“Europe today has little desire to reproduce itself, fight for itself or even take its own side in a argument. By the end of the lifespans of most people currently alive, Europe will not be Europe and the peoples of Europe will have lost the only place in the world we had to call home”
Large European universities such as Rijksuniversiteit Groningen are integrated into the fabric of the surrounding city. There are several ways in which this integration takes place:
Physical location: Many European universities are located in the heart of the city, often in historic buildings that have been repurposed for educational use. This central location means that the university is easily accessible to students and the general public, and that it is often surrounded by other cultural institutions, such as museums, theaters, and libraries.
Student life: The presence of a large student population can have a significant impact on the city’s culture and economy. Many European cities have developed a vibrant student culture, with cafes, bars, and other venues catering to the needs and interests of young people. This can help to create a sense of community between the university and the city, and can also bring economic benefits to local businesses.
Research and innovation: Large European universities are often at the forefront of research and innovation, and they can be important drivers of economic growth in the surrounding region. Many universities work closely with local businesses and industries, and they may also collaborate with other universities and research institutions in the area.
Cultural exchange: Universities can be important centers of cultural exchange, both for international students and for local residents. Many European universities offer language classes and other cultural programs that are open to the public, and they may also host lectures, concerts, and other events that are designed to promote cross-cultural understanding.
Overall, the integration of large European universities into the city is a complex and multifaceted process that can have a significant impact on the social, cultural, and economic life of the surrounding region.
The origin of brown cafés can be traced back to the 17th century, during the Dutch Golden Age. At that time, the Netherlands was a prosperous and influential trading nation, and Amsterdam was a bustling city with a thriving port. Sailors, merchants, and locals needed places to socialize, relax, and conduct business, leading to the emergence of taverns and pubs.
The term “brown café” is believed to have originated from the brownish stains that formed on the walls and ceilings due to tobacco smoke, candle soot, and other atmospheric elements. These stains gave the cafés a distinct, cozy ambiance and a sense of history.
Brown cafés became an integral part of Dutch culture, serving as communal gathering spots for people of all walks of life. They were places where locals would meet friends, engage in conversations, enjoy a drink, and sometimes play board games like chess or backgammon. Over time, brown cafés became associated with an authentic, unpretentious, and relaxed atmosphere, attracting both locals and tourists.
The unique charm of brown cafés lies in their preserved historical interiors, with old wooden furniture, dim lighting, and a wide selection of local beers and spirits. Many brown cafés still retain their original character, transporting visitors back in time and providing a cozy retreat from the hustle and bustle of modern life.
While the concept of brown cafés originated in the Netherlands, similar types of establishments can also be found in other European countries, such as Belgium and parts of Germany. However, the term “brown café” is primarily associated with the Dutch tradition of cozy, atmospheric, and convivial drinking establishments.
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100 years ago, the Supreme Court made it clear in Pierce v. Society of Sisters: raising children is the responsibility of parents, not the government.
100 years later, the Trump Administration remains committed to protecting parental rights. pic.twitter.com/yduXdLShty
— Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) June 1, 2025
“…O chestnut tree;, great rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bold? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?”
We sweep through the world’s three major time zones; updating our understanding of the literature at the technical foundation of education community safety and sustainability in those time zones 24 times per day. We generally eschew “over-coding” web pages to sustain speed, revision cadence and richness of content as peak priority. We do not provide a search facility because of copyrights of publishers and time sensitivity of almost everything we do.
Our daily colloquia are typically doing sessions; with non-USA titles receiving priority until 16:00 UTC and all other titles thereafter. We assume policy objectives are established (Safer-Simpler-Lower-Cost, Longer-Lasting). Because we necessarily get into the weeds, and because much of the content is time-sensitive and copyright protected, we usually schedule a separate time slot to hammer on technical specifics so that our response to consultations are meaningful and contribute to the goals of the standards developing organization and to the goals of stewards of education community real assets — typically the largest real asset owned by any US state and about 50 percent of its annual budget.
1. Leviathan. We track noteworthy legislative proposals in the United States 118th Congress. Not many deal specifically with education community real assets since the relevant legislation is already under administrative control of various Executive Branch Departments such as the Department of Education.
We do not advocate in legislative activity at any level. We respond to public consultations but there it ends.
We track federal legislative action because it provides a stroboscopic view of the moment — the “national conversation”– in communities that are simultaneously a business and a culture. Even though more than 90 percent of such proposals are at the mercy of the party leadership the process does enlighten the strengths and weakness of a governance system run entirely through the counties on the periphery of Washington D.C. It is impossible to solve technical problems in facilities without sensitivity to the zietgeist that has accelerated in education communities everywhere.
Michigan can 100% water and feed itself. Agriculture is its second-largest industry.
“The Tower of Babel” 1563 | Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Widely accepted definitions (sometimes “terms of art”) are critical in building codes because they ensure clarity, consistency, and precision in communication among architects, engineers, contractors, and regulators. Ambiguity or misinterpretation of terms like “load-bearing capacity,” “fire resistance,” “egress” or “grounding and bonding” could lead to design flaws, construction errors, or inadequate safety measures, risking lives and property.
“Standardized” definitions — by nature unstable — create a shared language that transcends local practices or jargon, enabling uniform application and enforcement across jurisdictions. Today at the usual hour we explore the nature and the status of the operational language that supports our raison d’êtreof making educational settlements safer, simpler, lower-cost and longer-lasting.
Safety and sustainability for any facility begins with an understanding of who shall occupy the built environment and how. University settings, with mixed-use phenomenon arising spontaneously and temporarily, often present challenges. Educational communities are a convergent settings for families; day care facilities among them. First principles regarding occupancy classifications for day care facilities appear in Section 308 of the International Building Code, Institutional Group I; linked below:
The ICC Institutional Group I-4 classification includes buildings and structures occupied by more than five persons of any age who received custodial care for fewer than 24 hours per day by persons other than parents or guardian, relatives by blood, marriage or adoption, and in a place other than the home of the person cared far. This group includes both adult and child day care.
We maintain focus on child day care. Many educational communities operate child day care enterprises for both academic study and/or as auxiliary (university employee benefit) enterprises.
Princeton University Child Care Center
Each of the International Code Council code development groups fetch back to a shared understanding of the nature of the facility; character of its occupants and prospective usage patterns.
The 2024 revision of the International Building code is in production now. Ahead of the formal, market release of the Group A tranche of titles you can sample the safety concepts in play during this revision with an examination of the documents linked below:
Search on the terms “day care” and “daycare” in the link at the top of this page to get a sample of the prevailing concepts; use of such facilities as storm shelters, for example.
“The Country School” | Winslow Homer
We encourage our safety and sustainability colleagues to participate directly in the ICC Code Development process. We slice horizontally through the disciplinary silos (“incumbent verticals”) created by hundreds of consensus product developers every week and we can say, upon considerable authority that the ICC consensus product development environment is one of the best in the world. Privately developed standards (for use by public agencies) is a far better way to discover and promulgate leading practice than originating technical specifics from legislative bodies. CLICK HERE to get started. Contact Kimberly Paarlberg (kpaarlberg@iccsafe.org) for more information.
There are competitor consensus products in this space — Chapter 18 Day-Care Occupancies in NFPA 5000 Building Construction and Safety Code, for example; a title we maintain the standing agenda of our Model Building Code teleconferences. It is developed from a different pool of expertise under a different due process regime. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
We examine the proposals for the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code; including our own. The 2026 National Electrical Code where sit on CMP-15 overseeing health care facility electrical issues should be released any day now. We have one proposal on the agenda of the International Code Council’s Group B Committee Action Hearings in Cleveland in October. Balloting on the next IEEE Gold Book on reliability should begin.
FERC Open Meetings | (Note that these ~60 minute sessions meet Sunshine Act requirements. Our interest lies one or two levels deeper into the technicals underlying the administrivia)
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan
First Draft Proposals contain most of our proposals — and most new (original) content. We will keep the transcripts linked below but will migrate them to a new page starting 2025:
N.B. We are in the process of migrating electric power system research to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers bibliographic format.
Recap of the May meetings of the Industrial & Commercial Power Systems Conference in Las Vegas. The conference ended the day before the beginning of the 3-day Memorial Day weekend in the United States so we’re pressed for time; given all that happened.
We can use our last meeting’s agenda to refresh the status of the issues.
We typically break down our discussion into the topics listed below:
Codes & Standards:
While IAS/I&CPS has directed votes on the NEC; Mike is the only I&CPS member who is actually submitting proposals and responses to codes and standards developers to the more dominant SDO’s — International Code Council, ASHRAE International, UL, ASTM International, IEC & ISO. Mike maintains his offer to train the next generation of “code writers and vote getters”
Performance-based building premises feeder design has been proposed for the better part of ten NEC revision cycles. The objective of these proposals is to reduce material, labor and energy waste owed to the branch and feeder sizing rules that are prescriptive in Articles 210-235. Our work in service and lighting branch circuit design has been largely successful. A great deal of building interior power chain involves feeders — the network upstream from branch circuit panels but down stream from building service panel.
Our history of advocating for developing this approach, inspired by the NFPA 101 Guide to Alternative Approaches to Life Safety, and recounted in recent proposals for installing performance-based electrical feeder design into the International Building Code, appears in the link below:
Access to this draft paper for presentation at any conference that will receive it — NFPA, ICC or IEEE (or even ASHRAE) will be available for review at the link below:
NFPA 110 Definitions of Public Utility v. Merchant Utility
NFPA 72 “Definition of Dormitory Suite” and related proposals
Buildings:
Renovation economics, Smart contracts in electrical construction. UMich leadership in aluminum wiring statements in the NEC should be used to reduce wiring costs.
This paper details primary considerations in estimating the life cycle of a campus medium voltage distribution grid. Some colleges and universities are selling their entire power grid to private companies. Mike has been following these transactions but cannot do it alone.
Variable Architecture Multi-Island Microgrids
District energy:
Generator stator winding failures and implications upon insurance premiums. David Shipp and Sergio Panetta. Mike suggests more coverage of retro-fit and lapsed life cycle technicals for insurance companies setting premiums.
Reliability:
Bob Arno’s leadership in updating the Gold Book.
Mike will expand the sample set in Table 10-35, page 293 from the <75 data points in the 1975 survey to >1000 data points. Bob will set up meeting with Peyton at US Army Corps of Engineers.
Reliability of merchant utility distribution systems remains pretty much a local matter. The 2023 Edition of the NESC shows modest improvement in the vocabulary of reliability concepts. For the 2028 Edition Mike submitted several proposals to at least reference IEEE titles in the distribution reliability domain. It seems odd (at least to Mike) that the NESC committees do not even reference IEEE technical literature such as Bob’s Gold Book which has been active for decades. Mike will continue to propose changes in other standards catalogs — such as ASTM, ASHRAE and ICC — which may be more responsive to best practice assertions. Ultimately, improvements will require state public utility commission regulations — and we support increases in tariffs so that utilities can afford these improvements.
Mike needs help from IEEE Piscataway on standard WordPress theme limitations for the data collection platform.
Mike will update the campus power outage database.
Healthcare:
Giuseppe Parise’s recent work in Italian power grid to its hospitals, given its elevated earthquake risk. Mike’s review of Giuseppe’s paper:
Mike and David Shipp will prepare a position paper for the Harvard Healthcare Management Journal on reliability advantages of impedance grounding for the larger systems.
The Internet of Bodies
Forensics:
Giuseppe’s session was noteworthy for illuminating the similarity and differences between the Italian and US legal system in handling electrotechnology issues.
Mike will restock the committee’s library of lawsuits transactions.
Ports:
Giuseppe updates on the energy and security issues of international ports. Mike limits his time in this committee even though the State of Michigan has the most fresh water international ports in the world.
A PROPOSED GUIDE FOR THE ENERGY PLAN AND ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF A PORT
Other:
Proposals to the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code: Accepted Best Practice, exterior switchgear guarding, scope expansion into ICC and ASHRAE catalog,
Apparently both the Dot Standards and the Color Books will continue parallel development. Only the Gold Book is being updated; led by Bob Arno. Mike admitted confusion but reminded everyone that any references to IEEE best practice literature in the NFPA catalog, was installed Mike himself (who would like some backup help)
Mike assured Christel Hunter (General Cable) that his proposals for reducing the 180 VA per-outlet requirements, and the performance-base design allowance for building interior feeders do not violate the results of the Neher-McGrath calculation used for conductor sizing. All insulation and conducting material thermal limits are unaffected.
Other informal discussions centered on the rising cost of copper wiring and the implications for the global electrotechnical transformation involving the build out of quantum computing and autonomous vehicles. Few expressed optimism that government ambitions for the same could be met in any practical way.
Are students avoiding use of Chat GPT for energy conservation reasons? Mike will be breaking out this topic for a dedicated standards inquiry session:
The thunderbolt steers all things. —Heraclitus, c. 500 BC
After the rain. Personal photograph taken by Mike Anthony biking with his niece in Wirdum, The Netherlands
Today at 15:00 UTC we examine the technical literature about rainwater management in schools, colleges and universities — underfoot and on the roof. Lightning protection standards will also be reviewed; given the exposure of outdoor athletic activity and exterior luminaires.
We draw from previous standardization work in titles involving water, roofing systems and flood management — i.e. a cross-cutting view of the relevant standard developer catalogs. Among them:
American Society of Civil Engineers
American Society of Plumbing Engineers
ASHRAE International
ASTM International
Construction Specifications Institute (Division 7 Thermal and Moisture Protection)
The “lightning effect” seen in carnival tricks typically relies on a scientific principle known as the Lichtenberg figure or Lichtenberg figure. This phenomenon occurs when a high-voltage electrical discharge passes through an insulating material, such as wood or acrylic, leaving behind branching patterns resembling lightning bolts.
The process involves the creation of a temporary electric field within the material, which polarizes its molecules. As the discharge propagates through the material, it causes localized breakdowns, creating branching paths along the way. These branching patterns are the characteristic Lichtenberg figures.
In the carnival trick, a high-voltage generator is used to create an electrical discharge on a piece of insulating material, such as acrylic. When a person touches the material or a conductive object placed on it, the discharge follows the path of least resistance, leaving behind the branching patterns. This effect is often used for entertainment purposes due to its visually striking appearance, resembling miniature lightning bolts frozen in the material. However, it’s crucial to handle such demonstrations with caution due to the potential hazards associated with high-voltage electricity.
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
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