In 1936, a team of @NIST researchers, including optical physicist Irvine Gardner, joined National Geographic Society to observe June solar eclipse with a 9-inch astrographic lens Gardner designed. He has 9 patents, including for the wide-angle binocular telescope & range finder. pic.twitter.com/BblX8FnTBL
…When we talk about standards in our personal lives, we might think about the quality we expect in things such as restaurants and first dates. But the standards that exist in science and technology have an even greater impact on our lives. Technical standards keep us safe, enable technology to advance, and help businesses succeed. They quietly make the modern world tick and prevent technological problems that you might not realize could even happen…”
We want to see our Posts and Reposts together in one stream — the way they used to be.
At 97 F, it was a HOT day to pick ears by hand! Ears were filled to the end. New grad student, Elizabeth, can run her first yield component analysis from the banded fertilizer trials funded by @TheRealKyCornpic.twitter.com/vVLJcyebzb
🚨 BREAKTHROUGH: 25-year-old Argentinian biologist Pilar Ferrer has developed an injectable gel that helps repair damaged heart tissue after a heart attack pic.twitter.com/RSlZOtICAh
AI data centres demand power. Human brains are much more efficient than GPUs, using neurons to communicate information. A mistake in a #semiconductor lab led to researchers developing a process that can make a regular transistor behave like a neuron.https://t.co/LQ6hzY8ZX3pic.twitter.com/BNZO5xsOBf
Today is National Red Wine Day. Aging wine takes time and is often done in oak barrels. In 2024, Elyashiv Drori secured U.S. Patent No. 11,866,680 for a wine aging system that replaces oak barrels with steel tanks but retains the oak aging benefits. pic.twitter.com/Pjteet1shb
— Ms. V – Special Education Teacher 💙✂️🖍️🧩🍎🇬🇷 (@msv430) August 24, 2026
I asked Grok to create a picture of my ideal wife based on what it knows about me and it just made a fictional version of my actual wife. pic.twitter.com/BneWYu3uqt
The late King Harald followed a family path. His father, King Olav V, had studied at Balliol in the 1920s and remained attached to the college. The choice also fitted the close British–Norwegian royal relationship (Harald was a second cousin of Queen Elizabeth II) and Balliol’s standing in history, politics and economics—the subjects he read from 1960 to 1962 after finishing the Norwegian Military Academy. He later became an Honorary Fellow.
In the old collegiate tradition, the buttery was not
simply a café or bar. It belonged to the domestic machinery of the
college: the place associated with provisions, drink, accounts and the
daily feeding of a community of scholars.
At Balliol the tradition remains visible. The Buttery lies beneath the
Hall in the Garden Quadrangle and still serves drinks and light
refreshments. Hall, kitchen and Buttery therefore form an enduring
assembly: places where the intellectual life of the college is supported
by the ordinary necessities of eating, drinking and meeting one another.
Its importance is partly social. Tutorials and lectures may organize
learning, but places such as the Buttery provide the unprogrammed interval
afterward — conversation, friendship, argument and acquaintance across
generations.
In Lutheran memorial the traditional hymn does not treat death as defeat or a meritorious climb, but as the last stage of God’s gracious drawing. Its quiet, stepwise melody and repeated refrain make it especially suited to funerals: a humble prayer of trust rather than triumphant victory, ending in the hope of being “hjemme hos deg.”
“Architectural Landscape with a Canal” 1783 / Hubert Robert
The construction industry is one of the largest employers in any community. Many labor unions in the United States support construction of education facilities. The so-called “multiplier effect” cited by economists means that when you add one person working in the construction industry you create two additional jobs in other sectors. With an annual construction spend of $75-10 billion, the education industry contributions mightily to the economy of host communities. Any spend at that rate — the largest non-residential building construction in the United States — presents opportunity higher effectiveness and better profitability for all sides involved in a construction project just by doing a few simple things well:
Provide general terminology; especially important when equipment (fenestration, environmental air systems, elevators, generators) originate from offshore manufacturers Organization of information in the processes of design, manufacture and construction
Provide geometric requirements for buildings, building elements and components including modular coordination and its basic principles, general rules for joints, tolerances and fits, performance and test standards for sealants;
Provide general rules for other performance requirements, including functional and user requirements related to service life, sustainability, accessibility and usability; Procurement processes, methods and procedures.
A paradigm shift is is well underway in the use of building information. Improved capital efficiency can be achieved with better data handling and information flows between project actors; falling into the wheelhouse of ISO TC 59; described in the links below:
CLICK ON IMAGE | Norway is the Global Secretariat | ASTM International is ANSI’s US Technical Advisory Group Administrator
While parts of the scopes of various subcommittees may already be familiar to construction professionals — Building Information Modeling (BIM), for example — the bulk of the work product remains fairly high-level. We will keep an eye on it.
You may do so on your own by communicating directly with ANSI’s ISO Team and/or either of ANSI’s US Technical Advisory Group Administrators:
For TC/59/SC 8 (Sealants)
ASTM International
David Lee / 2128 W Evergreen Ave / West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2959 / Phone: (610) 832-9585 / Email: dlee@astm.org
For TC/59/SC 13 (BIM)
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc.
Brian Cox / Training & Safety Office / 30 Hart Street Room 301 / Atlanta, GA 30329 / Phone: (404) 636-8400 / Email: bcox@ashrae.org
Kennedy School Construction / Harvard University
Because this topic cuts across all building industry disciplines we maintain this committee’s titles on standing agendas of several colloquia; Construction Spend,E Pluribus Unum, Model Building Code and Global teleconferences. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [15-211]
Category: Management
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Jack Janveja, Richard Robben
A standard Olympic-sized swimming pool is defined by the following dimensions:
Length: 50 meters
Width: 25 meters
Depth: A minimum of 2 meters
Lanes: 10 lanes, each 2.5 meters wide
The total area of the pool is therefore 1,250 square meters, and it holds approximately 2,500 cubic meters (or 2.5 million liters) of water.
The organization that sets the standards for Olympic-sized pools is the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) — now World Aquatics — the governing body for swimming, diving, water polo, synchronized swimming, and open water swimming. FINA establishes the regulations for the dimensions and equipment of competition pools used in international events, including the Olympic Games.
The top ten universities that have produced Olympic champion:
The Nebraska claim centers on Omaha’s Blackstone Hotel in the 1920s when Lithuanian-born Jewish grocer Reuben Kulakofsky requested a corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich during a late-night poker game with a group nicknamed “The Committee” which included hotel owner Charles Schimmel. Schimmel’s son Bernard (a European-trained chef) is refined it by adding Swiss cheese and dressing, then grilling it on rye.
These are the standards most U.S. campuses apply at residence-hall move-in. They mix fire/life-safety codes with energy and cost controls. Details vary by school, but the pattern is consistent.
Fire and electrical safety
No open flames: candles, incense, fireworks, Sterno, grills.
No appliances with exposed heating elements: hot plates, toasters, toaster ovens, skillets, deep fryers; air fryers are banned on most campuses.
Cooking only in designated kitchens; in rooms, usually only a UL-listed microwave (often 700–1,000 W) or a university MicroFridge combo.
No halogen lamps, lava lamps, plastic-shade multi-bulb lamps, or space heaters unless the university issues them.
Extension cords banned or tightly limited; only UL-listed surge protectors plugged directly into the wall. No daisy-chaining.
Keep a clear 36-inch path to the door; do not block exits or prevent the door from opening 90 degrees.
Wall coverings limited (often 10–25% of a wall); hanging fabric/tapestries often banned unless fire-rated.
Upholstered furniture must meet fire-resistance labels such as CAL TB117-2013.
No lithium-ion micromobility devices (e-bikes, e-scooters, hoverboards) stored or charged in rooms on many campuses.
Do not cover, disable, or hang items from smoke detectors or sprinklers.
Health-and-safety inspections shortly after move-in.
Building and personal security
Card/fob access; do not prop exterior or stairwell doors.
Lock the room whenever you leave, even briefly.
Guests must be escorted; residents are responsible for them.
Weapons, ammunition, and realistic replicas prohibited.
Economy / energy standards
Mini-fridges typically capped at about 3.6–4.5 cubic feet; Energy Star models preferred or required.
One fridge and one microwave per room; extra units banned to avoid overloaded circuits and higher utility costs.
Many schools rent or install MicroFridge units because they use less energy than two separate appliances.
Personal window/portable ACs usually prohibited; cooling is centralized.
LED bulbs recommended; high-watt lamps discouraged.
Limit how many devices run at once so circuits do not trip.
Property-economy / damage control
No nails, duct tape, or adhesives that peel paint; Command strips often allowed.
No lofting with cinder blocks or unapproved risers (especially risers with built-in outlets).
No extra mattresses, waterbeds, or large non-university furniture.
Damage found at check-in/check-out is billed to the student.
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
