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NC_009485:1648896 Bradyrhizobium sp. BTAi1 chromosome, complete genome
Host Lineage: Bradyrhizobium; Bradyrhizobium; Bradyrhizobiaceae; Rhizobiales; Proteobacteria; Bacteria
General Information: This organism is a photosynthetic rhizobium that is also capable of nitrogen-fixation, the first such example of such an organism. It can form nodules on the legume Aeschynomene indica and was isolated from this plant at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research in Ithaca, NY. It can form stem and root nodules. The photosynthetic reaction centers are similar to those found in purple photosynthetic bacteria and this microbe aids the plant in carbon metabolism and nitrogen metabolism.


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"For constructing supergravity, the first supersymmetric extension of Einstein's theory of general relativity, and for their central role in its subsequent development."
Background:Peter van Nieuwenhuizen was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on October 26, 1938. He studied physics and mathematics at the University of Utrecht, where he obtained doctoraal examens in both mathematics and theoretical physics, and wrote a Ph.D. with M.Veltman as adviser. After his studies in Utrecht he went to CERN (Geneva), the Ecole Normale Supérieure (then at Sacclay, now at Paris), and Brandeis University (Waltham), each for two years periods. In 1975 he joined the faculty of the (now C.N.Yang-) Institute for Theoretical Physics of the State University of New York at Stony Brook,NY. He became there a Distinguished Professor, and succeeded C.N.Yang in 1999 as Director. He was also the Teyler professor of physics at Leyden University (the Netherlands) from 1985 till 1995.
In 1993 Dr.van Nieuwenhuizen received with S.Ferrara from CERN and D.Z.Freedman (MIT) the Dirac medal and prize from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste (Italy) for their work on supergravity. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, and a corresponding member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, and of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was made a Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion in 2004, and Honorary professor of department of Sciences of the Technical University of Vienna (Austria) in 2005. Dr.van Nieuwenhuizen has written over 300 articles on subjects in quantum field theory, quantum gravity, supergravity, conformal field theories, anomalies, Kaluza-Klein reductions, path integrals, W gravities, nonlinear sigma models, solitons, instantons, and string theory.
O.W. Greenberg (Chair), Tai Tsun Wu (12/05)(AIP), Gabriele Veneziano ('04winner)(12/05), V. Alan Kostelecky (V. Chair)(12/06), Cecilia DeWitt-Morette (12/06)

subset: commoncrawl


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When students drop out of school, the course of their lives may be totally reset. Dropouts typically earn less than their peers with more education, and they are more likely than high school graduates to end up in prison. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, the population of U.S. 18- through 24-year-olds not enrolled in school and without a high school diploma or General Educational Development, or GED, credential was 16.4 percent in 2009.
The economic value attached to completion of ever-greater levels of education is well documented. In 2009, adults ages 25 and older who had dropped out of school or had not acquired a GED earned up to 41 percent less than those who had completed high school or had GEDs, census data show. The gap widened when comparing the incomes of high school dropouts with people with bachelor's degrees. In 2009, male and female college graduates earned $57,714 and $39,263 respectively, while male and female high school dropouts earned $21,629 and $13,943, respectively (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011).
But the value of a high school education cannot be measured in dollars alone. Among 16- to 24-year-olds who were incarcerated during 2006-07, only 1 in 1,000 had a bachelor's degree, while 6.3 percent were high school dropouts who didn't have a GED. (Sum, Khatiwada, McLaughlin & Palma, 2009).
There are several different ways to calculate and report dropout rates, although the 2010-11 school year is the first in which states, districts, and schools must report their high school graduation rates based on a common method in which cohorts of students entering 9th grade are tracked through graduation. In the 2011-12 year, the four-year adjusted cohort rate will be used for federal accountability under the No Child Left Behind law.
Other methods of calculating and reporting dropout rates may generate vastly different results. A state may report one set of numbers suggesting a low dropout rate; then, a private organization might analyze the statistics using a different measure and accuse the state or school system of underestimating the problem. Here are some of the different ways of calculating dropout rates:
Status Rate: This reports the percentage of 16- through 24-year-olds who are not in school and have not earned a high school diploma or an alternative credential. Status rates reveal the extent of the dropout problem in the population, and are therefore used to estimate the need for further education and training designed to help dropouts participate fully in the economy and broader life of the nation.
Event Rate: This estimates the percentage of students who left high school between the beginning of one school year and the beginning of the next without earning a high school diploma or an alternative credential. This annual measure provides important information about how effective educators are in keeping students enrolled in school. The event rate is generally lower than the status rate.
High School Completion Rate: This indicates the percentage of individuals in a given age range who are not in high school and who have earned a high school diploma or an alternative credential, irrespective of when the credential was earned.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2011.
Overall, the dropout rate has declined since the 1980s, falling from about 14 percent in 1980 to 8 percent in 2008. Great variances among racial and ethnic groups remain, however. For example, the dropout rate for white students in 2008 was 4.8 percent, compared to 9.9 percent among African-American students, and 18.3 percent for Hispanic students (National Center for Education Statistics).
Why Students Drop Out
Research shows two sets of factors may be predictors of whether students will drop out or graduate from high school: One set is associated with the institutional characteristics of their families, schools, and communities; the other set is associated with the individual characteristics of the students themselves (Rumberger and Lim, 2008).
Families, schools, and communities influence students' decisions to drop out in several ways. For example, students living with both parents have lower dropout rates and higher graduation rates compared to students in other living arrangements. The employment status of their parents and their parents' incomes play roles, as do parenting practices. These include monitoring a child's progress in school, communicating with the school, and knowing the parents of their children's friends. Students also are more likely to drop out if they have a sibling who did so (Rumberger and Lim, 2008).
Characteristics of schools, including resources, structural features, composition of the student body, and policies and practices, also play a role in whether students drop out. Living in high-poverty neighborhoods is not necessarily detrimental to completing high school, but living in an affluent neighborhood can be beneficial to school success (Rumberger and Lim, 2008). Education Week's 2011 edition of Diplomas Count found that 25 districts across the country—led by public school districts in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, and Chicago—accounted for 1 in every 5 nongraduates for the class of 2011.
In addition, students have said their reasons for dropping out include:
- Their classes were not interesting;
- They were not motivated or inspired to work hard;
- They were failing in school and could not keep up with school work;
- They had missed too many days and could not catch up on their work;
- They had repeated a grade;
- They had to work;
- They became a parent;
- They had to care for a family member;
- They were doubtful they could meet their school's graduation requirements even if they had put in the necessary effort (Bridgeland, DiIulio, and Morison, 2006).
Grade retention—being "held back" or flunked—has also been found to be highly correlated with dropping out. Studies have examined the effect of retention in elementary school or the combined effects of retention in elementary and middle school. Thirty-seven of the 50 of those analyses found retention in elementary and/or middle school increased the odds of dropping out of high school (Rumberger and Lim, 2008).
Likewise, a 2011 report by a prestigious panel of the National Academies, an institution formed by Congress to give advice on scientific matters, links high school exit exams to a 2 percentage-point decrease in graduation rates nationwide.
Addressing the Problem
Dropout-prevention strategies vary widely. Prevention begins in part by identifying struggling students early and targeting them for assistance. Infrequent attendance, behavior infractions, and course failure—the "ABC's" of dropout—more accurately predict whether a student will drop out of high school than do socioeconomic factors and can be used to predict high school graduation as early as the start of middle school. (Balfanz, Bridgeland, Moore & Fox, 2010).
Early Warning Systems: In 2007, the Louisiana Department of Education adopted an early warning system created by a local educator and provided it to Louisiana school districts. The system uses warning indicators based on historical data for dropouts, including: attendance, course achievement, behavior, and age. Teachers receive information about at-risk students twice a month (Balfanz, Bridgeland, Moore & Fox, 2010).
Dropout Recovery: Dropout prevention and recovery programs emphasize multiple pathways to graduation. Over the last decade, at least 31 states have expanded alternative education possibilities for students at-risk of dropping out, including those with many absences or who are significantly over age for their grade (Balfanz, Bridgeland, Moore, and Fox, 2010).
Early College High Schools: As of 2010, there were 208 "early college high schools" in 24 states and the District of Columbia serving about 47,000 students. Early college high schools are joint academic programs developed by a local high school and a nearby postsecondary institution that allow all students to earn a high school diploma, plus one to two years of transferable college credit at the same time. The schools boast a 92 percent graduation rate. In 2008, 89 percent of early college graduates pursued some form of postsecondary education that fall, compared with 66 percent of students nationally (Balfanz, Bridgeland, Moore, and Fox, 2010).
Career academies: Another dropout-prevention strategy is small schools or schools within schools that offer career-focused curricula, team teaching, and involvement from the business community. An eight-year study of career academies showed they did not have an impact, positive or negative, on high school completion rates, however the completion rates for students in academies and the schools in which those academies were located would be considered high relative to national averages for similar students in similar schools. This suggests career academies may attract somewhat better prepared or highly motivated students. Still, career academies serve as a viable strategy for keeping students on a course toward graduating from high school, even though they are not always better at this than other alternatives at the same schools or within their communities. (Kemple, 2008).
A 2008 review of the research on preventing dropouts by the U.S. Department of Education also identifies key components of effective programs. Besides data-based, early-warning systems, these strategies include: creating more personalized learning environments for students; providing extra support and academic enrichment for struggling students; assigning adult advocates to students deemed to be at risk of dropping out; and providing rigorous and relevant instruction to engage students in learning.


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Fierce debate on Israel underway inside Obama administration (UPDATED)
(Politico) -- By Laura Rozen --
Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's tense visit to the White House last week, an intense debate inside the Obama administration about how to proceed with Netanyahu to advance the Middle East peace process has grown more heated, even as Israeli officials are expected to announce they have reached some sort of agreement with Washington as soon as tonight.
Sources say within the inter-agency process, White House Middle East strategist Dennis Ross is staking out a position that Washington needs to be sensitive to Netanyahu's domestic political constraints including over the issue of building in East Jerusalem in order to not raise new Arab demands, while other officials including some aligned with Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell are arguing Washington needs to hold firm in pressing Netanyahu for written commitments to avoid provocations that imperil Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and to preserve the Obama administration's credibility.
POLITICO spoke with several officials who confirmed the debate and its intensity. Ross did not respond to a query, nor did a spokesman for George Mitchell.
"He [Ross] seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu's coalition politics than to U.S. interests," one U.S. official told POLITICO Saturday. "And he doesn't seem to understand that this has become bigger than Jerusalem but is rather about the credibility of this Administration."
What some saw as the suggestion of dual loyalties shows how heated the debate has become.
[UPDATE]: NSC Chief of Staff Denis McDonough fiercely rejected any such suggestion. "The assertion is as false as it is offensive," McDonough said Sunday by email. "Whoever said it has no idea what they are talking about. Dennis Ross's many decades of service speak volumes about his commitment to this country and to our vital interests, and he is a critical part of the President's team."
Last week, during U.S.-Israeli negotiations during Netanyahu's visit and subsequent internal U.S. government meetings, the first official said, Ross "was always saying about how far Bibi could go and not go. So by his logic, our objectives and interests were less important than pre-emptive capitulation to what he described as Bibi's coalition's red lines."
When the U.S. and Israel are seen to publicly diverge on an issue such as East Jerusalem construction, the official characterized Ross's argument as: "the Arabs increase their demands ... therefore we must rush to close gaps ... no matter what the cost to our broader credibility."
A second official confirmed the broad outlines of the current debate within the administration. Obviously at every stage of the process, the Obama Middle East team faces tactical decisions about what to push for, who to push, how hard to push, he described.
As to which argument best reflects the wishes of the President, the first official said, "As for POTUS, what happens in practice is that POTUS, rightly, gives broad direction. He doesn't, and shouldn't, get bogged down in minutiae. But Dennis uses the minutiae to blur the big picture … And no one asks the question: why, since his approach in the Oslo years was such an abysmal failure, is he back, peddling the same snake oil?"
Other contacts who have discussed recent U.S.-Israel tensions with Ross say he argues that all parties need to keep focus on the big picture, Iran, and the peace process as being part of a wider U.S. effort to bolster an international and regional alliance including Arab nations and Israel to pressure and isolate Iran. This is an argument that presumably has resonance with the Netanyahu government. But at the same time, Arab allies tell Washington that Israeli construction in East Jerusalem inflames their publics and breeds despair and makes it hard for them to work even indirectly and quietly with Israel on Iran. They push Washington to show it can manage Israel and to get an Israeli-Palestinian peace process going that would facilitate regional cooperation on Iran...MORE...LINK


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"I'm not that guy that gets an adrenaline rush before his fight, and is mean-mugging everybody. I'm the guy that's smiling, having a good time, and cracking jokes in the back." - Daron Cruickshank
As the days drop off the calendar, and fight night draws closer, some fighters retreat into themselves and shut out the world around them. They steal themselves away, intensely focused on their upcoming fight, their hotel room in the host city transforming into "The Land Where Jokes Go to Die."
Fighting is serious business, and the task at hand is treated accordingly.
Daron Cruickshank lives down at the other end of the spectrum.
If you're one of the more than 12,000 people who follow the 27-year-old Wayne, Michigan native on Twitter (@Cruickshank155), you know this to be true. From training camp photos after the latest "Funk Fitness" class to far too many "Here's me in the bathroom" pictures than any one person should take, the former Ultimate Fighter contestant keeps it light and easy every day of the week, even during fight week.
"I have fun with every part of the sport: getting ready for the fight, interacting with everybody on Facebook and Twitter, and the fans in general; not being so serious all the time," explained the fast-talking lightweight who returns to the Octagon next Saturday night opposite John Makdessi in a dark horse Fight of the Night contender.
"I'm not that guy that gets an adrenaline rush before his fight, and is mean-mugging everybody. I'm the guy that's smiling, having a good time, and cracking jokes in the back. The thing is that you've got to be comfortable and you've got to be relaxed, and the way I do that is I have fun with it."
Don't let his laid back, "let's have some fun" approach give you the wrong impression though: Cruickshank is no joke when he steps into the cage.
After amassing a 10-2 record on the regional circuit and winning his way onto the cast of The Ultimate Fighter Live, Cruickshank worked through a gritty grappling match with Team Cruz antagonist Chris Tickle on the show's finale, adding his first UFC win to his resume. While the bout with Tickle was a grind, Cruickshank put his striking skills on full display in his sophomore appearance in the UFC cage last December in Seattle, and put everyone in the division on notice in the process.
Squaring off with hard-nosed Team Jackson-Winkeljohn fighter Henry Martinez on 2012's final UFC on FOX card in "The Emerald City," the tae kwon do black belt showed off his standup game, including a wide array of quick and powerful kicks. He seasoned up Martinez with heavy shots to the legs and body in the opening round, and after more of the same early in the second, Cruickshank went upstarts, planting his shin on the side of Martinez' head with a thud that was audible on press row at the KeyArena.
As his opponent dropped, Cruickshank raised his hands – his showing in Seattle netting him a second consecutive UFC win, while pushing his overall winning streak to six and raising his profile within the division and the MMA community.
"Yeah – it was a great fight for my career, and the performance kind of skyrocketed me a little bit," he said of the victory over Martinez, proud of the performance, but clearly focused on the future.
The future arrives a week from today in the form of Makdessi, a Nova Scotia native now based out of the renowned Tristar Gym in Montreal. Through his first five appearances in the UFC, "The Bull" has garnered three wins, including a unanimous decision victory over fellow Canadian Sam Stout when the UFC returned to the Bell Centre last November.
Like Cruickshank, Makdessi is a black belt in tae kwon do, and a sharp, technical striker who will look to work angles and keep his opponents off balance with an assortment of attacks.
"I've never met the guy – I've never even seen him fight – but when (the UFC) sent me his name, at the bottom of the text message it said, `This could possibly be Fight of the Night,' and I basically agreed right there before I even looked him up," Cruickshank admitted about how the bout came together. "That's what I want, that's what I'm looking for, so let's go ahead and do it.
"Obviously I've been working on some of his strengths and the way he fights - he's very lead leg, lead foot dominant, so I've been doing a lot of counters for that, but the ultimate goal is to put on a good show, and to go out there, give it everything I got. The best feeling in the world is knocking someone out, so that's what I plan on doing."
The energetic and engaging Michigan native also anticipates playing the "bad guy" role next weekend. UFC 158 will be Cruickshank's second trip to the Bell Centre, and his second time fighting a "local boy" under the bright lights, having defeated fellow UFC 158 competitor – and Makdessi's Tristar teammate – Mike Ricci inside the home of Les Habitants back in October 2011.
"Silence is bad," laughed Cruickshank. "I love going out there, and really, being booed when you go to another place is almost like being cheered; you've just got to flip it around. There's always a good guy, there's always a bad guy, and I like playing that bad guy role."
Truthfully, there are very true "bad guys" in this sport, and Cruickshank is certainly not one of them. After all, it's hard not to like a fighter who manages to find the silver lining in a recent bout of gastro-intestinal issues.
"This is the best weight cut I've ever had, but that's probably because I got food poisoning a couple weeks ago, and I dropped all the weight I could," he deadpanned. "It's a blessing in disguise. You go through a lot of toilet paper, but it's all good."
Just as he's settled into his light-hearted routine around training camp and fight week, Cruickshank is also starting to get comfortable with the rigors of fight week. After having gone through the longest season in Ultimate Fighter history and having to prepare for his official promotional debut at a neutral site in Las Vegas, prepping for UFC 158 in familiar confines has "The Detroit Superstar" ready to put on a show next Saturday night.
"Being on The Ultimate Fighter, that was way different than normal, way different than getting ready with your own camp, your own support system, and things like that," admitted Cruickshank in closing. "That was a little difficult, but I got through it, and now I'm at home. I'm doing everything that I want to do, I have all my people backing me up, and it's just going to produce even better results.
"It keeps the stress level down. Everything is falling into place, and the more fights I get, the more experience I get, the easier this job becomes.
"(As for UFC 158), it all depends on who shows up, and I'm looking to show up for this fight. I want to go out there, put on a good show, and hopefully I perform."
UFC Performance Institute
Dana White On The Opening Of UFC PI Mexico


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Holidays such as Easter and Christmas are often times when pastors and congregations focus not only on Jesus but on the potential for an increase in visitors. Everything is extra-special on those days. There are special programs, worship is typically different, and we even take the time to throw out our everyday dress in exchange for something new. These holidays are indeed special and draw a crowd for a good reason–Jesus is the Savior of the world. But what happens when the holidays have passed? How can we encourage visitors to return every Sunday?
I became a Christian at the age of 22. I didn't have any real desire for the Lord but when I heard the gospel and gave my life to the Him I stayed. Here are a few reasons I think I kept returning and ways pastors and congregations might keep those visitors returning as well.
1. Preach the gospel every Sunday: Pastors can come up with all sorts of programs and gimmicks to entertain their congregations but none of those things will transform a soul. Don't misunderstand, the Lord can use those things, but ultimately what will keep a visitor returning is the gospel. It is the Good News that saves and it is the gospel that we need to hear over and over again. "So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ" (Rom. 10:17).
2. Preach the word faithfully: Another thing that kept me (and keeps me) coming back was seeing the Bible opened up, studied, and exposed upon. This is similar to reason number one. We need to hear the Word preached and it is God's Word that will keep us coming back.
3. Think evangelistically: Sundays seem to be one of the most distracting days of the week for my family. Trying to get out of the door with two children can be a chore. It takes great effort to look up and see others who walk into the building. We have to remember that the Great Commission in Matthew 28 is for us today as well. We are called to go and make disciples of all nations and teach them. We can't do that if we aren't thinking about others on Sunday mornings. Actively pray that the Lord will help you think of how you might love and serve your neighbor on that Sunday. Your neighbor might just be a visitor for the first time.
4. Be hospitable: Hospitality takes intentionality and thoughtfulness and must begin with an outward focus on others. It can be as simple as saying hello to hosting someone in your home. If you are having lunch after church, invite your neighbor to join. Extending genuine love and care displays the love of Christ to visitors. As Hebrews 13: 2 exhorts us, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."
5. Follow up: Most churches have card where guests are invited to share contact information. Don't forget to actually contact your guests. My husband became a Christian after attending and event where he heard the gospel. But it wasn't the event that the Lord used to ultimately bring him to Christ; it was a follow up call from a member who then once again shared the Good News with him. We won't know how our hospitality or even our evangelism will affect others, but we can guarantee doing nothing will produce nothing.
6. Welcome the hurting: Our churches should be a place where those who are struggling, marginalized, hurting, and in deep sin should be welcomed. They should be welcomed so that by the grace of God they might be cared for and restored. This would mean being a place that doesn't show partiality (James 2). It would mean being a place that doesn't throw stones but seeks to extend grace and truth (John 8:7). It would mean being a place where sinners come to find rest and love.
Ultimately, our job is to trust the Lord and pray for those who visit. It's not about numbers; it's about souls who know Jesus. So, whenever we are thinking about retention we must not focus on numbers and how many fill our pews, but on Jesus and the proclamation of the gospel. We want to love our neighbors. And we should all pray that like the First Century church in Acts the Lord would add to our number day by day those who are being saved (Acts. 2:47).
Trillia Newbell is a wife, mom, and writer who loves Jesus. She is the author of United: Captured by God's Vision for Diversity (Moody, 2014). You can follow her on Twitter. Visit her at her website at www.trillianewbell.com.
Photo courtesy: ©Thinkstock


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Sewer Cleaning and Inspection Program
To view the sewer cleaning and inspection program click here.
Sewer Odour Issues
Council and City staff take this odour issue seriously, and appreciate the frustration that residents are feeling. Based on the advice we've received and the experiences of our operators, the odour issue is not merely an operational issue; we can't flip a switch, or expect minor changes to provide long-term improvements to the situation; but this is an issue that will likely require significant capital expenditure. As such, the City has put out a request for proposals from consulting engineers for a study into options and feasibility. This will feed into an update to the Liquid Waste Management Plan (LWMP) process that is required for any changes to our discharge permit. This study will likely recommend expansion or replacement of the existing plant, or the construction of a new treatment plant elsewhere to address the aging current infrastructure and development demands. This process will likely involve further public input to meet provincial requirements, we expect to have a report for Council's consideration in the early new year.
Should upgrades prove necessary, the City will make every effort to seek external grant funding, to offset costs to the utility payers. The estimated timing and costs of upgrades will likely be part of a discussion related to borrowing the required funds, which will also be a public process.
Why does the Sewer Treatment Plant smell so bad at night, and what is the City doing about it?
City staff and Council do take the odour issue seriously, this has been a long-term problem that has affected the Southside area mainly during spring and summer months in the evenings. We've got two main initiatives happening:
- Operational improvements to add more aeration are underway, but this is expected to be a short term/minor improvement only.
- Infrastructure planning is in progress to update/review the Liquid Waste Management Plan, which will inform future capacity and treatment upgrades and estimate the timing and expected costs.
How does the Sewer Treatment Plant operate?
The Sewer Treatment Plant operates two aerated lagoons with mechanical pre-screening. Generally, the plant is relying on naturally occurring bacteria to perform the task of treating the influent, which we help along with aeration, mixing and occasionally the addition of some chemicals. The existing plant was built in the 70's and has undergone numerous upgrades specifically intended to alleviate concerns with odour and treatment effectiveness.
Odour has been an issue on and off for at least twenty years, predominately in the Spring and Summer months when temperatures increase and atmospheric conditions cause evening inversions. The odours are prominent when anaerobic digestion (without oxygen) is occurring. There are many factors influencing why this occurs (see bottom of post for a list) and why residents are encountering odours, and addressing the problem has proved difficult. One of the challenges is that measuring the success of a change in process or operations can take over two weeks to realize, due to the size of the ponds, by which time the climatic or other conditions may have changed, rendering the validation of the change difficult or impossible. One thing we do know for sure is that aeration and mixing are necessary components and generally our operational changes have been around improving these factors.
Examples of efforts to combat the odour issue, in the past decade or so include:
- Conversion to fine bubble aeration
- Desludging the first pond
- Addition of ferric chloride dosing at Downie Lift Station
- Inlet Works odour control project
- Periodic dosing the first pond with granular nitrate
- Periodic addition of beneficial bacteria in first pond
- Eliminating some anaerobic waste streams
- Installing mixers in first pond
- Improvements in airflow/cooling in the blower room to increase air output.
- Additional aeration work underway in 2017.
This work has been conducted with advice and design from qualified professional engineers who are experts in the field of sewer treatment and with input from our operators, who are trained in accordance with the Provincial Environmental Operators Certification Program (EOCP) and are working hard to ensure the plant operates as efficiently and odour-free as possible. Municipal Sewer Treatment is regulated by the Ministry of Environment, and generally the permit conditions are based on effluent quality, what is discharged to the river. Previous measurements of the odour have shown that it has been far below any health risk levels.
Short list of factors that influence odours:
- Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD)
- Total suspended solids
- pH, too acidic can cause anaerobic digestion.
- Total flow
- Temperature
- Grease
- Treatment inhibitors/toxicity
- Aeration of the pond (Dissolved Oxygen)
- Mixing - Seasonal turn over. It is quite common for aerated lagoons to smell for a week or so in spring and fall.
- Temperature
- warmer temperatures leads to higher treatment rates, requiring more oxygen.
- lower temperatures inhibits treatment, causing sludge build up, which can turn over causing odours when air temperatures increase.
- Wind and airflow
- Diurnal and seasonal patterns
- Temperature
- Proximity to dwellings
Public Works Operations
Physical Address
1200 E. Victoria Rd.
Revelstoke, BC V0E 2S0
Phone: 250-837-2001Fax: 250-837-2059


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How To Make Your Own Joan Of Arc Armor Using Bike Tire Tubes
LatestThis amazing armor, inspired by Joan of Arc and created by Grace Duval, took fifty hours to put together.
Duval explains:
The entire base is constructed from cardboard that is cut and hot-glued into shape. Each individual piece was then covered in multiple coats of brown paper dipped in wallpaper paste, creating a thin, lightweight but very sturdy form of paper mache.
Every piece was then gesso-ed [primed for paint] to remove any corrugation lines, then spray painted matte black.
After the individual pieces were primed I applied the bicycle tubes in varying combinations to create varying effects, such as weaving, stretching, piping, and other cuttings and manipulations. The tubes were adhered to the frame using rubber cement.
Finally, each piece was connected together using an awl, screws and acorn cap fittings to create a more intense armored feel.
Amazing! And, uh, complicated. Maybe if you start now you'll be ready for next Halloween?
Joan Of Arc Armor Made From Tire Tubes [Buzzfeed]
Incredible Joan Of Arm Armor From Cardboard And Bicycle Tubes [The Mary Sue]
Rubberized Bicycle Tube Armor for Joan of Arc [Crafster]
Grace Duval [Flickr]
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My story begins innocuously, with a dinner reservation in a world-class hotel. It ends 12 hours later after the Indian army freed us.
My point is not to sensationalize events. It is to express my gratitude and pay tribute to the staff of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, who sacrificed their lives so that we could survive. They, along with the Indian army, are the true heroes that emerged from this tragedy.
My wife, Anjali, and I were married in the Taj's Crystal Ballroom. Her parents were married there, too, and so were Shiv and Reshma, the couple with whom we had dinner plans. In fact, my wife and Reshma, both Bombay girls, grew up hanging out and partying the night away there and at the Oberoi Hotel, another terrorist target.
Video: Mumbai Attacks: Survival
The four of us arrived at the Taj around 9:30 p.m. for dinner at the Golden Dragon, one of the better Chinese restaurants in Mumbai. We were a little early, and our table wasn't ready. So we walked next door to the Harbour Bar and had barely begun to enjoy our beers when the host told us our table was ready. We decided to stay and finish our drinks.
Thirty seconds later, we heard what sounded like a heavy tray smashing to the ground. This was followed by 20 or 30 similar sounds and then absolute silence. We crouched behind a table just feet away from what we now knew were gunmen. Terrorists had stormed the lobby and were firing indiscriminately.
We tried to break the glass window in front of us with a chair, but it wouldn't budge. The Harbour Bar's hostess, who had remained at her post, motioned to us that it was safe to make a run for the stairwell. She mentioned, in passing, that there was a dead body right outside in the corridor. We believe this courageous woman was murdered after we ran away.
(We later learned that minutes after we climbed the stairs, terrorists came into the Harbour Bar, shot everyone who was there and executed those next door at the Golden Dragon. The staff there was equally brave, locking their patrons into a basement wine cellar to protect them. But the terrorists managed to break through and lob in grenades that killed everyone in the basement.)
We took refuge in the small office of the kitchen of another restaurant, Wasabi, on the second floor. Its chef and staff served the four of us food and drink and even apologized for the inconvenience we were suffering.
Through text messaging, e-mail on BlackBerrys and a small TV in the office, we realized the full extent of the terrorist attack on Mumbai. We figured we were in a secure place for the moment. There was also no way out.
At around 11:30 p.m., the kitchen went silent. We took a massive wooden table and pushed it up against the door, turned off all the lights and hid. All of the kitchen workers remained outside; not one staff member had run.
The terrorists repeatedly slammed against our door. We heard them ask the chef in Hindi if anyone was inside the office. He responded calmly: "No one is in there. It's empty." That is the second time the Taj staff saved our lives.
After about 20 minutes, other staff members escorted us down a corridor to an area called The Chambers, a members-only area of the hotel. There were about 250 people in six rooms. Inside, the staff was serving sandwiches and alcohol. People were nervous, but cautiously optimistic. We were told The Chambers was the safest place we could be because the army was now guarding its two entrances and the streets were still dangerous. There had been attacks at a major railway station and a hospital.
But then, a member of parliament phoned into a live newscast and let the world know that hundreds of people--including CEOs, foreigners and members of parliament--were "secure and safe in The Chambers together." Adding to the escalating tension and chaos was the fact that, via text and cellphone, we knew that the dome of the Taj was on fire and that it could move downward.
At around 2 a.m., the staff attempted an evacuation. We all lined up to head down a dark fire escape exit. But after five minutes, grenade blasts and automatic weapon fire pierced the air. A mad stampede ensued to get out of the stairwell and take cover back inside The Chambers.
After that near-miss, my wife and I decided we should hide in different rooms. While we hoped to be together at the end, our primary obligation was to our children. We wanted to keep one parent alive. Because I am American and my wife is Indian, and news reports said the terrorists were targeting U.S. and U.K. nationals, I believed I would further endanger her life if we were together in a hostage situation.
So when we ran back to The Chambers I hid in a toilet stall with a floor-to-ceiling door and my wife stayed with our friends, who fled to a large room across the hall.
For the next seven hours, I lay in the fetal position, keeping in touch with Anjali via BlackBerry. I was joined in the stall by Joe, a Nigerian national with a U.S. green card. I managed to get in touch with the FBI, and several agents gave me status updates throughout the night.
I cannot even begin to explain the level of adrenaline running through my system at this point. It was this hyper-aware state where every sound, every smell, every piece of information was ultra-acute, analyzed and processed so that we could make the best decisions and maximize the odds of survival.
Was the fire above us life-threatening? What floor was it on? Were the commandos near us, or were they terrorists? Why is it so quiet? Did the commandos survive? If the terrorists come into the bathroom and to the door, when they fire in, how can I make my body as small as possible? If Joe gets killed before me in this situation, how can I throw his body on mine to barricade the door? If the Indian commandos liberate the rest in the other room, how will they know where I am? Do the terrorists have suicide vests? Will the roof stand? How can I make sure the FBI knows where Anjali and I are? When is it safe to stand up and attempt to urinate?
Meanwhile, Anjali and the others were across the corridor in a mass of people lying on the floor and clinging to each other. People barely moved for seven hours, and for the last three hours they felt it was too unsafe to even text. While I was tucked behind a couple walls of marble and granite in my toilet stall, she was feet from bullets flying back and forth. After our failed evacuation, most of the people in the fire escape stairwell and many staff members who attempted to protect the guests were shot and killed.
The 10 minutes around 2:30 a.m. were the most frightening. Rather than the back-and-forth of gunfire, we just heard single, punctuated shots. We later learned that the terrorists went along a different corridor of The Chambers, room by room, and systematically executed everyone: women, elderly, Muslims, Hindus, foreigners. A group huddled next to Anjali was devout Bori Muslims who would have been slaughtered just like everyone else, had the terrorists gone into their room. Everyone was in deep prayer and most, Anjali included, had accepted that their lives were likely over. It was terrorism in its purest form. No one was spared.
The next five hours were filled with the sounds of an intense grenade/gun battle between the Indian commandos and the terrorists. It was fought in darkness; each side was trying to outflank the other.
By the time dawn broke, the commandos had successfully secured our corridor. A young commando led out the people packed into Anjali's room. When one woman asked whether it was safe to leave, the commando replied: "Don't worry, you have nothing to fear. The first bullets have to go through me."
The corridor was laced with broken glass and bullet casings. Every table was turned over or destroyed. The ceilings and walls were littered with hundreds of bullet holes. Blood stains were everywhere, though, fortunately, there were no dead bodies to be seen.
A few minutes after Anjali had vacated, Joe and I peeked out of our stall. We saw multiple commandos and smiled widely. I had lost my right shoe while sprinting to the toilet so I grabbed a sheet from the floor, wrapped it around my foot and proceeded to walk over the debris to the hotel lobby.
Anjali and I embraced for the first time in seven hours in the Taj's ground floor entrance. I didn't know whether she was dead or injured because we hadn't been able to text for the past three hours.
I wanted to take a picture of us on my BlackBerry, but Anjali wanted us to get out of there before doing anything.
She was right--our ordeal wasn't completely over. A large bus pulled up in front of the Taj to collect us and, just about as it was fully loaded, gunfire erupted again. The terrorists were still alive and firing automatic weapons at the bus. Anjali was the last to get on the bus, and she eventually escaped in our friend's car. I ducked under some concrete barriers for cover and wound up the subject of photos that were later splashed across the media. Shortly thereafter, an ambulance came and drove a few of us to safety. An hour later, Anjali and I were again reunited at her parents' home. Our Thanksgiving had just gained a lot more meaning.
Some may say our survival was due to random luck, others might credit divine intervention. But 72 hours removed from these events, I can assure you only one thing: Far fewer people would have survived if it weren't for the extreme selflessness shown by the Taj staff, who organized us, catered to us and then, in the end, literally died for us.
They complemented the extreme bravery and courage of the Indian commandos, who, in a pitch-black setting and unfamiliar, tightly packed terrain, valiantly held the terrorists at bay.
It is also amazing that, out of our entire group, not one person screamed or panicked. There was an eerie but quiet calm that pervaded--one more thing that got us all out alive. Even people in adjacent rooms, who were being executed, kept silent.
It is much easier to destroy than to build, yet somehow humanity has managed to build far more than it has ever destroyed. Likewise, in a period of crisis, it is much easier to find faults and failings rather than to celebrate the good deeds. It is now time to commemorate our heroes.
Michael Pollack is a general partner of Glenhill Capital, a firm he co-founded in 2001.
See Michael Pollack recount his harrowing adventure in Mumbai.


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Federal authorities have revoked the operating authority of Fung Wah, effectively shutting down the discount bus line after the company blocked access to its safety records.
The Boston-based carrier, which pioneered low fares to New York, was forced to stop running out of South Station Tuesday night after state inspections revealed substantial cracks in the frames of many of its vehicles. The federal order prevents Fung Wah from moving to another location and leasing buses.
Fung Wah stopped cooperating with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Friday, federal officials said, and the agency immediately halted its operations. It is the first time the Motor Carrier Safety Administration has exercised this authority, provided by a new law that allows it to revoke the operating authority of bus companies that refuse to release safety records.
"We will not hesitate to immediately shut down a bus or truck company that ignores safety regulations and puts innocent lives at risk," agency administrator Anne Ferro said. "We will employ every tool we have to take unsafe commercial drivers, vehicles, and entire companies off the road anywhere in the county at any time."
Fung Wah declined to comment.
The state Department of Public Utilities conducted several inspections of Fung Wah buses in February, finding problems including cracks in the drive axle and engine cradle in eight of the nine buses it inspected. Last week, the state asked Fung Wah to take all its buses built before 2005 off the road — 21 out of its fleet of 28 — and asked federal officials to shut the bus line.
On Tuesday, the Motor Carrier Safety Administration ordered Fung Wah to stop operating its entire fleet until the buses could be inspected and repaired. The bus company continued to operate using charter buses until the managers at South Station Bus Terminal ordered Fung Wah to halt all operations later that day.
If the bus line opens up its safety records, submits to a full compliance review, and presents a corrective action plan, it could seek reinstatement, federal authorities said.
"The department will continue conducting thorough inspections of all bus lines to ensure that public safety is protected, and continue to cooperate with the federal investigation into Fung Wah," DPU spokeswoman Mary-Leah Assad said.
Fung Wah has a history of crashes and safety violations. In the past two years, it has been cited for 159 maintenance violations, including 23 instances of cracked, loose, or broken frames, according to federal regulators. Its drivers are ranked in the bottom 3 percent of drivers nationwide based on experience and training, and its unsafe driving rating is below the industry standard.
Drivers have racked up a dozen speeding violations in the past two years and been cited six times for failure to speak English or operating without a commercial driver's license, according to federal regulators.
Katie Johnston can be reached at email@example.com.


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Can you believe it's May already? That means one thing in my book - Mother's Day is just around the corner! Lately, I'm drooling over all things monogrammed, so here's my list of ten great personalized presents any mom is sure to love!
Double Duty Bag I'm Loving: If there are two types of bags I adore, they're clutches and cross-bodies and this sassy number from Tiny Tulip can be either. Pair the versatility with the bright, bold color options, and I'll take one of each!
Cute Cuff I'm Loving: The Enamel Initial cuffs from C. Wonder are simple and elegant, and I love the idea of wearing a set of them with each of your family member's initials.
Initial Ring I'm Loving: This sterling silver monogram ring from Kraftshop has a beautiful vintage feel to it.
Tote-ally Awesome Bag I'm Loving, Part 2: Want something a little easier on the wallet than the Longchamp? The Buckle Tote from Tiny Tulip should fit the bill.
Adorable Accessory I'm Loving: This monogrammed pillow from Studio Design Lab is a pretty way to help personalize her space.
Gadget Gear I'm Loving: There are tons of great iPhone and iPad covers available out there but I love the modern feel of the ones from Pencil Shavings Studio.
Bag to Go in a Bag I'm Loving: I'm of the belief you can never have too many fun little pouches and these personalized pretties from JuJu Baju are just perfect.
So there you have some of my favorite monogrammed gift ideas for Mother's Day. See something you like? Just leave your browser open with this post up and hope your hubby happens to notice.... And to check out more of my must-haves, visit my Mama's Wish List Pinterest Board.
I'd love to hear about the things you're loving right now! Share the app, movie, book, craft idea, TV show, whatever that's got you giddy in the comments and your picks might be included in next week's TEN ON TUESDAY feature. And for more of my favorite things, check out my Pinterest boards!
Please note that this list is made up of things I actually use, read, watch, try, etc. and truly enjoy. These opinions are my own and I was not compensated in any way to share them here.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Staff Directory
A Certificate of Compliance is required for each approved Zoning Permit. Once submitted, the Zoning Administrator will perform an inspection of the construction ensuring the project meets the requirements of the Zoning Permit. If the Certificate of Compliance is approved, Staff will contact you via phone to return to the Town Office to file the certificate with the Town Clerk and pay applicable fees.
Show All Answers
All single-family houses are allowed, per Vermont law, to have one accessory dwelling unit (ADU) ontheir property. The dwelling unit can be attached to the principal structure(the house), located in an accessory structure, or detached. However, thelandowner must obtain a zoningpermit and meet the following requirements:
1. The ADUmust have provisions for independentliving, such as sleeping, food preparation, and sanitation.
2. The ADU canbe up to 900 square feet or 30% of the total habitable floor areaof the house prior to creation of the ADU, whichever is greater.
3. The ADUcannot contain more than 2 bedrooms.
4. The ADUmust meet applicable dimensional standards for the zoning district.
5. The ADUmust meet parking requirements for residential uses.
6. The ADUmust share a driveway with thehouse.
7. Thelandowner must obtain a town or state water/wastewaterpermit for the ADU.
8. The landowner must live in the house or theADU.
In many cases, permits are required if you are building a porch, deck or patio. See the below flow chart to see if a permit is required for your project.
In some cases, you will need a zoning permit to put up solar panels. The diagram below explains whether or not you need a permit:
Most swimming pools require a zoning permit. The chart below will explain whether or not you need one for you property.
For some fences, you will need a zoning permit.
Some sheds are exempt from permitting; others are not.
There are three different classifications of home businesses in Milton's Unified Development Regulations: home office, home occupation, and home business.
Yes, a Zoning Permit is required for most signs. See Section 3015 of the Unified Development Regulations (PDF) for information regarding signs. Please contact the Zoning Administrator for any questions regarding signs.
Zoning Permits expire two years from the approval date. A Zoning Permit can be renewed for an additional year for an additional fee. If a renewal is required, contact the Department of Planning & Zoning prior to the permit's expiration.
Although the issuance of a Letter of Compliance is common in some Vermont towns, the Town of Milton does not partake in this practice. The Town of Milton requires that a Certificate of Compliance be completed for each approved Zoning Permit. If you have a specific permit number, Staff can check to see if a Certificate of Compliance has been issued.
The fees for a zoning permit vary depending on your project. Please see the Zoning Fee Schedule (PDF) for information.
The Impact Fees are listed in the fee schedule. Commercial and industrial development are not subject to an impact fee. The Impact Fees are due upon Certificate of Occupancy Application. See the Impact Fee Ordinance (PDF) for additional information regarding Impact Fees.
The Town of Milton does not require a Zoning Permit for interior improvements within a single family home. However, if your property is in the Special Flood Hazard District, you may need a Zoning Permit for some interior changes. Please contact the Planning and Economic Development office for further information.
Planned Unit Developments, Minor and Major Conventional Subdivisions, Conditional Uses, Variances, Site Plans, and Appeals are some types of development that require review by the DRB. See our Application Forms and Fees page for specific application fees. To learn more about the DRB, visit the DRB's page.


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This article is more than 1 year old
FCC ferrets around for spare spectrum
Got any ideas?
The FCC is asking for suggestions in the hunt for more radio spectrum, having established that there's not going to be enough to support the next generation of broadband requirements.
The US regulator wants ideas for making better use of all the spectrum below 3.7GHz, and it wants them by 13 November 13. It's asking (pdf) for suggestions on what spectrum should be used for what and how to get hold of it.
The consultation is part of the National Broadband Plan, which has been inviting the industry to say how much radio spectrum it needs. Surprising as it may seem, the industry thinks it needs lots and lots more radio spectrum if it's going to serve customers with the sort of quantities of data it thinks they would like, as the FCC explains:
"According to Wireless Communications Association International (WCAI), a traditional handheld device, with average customer usage patterns, will consume about 30 megabytes of data in a month, a single smart phone consumes 30 times that amount, and a single connected notebook or laptop computer is consuming 450 times that amount."
So you smartphone users out there are already burning through 900MB of data a month, while laptop users are consuming more than 13GB every 30 days or so. That seems like an awful lot to use, though that includes voice traffic.
Still, the FCC is taking those numbers seriously, and it wants to know how much bandwidth you think the wireless industry is going to need. It also wants to know where that spectrum should sit, both for fixed and mobile wireless services, and suggestions to encourage existing users to hand it over for reallocation to wireless broadband.
The FCC has the same problems as the rest of the western world: Huge swathes of the radio spectrum were allocated to governmental and military operations that have no incentive to make use of it or even to keep track of which bits they are actually using.
UK regulator Ofcom's solution is to charge everyone for spectrum usage. Though calculated rates if it can't get the spectrum onto the auction block. But that's not always a good idea (billing lifeboats for radio frequencies is not good PR), so the FCC is hoping the general public can come up with something better.
The regulator is open to suggestions from 23 October until 13 November, and we look forward to hearing what the American on the street has to say on the matter. ®


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Debian Project News - 2008 Index
Here are the recent back issues of Debian Weekly News.
17 Dec 2008 Release Update, General Resolution: Project membership procedures, Better backports.org Support
02 Dec 2008 Etch-and-a-half installation images updated, GNU Affero General Public License suitable for Debian main
, Security Teams Meeting in Essen
19 Nov 2008 First release candidate of Debian Installer for Lenny, Debian screenshots service started, Open Use Logo relicensed
03 Nov 2008 Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 updated, Debian membership, First Lenny Bug Sprint finished successfully
20 Oct 2008 Bits from the Debian CD team, Debian, software patents and archive layout, Statistics about packages.debian.org usage
08 Oct 2008 Bits from the DPL, What you can do for Lenny, 500,000th bug reported
15 Sep 2008 Release Update, Should Security Enhanced Linux be priority 'standard'?, Lenny Upgrade advisor
01 Sep 2008 Debian Live Lenny Beta1 released, Debian Translations for French and German Reach 100%, Policy for web apps session storage?
18 Aug 2008 Debian turns 15, 8th annual Debian Conference finished, Freespire 5 to be based on Debian
04 Aug 2008 Lenny frozen, Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 updated to include support for newer hardware, Schedule for 8th annual Debian Conference announced, Debian Days around the world
21 Jul 2008 Updates to the Lenny release process, Debian-installer to support loading of external firmwares, Best practice for debug packages
07 Jul 2008 DebianDay 2008, DPL-initiated teams survey finished, Bits from the testing security team
23 Jun 2008 Call for new New Maintainer Application Managers, Backports.org keyring package, Debian powers 32.8 TFlops supercomputer
09 Jun 2008 Release Update, Lenny Debian Installer Beta-2, Report from LinuxTag 2008, Call for help by the german translation team
26 May 2008 Bits from the DPL, OpenSSL, Perl Transition, backports.org, Huge Packages, SANE, Licenses, Enigmail Translations, Debian e-mail Headers, Installer Howto, archive.debian.net, Changes in Lenny
09 May 2008 Lenny Release, Google Summer of Code, debimg
21 Apr 2008 DPL Election, Survey, Release Update, Google Summer of Code, Study, Reliability, Contributions, Feature Requests, FAQ, qmail, Planet Debian, Old Machines, SE Linux, ftp master, Groupware Meeting
To receive this newsletter in your mailbox, subscribe to the debian-news mailing list.


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Hurricane Catarina: A Very Strange Storm Not Seen Before or Since
On Friday, March 26, 2004, something happened in the South Atlantic Ocean that had never happened before: a hurricane formed. The following night, it made landfall and wreaked incredible havoc. Which is understandable, considering that the town of Torres in southern Brazil had not ever (at least on record) seen a hurricane, leaving its residents rather unprepared for the colossal impact.
Hurricane season lasts from June 1 through November 30—in the Northern hemisphere, that is. The southern Atlantic does not experience the massive storms of the north; only two tropical cyclones had ever been recorded in the South Atlantic Basin prior to Catarina. March in the Southern hemisphere is roughly equal to September in the North, meaning Catarina occurred during the peak of the season, if there were such a thing.
Brazilian meteorologists were so surprised by the storm that, initially, they refused to call it a hurricane. It was over a year later that they finally admitted as much. Forecasters in the North—due either to greater experience in identifying hurricanes or, perhaps, a bit less pride in the beautiful Brazilian weather—recognized it immediately upon seeing satellite imagery. The easy-to-spot eye-wall structure combined with spiraling outer bands and the warm temperature of the water identified this particular storm as a hurricane, despite the oddity of its location.
As the storm approached the state of Santa Catarina (which is how it got its name), its wind speeds surpassed 100 miles per hour, eventually peaking at about 110 mph, meaning it had achieved Category 2 hurricane status on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Upon hitting land over Torres, the storm quickly petered out, but not before inflicting heavy flooding. The area had been evacuated, but many shipyards were destroyed and housing was decimated, totaling about $350 million in damage. There were, fortunately, no deaths.


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As with all organs in the body, the brain needs oxygen and nutrients in order to function properly. These life-sustaining products are delivered to the brain via the blood that travels through the circulatory system.
A stroke occurs when there is a lack of blood to a portion of the brain, resulting in tissue death and loss of brain function. A stroke can be caused by a ruptured blood vessel, such as an aneurysm, or by an embolism, which is a small free-floating clot or particle that becomes lodged in one of the arteries of the brain and interrupts blood flow.
Depending on which area of the brain is affected, a stroke can cause speech impairments, paralysis, unconsciousness, or even death.


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The Egnater brand may not be so well known here, but in the USA, Bruce Egnater is rightly recognised as one of an elite handful of designers who've had a profound impact on the electric guitar's sonic development.
Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Egnater grew up learning guitar with the music of the local bands of his era, including Alice Cooper, Grand Funk Railroad and Bob Seger. His frustration at not being able to find an amp that did what he wanted it to led to Bruce designing and building one of the first cascaded gain lead channel guitar amps.
Ever since then, for three and a half decades, he's run his own custom amplification shop and worked with some of the world's top players, including Kirk Hammett, Steve Vai and Dimebag Darrell, as well as Randall and Rocktron.
Besides licensing his modular concept to Randall for the MTS series, Egnater hand-builds his own custom amps in Berkeley, Michigan and also has a range of Chinese-made products - including the Rebel 30 1 x 12 combo - which have been out for a couple of years, but only recently made it to the UK.
Hear the Egnater Rebel 30 in action in the following audio demo:
It may be a Rebel, but it's a smartly dressed one, with a suit of two-tone cream and black vinyl that's much thicker than we're used to seeing on Chinese products. The Rebel 30's cabinet is compact and deeper than you'd expect, making it very nearly a cube, but is easy to carry single-handed.
The electronics are contained inside a tough 'L'-shaped steel chassis, mostly on two large high quality printed circuit boards, one mounted vertically for the preamp stuff and one mounted horizontally for the output stage. These hold nearly everything, including the valve bases - the output valves hang upside down from the bottom of the chassis, while the four preamp valves are mounted horizontally and accessed through a removable grille, nearer to the top of the cabinet.
The colour scheme carries on to the control panel, where the Egnater's boutique heritage becomes clear. Channel one, the clean channel, features volume, bass and treble; channel two handles overdrive with a familiar layout of gain, master volume and three-band EQ.
Both channels feature sub-miniature toggle switches to operate Egnater's 'bright' and 'tight' functions, making it easy to add a little extra snap to a Les Paul or girth to the low-end of a Strat or Tele.
Now for the cool stuff: both channels have separate attenuator controls, varying the amp's output from a maximum of 30 watts down to just one watt. The Rebel 30's trick output stage features a pair of EL84s and a pair of 6V6s, which are linked to a front panel detented mix control that lets you fade from one pair to the other, with both pairs on in the centre position.
At either extreme you get about 20 watts, going up to around 30 with all four valves working. "I came up with the idea for that while I was stuck in an airport waiting for a flight," explains Egnater over a crackly trans-Atlantic phone line. "There are lots of amps with more than one type of output valve and I wanted to do that, but in a different way. As far as I know nobody else has that mix control, and the cool thing is it really works - you can really hear the change as you fade from the EL84s to the 6V6s and back again".
Next to the mix control is the standby switch, which has a third position for silent recording. This mutes the custom Celestion Egnater Elite 80 loudspeaker, but leaves the rear panel recording output active. This is balanced and speaker compensated, for an authentic straight-to-tape (or disk) amplified tone.
Other rear panel features include external speaker jacks, a socket for the two-button footswitch, switchable impedance and mains voltage (carefully protected under a screw-down cover) and separate channel level controls for the Rebel 30's digital reverb.
One minor annoyance: the reverb controls are laid out the opposite way round to the channels. If you lean over the front of the amp to adjust them, the reverb level knob for channel one is nearest the panel controls for channel two, and vice versa.
But that's pretty much the only thing we could find to grumble about here. The Rebel 30 has excellent build quality, tantalising features and plenty of that very rare commodity the Americans can do so well: style. As if to make sure we get the point, there's also a padded cover embroidered with the Egnater logo and a well-written informative manual printed on luxury paper.
"If you go to a Chinese factory and tell them you want something quick and cheap, you'll often get what you deserve," says Bruce. "We've worked tirelessly with our partners in China to raise the bar for quality. We're on the phone talking to them every day and make frequent visits to the factory to keep on top of things. I'm very proud of what we've achieved and I think the results speak for themselves".
We tried the Rebel out with our two regular test guitars: a Strat fitted with regular output Duncan Alnico Pro II single-coils, and a vintage Paul Reed Smith CE bolt-on loaded with HFS and Vintage humbuckers.
The Egnater's clean channel is rich, responsive and warm, with an extended glassy treble and nicely contoured lows that are easy to whip into shape with the bright and tight switches.
We never noticed the lack of a mid-range control - bass and treble interact smoothly and make it easy to get stunning clean sounds, enhanced by the smooth digital reverb, which tails off naturally as you switch between channels, despite level changes - something that Egnater calls 'spillover'.
As you turn up the volume a little more, the clean channel develops a subtle edge that's highly rewarding for big chords. The lead channel is quick and easy to dial-in and the gain control has plenty of mild overdrive range, with all the monster distortion happening in the last quarter of this knob's travel.
Egnater's signature hot lead tone is great fun, with a vocal sustain and harmonic squeals exploding off the attack of every note. "That edge on the clean channel is deliberate and something a lot of players like," says Bruce. "The lead channel has the classic Egnater tone - over the years I've learnt a lot of tricks and they help to define a character that folks will hopefully recognise."
At higher volume levels, the attenuator controls make it easy to add just the right amount of power amp drive, while being able to fade from the boxier mids of EL84s to the fatter bass and airy treble of the 6V6s is a revelation. There's so much colour to be had from these two features you may never get around to using the tone controls.
With the attenuator down on the one-watt setting you can get some pretty vicious distortion from the clean channel, but it works better the other way around - we had the lead channel's attenuator on about one quarter and the clean channel's all the way up.
At higher volume levels the Rebel 30 sounds much fatter and benefits from the purer tone of single-coils, while at low-to-medium volumes it's humbuckers that win. It's loud and easily copes with an unmic'd drum kit, with very little of the boxiness normally associated with small combos.
This is one of the best Chinese-made amps we've ever seen, with build quality, electronics, high-end design and sheer tone that far exceeds many Western-built products. It isn't the cheapest 'offshore' 30-watt amp you can buy, but you're getting what you pay for and then some, as there are many combos costing from £1000- £2000 that can't touch the Egnater for tone and response.
The Rebel 30 is one of those rare amplifier designs that simply cannot be made to sound bad, no matter how hard you try. Easily portable, capable of turning out great results in the studio and small to medium gigs, it's already a major hit in the USA and we think that it's destined for great things over here too. If your bag includes rock, blues and fusion, then this amp probably has your name on it… as well as Bruce Egnater's, of course!


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First of two parts
If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd write a tragedy about physics. I think he'd call it Romeo and SUSY.
It would start out with Romeo, a kind of avatar for all theoretical physicists, falling deeply in love with SUSY, a very beautiful but also very shy embodiment of the deepest insights into reality. Romeo had never actually met SUSY, though. She was kind of a magical, mythical creature, maybe a little like Hermione Granger. Romeo worshiped her nevertheless, entranced by the reports of her great beauty and intellectual sophistication.
For three decades Romeo searched far and wide for SUSY, eventually reaching her last conceivable hiding place, in a tunnel near Geneva. He got ever so close, but then a magnet blew up and he had to wait another few years. Finally he made it through the tunnel and didn't find SUSY there. And so Romeo, in despair, declared his life a meaningless failure and had to decide between killing himself or writing a blog.
To hear many physicists talk these days, Romeo ought to go ahead and opt for worms as chambermaids and die with a kiss. On the other hand, there are a few who say there's still some crimson in SUSY's cheeks and lips. Or at least maybe she has an even hotter sister who is still alive.
OK, today's real-life scenario isn't so dire that SUSY fans should be poisoning themselves. But physicists do seem to be in a tizzy these days over the experimental findings, or lack thereof, at the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful atom smasher. (It occupies the tunnel outside Geneva.) Everyone exulted last year when the LHC found the Higgs boson. But upon reflection, many were saddened that the Higgs was the only big thing the LHC found. No SUSY!
SUSY is shorthand for supersymmetry, the odds-on favorite to solve many of the mysteries about the physical world that have stumped theorists for decades. Supposedly the LHC should produce actual evidence for SUSY, but it hasn't. And so some physicists have begun to declare SUSY dead, or at least on life-support. Consequently, they say, physics now faces one of the greatest crises in its history. A typical lament, from one recent paper:
"After three years of very successful experimental work at Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, theoretical physics is apparently in the greatest crisis in its history." The experimental findings "have nearly eliminated supersymmetry as a possible physical theory. It seems inevitable that we have to face the Nightmare Scenario (i.e. no signs of new physics at LHC) and the unprecedented collapse of decades of speculative work."
In September, Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute in Canada, squirted lighter fluid into the flames during a lecture to students. "Theoretical physics is at a crossroads right now. In a sense we've entered a very deep crisis," he said. SUSY (and other theories) predicted that the LHC would find new particles. "And they're not there," Turok declared. "And so to a large extent, the theories have failed."
Well, maybe. But it might not really be so bad. Perhaps a little context is in order, starting with why physicists loved SUSY so much in the first place and then investigating the reasons for concern a little more deeply. There may turn out to be various ways the play could end without everybody having to die.
First of all, supersymmetry seems like such a good idea to physicists because symmetry even without the super was so successful. (After all, isn't a supernova better than a nova? Supermodel better than a model? Superman better than Clark Kent?) Symmetry showed its power in Einstein's theory of relativity, for example, and later on in the development of the modern theory of particles and forces, the standard model (or as Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek likes to call it, the Theory of Matter).
In this context, symmetry is a mathematical concept, but it has its nonmathematical illustrations. At its most basic, symmetry means that changing one thing doesn't change everything, or to sloganize it, symmetry is change without change. (Physicists prefer to say invariance under transformation, but it's the same idea). If you look at a circle in a mirror, you've flipped left and right, but the circle looks exactly the same. It possesses mirror image symmetry. If you rotate a snowflake by 60 degrees, it looks just like it did before you rotated it. Rotational symmetry.
All these and other symmetries can be described with equations that seem to be very helpful in making sense of the universe. Einstein was particularly skillful when it came to symmetry. His theory of relativity embodies the principle that the laws of physics stay the same no matter how you move. In the 1920s, Hungarian physicist Eugene Wigner pioneered the application of symmetry math to particle physics, describing particle properties using "quantum numbers" that emerge from equations describing symmetries. Symmetry equations led Murray Gell-Mann to propose the existence of quarks in 1964.
Further pursuit guided by symmetry math led to the creation, in the 1970s, of the standard model, which provides a precise description of all of nature's basic particles and forces. Some of those particles had not been discovered at the time, but they all have since, including the Higgs boson just last year. Symmetry has a better track record than even Bill Belichick, and is much more polite.
For a long time, though, it has been clear that the standard model symmetries do not solve all the problems that nature poses. During the 1970s, just as the standard model was taking shape, various physicists began to explore additional symmetries. In particular, several investigators discerned a symmetry (eventually called supersymmetry) relating the matter particles (technically, fermions) with the force particles (bosons). In 1981 Savas Dimopoulos and Howard Georgi produced the math describing the complete supersymmetric version of the standard model. For each fermion in the standard model, there should exist a supersymmetric partner boson. Each standard boson should have a superpartner fermion. So nature ought to possess twice the number of known particles.
Dimopoulos once told me that doubling the number of particles in nature wasn't as radical as it might have seemed. He pointed out that similar considerations had multiplied the number of particles in nature before. In the late 1920s, Wolfgang Pauli figured out that electrons must have a two-valued property later known as spin. That was really the same thing as doubling the number of electrons, Dimopoulos said. And a few years later Paul Dirac proposed the existence of antimatter — a new "antiparticle" for every known particle. Dimopoulos and Georgi were simply doing the same thing again.
There was one tiny (actually, big) problem: no evidence for any such particles. Superparticles therefore must be much more massive than their standard partners — otherwise they would already have been noticed. Hence the need for powerful atom smashers, capable of reaching energies high enough to make such particles. By most calculations, the LHC should have had enough energy to produce the lightest of the superparticles. But even though the LHC succeeded in finding the Higgs, it failed to find any signs of SUSY. To hear some physicists tell it, there never was a story of more woe.
But let's remember that Shakespeare isn't writing this story. It may be fair to say that the simplest version of SUSY (known as the minimal supersymmetric standard model) seems a little shaky. But that's not the end of the play.
Many variations on SUSY have been proposed — in other words, SUSY has siblings and cousins, perhaps not as beautiful as SUSY, but still possibly able to help solve some of the outstanding problems facing physics today. SUSY's no-show at the LHC may not imply supersymmetry's absence in nature, but merely that superpartner particles in the correct version of SUSY are too heavy for the LHC to see.
Heavier SUSY particles do pose a problem, though. They seem to complicate the theory more than necessary, and may defy a criterion that physicists call "naturalness," as Nathaniel Craig of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton pointed out in recent lectures, published at arXiv.org.
"The march of null results suggests that we were mostly wrong about precisely how supersymmetry would appear at the LHC," Craig writes.
It turns out that whether SUSY lives or dies may hinge on how physicists decide to define what is natural, and whether they should insist that a theory be as simple as possible, or parsimonious. And that turns out to be a rather complicated task. To be continued.
Follow me on Twitter: @tom_siegfried


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The second release of Census 2011 key and quick statistics for output areas was published today for all neighbourhoods across England and Wales. We are hard at work in the OCSI offices crunching the numbers as we load the data into the maps and reports on Community Insight, ready to go live next week.
The data has been published down to the most detailed Output Area level geography (covering around 120 households). The data covers ethnicity, skill levels, economic activity, general health, tenure, housing type, access to transport, household arrangements, what jobs people are doing, overcrowding, migration and country of birth.
As well as providing the detail of how local areas have changed over the 10 years since the last Census in 2001, this is the first time that such detailed data on many of these topics has been available at neighbourhood level. In addition to this, a range of new data has been published at Local Authority level for the first time. Find out more about the datasets from the ONS Census 2011 site, including detailed information on the data as well as videos explaining what the statistics mean.
Once we've loaded the new data into Community Insight and Population Insight, all subscribers will have access to the latest data on their areas through their maps and reports.


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Results from Mars Pathfinder
These are the findings of Mars Pathfinder.
- Rounded Pebbles were found - a result from analysis of the landing site, the rocks, and the soils.
- there were a variety of rocks deposited by a catastrophic flood
- suggestive of a water cycle kind of like that of Earth
- suggests that there was more warmth & more water in Martian past history
- remaining questions include: how fast, & where was the Martian water flowing, what was the capacity of the flood?
- Better measurement of the shape of Mars
- suggests Mars has a large core
- this measurement, combined with the recent magnetic field result returned by Mars Global Surveyor suggest that scientists must rethink their ideas about the evolution of Mars.
- Atmosphere


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An angry America but killing each other isn't the answer
CLEVELAND - Charlie LeDuff visits Cleveland's west side, in the neighborhood where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot a couple years ago. He was the kid sitting on a swing with what turned out to be a BB gun.
Since then, the Cleveland Police have been under a federal consent agreement about the use of force.
"We're better together than we are separate. We need to unite as one. We need to keep it going; we need to just stop all the violence that's going on. Killing on another is not going to make it better for anybody else," says Theresa Pope. "This is somebody's son; this is somebody's daughter; this is somebody's grandson; this is somebody's neice, nephew, whatever, daughter, son, mother, father, whatever the case is. You think about it, if one of your family members got gunned down."
At the site of Tamir's shooting is also a memorial for Officer Jonathan Schroeder, who was shot and killed 10 years ago in the neighborhood trying to arrest a rapist.
"Keep it cool and love each other, America"


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An important operator to understand in execution plans is a scan. A Scan can be good and bad, so understanding the difference between them is a basic skill needed by a DBA or developer that is going to do performance tuning.
The Table Scan means that a table does not have a clustered index and the optimal query plan decided to scan all leaf level pages in the table. The table is stored as a Heap because there is not clustered index. A table can have only one clustered index.
We are going to drop the primary key/clustered index on the DatabaseLog table of the AdventureWorks database.
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.indexes WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[DatabaseLog]') AND name = N'PK_DatabaseLog')
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[DatabaseLog] DROP CONSTRAINT [PK_DatabaseLog]
Then, we are going to execute the following code with Include Actual Execution Plan query option activated. In SQL Server Management Studio open a query window, either right-click the query window and choose Include Actual Execution Plan or select Include Actual Execution Plan from the Query menu.
Execute this code:
SELECT [DatabaseLogID] ,[PostTime] ,[DatabaseUser] ,[Event]
,[Schema] ,[Object] ,[TSQL] ,[XmlEvent]
FROM [dbo].[DatabaseLog]
You will get the following execution plan table scan
The optimizer says a full Table Scan is the best plan. The operator Table Scan indicates that the table does not have a clustered index. By default, creating a primary key will make the key a clustered index, but that is not always the case. I am working on a Fact table at work where a Unique Constraint is the clustered index, but the primary key is a 7 column compound key of Surrogate Keys.
By adding a Clustered Index to table DatabaseLog (Primary Key), we can change this Table scan to a clustered index scan. A clustered index changes the logical/physical structure of the table to follow an index tree.
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[DatabaseLog]
ADD CONSTRAINT [PK_DatabaseLog]
([DatabaseLogID] ASC)
We get the following if we execute the SELECT query again like above:
So, what is the difference in Cost? None.
So what is the big deal, they both costs the same. Well, when you start using a WHERE clause and the no clustered index table still does a full scan, but the clustered index might do an Clustered Index Seek if the density/cardinality gives the optimizer a better choice, you will see the performance difference. More on this is a later blog.
My advice, ALWAYS have a primary AND/OR a clustered index on all tables. The decision on making the primary key a clustered index is dependent on your experience in managing and planning the correct implementation.
All right, lastly we will see a Index Scan. First, we will add a Non-clustered index to the table DatabaseLog.
CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [idxDatabaseLog_DatabaseUserScehmaObject]
ON [dbo].[DatabaseLog]
( [DatabaseUser], [Schema], [Object] )
Now, the query optimizer creates a plan to scan the new non-clustered index to retrieve the data needed in the SELECT statement. If we add a WHERE clause to the SELECT, it will change to a Index Seek.
SELECT [DatabaseUser], [Schema], [Object]
FROM [dbo].[DatabaseLog]
WHERE DatabaseUser = 'dbo'
Reading execution plans can be a lot easier than understanding them to help performance tuning. I know I spent many hours thinking I finally got it, before some article on SQL Server Central website or SQL Server Magazine changed the understanding I have about T-SQL statements and indexing for performance. But, you have to start somewhere, then keep improving your understanding.


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Hip Pouch / Bananatex®
Classic Navy
Incl. all taxes and fees
Free shipping (above USD 200)
Delivery within 3–6 working days
The Hip Pouch is a small bag for holding essentials with adjustable hip and shoulder carry options.
Two inner compartments allow for the safe storage of small items. Its main compartment fastens with a YKK® metal zipper with cotton tape, and the Hip Pouch's water-resistant finish is complemented by vegetable-tanned leather trims.
Learn more about Bananatex®
- multiple carrying options
- main compartment with YKK® metal zipper with cotton tape
- adjustable hip/shoulder strap
- 2 small inner compartments
- vegetable-tanned leather trims
- water-resistant finish
- FabricBananatex® – 100% naturally grown Abacá (banana plant) – Ruco®-Dry Eco Plus water-repellent treatment (surface) & waterproof natural wax coating (backside)
- Insideno lining
- StrapsBananatex®
- Othervegetable-tanned cowhide
- Size(L×W×H)19×11×6 cm
- Volume1.1 l
- Weight0.18 kg
Care & Warranty
If needed, hand wash your QWSTION item using a soft cloth and lukewarm water. Air dry thoroughly, leather and metal parts should be washed and dried extra carefully. Do not machine wash or tumble dry. QWSTION products are warranted to be free from manufacturing defects for two years from original date of purchase. This applies when used for the purpose intended and under normal conditions.


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The long, warm days of a typical California summer make life easy for sun-loving cotton plants. But a fungal enemy that causes what's known as Fusarium wilt can make things tough for the plants—and for growers' balance sheets, too.
That's why Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plant pathologist Rebecca S. Bennett is researching environmentally friendly ways to fight the fungus. Bennett works at the ARS Western Integrated Cropping Systems Research Unit in Shafter, Calif.
Researchers know the troublesome fungus as Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum, or FOV race 4. A soil-dweller that was first detected in California in 2001, FOV race 4 can clog a plant's "plumbing," or vascular system, eventually causing its leaves to yellow, wilt and die. Yields of the afflicted plant's fluffy white bolls may plummet.
In a 3-year study, Bennett is looking at solarization, in which soil covered with plastic tarps might capture enough heat from the sun's rays to kill the fungus. Though solarization is likely too expensive to use on a widespread basis on cotton fields, it might be economical for spot-treating highly infested sites, Bennett said.
Bennett also is collaborating with plant pathologist Tom Gordon of the University of California-Davis on an indoor study of the microbe. In that experiment, Fusarium will be specially equipped with a gene that gives it a bright green glow when viewed with ultraviolet light in the lab. The telltale glow will make it easier for Bennett and Gordon to spy on the fungus and, perhaps, to find a way to bring about its demise.
Related work by other scientists at Shafter and elsewhere focuses on a different strategy: to breed superior cotton plants that have impressive natural resistance to the microbe.
Story Source:
Materials provided by US Department of Agriculture. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Cite This Page:


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A little more than a week after an Alabama kindergartener was freed from an underground bunker by a FBI special team, his mom has reached out to Tv personality Dr. Phil McGraw for help in dealing with her son Ethan's emotions.
Jennifer Kirkland appeared on Wednesday's Dr. Phil episode. The show says she asked for help in talking with her son "about the frightening experience....How might it affect his mental and emotional health in the future?"
Ethan was in the 6-by-8 bunker when the FBI team stormed it, killing his captor, Jimmy Lee Dykes, who had held him there for a week. The agents went in, after they saw through a hidden camera that Dykes had become more agitated and was carrying a gun. Ethan had already seen Dykes kill his bus driver, Charles Poland, Jr. before he was kidnapped.
During the week-long ordeal, Ethan's mom wanted to talk to Dykes herself, but she was urged not to by authorities. Kirkland says the situation was so delicate, she also stayed away from reporters as the situation developed. Dykes had access to television and the internet and officials didn't want Ethan to overhear his mother in interview and become agitated.
"I didn't want Ethan to see me and break down, and then Mr. Dykes see Ethan break down, and not knowing how he would react to that," she says.
But Kirkland also wanted Dykes to be helped. She told a sheriff's deputy, "I understand that man is sick. Don't hurt him." And she says she saw Dykes as a man who cared for her son, who cooked chicken for him and asked for toys that were given to him.
Kirkland says, "From the very beginning, I had already forgiven Mr. Dykes, even though he still had my child. I could not be angry through this because my job was to be the mother, the concerned mother that I needed to be. and want to get my child back. And with hatred in me, I could have never made it through it."
"I asked that he not be hurt, but if it came down to it, you know, of course I want my child safe," she added.
Kirkland says Ethan is showing some signs of sleep disturbance. Counselors tell the Associated Press that the child will need to be evaluated for nightmares.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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A meteor estimated to be 10 tons by NASA exploded Friday morning over Russia's Ural region and its shockwave caused injuries to over 1,000 people. It took out windows and walls in the city of Chelyabinsk. And it temporarily shifted the conversation here on earth to talks of the heavens.
"We can find these objects, we can track their motions, and we can predict their orbits many years into the future," noted Robert Naeye of Sky and Telescope in an essay called, Lessons from the Russian Meteor Blast. "And in the unlikely event that we actually find a dangerous object on a collision course with Earth, we might actually be able to deflect it if given sufficient warning time. Now, every government in the world is keenly aware of the possibility of meteor explosions over its territory."
The Russian parliament is also keen on the idea. "Instead of fighting on Earth, people should be creating a joint system of asteroid defense," its affairs committee chief Alexei Pushkov wrote on his Twitter account late Friday. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin on Saturday reiterated the idea and proposed a global defense system to counter space threats.
And on CNN, Lawrence Krauss, professor of physics and director of the Origin Project, talked about how human technology has advanced to the point of predicting and, more interesting, deflecting oncoming meteorites that could cause the earth "significant damage."
"We have to think about it seriously,"he said. "It's not science fiction. We can send a rocket out and land on [a meteor] or impact with it." If the meteor is far enough, "A small rocket running for a while [can cause] a small angular change.. enough have it miss the earth."
Meanwhile a new program called ATLAS is about to be launched. According to The Guardian, "The University of Hawaii has proposed a cheaper, simpler system known as Atlas – Advanced Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System – to be constructed with the help of a $5m grant from NASA." Its aim is to create a warning system on oncoming asteroids and find ways to save earth from the impact.
So welcome to the age of empyrealization—an age of man's increasing awareness and interactions with the heavens. We grow cognizant that we exist on intimate levels with the rest of the universe, that we are interacting with it, and, increasingly, having an effect upon it as it does upon us. The word doesn't exist yet in the dictionary, but for that matter neither did globalization 3 decades ago.
Unlike the dinosaurs, we have, in effect, become active agents in changing our destiny. A giant meteor wiped out 90 percent of life on earth 65 million years ago because the dinosaurs didn't collectively create a missile shield to deflect the meteor. Humans, on the other hand, with our orbiting telescopes and space probes, and our growing awareness of the threat from space, can track large foreign objects coming millions miles away and are talking about collectively deflecting those that could do us harm.
That man has changed his home planet is now well-accepted. Long before the industrial revolution and the age of climate change, humans have significantly impacted earth, at least according to climate scientist William Ruddiman. In his book titled "Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate," he claimed that there is significant evidence that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been rising since the earliest beginnings of agriculture. There is strong evidence, too, that a mini-ice age was averted some 5,000 years ago due to the rise in methane caused by the proliferation of rice paddy agriculture in Asia.
Unlike our ancestors, however, increasingly we are aware that human actions have an impact on the entire planet and beyond.
The knowledge informs NASA's decision in September 2003 to crash the spacecraft Galileo on Jupiter rather on Europa, one of Jupiter's 39 satellites. Europa has an ocean under its ice and active volcanoes to boot. It just might be supporting alien life. Jupiter, on the other hand, is very hot and gaseous and deemed incapable of life. Crashing Galileo on Europa would have risked contaminating it with microbes from earth.
In fact, we have been interacting with the heavens longer than most have thought. Think of it in term of radio waves. According to Adam Grossman, "mankind has been broadcasting radio waves into deep space for about a hundred years now… That, of course, means there is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity's presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way. This bubble is astronomically large (literally), and currently spans approximately 200 light years across."
Or think of it in term of our orbiting trash. According to NASA, "More than 500,000 pieces of debris, or "space junk," are tracked as they orbit the Earth. They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft. "
While some fall to earth, others exit into outer space. In other word, the cosmos might rain meteors on earth, but humans too have already interacted with the universe by sending manmade debris into space.
More significantly, our rovers have been on Mars, roaming and digging, and studying its soil. And we have plenty of space probes that travel about in our solar system. Voyager 1, the first space probe sent up to the cosmos, has gone outside of the solar system and into deep space.
And all the while we map the universe, searching for planets that maybe hospitable to life. Astronomers, in fact, have discovered hundreds of other solar systems, and 864 exoplanets so far — planets that are outside our solar systems. One planet in particular, 150 million light years away, is believed to have an atmosphere.
Clearly our destiny is in outer space. In a sense, globalization is but child's play compared to empyrealization, where man now recognizes earth as exiting in an open system with the rest of the cosmos and that he is interacting with, and increasingly, having an effect upon it.
Alas, back home, there's the issue of falling meteorites. The dinosaurs didn't fare well. Man, on the other hand, has a better chance. Whether or not we can deflect a large meteor as in the hollywood movie, Armageddon, remains to be seen. But brilliant minds are at work. And nothing like an external threat to galvanize humanity.


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This post is actually a response to John Merrow's Huffington Post column on value-added. Recommended - it's quite good!
First, I appreciate Mr. Merrow going to the source. I've known and worked with Bill for years and his work inspired my passion for education, leading ultimately to serving on the school board here in Nashville. His work is solid but the policy recommendations drawn from it are often wrong. Part of that is Tennessee's fault - we've had almost 20 years to learn how to help teachers add more value, and we've failed because we spent most of those 20 years fighting the data rather than working with it. Based on years of working with that data from a policy perspective and my work in positive psychology, here are my policy recommendations:
1. Recruit great teacher candidates. TFA has found that high grades and test scores from top colleges are not enough. We need better data on the qualities of character and outlook that make for great teachers, and how to select for them (I suspect there will be multiple patterns), but, in the meantime, look to resilience - especially optimism and a growth mindset - plus a passion for teaching.
2. Help teachers develop personally to become more resilient, more growth-minded, better at relationships, more focused on strengths - and show them proven ways to help develop these same qualities in students while teaching academic content. The Army is doing this for sergeants to help soldiers; why can't we do it for teachers? http://csf.army.mil/news.html This book I co-authored can help: http://www.smartstrengths.com/
3. Focus teacher professional development on teacher-led instructional improvement through "Lesson Study" or something very similar. http://www.shearonforschools.com/books_lesson_study.htm
4. Develop better leaders. Top young teachers want and deserve good leadership, and they want open, meaningful pathways to leadership. A great principal can help inspire and guide young teachers toward excellence and high value-add; a poor one runs great candidates out of the teaching profession. Many unnecessary obstacles have been placed in the path to leadership by legislators and administrators in the name of "improving leadership" - get rid of those that don't have solid, empirical evidence that they actually make better leaders (when in doubt, cut it out) and focus on leadership opportunities and mentorship to build on the base provided by the professional development and teacher-led instructional improvement cited above.
For more on the thinking behind these recommendations, see the chapter on "Positive Education" in Marty Seligman's new book <i>Flourish</i> or the white paper available here: http://www.flourishingschools.org/Positive_Education_FSWhitePaper.pdf