text:
Town Square
Original post made by Taxpayer out of money, another community, on Jul 1, 2012
Go to: Web Link
Look up Fire Departments Contra Costa and you will see why they want more money. You will also see the pay is overwhelming, out of control, and ridiculous. The benefits are even worse. Watch the threat tactics used if you do not agree to pay more money. Watch the remarks to this comment from firefighters. It has to stop before our children are mortgaged to debt and have no fire department but the retirees.
a resident of another community
on Jul 1, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Examples of why you need to pay more taxes;
Contra Costa County Clausen, Curtis D Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $305,426
Contra Costa County Pohlhammer, Michael K Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $308,761
Contra Costa County Woods, David R Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $299,665
Contra Costa County Walker, William J Battalion Chief-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $298,307
Contra Costa County Platt, Kevin M Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $296,588
Contra Costa County Brondolo, Alfred Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $285,614
Contra Costa County Stovell, Joy P Fire Engineer/56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $285,216
Contra Costa County Quesada, Michael S Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $283,389
Contra Costa County Manzo Jr., Louis Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $281,676
Contra Costa County Kipp, John P Battalion Chief-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $280,592
Contra Costa County Peterson, Darin E Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $279,712
Contra Costa County Smart, Jamie B. Fire Engineer/56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $276,982
Contra Costa County Cormier, Keith J Battalion Chief-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $276,163
Contra Costa County Sonsteng, Richard J Battalion Chief-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $276,124
Contra Costa County Penaloza, Franklin Fire Engineer/56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $273,388
Contra Costa County Newberry, Terry R Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $273,214
Contra Costa County Freeman Jr, Richard M Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $271,466
Contra Costa County Wannamaker, Scott A Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $270,252
County Stralovich, Catherine S Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $269,434
Contra Costa County Smith, Benjamin T Battalion Chief-40 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $269,366
Contra Costa County Dick, Eugene E Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $269,098
Contra Costa County Alailima Jr, Elia Fire Engineer/56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $268,192
Contra Costa County Hartford, Alan B Battalion Chief-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $267,720
Contra Costa County Walker, Ronnie M Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $265,826
Contra Costa County Gleeson, Tim P Fire Engineer/56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $264,826
Contra Costa County Depolo, Matthew J. Fire Engineer/56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $264,821
Contra Costa County Danielson, Donald C Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $264,787
Contra Costa County Burris Jr., Xon C Fire Captain-56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $264,396
Contra Costa County Robb, Kenneth R Fire Engineer/56 Hour
Ccc Fire Protection District $262,857
This is just a quick sample of what the taxpayer will be paying in pensions too. This will never end unless the voters take action.
a resident of Danville
on Jul 5, 2012 at 4:23 pm
This is absolutely outrageous. Who hear believes that a fire captain is worth paying that much money too. Are they making their companies more profitable? No! Are they saving more lives than the basic fireman? No!
They are managing a staff!!!! And fighting some fires.
Here is what I think they are worth Maximum of $150K per year and when they retire after 40 years, they get what they have contributed to their 401Ks plus medicare. Otherwise max out everyones retirement benefits.
I say let's bankrupt the fire districts so we can throw out the generous retirement benefits, just like all of the major companies did in the 80s and 90s, and went to a contribution model.
a resident of another community
on Jul 7, 2012 at 12:33 pm
You might want to look a little closer at the database these figures were lifted from. Not only is it inaccurate information, but the numbers listed are not salaries.
A fire captain in Con fire makes about 96 thousand a year and contributes 26 percent of that to fund his/her retirement.
The person that posted the erroneous figures is a known blogger that doesn't live in the district and neither is the Danville resident! Con Fire Doesn't cover Danville, or East County, so neither is subject to the proposed tax. This makes me wonder why these two bloggers are purposely trying to deceive readers when they themselves are not accountable or subject to this proposal.
Get the facts. Get informed.
a resident of Danville
on Jul 7, 2012 at 1:01 pm
FC: I would think you'd have cited YOUR sources. Please do.
Also, why does what a ffr chooses to contribute to his/her pension concern me? What I'M contributing, now that's another matter.
And pls also indicate why you think the newspapers' data are wrong.
a resident of another community
on Jul 7, 2012 at 2:48 pm
Since you indicated in your post that you are aware of the "newspapers" data, I wonder why you ask me to cite my source when the figures I provided concur with what is listed there? My data is from many sources including current/retired employees, County HR, and is no trade secret. The numbers cited are posted; Web Link
The original poster manipulated those numbers to substitute TCOE (Total cost of employment) for salary, known as a classic bait and switch. Perusing the flawed newspapers' database shows base salary of a fire captain as 96k, engineer 93k and firefighter 85k. Compared to other municipalities listed on that very same database it appears Con Fire employees are at the lower end of the pay scale amongst their bay area peers.
Firefighters don't get to "choose" what they contribute to their pensions any more than what they choose to pay in income taxes. I believe they are mandated to fund it so that they can retire before work related injuries put them out on tax free workers comp retirements.
The employee's retirement contribution as it relates to salary might be of interest when weighing if they are over or under compensated for the bay area-or addressing pension 'reform'. Taking a salary of 96k and subtracting a mandatory pension contribution of 26 percent (25k) leaves the employee (fire captain) with a 75k base salary.
If you are from Danville then you contribute nothing to their retirements. You are not in the Con fire district. You are in San Ramon's fire district which is an independent district and completely separate from the county/Con fire.
The CCtimes never really wanted you to know any of that. It's simple really. With the economic hit on newspapers in general, "creating news" sells more papers than simple reporting. The Times has figured it out and to their demise, much of the former readership has too.
I'm not looking to go round and round with you and I don't work for Con Fire-so if that is where you are going save us both the time.
If you are looking for more information I would suggest this website Web Link or Web Link
Get the facts. Get informed.
a resident of Danville
on Jul 7, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Look, FC, the newspapers' database is linked in the source article -- your post implied to me that your source was different from the one you labeled "inaccurate."
There is nothing in the original poster's comment that says "salary." The term does not appear in his comment.
Are you saying the pension component quoted in the newspapers' database is double-counting? If not, then the Total Cost of the employee "is" of interest, since that is the total cost borne by taxpayers. If the CCTimes did not fabricate those clearly labeled numbers, then I'm glad to have them. That's their job, which they don't do nearly enough. It's part of "getting the facts, and getting informed."
I do not have an axe to grind on this specific issue -- I was, frankly, just trying to understand the basis of your concern with the disclosures. Turns out it's a lot Less than I thought. When I see other local government services sacrificed on the police&fire altar, that "does" worry me.
So, can you point us in the general direction of the same figures for the Danville area's firefighters?
a resident of Danville
on Jul 7, 2012 at 4:41 pm
Turns out I could do it myself with a few clicks and my friend XL (I hope this works!):
Position Cash PnBfts Total Cost (K)
Asst Chief, Emerg Ops. 297 195 492
Chief 260 174 434
Asst Chief, Facilities 228 165 393
Batal. Chief, Emerg Op. 238 131 369
Batal. Chief, Emerg Op. 229 137 366
Captain Paramedic 240 119 359
Batal. Chief, Emerg Op. 213 133 346
Batal. Chief, Emerg Op. 208 127 335
Captain, Emerg. Ops. 219 114 333
a resident of another community
on Jul 7, 2012 at 6:00 pm
Sorry if I wasn't clear. My sources included the cctimes, but are not limited to them. As I pointed out in my previous post, I have several sources and speak to many employees directly (not just fire) and have found out for the most part, the cctimes database is inaccurate and at the very least misleading. I know firsthand it is "inaccurate" and if you dig any further than the cctimes own data that will become clear. I did not mean to be confusing by identifying the base salaries.
Actually while the original poster and following poster did not specifically use the term salary, he/she most definitely implied it. This is not my first reading of such posts and I highly doubt that you did not see the implication also. I have watched many fire hearings and workshops out of genuine interest and after reading the posts, it is evident, either he/she is missing the most basic facts, or he/she is purposely trying to mislead you. There are only two choices- pass a tax and keep the firehouses open, or vote it down and close up to ten stations. There is no third choice as he/she implies. According to testimony, and official record, the department has cut to the bone & the employees have cut salaries 10 percent.
The initial poster posted the weblink and then commented specifically; "You will also see the pay is overwhelming, out of control, and ridiculous." So knowing that the base pay (salary)of a fire captain is roughly 96k, minus 25k for mandatory retirement contributions that leaves a taxable salary of 70k (+/-). Remembering that neither the employer or employee has any control over costs of benefits…including out of control healthcare. Oh, that's right that is how private industry works! Makes one wonder where the times came up with those figures huh? Yes, I do believe to some degree they are double counting and applying figures incorrectly. Personally I think they should be paying more attention to the drivers of these costs and not the employers or employees who have no control. Then again that would be asking the times to be honest with its readers, and that is not going to happen. Again, no real secret there.
So to be clear, what I read above after investing my time trying to learn the real facts, is someone posting here that these firefighters are overpaid and then someone else piling on with compensation figures ranging from 262k-305k. In my book that is deceitful.
C-Mudge, I think this subject really comes down to the monumental loss of property tax revenues. Have yours been lowered? If you listened or watched the fire tax hearings it was pointed out that unlike other public services, the fire department runs soley off of property tax revenue. Plain and simple they are asking for 75 dollars to offset the hundreds (if not thousands) that has been lost through declines in property tax funding. But again if you live in Danville, you don't live in the district so you don't pay-there is no crossover of funds.
I have no axe to grind and you sound like a very logical individual. It is my hope that this exchange sheds some light. Where we may differ is I believe PD and fire, are the thin line that protects us. I see a tendency to take that for granted until we need help. It is easy to sit behind a keyboard and dismiss our individual vulnerability. What other government services are you seeing sacrificed in lieu of police and fire?
I believe you can find the information you seek on your own fire department (San Ramon) which is governed by its own board of locally elected directors (not the county) at this website. If I remember correctly it won a national award for its website. Hopefully it contains the info you want. Web Link
a resident of another community
on Jul 7, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Looks like our posts crossed.
You might want to double check those numbers. I believe the fire chiefs salary is currently $1 dollar.
For the most part the numbers look correct and inline for chief officers and upper management. From what I have seen actual "salary" accounts for about ½ of total cost which you have listed. Your fire district is similar to the one in Orinda-Moraga and unlike Confire is very well funded through other revenues.
a resident of another community
on Jul 7, 2012 at 7:51 pm
San Ramon Fire is even worse. The only thing people should be concerned with is the bottom line cost of the individual paid by the public tax dollars. Here in San Ramon its high annual person cost is $492,017.00 to the taxpayer.
Get informed get educated with what it costs to taxpayers not some base number. When I pay my taxes I pay all of them not just the base number. I wish I could pay just the base number. So these numbers are as real as it gets.
and so on This is all that matters because it is what the taxpayers give up for that position anually. Thats terrible.
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Collins, Bryan Assistant Chief
Emergency Operations $196,040 $0 $101,295 $31,058 $159,272 $0 $0 $4,353 $492,017
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Price, Richard R. Fire Chief
Fire Chief $208,104 $0 $52,306 $21,293 $149,475 $0 $0 $4,244 $435,422
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Hart, Steven J. Assistant Chief
Facilities $180,960 $0 $47,305 $30,728 $130,935 $0 $0 $3,403 $393,332
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Viera, John E. Batallion Chief
Emergency Operations $144,756 $55,787 $36,575 $24,242 $104,011 $0 $0 $3,490 $368,861
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Barton, John F. Batallion Chief
Emergency Operations $144,756 $37,107 $46,680 $24,242 $109,806 $0 $0 $2,584 $365,176
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Dakin, Matthew W. Captain Paramedic
Emergency Operations $106,236 $91,676 $41,620 $31,058 $84,619 $0 $0 $3,354 $358,563
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Picard, Michael J. Batallion Chief
Emergency Operations $144,251 $22,927 $45,598 $20,919 $109,254 $0 $0 $3,179 $346,127
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Krause, Derek K. Batallion Chief
Emergency Operations $144,756 $21,153 $43,066 $15,751 $107,581 $0 $0 $2,817 $335,124
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Garske, Michael J. Captain
Emergency Operations $115,089 $50,981 $53,365 $20,919 $91,443 $0 $0 $2,420 $334,216
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. McNamara, Daniel P. Captain Paramedic
Emergency Operations $106,236 $68,316 $36,466 $31,058 $81,859 $0 $0 $3,153 $327,088
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Ott, Leo D. Captain
Emergency Operations $106,236 $71,424 $30,777 $30,334 $78,715 $0 $0 $3,064 $320,549
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Martin III, James Captain Paramedic
Emergency Operations $106,236 $65,236 $36,134 $24,242 $81,681 $0 $0 $3,104 $316,633
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Schwartz, Kenneth A. Captain Paramedic
Emergency Operations $99,684 $67,942 $36,230 $31,058 $78,701 $0 $0 $2,901 $316,517
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Colon, James Captain
Emergency Operations $106,236 $76,970 $28,414 $24,242 $77,235 $0 $0 $3,140 $316,238
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Leonard, John D. Captain
Emergency Operations $106,824 $73,317 $23,997 $31,058 $75,442 $0 $0 $3,054 $313,691
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Jamison, Christina Fire Marshal
Fire Prevention $144,756 $0 $33,605 $30,267 $102,061 $0 $0 $2,680 $313,369
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Ray, Alex N. Captain Paramedic
Emergency Operations $106,236 $64,410 $34,462 $24,242 $80,760 $0 $0 $2,635 $312,745
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Anderson, Mark E. Captain
Emergency Operations $106,236 $71,387 $31,667 $24,242 $78,715 $0 $0 $94 $312,340
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Aguiar, Jonas C. Firefighter Paramedic
Emergency Operations $85,548 $114,767 $28,980 $12,032 $65,990 $0 $0 $3,418 $310,736
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Balch, Scott A. Firefighter Paramedic
Emergency Operations $85,548 $100,016 $30,696 $22,993 $66,724 $0 $0 $3,229 $309,206
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Armario, Donald L. Captain
Emergency Operations $106,236 $56,734 $30,994 $30,334 $78,715 $0 $0 $2,906 $305,919
Moraga-Orinda Fire Dist. Healy, Stephen B Division Chief(20 Years)
Safety $151,391 $53,146 $33,535 $15,706 $42,561 $5,925 $0 $3,488 $305,753
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Andersen, Thomas E. Captain
Emergency Operations $106,236 $51,357 $34,649 $30,334 $80,811 $0 $0 $2,054 $305,442
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Spani, Bruno C. Captain
Emergency Operations $106,236 $67,214 $26,907 $24,242 $76,424 $0 $0 $2,977 $304,000
San Ramon Valley Fire Protection Dist. Cochran, Steven M. Captain Paramedic
Emergency Operations $106,236 $45,725 $39,922 $24,242 $83,835 $0 $0 $2,876 $302,836
Factchecker thinks the rest of the money paid comes from the tooth fairy. Get educated get real.
a resident of another community
on Jul 7, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Voter ****,
You sure make the rounds all over the internet, spreading your unique brand of spin. I sure hope you did not spend too much time on this one in particular.
I hope for your sake, someday, somehow, some sense of reality sets in with you, before your jealousy, infatuation and frustration consumes you. Then again they say ignorance is bliss.
Let's see where to start? You said San Ramon is even worse. Worse how? Have you bothered to read the San Ramon FD financials? LAFCO's municipal service reviews on the district? They are in fantastic financial shape-and no not all of their funding comes from public tax dollars (property taxes). Just like Orinda/Moraga the fire department runs ambulance/paramedics with service fees and also receives revenue from interest income. Talk about being misinformed. It is typical for benefits to make up ½ of total compensation.
While you are at it you might want to get out of the '70's so that you come to realize the salaries stated are completely commensurate with the job titles and skill sets.
What you pay as a "taxpayer" has little to do with salaries or retirement benefits if you don't live in the district. There are many fire districts in contra costa county so you need to be a bit more specific. And speaking of specific you might want to re-examine your posting. A bunch of numbers without identification makes little sense, including your figures for the Fire Chief who currently is paid 1 dollar a year.
"The San Ramon Valley Fire District's chief quietly retired on Jan. 11 after six years with the department. At a district board meeting on Jan. 25, Richard Price announced that he would continue his duties as chief but with virtually no pay and no benefits.
According to reports, Price will officially be a volunteer and signed a contract with the district for a monthly salary of $1 for insurance purposes."
Voter, I am very aware of where the money comes from and exactly how much YOU contribute. …don't ever forget, the tooth fairy knows everything about you.
If you want to know who contributes what, you might want to sit down, put on your reading glasses, and become educated.
It doesn't get an more real that this;
Web Link
a resident of another community
on Jul 8, 2012 at 1:39 pm
"The new tax asked for by Con Fire and the Board of Supervisors needs to be voted down just like East County."
A; Yeah, they really showed them! They now have ½ of a fire department and the insurance rates are already on the rise…Oh wait, how did that hurt the department and the politicians?
"These politicians and union special interest will bleed us dry of every dollar we have unless we send them a message to stop giving away our savings."
A; Yep, they stand to gain…..nothing! That is some "message" the voters in East County sent them-now they are getting less than before and insurance rates will exceed the proposed tax. That was some real good financial decision making at the ballot box!
"Stop overpaying benefits and salaries with our money"
A; Wait, what? What is overpaying? In east county, it looks like firefighters made a whopping 50 grand a year, less 25 percent for mandatory contributions for benefits…we all agree that paying someone 38k a year is "overpaying" right?
"There are other avenues to rectify the fire district funding issue other than ask for more money. Just say NO. They have other options but fail to choose them because of the politics."
A; I am so glad there are other avenues to rectify this funding issue….can you remind us what they are again? Oh yeah, just say NO! That is brilliant. I am sure that worked in East County right?
"Look up Fire Departments Contra Costa and you will see why they want more money."
A; I looked them up, and all I could find was transcripts of how they want to continue to provide service to the communities they serve. Yep, that is an "evil and twisted" plan to extract more money from us.
"You will also see the pay is overwhelming, out of control, and ridiculous."
A; Ummmmm, I couldn't exactly find that part. It is pretty expensive to live and raise a family in Contra Costa County. So if paying an East Co firefighter 38k a year is ridiculous what should we pay them? Peanuts? Food stamps? Marbles?
"It has to stop before our children are mortgaged to debt and have no fire department but the retirees."
A; The "No" vote on the East County Measure pretty much took care of that. Well at least the no fire department part! It's a race to the bottom and the voters are winning!
"Here is what I think they are worth Maximum of $150K per year and when they retire after 40 years, they get what they have contributed to their 401Ks plus Medicare. Otherwise max out everyone's retirement benefits."
A; Well, since they are only making 50k in East Co., and 96k with Con Fire, are you suggesting maybe we should give them a raise? You really want them to retire after 40 years?….let's see how that works out- Hired at 28 years old, 40 years of service, so we will have 68 year old firefighters dropping like flies… Oh wait, most of them would have already gone out on tax free disability around 55-58. Great plan!
a resident of another community
on Jul 12, 2012 at 8:41 am
Maybe Contra Costa doesn't have it as bad as other areas.......
July 10, 2012 Email Print Comment RSS
Pa. mayor cuts firefighters' pay to minimum wageFirefighters and other city union workers plan to file suit against Scranton mayor Share86 inShare
The Associated Press
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SCRANTON, Pa. — Unions representing workers in the northeastern Pennsylvania city of Scranton expect to file a federal lawsuit against the city after the mayor abruptly cut their pay to minimum wage.
The attorney for three unions, including firefighters and police, tells The Times-Tribune of Scranton he expects to file several legal actions, including a motion to hold Mayor Chris Doherty in contempt of court for violating a judge's order to pay full wages.
Doherty last week cut the pay for about 400 employees to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. He says it was the only way for the cash-strapped city to pay bills, and promises to restore pay once finances are stabilized.
a resident of another community
on Jul 12, 2012 at 5:35 pm
John, you are so transparent. (You posted the same thing on the Brentwood Press).
You really need to get past your infatuation with things you don't quite understand.
While this is fairly old news, did you miss what the story was about or did you really just want to show us your delusional side once again?
In case you missed it the Mayor broke several laws and will be held accountable. He also did not show up to court and now is being charged with contempt. You can add that to the list.
"The attorney for three unions, including firefighters and police, tells The Times-Tribune of Scranton he expects to file several legal actions, including a motion to hold Mayor Chris Doherty in contempt of court for violating a judge's order to pay full wages."
a resident of another community
on Jul 13, 2012 at 9:27 am
Contra Costa Fire caps aid to East Contra Costa
Web Link
BRENTWOOD, Calif. (KGO) -- The next time firefighters in eastern Contra Costa County ask for mutual aid in a fire they may not get as much help as they need. There have been significant cuts in the county and since then, the calls for help from the Contra Costa Fire District have tripled. Now, the Contra Costa County says it can't keep up with the pace and residents in East County are feeling abandoned.
A grass fire threatened 11 homes in unincorporated Brentwood last Thursday. Contra Costa County sent four fire engines to help. Now, they say three engines is all they can send moving forward. "We need to make sure we protect our citizens who are paying, who are basically footing the bill for this," Contra Costa County Fire Chief Capt. Robert Marshall said. "So, we have to make sure that we can provide enough coverage for our citizens. Even though we're happy to help when we can, it's just that we can't always do that."
The chief of East County says he understands the decision, but is worried about what it will mean. "We are going to lose some houses and there are going to be some major injuries, and we're going to have some different outcomes," Eddie Washington told ABC7 News.
Voters in East County rejected a parcel tax that would have helped fund the fire district, so on July 1 officials closed half of the fire stations. There are now three engines and nine firefighters covering 249 square miles. In the first nine days of July, East County has asked Contra Costa County for 27 engines. County says it just cannot continue to help at that pace.
"Well, I guess they have to do what they've got to do. We've just got to be prepared ourselves I guess," one resident said.
"This is outrageous. As a citizen, I think it's outrageous. As a taxpayer, I don't care how much it costs. We need the fire departments fully staffed. We need emergency response times as quick as possible," another resident said.
"The amount of time it's going to take for us to get there is going to be significant which means there's more destruction," Marshall said.
Contra Costa County says its budget is also tight and its resources are thin so it has to use them wisely. They are going to have a parcel tax on the ballot in November and the firefighters there are hoping residents will see what happened in East County and vote to approve it.
a resident of another community
on Jul 15, 2012 at 12:52 am
5 Myths About Public Employee Pensions
There's an oft repeated myth being fed by many that claims the defined benefit pension plans available to most public employees are going bankrupt.
While a new report by the Pew Center for the States feeds those myths, Pew's research paints a false picture of pensions. Here are five oft-peddled myths about public pensions followed by the facts.
1. Pensions are going bankrupt.
The methods used to calculate a pension system's funding level are quite complicated and convoluted, which has enabled detractors to point to the funds in a few states -- Illinois, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Kentucky -- where funding shortfalls are notably higher.
Pew's "new" report relies on data from 2010, but that snapshot gives an inaccurate portrayal of the current fiscal health of pensions. In 2010, when the recovery was not as far along as it is today, 16 states were above the threshold that Pew says is necessary to qualify for good fiscal health. The number of states meeting that threshold today is probably much higher. For example, in Wisconsin the primary pension fund is 99.8 percent funded today. In the state of Washington, pensions are 119 percent funded today. In North Carolina, pensions are 100 percent funded today. Perhaps most important, pensions will continue to recover steadily as markets rebound.
2. States are facing an "unfunded liability" in excess of anywhere from $3 trillion to $757 billion.
The concept of an "unfunded liability" is misleading because pension benefits are paid out over decades. A mortgage represents a good analogy. Imagine newlyweds, both of whom work, buying a $300,000 home and putting $20,000 down. The $280,000 they owe represents an "unfunded liability," but like pensions, that money is not due all at once. It is due over 30 years, under the terms of a typical loan agreement.
Opponents of public employee pensions have skillfully portrayed pension liabilities as a bill that is due today. If homeowners had to pay the full cost of their home at the time of purchase, 99 percent of us would be renting. But homeowners don't have to pay for the homes all at once, so it's very misleading to portray pension funds in that light because pensions are paid to retirees over many decades.
3. States can no longer afford to pay benefits.
Payments to pension systems account for less than three percent of state budgets. Most of the funds in pension plans are not even provided by taxpayers -- two-thirds of all pension assets are contributed by employees or earned on investments.
Where pensions are underfunded, it's overwhelmingly because of the recession and because states took "pension holidays," which means politicians declined to make their state or locality's annual contribution -- breaking a promise to the public servants of that state and in a bad faith effort as the fiscal stewards of taxpayer dollars. Had they simply honored their commitments when times were good, virtually no state pension system would have unfunded pension liabilities that raise concerns.
This approach has worked for opponents of pensions because it allows them to shift blame to workers, but it does not change the fact that it advocates allowing states to ignore their responsibility to the people who perform the work to protect the public, teach our children and keep the state providing many other valuable services to its citizens.
4. Public employee benefits are overly generous.
Since pensions are now virtually non-existent in the private sector, and because the recession decimated the nest eggs of everyone with money in the stock market, opponents of defined benefit pensions have gained traction with this argument by creating and fostering pension envy.
The story that isn't told is that the pensions public employees receive, in most cases, are the only source of income those workers receive in retirement since most are not allowed to collect Social Security. And the median benefit of those receiving a pension paid by a public employer is $23,407, according to the National Institute for Retirement Security.
The hope is that their pension gives the average public worker the ability to pay their basic bills, but they definitely aren't getting rich in their old age.
CEO pay provides a better example of overly generous pay. Apple CEO Tim Cook earned $900,000 in pay and performance benefits in 2011 and received restricted stock worth $376 million that vests in 2016 and 2021. CEOs of the S&P 500 Index companies earned 380 times the salary of an average worker in 2011, according to the AFL-CIO's Executive Paywatch study.
5. We can fix the pension system by converting to 401(k)-style defined contribution plans.
There is a well-financed effort to force 401(k) plans as the solution because Wall Street firms stand to earn billions of dollars in fees if pensions are converted to 401(k)s.
But the momentum of that effort is dwindling because 401(k)s have provided investors with a paltry return over time. Think about what has happened to your own 401(k) since 2008 and whether the money in that account would be enough to sustain you in retirement.
A 60-year-old who worked for 30 years has an average 401(k) account balance of $172,555, according to the Employee Benefits Research Institute. That will provide retirement income of only $575.18 per month. It would take a 401(k) account balance of $1,000,000 to provide $40,000 annually over one's lifetime. To achieve a $1,000,000 account balance, you would need to contribute $1,000 a month every month for 30 years and earn a 6 percent return [after fees]. With an estimated 20 million Americans unemployed or underemployed and with real wages stagnant for decades -- average hourly earnings for all private-sector production and nonsupervisory workers across the economy have risen just 5.3% to $19.72 since 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- those who work for a living in this country over the past 30 years, not many have $1,000 to save every month after paying their bills.
The real retirement crisis is not in the public sector. It is in the private sector. The average 401(k) balance today is just $71,500, according to Fidelity Investments. Americans whose retirement security relies on Social Security supplemented by such small balances in 401(k)s must consider how they will avoid falling into poverty in their retirement years and states will need to figure out how they will provide welfare to those who do.
401(k)s were always intended to supplement -- not replace -- one's retirement income. About 10,000 Americans a day are turning 65 years old, according to the Pew Center for the States. While Wall Street's 401(k) plans have done nothing to help retirees enjoy their golden years, defined benefit plans are the best way to support retirees and allow them to continue to contribute to their local economies.
a resident of another community
on Jul 16, 2012 at 6:35 pm
Fatchecker is probably a firefighter, politician, or union representative trying to defend the overzealous costs that have been provided here. The comment that San Ramon is in great shape financially is overstated. Check out the unfunded liability of the District. Money that is not paid upfront is a debt. The entire cost of compensation to all public employees is provided by the taxpayer. If the people within the San Ramon Fire District want to compensate a firefighter four hundred thousand dollars a year then so be it. I bet that many have no idea one individual consumes so much of a tax dollar.
Lastly for factchecker to be believable real documentation to back the accusations that the CC Times is providing incorrect information with names attached should be supplied. This is where FC is just another mouth with no credibility.
I am sure that one of those employees listed would have filed court papers against the Times if the information was wrong. I seriously do not think the Times dream up the numbers either. This is where FC is a fool and unbelievable.
a resident of another community
on Jul 19, 2012 at 9:10 pm
@ Voter 8024,
I hope you didn't spend much time on your retort. As usual you spent all of your effort attacking and trying to figure out the messenger instead of dealing with the facts. It is obvious you have no idea what you are even talking about.


text:
Home >> Light Blue Rhinestone Flower Protective Hard Back Case Cover Skin for iPhone 4 4G
|Product Name
|Phone Back Case
|Fit Model
for Apple iPhone 4 4G
|Flower, Rhinestone
|Main Color
|Light Blue
|Net Weight
|Package Content
1 x Back Case for iPhone 4 4G
- Light blue hard plastic back case for Apple iPhone 4 4G, designed with flower pattern and shiny rhinestone decor.
- Can effectively protect your iPhone from dirts, fingerprints, scratches, grease, etc.
- Also a fashionable and beautiful cover case for your iPhone.
- This is a non-OEM generic product.
- Accessory Only. The iPhone is not included here.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Excerpt: "Fear the lawyers.
If the NFL disappears 30 years from now, as Baltimore Ravens safety Bernard Pollard predicts, less violence won't be the reason. Nor will it be decreased participation due to parental fears of injury that had even President Obama pondering what he'd do if he had a son.No, it will be the mass tort lawyers whose lawsuits have inspired "dangerous when hot" on coffee cups, "may irritate eyes" on pepper spray canisters, "caution -- risk of fire" on fire logs and other nonsensical warnings that threaten the NFL most.
Indeed, the concussion lawsuit filed by more than 3,000 former NFL players may bring radical changes to football from pee-wees to pros.Higher insurance premiums if the ex-players win the suit could end youth football. Look for a "Friday Night Lights" blackout, with only private high schools surviving with $20 tickets. Smaller colleges could stop playing. If football revenues drop, other sports disappear, too.The pros will have a smaller, less experienced player pool, diluting the product.
Combined with increased safety measures, less violence and poorer play will turn off fans.
The NFL's demise can happen. You don't see Roman gladiators around anymore. Boxing and horse racing, which once ruled the sports landscape 60 years ago, now barely have a pulse." Read more...


text:
Native Gardens for Home Landscapes topic of April 11 workshop
The Brainerd Chapter of Wild Ones and Eleanor Burkett will present Native Gardens for Home Landscapes at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 11, at the Northland Arboretum in Brainerd.
Native gardens don't have to be huge land restorations. This session will focus on incorporating native gardens of small to moderate size into your home landscape.
In addition to "how to" tips, there will be a discussion of surprises and "lessons learned" based on Burkett's experience with her own urban home landscape and her work professionally in designing, implementing and maintaining native gardens.
Burkett is an Extension educator in water resources for the University of Minnesota Extension and a founding member of the Brainerd Chapter of Wild Ones. She has taught and been involved in research about shore land filter gardens, native plants and rain gardens for 13 years.
She is an avid vegetable gardener and has incorporated several native gardens into her small home landscape in Brainerd.
Wild Ones promotes environmentally sound landscaping practices to preserve biodiversity through the preservation, restoration and establishment of native plant communities.
Visit www.brainerdwildones.com or email firstname.lastname@example.com for more information.
Cost is $3 for the public and free for Wild Ones members.


text:
News & Press
Wood-pellet boiler market heats up
Since then, Sandri, which has also moved to diversify its energy-businesses to include propane, solar power, as well as geothermal and pellet stoves, has installed more than 50 of the Austrian-designed wood-pellet boilers, which unlike regular pellet stoves are sophisticated central heating systems that automatically feed themselves, clean themselves and — most importantly — modulate temperatures according to outdoor temperature and the temperature of heated water returning through the system.
Through the federal stimulus program, the 82-year-old Greenfield company arranged 100 percent funding for installation of low-emission wood pellet boilers at eight institutional or commercial sites, offered dramatic discounts on the boilers to homeowners in Franklin and Hampshire counties; and purchased three $215,000 bulk pellet delivery trucks.
On the lower end of the spectrum is a 68,000 BTU boiler installed by Barry Elbaum at his six-apartment Montague building on Route 63. By replacing the oil-fired boiler and then weatherizing the building and installing a solar water-heating system between the time he bought it 25 years ago and last year, Elbaum had already cut annual fuel consumption from 5,000 gallons to 1,200 gallons. With the cost of a gallon of oil at nearly $4, he said, "I was looking for a way to control the cost of running a building. I was looking for alternatives, because I was just petrified of oil."
With natural gas not available and propane seeming "still tied to being exploited," he'd dismissed pellet boilers as being too exorbitant in cost. And then the stimulus funding underwrote the system's $40,000 cost down to just $10,000, he said.
"It's a wonderful thing," said Elbaum, who figures his payback on this system will be five years. "This wouldn't be possible without a subsidy. Without a subsidy, I don't know how anyone could afford to do this. The subsidy's created an infrastructure for there to be an industry for other than selling wood pellets by the bag."
He figures that in addition to 300 gallons of oil to back up his water heater, he will burn about six tons of pellets this year, the equivalent of about 720 gallons of oil, at $240 per ton. "It's all economics," he says.
On the other end of the spectrum is Full Bloom Market Garden in Whately, where owner Dewitt Thompson estimates the four boilers he installed to heat more than two acres of greenhouse space is displacing 60,000 gallons of fossil fuel a year for about $125,000 savings. "It wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for the grant," said Thompson, adding that his 3.2 million BTU system would have cost $300,000 for the three boilers alone. The boilers' cost was entirely underwritten by the grant, leaving Thompson with $100,000 in costs for related improvements to accommodate it
"Projects like this will help the boiler companies get things together and hopefully bring down their cost," he added. "I think they're expensive for the amount of heat they're actually producing, as with any kind of newer burning technologies. These are gasification boilers, very efficient, very clean burning, and they produce very little ash or fly ash. This could be the future."
Chicken and egg
That's the hope of Sandri, where the bulk of its energy business is still in gasoline and diesel fuel sold at 105 stations in four states, but where renewable heating technologies now account for about 7 percent of the business in its heating-air condition-ventilation sector. That's been beefed up with the company's purchase of Pioneer Valley Cooling and Heating and of New England Pellet LLC's Propell Energy subsidiary, and this year, it's on target for its pellet sales to equal 1 million gallons of heating oil, said company spokeswoman Kristin Wedegartner. "Our bulk wood pellet customer base is growing," she said, adding that that growth is coming in southeastern Vermont and southwestern New Hampshire, as well as Franklin and Hampshire counties.
Jake Goodyear, Sandri's vice president of renewable energy, said the stimulus funding helped anchor what may be one of the nation's largest concentrations of wood-pellet boilers here with the subsidized sale of 20 Austrian-designed boilers at seven or eight commercial sites and half a dozen or so homes from the fall of 2010 through last spring. The business has also been helped by a New Hampshire boiler rebate program that provides homeowners with 30 percent of the total costs of their wood-pellet systems.
Goodyear said the OkoFEN and ACT Bioenergy systems — are about 87 percent efficient, and the cost of delivered wood pellets now is about half that of heating oil, so it makes sense for larger users, even without the federal subsidy.
"It's difficult to make the numbers work for a three-bedroom ranch that burns 500 gallons of oil a year," Goodyear said. "The economics are pretty challenging. When you get into bigger homes, multifamily homes and businesses and institutions, the numbers can work organically right now, although the equipment is very expensive. As a homeowner, you'd have to be burning the equivalent of about 1,500 gallons of heating oil a year for the economics to make sense at this point."
Although the company has continued to sell the pellet boilers, particularly for schools in Vermont and New Hampshire homeowners with help from that state's rebate program, Goodyear called making the cost of small-scale manufacturing attractive here has been "a chicken-and-egg issue."
Sandri has been working to have Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources consider a rebate program for homeowners similar to the one in New Hampshire, and also to consider allowing renewable lheating technologies to be recognized for credits in much the same way that renewable electric-generating plants are certified for renewable portfolio standards, with the rationale that the impact is the same as generating electricity. "It's a challenge for any young industry like ours," he said. "Renewable thermal energy has been left by the wayside at the federal level, where all subsidies are focused on renewables on transportation fuels and electricity, as opposed to thermal heat. That's despite the fact that thermal is approximately one-third of the primary energy used for the country overall, and particularly in this part of the country."
Goodyear said he believes the price of those pellet-burning systems can come down by as much as 50 percent over time. "What the state saw was a company with the capability to kick-start the industry, and it saw the need for a distribution infrastructure at same time it was getting some systems installed."
You can reach Richie Davis at:
or 413-772-0261, Ext. 269


text:
Wayne Law Professor Hall Requested to Testify Before U.S. Congress
DETROIT (Dec. 10, 2007) – The United States House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Domestic Policy Subcommittee has requested Wayne State University Law School Professor Noah Hall to testify at a hearing on, "Assessing the Environmental Risks of the Water Bottling Industry's Extraction of Groundwater." The hearing will take place on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2007, at 2 p.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee hearing will examine the environmental issues presented when water bottling plants extract groundwater and spring water from water sources in rural communities. Specifically, the hearing will address the broader policy context of the water bottling industry; the impact on communities; the geological/hydrological dynamics and environmental effects; the growth, practices, and policies of the water bottling industry; and the adequacy of state property rights, state permitting systems, and federal regulations in addressing these issues.
The Subcommittee chairman has asked that Professor Hall's testimony describe "the existing state and federal regulatory schemes that apply to groundwater and spring water extraction by the water bottling industry" and evaluate "the adequacy of these regulatory regimes."
Professor Hall's teaching and expertise is in environmental and water law, and his research focuses on issues of environmental governance, federalism, and transboundary pollution and resource management. His is co-authoring (with Plater et al.) the fourth edition of Environmental Law and Policy: Nature, Law, and Society (Aspen Publishers, 2008). Other recent and forthcoming publications include:
- Political Externalities, Federalism, and a Proposal for an Interstate Environmental Impact Assessment Policy, 32 Harvard Environmental Law Review __ (forthcoming, 2008)
- Climate Change and Freshwater Resources (with Bret B. Stuntz, and Robert H. Abrams), 22 Natural Resources & Environment __ (forthcoming, Winter 2008)
- Transboundary Pollution: Harmonizing International and Domestic Law, 40 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 681 (2007)
- Toward A New Horizontal Federalism: Interstate Water Management in the Great Lakes Region, 77 Colorado Law Review 405 (2006)
Before joining the Law School faculty, Professor Hall previously taught at the University of Michigan Law School and was an attorney with the National Wildlife Federation, where he managed the Great Lakes Water Resources Program for the nation's largest conservation organization. Professor Hall also worked in private practice for several years, representing a variety of business and public interest clients in litigated and regulatory matters. He has extensive litigation experience and numerous published decisions in state and federal courts, and continues to represent a variety of clients in significant environmental policy disputes.
Professor Hall graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment, concentrating in environmental policy. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Kathleen A. Blatz, Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Wayne State University Law School has served Michigan and beyond since its inception as Detroit City Law School in 1927. Located in Detroit's re-energized historic cultural center, the Law School remains committed to student success and features modern lecture and court facilities, multi-media classrooms, a 250-seat auditorium, and the Arthur Neef Law Library, which houses one of the nation's 30 largest legal collections. Taught by an internationally recognized faculty, Wayne State Law School students experience a high-quality legal education via a growing array of hands-on curricular offerings, five live-client clinics, and access to well over 100 internships with local and non-profit entities each year. Its 11,000 living alumni, who work in every state of the nation and more than a dozen foreign countries, include leading members of the local, national and international legal communities. For more information, visit www.law.wayne.edu.


text:
Before filing your trademark in India, it is important that you evaluate possible obstacles that may arise during the registration process. Our Trademark Comprehensive Study will not only list similar trademarks (graphic/phonetic) that may conflict with yours, but it will also give you an attorney's opinion about registration possibilities. This trademark search report is optional but highly recommended.
Why do I need the Study?
What is the content of the Study?
Examples of Studies
Fees & Timeframes


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Home › Forums › Gear Forums › Gear (General) › Caldera Keg GVP?
Mar 2, 2010 at 10:45 pm #1255993
can you use a heineken can with the GVP caldera system instead of a Fosters? Do you just adjust the band?Mar 2, 2010 at 11:01 pm #1580993
I believe the Heineken can/keg is larger in diameter than the Fosters can/keg and therefore doubt if it will work. The silicone beer bands place along the crimp may lift the Heineken can/keg higher allowing it to fit but most likely would decrease fuel efficiency.
Having used this system for a while now I like the fact the caldera cone fits flushly inside the fosters can – it's a light, compact, efficient system.Mar 2, 2010 at 11:17 pm #1580997
thanks chris,
but im worried about durability for a AT thru hike.
thats why im looking to cut my own Heiny can.Mar 3, 2010 at 12:07 am #1581004
The GVP comes with a caddy….and the Fosters can is safe inside. However, if you would prefer not to use the caddy, we do offer a Caldera Keg-H made out of a Hiney can…..and you can get a Gram Cracker for it instead of the alcohol stove if that's the reason you were leaning toward the GVP.
email me through traildesigns.com if I can help out here.
RandMar 3, 2010 at 12:23 am #1581005
GVP durability….I've not used the caddy (it's almost the same weight as the entire stove graham cracker/keg/cone) and have not had an issue. One reason for this I believe is the cone rolled and inserted into the fosters can/keg adds some rigidity/structure. I simply use the small stuff sack which accompanies the system and carried at the very top inside the pack.
I've used this system extensively for the past year with no signs of wear/damage.
ChristopherMar 3, 2010 at 12:36 am #1581006
research shows that volume for the fosters can is 25.9oz
im guessing 16-20 oz is usable, 20oz is max for me, is this a usable amount with esbit?
Boil times with 16 oz of water at 50-60 degrees?Mar 3, 2010 at 1:04 am #1581010
I'd say that 20oz is doable with esbit but two tablets side by side in the graham cracker would be required to get a good boil.
I normally only heat 12oz of water for a MH ProPak Feeze Dried meal for dinner & coffee in the morning so max volume is never an issue.
Boil times: to be honest I couldn't tell you as I normally do other camp chores while water is heating/boiling.
ChristopherMar 3, 2010 at 11:24 am #1581166
Link .BPL Member
.Mar 6, 2010 at 2:33 pm #1582881
Joe LBPL Member
@heyyouLocale: Cutting brush off of the Arizona Tr
I've bought those in the past. One is now leaking at the crimp. I don't know if that is wear from packing it without the caddy, or if heat weakened the thin metal, or both.
I too would prefer an H can over a Fosters can.Mar 6, 2010 at 2:40 pm #1582887
I work-hardened my Fosters by carrying in caddy-less for about 300 miles. It then developed pinholes at the support rib.
While others have done well with the Fosters, I suspect that I just pack to tight, and each step slightly squeezes the can.
For "loose packers" this might not be an issue.
I recommend contacting Rand at TD. They are very accommodating and supportive.
I just got my Keg-H and I like it a Lot! Shorter, and very solid. For me it will pack better, and I'm sure, last longer.Mar 6, 2010 at 2:53 pm #1582892
Link .BPL Member
I haven't had a problem with my fosters can, but I did with the original cone I recieved and they sent me a new one for free with the reinforced titanium slide and now every thing works great no problems.They are really great to deal with.Mar 7, 2010 at 1:23 pm #1583239
Ethan A.BPL Member
@mountainwalkerLocale: SF Bay Area & New England
Since only about half of the water in the H can can be lowered into the Caldera Cone, about how much water can be boiled relatively efficiently? Just wondering how long it would take to prepare enough water for meal + hot drink for 2, and whether the F can would be better for two (leaned toward the H can for the durability and lower packing volume).Mar 7, 2010 at 3:17 pm #1583285
Mark HurdBPL Member
@markhurdLocale: South Texas
I would be interested in the boil time/efficiency of the H-can system, too I've been using the F version for several years without a caddy and no leaks yet, but I'm considering the sturdier appearing H version for a change.
– MarkMar 7, 2010 at 4:17 pm #1583304
Ethan A.BPL Member
@mountainwalkerLocale: SF Bay Area & New England
Rand if you are still out there, love to hear your thoughts. You've always been super informative and I have tremendous respect for your products and excellent customer relations.Mar 8, 2010 at 12:04 am #1583430
Weighing in here since I was called out! :-)
First, going back to first principles, what makes the Caldera Cone concept powerful isn't that it does anything special with alcohol or the stove…..that's a baked in limitation that has been pounded on for decades (if not a century) now. Not saying someone won't figure something out to make a leap forward in alcohol stoves, but it's increasingly hard to imagine. Where the Caldera made a step forward was to take that fairly well understood (and limited) heat source, and to make better use of it by holding the heat close to the pot as it escaped, and at the same time isolate the pot and the stove from the colder environment…..on a more stable platform.
Second, there has been a movement afoot from the marketplace to push all this the gear down inside the pot. Doing this (Fissure aside) has consequently pushed the cone to shorter and shorter heights (ala. ULC/Keg), and pushed more and more of the pot, and consequently the water up out of the heat zone into the colder environment.
So, how does all this apply to the Keg-F and the Keg-H? For all intents and purposes, assume they are the same system with respect to material properties, fuel, stove, wall thicknesses, etc. Where they differ is that the Keg-F holds just about 2 cups of water inside the cone where all the action is…..and the Keg-H holds about 1.5 cups. That extra 1/2 cup of water in the Keg-H is not getting directly heated. It is touching the can that is exposed to the environment up outside the cone, not taking advantage of the inherent strength of the Caldera system….but the cone sure does fit in the can! So, the performance differences between the two systems will be as a result of this 1/2 cup not being inside the cone.
As to other system comparisons, the Keg-H can is heavier plus requires the beer-band to support it on the cone, while the Keg-F can is lighter, doesn't need the band, and heats all the water at once (but is flimsier and has a Caddy for protection if needed). There are other bag and caddy and cozy frills, but that's the big delta.
And to throw one final confusion into the mix, the Keg-GVP cone fits completely down inside the lighter Keg-F can but STILL heats the same ~2 cups of water inside the cone….the difference here is that we were able to make that cone shorter because it is an "esbit only" solution and we don't need the offset distance that an alcohol stove requires….so….shorter cone….fits in the pot….and still heats the typical 2 cup volume. (oh…and Gram Cracker=3gm….12-10 stove=16gm)
As to EJ's other question…..honestly a single Fosters/Heineken can is probably not the optimum choice for 2 people if you want to cook everything in one boil. The cans are only 25oz/750ml in size and what you are asking for is more than that. Also, as I noted, about half of the water would be above the cone and in the environment. Now, one concept to consider is, that since the pot/cone/stove system is so light (actually those 3 are lighter than my Suunto watch!) the concept of carrying two is not out of the question!! (blatant capitalistic plug :-)
Hope that helps further the conversation…..let me know!
Rand :-)Mar 8, 2010 at 12:30 pm #1583626
I don't have a Keg GVP, but I do have a Keg-H and a Keg-F. Testing these to, side by side, yielded interesting results.
Air Temp in the garage was 50°F.
No breezes in the garage.
Water temperature was close to 33°F.
Water in my garage boils at 197°F
Fuel was Sunnyside Denatured Alcohol (~90% ethanol)
Once a boil was reached, the pot and cone were lifted, the stove was snuffed, and then immediately weighed.
I believe fuel weights are accurate to 0.2 grams, even with delays after fueling, weighing, lighting, snuffing etc.
The actual boil times are with 5 seconds – Light #1, Light #2, set #2 Cone, set #1 Cone, start the timer.
I used Reflectix cozys as lids. Lids make a Huge difference. If you are not using one, you should be.
The first round was for 2 cups of water:
The Heine took 11:35 for a rolling boil
The Fosters took 11:10 for a rolling boil
The Heine used 11.6 grams of alcohol.
The Fosters used 12.2 grams of alcohol
The second round was for 3 cups of water:
The Heine took 15:00 to boil
The Fosters took 13:20 to boil
The Heine used 16.8 grams of alcohol
The Fosters used 17.3 grams of alcohol.
In the photo below, note the level of the water –
It was a dicey deal lifting the pots, and the only thing between your fingers and boiling water is some very thin very conductive aluminum.
The photo below shows another use of a cozy –
This improves efficiency, but has a tendency to degrade the edge of the cozy. I don't mind, as cozys are easy and cheap to make.
My conclusion is that any differences in efficiency are small, and easily overwhelmed by wind and subtle variations in stove height/pot height.
Note that in this particular combination of components the Fosters boiled faster, but used more fuel. Perhaps my Fosters band has slipped, lowering the pot, superheating the alcohol, etc., etc.
In this test, the additional cup of water (50% more) was above/outside of the cone, yet the boil required less than a 50% increase in fuel.
Last, the risk of burns when dealing with 3 cups of hot water, in a "24 oz." can, is very real.Mar 8, 2010 at 6:07 pm #1583760
Mark HurdBPL Member
@markhurdLocale: South Texas
Rand and Greg,
Thank you! A great synopsis of the design and trade offs, followed by some real world data. I realize the sample was small, but this was just the kind of info I was looking for. Thanks. I continue to be a big fan of TrailDesigns and the Caldera Cone system.
-MarkMar 8, 2010 at 10:01 pm #1583886
Wicked good buddy! Great writeup!
WRT the band location…..looks like the ridge on the formed cans is about 3 1/8" up from the bottom and we call for 3 1/4 with the beer band documentation….so anywhere in there would likely be good. One other note that might make some minor difference is that with the Fosters can as shipped, we do reform the bottom mostly to provide more room for the cone. Not sure if that would have any performance effect, just making a note.
Rand :-)Mar 9, 2010 at 6:07 am #1583960
Aha Moment… "…we do reform the bottom…"
So on "cut my own cans" I may need to move the band down just a bit…
Thanks. I never noticed.Mar 14, 2010 at 9:18 pm #1586496
Roleigh MartinBPL Member
@marti124Locale: Moderator-JohnMuirTrail Yahoo Group
Rand, is there an optional caddy that holds the entire Keg-H system? What is the name of that caddy to order it at AGG?
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.


text:
Your requested page has not been found, is momentarily not available or hasn't been translated yet.
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If you have just reached this page from an external link, please contact the webmaster of that website and tell him that this linking is not correct or out of use. Thank you very much for your cooperation.


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Police: Student brought stolen handgun to Belgrade High School
BOZEMAN, Mont. - Belgrade Police are investigating a burglary they say led to a handgun being brought to the high school. The school took precautions after rumors that a student was involved in the burglary.
It was only after police had a suspect in custody that they learned a gun was stolen and taken to school.
Officials say this incident developed over two days.
NBC Montana talked with Belgrade School's acting superintendent Mark Halgren. Halgren says it started Wednesday afternoon when a home near the school was burglarized.
According to police, the burglary was not discovered until some time that evening.
On Thursday morning police were still investigating. That is when the administrators learned of possible student involvement and put the high school on alert.
Once police identified and arrested a suspect, that's when they learned the gun had been brought to the high school Wednesday.
Halgren told us they learned other students knew about the gun, but they didn't know until Thursday.
"Of course we learned of it the day after the fact. So in retrospect taken the precautionary measure of going into shelter in place was a positive choice on the school administration's part," explained Halgren.
Police say the suspect is custody.
The district says it is satisfied with the way the situation was handled and feel they took the proper precautions to ensure students were safe. Halgren said they will review disciplinary procedures and the student may face possible expulsion.


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Idaho Falls ice rink opens
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho - The ice rink at Tautphaus Park in Idaho Falls is open for the season.
The rink is open for public skating every day from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. If you don't have your own skates, you can rent them for $3.
The city is expanding the classes and open public skating.
"We're really excited," said Parks and Recreation Director Greg Weitzel. "This year we're doing a public skate on Friday nights from 7 to 9. It's a great date night. It's a great thing for families to come out. ..."
Hockey lessons and private figure skating lessons will be offered on the ice as well. You can find the schedule at bit.ly/Hxdz5o.


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UTSA hosts Australian school leaders April 21
By Kris Rodriguez
Public Affairs Specialist
(April 20, 2009)--The UTSA Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in the College of Education and Human Development will host a presentation, "Creating a Blueprint to Transform Schools: An Australian Perspective" by 12 Australian school leaders.
Today's headlines
- La Prensa Foundation is newest member of UTSA Lone Star Society
- UTSA alumna Jordan Kaufmann wins $50K for new stent-graft start-up
- UTSA begins new way-finding sign installation this summer at Main Campus
- USA Today: UTSA long jumper Tyler Williamson rescues three-year-old boy
Article tools
>> Free and open to the public, the presentation will be from 3 to 4:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 21 in the University Center Harris Room (2.212) on the UTSA Main Campus.
The presentation is part of a weeklong visit to San Antonio as the Australians visit local schools and professional organizations to share their experiences regarding trends in principal and leadership preparation.
For more information, contact the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at (210) 458-5848.


text:
Why should there be no more black Hollywood? The answer is so simple: Black movie stars and celebrities are no longer proud of their heritage. We gave our African American journalists department permission to do this article, because it makes sense and people in the movie industry need to just call it Universal Hollywood, if not, nothing at all, just Hollywood. There all types of celebrities who are making the message very clear, that being black is no longer acceptable, whether if they are changing their facial features or just marrying outside of their race and because the majority have so proudly posed in front of cameras with their white or Asian spouses, there is no such a thing as black Hollywood. Therefore, there should be no more BET (Black Entertainment Television), BET Awards, 100 Black Men of America, BlackVoices.com, Ebony and Jet magazine, Essence Magazine, National Action Network or any other black affiliation, simply because these famous African Americans have misdirected the black community.
African Americans have been the highest cases of AIDS for several years now and if you have lived 30 years or more, you acknowledge the history of AIDS. These days, most African Americans have lived hypocritical lives, because they have easily forgotten how much AIDS has attacked the black community and it is very weird how they are easily adapting to bi-racial relationships. Of course, not all black people have been diagnosed with the AIDS or HIV, the disease that causes AIDS, but there have been thousands of lives gone because of the epidemic. The question is, why aren't white people afraid to become sexually involved with African Americans? A lot of people who are a part of the interracial society do not understand why there are some black people who do not want to share their lives with someone white, Asian or any other race. It is simply because there is deep pain for all of the lives that were lost and are still lost because of AIDS. To a lot of African Americans who care about the subject of AIDS, it is not normal for any other race to desire a relationship black people, because the race has suffered the most while enduring a high death rate.


text:
Town Square
ObromneyCare, Part Deux: Estimation Boogaloo
Original post made by Tom Cushing, Danville, on May 3, 2012
There are at least three major problems with the former task. The first is predictable, in this era of partisan rancor: there is no end of information abroad in the land, but most of it is of the political axe-grinding variety. As such, it is designed to sell a position, not convey useful information to a hopeful electorate. Thus, it will focus on only the expenditure side, ignoring balancing revenue effects (e.g., penalties, excise taxes , and savings), or claim that costs have escalated mightily, when a later estimate simply includes more years of full implementation, or just unhelpful (Cf. the breathless "100+ new agencies" claim in a comment to a prior article). If your goal is to scare folks, it's easy to cough-up a scary-big number in the health-care field -- it comprises almost 20 percent of GDP.
The second problem is the inherent complexity of the prediction task -- predicting human behavior (Will the uninsured get coverage, or pay penalties? Will the many folks now eligible for Medicaid, but uncovered, get covered? Will the currently uninsured cost less to the system, because they won't wait for a crisis before they seek treatment?), and economic effects as many as ten years in the future (will the underlying economy be strong, meaning better employment and fewer uncovered individuals? How fast will medical costs escalate?). Depending on the assumptions you choose, you may determine your outcome -- and you know what your mama taught you about what else assumptions do.
Finally, estimation accuracy is compromised by byzantine mess of a payment system that currently exists. Not only is it impossible to accurately assess actual or comparative costs at an individual level (if you've had recent surgery, you know what I mean) – it's also nearly impossible to roll-up those separate unknowables into a comprehensible whole. Further, what do we do with all the costs of treatment for the uninsured, mandated since the 1980s, but unfunded? They are a substantial fraction in these calculations, and currently borne by...whom? Some costs are reimbursed by various level s of government, others by higher premiums for everyone, others go unpaid and enter the tax system by that route.
So, the task is daunting, and may be a fool's errand, but the latest Congressional Budget Office figures to be brutalized above are as follows, for the decade 2012-21:
Gross cost: $1,496 billion (Medicaid, children, and small business subsidies)
minus Offsets -$413 billion (excise taxes and penalty collections)
Net cost: $1,083 billion
Other federal budget effects (from earlier estimates, not updated recently):
Spending reductions: -$732 billion (Medicare changes)
Other revenue: -$520 billion (payroll and other taxes)
Net deficit effect: -$231 billion (that's right – CBO estimates ACA reduces the deficit).
So, there you have it, for what it may be worth. Individual effects will, of course, depend on your tax bracket, your age, current coverage, whether you are covered by hugely generous plan, and payroll tax exposure.
As to whether these numbers resolve the issue of whether anyone ought to support or oppose ObromneyCare -- I do not think that answer is here. That decision better relates to values issues: your view of the proper roles of government, individual responsibility, empathy, and whether you believe, as I do, that the current mess is unmanageable, corrupt, and needs a major overhaul.
You were promised some coverage of the legal issues -- mostly whether the federal government has the power to enforce an individual mandate. Frankly, that's been covered elsewhere, ad nauseum, so unless there's an upheaval in the Comments (meaning more than one-or-two curious souls), I intend to move on to other matters next week.
a resident of Danville
on May 5, 2012 at 1:11 am
This author is just regurgitating the same Democrat propaganda numbers on the Health Care Reform Law.
Looking at a 10 year period greatly confuses the issue since the costs are just ramping up in the early years of this period. It is better to look at a particular year towards the end of the period when the program has been fully implemented. This produces a much different picture. The annual cost is more than double what has been represented. The impact on our deficit and overall economy will be devastating.
This law hurts 95% of Americans in order to help 5%. There are simpler, fiscally responsible ways to accomplish the same objectives without the devastating effects of this misguided legislation. It must be repealed and replaced by legislation that is actuarially sound and does not involve government takeover of our health care system.
a resident of Alamo
on May 5, 2012 at 7:00 am
Interesting you should make that claim on this entry, TL -- did you even read it?
I wasn't looking for support or opposition -- I was trying to get to credible numbers to inform myself first, and then write it up. In fact, when you set about to google for information on these costs, you have to wade through a swamp of partisan claims, mostly from the strident opposition, which led to my caveat in paragraph two.
I eventually decided on the CBO figures, not because they're perfect (they're not), but Because.They're.Non-partisan. As such, they are distinctly Not propaganda -- they are an imperfect resource, but attempt to convey information to guide policy. I've also complained before about the ten-year horizon they use, but that may actually be appropriate here because of the long lead-in to full implementation. As I also wrote, the later numbers may suffer from inherent underlying uncertainty about important assumptions.
The 2012-21 numbers aren't too bad in terms of your full implementation complaint -- interestingly, they actually show a drop in net cost during those later, full-implementation years, but everyone knows it's a crapshoot. I will personally be surprised if this legislation ends up deficit neutral or better, but those are CBO numbers, un-managed by me.
Which is why I return to my conclusion that whether one should support or oppose ObromneyCare (which is working well in Massachusetts, by most accounts) is not found in these numbers, but in broader, deeper notions of how the world should work.
I'd add that the whole basis for this legislation came from think tanks on the right side of the aisle, not the left -- which is part of why Obama chose the approach. I believe that nothing this President proposes would ever be embraced by the GOP. More on that next week.
a resident of Danville
on May 6, 2012 at 3:09 pm
Be careful when quoting the "non-partisan" CBO fiscal forecasts. The CBO is locked into using the assumptions that come from the authors of the legislation. In effect, they just take the assumptions on savings and revenue that have been provided to them an put them into a spreadsheet. Yes .. this is "non-partisan", but the assumptions behind the numbers are anything but that.
If you study the fiscal forecasts carefully, it becomes immediately obvious they are mainly "smoke and mirrors". The majority of the offsetting revenue to pay for Health Care Reform comes from savings in Medicare. This is great if these savings really materialize; but the problem is that Medicare is already underfunded (half of cost is paid from the general fund). Any savings in Medicare must be used to support Medicare, not pay for another completely new program.
If you take the 2019 cost of HCR and extapolate it over 10 year (without inflation), this law acutally costs $2.2 trillion, not the $1 trillion that Democrat propagandists would like you to believe. Costs born by individuals and private sector busiensses are not even included in the analysis or even estimated.
I would support a health care reform law if:
(1) It is managed by an independent board separate from the Federal government and budget. In this way American taxpayers will be able to see an annual fiscal statement of costs and benefits provided. The current law is so intertwined with other government spending that no one will ever be able to figure out the true cost.
(2) It is paid for by a broad based payroll tax (this tax can be progressive, but everyone who works should contibute something). The payroll tax would be adusted annually to keep the system fiscally sound. One of the problems with our nation is that everyone wants more services from the government, but they want someone else to pay for it.
(3) It does not put a government agengy (Dept of Health & Human Services) in effective control of the health care industry. Nearly every page of this 2400 page law contains new powers, authorities and regulations that effectively put our government in charge of the entire health care industry and insurance industry.
ps. Social Security and Medicare should also be managed completely separate from the federal budget and supported entirely by the payroll tax and earnings from the trust fund.
a resident of San Ramon Valley High School
on May 9, 2012 at 9:16 am
Good Report Tom, and you're right, this issue really can't be totally dissected because of it's enormous entanglements. I DO know one thing for sure: our Health Care services are controlled by three entities: Health Insurance companies, Pharmaceutical companies, and lobbyists. The one aspect that I truly like (and I didn't see a mention in your posting), is that it limits the profits of the Insurance companies. it requires that they spend 80 percent of their premiums (after subtracting taxes and regulatory fees) on medical costs. Right now? There are many companies that only spend 50%, pocketing the other 50%: pure (and obscene) greed, as far as I'm concerned. This reform will be rectify this injustice, at the very least!
a resident of Walnut Creek
on May 10, 2012 at 11:31 am
Curious there is no mention of all the affirmative action special programs going on to crank out unqualified doctors. Makes it much easier to terminate granny when her illness becomes not cost effective under Obama's guidelines....read death panels.
a resident of Danville
on May 10, 2012 at 12:05 pm
Is that an actual serious comment, McG? If so, you might want to ask your own doc to adjust your dosage.


text:
Submit News
"Vista Capable" Class Action Suit Against Microsoft Moves Forward
Jason Mick
February 25, 2008 1:31 AM
Recipient E-mail
Sender E-mail
A lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging it intentionally deceived by labeling underpowered PCs "Vista Capable" wins class action status
reported earlier this month
on a pending lawsuit
, which sought
class action against Microsoft for allegedly knowingly deceiving consumers
by labeling underpowered computers "Vista Capable", when the computers could only run a bare bones version of Vista lacking many features. The suit alleged that Microsoft's practice was designed to increase sales at the user's expense.
While the suit seemed somewhat tenuous due to the extensive easy to reach online documentation on system specifics needed and levels of capability, it was strengthened by leaked internal emails from Microsoft which painted a picture of many Microsoft employees and executives venting frustration about the program, which
they believed was inaccurate
Several employees claimed to be personally affected by the claims, and said the management involved, "
really botched this." Wrote one Microsoft employee,
Mike Nash,
"I PERSONALLY got burnt ... Are we seeing this from a lot of customers? ... I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine."
A federal judge,
U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman,
granted the suit class action status
, but slightly narrowed its scope. She ruled that a class action could proceed with the intent of determining whether Microsoft's stickers caused an artificial demand for PCs during the 2006 holiday shopping season, and inflated the prices of computers which couldn't be upgraded to Windows Vista, when it
released in January 2007
Ironically neither of the two people filing the original lawsuit had took part in Microsoft's upgrade program. However, despite not purchasing Windows Vista, they argued that they were still hurt as they had to pay a higher price for their PCs while getting a computer that could only run a basic version of Windows Vista.
The Judge did say that if the pair added a named plaintiff who participated in the "Express Upgrade" program they could pursue the class action claims concerning the limited functionality as well.
One of Windows Vista's most touted features is
the Aero interface
. However, it takes considerable overhead to run, and thus many of the machines labeled "Windows Vista," were unable to support it and could only run Windows Vista in a more graphically barren mode.
Microsoft did not comment on the suit, but may appeal the ruling.
"Intel is investing heavily (think gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours) in resources to create an Intel host controllers spec in order to speed time to market of the USB 3.0 technology." -- Intel blogger Nick Knupffer
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text:
I'm not planning on getting too political here on Latinaish.com despite it being an election year, but I couldn't resist sharing this greeting card I discovered this evening at Target.
Wow – this simple card manages to hit 3 demographics at once!
1. Spanglish speakers
2. Democrats or others voting for Obama
3. People familiar with the "Keep Calm" meme
Congratulations to the artist at Recycled Paper Greetings for hitting it out of the park. And for Republicans out there, no worries, there was a much less catchy "Keep Calm, Vote for Rom" version as well.


text: I think the pinky rests are best when using the 26 as a belt gun. When carried in a pocket or on the ankle, the flat baseplate is best for most people of average size. However, I doubt it would cause a problem drawing, as long as the pocket is big enough in general to house the biggish 26.


text:
Eve Ensler:
What security means to me
Playwright Eve Ensler explores our modern craving for security — and why it makes us less secure. Listen for inspiring, heartbreaking stories of women making change.
Similar topics
- Activism
- Culture
- Global issues
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- War
- Women
This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.
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Art prints & frames, handmade in England since 1982
The Baroque style is one associated with grand exuberance, as the Catholic Church responded to the Protestant reformation. Baroque art thus seeks to express religious ideas in a clear, yet visually arresting style that seeks to fully engage those who experience it. Reflecting its status as a European movement Dutch painting reached stunning highs in the period, notably in the work of masters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Rubens. When those great works are considered alongside Bernini's sculpture, Borromini's architecture and Caravaggio's painting, it's clear that the Baroque period represents one of the most glorious periods of artistic expression.


text: I was offered an old hive today by a business acquaintance, if I want it. The hive was left out in the back of a field behind a place of business and has not been worked or had any human intervention for the past 5 or more years. I went and looked at the hive externally (didn't have any of my equipment with me). It consists of 1 deep super (hive body) with 3 medium and 2 shallow supers on top of that. It looks like the bees no longer use the hive entrance, but rather are now using two lower corners of the top super (where the wood was either broken or rotted) for going in and out of the hive. I couldn't see the original entrance due to the position of the hive. There was lots of coming and going by the bees, and they look like slightly smaller than usual Italians, if I had to take my best guess. I did not see any defensive behavior when I got fairly close to the hive. I would bet the bottom board is fairly rotted, and the supers probably aren't in the best of shape either. My question is this: What's the best way to move the hive considering that some of the wood may be pretty weak? I didn't see a queen excluder, unless it is plastic or just wire without a wood frame. If the hive is full, there's no way I can move it due to the weight without completely breaking it down super by super. Will it be propolis and wax hell? Any suggestions? Thanks for any info.


text: if a mail arrives for a user who´s web size is out of quota (Maildir quota is -1) the mail will be defered and send back to sender as follows: Code: This is the Postfix program at host domain.tld. I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below. For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster> If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the attached returned message. The Postfix program <[email protected][email protected][email protected][email protected][email protected] the same in /var/log/mail Code: Feb 13 10:44:50 linux postfix/local[28430]: 75355C30183: to=<[email protected][email protected] If the quota is increased so that the mail will be accepted all works fine. If the quota is decreased again, the error occurs again. I have tested this in different ways, with/without responders, Web-Quota -1, 1, xy and so on ... according to http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=840#4 I think to understand what happens - but I don´t know how to fix that. Can anybody give me a hint where I can put in this missing factor for quota calculation? Many thanks in advance! (system: Suse10-Perfect-Setup-System with Maildir)


text:
Notes from EUSIPCO 2012
Just back from the EUSIPCO 2012 conference in Bucharest. (The conference was held in the opulent Palace of the Parliament - see previous article for some thoughts on the palace and the town.) Here some notes about interesting talks/posters I saw:
Lots of stuff relevant to recognition in audio scenes, which is handy because that's related to my current work.
- David Damm's "System for audio summarisation in acoustic monitoring scenarios". Nice approach and demo (with sounds localised around the Frauenhofer campus), though the self-admitted drawback is that it isn't yet particularly scalebale, using full DTW search etc.
- Sebastien Fenet's "fingerprint-based detection of repeating objects in multimedia streams" - here a very scaleable approach, using fingerprints (as is done in other large-scale systems such as Shazam). In this paper he compared two fingerprint types: a Shazam-like spectral-peaks method (but using constant-Q spectrum); and a shallow Matching Pursuit applied to multiscale STFT. His results seem to favour the former.
- Xavier Valero's "Gammatone wavelet features for sound classification in surveillance applications" - this multiscale version of gammatone is apparently better for detecting bangs and bumps (which fits with folk knowledge about wavelets...).
- M. A. Sehili's "Daily sound recognition using a combination of GMM and SVM for home automation" - they used something called a Sequence Classification Kernel which apparently can be used in an SVM to classify sequential data, even different-length sequential data. Have to check that out.
- Two separate papers - Anansie Zlatintsi's "AM-FM Modulation Features" and Xavier Valero's "Narrow-band Autocorrelation features" - used features which are complementary to the standard Mel energies, by analysing the fine variation within each band. They each found improved results (for different classification tasks). (In my own thesis I looked at band-wise spectral crest features, hoping to achieve something similar. I found that they did provide complementary information [Sec 3.4] but unfortunately were not robust enough to noise/degradation for my purposes [Sec 3.3]. It'll be interesting to see how these different features hold up - they are more interesting than my spectral crests I think.)
Plenty of informed audio source separation was in evidence too. Not my specialism, more that of others in our group who came along... but I caught a couple of them, including Derry Fitzgerald's "User assisted separation using tensor factorisations" and Juan-Jose Bosch's "Score-informed and timbre-independent lead instrument separation in real-world scenarios".
Other papers that were interesting:
- T Adali, "Use of diversity in independent decompositions" - for indendence-based decompositions, you can use either of two assumptions about the components: non-Gaussianity or time-dependence. The speaker noted that measuring mutual information rate covers both of these properties, so it seems like a neat thing to use. She used it for some tensor decompositions which were a bit beyond me.
- C Areliano's poster on "Shape model fitting algorithm without point correspondence": simple idea for matching a hand image against a template which has marked points on it (but the query image doesn't): convert both representations into GMMs then find a good registration between the two GMMs. Could be useful, though the registration search is basically brute-force in this paper I think.
- Y Panagakis prsented "Music structure analysis by subspace modeling" - it makes a lot of sense, intuitively, that music structure such as verse-chorus-verse should be suited to this idea of fitting different feature subspaces to them. The way music is produced and mixed should make it appropriate for this, I imagine (whereas for audio scenes we probably don't hop from subspace to subspace... unless the mic is moving from indoors to outdoors for example...)
- Y Bar-Yosef's "Discriminative Algorithm for comacting mixture models with application to language recognition". Taking a GMM and approximating it by a smaller one is a general useful technique - here they were using Hershey and Olsen's 2007 "variational approximation" to the KLD between two GMMs. In this paper, their optimisation tries to preserve the discriminative power between two GMMs, rather than simply keeping the best fit independently.
- I Ari's "Large scale polyphonic music transcription using randomized matrix decompositions" - some elegant tweaks which mean they can handle a very large matrix of data, using a weighted-random atom selection technique which reminds me a little of a kind of randomised Matching Pursuit (though MP is not what they're doing). They reduce the formal complexity of matrix factorisation, both in time and in space, so that it's much more tractable.
- H Hu's "Sparsity level in a non-negative matrix factorisation based speech strategy in cochlear implants" - I know they do some good work with cochlear implants at Southampton Uni. This was a nice example: not only did they use Sparse NMF for noise reduction, and test it with human subjects in simulated conditions, but they also implemented it on a hardware device as used in cochlear implants. This latter point is important because at first I was dubious whether this fancy processing was efficient enough to run on a cochlear implant - good to see a paper that answers those kind of questions immediately.
Christian Jutten gave a plenary talk on source-separation in nonlinear mixtures. Apparently there's a proof from the 1980s by Darmois that if you have multiple sources nonlinearly mixed, then ICA cannot guarantee to separate them, for the following simple reason: ICA works by maximising independence, but Darmois proved that for any set of perfectly independent sources you can always construct a nonlinear mixture that preserves this independence. (Jutten gave an example procedure to do this; I think you could use the inverse-copula of the joint distribution as another way.)
Therefore to do source-separation on nonlinear mixtures you need to add some assumptions, either as constraints or regularisation. Constraining just to "smooth mappings" doesn't work. One set of mixture types which does work is "post-nonlinear mixtures", which means mixtures in which nonlinearities are applied separately to the outputs after linear mixing. (This is a reasonable model, for example, if your mics have nonlinearities but you can assume the sounds linearly mixed in the air before they reached the mics.) You have to use nonlinearities which satisfy a particular additivity constraint (f(u+v) = (f(u)+f(v))/(1+f(u)f(v)) ... tanh satisfies this). Or at least, you have to use those kind of nonlinearities in order to use Jutten's method.
Eric Moulines talked about prediction in sparse additive models. There's a lot of sparsity around at the moment (and there were plenty of sparsity papers here); Moulines' different approach is that when you want to predict new values, rather than to reverse-engineer the input values, you don't want to select a single sparsity pattern but aggregate over the predictions made by all sparsity patterns. He uses a particular weighted aggregation scheme which he calls "exponential aggregation" involving the risk calculated for each "expert" (each function in the dictionary).
Now, we don't want to calculate the result for an exponentially large number of sparsity patterns and merge them all, since that would take forever. Moulines uses an inequality to convert the combinatorial problem to a continuous problem; unfortunately, at the end of it all it's still too much to calculate easily (2^m estimators) so he uses MCMC estimation to get his actual results.
I also went to the tutorial on Population Monte Carlo methods (which apparently were introduced by Cappe in 2004). I know about Particle Filters so my learnings are relative to that:
- Each particle or iteration can have its OWN instrumental distribution, there's no need for it to be common across all particles. In fact the teacher (Petar Djuric) had worked on methods where you have a collection of instrumental distributions, and weighted-sample from all of them, adapting the weights as the iterations progress. This allows it to automatically do the kind of things we might heuristically want: start with broad, heavy-tailed distributions, then focus more on narrow distributions in the final refinement stages.
- For static MC (i.e. not sequential), you can use the samples from ALL iterations to make your final estimate (though you need to take care to normalise appropriately).
- Rao-Blackwellisation lets you solve a lower-dimensional problem (approximating a lower-dimensional target distribution) if you can analytically integrate to solve for a subset of the parameters given the other ones. For example, if some parameters are gaussian-distributed when conditioned on the others. This can make your approximation much simpler and faster.
- It's generally held a good idea to use heavy-tailed distributions, e.g. people use Student's t distribution since heavier-tailed than Gaussian.
Syndicated 2012-09-02 06:02:49 (Updated 2012-09-02 06:12:12) from Dan Stowell