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The Earth’s precession is a slow, cyclical motion of the rotational axis that causes the position of the celestial poles to change over time. This motion is caused by the gravitational influence of the Moon and Sun on the Earth’s equatorial bulge, and it has a period of about 26,000 years.
Over astronomical time, the Earth’s precession has caused a number of changes in the position of the stars and constellations in the sky. For example, due to precession, the position of the North Star, or Polaris, has shifted over time, and in ancient times, other stars, such as Thuban, were used as celestial markers for navigation. Additionally, precession can cause changes in the length and timing of the seasons over long timescales.
The Earth’s precession is affected by a number of factors, including the gravitational pull of other planets, the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, and the distribution of mass within the Earth itself. These factors can cause slight variations in the rate and direction of precession over time.
Overall, while the effects of precession on the Earth’s rotation and position in the sky are not easily observable on human timescales, they are an important component of the Earth’s long-term astronomical behavior.
The earth makes “one” trip around the Sun in approximately 365.2425 days. An additional day every four years helps synchronizes the calendar year with the solar year — assuming a perfect circle. Alas, the orbit is far from circular — it is elliptical and eccentric — thus confounding assumptions about climate change.
Today we revisit our earlier inquiries, readings and research with some consideration to how computer software deals with a leap year. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
Programming languages face several challenges when dealing with leap years, primarily because leap years don’t follow a simple pattern and can vary depending on the calendar system being used. Some of the challenges include:
Algorithm Complexity: Writing algorithms to accurately determine leap years can be complex due to the various rules governing leap years in different calendar systems. For instance, the Gregorian calendar, which is the most widely used calendar system, has different rules than other systems like the Julian calendar.
Handling Calendar Systems: Some programming languages have built-in libraries or functions to handle leap years, but they may not support all calendar systems. Developers need to ensure that the language’s built-in functions or libraries accurately handle leap years according to the desired calendar system.
Cross-Platform Consistency: Different platforms and programming languages may implement leap year calculations differently, leading to inconsistencies when working with date and time data across different systems.
Localization: Some calendar systems used in various regions have different rules for leap years. Programming languages may need to support localization to handle these differences accurately.
Performance: Implementing leap year calculations efficiently can be challenging, especially when dealing with large datasets or frequent date/time manipulations. Optimizing leap year calculations for performance without sacrificing accuracy is important in high-performance applications.
To address these challenges, programmers often rely on built-in date and time libraries provided by programming languages or use third-party libraries specifically designed to handle calendar-related calculations accurately and efficiently. Additionally, thorough testing and validation of date-related logic are essential to ensure correctness, especially in critical applications.
Here’s an example of how you can use the calendar module to check if a year is a leap year:
import calendar
year = 2024
if calendar.isleap(year):
print(f”{year} is a leap year.”)
else:
print(f”{year} is not a leap year.”)
Alternatively, you can write custom logic to determine if a year is a leap year. The logic for determining leap years is as follows:
Here’s an example of how you can implement this logic in Python without using the calendar module:
def is_leap_year(year):
if year % 4 == 0:
if year % 100 == 0:
if year % 400 == 0:
return True
else:
return False
else:
return True
else:
return Falseyear = 2024if is_leap_year(year):
Looking back at 2023 @mikefiedler discovered some impressive metrics that we want to share! @fastly #PyPI #pytho pic.twitter.com/EXfWwduWA9
— Python Package Index (@pypi) February 14, 2024
Time Synchronization of Medium Voltage Substation IEDs Using Modbus and Python
Abstract: Energy demand and supply all over the world is increasing in size and complexity. Anomalous conditions caused by failures in electrical components, human errors and environmental conditions result in electrical faults that can interrupt electricity flow. Substation automation requires precise time synchronization for a variety of Intelligent Electronic Devices for fault diagnosis. The quest for accurate and sequential time stamping of events compels power utility companies to adopt various techniques of time synchronization with an accuracy of a millisecond or a microsecond. Some works adopt the use of time synchronization techniques using protocols such as Network Time Protocol, Precision Time protocol, Simple Network Time Protocol and many more. This work presents time synchronization of IEDs using Modbus protocol and python programming language for a local substation. The system records the output data into a database and displays it on an application software. The time synchronization system was successful alternative for off network systems.
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We have shouted from the mountaintops — beginning in the 2002 National Electrical Code and later in the International Building Code — that “ingress” concepts (the opposite of the canonical term “egress”; meaning the way INTO a building during an emergency) should become part of the vocabulary when exploring best practice concepts for security in education settlements.
Alas, so far without success. Evidently, the term “ingress” has been appropriated by a variant — accessibility — which re-directs the discussion toward the American with Disabilities Act?
What about people who are not disabled who seek to enter a building?
We cite a 1981 study, sponsored by what is now the National Institute of Standards and Technology — Crowd ingress to Places of Assembly: Summary and Proceedings of an Experts’ Workshop –– to enlighten understanding how ingress is different from the term access.
We maintain this topic on all of our Security related colloquia; hosted on days that appear on our CALENDAR. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
“The Liberals are Coming, and They’re Bringing Fancy Coffee” https://t.co/XykfCFYZgVhttps://t.co/exHU6TR2h9
America is changed by flight from miserable Blue States to better Red States—only to import the policies that created the misery they fled from in the first place. pic.twitter.com/OaVVgrTxJr— Standards Michigan (@StandardsMich) October 31, 2022
Today we survey the broad sweep of the International Code Council catalog of best practice titles; incorporated by reference into public safety regulations in most of the United States. This session will be a “survey” and “organizational” session when we limit detail and simply identify priority titles and the technical specifics in play over the next twelve months.
Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
2024/2025/2026 International Code Council Code Development Schedule
Complete Monographs (To be posted soon)
“The most important role of technology is to create time.
Information technology epitomizes this role.
And wealth creation is ultimately about time,
freeing human time from labor.”
— George Gilder

L’italiano Luca Pacioli, riconosciuto come “Il padre della contabilità e della contabilità” è stato il primo a pubblicare un’opera sulla partita doppia, e ha introdotto il campo in Italia.
“Hatred of the rich is the
beginning of all wisdom”
— H.L. Mencken
Today we break down the literature that informs the finances of the real assets of education settlements. We examine a few publicly available university annual budget documents and, lately, have been looking ahead at innovation in distributed ledger solutions, digital currencies and blue sky conceptions of a circular economy which has captured the imagination of trendsniffers in every nation.
Since our 2016 estimate of $300 billion — triangulated from several private and public databases; the number that measures construction spend coupled with operations and maintenance — a fair estimate of growth is likely closer to $500 billion now. Based upon the US Census Bureau monthly construction spend reports we have seen a slight uptick in construction spend. We still see construction activity running at an $85-$90 billion clip.
During 2023-2024 we will be breaking down this subject into manageable segments as interest in it clarifies. For now it is enlightening to approach finance standards with an examination of a few operating budgets:
San Jose State University 2022/2023 SJSU Budget Report
University of Minnesota 2022 Final Capital Budget Requests with Governor’s Recommendations
The 2022-2023 Budget: Overview of the Governor’s Higher Education Budget Proposals (California)
Prince George County Public Schools Operating Budget 2022
University of Illinois Deferred Maintenance
Central Michigan University Capital & Deferred Maintenance Budgets
Every dollar passing through the business or academic side of the education industry has rules for how it is received and tracked.* At the moment we track, but do not dwell, on the grant management standards asserted by state and federal funding agencies. When we do, we place them on the agenda of the appropriate colloquium.
Money, money, money… 😳 pic.twitter.com/Ssyz5PQPVV
— Agnieszka Herrmann (@AgaHerrmann) February 4, 2022
Appropriate use of public funding underlies some — but not all — of the accounting burden of the education industry. We steer clear of the grant management requirements public funding agencies place upon the education industry; maintain focus on the titles developed and published by organizations that have a due process platform. For example:
Accredited Standards Committee X9
Financial Industry Standards: Program of Work
Data Center OIX-2 Certification
Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
There are several trackworthy non-ANSI accredited standard developing organizations:
Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
Real Estate Information Standards Board
Send bella@standardsmichigan.com an email for a detailed advance agenda. To join the colloquium today use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
More:
Community FY22 Appropriations Request Letterdocx
Letter-Tax-Provisions-American-Jobs-Families-Plans-061421
Half the people working in schools aren’t classroom teachers—so what?
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/njrDAbSpwB pic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
— USPTO (@uspto) July 13, 2023
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