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Poutine

October 13, 2025
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Standard Poutine

Health Canada: Food safety standards and guidelines

A poutine pilgrimage: What one professor learned by digging into the origins of the iconic Canadian dish

University of Vermont: Poutine: From Rags to Riches

Dalhousie University researcher Sylvain Charlebois, known as “the food professor,” enjoys a poutine at a restaurant in Brisbane, Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lingua Franca

October 13, 2025
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Plain Writing Act of 2010

White House: Designating English as the Official Language of The United States

 

“The English genius is essentially eclectic;

it borrows from everywhere and from every time.”

— Peter Ackroyd | 2004  Albion: the origins of the English imagination

“The Tower of Babel” 1563 | Pieter Bruegel the Elder

 

“Wer von Fremdsprachen nichts versteht, kennt seine eigenen nichts.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

Disagree with someone and cannot persuade them?  Do you need to hide your intransigence or ulterior motive? Then change the basis of discussion by changing the subject with a different definition.

This happens routinely in political discourse and rather frequently in best practice discovery and promulgation in building construction and settlement infrastructure standards[1].  Assuming all parties are negotiating in good faith resolution may lie in agreement on a common understanding of what a satisfying agreement might look like.

Admittedly, a subtle and challenging topic outside our wheelhouse[2] hence the need to improve our organization of this topic starting with today’s colloquium; with follow on sessions every month.

Starting 2025 we will organize our approach to this topic, thus:

Language 100.  Survey of linguistic basics for developing codes, standards and regulations.  Many vertical incumbents have developed their own style manuals

Language 200.  Electrotechnical vocabulary

Language 300.  Architectural and Allied trade vocabulary

Language 400.  The language of government regulations; the euphemisms of politicians with influence over the built environment

Language 500.  Advanced topics such as large language models or spoken dialects such as “High Michigan” — arguably, the standard American dialect where it applies to the standards listed above.

Naming & Signs

It may not be obvious how profound the choice of words and phrases have on leading practice discovery and promulgation.  For example, “What is Gender” determines the number, placement and functionality of sanitary technologies in housing, hospitals and sporting.   The United States has a Supreme Court justice that cannot define “woman”

As always, we will respond to public consultation opportunities wherever we can find them.  Some organizations are better than this than others.

Large Language Models

Glossary: Education

Examples of Variations in Translations of Homer’s Odyssey

The Surprising Factor That Determines English Fluency

Banished Words 2024

Today we limit our discussion to language changes in the catalogs of ANSI-accredited standards developers whose titles have the most influence over the interoperability of safety and sustainability technologies that create and sustain the built environment of educational settlements.

American Institute of Architects: Definitions for Building Performance 

ASHRAE International

Language Proficiency

International Code Council

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

National Fire Protection Association

Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?

Using tasks in language teaching

print(“Python”)

Love and Mathematics

The Guy Who Over-Pronounces Foreign Words

Every building construction discipline has its own parlance and terms of art.

This is enough for a one-hour session and, depending upon interest, we will schedule a breakout session outside of our normal “daily” office hours.  Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.

ΒΙΒΛΙΟΘΗΚΕΣ

Starting 2024 and running into 2025 we will break down this topic further, starting with construction contract language — Lingua Franca 300:

“Standard” History

History of the English Speaking Peoples

Language Proficiency

Geomatics

Large Language Models

Travels with the Sundry Folk

Reflections on the verb “to be”

Banished Words 2024

Forbidden Words

Using tasks in language teaching

William Tyndale: The Father of Modern English

“Music does an end run around language” — James Taylor

Electropedia: The World’s Online Electrotechnical Vocabulary

Standard Definition: “Developing” Country

The Guy Who Over-Pronounces Foreign Words

ANSI Acronymn Dictionary

Footnotes:

(1) The United States government defines a “Green Building” as a building that has been designed, constructed, and operated in a way that reduces or eliminates negative impacts on the environment and occupants. The government has established various standards and certifications that buildings can achieve to be considered “green.”

The most widely recognized green building certification in the United States is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, which is administered by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). To achieve LEED certification, a building must meet certain standards related to sustainable site development, water efficiency, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.

In addition to the LEED certification, there are other programs and standards that can be used to measure and certify the sustainability of buildings, such as the Green Globes rating system and the Living Building Challenge.

Overall, the goal of green building is to create buildings that are not only environmentally sustainable but also healthier, more comfortable, and more efficient for occupants, while reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. By promoting green building practices, the U.S. government aims to reduce the environmental impact of the built environment and move towards a more sustainable future.

(2) The U.S. Green Building Council is a conformance organization.  See the discussion our ABOUT for background on incumbent stakeholders.

Artificial Intelligence Standards

October 13, 2025
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U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute

ANSI Response to NIST “A Plan for Global Engagement on AI Standards”

On April 29, 2024 NIST released a draft plan for global engagement on AI standards.

Comments are due by June 2. More information is available here.

 

Request for Information Related to NIST’s Assignments

Under Sections 4.1, 4.5 and 11 of the Executive Order Concerning Artificial Intelligence 

The National Institute of Standards and Technology seeks information to assist in carrying out several of its responsibilities under the Executive order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence issued on October 30, 2023. Among other things, the E.O. directs NIST to undertake an initiative for evaluating and auditing capabilities relating to Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and to develop a variety of guidelines, including for conducting AI red-teaming tests to enable deployment of safe, secure, and trustworthy systems.

Regulations.GOV Filing: NIST-2023-0009-0001_content

Browse Posted Comments (72 as of February 2, 2024 | 12:00 EST)

Standards Michigan Public Comment

Attention Is All You Need | Authors: Ashish Vaswani et al. (2017).  This groundbreaking paper introduced the Transformer architecture, replacing recurrent layers with self-attention mechanisms to enable parallelizable, efficient sequence modeling. It laid the foundational blueprint for all subsequent LLMs, revolutionizing natural language processing by capturing long-range dependencies without sequential processing.
BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding | Authors: Jacob Devlin et al. (2018). BERT pioneered bidirectional pre-training via masked language modeling, allowing models to understand context from both directions. As an encoder-only Transformer, it achieved state-of-the-art results on 11 NLP tasks and established the pre-training/fine-tuning paradigm that underpins bidirectional LLMs like those in search and classification.
Training Compute-Optimal Large Language Models | Authors: Jordan Hoffmann et al. (2022).  Known as the Chinchilla paper, it revealed that optimal LLM performance requires balanced scaling of model size and data volume (e.g., 70B parameters trained on 1.4T tokens outperform larger models with less data). This shifted research toward data-efficient training, influencing efficient LLM development.

Unleashing American Innovation

Federal Agency Conformity Assessment

Time & Frequency Services

Technical Requirements for Weighing & Measuring Devices

Why You Need Standards

Summer Internship Research Fellowship

A Study of Children’s Password Practices

Human Factors Using Elevators in Emergency Evacuation

Cloud Computing Paradigm

What is time?

Readings / Radio Controlled Clocks

Standard Reference Material

LLM Model Evaluation & Agent Interface

October 13, 2025
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IEEE sponsors two AI and ADS projects that follow ANSI standardization requirements:

Title: IEEE P3119 – Standard for the Procurement of Artificial Intelligence and Automated Decision Systems

Scope: The IEEE P3119 standard establishes a uniform set of definitions and a process model for procuring Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automated Decision Systems (ADS). It covers government procurement, in-house development, and hybrid public-private development of AI/ADS. The standard redefines traditional procurement stages—problem definition, planning, solicitation, critical evaluation (e.g., impact assessments), and contract execution—using an IEEE Ethically Aligned Design (EAD) foundation and a participatory approach to address socio-technical and responsible innovation considerations. It focuses on mitigating unique AI risks compared to traditional technologies and applies to commercial AI products and services procured through formal contracts.

Purpose: The purpose of IEEE P3119 is to help government entities, policymakers, and technologists make transparent, accountable, and responsible choices in procuring AI/ADS. It provides a framework to strengthen procurement processes, ensuring due diligence, transparency about risks, and alignment with public interest. The standard aims to minimize AI-related risks (e.g., bias, ethical concerns) while maximizing benefits, complementing existing procurement practices and shaping the market for responsible AI solutions. It supports agencies in critically evaluating AI tools, assessing vendor transparency, and integrating ethical considerations into procurement.

Developmental Timelines:

    • September 23, 2021: The IEEE Standards Association (SA) Standards Board approved the project and established the IEEE P3119 Working Group. The Project Authorization Request (PAR) was created to define the scope.
    • 2021–Ongoing: Development continues, with no final publication date confirmed in available sources. As of July 18, 2024, the standard was still in progress, focusing on detailed process recommendations.
    • The standard is being developed as a voluntary socio-technical standard, with plans to test it against existing regulations (e.g., via regulatory sandboxes).

By Whom:

    • Working Group Chair: Gisele Waters, Ph.D., Director of Service Development and Operations at Design Run Group, co-founder of the AI Procurement Lab, and a human-centered design researcher focused on risk mitigation for vulnerable populations.
    • Working Group Vice Chair: Cari Miller, co-founder of the AI Procurement Lab and the Center for Inclusive Change, an AI governance leader and risk expert.
    • IEEE P3119 Working Group: Comprises a global network of IEEE SA volunteers from diverse industries, collaborating to develop standards addressing market needs and societal benefits. The group integrates expertise from government workers, policymakers, and technologists.
    • Inspiration: The standard was inspired by the AI and Procurement: A Primer report from the New York University Center for Responsible AI.

The IEEE P3119 standard is a collaborative effort to address the unique challenges of AI procurement, emphasizing ethical and responsible innovation for public benefit

Title: IEEE P3120 – Standard for Quantum Computing Architecture

Scope: The IEEE P3120 standard defines a general architecture for quantum computers, focusing on the structure and organization of quantum computing systems. It covers the overall system architecture, including quantum hardware components (e.g., qubits, quantum gates), control systems, interfaces with classical computing systems, and software layers for programming and operation. The standard aims to provide a framework for designing interoperable and scalable quantum computing systems, addressing both hardware and software considerations for quantum and hybrid quantum-classical architectures.

Purpose: The purpose of IEEE P3120 is to establish a standardized framework to guide the design, development, and integration of quantum computing systems. It seeks to ensure consistency, interoperability, and scalability across quantum computing platforms, facilitating innovation and collaboration in the quantum computing ecosystem. By providing clear architectural guidelines, the standard supports developers, researchers, and industry stakeholders in building reliable and efficient quantum computers, bridging the gap between theoretical quantum computing and practical implementation.

Developmental Timelines:

    • September 21, 2023: The IEEE Standards Association (SA) Standards Board approved the Project Authorization Request (PAR) for P3120, initiating the project under the IEEE Computer Society’s Microprocessor Standards Committee (C/MSC).
    • 2023–Ongoing: Development is in progress, with no confirmed publication date in available sources. As a standards development project, it involves iterative drafting, review, and consensus-building, typical of IEEE processes, which can span several years.
    • The standard is being developed as a voluntary standard, with potential for testing and refinement through industry and academic collaboration.

By Whom:

    • Sponsor: IEEE Computer Society, specifically the Microprocessor Standards Committee (C/MSC), which oversees standards related to microprocessor and computing architectures.
    • Working Group: The IEEE P3120 Working Group consists of volunteers from academia, industry, and research institutions with expertise in quantum computing, computer architecture, and related fields. Specific chairs or members are not detailed in available sources, but IEEE SA working groups typically include global experts from relevant domains.
    • Stakeholders: The development involves contributions from quantum computing researchers, hardware manufacturers, software developers, and standardization experts to ensure a comprehensive and practical standard.

The IEEE P3120 standard is a critical step toward formalizing quantum computing architectures, aiming to support the growing quantum technology industry with a robust and interoperable framework.

 

https://www.andrews.edu/services/research/publications/research_brochure/2014_brochure/cricket_to_cricket/index.html

Quadrivium: Autumn

October 13, 2025
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Andrews University (Michigan West) :  Cricket Calling Song Research

Mike Anthony with colleagues since 1982 @ UM Ross School of Business Executive Dining Room

“Harvest for the World” (Isley Brothers Cover) | New Swannington Primary School

Trending | Engagements, Weddings & Births | Sport News | Carillons

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Autumn Syllabus Week 42 | October 13 – 19

Retrodiction

“Demeter Thesmophoros” Jean-Léon Gérôme

“…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?”

— Among Schoolchildren, 1933 William Butler Yeats

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.

Readings:

“The Advancement of Learning” Francis Bacon (1605)

“The Allegory of the Cave” 380 BCE | Plato’s Republic, Book VII

Thucydides: Pericles’ Funeral Oration

IEEE Access: Advanced Deep Learning Models for 6G: Overview, Opportunities, and Challenges | Xidian University

“Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination” (2002) Peter Ackroyd

“Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” Satoshi Nakamoto

“Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” (1841) | Charles Mackay

Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Study of Mind

“Kant’s Categorical Imperative” | Hillsdale College Introduction to Western Philosophy

“The Natural History of Stupidity” (1959) Paul Tabori

“The College Idea: Andrew Delbanco” Lapham’s Quarterly

Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality | Google, Inc. et, al

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.

2.  National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

3. American National Standards Institute (ANSI)

4. Fast Forward  

The Year Ahead 2025

5. Rewind

Retrodiction

Lights Out

6. Corrigenda

 

“The world will never starve for want of wonders;

but only for want of wonder.”

–  G.K Chesterton, The Spirit of Christmas (1905)

History of the English Speaking Peoples

October 13, 2025
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Michigan Central

Since so much of what we do in standards setting is built upon a foundation of a shared understanding and agreement of the meaning of words (no less so than in technical standard setting) that time is well spent reflecting upon the origin of the nouns and verbs of that we use every day.   Best practice cannot be discovered, much less promulgated, without its understanding secured with common language.

Word Counts

2024 Alumni Awards

Cambridge: English language education in the era of generative AI

Graduation, Dating, Engagements, Weddings, Births & Obituaries

October 13, 2025
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t5rtrtr

Weddings

 



Nine years later and first day as husband and wife they got to finally sneak a kiss in one of the first places they ever passed notes

Hun School Of Princeton

“…I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” –W.B. Yeats | ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’

“Nature’s Masterpiece”

Several colleges and universities have “kissing benches” or similar traditions tied to romance on campus.

Michigan State University Beaumont Tower: Nick and Myra Kanillopoulos

Syracuse University. Kissing Bench: This bench on the Quad is steeped in tradition. Legend has it that if a couple kisses on the bench, they will eventually marry. Conversely, if a single person sits there alone, they risk staying single forever.

University of Idaho.  Hello Walk and Kissing Rock: While not a bench, this area on campus features a large rock where students have historically kissed. It’s a romantic tradition for couples at the university.

Florida State University Kissing Bench

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Clemson University Lover’s Lane

Illinois State University

University of Cambridge: St. John’s College Bridge of Sighs

University of Oxford: The Bridge of Sighs

University of Bath Somerset County: Sham Castle

Weddings

Current Issues and Recent Research

October 13, 2025
mike@standardsmichigan.com

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“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena,

it will make more progress in one decade

than in all the previous centuries of existence.”

—  Nikola Tesla

​​

IEEE Southeastern Michigan Section Welcome August 2024

 

 

IEEE & SWE Student Tour of Michigan Stadium Scoreboard | April 2024

IEEE SEM Student Activity

University of Michigan Student Chapter to receive Outstanding Chapter Award at Michigan State University | October 18 (East Lansing)

Trending

 IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee September 30 Final Agenda  Ω Electrical Power System Research

NFPA Electrical Standards Landing Page  Ω NFPA Standards Council  Ω NFPA Fire Safety Landing Page

ASHRAE Landing Page | Soon: ASTM Electrical & Telecommunication Standard Development

Draft IEEE Paper Abstracts | Mike Anthony Short Biography | Electrical Industrial Conglomerates

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.

“Tomorrow’s Girls” | Donald Fagan

Policy:

OUTERNET: Crossing over data gap using cubesats

Department of Energy Portfolio Analysis & Management System

Department of Energy Building Technologies Office

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)

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Federal Communication Commission Michigan Public Service Commission
August 7 Open Meeting
July 24 Open Meeting July 25 Open Meeting
June 16 Open Meeting January 22: Newly Appointed FCC Chairman Announces Staff Changes June  12 Open Meeting
May 15 Open Meeting May 15 Open Meeting
April 17 Open Meeting April 24 Open Meeting
March 20 Open Meeting
February 20 FERC Open Meeting March 3 Open Meeting
January 16 FERC Press Conference February 27, 2025 Open Meeting

January 23: NARUC Congratulates New FERC, FCC and NRC Chairs

January 22: Newly Appointed FCC Chairman Announces Staff Changes | Related: Falsus in uno, Falsus in omnibus

January 6: City of Ann Arbor Postpones Phase II Study to Municipalize DTE Energy distribution grid

January 27, 10 AM Low-Income Energy Policy Board Meeting: Michigan Public Service commission

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: January 16, 2025 Open Meeting

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Notice of Request for Comments (Posted November 25, 2024)

Interregional Transfer Capability Study: Strengthening Reliability Through the Energy Transformation Docket No. AD25-4-000

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission | November 21, Open Meeting

Press Conference

Michigan Public Service Commission Meetings

Michigan Public Commission Meeting  February 27, 2025

MPSC DTE CMS Electric Power Reliability Case No. U-21305

Michigan Electrical Administrative Board Meeting February 13, 2025

FCC Open Meeting | November 21 

[Mike Anthony Opinion] on the gales of innuendo against limited federal government voices in federally financed National Public Radio

National Infrastructure Advisory Council: Addressing the Critical Shortage of Power Transformers to Ensure Reliability of the U.S. Grid

H.R. 9603 (September 16): To amend the Federal Power Act to prohibit the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from issuing permits for the construction or modification of electric transmission facilities in a State over the objection of the State, and for other purposes.

Technical: (Also Electrical Power System Research)

Empower Pre-Trained Large Language Models for Building-Level Load Forecasting

Uptime Institute (via NEXT DC) : AI Inference in the Data Center

Majorana Nanowires for Topological Quantum Computing

Linearized Data Center Workload and Cooling Management

Oxford Researchers Discovered How to Use AI To Learn Like A Genius

Lex Fridman: DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters 

IEEE: Experts Weigh in on $500B Stargate Project for AI

IEEE: AI Mistakes Are Very Different Than Human Mistakes .  We need new security systems designed to deal with their weirdness

High-Performance Tensor Learning Primitives Using GPU Tensor Cores

Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York

Causes and Consequences of Widespread Power Blackout Across Taiwan on 3 March 2022: A Blackout Incident Investigation in the Taiwan Power System

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:

Electrical Safety

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-1

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-2

Public Input Report CMP-3

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-4

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-5

Public Input Report CMP-6

Public Input Report CMP-7

Public Input Report CMP-8

Public Input Report CMP-9

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-10

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-11

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-12

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-13

Public Input Report CMP-14

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-15

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-16

Public Input Report CMP-17

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-18

Related:

2026 National Electrical Code

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.

IEEE E&H Draft Agenda 28 May 2024

On site conference agenda:

IEEE E&H Conference Agenda 21 May 2024

NESC & NEC Cross-Code Correlation

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:

Toward Performance-Based Building Premise Feeder Design

 

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.

Copper can’t be mined fast enough to electrify the United States

Daleep asked Mike to do a Case Study session on the NEC lighting power density change (NEC 220-14) for the IAS Annual Meeting in October.  Mike agreed.

Exterior Campus & Distribution:

Illumination.  Gary Fox reported that IEEE 3001.9 was endorsed as an ANSI accredited standard for illumination systems.

2024-ICPSD24-0012 PERMANENT DESIGN OF POWER SYSTEMS Parise

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:

Harvard Business School: Journal of Healthcare Management Standards

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)

Universities with Quantum Computing Facilities

Papers in Process:

Impedance Grounding Papers 1 and 2 with David Shipp.  Previous Discussion:

https://ieeetv.ieee.org/channels/ieee-region-events/uc-berkeley-s-medium-voltage-grounding-system

Over Coffee and Beers:

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:

GPT Power Grid

Education & Healthcare Facility Electrotechnology Committee

Workspace IEEE 1366: Guide for Electric Power Distribution Reliability Indices

Largest U.S. Electric Utility Companies Ranked by Generation Capacity  For IEEE 493 update we seek outage data from the 100 largest campus power system experts.

Sport News

October 13, 2025
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Michigan Girl, Our Michigan Girl….

Sport Standards

 

 

Mixed Gender Sport by Design

Engineering in Sport



“Rowing is more poetry than sport.” — George Pocock (‘Boys in the Boat’ 2024), a British-born boat builder, rowing coach, and influential figure in American rowing, best known for his craftsmanship of racing shells and his philosophical approach to the sport.

Winter Sport

Evensong “The Water is Wide”

October 12, 2025
mike@standardsmichigan.com
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“All my longings lie open before you, Lord;
my sighing is not hidden from you.”

— Psalm 38:9

“The Water Is Wide” is a traditional folk song with deep roots in the British Isles, particularly Scotland and England, before it became a beloved American folk song. Its origins are complex, as it evolved through oral tradition, with variations in lyrics, melody, and title across regions and centuries. Below is a detailed explanation of its origins and journey to becoming a classic American folk song with summer associations.1. British Isles Origins (17th–18th Century)

  • Earliest Roots: The song likely derives from a Scottish or English folk ballad dating back to at least the 17th century. It is closely related to ballads like “Waly, Waly” (sometimes spelled “Wally, Wally”), a lament about love and loss. The earliest known versions appear in Scottish oral traditions, with references to broadsides (printed song sheets) from the 1600s.
  • Melody and Structure: The melody associated with “The Water Is Wide” is a modal, haunting tune typical of Celtic folk music. It shares similarities with other traditional songs like “O Waly, Waly,” which was collected in Cecil Sharp’s English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1917). The song’s structure, with its simple, repetitive stanzas, made it adaptable for oral transmission.
  • Lyrics and Themes: Early versions focused on themes of unrequited or lost love, with the “wide water” symbolizing an insurmountable barrier between lovers. For example, a common early stanza is:
    “The water is wide, I cannot get o’er / And neither have I wings to fly / Give me a boat that will carry two / And both shall row, my love and I.”
    This imagery of rivers and separation resonated in pastoral settings, often evoking summer landscapes.

 

2. Transmission to America

  • Colonial Migration: The song crossed the Atlantic with British and Scottish immigrants, particularly during the 17th and 18th centuries, settling in regions like the Appalachian Mountains, where it became part of the American folk tradition. Scots-Irish settlers, in particular, brought ballads like “The Water Is Wide” to the American South, where they were adapted to local contexts.
  • Appalachian Influence: In the Appalachians, the song’s lyrics and melody were shaped by oral tradition, with variations emerging in different communities. It retained its melancholic tone but often incorporated local imagery, such as American rivers or landscapes, which tied it to summer’s reflective, open-air mood.
  • African American Influence: Some scholars suggest that African American spirituals influenced the song’s evolution in America, as its themes of longing and crossing water paralleled spirituals like “Deep River.” This blending enriched its emotional depth and melodic variations.

3. Documentation and Revival

  • Early Collections: The song was first formally documented in the 19th century, with variants appearing in folk song collections. By the early 20th century, collectors like Cecil Sharp and Francis James Child (known for the Child Ballads) noted versions of “Waly, Waly” and related songs in both Britain and America.
  • Folk Revival (20th Century): “The Water Is Wide” gained prominence during the American folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. Artists like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, and The Kingston Trio popularized it, often performing it at summer folk festivals. Seeger’s version, in particular, standardized the modern American melody and lyrics, emphasizing its gentle, summery river imagery.
  • Adaptations: The song was adapted into various forms, including gospel, pop, and classical arrangements. Its inclusion in school songbooks and campfires further cemented its place in American folk culture, with its river imagery evoking lazy summer days.


6. Historical Significance

  • Oral Tradition: The song’s survival through oral tradition highlights its adaptability and emotional resonance, key traits of folk music.
  • Cross-Cultural Exchange: Its journey from Scotland/England to America, with influences from African American traditions, exemplifies the blending of cultures in American folk music.
  • Modern Legacy: Today, “The Water Is Wide” remains a staple in folk repertoires, performed by artists across genres and taught in music education, often evoking summer’s reflective mood.

 

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