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A doctor in the early 20th century weighed several patients at the moment of death in order to determine the weight of their departing souls.
These experiments were extremely flawed and demonstrated nothing credible about the human soul or post-mortem weight loss.
Most of those of a religious bent believe in life everlasting for the faithful, a continuation of the life force that reaches far beyond the limitations of mortal flesh. In such belief systems, death is not an end but a transformation: though people shed their corporeal selves at the moment of demise, that which made them unique beings lives on to rejoin the Creator. We call this intrinsic personhood "the soul," an entity described in the dictionary as "The immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life."
Yet as much as we believe in the concept of "soul," this life spark remains strictly an article of faith. As central as it is to our perception of ourselves, it can't be seen or heard or smelled or touched or tasted, a state of affairs that leaves some of us uneasy. Without the soul, dead is dead. But if it could be proved to exist, a great deal of anxiety over what happens to us when we die would be vanquished.
Enter Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the early 20 century:
Those who believe that the body becomes lighter [at the moment of death] seem to think that the soul has weight, weight that must of necessity depart with it, and — with that brisk disregard of strict veracity which so frequenly marks discussions of this nature — have claimed that dying men, at the very moment of their decease, have been placed on delicate scales that have recorded their mortuary degravitation. But these persons have never been able to specify in just what ghoulish laboratory this took place, or what private home was so interestingly equipped, or the names and addresses of the relatives who so commendably placed scientific and religious curiosity before sentimental concern for the patient's comfort.1
The doctor postulated the soul was material and therefore had mass, ergo a measurable drop in the weight of the deceased would be noted at the moment this essence parted ways with the physical remains. The belief that human beings are possessed of souls which depart their bodies after death and that these souls have detectable physical presences were around well before the 20th century, but claims that souls have measurable mass which falls within a specific range of weights can be traced to experiments conducted by Dr. MacDougall in 1907.
Dr. MacDougall, seeking to determine "if the psychic functions continue to exist as a separate individuality or personality after the death of brain and body," constructed a special bed in his office "arranged on a light framework built upon very delicately balanced platform beam scales" sensitive to two-tenths of an ounce. He installed upon this bed a succession of six patients in the end stages of terminal illnesses (four from tuberculosis, one from diabetes, and one from unspecified causes); observed them before, during, and after the process of death; and measured any corresponding changes in weight. He then attempted to eliminate as many physiological explanations for the observed results as he could conceive:
The patient's comfort was looked after in every way, although he was practically moribund when placed upon the bed. He lost weight slowly at the rate of one ounce per hour due to evaporation of moisture in respiration and evaporation of sweat.
During all three hours and forty minutes I kept the beam end slightly above balance near the upper limiting bar in order to make the test more decisive if it should come.
At the end of three hours and forty minutes he expired and suddenly coincident with death the beam end dropped with an audible stroke hitting against the lower limiting bar and remaining there with no rebound. The loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce.
This loss of weight could not be due to evaporation of respiratory moisture and sweat, because that had already been determined to go on, in his case, at the rate of one sixtieth of an ounce per minute, whereas this loss was sudden and large, three-fourths of an ounce in a few seconds. The bowels did not move; if they had moved the weight would still have remained upon the bed except for a slow loss by the evaporation of moisture depending, of course, upon the fluidity of the feces. The bladder evacuated one or two drams of urine. This remained upon the bed and could only have influenced the weight by slow gradual evaporation and therefore in no way could account for the sudden loss.
There remained but one more channel of loss to explore, the expiration of all but the residual air in the lungs. Getting upon the bed myself, my colleague put the beam at actual balance. Inspiration and expiration of air as forcibly as possible by me had no effect upon the beam. My colleague got upon the bed and I placed the beam at balance. Forcible inspiration and expiration of air on his part had no effect. In this case we certainly have an inexplicable loss of weight of three-fourths of an ounce. Is it the soul substance? How other shall we explain it?2
MacDougall repeated his experiment with fifteen dogs and observed that "the results were uniformly negative, no loss of weight at death." This result seemingly corroborated MacDougall's hypothesis that the loss in weight recorded as humans expired was due to the soul's departure from the body, since (according to his religious doctrine) animals have no souls. (MacDougall's explanation that "the ideal tests on dogs would be obtained in those dying from some disease that rendered them much exhausted and incapable of struggle" but "it was not my fortune to get dogs dying from such sickness" led author Mary Roach to observe that "barring a local outbreak of distemper, one is forced to conjecture that the good doctor calmly poisoned fifteen healthy canines for his little exercise in biological theology.")
In March 1907 accounts of MacDougall's experiments were published in the New York Times and the medical journal American Medicine, prompting what Mary Roach described as an "acrid debate" in the latter's letters column:
Fellow Massachusetts doctor Augustus P. Clarke took MacDougall to task for having failed to take into account the sudden rise in body temperature at death when the blood stops being air-cooled via its circulation through the lungs. Clarke posited that the sweating and moisture evaporation caused by this rise in body temperature would account both for the drop in the men's weight and the dogs' failure to register one. (Dogs cool themselves by panting, not sweating.) MacDougall rebutted that without circulation, no blood can be brought to the surface of the skin and thus no surface cooling occurs. The debate went on from the May issue all the way through December ...3
It would take a great deal of credulity to conclude that MacDougall's experiments demonstrated anything about post-mortem weight loss, much less the quantifiable existence of the human soul. For one thing, his results were far from consistent, varying widely across his half-dozen test cases:
- "[S]uddenly coincident with death . . . the loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce."
- "The weight lost was found to be half an ounce. Then my colleague auscultated the heart and found it stopped. I tried again and the loss was one ounce and a half and fifty grains."
- "My third case showed a weight of half an ounce lost, coincident with death, and an additional loss of one ounce a few minutes later."
- "In the fourth case unfortunately our scales were not finely adjusted and there was a good deal of interference by people opposed to our work . . . I regard this test as of no value."
- "My fifth case showed a distinct drop in the beam requiring about three-eighths of an ounce which could not be accounted for. This occurred exactly simultaneously with death but peculiarly on bringing the beam up again with weights and later removing them, the beam did not sink back to stay for fully fifteen minutes."
- "My sixth and last case was not a fair test. The patient died almost within five minutes after being placed upon the bed and died while I was adjusting the beam."
So, out of six tests, two had to be discarded, one showed an immediate drop in weight (and nothing more), two showed an immediate drop in weight which increased with the passage of time, and one showed an immediate drop in weight which reversed itself but later recurred. And even these results cannot be accepted at face value as the potential for experimental error was extremely high, especially since MacDougall and his colleagues often had difficulty in determining the precise moment of death, one of the key factors in their experiments. (MacDougall later attempted to explain away the timing discrepancies by concluding that "the soul's weight is removed from the body virtually at the instant of last breath, though in persons of sluggish temperament it may remain in the body for a full minute.")
Dr. MacDougall admitted in his journal article that his experiments would have to repeated many times with similar results before any conclusions could be drawn from them:
If it is definitely proved that there is in the human being a loss of substance at death not accounted for by known channels of loss, and that such loss of substance does not occur in the dog as my experiments would seem to show, then we have here a physiological difference between the human and the canine at least and probably between the human and all other forms of animal life.I am aware that a large number of experiments would require to be made before the matter can be proved beyond any possibility of error, but if further and sufficient experimentation proves that there is a loss of substance occurring at death and not accounted for by known channels of loss, the establishment of such a truth cannot fail to be of the utmost importance.2
Nonetheless, MacDougall believed he was onto something — four years later the New York Times reported in a front-page story that he had moved on to experiments which he hoped would allow him to take pictures of the soul:
Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, who has experimented much in the observation of death, in an interview published here to-day expressed doubt that the experiments with X rays about to be made at the University of Pennsylvania will be successful in picturing the human soul, because the X ray is in reality a shadow picture. He admits, however, that at the moment of death the soul substance might become so agitated as to reduce the obstruction that the bone of the skull offers ordinarily to the Roentgen ray and might therefore be shown on the plate as a lighter spot on the dark shadow of the bone.Dr. McDougall is convinced from a dozen experiments with dying people that the soul substance gives off a light resembling that of the interstellar ether. The weight of the soul he has determined to be from one-half ounce to nearly an ounce and a quarter.4
<!--This article prompted someone to pen an unsigned, tongue-in-cheek editorial expressing substantial skepticism about the then-current fad for weighing souls and photographing auras, published in the Times the following day:
The world need not wait for the results of experiments about to be conducted by Dr. DUNCAN MacDougall of Haverhill, Mass., in obtaining pictures of the human soul. Anybody can do it. At least that is the confident announcement of Dr. W.J. KILNER of London, whose methods Dr. MacDougall and Dr. PATRICK S. O'DONNELL, the X-ray expert of Chicago, seem to have copied. Get some of Dr. KILNER's dye which he calls "dicyanin"; make a screen of glass, coat it with collodion and gelatine mixed with the dye, and uncover this sensitized screen in the gloaming before a select circle of friends.Their auras, which in the half-half-light are visible through the screen to the keenly imaginative, may then be analyzed and classified. Their colors may be seen, especially if the owners of the auras be dull or mentally defective; then a bluish tendency is perceptible. The figure of the body projected upon the screen assumes not only its physical contour but the outlines of a radiographic emanation, of which one band is dark — this is the Etheric Double; the next is the Inner Aura, which often penetrates the Etheric Double and swathes the body; finally we have the Outer Aura, extremely variable, tremulous, and dissolving into the prosaic air. Three "standard" auras of different widths for men, women, and children have been defined. The auras vary from the standard or norm in conditions of health and sickness, so that Dr. KILNER is hopeful that their variations, noted by their effect upon the complementary colors and the eye's "color sensitive nerves" may be useful in locating the sites of pain and disease.
We have already printed some of Dr. KILNER's diagrams of the soul. We rely upon Drs. O'DONNELL and MacDougall for further authentic photographs and weights of the animating power, the etheric projection, the current of life, the last breath, the soul substance, or whatever it may be called, to make possible, in this halcyon and fatuous Summer season, a substitute for the customary word-pictures of the sea-serpent.5
Predictably, there were those who interpreted the editorial as one meant literally rather than ironically and expressed their outrage that experiments in photographing the human aura should be so misrepresented by the Times:
To the Editor of The New York Times:
Neither Dr. W. J. Kilner of London, nor Dr. MacDougall of Haverhill, Mass., nor Dr. Patrick S. O'Connell of Chicago has ever claimed that the atmosphere surrounding the human body represents the soul. None of these gentleman has ever claimed that he was able to obtain photographs of the atmosphere surrounding the body. All this talk has emanated from the heated brain of a highly imaginative newspaper reporter, but has no foundation in facts, and I am sorry for the man who palmed off this editorial on your good self . . .6
MacDougall seems not to have made any more experimental breakthroughs regarding the measurement of the human soul after 1911 (at least, none considered remarkable enough to have been reported in the pages of the New York Times), and he passed away in 1920. Nonetheless, his legacy lives on in the oft-expressed maxim that the human soul weighs 21 grams. (At the moment of death, MacDougall's first test subject decreased in weight by three-fourths of an ounce, which is 21.3 grams.)
What to make of all this? MacDougall's results were flawed because the methodology used to harvest them was suspect, the sample size far too small, and the ability to measure changes in weight imprecise. For this reason, credence should not be given to the idea his experiments proved something, let alone that they measured the weight of the soul as 21 grams. His postulations on this topic are a curiosity, but nothing more.
An interesting counterpoint to this item is another widespread belief of those long-ago times, one which held that the human body gained weight after death — the exact opposite of what Dr. MacDougall was attempting to prove:
More prevalent is the other belief, expressed in the phrase "dead weight," that a body weighs more after death. But it only seems to weigh more. We carry our own bodies about so easily that we are unaware of what an exertion it really requires. And when, in some emergency that forces us to bear the additional weight of another body, we feel a gravitational pull of from two hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds, we are astonished and assume that the other body has somehow acquired additional heaviness. The weight of a corpse, or even of an amputated limb, is startling when felt for the first time. A husky man, flourishing his arms about, has no idea that they weigh as much as twenty-pound sacks of sugar; and a jitterbugging girl doesn't realize that she is throwing a couple of forty-pound legs around as if they were ping-pong balls.1
Sightings: The title of the 2003 film 21 Grams was taken from this belief.


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Hallmark Channel Green Lights Second Primetime Series; Three Back-Door Pilots in Development Based on Works From Award-Winning Writers, All Part of 2013 New Original Movie Lineup; Walden Family Theatre New Appointment Viewing Franchise
Hallmark Channel, the nation's leading destination for original, quality family programming, announces "When Calls The Heart," an original Hallmark Channel movie to premiere October 5, 2013, as the two-hour back door pilot and newest primetime series for a January 2014 premiere, Walden Family Theatre rolls out with all new original Friday night movies, 13 original movies to premiere on the network Q2-Q4 2013, including three new pilot-to-series projects in development based on the works from award-winning author Mary Higgins Clark and Emmy(R) nominated writer and executive producer Martha Williamson, respectively. The announcement was made today by Michelle Vicary, EVP, Programming for Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel in New York City at the annual Upfront.
"Exceptional programming, including some of the best shows suitable for families, is what you've come to expect from Hallmark Channel -- it's what distinguishes our network in the cable television landscape and it's what our viewers want," said Michelle Vicary.
"With our first ever scripted series, 'Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove', premiering July 20, we are truly committed to build this area of programming as we greenlight our second series 'When Calls the Heart' for a January 2014 premiere and three other pilot-to-series projects in already in development. Hallmark Channel has created a destination for family viewing on Friday nights with six new original movies including the recently aired 'Return to Nim's Island'. Family viewing was once a staple on television and Hallmark Channel is passionate about bringing families back together for a shared entertainment experience. We are equally committed to bringing our viewers the best in holiday programming that they have come to love and expect from Hallmark Channel. The '12 New Movies of Christmas' brought the network the #1 Saturday cable movie for seven consecutive weeks and as our network continues to build and grow on all our successes, we are dedicated more than ever to stay true to our brand and to bring our viewers those emotional stories that are 'The Heart of TV'," concluded Vicary.
Hallmark Channel Original Movies for Q2-Q4 2013 include:
MR. HOCKEY: THE GORDIE HOWE STORY At age 45, hockey legend Gordie Howe has retired from the game. When given the chance to play alongside his sons, however, Gordie attempts to accomplish the unthinkable and return to professional hockey. As the Howe family prepare themselves for a comeback that some labeled "the biggest publicity stunt in hockey history," they discover lessons about family, pride and believing in their own dreams. Stars: Michael Shanks, Kathleen Robertson, Dylan Playfair and Andrew Herr. Premieres: May 4 @ 9p.m. ET/PT, 8C.
BEVERLY LEWIS' THE CONFESSION Based on the novel by New York Times bestselling author Beverly Lewis, "Beverly Lewis' The Confession" portrays a young Amish woman who makes her first journey to the outside world in search for her birth mother, a wealthy estate owner who is dying of cancer. When she finally finds her, she isn't expecting the woman's greedy husband to be scheming to steal her entire estate, and is soon caught up in a tangled web of deception as she desperately tries to get closer to the mother she never knew. Stars: Sherry Stringfield, Katie Leclerc and Adrian Paul. Premieres: May 11 @ 9p.m. ET/PT, 8C.
PLAYING FATHER A former famed jazz musician gets a job teaching music at a local disadvantaged high school after his divorce. Discovering one young man's musical talent on the trumpet, he is inspired to mentor him and start a band to keep the school open, unexpectedly leading him back to a relationship with his own estranged son. Stars: Eddie Cibrian and Michael Beach. Premieres June 15 @ 9p.m. ET/PT, 8C.
STAR SPANGLED BANNERS In their late teens and early 20's, the Banner siblings Mitchell, Desiree and Danny made it big as a rock group, but at the height of their fame, Desiree decided to leave the group and everything fell apart. Now, fifteen years later, their mother has a plan to bring the group back together and heal her family. But will the siblings be able to put aside their differences and reunite or will they remain estranged forever? Stars: Brooke White. Premieres: June 29 @ 9p.m. ET/PT, 8C.
TWO IN A 911 operator who is a single mom starts to fall for a fireman after he breaks his leg in an emergency and unusual circumstances bring them together. As he gets to know her and her two young kids, their connection is undeniable, but with the best interests of her family in mind, she has to decide if two really is better than one. Stars: Alison Sweeney, Greg Vaughan and Ed Asner. Premieres: July 27 @ 9p.m. ET/PT, 8C.
READING WRITING & ROMANCE A struggling actor takes a job teaching Shakespeare at the local high school to make ends meet. As he starts to fall in love with a fellow teacher and use his theatrical talent to motivate his students to complete a big project, the jealous vice principal cruelly sets out to sabotage his romance and his job, forcing him to face the toughest decision of his life. Stars: Eric Mabius, Virginia Williams, Stefanie Powers, Meredith Baxter and Martin Mull. Premieres: August 10 @ 9p.m. ET/PT, 8C.
WHEN CALLS THE HEART Based on Janette Oke's bestselling Canadian West series of books, "When Calls the Heart" is the story of Elizabeth Thatcher, a young teacher accustomed to her high society life, who receives her first classroom post in a prairie town in the Western Frontier. She is determined to prove to her family she is brave enough to live on her own, but struggles with her own fears and doubts. But when she discovers her late Aunt's secret diary, Elizabeth learns she was a pioneer woman herself, a teacher in the frontier who struggled with prairie life and fell in love with a Royal Canadian Mountie. Inspired by her aunt's hopeful words and unfaltering determination, Elizabeth decides to embark on her own adventure, using the diary as her guide and family friend Edward, another Mountie, as her support. "When Calls The Heart" will feature a two-hour sneak peek for the newest primetime series to be greenlit by Hallmark Channel which will premiere January 2014. Stars: Maggie Grace, Jean Smart, Lori Loughlin, Poppy Drayton and Stephen Amell. Premieres: October 5 @ 9p.m. ET/PT, 8C. (See separate release)
THE GOOD WITCH'S DESTINY Life is good for Good Witch Cassie Nightingale and as her birthday's approaching, all she wants is a family party surrounded by everyone she loves including newlywed's Grandpa George and his new wife Gwen. But life starts getting complicated when Gwen's estranged son arrives in town and begins to make trouble for Cassie. And to make matters worse, Cassie's stepson Brandon, has decided to put his career on hold and follow his girlfriend to college. Meanwhile, stepdaughter Lori, discovers disturbing parallels between Cassie and the original Grey Lady who disappeared at her own birthday party years before. Will Cassie be able to sort everything out in her own magical way or will history repeat itself and cost Cassie everything she has built? Stars: Catherine Bell and Chris Potter. Premieres: October 26 @ 9p.m. ET/PT, 8C. Walden Family Theater for Q2-Q4 2013 include:
SPACE WARRIORS Six highly skilled teenagers are handpicked to be part of a summer space camp competition at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. As the competition heats up, the kids have no idea that their ultimate challenge will be to solve a life or death crisis aboard the International Space Station as the world anxiously watches. "Space Warriors" is part of Hallmark Channel's new appointment viewing franchise, "Walmart and P&G present Walden Family Theater," created by Walmart, P&G, award-winning family entertainment producer, Walden Media, and fast-growing independent studio, ARC Entertainment. Stars: Dermot Mulroney, Thomas Horn, Mira Sorvino, Josh Lucas and Danny Glover. Premieres: May 24 @ 8p.m. ET/PT, 7C.
PETE'S CHRISTMAS A young 14 year old boy named Pete had the worst Christmas Day ever and wakes up to find he must repeat the day again and again until he gets it right. "Pete's Christmas" is part of Hallmark Channel's new appointment viewing franchise, "Walmart and P&G present Walden Family Theater," created by Walmart, P&G, award-winning family entertainment producer, Walden Media, and fast-growing independent studio, ARC Entertainment. Stars: Bruce Dern, Zachary Gordon, Bailee Madison, Molly Parker and Rick Roberts. Premieres: Holiday 2013. New Pilot-To-Series Projects In Development:
MARY HIGGINS CLARK'S MY GAL SUNDAY Based on the book of short stories by Mary Higgins Clark, "My Gal Sunday" follows the husband and wife crime solving duo of Sunday and Henry Parker. Parker, an ex-Vice President of the United States and Sunday, a legal aid lawyer are celebrating their first wedding anniversary when Parker assists Sunday in snaring a murderer and he takes a bullet in the arm in the process. As they later head off on a romantic weekend getaway, they are kidnapped and taken to a remote, abandoned farmhouse where the kidnapper demands the release of a dangerous, notorious former hit man. Both Parker and Sunday assume the ex-Vice President must be the target but as time ticks down and Parker becomes desperately ill from his untended wound, Sunday musters all her brilliant skills and bravado to confront and expose the kidnapper - realizing that she is his true target of vengeance. Mary Higgins Clark's crime solving duo, is one of three new pilot-to-series projects currently in development. (See separate release)
DEAD LETTERS Created by bestselling author Martha Williamson, "Dead Letters," follows a quirky quartet of civil servants in the Dead Letter Office of the US Postal System who transform themselves into an elite team of lost-mail detectives. Their determination to deliver the undeliverable takes them out of the post office into an unpredictable world where letters and packages from the past save lives, solve crimes, reunite old loves and change futures by arriving late but always miraculously on time. The intrepid bunch is led by the charming and handsome (but idiosyncratic) Oliver who still considers the stamped and mailed letter to be the gold standard of human communication. His hapless team of lost letter experts, free-spirited Rita and oddly-intuitive Norman, are thrown for a loop when a beautiful, no-nonsense technophile named Shane is mistakenly transferred to their inner sanctum. Shane inspires the lovable crew to step up in a risky and unorthodox way, beginning with a chance to clear the name of a wrongfully accused man and reconnect him with the love of his life. "Dead Letters" is one of two new pilot-to-series projects currently in development for Hallmark Channel. Premieres: October 19 @ 9p.m. ET/PT, 8C. (See separate release)
Hallmark Channel, owned and operated by Crown Media Holdings, Inc., is a 24-hour basic cable network that provides a diverse slate of high-quality entertainment programming available in high definition (HD) and standard definition (SD) to a national audience of 87 million subscribers. Hallmark Channel is the nation's leading destination for quality family programming with an ambitious slate of original TV movies and specials, as well as some of television's most beloved sitcoms and series, including The Golden Girls, Frasier, and Happy Days. The channel is also home to a range of lifestyle programming, anchored by Home & Family, a daily two-hour live show shot in a fully functional house located on the Universal Studios lot, and Marie, a one-hour talk show hosted by iconic entertainer, Marie Osmond. Hallmark Channel's sibling network, Hallmark Movie Channel, also available in HD and SD, focuses on family-friendly movies with a mix of original films, classic theatrical releases, and presentations from the acclaimed Hallmark Hall of Fame library.

subset: commoncrawl


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It has taken more than eight years to bring the new Texas Integrated Eligibility Redesign System (TIERS) online in every region of the state. While its users ultimately may find it more efficient than its predecessor — the 1970s-era System of Application, Verification, Eligibility, Referral and Reporting (SAVERR) — it's likely that the personnel involved in the transition are thankful the project's finish line is now firmly in sight.
The switch to TIERS had an array of problems from the start. Although the project began in June 2003 as a pilot in both Travis and Hays counties, and the system was implemented in Williamson County in 2006, the process dragged on through the end of the decade.
Different systems integrators tried pushing the TIERS implementation through — Texas first went with Deloitte, then switched to Accenture only to return to Deloitte — but the Texas Health and Human Services Commission's (HHSC) attempt to modernize its eligibility system seemed destined for a colossal failure.
According to Texas officials, the back-and-forth dance between Accenture and Deloitte led to some technical issues with the code embedded in TIERS. The application encountered networking issues that slowed processing and, at times, pages on which users were working would suddenly go blank.
Combined with workers being unfamiliar with TIERS and insufficiently trained, it's no surprise that a November 2007 state audit called TIERS "cumbersome to use."
The inevitable slowdown of work led to backlogged eligibility cases and snowballed into a stereotypical troubled government project.
These days, however, the outlook is brighter, thanks largely to help imported from Michigan. Stanley Stewart, who had guided the Wolverine State through a similar eligibility system implementation, was hired in early 2010 as a consultant by Tom Suehs, executive commissioner of the HHSC.
Stewart was made the HHSC's deputy chief of staff for Eligibility Integration and put in charge of the entire TIERS rollout. Sixteen months later, TIERS was fully online and functioning in every region of Texas.
While it would be inaccurate to label Stewart the project's sole savior, his appointment and direction of the TIERS rollout was something both Suehs and Stewart felt was critical in turning around the system implementation process.
Suehs said that Michigan faced problems similar to those in Texas, just on a smaller scale. So instead of reinventing the wheel, he handed Stewart control of the TIERS project.
The move may have been seen as risky to some, given that the two had never known or worked with each other. But Suehs was desperate for improvement, and he was impressed enough by Stewart's project management approach to roll the dice. "It became obvious that he had the people skills," Suehs explained, "and that's part of what was missing here."
When Suehs became HHSC commissioner in 2009, he immediately began fielding complaints from existing TIERS users, as well as from employees transitioning from the old SAVERR application.
After speaking with front-line workers, Suehs concluded that the TIERS technology was "probably OK," but the relationship between users and IT personnel leading the migration needed serious improvement. Users were telling software designers what they needed, but their feedback didn't seem to make a difference.
"Somehow the communication between the front-line worker and our technology staff had broken," Suehs said. "It also became clear that we weren't training the staff in a sufficient way to accept the technology transition. So I boiled down our issues to communication, training and listening."
Stewart's turnaround methods were less about the technology and more focused on the people operating the system.
His first step was to evaluate and ultimately improve TIERS training, which was being done in a lecture format by people who didn't know the system well. Stewart had the trainers relearn the system from the ground up, and then work actual cases brought up by employees to give them "hands-on" experience in solving various problems.
Another important change, Stewart said, was not letting employees return to the old SAVERR system once they began TIERS training. "That made a big difference, and once people started being a little more successful, other people came along," he said, adding that new hires took readily to TIERS, while those who were successful using SAVERR "struggled a little bit," but are doing well.
The investment in training and better onsite support reduced worker frustration and improved productivity, Stewart said. Like their Michigan counterparts, HHSC employees working with TIERS tended to spend hours trying to resolve issues themselves.
"Now if it's more than 10 minutes and you can't get through it — you can put a little flag outside your office and somebody will come and help you," Stewart said.
Along with training and teamwork improvements, Suehs re-emphasized accountability from his implementation team, including weekly meetings for senior management to confront project issues. Those meetings include representatives from various offices, from the data staff to public information officials. All issues are brought to the table and, according to Suehs, the meetings don't move forward until management reports on each office's performance on clearing the backlog of eligibility cases.
Suehs was adamant that everyone report on their progress and have all of their issues addressed.
"I knew everybody would be busting their backsides to make sure they did things from the previous week and that they only had Monday and Tuesday to polish it up," Suehs said. "It means that I was forcing them to be focused on a week-by-week basis of addressing our issues and addressing the problem."
Stewart also persuaded Suehs to bring TIERS online without waiting for upgrades and tweaks to the system. "Stanley convinced me to suspend doing any major improvements in the technology. He said, 'Let's bring the technology online, and ... tweak it after that, but quit messing with it right now.'
"That is a major policy decision I think Stanley generated very early on as a suggestion that probably had more impact in establishing the system than anything else," Suehs said.
Despite the recent momentum, social service advocacy groups say TIERS isn't completely out of the woods yet.
Celia Cole, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, said the application process for benefits eligibility is better — but it's still heavily paper-based and labor-intensive. "In some ways we're trying to get a horse to pull a train," Cole said. "They are out of sync. We have these outdated application processes, yet we have these great new electronic and automated tools for getting people onto the program."
And Martha Orozco, managing attorney of Lone Star Legal Aid's Public Benefits Unit, contends that TIERS still struggles to meet requirements for the Food Stamp Act. At first, denial letters issued by the system didn't include the reasons why an individual failed to qualify for the food stamp program — which Orozco said is mandatory. Those letters now include the required explanation, but the reasons for denial often are "completely wrong and irrelevant," she said.
Orozco added that application forms generated by the new system can be confusing, especially to non-English speaking applicants. This can result in these applicants failing to provide required information and being denied benefits.
Still, given their progress over the past 16 months, HHSC officials say they've achieved an important milestone. The basic rollout of TIERS was completed when the Dallas region came online in September, according to Stewart. As of that date, programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, and the Texas Works employment education and training program were all running through TIERS.
Further deployments to handle Medicaid for the elderly, disability and long-term care, and a three-year certification for the Texas Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for people who receive Supplemental Security Income were complete in mid-December.
Still, Suehs wants to keep Stewart around for at least another year — to help with various system changes and improvements, such as Web portal upgrades and early planning for TIERS to acquire a larger client load in January 2014 due to national health-care reform. Suehs also wants Stewart to transfer his skills to the HHSC's regional directors and supervisors before departing.
Suehs added that while Stewart was brought on as a consultant, he treated him like his deputy chief of staff and gave him that authority. "I think that was critical to the success of the project," Suehs said. "He wasn't just an outside adviser; he was responsible, and I was going to hold him accountable."
To make sure each region in Texas stays on top of things, Stewart gets daily reports from them that list any delinquent cases and follows up on them as necessary.
Stewart was quick to credit Suehs for the TIERS success, however, saying it was his trust in bringing in an outsider and giving Stewart full authority that helped the implementation turn the corner.
As for the future, Stewart said he'll work with the HHSC to tie up loose ends. But he anticipates the remaining work to be completed quickly because staff members now have bought into TIERS and the new training system.
"I ruffled a few feathers here to get it done," Stewart said, "but the lesson for other states is that when you bring in a consultant, they must transfer knowledge and involvement to those who are going to be left to run the program."


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Am I responsible for water lost from leaks in my residential plumbing system?
The customer is responsible for repairing all leaks from the water meter to the house, as well as paying for the water lost. To keep your bill low, always keep your plumbing in good condition. If there is a leak near the meter and you think it is the City's responsibility, call customer service at 281.333.4211 to report your concerns and arrange for a City inspection.
The most common causes of leaks are dripping faucets, leaking joints, and bad toilets. Slow drips can waste 170 gallons of water per day, or 5,000 gallons in a month. Underground leaks can be even more dangerous and completely hidden. Water from a broken pipe may or may not come to the surface. Often, it can drain into sewer lines or storm drains through cracks and joints, leaving the customer none the wiser until the bill arrives.
A water meter that runs constantly is a possible sign of a hidden leak. To check for hidden water leakage such as a leak between the water meter and the house, or within the house itself:
Turn off all indoor and outdoor faucets and water using appliances.
Go to your meter and observe it for 5 to 10 minutes. If the meter (dial or red gauge) continues to move, a leak is likely.
Toilet leaks are the hardest to detect. By the time you can hear a toilet running, it has probably been leaking slowly for some months.
Leaks are caused by two things:
Misadjusted or worn floats
Worn flappers
Badly adjusted floats allow too much water to enter the tank. Excess water will flow down the overflow tube into the bowl. Remove the top of the toilet tank and look inside. The water should come to within 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the overflow tube. Adjust the float if necessary.
Detecting a bad flapper is more difficult. It should be smooth, not pitted, and fall back into the drain correctly and easily. Although you can drain the tank to feel the flapper, it is often easier to check using food coloring or flavored drink mix. This test will also detect a bad float.
If you have repaired a hidden leak or one in your toilet, you may be eligible for an adjustment. If this is the case, a request for an adjustment can be made by contacting Customer Service at 281.333.4211.
What if my water bill is unusually high? Can I get an adjustment?
The City of Nassau Bay may allow customers who have suffered an excusable defect to receive an adjustment to their bills. Credit will take the form of a rebate to the bill, not a refund. To qualify as excusable, a defect must be hidden, such as in a wall, underground, or in a toilet tank. Faucets are not considered hidden.
Request for a bill adjustment must be made in writing to:
Customer Service
City Hall
18100 Upper Bay Road
Suite 200
Nassau Bay, TX 77058
Requests must also include a receipt for parts or repair bill and must be made within six months of the repair. Customers may apply for no more than one such adjustment in any 12-month period for any one account.
Several things can prevent this adjustment:
Ineffective Repairs - Sometimes the real problem is a second leak that needs to be repaired
Long-Term Leakage - Allowing a leak to continue for over three months raises the average consumption
Drop in Consumption - A drop in actual consumption can mask the rise caused by the leak
What can I do if I have an unusually high water bill and cannot determine the presence of a leak?
Sometimes, things happen for which there is no know explanation. After both the City and the customer investigate, if no one knows why the bill increased, the City of Nassau Bay will consider allowing any single-family residential customer who receives a water bill for any given month that is greater than 200 percent of the average usage of the customer, to request an adjustment of the bill.
The customer must make an application within six months of receipt of such bill and only one such monthly bill out of any 12 consecutive monthly bills may be adjusted. In order to request such an adjustment, the customer must make a written request to customer service.
Several things can prevent this adjustment:
Continued high consumption is considered evidence of a leak, and no adjustment will be granted
Discovery of a reason for the high bill may warrant a different type of adjustment or no adjustment at all
If the consumption (not dollar amount) was not over twice the average, no adjustment will be granted
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Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Associated Press
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration scrapped plans Wednesday to shutter Louisiana's Medicaid hospice program in February, meaning the state will continue to provide end-of-life care to people on their death beds who can't afford private insurance.
Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein announced the reversal as hospice program supporters were gathering for a candlelight vigil on the state capitol steps to protest the cut. Greenstein said his department will use federal grant funding to continue the services for the poor and terminally ill.
Cheers went up across the small crowd of people gathered in what they expected to be a somber vigil. Instead, they celebrated.
"I got goose bumps," certified grief counselor and nurse Sue deRada said as she heard the program would be spared.
"End-of-life care is just so vital for everybody. It's sacred. It's one of the most sacred times in people's life next to being born. Why would we abandon people at such a critical time?" said deRada, who works for a hospice service in St. Tammany Parish, 40 miles north of New Orleans.
The cut would have made Louisiana one of only two states that don't pay for hospice care through its Medicaid program, and the plan faced strong resistance from state senators, who were seeking ways to avoid shuttering hospice to new adult recipients on Feb. 1.
Sen. Fred Mills, vice chairman of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, walked into the vigil crowd to deliver the news that the Jindal administration had backed away from plans to close the program.
"The good Lord took care of us today, so we got a fix," Mills, R-Breaux Bridge, told Rhonda Johnson, who works for a Baton Rouge-based hospice provider.
Johnson said cutting the program would have been "throwing away poor people."
"The thought of ever eliminating hospice for poor people is just unreal," she said. "This is a huge victory."
Oklahoma is the only state that doesn't offer hospice care to adults through Medicaid, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Jindal made a series of budget reductions in mid-December to help close a nearly $166 million deficit in the current fiscal year that ends June 30. Many of the cuts fell on the Department of Health and Hospitals.
Greenstein said when cuts are required to the Medicaid program, only a few optional benefits can be reduced without violating requirements for the state's participation in the program it runs with the federal government. Hospice is an optional program the health department said has been available since 2002.
By using the grant funding, DHH will keep the program running while still saving $1.1 million in state funding this year and an estimated $3.1 million in state funding for the 2013-14 budget year.
The health department intends to make changes to the hospice services to shrink the costs of the care and improve the program, Greenstein said.
"Just turning it back on didn't make sense," he said. "This is going to be something that we're proud of because this going to be more efficient and effective."
More than 5,800 people received hospice services through Louisiana's Medicaid program in the last budget year, according to the health department. Many of those, however, were eligible to receive the end-of-life care through Medicare. About 1,400 received the services in their homes and wouldn't have been eligible through Medicare.
Among the planned changes is a focus on community-based, at-home care, Greenstein said. Nursing home residents will not be eligible for hospice care through Medicaid, though most can get it through Medicare, he said.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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Optimization of the combustion engine reduces CO2 emissions by up to six percent
Stuttgart, August 28, 2017 – MAHLE proves its holistic systems competence by further tapping the potential of the internal combustion engine. Two approaches for the basic engine are optimizing friction and preventing oil from entering the combustion chamber. CO2 emissions can be reduced by up to six percent (WLTC) with MAHLE technologies for optimized mechanics and lubrication in gasoline engines. These measures also demonstrate a sustainable impact on emissions and consumption in actual driving operation. MAHLE will showcase specific solutions for the optimization of the combustion engine at IAA Cars 2017 from September 14 to 24, 2017 in Frankfurt/Germany.
- Less CO2, lower emissions—the optimization of the combustion engine benefits footprint and actual operation
- Sustainable impact: improved economic efficiency and carbon footprint thanks to lower particulate emissions
The combustion engine has already developed into a highly efficient and clean drive, especially in the past few years. As a result of this development, the complete system, comprising the powertrain and its peripherals, has become substantially more complex. Therefore, in order to achieve greater efficiency and lower emissions in this system, more and more interactions and relationships need to be taken into account. In many cases, inherently contradictory problems have to be overcome. Thanks to its comprehensive systems expertise, MAHLE has developed technologies that sustainably reduce consumption and emissions.
Reducing friction—less CO2 in every driving situation
Like waste heat, friction adversely impacts the performance of combustion engines. A decrease in friction has a noticeable effect at every operating point and in every driving situation, i.e., a drop
in fuel consumption. The heart of the engine, the power cell unit (PCU) from MAHLE consisting of piston, piston rings, and piston pin, achieves a direct decrease in friction thanks to optimized clearance design, low-friction surfaces, and a decrease in friction contact surfaces. An increase in specific output with no change to the basic geometric dimensions leads to an improvement in specific frictional loss. However, this requires the PCU components to have a more robust design. The latter consideration conflicts directly with the requirement for low component weight, which also contributes to efficiency. A key element of piston development is therefore topography analysis, which is used to determine at which points less material can be used without jeopardizing robustness. With the direct friction reduction in the PCU, MAHLE can reduce CO2 emissions by up to 2.5 percent (WLTC). At the same time, MAHLE has designed the new engine components to allow the use of low-viscosity oils and reduce the load on the oil circuit as the pistons require less cooling oil. As a result, the oil pump can be controlled on demand at every operating point. This saves additional fuel, particularly under real operating conditions. Overall, this results in up to six percent less CO2 emissions.
Fewer particles—sustainable impact
If oil enters the combustion chamber via the piston ring group, oil ash or particulate emissions are produced. With its new generation of oil control rings, U-flex, MAHLE counters this phenomenon in a highly efficient and effective way. The result is a significant reduction in particulate emissions and oil ash, causing the number of particles and particulate mass to decrease. With a particulate filter, fewer regeneration phases are required and less back pressure builds up in the exhaust gas system, thereby improving the carbon footprint over the service life. Motorists also save money as the particulate filter rarely requires maintenance, or can even be operated maintenance free.
Holistic approach, sustainable impact
Thanks to the holistic approach toward the further optimization of the combustion engine, the developers at MAHLE have succeeded in directly reducing fuel consumption and emissions through the use of new engine components. Overall, this results in up to six percent less CO2 emissions in the WLTC. The reduction in the load on the oil circuit and the opportunity to use low-viscosity oils has a particularly sustainable impact on exhaust gas aftertreatment. In conclusion, vehicles are more economical and their carbon footprint improves over their service life.
MAHLE will showcase specific solutions for engine optimization at IAA Cars 2017, Stand C40 in Hall 8.0. The press conference will take place at the MAHLE stand on September 12, 2017, from 2:45 p.m. to 3:10 p.m. Please note this date in your editorial calendar. We look forward to seeing you there!
About MAHLE
MAHLE is a leading international development partner and supplier to the automotive industry as well as a pioneer for the mobility of the future. The MAHLE Group is committed to making transportation more efficient, more environmentally friendly, and more comfortable by continuously optimizing the combustion engine, driving forward the use of alternative fuels, and laying the foundation for the worldwide introduction of e-mobility. The group's product portfolio addresses all the crucial issues relating to the powertrain and air conditioning technology—both for drives with combustion engines and for e-mobility. MAHLE products are fitted in at least every second vehicle worldwide. Components and systems from MAHLE are also used off the road—in stationary applications, for mobile machinery, rail transport, as well as marine applications.
In 2016, the group generated sales of approximately EUR 12.3 billion with about 77,000 employees and is represented in 34 countries with 170 production locations. At 15 major development centers in Germany, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Spain, Slovenia, the USA, Brazil, Japan, China, and India, 6,000 development engineers and technicians are working on innovative solutions for the mobility of the future.
For further information, contact:
MAHLE GmbH
Ruben Danisch
Corporate Communications
Pragstraße 26–46
70376 Stuttgart
Phone: +49 711 501-12199
Fax: +49 711 501-13700


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Hope for Chronic Suffering
If I were asked to put my finger on Scripture's most poignant passage about chronic suffering, near the very top of my list would be Psalm 88.
The psalms have been called "the prayer book of the Bible." And, indeed, the better we know them, the more we see how they help us talk with God in every circumstance and mood. Psalm 88 is a plea for God to stop hiding his face from the suffering psalmist. It opens with the psalmist crying out continuously to the God of his salvation (verses 1–2) and it ends the same way (verses 13–14).
As with most of what are now known as the psalms of lament, the psalmist doesn't say exactly what his trouble is, although he does say that he has been afflicted and close to death from his youth and that his affliction has been so deep that he is helpless, having lost all his strength (verses 4, 15).
We who have suffered some crippling disability can easily place ourselves alongside the psalmist and utter the same cries. And those who care for the deeply disabled should have no difficulty turning this psalm into a prayer to be prayed for them.
Psalm 88 is the only psalm that ends without any expression of hope. It expresses only unrelieved suffering. This may make it seem to be a psalm that we would want to steer clear of, especially as its startling claims begin to sink home. Why would we want to be reminded that sometimes God seems to be distant over someone's entire lifetime? Why would we want to hear that someone can become so sick that everyone shuns him because he has become a horror to them? Does it seem right for the psalmist to claim that God's wrath lies heavy upon him and that he is suffering God's terrors?
Yet, as I shall urge in my talk at November's Desiring God conference on disability, we ought not to steer clear of any part of Scripture, for every part of it ultimately comes from the mouth of God for our instruction and for our good. In fact, Scripture insists that God always ultimately brings good to his people through their suffering, no matter how difficult that suffering may be.
Lessons from Psalm 88
Psalm 88 (and the other psalms of lament) teach us at least two lessons that help us to breathe when we are feeling suffocated by suffering.
First, they teach us that when we have a complaint with God, we are to take it directly to him. The psalmists never complain about God; they always complain to him.
And, secondly, they teach us to be honest. All of the psalmists, exactly like the unknown psalmist who penned Psalm 88, model transparency, expressing their complaints to God as frankly as they can.
Both of these lessons are, so to speak, part of the psalmists' exhaling, of their crying out, pleading, and complaining to God by breathing out to him what it would be harmful for them to try to withhold from him.
What we learn, when we go on to study all of the other psalms of lament, is that the psalmists always went on to inhale, to deliberately breathe in truths about God's character, about his promises, about his previous wondrous acts for Israel, and about his record of individualized care for them. Breathing in these truths gave them hope, which is often what we most need when we are dealing with disability.


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Towards Moore's Law Software: Part 3 of 3
(Note: This is the third and final part of a series. Part one appeared Monday and part two appeared yesterday.)
First "STEPS"
Let's say we want to build the TCP/IP stack of an operating system. A traditional implementation might take 10,000 lines of code. What if you rethought the design from the ground up? What if you could make the IP packet handling code look almost identical to the RFC 791 diagram which defines IP? That's exactly what the Viewpoints team did. This is real code in their system:
and the TCP stack is similar to the RFC 793 diagram:
That's right; the ASCII art diagram is the code. How did they do it? Well, when you have a powerful "meta-meta language-language" like their IS, you can define languages in a form that reads like a traditional Backus-Naur Form (BNF) grammar representation:
With packet parsing out of the way, the implementation of their TCP algorithm is a little dense, but readable piece of code that handles the SYN, ACK, and other responses:
With this as our basis, writing a service like the Daytime Service is quite simple:
All told, the entire stack is comfortably under 200 lines of code without using any tricks like code generation wizards. The graphics subsystem is similarly clever. It basically defines everything as a polygon (including fonts, windows, etc). It's well under 500 lines of code. They have to be this compact in order to meet their goal of an entire system in under 20,000 lines.
Another interesting metaphor in the project is the use of "massively parallel objects" or what they refer to as "particle fields," as a fundamental part of the system:
"Even less in the mainstream, the "particle/field" idea [PF] has been found more in specialty areas (such as finite-automata and FEM, swarm programming in biology, etc.), than as a general system building tool (although it is the center of systems such as Sketchpad and TEX, and is even found in an operating system such as MUSE). Traditional object-oriented design has tended to overbalance its attention on the objects and to give too rudimentary attention to message-passing. If the center of attention were to be shifted to messaging of all kinds, then the notion of "fields" immediately suggests itself as a more general way to think about inter-object relationships (the previous example of "ants distributing and sensing pheromones" is a good metaphor of this style)."
For example, this idea can be applied to text formatting where you essentially treat every letter as its own object. Programming the solution then becomes much easier. You can have simple rules where you just look out for your immediate neighboring letters and then use an extremely efficient message passing system to make your simple code work in a very efficient manner. Here's a sample demonstration from their NSF proposal:
This reminds me of ideas from "emergence" which is a theory that explains how a flock of birds or an ant colony can do complex things even though each individual in the system thinks simple thoughts. An individual bird is only thinking in terms of simple rules like "try to follow the guy in front of you" and "get out of the way if something dangerous is nearby." Just these two rules alone can lead to the fantastically complicated formations that we see in the sky.
The massively parallel objects with efficient messaging metaphor leads to algorithms that are simpler in concept because you can focus on the behavior of one little object rather than have to worry about how the whole system works.
"I want it now!"
With the Viewpoints team only in their second year of a five year project, we can get a feel for where the future of software development is going, but we can't realistically put it into production quite yet. What are our options then?
Ted Neward likes to talk about how the next five years will be about programming languages attempting to bridge the "huge disconnect between the practitioners, the guys who get stuff done, and the academics, who think about how we get things done." He says this disconnect exists because "the academics and the practitioners don't talk to each other." I really think that the next five years we'll see significant strides towards improving the situation. If you want to jump ahead of the curve, I think it's worthwhile start imagining a dream language that would help you cut along the "natural joints" of a problem you work on. Can you think of an expressive language like the ASCII art for parsing TCP/IP headers that is targeted for your specific problem?
Another interesting observation Ted made was that:
"… programming languages, much like human languages, are expressions not just of concepts within them, but also the environment in which they were born."
That is, no language is perfect. Each language has a culture that gave birth to it which was usually focused on a particular type of problem. I often find that I put myself in too much of a language box and unfortunately am happy in that box. This led to me asking Alan Kay about the best way to cope with a design problem I had. The power to think in a highly tailored, but not necessarily general, programming language might end up being the best solution to problems we face.
If you go down this path, there are many tools and some good articles available now to help you get started writing your own custom language. If you want to be a bit more conservative, you can write an internal domain specific language inside of host languages like Ruby or C#. However, if you go down the custom route, you'll benefit of doing it now rather than if you had done it 20 years ago because there are huge frameworks at your disposal like Microsoft's Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) that handle most of the "goo" involved in getting your own language up and running. You can leverage a lot of the libraries built on .net or the JVM so that you don't have to worry so much about supporting concerns like database access and handling XML if that's not you're primary concern. This is in contrast to a decade ago when you would have had to build all these supporting libraries just to get people to even think about your language seriously. Even a popular "new" language like Ruby has taken about 10-12 years to get enough libraries to make it feasible for development. By standing upon the shoulders of frameworks, you can quickly build something that is production worthy.
You can even use Phoenix, Microsoft's new backend optimizing compiler for your language. That way, you don't have to worry about emitting machine code or IL. You just parse your language into a simple intermediate representation and your generated code will be produced with the same efficiency as the compiler being used for Windows 7. To get you started, the Phoenix SDK will include a LISP compiler as a sample app.
Final Thoughts
"The future is already here – it's not just not evenly distributed" – William Gibson
The widespread adoption of virtual machines like .net's Common Language Runtime (CLR) are increasingly making it an option to use custom languages to solve particular problems. This is because your code can be easily used by more mainstream languages like C#. I think this is one of the critical reasons why Microsoft decided to include a functional language, F#, into an upcoming version of Visual Studio. Similarly, I enjoyed watching all the different ideas at the lang.net symposium because they showed the viability of the CLR for many different languages that would also integrate well with mainstream code.
I have to be honest and admit that that I don't envision myself going off and writing my own language right now, but at least I'll be looking for ways where a custom language might be a really good fit. I think I need to apply some meta level thinking by perhaps writing some of my Project Euler solutions in languages that make this easier like Scala or F# even though C# is easy for me to use.
This journey towards a "Moore's Law" increase in expressiveness has been a bit long, but I'm starting to see some practical benefits:
I'm already feeling expressive differences between C# 2 and C# 3. I'm starting to build on LINQ's good ideas in my production code by using ideas from C++'s Standard Template Library (STL) to make the simple ideas in the code clear and get rid of some of the scaffolding "goo" that exists. Notable areas of influence on my thinking in the .net arena have been Wintellect's Power Collections and the NSTL project. Another variant on this idea is to see more of day to day challenges as graph problems and use a library like Peli's QuickGraph to solve them.
The "massively parallel objects" metaphor made possible by highly efficient message passing has changed the way that I have thought about some of my hobby programs. Instead of focusing on rules for how a single class can orchestrate hundreds or thousands of objects, I am happily thinking of the object as a bird in a flock. The good news is that this metaphor works well and the same overall macro goal is obtained. I think this is just the start to curbing the problem Alan mentioned of "[there] has been an enormous over-focus on objects and an under-focus on messaging (most so-called object oriented languages don't really use the looser coupling of messaging, but instead use the much tighter "gear meshing" of procedure calls – this hurts scalability and interoperability)."
Reflecting on the Viewpoints' IS meta-meta language-language and what can be built with it has really allowed me to see more of the beauty that real computer science has to offer. Even if I can't put those ideas immediately into production code, I could start down that path with something smaller like applying the ideas of code-generation. The latter is one of the ideas that essentially made Rails so popular: it's the code that you don't have to write yourself that makes it interesting.
The bad news about going down the path of meta level thinking and writing your own custom languages is that the tools are still relatively young and it's a little more work than it will be ten years from now. The good news is that if you spend the time at least exploring what smart guys like Alan and Charles are doing now, you'll probably have a comfortable advantage on your competitors when these ideas become mainstream. If it took object oriented programming ideas a good 25+ years to become popular, the ideas behind language oriented programming and things like massively parallel objects will probably take at least 10 years to hit wide adoption.
Real "Moore's Law" software will have what Gordon Moore noticed about the effects of his own "law" on hardware: it told the industry that they "[have] to move that fast or they fall behind." I think some of the ideas mentioned here might help get towards that philosophy. However, I'm just a secondhand observer. The best place to get started is to look at the original sources, or at the very least, the Viewpoints project overview video.
I'm interested in your thoughts. What do you think might lead to a "Moore's Law" increase in software expressiveness? Do you think it's even possible?


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This month's update includes new features across all areas of the product – new dashboard and report authoring features, and more dashboard controls. Some of these features address frequent customer requests — so you may really enjoy this update.
New features in this release:
You can now pin entire report pages to your dashboard. To do this, simply open a report page and select Pin Live Page in the top navigation bar. You can pin more than one report page onto a single dashboard.
Pinning report pages provides an easy way of reusing existing reports as dashboard content. When there is only one report tile on the dashboard, the dashboard is essentially the report. You may find it particularly helpful when migrating a large number of reports from Power BI for O365 to Power BI service. Instead of pinning the charts and tables from your report one by one, you can simply pin the whole report page to your dashboard.
And the visuals within the tile stay in sync with the report. If you change a visual type (e.g. from a pie chart to a treemap), or the report filter state changes after pinning the report, the changes get updated on the report tile automatically. No need to delete the old report tile and re-pin it.
Decide whether to pin the tile to an existing dashboard or to a new dashboard. Once pinned, the tile can be resized, renamed, moved, and edited just like other tiles.
The pinned tile has the same layout as the report page. You can interact with all the visuals in the report tile just as you would on the report page. In addition, you can use the slicers to filter all the charts within the tile, and click on charts to highlight other visuals within the tile.
Dashboards often contain tiles from many different sources, and sometimes the tiles can get out of sync with the latest data in the source datasets. Until now, if a tile wasn't showing the latest data from the dataset, the dashboard owner would have to refresh each dataset one-by-one. With this release, you can now refresh all the tiles at the same time.
From the top navigation bar on your dashboard, select the ellipses (…) and then Refresh Dashboard Tiles. This will refresh all the tiles on the dashboard with the latest data from the datasets.
A couple weeks ago, we blogged about a great way to improve the look and usability of your reports: using images in tables, matrices, and cards. In this release we have taken this one-step further. You can now use images in slicers. For a reminder of how to set up images in Power BI using Excel or the Power BI Desktop, check out our blog from a few weeks ago.
Once images have been set up in your report, you can add them to a slicer and start filtering with them.
And of course, they will work on pinned report tiles as well.
Change Interactions between Report Visuals
Lastly, we want to tell you about the Visual Interactions feature. By default, when you filter or highlight a visual, it filters or highlights the other visuals on the report page. But what if you want to filter or highlight the visual and *not* have it impact other visuals? You now have a choice.
To use this feature you must be in Editing View. Select a visual and choose Visual Interactions from the top navigation bar. All the other visuals will show icons that let you pick how that visual will react when the source visual is filtered or highlighted. Select Visual Interactions again to leave thismode.
That's all for this week. We hope that you enjoy this new update and continue sending us valuable feedback about our product. Please don't forget to vote for other features that you would like to see in Power BI service in the future.


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Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Explanation: Scroll right to unfold one of the great panoramas ever taken on the surface of Mars. For best viewing, click and hold the right arrow icon at the bottom of your browser window. This image, dubbed a "presidential panorama" by the Mars Pathfinder team, shows in colorful detail the surroundings of the Sagan Memorial Station. Now look closely at the big rock midway through the scrolling picture. That rock is called Yogi and just to its left is the robot Sojourner Rover taking measurements of it. Other now-famous rocks are also visible including Barnacle Bill and Flat Top. After this picture was taken Sojourner went on to analyze a rock named Scooby Doo. The Mars Pathfinder mission landed on 1997 July 4 and collected data for about three months. Analysis indicates that the Pathfinder site was likely awash in water in the distant past, but has been dry for the last two billion years.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Technical Rep.:
Jay Norris.
Specific rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
Michigan Tech. U.


text:
Dan Sorensen
Member since Dec 11, 2008
- Profile: /members/612-dan-sorensen.htm
- Comments: 18
Recent Blog Comments By Dan Sorensen
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Posted on Jul 3, 2008 at 1:25 PM
@Ben: But there's the problem. As the JavaWorld article illustrates, there will be crossover somewhere. Should the view know about the model or the model know how to render the model-relevant portion of the view? Maybe it would be best to have a service layer that builds the object relevant portion... read more »
OOPhoto - Another Attempt At Learning Object Oriented Programming (OOP) In ColdFusion
Posted on Jul 3, 2008 at 1:14 PM
@Jfish, @Ben, I entirely agree with Ben: I always use cfparam as a good practice for form submissions - however, I don't know how to populate cfparams at the top of the page without breaking OOP concepts. Unless you can ask the object to create it's own params. I agree with jfish that it would be w... read more »
OOPhoto - Another Attempt At Learning Object Oriented Programming (OOP) In ColdFusion
Posted on Jul 3, 2008 at 10:46 AM
@Brian, @Ben: Using Brian's suggestion, assuming you pass the form scope to the service layer on save... How do you initially cfparam the form values to begin with? Is cfparam not used? Is it better to do something like this: try{ if (structKeyExists(FORM, "submit") { /* save & validate form v... read more »
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull Starring Harrison Ford
Posted on Jun 12, 2008 at 3:03 PM
I agree that River Phoenix was much better suited for an Indy movie. --- Spoiler alert --- There is a fine line in action movies between exciting action that causes your pulse to race and makes you wonder how the hero will ever make it out alive! (Indy 3: River Phoenix is escaping bad guys on the ... read more »
June 1st 2008 - National Regular Expression Day! (Post A Comment, Win A Prize)
Posted on May 28, 2008 at 11:37 AM
If I were to use Regex Buddy, which variation of Regex would I select for Coldfusion? Does it use the Java version?... read more »
Array Iteration Is Much Faster That Struct Iteration (Thanks Eric Stevens)
Posted on May 27, 2008 at 11:27 AM
I've always been impressed by the speed and variety of list functions. Another intangible to consider is the fact that list looping is SO EASY to construct and understand. They all have their place, but I'm glad that we don't have to shy away from this one.... read more »
CFModule Works With Non-CFM Files
Posted on Feb 26, 2008 at 6:44 PM
Off topic from the post, but possibly useful to the previous comment, I believe that Sean Corfield was working on a project to handle PHP files within Coldfusion using a java library. Might be work looking at if that's something you need.... read more »
DreamWeaver CS3 Slows Me Down
Posted on Feb 18, 2008 at 11:30 PM
My job got me Dreamweaver MX 2004 when I started using Coldfusion. I've since gotten Dreamweaver 8 and Dreamweaver CS3 and sadly, I find that Dreamweaver MX 2004 is the fastest and most stable version I've used. :-P I use it as a text editor and it does a nice job with code hints and color coding, b... read more »
Creating Web Controls With ColdFusion Custom Tags
Posted on Feb 6, 2008 at 11:23 AM
I LOVE this out of the box thinking. :-) Needs more time in the oven though. ;-) For R&D purposes, it was well worthwhile. It could spark a better idea down the road. It could accept a query as an attribute, but then I guess the XML transformation isn't quite as necessary.... read more »
Ask Ben: Ending ColdFusion Session When User Closes Browser
Posted on Jan 29, 2008 at 1:18 PM
Given that some users close their browser RATHER than "logging off", I don't suppose there's a way for me to determine when they've closed their browser and killed their session cookie. If I wanted to run a cleanup function onSessionEnd (to store final user state or update stats), it will still wait... read more »
Ray's Friday Puzzler: Listing All Possibilities Of A Set
Posted on Apr 27, 2007 at 2:16 PM
Nice solution. I was working on something very similar by using the exponent to determine total possibilities and two loops, but I got a little stuck towards the end... I'm glad you solved it this way so that I can see where I went wrong. Dan... read more »


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TPW Commission Approves Public Hunting in 42 State Parks
May 30, 2006
Tom Harvey, 512-389-4453, email@example.com
Note: This item is more than 17 years old. Please take the publication date into consideration for any date references.
AUSTIN, Texas — One-third of Texas state parks will allow public hunts for the 2006-07 hunting season, as approved by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission at its May 24-25 public meeting.
Most of the state parks approved for public hunting will be offered through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's computer drawings for a variety of game and hunting options, including new youth opportunities. New categories include youth-only deer management and youth-only exotic hunts.
To minimize conflicts between park user groups, public hunts are offered during off-peak visitation periods, typically on weekdays in the winter months. A number of youth hunts are scheduled during school holidays. During these events, signs are posted at parks alerting visitors that a hunt is in progress.
The public is urged to contact the park or check the hunting calendar posted online before heading out during hunting season.
The 42 state parks where public hunts will take place are: Abilene, Atlanta; Big Bend Ranch; Brazos Bend; Caprock Canyons; Choke Canyon - North Shore Unit; Colorado Bend; Cooper Lake - South Sulphur Unit; Copper Breaks; Davis Mountains; Devil's River; Devil's Sinkhole; Enchanted Rock; Fairfield Lake; Fort Boggy; Garner; Guadalupe River; Guadalupe River North Unit; Hill Country; Honey Creek; Huntsville; Inks Lake/Longhorn Caverns; Kickapoo Caverns; Lake Bob Sandlin; Lake Brownwood; Lake Mineral Wells; Lake Somerville Birch Creek and Nails Creek; Lake Whitney; Lost Maples; Mother Neff prairie area; Pedernales Falls; Pedernales Falls Annex; Possum Kingdom; Purtis Creek; Resaca de la Palma; San Angelo; Sea Rim; Seminole Canyon; South Llano; Tony Houseman and Tyler.
Applications for special drawing hunts to be conducted on state parks, wildlife management areas and other TPWD-managed properties during the 2006-07 season will be available in early July from TPWD headquarters and field offices, and posted on the TPWD Web site. Each hunt's application fee ranges from $3 to $10 for adults and is free to youth, who must be accompanied by an adult hunter.
Deadlines to apply for TPWD public hunts are as follows:
Alligator, Archery Alligator, Youth Only Alligator - August 2, 2006
Prong-horned Antelope - August 17, 2006
Archery Deer, Archery Exotic - August 17, 2006
Guided Bighorn Sheep Hunt - August 31, 2006
Private Lands Management Either Sex, Private Lands Antlerless/Spike- September 7, 2006
Gun Deer (Either-Sex, Antlerless/Spike, Youth Only Either Sex, Youth Only Antlerless/Spike, Management Buck, and Youth Only Management) - September 7, 2006
Javelina, Youth Only Javelina, Guided Waterbuck, and Guided Deer Hunt Packages - October 5, 2006
Exotic Only, Feral Hog, Youth Only Exotic and Youth Only Feral Hog - November 1, 2006
Youth Only Spring Turkey, Spring Turkey, Guided Scimitar-Horned Oryx Hunt Package, Guided Gemsbok, and Guided Antelope Hunt Packages - December 5, 2006
Many parks will also provide hunting opportunities as part of the department's Annual Public Hunting Permit program, which offers purchasers of the $48 permit hunting access to more than one million acres throughout the state.
Among the hunting opportunities available to permit holders are more than 100 separate dove-hunting units covering more than 60,000 acres. Many of these hunting sites are within close proximity to major urban areas. The permit also provides access to hunting for other species, including deer, waterfowl and small game.
The permit is available for the 2006-2007 season on Aug. 15, 2006. Permits can be purchased wherever hunting and fishing licenses are sold and from TPWD law enforcement offices.
A map booklet detailing the public hunting sites is mailed to permit holders within two weeks of purchase or can be obtained directly if the permit is obtained from a TPWD law enforcement office. Map booklets can also be viewed on the department's Web sites.
Public hunt applications booklets will be available at TPWD law enforcement offices, state parks and wildlife management areas in July. Information about the drawings for hunts by special permits can be obtained by calling (800) 792-1112 or online.
On the Net:


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Today I am jumping up and down-excited to have author Laura Kaye join us for our mythology feature! Among some other truly fabulous novels, Laura is the author of the Hearts of Anemoi series which is a must-read! You can check out my review of the first book, North of Need, HERE. Enjoy!
Her tears called a powerful snow god to life, but only her love can grant the humanity he craves...
Desperate to escape agonizing memories of Christmas past, twenty-nine-year-old widow Megan Snow builds a snow family outside the mountain cabin she once shared with her husband, realizing too late that she's recreated the very thing she'll never have.
Called to life by Megan's tears, snow god Owen Winters appears unconscious on her doorstep in the midst of a raging blizzard. As she nurses him to health, Owen finds unexpected solace in her company and unimagined pleasure in the warmth of her body, and vows to win her heart for a chance at humanity.
Megan is drawn to Owen's mismatched eyes, otherworldly masculinity, and enthusiasm for the littlest things. But this Christmas miracle comes with an expiration--before the snow melts and the temperature rises, Megan must let go of her widow's grief and learn to trust love again, or she'll lose Owen forever.
Betrayal is all he's ever known, but in her, he'll find a love strong enough to be trusted...
When Marcella Raines' twin brother dies, she honors his request to be buried at sea, never expecting the violent storm that swamps her boat. Though she's gravely injured--and still emotionally damaged from her recent divorce--Ella fights to survive.
Zephyros Martius is the Supreme God of the West Wind and Spring, but being the strongest Anemoi hasn't protected him from betrayal and loss. Worse, he's sure his brother Eurus is behind it. When Zeph's heartbreak whips up a storm that shipwrecks a human, his guilt forces him to save her.
Ella is drawn to the vulnerability Zeph hides beneath his otherworldly masculinity and ancient blue eyes. And her honesty, empathy, and unique, calming influence leave Zeph wanting...everything. When Eurus threatens Ella, she and Zeph struggle to let go of the past, defend their future, and embrace what they most want--a love that can be trusted.
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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Teen Court is held on a weekday afternoon at 4:00 pm at the Green River City Hall, Green River, Wyoming, in the Municipal Court or City Council Chambers.50 East 2nd NorthGreen River, WY 82935
Show All Answers
Punishment is usually a designated number of hours on work restitution, a term on Teen Court jury duty, counseling, essays, fines, and in some cases special educational courses. No jail time can be imposed.
There is a participation fee of $10 which must be paid at the time of registration for Teen Court. This fee is non-refundable.
The teen jury is not allowed to discuss any aspect of a case with the defendants prior to the actual sentencing in Teen Court. Improper communication can result in the case being transferred back to adult court.
A jury foreperson leads the jury deliberations, ensures participation of all jurors, mediates disputes among jurors, calls for vote during deliberations, and delivers the verdict to the bailiff.
The jury foreperson is elected from the jury panel after the defendant has explained his or her case and when the jury retires to the jury room to deliberate.
Teen Court reserves the right to refuse to hear a case from those persons who fail to abide by the outlined dress code. Jurors are held to the same standards as defendants.


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Global restaurateur HMSHost and Chef Johnny Hernandez are proud to announce a new joint venture at San Antonio International Airport that will take travelers on a culinary journey.
HMSHost was awarded an eight-year agreement with San Antonio International Airport to operate five new restaurants, with two additional sublease restaurant locations operating under the contract. HMSHost currently operates five existing restaurants at the airport.
Travelers at San Antonio International Airport will soon be able to experience the well-loved culinary creations of San Antonio Chef Hernandez's own restaurant creations La Gloria and The Fruteria, and his innovative menu items at Mission City Icehouse.
It will also includeHMSHost's own dining location La Tapenade, along with national favorites Steak 'n Shake,Famous Famiglia, and Auntie Anne's/Cinnabon, both operated by subtenants. The restaurants will begin opening in June 2013.
"San Antonio International Airport is honored to partner with HMSHost and Chef Johnny Hernandez to bring our customers new dining options when traveling through our airport," says Frank Miller, aviation director at San Antonio International Airport. "From traditional Mexican cuisine, to local favorites, to old classics, the new restaurants will satisfy any craving you could think of and provide a culinary sampling of what our city has to offer."
HMSHost vice president of business development Anthony Alessi says, "HMSHost is elated to have the opportunity to partner with such an innovative, world-class chef as Johnny Hernandez. Chef Hernandez will bring his unique culinary talents and vision to San Antonio International Airport. We are also proud to honor the local San Antonio culture, as well as bring travelers some of their favorite classics."
La Gloria, created and owned by Hernandez, gives diners a unique taste of Mexican "street foods," which consist of taco al pastor,tlayudas, and cocteles de mariscos, among others.
The Fruteria, also created by Hernandez, will bring travelers fresh and healthy options with a tasty twist. Among the menu items are fruit cups; fresh, sliced fruit topped with lime juice and chili powder; yogurt and granola; as well as vegetable juices and a variety of smoothies.
At night, The Fruteria will transform into a contemporary cocktail lounge featuring fresh fruit tequila cocktails.
Celebrating the rich and vibrant history of San Antonio, Mission City Icehouse offers grab-and-go sandwich and salad creations, also from Hernandez. The bar at Mission City Icehouse will concentrate on local breweries and distillers to continue the celebration of local culture.
HMSHost's own La Tapenade Mediterranean Cafe offers customers a plethora of healthy, yet delicious meals. Featuring freshly baked bread, fire-roasted vegetables, specialty meats, and assorted cheeses to fill sandwiches and top pizzas and salads, La Tapenade is a great escape from a hectic travel day.
Steak 'n Shake features the famous combination of premium burgers and delicious milkshakes that will make your mouth water. For more than 75 years, Steak 'n Shake has been satisfying customers around the country, and this will be the first Steak 'n Shake franchise to open in San Antonio.
Famous Famiglia brings the award-winning pizza brand to San Antonio. From chicken, spinach, and breakfast strombolis, to chicken parmigiana and its famous pizzas, Famous Famiglia will provide travelers with good Italian favorites on the go.
Perfectly suited for airport travelers looking for a quick and delicious snack, Auntie Anne's/Cinnabon provides a variety of freshly baked pretzels and cinnamon rolls.


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
Show All Answers
Heber Valley Airport's master plan is designed to be a transparent and thoughtful effort to engage all stakeholders in planning for the future of the airport. This means looking at whether any changes are needed to update the existing airport's security, safety, and efficiency. It is not a mandate to grow the airport; rather, it provides the City with accurate and current data that will help the community make informed decisions about the future of this airport. Once the data is collected, the City can then make decisions on whether it needs to modernize the airport or if there are safety concerns that should be addressed. To be clear, there is no requirement as the result of the Master Plan that the City expand the airport. According to the FAA, "Airport Master plans are prepared to support the modernization or expansion of existing airports or the creation of a new airport. The master plan is the sponsor's (Heber City) strategy for the development of the airport." However, "in some cases the airport sponsor may decide that it is in the community's best interest for the airport not to continue to grow to accommodate forecast activity." (FAA Advisory Circular 150-5070-6B)
In the last few years Heber City Airport has seen an increase in small business jet traffic. The runway at Heber City Airport was designed for aircraft with much slower approach speeds than the aircraft that now use our airport. Because we have more than 500 operations (takeoffs or landings) by these business jets each year, the FAA has strongly encouraged Heber City to prepare an update of the airport master plan so the City can make a well-informed decision about the future airport development of the airport in light of its existing and predicted future traffic.
The Airport Master Plan update is expected to take between 18 months and 2 years to complete. There are three main phases to the plan: inventory and forecasting, developing and selecting the preferred plan, and finalizing the preferred alternative. There will be opportunities for public involvement throughout the process.
When airport owners or sponsors like the City accept grant funds from the FAA, they must sign a contract that includes a list of obligations that the City must satisfy. These obligations, called Grant Assurances, require that the City to maintain and operate their airport safely and efficiently and in accordance with specified conditions. These Grant Assurances cover a range of safety, operations and financial matters that are designed to make sure that the airport is operated in a manner consistent with federal policies and regulations.
The City does not have, and is not required to seek, a permit to operate a commercial airport. No one is even contemplating creating a commercial airport. Without such a permit, regular commercial airline service cannot be introduced at the airport. In addition, there are terrain and other issues that would make it very difficult for the City to make the improvements that would be required to accommodate airlines. To be clear, the FAA cannot, and an airline cannot, force the City to accept airline service.
The Heber Valley Airport serves many vital needs of the Heber community, including
Understanding the scope of services available at Heber Valley Airport helps to explain its critical role in travel, transportation, and infrastructure. The Heber Valley Airport also offers facilities for pilots, refueling and refreshing. Other services include offering conference rooms, flight crew quarters, and aircraft mechanical services.
In terms of aircraft and hangar owners, the demographics are as follows:
No. Any aircraft that can safely use the airport must be allowed to operate. Federal law prohibits the City from imposing limits beyond safety limits that are dictated by the FAA. In the same way the City cannot restrict the general public from driving on public roads, the City cannot restrict the number or type of aircraft using the airport.
No. Every airport is designed for maximum size and speed of aircraft. If an aircraft can safely use the airport, federal law prohibits the City from preventing that aircraft from using the airport. If an aircraft is too large to safely operate, that is the FAA's and the pilot's responsibility, not the City's obligation, to know that it would be unsafe to operate at the airport. Of course, if a large aircraft were land anyway, and were to damage our facility because of weight or speed, the owners of that aircraft would be held responsible. One of the reasons that the FAA has asked the City to undertake the Master Plan is that the FAA data shows that somewhat larger aircraft would use this airport if it were safe to do so. The Master Plan process is designed to help the City make a decision whether to update the safety standards for those larger planes.
No. Because Heber City has accepted federal grants, Heber City is obligated to maintain the airport in a safe condition in perpetuity. Of course, even if the City could close the airport, it would mean loss of numerous livable wage jobs and prevent critical access for our region's emergency services.
Yes, but it would be very costly to Heber City taxpayers. And, even if the City were to fund the airport, it would still be bound by the federal Grant Assurances because it has taken grant money in the past. In the future, if the City took no more federal grant money, it would have to fund maintenance and improvements necessary to satisfy its legal obligation to keep the airport operating in a safe manner.
Today, Heber City is the official airport sponsor and is therefore responsible for all related costs. There is, however, no reason that Heber City could not entertain an agreement between either other counties to help defray costs. This decision to participate in an agreement would entail financial and legal risk. The economic benefits would have to outweigh that risk.
Heber City and the Heber Valley Airport are actively seeking community input during the master plan upgrade process. Please leave a comment here or plan to attend one of our public meetings.


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Jon Jay hit an RBI single with two outs in the eighth inning to break a tie and lead the St. Louis Cardinals to a 3-2 win over the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night.
The Cardinals won their third in a row and fourth in the last five. Boston has lost three in a row.
Jay, who missed the previous five games with a wrist injury, blooped a hit to left off reliever Junichi Tazawa (1-3) to bring in former Red Sox A.J. Pierzynski with the winning run.
Reliever Pat Neshek (5-0) picked up the win by striking out the side in the eighth.
St. Louis closer Trevor Rosenthal recorded his NL-leading 35th save in 39 chances.
Boston beat St. Louis in six games in last year's World Series.
St. Louis starter Lance Lynn gave up two runs on four hits over seven innings. Boston starter Rubby De La Rosa surrendered one run on six hits over six innings.
Kolten Wong tied the game 2-all with a two-out RBI single in the seventh off reliever Tommy Layne.
St. Louis took a 1-0 lead in the fourth on a run-scoring single by Matt Adams. The hit drove in Matt Holliday, who doubled with one out.
Boston tied the contest in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Christian Vazquez. Daniel Nava reached safely on a two-base error by third baseman Matt Carpenter to begin the inning.
The Red Sox took a 2-1 lead in the seventh on Will Middlebrooks' infield ground out. With the bases loaded and one away, he hit a two-hopper to the mound. Lynn bobbled the ball while looking to the plate and was forced to throw to first base.
Holliday was ejected in the seventh inning by home plate umpire Mark Ripperger for arguing a called third strike.
Only 13 players remain from the Red Sox 25-man roster that won the World Series last fall. Through trades and attrition, the average age of the team dropped from 31 on Opening Day, to 28 on Tuesday.
The Red Sox have recalled knuckleball specialist Steven Wright from Triple-A Pawtucket. Wright will be making his first stint on the roster this season after four appearances last year.
St. Louis RHP Michael Wacha began throwing on flat ground Tuesday in hopes of returning to the starting rotation in early September. He has not pitched since June 17 with a stress reaction in his right shoulder.
Red Sox: Newly acquired OF Allen Craig was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a sore ankle. He suffered the injury Friday while running to first on a ground out. OF Corey Brown was recalled from Triple-A Pawtucket and in uniform for Tuesday's game. He was hitting .226 with 16 homers and 39 RBI. Shane Victorino underwent successful lumbar discectomy surgery in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
St. Louis RHP Shelby Miller (8-8, 4.14) will face close friend Joe Kelly (2-2, 4.37) in the second game of the three-game series on Wednesday. Kelly, who spent two-plus seasons with the Cardinals, will be making his first start for the Red Sox since being acquired in a trade July 31. The two served as Best Man in each other's weddings in the off season.
"It's going to be strange," Kelly said. "There will be some emotions there."
The two sent good luck text messages to each other on Tuesday.