The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague.
In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior.
The volume of federal crimes in recent decades has increased well beyond the statute books and into the morass of the Code of Federal Regulations, handing federal prosecutors an additional trove of vague and exceedingly complex and technical prohibitions to stick on their hapless targets.
The dangers spelled out in Three Felonies a Day do not apply solely to “white collar criminals,” state and local politicians, and professionals. No social class or profession is safe from this troubling form of social control by the executive branch, and nothing less than the integrity of our constitutional democracy hangs in the balance.
ASTM International (formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials) is a globally recognized organization that develops and publishes technical standards for a wide range of products, systems, and services. These standards are used by manufacturers, regulatory bodies, and other stakeholders to ensure that products and services are safe, reliable, and of high quality.
In the field of measurement science, ASTM plays an important role in developing standards and guidelines for measurement techniques and practices. These standards cover a wide range of topics related to measurement science, including the calibration of instruments, the characterization of measurement systems, and the validation of measurement results. They are used by researchers, engineers, and other professionals in academia, industry, and government to ensure that measurements are accurate, precise, and reliable.
ASTM standards for measurement science are developed through a process that involves input from experts in the field, including researchers, industry professionals, and regulatory bodies. These standards are updated regularly to reflect advances in measurement science and technology, as well as changes in industry and regulatory requirements. This is a far better way to discover and promulgate leading practice. In fact, there are regulations intended to restrain the outsized influence of vertical incumbents in legislative precincts where market-making happens.
We continue sorting through anomalies with Godaddy Tech Support to resolve Standards Michigan requirement for frequent and timely updates across all of our platforms. We got half the problem solved last month when we upgraded to WordPress 6.8.1 but updating was slow on mobile devices. Our normal course of business will not be interrupted as far as our daily colloquia is concerned but we cannot predict the outcome on the images which are an essential part of our work.
Posts are not updating across all platforms — particularly on X on iPhones. Usually a caching problem and not one we haven’t seen before.
Some images will not center.
Footer and right-side widgets not loading properly.
The good news is that all our content, including media, survived the WordPress upgrade. The next step in our “GoDaddy Journey” will be to edit our widgets to reflect our new business address; still proximate to the University of Michigan South Athletic Campus — across the street from our former office with an Olive Garden very nearby.
Always surprises but none that we cannot handle. Much like hardware in ICT, software must also be maintained.
This page will be posted to our X-feed: @StandardsMich to remind our colleagues and followers that software needs to be “maintained”
The founding of many education communities is inspired by faith communities. In many of them the place of worship was the very first building. College and university chapels are central places of worship for students, staff and faculty, and provide a space for solitude and reflection. A place for feeling at home in the world.
There are several hundred technical standards, or parts of standards, that govern how churches and chapels are made safe and sustainable. Owing to innovations in construction, operation and management methods, those standards move, ever so slightly, on a near-daily basis. They are highly interdependent; confounded by county-level adaptations; and impossible to harmonize by adoption cycle. That movement tracked here as best we can within the limit of our resources and priorities. That’s why it’s best to simply click into our daily colloquia if you have a question or need guidance.
The image criteria of our WordPress theme does not permit many images of college and university chapels to be shown fully-dimensioned on sliders or widget galleries. We reproduce a few of the outsized images here and leave the complexities of financing, designing, building and maintaining of them in a safe and sustainable manner for another day. CLICK HERE for the links to our Sacred Space Standards workspace.
Click on any image for author attribution, photo credit or other information*.
“What art is, in reality, is this missing link, not the links which exist.
It’s not what you see that is art; art is the gap”
— Marcel Duchamp
Today we refresh our understanding of the literature that guides the safety and sustainability goals of lively art and special event setting on the #WiseCampus. Consortia have evolved quickly in recent years, leading and lagging changes in the content creation and delivery domain. With this evolution a professional discipline has emerged that requires training and certification in the electrotechnologies that contribute to “event safety”; among them:
ASHRAE International
Standard 62.1: This standard establishes minimum ventilation rates and indoor air quality requirements for commercial buildings, including theaters and auditoriums.
Standard 55: This standard specifies thermal comfort conditions for occupants in indoor environments, which can have an impact on air quality.
RP-16-17 Lighting for Theatrical Productions: This standard provides guidance on the design and implementation of lighting systems for theatrical productions. It includes information on the use of color, light direction, and light intensity to create different moods and effects.
RP-30-15 Recommended Practice for the Design of Theatres and Auditoriums: This standard provides guidance on the design of theaters and auditoriums, including lighting systems. It covers topics such as seating layout, stage design, and acoustics, as well as lighting design considerations.
DG-24-19 Design Guide for Color and Illumination: This guide provides information on the use of color in lighting design, including color temperature, color rendering, and color mixing. It is relevant to theater lighting design as well as other applications.
Dance and Athletic Floor Product Standards: ASTM F2118, EN 14904, DIN 18032-2
Incumbent standards-setting organizations such as ASHRAE, ASTM, ICC, IEEE, NFPA have also discovered, integrated and promulgated event safety and sustainability concepts into their catalog of best practice titles; many already incorporated by reference into public safety law. We explore relevant research on crowd management and spectator safety.
The circumstances of the pandemic has made “re-rationalization” of education community spaces an urgent priority. Today at 15:00 UTC we pick through the concepts in play. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
“ I think that the theater is the initial glamorizer of thought; where it can be told – without too much disguise but without too much directness either – the secrets, and thereby its antipathies and sympathies – the secrets and the knowledge of the human heart…
…I think that makes the art of the theater as important as the doctor or the psychologist or the Minister…
…I think it’s vitally important that the world knows itself and I think the theater is one of the most immediate means of expression towards that end…”
Set design model by Marcel Jambon for an 1895 Paris production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello
Demand for live events in college towns — what is now called”entertainment content” — is gathering pace; owed somewhat to an older demographic that prefers expanded social interaction to the online entertainment offerings that the younger demographic prefers*. We see an expansion of the market in the construction of architecturally astonishing buildings; though the circumstances of pandemic has changed everything.
Today our interest lies in the complex safety and sustainability characteristics of the physical infrastructure — with particular interest in the fire protection, environmental air and electrotechnologies required to make them safe and sustainable. This facility class is far more complicated technologically and operates at significantly higher risk than, say, classrooms or office space.
The Entertainment Services and Technology Association is one of the first names in trade associations that support the ‘business of show business’ through networking, safe practices, education, and representation. We follow the standards making activity of its technical committees and monitor public commenting opportunities. ESTA releases markups of its consensus products for public comment at a fairly brisk pace on its standards development landing page:
You may obtain an electronic copy at the link above, along with a comment form. Send your comments to Karl Ruling, (212) 244-1505, standards@esta.org with an optional copy to psa@ansi.org). We encourage our colleagues in school districts and in colleges and universities large and small; with responsibilities for the safety and sustainability of cultural resource properties, media centers, performance venues to participate in the ESTA technical standards development program.
Glorya Kaufman School of Dance / University of Southern California
We keep the ESTA suite on the standing agenda of our Lively Arts colloquia; open to everyone. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.
Since the electrotechnologies for the lively arts have evolved into complex, interoperable systems we also collaborate with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee on technical specifics. That committee meets online four times per month in European and American time zones.
“We’re all actors: We all play different roles in different situations.”
Marlon Brando
Issue: [Various]
Category: Electrical, Infotech, Lively Arts,
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Mike Hiler, Nehad El-Sherif
“View from the Ancient Theater in Taormina to Mount Etna” c. 1880 Carl Wuttke
Safety and sustainability for any facility begins with an understanding of who shall occupy it. University settings, with mixed-use phenomenon arising spontaneously and temporarily, present challenges and no less so in square-footage identified as performing arts facilities. Education communities present the largest installed base of mixed use and performing arts facilities. A distinction is made between supervised occupants that are in secondary schools (generally under age 18) and unsupervised occupants that are in university facilities (generally above age 18).
First principles regarding occupancy classifications for performing arts facilities appear in Section 303 of the International Building Code Assembly Group A-1. The public edition of the 2021 IBC is linked below:
Each of the International Code Council code development groups A, B and C; fetch back to these classifications. You can sample the safety concepts in play with an examination of the document linked below:
Each of the foregoing documents are lengthy so we recommend using search terms such as “school”, “college”, ‘”university”, “auditorium”, “theater”, “children”, “student” to hasten your cut through it.
We find continuation of lowering of the lighting power densities as noteworthy. Technical committees assembled and managed by the International Code Council, the American Society of Heating & Refrigeration Engineers and the Illumination Engineering Society are leaders in developing consensus products that drive the LED illumination transformation.
The revision schedule for the next tranche of ICC titles that are built upon the foundation of the IBC is linked below:
We encourage experts in education communities — facility managers, research and teaching staff, architectural and engineering students — to participate directly in the ICC Code Development process at the link below:
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jim Harvey, Richard Robben
The International Code Council (ICC) develops its codes and standards through a consensus-driven process. The ICC Code Development Process follows these major stages:
Code Change Proposal Submission
Stakeholders (e.g., government officials, industry professionals, and the public) submit proposals to modify existing codes or introduce new provisions.
Committee Action Hearing (CAH)
Expert committees review and evaluate submitted proposals.
Public testimony is allowed, and committees vote on whether to approve, disapprove, or modify the proposals.
Public Comment Period
After the CAH, the public can submit comments or suggest modifications to the committee’s decisions.
These comments help refine the proposed changes before final voting.
Public Comment Hearing (PCH)
ICC members discuss and vote on public comments.
This step ensures that all voices are heard and debated before finalizing changes.
Online Governmental Consensus Vote (OGCV)
Governmental members vote on the final code changes electronically.
Only governmental voting members (e.g., code officials) participate in this stage to ensure the process remains unbiased.
Publication of New Code Edition
Approved code changes are incorporated into the next edition of the ICC codes.
The ICC updates its codes every three years (e.g., 2021, 2024, 2027 editions).
This structured process ensures that ICC codes remain comprehensive, up-to-date, and responsive to industry needs while maintaining safety and functionality.
“A Dance to the Music of Time” 1640 Nicolas Poussin
“The voice of the intellect is a soft one,
but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.”
— Sigmund Freud
The education industry provides a large market for occupancy classes — athletic stadiums, student assembly spaces, performance theaters, large lecture halls– that depend upon effective audio systems*. To an unexpected degree the structural engineering, specification of materials and electrical system design and operation is informed by acoustical considerations. So does the integration of fire safety and mass notification systems into normal state enterprises so it is wise to follow and, ideally, participate in leading practice discovery and promulgation of audio standards.
The Audio Engineering Society — one of the first names in this space — has a due process platform that welcomes public participation. All of its standards open for public comment completed their revision cycle mid-November as can be seen on its standards development landing page below:
Note that AES permits access to those revision even after the comment deadline. You are encouraged to communicate directly with the Direct communication with the standards staff at Audio Engineering Society International Headquarters, 551 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1225, New York NY 10176, Tel: +1 212 661 8528
We keep the AES suite on the standing agenda of our periodic Lively Arts teleconference. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.
This facility class is one of most complex occupancy classes in education facilities industry so we also collaborate with experts active in the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee. Much of the AES suite references, and borrows from, International Electrotechnical Commission system integration and interoperability standards. The IEEE E&H committee meets online again four times monthly in European and American time zones. The meeting dates are available on the IEEE E&H website
Issue: [19-23]
Category: Electrical, Academic, Athletics, Fire Safety, Public Safety, #WiseCampus
Contact: Mike Anthony, Jim Harvey
*Mass notification systems are governed by NFPA 72 and, while life safety wiring is separate from other wiring, the management of these systems involve coordination between workgroups with different business objectives and training.
Following the ICC Group A revision cycle public consultation on the 2024 International Fire Code will begin. The ICC will announce the development schedule sometime in 2022.
We limit our resources simply tracking the proposals that run through Group E (Educational) and Group I (Institutional) occupancies in the Group A suite with closer attention to the state they are adopted whole cloth or with local exceptions. In many cases, IFC adoption by state and local authorities is delayed by one or more previous code revisions. This delay in adoption may be necessary in order for jurisdictions to evaluate the impact of changes upon the region under their authority.
Public safety budgets historically support the local and state fire marshal and his or her staff. The revenue stream of many trade associations originates from membership, conference attendance, training and certification enterprises that service the public sector stakeholder. Manufacturer sponsorship of trade association conferences is noteworthy.
Unless there is an idea, or proposed regulation that has run off the rails (either in terms of rigor or cost increase) — we place fire safety in the middle of our ranking of priorities. With gathering pace, we find many fires safety goals being met with electrotechnologies where we place our highest priority.
Click on image for more information. The map is updated by expert agencies frequently so we recommend a web search for an update.
Significant code changes rarely happen within a 3-year cycle so it is wise to follow ideas as they travel through the agendas of technical committees through several cycles as administered by the Fire Code Action Committee.
The ICC posts the transcripts of public proposals, technical committee responses to public proposals, public response to the technical committee response and the final balloting in a fair and reasonable fashion as can be seen in the transcripts linked below:
A search on the terms “classroom” or “school” in any of the documents above offers granular insight into the trend of current thinking. We find fire extinguishers placement a perennial concern across several standards suites. You will note the careful consideration of proposals for use of the mass notification systems, now integrated into fire alarm systems and their deployment in active shooter situations.
The transcripts reveal detailed understanding and subtlety.
“The Country School” | Winslow Homer
There are many issues affecting the safety and sustainability of the education facility industry. We add value to the industry because of our cross-cutting perspective on the hundreds of “silos”created by the competition (and sometimes cooperation) among accredited, consortia and open-source standards developers. We have the door open every day at 11 AM Eastern time to enlighten understanding of them all. We also host a breakout teleconference every month to drill into the specifics of standards action on fire safety for the real assets of school districts, colleges and universities. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.
Finally, we persist in encouraging education industry facility managers (especially those with operations and maintenance data) to participate in the ICC code development process. You may do so by CLICKING HERE.
The ICC Group B Code Meetings will be hosted soon and open to the public:
The Group B tranche is largely focused on energy, structural, residential and existing building concepts but all of the titles cross-reference the IFC in some way so it is wise to follow how the concepts re-arrange and cross-reference themselves with each cycle.
Issue: [16-169]
Category: Architectural, Facility Asset Management, Space Planning
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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