. Let's talk about language provision for all across the district—provision in all its possible permutations of languages taught, ages addressed and styles of delivery.
To quote another thread: the superintendent seems to be saying "that we should implement MI now, then figure out in the next round how it fits in with the District's priorities." Isn't that just incredibly poor management? Once again, WHAT'S THE RUSH?
What's more, there is a new superintendent coming in—she or he needs to be leading the search for these solutions, not clearing up a mess the current superintendent left on her way out. I can only imagine how enticing the chance to inherit an ill-thought out, rushed-through and bitterly opposed immersion program will be to the high-flying candidates the district is hoping to attract.
Given how things stand I can only see two realistic options:
1) We kill the whole idea of MI for now – my preferred option – and revisit it in the context under which it should have been considered in the first place: as part of a broad strategic review of the district's need and demand for choice programs and its need and demand for languages across all schools and all ages.
2) We put off a decision on approval until the district has answered some of the many unanswered questions about the program, particularly about placing it in the sort of setting it will find at Ohlone—and until the public has had a chance to digest and respond to those answers in turn. I would say that means putting off the decision on MI for at least eight weeks. If that means it makes it too late to implement this year and if that means it really makes more sense to leave the whole thing until the new superindentent is in place and the reviews outlined in option 1) have taken place, so much the better.
If you agree, please write to the BOE and tell them. We need to change this farcical decision making process now.
Mandy Lowell
1423 Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650) 323-2742
Term expires 2007
Gail Price
4082 Orme Street
Palo Alto, CA 94306
(650) 856-6260
Term expires 2007
Camille Townsend
2450 W. Bayshore Road #10
Palo Alto, CA 94303
(650) 493-3410
Term expires 2007
Barb Mitchell
550 N. California Avenue
Palo Alto 94301
(650) 328-6027
Term expires 2009
Dana Tom
1419 Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto 94301
(650) 321-4506
Term expires 2009
Comments (26)
a resident of Ventura
on Jan 6, 2007 at 6:49 pm
But what I really want to know is why there are ONLY TEN recent discussion threads about MI!
a resident of Community Center
on Jan 6, 2007 at 7:22 pm
You missed this thread with your petition website.
Just because you didn't fill it in on this thread (yet), here's the PACE petition:
Web Link
a resident of Juana Briones School
on Jan 6, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Nicely said Simon. Even it is a little self serving for me to say so, since you paraphrased me. I hope we meet one day.
Thanks for your efforts.
a resident of Juana Briones School
on Jan 6, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Forgot to say.. a rebuttal to the original Feasibility Study ( from 12-12-06 Board Meeting) is up on the Palo Altans for Equity in Education site.
Of course, this isn't the latest incarnation of the Feasibility Study,( anybody want to take that on?) but at least it shows most of the rebuttal points
a resident of Palo Verde
on Jan 6, 2007 at 8:22 pm
In answer to SkepticAL, there are multiple threads on the MI question because there's a lot to say, and once a thread veers off the original topic, as it inevitably does, the only way to refocus the discussion is to start a new thread.
And since a question I posed on another MI thread doesn't seem to be getting any nibbles I'll pose it here as well: What are the costs associated with leasing or purchasing three modular classrooms, preparing the area where they are to be situated, and heating/air conditioning them for three years?
A followup question would be, "Have these expenses been factored into the startup costs for MI at Ohlone?"
a resident of Barron Park
on Jan 6, 2007 at 9:18 pm
In terms of self-disclosure, I am opposed to MI.
I have just read the "updated" information on the sites that the staff visited to justify a MI recommendation.
I am disappointed that they failed to consider how these school districts DIFFER dramatically from PAUSD in terms of size.
SF Unified and Portland Unified are 5 times larger than PAUSD.
Portland, for example, serves 22,607 Elem students at 85 locations. Clearly it is a lot less disruptive on the balance between neighborhood schools vs. choice when you are talking about a district offering MI to 187 students within an overall population of 22,607.
SF Unified serves 21,712 Elem students.
Cupertino is about 1.6x larger having 20 Elementary schools. A key difference, however, in terms of student composition is found on their website which states "Our district serves a richly diverse student population — 60% Asian (includes Indian subcontinent), 33% White, 4% Hispanic, 1% Black, and 1% Filipino." Web Link
I have no doubt that all these districts run fine and successful MI programs. What concerns me, however, is there is ZERO analysis of what key differences may have allowed them to absorb these MI programs more easily.
The truth is a significant concern has been expressed about implementing MI here in Palo Alto. The concerns about "tipping point" are not adequately addressed in the revised study.
"In the last five years, elementary school enrollment has increased by 25% without a similar increase in the size of existing choice programs. Historical patterns suggest that choice programs could be expanded as the enrollment grows without threatening the viability of neighborhood schools."
Note the use of the phrase "without a similar increase" w/o providing the % that choice program enrollment has increased. The implication is that implementing MI is somehow "catching up" on the choice scale. Also note the use of the language "without threatening the viability of neighborhood schools."
The concern many of us have expressed relates to the value we place on having our kids get to know the very kids that live in our neighborhoods. This has allowed our neighborhood schools to develop strong cultures and makes it much easier for kids to know and connect with each other outside of school. A 51% "neighborhood" school with 49% of the students coming from homes outside the serving area would still be "viable" in the sense that it would not collapse -- but it's the impact on the sense of identity and community that is the essence of the concern that has been raised.
Please show me a district that has implemented an MI program that has anything close to the ratios of "choice to neighborhood" schools comparable to what PAUSD would have once MI reaches 240 students?
This is just one of several concerns I have with implementing MI here in Palo Alto.
I respect that those in favor of MI see the program as offering a host of benefits to the kids that would win the lottery. On this point I can 100% agree. I just happen to see greater costs for the entire student population of 4600 kids that outweighs the benefit that would be made available to 240 students.
I respect that others will look at the same inputs and see the benefit for the 240 as outweighing the costs I see for the rest of the students. I also respect that those in favor will argue that MI provides a benefit to all students b/c every student would have an equal chance to win the lottery. While I think the argument is 100%sincere, I am not persuaded.
I hope the Board agrees that the overall costs of MI outweigh its benefits.
a resident of Palo Verde
on Jan 6, 2007 at 9:32 pm
PAUSD is facing increase of enrollment which already calls for adding modulars. Adding all of them on one school site is about as expensive, or even slightly less expensive, as distributing the additions across multiple school sites. In other words, adding modulars is not caused by MI. Concentrating the addition at one site is.
As I understand it, when MI moves away the classrooms will be used for regular Ohlone program, which wants to grow to 4 strands. I hope this helps.
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jan 6, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Ohlone may very well 'want' to grow to four strands. However, we are facing a critical capacity issue. What was the AAAG's recommendation for whether to add a school or whether to serve student growth with portabable units at some school?
And if they recommended portables, did they recommend those get added to Ohlone? Or where? How does adding portables to Ohlone site resolve the immediate issue of overcrowding in the North?
I think this a disengenuous, and frankly transparent ploy - a convenient 'meeting of the minds' between staff and Ohlone principal.. If you accept the MI program for 3 short years, you will get your school expansion which the district would otherwise not be able to afford, and would not otherwise consider given the very significant cost and capacity issues they will face (at all all grade levels)
Nice try, but so transparent.
I wonder if the Ohlone principal has any idea of the personal good will and political capital that she just burned with her agreement to make a deal with the devil.
She sold us down the river.
a resident of Community Center
on Jan 7, 2007 at 9:44 am
Regarding the neighborhood schools matter…
I don't know what your other reasons are for not supporting MI, but I do think you deserve to get a point of view from someone who is advocating world language instruction for all elementary school students in PAUSD, with MI and SI being lanes of such a policy for the students in those programs.
Purely from a numbers standpoint, there are 1000 more students in the district today than there were a few years ago. If MI were introduced, around 240 of them would eventually not be part of their neighborhood school, and that count has to be spread over the entire student population, not just the increment. So, the vast majority of the incremental students will be placed in neighborhood schools, and only a relative few will not be part of a neighborhood school. That's just a statistic, and you can play all sorts of games with numbers, which I prefer not to do. But let's get into some qualitative issues, and I will use my own family to make the points.
I have lived in two different parts of Palo Alto in the last 16 years. In both locations, there were kids who did not attend the neighborhood schools. Some were at Ohlone, some went to private schools outside the PAUSD. When stuff goes on the neighborhood, these kids have participated with the other kids, when they were around. We had plenty of other neighbors with kids whom we got to know better than the families that were not in the neighborhood school, but any loss of "neighborliness" was on the margin. It would have been nice for those families with kids in non-neighborhood schools to be around more, but the general idea of neighborhood schools has not been emasculated because some of our neighbors have chosen a different school arrangement for their kids. That will not change, by the way, with the introduction of MI, it has been this way, and will continue to be that way, MI or not. Some families in your neighborhood will make such a choice for their children to attend a school other than the one that your children attend.
When Spanish Immersion was introduced in the mid-1990's, our daughter was about to start kindergarten, and we had to decide if she would attend the same neighborhood school as her older brother, or if we wanted to apply for her to attend Spanish Immersion. For a variety of reasons, we elected for her to attend the neighborhood school. But there are people for whom the neighborhood school benefits are outweighed by the opportunities they perceive their child getting from an immersion experience. It is a value set that each family has, and I personally think it is great that our District is in a position to provide people such a choice. You and I may place higher value on neighborhood schools than do others, but that does not mean a choice other people prefer should be withheld from them.
With one now in college and one at PALY, our experience has been that we end up being in several "neighborhoods" of sorts during the time our kids are at school age. For example, Little League baseball has been a "virtual" neighborhood experience for us, and we got to know quite well many families who did not attend our kid's school. Children's Theater, church for some, the list can go on and on. My point is that not all of the experience that you describe and that I believe you and I both value is derived entirely or exclusively from the specific neighborhood school experience, even though a great deal of it indeed is.
There are some issues around the choice of Ohlone and of Garland around candidate locations for immersion programs. But since Ohlone is not now a neighborhood school, and Garland is not a PAUSD operation at present, the disruption that some (I honestly cannot tell how many) feel having SI at Escondido caused is significantly reduced as an issue. Your neighborhood school is the school your kid attends. I live just blocks away from Addison and Walter Hays, both about the same distance. There are people in University North with kids at Addison, and there are people who live near Oregon Expressway with kids at Walter Hays. Are they my neighbors? Not really, but I do know many more families from our Hays experience, even though I live very close to Addison, which my kids did not attend.
So, absolutely, neighborhood schools are a critical and large part of the fabric of PAUSD. My personal experience tells me that not all place the importance on it that perhaps you do, that you can still have a neighborhood school experience even if not all your neighbors also participate, your neighborhood school has more to do with where the kids go to school than if it truly is in your neighborhood, and for most of us, the experience of getting to know people in town also is derived in other ways in addition to the school experience—think of it as a "diversified portfolio."
I hope this stimulates your thinking. You may have other reasons that affect your point of view about language instruction at the elementary school level for this District, but I have attempted to take some of the abstraction out of issues people raise and try to use our own specific experiences to illustrate how that actually have worked for this Palo Alto family.
Just a quick comment about some of the studies you question. My own experience in business is that with any market research or analysis that is conducted, there is "noise" that can call into question the validity of the information as it applies to a particular decision that is being made. In this case, there have been multiple sources of study and analysis, any one of which may have limitations, but taken as a whole, indicate to this reader that MI can be added to the PAUSD in a way that is feasible and consistent with the District's policies and other priorities.
a resident of Green Acres
on Jan 8, 2007 at 2:09 pm
The comments posted on MI have been facinating to read. P A
surely has an intelligent constituency. I would like to add three
comments pf my own.
Comparisons between school districts are odious.
"Choice" schools should not have waiting lists. Programs must
be available to all.
I believe parents of K - 2 or 3 students should be made aware of the inconsistencies between the English and Chinese languages when their children are beginning to learn to read.
These are, among others, the sound/symbol relationships
(A/ahh for example). These are the essentials for learning to
read (or should be) in English. Chinese s/s are different, and could lead to confusion. Also, in spelling and comprehension &
thus, in long and short term memory. Children who have as yet
undiagnosed reading difficulties could be seriously affected.
Something to think about.
a resident of Barron Park
on Jan 8, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Thanks for your post.
My other major concern with MI relates to equity. I just don't see it fair that 5% of students would end up with a language advantage.
btw, I am a big supporter of SI given that I see dramatic differences in terms of the advantages; connecting those with privilege with those with less privilege. I am O.K with offering something that provides an advantage to native Spanish speaking kids given documented lower levels of achievement and economic status in the Latino community. I said this before (in another post) and was basically called a racist.
So I am O.K with a public school system helping students master the dominant (by far) second language of California. I respect all other languages and can totally see value in learning everything from Mandarin to Arabic to Russian (etc.)
My concern is how a public school system "chooses" which second language to offer. Who is to say that Arabic is not more important than Mandarin, for example.
Parents that feel passionately about immersion actually have choices available to them today in the form of private schools. Those so inclined could also move (either North or South by less than an hour)to public school districts that have implemented the immersion program they care about. These choices put the responsibility on the parents where I feel it belongs.
Back to the concern I have about the erosion of "neighborhood" schools. First, I want to go on record as saying I have good neighbors whose children attend each of the 3 current lottery programs. While I like these parents and respect the choices they have made for their kids, I have no doubt that their not being connected to our neighborhood school is a loss for our neighborhood school.
Be forewarned, I am about to make a gross generalization...but my hunch tells me that parents that are savvy enough to research lottery programs and willing to deal with the resulting commute are, as a group, some of the more "active" parents. It is therefore a net loss to the neighborhood school in terms of parents willing/able to volunteer for fieldtrip driving to stuffing Friday Folders to serving on PTA.
I can justify this loss given for the current 3 lottery programs given distinct differences I see (2 dealing with instructional method and the other for reasons I indicated earlier). I can not, however, justify this loss when it comes to MI (or AI, HI, or any other I).
So I think are just going to need to disagree. In sum, I don't like to idea of creating a new program that offers a benefit to some (5%) while having a negative impact on those not "choosing" to partake.
I wish there was a way to give MI supporters what they want without, what I see, as the negative impacts. I am therefore opposed to MI no matter where it was placed.
I think it a loss for our public school system to remove another batch of students from the general population. This new "choice" would create administrative challenges, inequities, and erode (though certainly not collapse) the strength of our neighborhood schools.
Thanks for listening.
a resident of Palo Verde
on Jan 8, 2007 at 8:30 pm
"btw, I am a big supporter of SI given that I see dramatic differences in terms of the advantages; connecting those with privilege with those with less privilege. I am O.K with offering something that provides an advantage to native Spanish speaking kids given documented lower levels of achievement and economic status in the Latino community. I said this before (in another post) and was basically called a racist."
[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.] Had you argued for a "disadvantaged" status, in *addition* to being of native Spanish speaking, before giving them access to SI, you would have been "classist" at worst. Since you indicate that native Spanish speakers should get priority due to their presumed race, independent of how privileged or unprivileged their background is, that is the definition of racism: treating one differently due to one's race rather that due to one's individual character and circumstance. MLK certainly thought so, and it would be nice for all to remember that, given that his memorial day is coming up next week.
And while I have your attention, please note how heavy and personal many of the MI opponent posts are dumping on Grace. You may consider extending your please for civility to your own side.
a resident of Barron Park
on Jan 8, 2007 at 9:44 pm
I am not going to resort to name calling.
If, based on my willingness to support an advantage for a traditionally disadvantaged group, you want to beleive me to be racist, who I am to argue?
I am presently getting my Masters of Education at Stanford and based on everything I have observed and read, limited English proficiency (LEP) is the single greatest barrier to student success. The group most affected by LEP issues are Spanish speaking.
I only bring SI up to diffuse the "pro" MI argument that uses SI as an example of "look, it's already working for SI, there's a precedent here..MI is just like SI."
I concede that some reasonble people will see them as essentially the same. I, however, see SI and MI as quite different.
Thanks for bringing MLK into the discussion. I wonder what he would say about offering a language advantage to 5% of students while others get nothing?
I will reflect on that while working on my degree to teach in the California public school system and keep it in mind as I work on a Civil Rights unit I am presently developing.
Frankly, the ability to post anonymously has contributed greatly to a very uncivil dialogue. It's hard to imagine those trying to make up their mind on MI being swayed by posts that attack people personally.
I would encourage everyone to try to stay focused on making their best arguments w/o critizing people individually. Even saying "anyone that opposes MI is a jerk" is vastly better than saying "Person X is a jerk."
Calling me a racist, for example, is about the nastiest thing I can think of. Even so, I am hard pressed to see how doing so advances any argument in favor of MI.
To be clear, there are legitimate reasons to support MI -- just as there are legitimate reasons to oppose it. People will make up their minds by assigning relative weights to the costs and the benefits they see.
Even if you can not, I feel comfortable there are many (even many in favor of MI) that will allow me to see the costs outweighing the benefits w/o ascribing my conclusion to racism.
Thanks for listening
a resident of Duveneck/St. Francis
on Jan 8, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Since when did "native Spanish speaker" become a race? Bryan's point has nothing to do with "race" (a muddled term at best). You are the one who assumes that "native Spanish speakers" are of a particular race, which comes closer to the definition of "racism".
Perhaps it's your own preconceptions that need examination? Or at least your knowledge of Spaiin, the Carribean, the Philippines and South and Central America.
And what do comments made about Grace Mah have to do with any of it? It reads to me like you're implying something that is, perhaps, not warranted.
a resident of Midtown
on Jan 8, 2007 at 10:16 pm
[Portion removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]
I appreciate the tone of your comments and the contribution you are making to this discussion.
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jan 8, 2007 at 10:20 pm
[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jan 8, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Hey Brian.
I like reading your posts - they are carefully thought out and well-written. Unfortunately, taking the high road is not always practiced on the MI threads. My hope is that those comments are passion-driven and not race related. I, for one, appreciate your politeness in the face of overwhelming nastiness. I think letting Wolf vent and moving on w/out reply is the best course of action. Good luck with the credential.
a resident of Community Center
on Jan 8, 2007 at 10:27 pm
The nieghborhood schools versus choice educational programs in PAUSD is probably the key area where people seem to come down very hard on one side or the other. My own family opted for a neighborhood school over a "choice" program (SI) for our daughter, but that was our CHOICE.
To my way of thinking it is not a good use of our time or the time of people who may read this to consider whether the District should become a nieghborhood schools only model. Even if some people feel that it should, I think as a practical matter, that is a settled question overall. So, while you describe it being inequitable that only 5% of kids may get into any particular choice program that the District may offer, I think that is how it will be, and some people will be disappointed every single year. It's been that way for some time, and while it does have that unfortunate consequence, it appears that overall the benefits have outweighed the drawbacks, although any given family that is directly affected may feel otherwise.
Hard to take issue with your contention that families that have kids in non-nieghborhood schools are an "opportunity cost" to the nieghborhood school that they would have been part of. But, I think it is harsh to suggest that it is a negative impact on a neighborhood school for such people to not be part of it. Are neighborhood schools suffering from lack of parental support or participation due to the choice programs? I would need to see some evidence to buttress that contention before I could subscribe to such a point of view.
You appear to agree with the "tipping point" argument that does not need to be rehashed here, which simply stated is that we really cannot have any additional choice programs in this district above and beyond the ones we have, as it would significantly alter the character of the district as we know it. I have not really expressed my own opinion about that particular aspect of things as I have weighed in on some of these threads. But I will make the observation that it is one of the other points of view that people who do not favor going forward with another immersion program that I think has some cogent reasoning behind it.
How many choice programs is the right number, how they are sized and what they should be is a huge question. I would again suspect that SI, and the learning models found at Ohlone and Hoover are here to stay--sort of like the houses in your neighborhood, unless someone goes to great expense to remodel or replace. Are we sizing these existing choice programs "correctly?" I honestly don't know, that is a very complex question, and I doubt anyone could make an informed judgment of it today.
Is MI the right choice for another choice program if we add one? I happen to think so, and there is ample justification for it that can be drawn entirely from information and studies from outside of this District to support such a contention. But I will grant you that there is wiggle room in that discussion, if the community wants to go through that process. My hunch is that MI would come out on top, but lots of people could just as easily argue otherwise, and neither they nor I could completely prove or disprove our points.
Time for cookies, milk and bed. Good night.
a resident of Midtown
on Jan 8, 2007 at 10:30 pm
LOL - anonymous you are too funny. Who is parent? I would love to meet her at the meeting. Maybe she could wear a name tag that says parent, and I'll wear one that says PA resident. We could have a good laugh!
Enough - see you all tomorrow night....
a resident of Duveneck/St. Francis
on Jan 8, 2007 at 10:34 pm
You mean me? Sorry, I just got here today after Ohlone sprung its e-mail surprise on us. Being a native Californian, though, I've always had a keen ear for the latest variation on identity politics. Wolf's accusation of racism combined with his/her own unexamined assumptions--well, it just tempted me to wade right in.
a resident of Palo Verde
on Jan 8, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Thank you for not engaging in name calling. I did not use "racist" as an epithet, but rather as a normative descriptor. I even provided an operative definition to avoid confusion.
I also did not ascribe your opposition to MI to such racism. I am sorry if you perceived so from my message.
I did ascribe your support of SI *as opposed* to MI to such racism. I did it based on your own words, which seemed to indicate that it is OK to have SI since it helps "the Latino community." I also clearly indicated that had you added *individual* disadvantage, rather than group disadvantage, to the mix, that would not be racist, as per the definition of that term. I am sorry if I misunderstood you, or if you misread me.
I am sure that you are aware of prop. 209 and know that group advantages or disadvantages based on race should not be used in decisions about public programs in California.
a resident of Barron Park
on Jan 8, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Thanks for the reply. I 100% agree "...that SI, and the learning models found at Ohlone and Hoover are here to stay" and am not aware of anyone who in opposing MI camp who has advocated reversing any of the existing programs.
We all know that programs, once implemented, have inertia and become entrenched. Contentious programs, once implements, have even greater inertia b/c those that bear responsibility for the implementation decision have a stronger vested interest in the program's success.
Should the Board decide to move forward with MI, it seems reasonable to assume that it will be here forever.
Should it falter during its "trial," I can see lots of energy being expended to support it. The Board, acting rationally, would do everything in its power to maintain the program.
Like you I have no idea what the "right" mixture is for lottery vs. neighborhood slots but I am truly concerned about a "tipping point."
My rough estimate is that about 24% of students currently attend one of the 3 lottery programs (1000+/4,500). This seems like a lot of choice to me. Choices are available for two different instructional models and one for language immersion.
I do not think that neighborhood schools would collapse but implementing MI, bumps up the % to something like 27% and I can envision some later attention on getting MI placed at the
Middle School level.
I don't generally like slippery slope arguments but I can't see it fair to say "no" to other interest groups that may propose other immersion languages.
Just as I don't think it fair to provide this program for only 5% of students, I don't think it's fair to all other languages to single out Mandarin as the only language to merit special consideration.
I asked (in another post) for data from any comparable district to ours that reveals anything close to 25% "lottery" based programs.
We are not Portland Unified or SF Unified with 22,000+ Elementary students. These districts are shown as examples where MI has been implemented but they have no where near 25% lottery programs in place.
I have argued in favor of neighborhood schools as shining examples where equity and diversity can and does exist. That said, I would support increasing enrollments in the current choice programs (which have waiting lists) before supporting MI.
Each of the 3 programs meets a specific need and affords parents a chance (if chosen) to send their kids to a setting for which there is no alternative.
I find it ironic that there actually exists plenty of "choice" for MI in close proximity to Palo Alto. Parents who feel strongly about Mandarin Immersion ALREADY have a choice.
The International School of the Peninsula operates a very successful MI program and states that "every effort possible [is made] to make our educational experience available to all students regardless of financial circumstances. See: Web Link
Obviously there is something of particular interest to supporters of MI. If it were just the cognitive benefits related to processing two languages, for example, then they would apply for SI.
If it is, however, the economic benefits connected to speaking the native language of an economic superpower, then IMHO these parents should be willing to spend their money on private education. If they do not have the means, they should apply for financial aid. As a last resort, these parents even have the "choice" of moving to one of several districts that offer MI without even needing to leave the Bay Area.
Again, I am not in favor of pushing families away. In fact, I have argued against MI b/c I want to see these "active" parents involved in our neighborhood schools. But it strikes me as odd that PASUD would provide this new language program based on a "choice" argument when choice actually exists (just not for free or as convenient).
I further find it odd we would elevate Mandarin when there are waiting lists for the current lottery offerings.
The arguments advanced by those in favor of "a" MI education are certainly valid. Kids that develop proficiency in Mandarin will have distinct advantages over others. I just don't see it as PAUSD's job to provide those benefits. I'd rather see parents' taking on this responsibility via means available to them outside our public school system.
Thanks for listening…
a resident of JLS Middle School
on Jan 9, 2007 at 12:44 am
Make sure to ask Dana Tom about the tipping point and number of students in choice programs compared to neighborhood schools in other districts. He mentioned some percentages in one of the earlier board meetings. Something like, right now ~23% of the district are in choice programs, and if MI goes thru, it would increase to ~26%. He had accurate calculations.
As for MI opponents reversing current choice programs, the PAWeekly tear-off listed 6 anti-choice program options:
o I oppose any more erosion of our neighborhood schools.
o We want programs that ALL qualifying children can attend, not more "limited access, private-type" lottery schools with public dollars. Even if this, or any new, program is cost-neutral, it would still not be available to all who want it, only to lottery winners.
o Creating more commuters conflicts with our desire to become a "greener" District.
o I don't want more Lottery Choice programs unless our District clearly establishes that we, the taxpayers, support this path.
o I don't want new Lottery Choice programs until our District establishes clear policies for deciding which programs are priority.
o I don't want new Choice programs until there is a plan that doesn't deny children access to their neighborhood schools.
Although they
1. don't say specifically that existing choice programs are ok and
2. say specifically that "new Choice programs" are not OK,
there are other postings from multitudes of opponents (or multitude postings from a few opponents) saying that closing choice programs would be the right thing to do, but "it's too late". A few agree with you that it's an unfair drain from neighborhood schools of more active parents and families, and wish the choice programs away.
I disagree with your comment that implemented programs "have inertia and become entrenched". Look at the failed FLES programs. Look at the ski week experiment. Look at the fuzzy math that the district used to teach.
We are pretty good at self-regulation, evaluation, and process improvement. Remember that we're a top tier school district. Not a fumbling stagnant quagmire of educational dinosaurs. We can adapt. We HAVE adapted, and we're still in the upper crust.
Life's not fair, and the board will use its judgment (you can vote in people who you think have better judgment) to approve or reject more alternative programs. Not that I see a long line of applicants anywhere in the vicinity.
The board put a moratorium on all new programs (of which only MI was interested at that time) which some may regard as unfair. But that was the board's judgment and we all had to live with it.
The board can put a moratorium on all subsequent alternative programs, if it approves MI, pending the development of some tipping point criteria. But you know, with such low sincere interest from another choice program advocacy group (silence), it's probably not worth it.
It is also a very arrogant opinion to presume that anyone who wants Mandarin should go out and pay for it.
And those of you who use the analogy of math (or Olympic athletic) academies to "no math" and "no PE" don't make sense since all the children in the district have math and PE, both of which are required.
All the children have the opportunity to learn foreign language in middle school and high school. Many of th elementary schools have after school language programs. Foreign language is not required, so you're not denying the elementary school kids anything that is core standards.
And for those of you opponents who think that "foreign language is so important that all students should get some", please talk to your fellow opponents who think "foreign language is not important, and more math and science and English are paramount".
It'd be nice to have people stop talking from both sides of their mouths.
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Jan 9, 2007 at 1:57 am
to another parent...
Do you happen to know the date of the board meeting where they lifted the moratorium?
a resident of Duveneck/St. Francis
on Jan 9, 2007 at 10:25 am
You sound like you know what you're talking about and you raise so many valid questions concerning MI, additional choice programs, etc. - thanks for going for your Master's of Education degree - we need more people like you in Education!
a resident of Midtown
on Jan 9, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Another parent supporting MI, I oppose MI because I don't support any foreign language in elementary schools at this time. I cannot see where the foreign language instruction can fit into the current school day without omitting other inportant instruction in the basics or before reinstating some of the programs promised with passage of Measure A. I guess we could make longer school days, but I suspect the Teacher's Union won't support that.
Bottom line, MI has opponition on many levels and for many different reasons. What a concept! It doesn't make the opposition any less valid.
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Cherries and Berries
By Laura Stec | 1 comment | 470 views
Meeting Other New Parents
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One more week to vote!
Don't forget to cast your ballot online. Voting ends May 29th. Stay tuned for the results in the July 21st issue of the Palo Alto Weekly.


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A Gift By Credit Card
North American Baptist Conference gears it's giving program to meet your needs. We have a way to give via Credit Card without registering online. Arrange for monthly, quarterly, or annual gifts to be placed on your credit card. You can also give a one-time gift when you mail in this form.

subset: commoncrawl


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A Challenge to Canadian Conservatives: Let's Meet at the Coal Blockades!
Matt Price | Posted 02.09.2012 | Canada
Read More: Tar Sands, Oil Sands, Coal Greenhouse Gas, Coal Fuel, Canada Coal, Coal Energy, Coal Canada, Peter Kent Coal, Canada News
Among the various dodges deployed to point fingers away from the destruction that tar sands companies are inflicting on our climate is the argument that activists should in fact be fighting against coal instead. What those using this excuse don't know that there is a massive anti-coal campaign underway.


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One of the first "The Best…" lists I created was The Best Eleven Websites For Students To Learn About Computers. I included two-or-three sites about online safety that were accessible to English Language Learners on that list. Since that time, though, quite a few additional resources have become available, so I thought it was time to make a list entirely devoted to that topic.
You can also find these links, along with many others, on my website under Computers.
You might also be interested in The Best Teacher Resources For Online Student Safety & Legal Issues, which is specifically focused on issues around students creating online content.
Unfortunately, most of the sites on this list — except for the first one — might be considered a bit too "childish" by teenage and adult English Language Learners. I didn't include others that might be more mature because they had people speaking too fast or didn't offer audio support for complex text.
Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning Online Safety (and are accessible to English Language Learners):
Think U Know has a good animated and audio Cyber Cafe that older ELL's would like.
The Welcome To The Web section on Staying Safe is very good.
Brainpop has a free movie on Internet Safety. Brainpop also has a Digital Citizenship page that periodically has other related movies available at no cost.
Privacy Playground uses "cyberpigs" to teach online safety in an animated adventure.
Sid's Online Safety Guide is pretty exhaustive.
Safe Kids has a decent online safety quiz.
The Council of Europe designed an online game "Through the Wild Web Woods" to help children learn basic Internet safety rules. It's available in 14 different languages.
Professor Garfield: Internet Safety and You
"How To Control Your Privacy Online" is a fairly accessible interactive from The Wall Street Journal.
An infographic showing the Top 20 passwords of all-time might provide some useful information to teachers and to students.
A complete guide to web, Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus privacy and security! is a must-read article by Ronnie Burt from Edublogs.
On Guard Online has a series of games accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners. It's a Federal Trade Commission site.
I've previously posted about "Internet Essentials," Comcast's program for providing low-cost Internet service to low-income students. They've published a series of relatively decent online videos on using computers and online safety. They seem accessible (and also have closed captioning). I think they're particularly good for online safety issues because most other similar programs that are accessible to English Language Learners are clearly geared toward young children, while these seem to be more engaging to adolescent and adults.
If you still need more cybersafety resources, the place to go is a page at New Jersey's Belmar Elementary School's website. Kevin O'Donnell has put together an exhaustive group of links together.
The 30 Most Popular Passwords Stolen From LinkedIn [INFOGRAPHIC] is from Mashable.
Should I Change My Password? tells you if your email security has been breached. You can read more about it at LifeHacker.
How Secure Is My Password? evaluates how long it would take a hacker to figure out…your password. Thanks to Richard Byrne for the tip.
As always, suggestions and feedback are welcome.
If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous "The Best…" lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.


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PR- Stunning apartment in central Lisbon- AC/ Central Heat/ Elevator
尺寸75 平方米
Floor No.(with elevator)
- 适合家庭/儿童
- 厨房
- 空调
- 洗衣机/干衣机
- 电视机
- 大厦电梯
- 阳台/露台
- 互联网/无线网路
Accommodation summary
|R. da Prata, 1100 Lisbon, 葡萄牙
Key amenities:
- free WiFi, cable, 42' plasma
- Air conditioned/ Central Heat/ Elevator
- Home entertainment system/ DVDs/Games
- Iphone/Ipod docks
- Full equipped kitchen
- Washer, dryer, dishwasher, iron etc
- Egyptian high thread count cotton bedding and towels
- Super high quality goose down duvets
- Complimentary/Free First day essentials packs- A-coffee/tea/sugar/ milk; B- basic toiletries; C- basic cleaning supplies (washer/ dishwasher tablets, etc)/ C- condiments
- Beach towels available for a small fee (inquire)
- Local phone loan service (inquire)
Building is from the 1850s, recently remodeled with elevator. Apartment has all new furniture and appliances.
Close proximity of key historic sights in Lisbon will enable you to discover the city on foot- Moorish Castle/Alfama 10min; Squares P. Comercio/P. Figueira/ Rossio within 3-5 min; Bairro Alto 15-20min on foot. Iconic N28 tram is 2 blocks away. 3 subway/tube stations within 5 min, train to beaches/ fishing village of Cascais 15min on foot (C. Sodre), train to delightful Sintra within 5 min (Rossio) and cross Tagus/Tejo boats within 5mn.
Sleeping: 1queen size bed, plus 2 twin beds or 1 King. Sofa +folding bed+ cot/ portable crib.
Spread across steep hillsides that overlook the Rio Tejo, Lisbon offers all the delights you'd expect of Portugal's star attraction, yet with half the fuss of other European capitals. Gothic cathedrals, majestic monasteries and quaint museums are all part of the colourful cityscape, but the real delights of discovery lie in wandering the narrow lanes of Lisbon's lovely backstreets.
住宿规定No noise between 22:30 and 8:00
150 euro damages deposit required- paid at check in, refundable at check out
Also available on same floor of the building an additional 2BR apartment sleeping up to 5, which can be rented together with this one. For more information send email to Wimdu platform.
|Weekly rate for up to 4 guests
|Monthly rate for up to 4 guests
|Check-in before
Estupendo apartamento en la mejor zona de Lisboa. Fueron muy puntuales y el apartamento respondía perfectamente a lo anunciado y a las espectativas.
Appartement très agreable. Bien situé et bien équipe . Accueil très sympathique. Seul petit bémol bruit de la rue dans une chambre mais tout à fait supportable . A recommander!
Nice appartement, great view and friendly help from Helena. Perfect that there were more keys to the appartement so we could split and still have all acces to the appartement. Staying at Pretty Lissabon Appartement made out stay in Lisboa more perfect.
The host cancelled the booking, this review is automated.
Great apartment, very practical and perfect location!
Very accommodating and nice hosts.
Thanks for our stay in wonderful Lisboa!
The apartment was great and perfect for us.
We appreciate our housemanager, friendly and helpful with all our questions.
A golden star to Sofia !!!
We just returned from four days in a Lisbon. This was a pleasant apartment in a central location.
A lovely balcony facing the pedestrianized section of Rua do Carmo runs the length of the apartment, and the views of the street and the Elevator Santa Justa are very nice. The balcony is accessible from the living/dining area, and from the largest and the smallest bedrooms. Even so, the apartment is quiet. At times, we could hear loud pedestrians, particularly if the doors to the balcony were open, but it was mostly musicians at night, which was very pleasant.
The location is fabulous, with quick access to cafés (two cafés steps from the apartment - both recommended, one for ambiance, and the other - Eric Kayser- for fabulous bread, croissants, fresh orange juice, huge egg breakfast spreads, and sandwiches). There are two grocery stores within 2-3 blocks. One is vegetarian, and the other has everything you could need (but can be crowded). Restaurants, cafés and shops abound. Plus, the metro, train and taxis are all available.
Turning back to the apartment, the living/dining and two of the bedrooms have air-conditioning and the third (smallest) has a fan. That one could get a bit stuffy, but it worked for us. The kitchen is well-equipped, and the washer and dryer were a plus. The TV with English-speaking programs was a plus, as was the wifi for our teen boys. Very helpful written instructions are provided for the electronics and the greeter (Helena) was very helpful.
We had a bit of a problem either the air-conditioner leaking, but we reported it and the problem was quickly taken care of. The manager and the owner were both in great contact.
Overall, this was pleasant and we adored Lisbon and plan to return to the city again. The apartment could be updated. The on demand water heater was a bit limited, and some attention could be paid to amenities. For example, more than two trash bags and two dishwasher tabs and one clothes washing tab would be helpful. This apartment ranks above some basic summer homes we've stayed in, and was pleasant.
This was the perfect place to house 7 weary travellers after 3 weeks of travelling in Europe. We were three adults, two grandparents and two teenage girls and there was plenty of room for everyone! Having two bathrooms in particular was very useful as was the lift in the building. The apartment is immaculate, the host very helpful as was D Ilda who let us in and was responsible for key/deposit hand over at either end of our stay. Couldn't beat if for location with easy access to two Metro stops (Rossio and Baixa) about 5 minutes walk away and with many of Lisboa's attractions and shops equally nearby. This is the place to stay of you are a large group and want to do Lisbon 'easily' and in style.
- 住宿品质保证
- 屋主通过电话验证


text:
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text:
Fantastic instructions!!!!! I've tried many different techniques but this seems like the best so far! Thanks so much for sharing.
Welcome to the Quilting Board!
Fantastic instructions!!!!! I've tried many different techniques but this seems like the best so far! Thanks so much for sharing.
Last edited by QuiltnNan; 03-24-2017 at 04:48 PM. Reason: remove shouting
A mind is like a parachute...it works best when open....
Thank you for taking the time to show everyone.
enjoy your life...it's the only one you have!!!
I have never seen this method before. It sure does produce a perfect inset circle. Nice Work! Thanks for sharing such a great method with great instructions and pics.
This is a great method. Thanks for sharing
I have used this technique - I got it from a book Pieced Curves So Simple by Dale Flemming who I saw on Simply Quilts. It worked great. The book gives ideas for inside curves as well as outside curves. Thank you for reminding me to get it out!
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you
did, but people will never forget how you made them feel
~~Maya Angelou
Awesome. thanks for the tute on circles the easier way.
Great Tute. A friend showed this method to me and I wrote the directions and having this tut I know I can do it.
For our wonderful Golden Retriever adopted in March of 2010.
Thank you ! It is a wonderfull tutorial !
Wonderful Tut Thanks so much
Have an awesome day!
I have seen this on TV also and attempted to write the info, but now can not find. Thanks for the tut. Some things are worth repeating.


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Brian Hayes
Blackouts were rolling across California last winter when I first began to hear stories about the gluttonous energy appetite of computers, and how Silicon Valley might be partly to blame for the power crisis. Computers and the infrastructure of the Internet, the reports said, were consuming 8 percent of the nation's electricity supply. Or maybe the figure was 13 percent. In any case, by 2010, fully half of all electricity generated in the U.S. would go to keep computer hardware humming.
I first heard these numbers mentioned—without explanation or attribution—in a television newscast. They have turned up in many other places as well, from USA Today and the Wall Street Journal to Computer (the magazine of the IEEE Computer Society). They have been cited in testimony before various Congressional committees. And during the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush quoted the 8 percent figure in a speech on energy policy. His remarks were promptly echoed in a Doonesbury cartoon.
The estimates of computer and network power consumption struck me as quite remarkable. If they were correct, we were approaching a notable inflection point in human affairs, where we expend as much effort in moving information as we do in moving matter. But I had my doubts about those numbers. Bits are so much lighter than atoms. Perhaps a decimal point had slipped out of place. Could it really be true that roughly a tenth of the output of all those gargantuan power plants was being squeezed through the finespun filigree of conductors on silicon chips? It seemed preposterous—but, then again, something like a tenth of all electricity squeezes through the finespun filaments of lightbulbs. The question was not to be answered by mere hand-waving.
It wasn't hard to trace the story back to its source. Typing the words "8 percent computer electricity consumption" into a search engine produced lots of leads. (The search engine told me how many seconds it spent on the query, but not how many kilowatt-hours.) All trails led to Peter Huber and Mark P. Mills, writers and consultants who publish a newsletter called Digital Power Report. In particular, I was directed to an article of theirs titled "Dig More Coal—The PCs Are Coming," which appeared in Forbes in 1999.
The Forbes article includes all the essential elements of the story: "At least 100 million nodes on the Internet, drawing from hundreds to thousands of kilowatt-hours per year, add up to 290 billion kWh of demand. That's about 8% of total U.S. demand. Add in the electric power used to build and operate stand-alone (unnetworked) chips and computers, and the total jumps to about 13%. It's now reasonable to project that half of the electric grid will be powering the digital-Internet economy within the next decade."
Other statements of Huber and Mills are no less electrifying. Utilities have to burn a pound of coal, they calculate, for every two megabytes of data moving across the Internet. A "server farm" housing computers that serve Web pages has the power needs of a small steel mill. And then there is their most provocative claim: A Palm Pilot connected to the Internet consumes as much energy as a household refrigerator. (Of course that power doesn't come out of AAA batteries; it's the handheld unit's share of the power used by Internet routers and servers.)
Unfortunately, Huber and Mills don't always make it easy to trace the line of reasoning that led them to their conclusions. As far as I can tell, the Palm Pilot–refrigerator equation is not explained anywhere. The extrapolation from 8 or 13 percent today to 50 percent a decade hence is also presented without any supporting documentation. (Moreover, another version of this prediction says 30 to 50 percent in two decades.)
The longest and most explicit presentation of these ideas appears in a report titled The Internet Begins with Coal, authored by Mills alone. Even there, however, certain blanks remain unfilled. A crucial starting point for the numerical estimates is an assumption that "your typical PC and its peripherals require about 1,000 watts of power," but the documentation for this number is vague and confusing. A footnote mentions as one source of information an "online configuration tool" provided by a manufacturer of uninterruptible power supplies, but that tool's rating for the configuration that Mills discusses is not 1,000 watts but only 205 watts. Mills then remarks: "The 1,000 W figure for the PC nominally accounts for the power needs of otherwise unaccounted microprocessor devices on the network." Those devices remain unaccounted, so that four-fifths of the power drain attributed to PCs comes from unidentified "behind-the-wall components."
This shadow world of unseen power loads is also mentioned in the Forbes article. "For every piece of wired hardware on your desk," Huber and Mills write, "two or three pieces of equipment lurk in the network beyond—office hubs and servers, routers, repeaters, amplifiers, remote servers and so forth." Taken literally, this statement implies that there are 200 or 300 million hubs, routers, etc.—two or three for each of the 100 million desktop computers that Huber and Mills count as being connected to the Internet. The preponderance of hidden devices is hard to fathom, since the Internet has a treelike structure, in which the leaf nodes—desktop PCs—ought to be more numerous than machines along the trunk and branches. Elsewhere, Huber and Mills themselves assume there are only 7 million routers and Web servers.
Such gaps in documentation are no definitive refutation of the Huber and Mills thesis, but they don't inspire great confidence. Neither does the provenance of the report. The Internet Begins with Coal was published by an organization called the Greening Earth Society, where Mills serves as science advisor. The name of this group might evoke images of the Green Party and Greenpeace, but the agenda is rather different. The name reflects a conviction that higher concentrations of atmospheric CO2 are "beneficial to humankind and all of nature," because they promote plant growth. The society was created by the Western Fuels Association, a consortium of electric utilities and coal-mining companies, whose main business, of course, is digging up C and combining it with O2. Both the society and the association argue that coal-fired power plants will remain essential to continued prosperity; in particular, they disparage the notion that the Internet will usher in a new economy without smokestacks, where demand for electricity would remain static or decline.
The fact that an argument serves the publisher's economic interest certainly does not invalidate the argument. But when interests and arguments are so closely aligned, readers can be expected to give the supporting evidence rather careful scrutiny.
The mirror image of the Greening Earth Society is the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, a division of the Global Environment and Technology Foundation, which describes itself as "a nonprofit dedicated to building the infrastructure for sustainable development." The center's director, Joseph Romm, presents a view diametrically opposite to that of Huber and Mills. The Internet has not inflated energy use, he says, but instead produces a net savings of energy, mainly through "dematerialization." For example, software delivered online saves energy that would have been expended on manufacturing and shipping. Other efficiencies of electronic commerce allow companies to reduce inventory levels, saving the energy needed to build and operate warehouses. Telecommuting saves gasoline.
The trouble is, measuring these diffuse effects of computer and communications technology is probably even harder than documenting the direct electricity demand of the Internet. Furthermore, the two trends are not mutually exclusive; in principle, Romm and Mills could both be right. The Internet economy could be saving energy overall but still consuming more electric power—in effect siphoning energy out of automobile gas tanks and dumping it onto the coal heaps of electric generating stations.
On the specific issue of electricity consumption, Romm points out that growth in demand actually slackened at just about the time the Internet boom began. Before 1996, according to Romm's figures, electricity output was growing at 2.9 percent per year, but since then the growth rate has been only 2.2 percent. Therefore, if computers and the Net have suddenly introduced enormous new loads, other uses of electricity must have held steady or declined.
The governmental body charged with gathering statistics about the production and consumption of electricity is the Energy Information Administration, or EIA, within the Department of Energy. Their figures on consumption come from surveys of three sectors—residential, commercial and industrial—which each consume about a third of the nation's kilowatt-hours.
The EIA data on computer power demand were summarized in February 2000 by Jay E. Hakes, who was then the Administrator, in Congressional testimony. In the residential sector, Hakes said, PCs account for about 2 percent of electric power consumption, and in the commercial sector about 3 percent. Because computers are not a significant factor in the industrial energy budget, the computer's share of total electricity use works out to 1.6 percent.
One might suppose that the government statistics would carry enough weight to put an end to the argument, but there are enough complications and inconsistencies to leave room for doubt. In the residential survey, a PC was defined as a CPU and a monitor, but printers and other accessories were relegated to a different category, "electronics," which also included some audio and video equipment. The electronics category accounted for 10 percent of residential electricity use—five times the PC segment. How much of that 10 percent should be allocated to computer peripherals? In the commercial survey, laser printers were included in the computer category, but "Internet-related infrastructure equipment" was counted under another heading. Although it seems implausible that any rearrangement of the data could make up the difference between 1.6 percent and 8 or 13 percent, the differences in classification make comparisons awkward.
Another group of energy analysts has undertaken a direct rebuttal of the Huber-Mills thesis. At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Jonathan G. Koomey heads the Energy Analysis Department of the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, which has carried out numerous studies of energy consumption, mostly funded by the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. When the Forbes article appeared, Koomey immediately disputed its conclusions, citing data from his own group's survey of energy use by computers and other office equipment.
Koomey and his colleagues question nearly all the assumptions that underlie the Huber-Mills energy estimates, starting with the power demands of individual machines. A desktop PC is not a 1,000-watt device, Koomey says, even if the nameplate attached to the chassis gives a rated power in this range. For a 500-megahertz Pentium III computer and a 17-inch monitor, Koomey's measurements indicate that power demand is no greater than 150 or 200 watts, even including a share of the electricity consumed by a workgroup laser printer. For the somewhat larger computers used as servers, Huber and Mills specify 1,500 watts, and Koomey reduces it to 300. In the case of mainframe computers the disparity is even greater. For these machines Huber and Mills adopt a figure of 250 kilowatts (half for the computer itself and half for air conditioning). Koomey finds that only exotic supercomputers with hundreds of processors approach this level of power use, and that a more realistic estimate for a typical mainframe is 10 or 20 kilowatts.
There are also disagreements about counting. Relying on a compilation of computer sales statistics, Mills asserts that the inventory of computers in use is growing by 40 million a year. Koomey points out that some fraction of the new computers are not additions to the stock but replacements for retired equipment. (The EIA says that computers in offices are nearing "saturation," with four computers for every five employees.)
In August 2000 the LBNL group released a new report on power consumption by computers and network equipment, with further supporting data published in February 2001. The survey includes energy used by all kinds of office machinery, including not only computers and their peripherals but also unrelated devices such as copiers and fax machines. The conclusion: The entire spectrum of equipment dissipates 74 terawatt-hours per year, which is about 2 percent of U.S. electricity consumption. Adding in an allowance for a few other items that Huber and Mills count (such as the energy needed to manufacture computers, and a share of the energy consumed by telephone switchgear) brings the total to 3.2 percent—still only a fourth of the 13 percent level claimed by Huber and Mills.
The debate between Huber and Mills and their critics has been conducted via letters to the editor, press releases and public e-mails. The tone has not always been collegial. In February 2000, when Mills testified before the House Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources, and Regulatory Affairs, he seized the opportunity to defend his ideas against the attacks by Koomey and others. Koomey responded with a memo offering further rebuttal. He wrote: "In the past year and a half, I have been witness to an extraordinary event: an analysis based on demonstrably incorrect data and flawed logic has achieved the status of conventional wisdom, in spite of my and my colleagues' best efforts to refute its assertions. The results continue to be cited by an unsuspecting press, and even by people who ought to know better."
A further year and a half later, the "conventional wisdom" is still very much in circulation. A few weeks ago, Roger N. Anderson of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory published an op-ed essay in the New York Times alluding to the Huber-Mills conclusions, with no hint that they might be controversial.
After reading so many disparate claims about the wattage of PCs, I became curious about my own computers' contribution to the energy budget. If national statistics are hard to pin down, maybe I could at least figure out what proportion of my own household electric bill feeds my digital habits. To make a first crude estimate, I went around the house with a flashlight, crawling under desks to read the power ratings on nameplates. I knew that the result of this exercise would be an overestimate; in fact it proved useless even as an upper bound.
Adding up all the nameplate data suggested that the computer equipment in my home could draw as much as 2,400 watts. This is a fair amount of power; it would fully load a 20-ampere circuit. That the actual consumption can't be anywhere close to this level became apparent when I dug out the old utility bills. For the past two years the average electricity demand for the whole house was 868 watts—roughly a third of the nameplate rating for the computer equipment alone.
Obviously, I needed a better measurement technology. To this end I was aided by Ethan Brand, of Brand Electronics in Whitefield, Maine, who lent me a digital power meter that measures both demand in watts and cumulative energy consumption in watt-hours. After crawling back under the desk to plug in this instrument, I soon had a clearer picture. A computer rated at 400 watts actually draws about 50 watts in active use; in its standby or "sleep" mode the power consumption falls to 3 watts. The color monitor attached to this computer uses more power than the CPU—97 watts in active mode, 6 watts when sleeping.
Adding up figures for all of the monitored equipment, I found that the most I could manage to consume was about 700 watts—and I could get near that level only by having three computers simultaneously spit out pages from three printers, while at the same time I scanned a photograph and burned a CD-ROM. The typical wattage reading, at times when I was working, ranged from 150 to 170 watts. Note that this is right on target according to Koomey.
But that's not the end of the story. I left the monitor attached to the big bundle of power cords under the desk, measuring total energy consumption over 10 days. In 240 hours, some 18,540 watt-hours of electricity flowed through the meter. That works out to an average demand of 77 watts, which implies that computer equipment is responsible for some 9 percent of my electricity consumption.
Of course it would be foolish to extrapolate from my home office to the entire national economy. I have no reason to believe my experience is representative; on the contrary, as someone who writes about computers, I surely spend more time at the keyboard than most people do. But, the fact remains, the proportion of my electric bill that goes to bit-shuffling is far greater than I ever would have guessed. I had assumed that my power consumption would be so dominated by air conditioning, refrigeration, water heating and lighting that the computing load would barely be detectable. Now I know otherwise.
For Huber and Mills, the power demands of computers and the Internet signal inevitable future growth in overall electricity consumption. But you can equally well look at the situation as an opportunity for conservation. If computers really were responsible for some large fraction of the nation's energy consumption, then measures to make the machines more efficient would have a major impact. And even if computers do not make up such a fat slice of the energy pie, they may nonetheless be an attractive target for conservation measures, because there's so much room for improvement. Cutting another 10 percent off the energy consumption of a refrigerator or a water heater is an engineering challenge, but the energy per operation and per device in computers has been falling for decades, and that trend will surely continue. Indeed, there is no intrinsic limit to it; in principle, computing can be done without energy loss.
In the 1940s, the ENIAC had 18,000 vacuum tubes and consumed 174 kilowatts—roughly 10 watts per tube. If modern silicon chips required 10 watts per transistor, a Pentium would suck 100 megawatts out of the power grid, and the computer on your desk would easily swallow the entire output of a nuclear plant. Instead, a few tens of watts are enough to power a chip with transistors numbering in the tens of millions.
For the most part, these gains in transistor efficiency have been exploited not to minimize the power consumption of each chip but to maximize the number of transistors per chip, while keeping the power density just below the melting point. There is little incentive to do otherwise. This is the muscle-car era of computer design; what sells hardware is performance, not fuel economy. Until the electric bill for running a machine begins to approach the purchase price, no one is going to care much about energy consumption.
But energy use in computers may well decline anyway, even without economic impetus. Laptop computers offer a proof by example that electric power can be reduced by an order of magnitude without greatly impairing computer power. Some of the technologies and components of laptops will find their way into desktop machines, again not because lower power consumption is a selling point but because smaller fans, heat sinks and power supplies can save the manufacturer a few dollars. Flat-panel displays are already migrating from laptops to desktops.
Power-management systems that put idle machines and monitors to sleep have also had an effect. In the 2000 office-equipment survey, Koomey and his colleagues find that such reduced-power modes save 23 terawatt-hours per year; if everyone used the sleep modes, they would save another 17 terawatt-hours.
At the end of the day, I am left with the sense that the issue of computer power consumption is not going to be the determining factor in national energy policy. Even if the Huber-Mills analysis were correct, most of our kilowatts would still be flowing into the real world, not into cyberspace. Fluctuations in prices and the weather have a bigger impact on power demand than any conceivable events on the World Wide Web. Computers will not save the coal mines, nor will they save the planet.
But efficiency is more than a matter of economics and industrial policy; it has an aesthetic aspect, and even an ethical one. As Vice President Cheney recently observed, energy conservation is a sign of personal virtue. There is satisfaction in accomplishing more with less, in wringing the most results out of the least resources. For a long time this was a prominent strand in the mental habits of computer enthusiasts. To waste a CPU cycle or a byte of memory was an embarrassing lapse. To clobber a small problem with a big computer was considered tasteless and unsporting, like trout fishing with dynamite. Not even rolling blackouts will roll us back to that quaint age of frugal computing, but there is much to admire in its ethos.
© Brian Hayes
You can find this online at http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/num2/2001/9/the-computer-and-the-dynamo/1
© 2016 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society


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Play-By-Playmate: The Hillbilly Handfishin' Video
You've seen the trailer, now see Play-By-Playmate Jaime Edmondson get down in dirty with boys from Hillbilly Handfishin'.
Launch Gallery
You've heard of the bet. You've seen the trailer. And now Playboy.com and Animal Planet proudly bring you Play-By Playmate's Jaime Edmondson getting down and dirty in Oklahoma with the boys from Hillbilly Handfishing.
Not all noodlin' amateurs do this well; Jaime held her own on the muddy banks of the Red River and came out with a catfish about as big as her. Check the full video below to see how see did it.


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Effective this September, there are new breakdowns for final score.
by Patti Hurtgen, Hoard's Dairyman Online Media Manager
Holstein Association USA classifier Willis Gunst recently attended a twilight meeting in Wisconsin to share the new classification changes with Holstein breeders and to answer questions they have on the program.
The changes were brought about by a recommendation of the Holstein Association USA's Type Advisory Committee. It was approved and announced this summer at the national Holstein convention. The decision puts more emphasis on long-term profitability traits and penalizes 2-year olds that are over 59 inches tall and shorter than 53 inches. This in essence, makes stature at two-way trait where the extreme is not rewarded. The goal is to have a more uniform breed, which in turn makes cows able to fit their facilities and manage herd members equally.
A cow's final score is based on five major classification categories or breakdowns of front end and capacity, dairy strength, rump, feet and legs and udder. The classifier numerically assigns each breakdown a score ranging from 1 to 100 points. The numbers are based on the level of desirability exhibited by individual cows for each category compared to the true-type model. The final score is the weighted sum of the five major breakdown scores.
The two major breakdowns affected are front end and capacity, and feet and legs. Five of the scorecard points allocated to front end and capacity have been moved to feet and legs. This makes front end and capacity at 15 percent and feet and legs at 20 points. Udder at 40 points, dairy strength at 20 points and rump at 5 points remain unchanged.
The United States places much less emphasis on feet and legs as compared to other countries. Even with boosting the percentage to 20 percent, we are still behind other countries that value feet and legs as high a 35 percent of final score. Feet and legs are not as highly heritable as other body traits. Environment and herd management can impact feet and legs to a high degree, and so the Holstein leadership has chosen not to overvalue feet and legs' genetic component.
The Holstein changes also bring their type appraisal closer to the PDCA scorecard, which was updated in April of 2009. While classification of any breed is a method to compare dairy cattle to the ideal for the breed, it is not a hard-and-fast rule to determine showring type. The two are closely correlated, but are not interchangeable.
Link to the PDCA scorecard
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text:
Mackenzie Blue Camo Backpacks
- Overview
Designed specifically to help kids stay organized, these rugged and roomy bags have lots of pockets, exterior straps and gear loops that keep everything in place.
- Made of rugged, water-resistant 600-denier polyester.
- All backpacks have adjustable straps that are contoured and padded to ensure a comfortable fit; padded back panel adds extra cushioning.
- Small, Large and Rolling backpacks feature an MP3 player pocket cutout for headphone cords.
- Exterior straps hold a Mackenzie lunch bag (sold separately) securely in place.
- Exterior side pockets are designed to hold any of our water bottles (sold separately).
- Pre-K backpack holds a snack, a change of clothes and a favorite toy.
- Small backpack holds a lunch bag, two small notebooks, two books and a water bottle.
- Large and Rolling backpacks hold a lunch bag, a large notebook, two small notebooks, several books and a water bottle.
- Rolling backpack features sturdy wheels, and straps that can be stored behind a fabric panel when used as a rolling backpack.
- Please note, personalization placement varies and may not appear as shown.
- Personalization may cover all or part of the print.
- Dimensions & Care
Pre-K Backpack
- Fits children who are 36–42" tall.
- Overall: 8.5" wide x 4" deep x 11" high
- Interior: 8.25" wide x 3.75" deep x 10.75" high
- Exterior Pockets: 3
- Exterior Front Panel Pocket: 6" wide x 5" high
- Exterior Side Pocket (2): 4" wide x 3.5" high
- Shoulder Strap (2): 2.5" wide; 12−18" long
- Carrying Handle: 1" wide x 6.5" long
Small Backpack
- Fits children who are 43–49" tall.
- Overall: 12" wide x 6" deep x 15" high
- Interior: 11.5" wide x 5.5" deep x 14.5" high
- Exterior Pockets: 3
- Exterior Front Panel Pocket: 8" wide x 8" high
- Exterior Side Pocket (2): 5.5" wide x 5.5" high
- Interior Pockets: 1
- Interior Pocket: 6" wide x 3.75" high
- Shoulder Strap (2): 2.5" wide x 16–31" long
- Carrying Handle: 1" wide x 7.5" long
Large Backpack
- Fits children who are over 48" tall.
- Overall: 14" wide x 7.5" deep x 17" high
- Interior: 13.5" wide x 7" deep x 16.5" high
- Exterior Pockets: 3
- Exterior Front Panel Pocket: 9" wide x 8" high
- Exterior Side Pocket (2): 8" wide x 7" high
- Interior Pockets: 1
- Interior Pocket: 7.5" wide x 5" high
- Shoulder Strap (2): 3" wide x 18.5–34.5" long
- Carrying Handle: 1" wide x 9.5" long
Rolling Backpack
- Fits children who are over 48" tall.
- Overall: 13" wide x 7" deep x 18" high
- Interior: 12.5" wide x 6.5" deep x 17.5" high
- Exterior Pockets: 3
- Exterior Front Panel Pocket: 9" wide x 8.5" high
- Exterior Side Pocket (2): 7" wide x 6.5" high
- Interior Pockets: 1
- Interior Pocket: 7.25" wide x 3.75" high
- Shoulder Strap (2): 3" wide x 21−24" long
- Carrying Handle: 1" wide x 5" long
- Pull Handle (extended): 5.5" wide x 20" long
- Clean with a damp white cloth.
- Shipping & Return Info
Standard UPS can deliver most in-stock items within 4-5 business days.
Next Day Delivery and Processing
We can arrange for next day delivery to most destinations within the contiguous 48 states, for an extra charge of $17.50 per address. If we receive your order by 6pm PT Monday through Friday, you'll receive your order the next business day; orders placed on Friday after 6pm PT through Sunday will arrive on Tuesday. Note: Next Day Delivery service is not available for some oversized items, Premium In-Home White Glove Delivery, out of stock items, personalized items or for items shipped directly from the manufacturer.
Select oversized items have an additional delivery and processing surcharge; this charge is listed below the item price.
View the complete Shipping and Delivery Information page.
At Pottery Barn Kids, we take great pride in the quality and craftsmanship of our products. Attention to design, materials, safety and construction is our priority. We carefully inspect your order prior to shipment; upon receipt, please inspect your purchase and notify us of any damage. We will arrange for a prompt replacement. If, within 7 days for Quick Ship upholstery and 30 days for all other products, you are dissatisfied for any reason, you may return your purchase for a refund of the merchandise value.
If your return for Merchandise Credit Cards is greater than $10,000, we will issue $10,000 in Merchandise Credit Cards to you that day, and then mail additional Merchandise Credit Card(s) for the amount in excess of $10,000 to you.
For returns of items purchased from your Pottery Barn Kids registry, we will gladly provide a refund or exchange for the merchandise within 90 days of your event or within 90 days of purchase, whichever date is later.
Delivery fees are non-refundable and prior purchases are not eligible for a price adjustment. The following items are non-eligible for returns or exchanges:
- Personalized/Monogrammed items
- Mattresses
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- Special-order items (including made-to-order upholstery and custom order rugs)
- Final Sale items (identified by a price ending in $.97 or $.99)
- Items damaged through normal wear and tear.
Questions? See our full Returns Policy.
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Mackenzie Blue Camo Duffle Bag
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Tibor Spey
- Details
The Tibor Spey is a high performance fly reel. Two-handed fly rodding gets a sure-handed Tibor update in this modern spin on one of fishing's most hallowed traditions. Engraved with a Steelhead Salmon and traditional Celtic knot pattern, the Tibor Spey reel features a modified drag system with a drag knob outlined in "witness marks." These marks allow you to precisely set, loosen, keep track of and then reset your drag for the various tippet tensions required while striking, fighting and delicately landing larger fish.
The Tibor Spey also features our QuickChange™ spool system which allows you to change out spools on a moment's notice. With only a single moving part – the one-piece stainless steel end cap – there is nothing to remove, no loose parts, tricky threading or alignments.
Finished in our non-reflective traditional moss green the Tibor Spey features its own unique spool design that's also available with our Speed Handle Spool option, and is precisely weighted and balanced for the heavier lines and rods used in this classic form of fishing. Like every Tibor product, it's made and assembled in the USA, virtually maintenance-free and backed with our limited lifetime warranty.
Suitable for lines 10/11 plus 250yds 30lb backing.


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Hi! I'm Casper!
Let me introduce myself. My name is Casper Johnson, but you can leave formalities aside and just call me Casper. I am an expert in estate financing and home planning, and in the last seven years I have studied very closely the market of equity release. Since I was very young, I felt a great interest in the two things that would guide my path in life: financing, and helping people.
I started working in the real estate trading market with my uncle when I was eighteen years old, and since then I have collected a great experience in estate. A few years later, I discovered home financing, and I knew that it was exactly what I wanted to do. For me, financing is fun and interesting, so I have dedicated my entire life to learn more and to become more skilled in this field.
Now, I can proud myself to say that I a competent expert in home financing schemes, especially equity release. Now I no longer work in estate trading but I am still very active in financing schemes and, of course, counseling.
I personally welcome you to my personal webpage, Ask Casper. I run this site personally and I answer all questions myself. I put all my knowledge on real estate trading, estate financing, home planning and, of course, equity release, to your service.
My passion is to help you understand your home planning possibilities and guide you so you can find the best financial solution for your case. We can meet at my office, or chat online, or talk on the phone. You may choose any option or even a combination of those, according to your own personal comfort. You can be sure that I will do my best to show you the best equity release solution for your case!
Here are the answers to all your questions!
You can contact me any business day from 8:30 a.m. to 18:00 p.m. I am a hard worker and I am availiable most of the day for your requests. If I happen to be in a meeting at that right time, which sometimes happens due to my work load, I will still note down a call back or inform you about my free schedule of the day. I don't miss a call, that's one of my special talents!
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When you do something out of passion, money becomes something secundary. I charge the lowest fees and offer free first interviews so we can meet and get to know each other. Also, stay in touch for special promotions and discounts that I often publish in my website! My advice is not only for the rich, it is for all people. Everybody should access advice on equity release and other home financing solutions. For me, this is not a business as much as a personal joy. It gratifies me so much to see my clients reach their goals with my help!


text:
International Conference on Computational Social Science (ICCSS 2015)
International Conference on Computational Social Science (ICCSS 2015)
This tutorial describes how to integrate computable R code (and outputs) in a LaTeX documents in a such a way that a single file can generate two (or more) PDF files. This trick is particularly useful for creating worksheets for R courses. A very small introduction to integrating R code in LaTeX files R code
"Free Sweave Course" (download 7,0MB), Paola Berchialla, Department of Public Health and Microbiology, University of Torino. … Continue reading →
A few weeks ago I gave a presentation on using Sweave and Knitr under the guise of promoting reproducible research. I humbly offer this presentation to the blog with full knowledge that there are already loads of tutorials available online. This presentation is specific and slightly biased towards Windows OS, so it probably has limited
Software requirements have been published on the course page: http://torinor.net/events-2/sweave-course/ Participants are encouraged to come and practice with their own laptop; please make sure to meet software requirements. … Continue reading →
Although there are many materials online relating to Sweave and its workflow, I could not find any source on how to make SyncTeX work properly with my favorite TeXmaker editor. I hope that you know the Sweave (http://www.stat.uni-muenchen.de/~leisch/Sweave/) is a tool that allows to embed the R code for complete data analyses in LaTeX documents. If you use...
On 21 November 2013 – 14:00 there will be a free Sweave course and starting at 16:30 there will be the Sixth Torino R net meeting. Events will take place at Campus Luigi Einaudi, Università degli Studi di Torino. Please visit events' page for details and if … Continue reading →
INTRODUCTION Sweave is nothing more, nothing less than the best way R can connect with a text editor, in this case LaTeX. So you don't know anyting about LaTeX? neither did I 8 months ago… The hyperlinks in this post … Sigue leyendo →
The R package PApages is a great start towards addressing the very common problem of internal and external reporting in the money management industry. Advent's APX, Axys, and Black Diamond and the up and coming extremely well-connected and well-f...
I love good typography, even more so as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint have debased our standards. When I see a really fine piece of technical typesetting, it's almost always done using TeX and friends. Beautiful LaTeX documents are easy to … Continue reading →


text:
[quote user="Morehead State"][quote user="MattMeyerBud"][quote user="Morehead State"][quote user="MattMeyerBud"][quote user="Morehead State"]
[quote user="MattMeyerBud"]Jesus
I can't believe how bad Tebow is. The defense carried the team and the Jets offense was horrific.

Watching Tebow is like watching a high school QB play in the NFL. Its actually painful. He simply can't throw the football.

This will all catch up to him soon.

And quite honestly, as much as I have always personally liked the kid, I'm starting to get sick of his act. Its really all about him for God's sake. How about thanking the defense for even giving him a shot to win the game.

can't argue anything u say
but it is still sick what he does in crunch time. THAT you HAVE to give credit for.
I guess so. I mean its a head scratcher with him. He is SO bad as a passer. You can't win consistently in the NFL playing the Nebraska 1972 offense. And how do you change your defense on the last drive. AND why on earth do you all-out blitz Tebow at the end where all the secondary has their back to the QB?

but evne his passing improves in crunch time.
Honestly he makes the reads, he needs to learn how to hurry throws accurately. Im sure thats something that he can work on. I never was a QB guy so I have no clue whats teachable and whats not but his vision in the pocket I think is good and he has the ball to stand there.
He needs to work on rolling to the right and making throws while rolling to the right. At the end of the day he is an NFL talent, i've said it since day one - I still thiunk he can be an NFL QB
The guy is so bad that they have to run a gimmick offense just to make him functional. And that offense is near its end. The only thing that saved them yesterday was that the Jets had a short week to game plan. It may be next week or the week after, but the league will easily figure out how to shut down that scheme completely. Even on a short week the Jets completely dominated them until the end.

I'm telling you, this offense can't be sustained in the NFL. The Bronco fans are whistling past the graveyard with this player and this offense.
[/quote]
why can't it be sustained though? I never understood that argument


text:
Notice: On March 31, it was announced that Statalist is moving from an email list to a forum. The old list will shut down on April 23, and its replacement, statalist.org is already up and running.
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SV: st: Removing outliers from my dataset
Andreas Dall Frøseth <firstname.lastname@example.com>
"email@example.com" <firstname.lastname@example.com>
SV: st: Removing outliers from my dataset
Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:11:35 +0000
Thank you for your feedback. I agree with the concerns you listed, and will certainly be aware of these during my work with analyzing possible problems with my dataset.
However. Due to the fact that I am using accounting numbers as a approach to the real economic nature of a company, I will experience some difficulties. Accounting numbers are highly affected by accounting principles, which might give certain companies the incentives to portray a false economic situation to the public. Having this in mind, I have reviewed a large number of the companies, which in my opinion have a ROA with no root in economic sense, and found that this can only be due to faults in the accounting numbers. My aim is to find what constitutes the best basis for competitive advantage in the companies in my dataset. Defining competitive advantage as earning ROA above the industry mean. By using industry median rather than industry mean, one will differ from the definition, and my thesis will make no economic/theoretic sense. By calculating a industry mean on the basis of fault due to accounting principles, one might rush to the wrong conclusion.
This being the case, I would like to have a systematic approach to exclude extreme numbers from my dataset, rather than excluding them manually. I'm aware that this approach might exclude more than those companies of my concern, but due to limitations in hours available, and a rather large dataset, I find it irrational to do this in another way.
Is there a approach I could use that allows me to analyze the effect of excluding some of the companies, before I drop them from my set (ie creating a variable and using the if-command)? This would be helpful when documenting my work in my thesis.
Kind regards
Fra: email@example.com [firstname.lastname@example.com] på vegne av Nick Cox [firstname.lastname@example.com]
Sendt: 16. april 2013 13:21
Til: email@example.com
Emne: Re: st: Removing outliers from my dataset
My input is that in my field dropping outliers like this would be very
regarded as very poor practice. Dropping outliers that appear to be
unrecoverable measurement errors could be justified; dropping outliers
that are genuine extremes makes little sense. On these grounds you
would discard the Amazon because on most criteria it's the world's
biggest river (and not only that, really big).
Even if your aim is to focus on what's typical you shouldn't just
throw away 2% of the data because those fractions are awkward to
analyse. That's a reflection on the competence of the analyst, not a
concession to the world's complexities.
Genuine alternatives include
using something other than means to summarize (e.g. median, or something else)
transforming your problematic variables
non-identity link functions in -glm-
robust or quantile regression
A specific objection to outlier criteria based on mean and SD is that
outliers tend to inflate mean and especially SD, so you may not even
drop what you think is obviously deviant. Using median and median
deviation is not quite so vulnerable, but can be problematic in
different ways.
It's not difficult to work out how to relate values to mean and SD,
but I am all set on discouraging you from doing any such thing.
On 16 April 2013 12:07, Andreas Dall Frøseth
<firstname.lastname@example.com> wrote:
> Dear statalisters.
> I'm still working with my dataset containing company data and accounting numbers for a large number of companies in the time periode 1992 to 2010. I've figured out the calculations in my last posting, but I'm currently experiencing some difficulties when trying to analyse the effect of outliers in my dataset.
> For each company in the set, I have calculated ROA and sales growth each year. The problem is however, due to weaknesses in my dataset, some of the companies are now listed with unreasonable values of ROA. I.e. one of the companies have a ROA of 6500 %. I have ensures myself that this is not due too a miscalculation, but rather due to accounting rules and newly listed companies.
> I therefore wish to examine my dataset, and, if possible, get rid of outliers. My main idea is to calculate a mean industry ROA (the set contains a variable "industry", with a industry-indicator for each company. Ex. 4 = fishing), and setting a bottom and top limit for each industry. Do anyone have input on the most appropriate way to do this? It seems to be several different approaches I apply, ie 2 standard deviations from the mean or 1 and 99-percentile.
> I would also appreciate input on how to do this in STATA. Creating an industry mean, and a variable indicating wich companies to exclude from my population based on a recommended approach.
> All feedback will be appreciated.
> Kind regards
> Andreas
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