We follow the construction spend rate of the US education industry; using the US Census Bureau Construction Spending figures released the first day of every month. (We encourage our colleagues in the education facilities industry to respond to Census Bureau-retained data gathering contractors in order to contribute to the accuracy of the report.)
We will scan noteworthy releases of tax advantage financial instruments that finance this construction.
Illumination technologies have had a pattern of consuming about 35 percent of building electrical energy use. That number has been pressed downward with the expanded application of LED luminaires and occupant responsive controls; much of the transformation hastened by the IEEE, IES and ASHRAE best practice catalogs.
Today we run through the development status of these products with specific interest in exterior illumination best practice. This topic also is covered in the 4 time monthly meetings of the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee.
Periodic review of the best practice catalogs that set the standard of care for security of education communities. Less electrotechnical as with Security 100 and 200 and more Regulatory and management codes and standards; a great deal of which are self-referencing.
Today at 11 AM EDT we review the status consensus products (codes, standards, guidelines, recommendations and safety legislation) that set the standard of care for the design, manufacture and maintenance of interior fixtures such as carpet, furniture, bookshelves and ceiling tiles, plumbing fixtures. Waste management, laboratory fixtures, recycling amenities — i.e. things are not nailed down — are on the agenda. Also we track elevated interest and market-making by conformity interests in the manufacturing and material recycling far up the value chain.
In large research universities, it is common for building service personnel engaged in keeping facilities clean and tidy to constitute the largest proportion of permanent employees; thus some consideration must be given to occupational safety.
Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
Frederick Bourchier Taylor (1906-1987) Hockey On Henri Julien Street At Pine Avenue East, Montreal 1948
An overview of public commenting opportunities on proposed standards for sports and recreation equipment and athletic facilities. Send email to bella@standardsmichigan.com for access to the agenda.
US Wintersport Traditions:
Basketball: Basketball is one of the most popular NCAA winter sports. The season typically starts in November and runs through March, culminating in the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments, commonly known as March Madness.
Wrestling: Wrestling is another winter sport in the NCAA. The wrestling season usually begins in November and extends through the NCAA Wrestling Championships, which take place in March.
Indoor Track and Field: Indoor track and field competitions take place during the winter months, with athletes competing in various events such as sprints, distance races, jumps, and throws.
Gymnastics: Collegiate gymnastics competitions are held during the winter and early spring months. Both men’s and women’s teams compete in events such as floor exercise, vault, uneven bars, parallel bars, and rings.
Ice Hockey: Ice hockey is a winter sport in the NCAA, with the season typically starting in October or November and continuing into the early months of the following year. Both men’s and women’s teams participate in NCAA ice hockey competitions.
Skiing: Skiing competitions, including alpine and Nordic events, are part of NCAA winter sports. Athletes compete in skiing disciplines such as slalom, giant slalom, and cross-country.
Swimming and Diving: Swimming and diving competitions take place during the winter months. Athletes participate in various swimming events and diving disciplines, with the season culminating in NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships.
Bowling: Bowling is considered a winter sport in the NCAA, with competitions taking place during the winter and early spring.
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)* is set in a Japanese POW camp on Java in 1942 during World War II. The film explores the clash of cultures and moral codes between British/Allied prisoners and their Japanese captors under the imperial ideology of Bushido and unconditional loyalty to the Emperor. The Japanese officers, led by the traditionalist Captain Yonoi and the more pragmatic Sergeant Hara, view surrender as the ultimate dishonor and treat prisoners harshly, yet are themselves trapped by rigid military honor that forbids mercy or personal emotion.
The British prisoners, represented by the defiant Colonel Lawrence and the spiritually scarred Major Celliers, embody a Western individualism that baffles the Japanese command. Beneath the surface, the film critiques both Japanese militarism (which demanded suicidal obedience) and the hypocrisy of colonial empires that condemned Japanese brutality while ignoring their own.
The political heart of the story lies in the fatal incompatibility of two imperial systems during total war, where neither side can truly understand or forgive the other. It offers some modest insight into why Americans eschew getting involved in the wars of other nations.
David Bowie played Major Jack “Strafer” Celliers, a charismatic, haunted British (New Zealand in the original novel) officer captured by the Japanese in 1942.Celliers is the enigmatic newcomer to the POW camp whose defiance, moral courage, and almost mystical aura deeply affect both the prisoners and Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto), who becomes quietly obsessed with him. His backstory—revealed in a powerful flashback—involves betraying his younger brother to avoid bullying at boarding school, a guilt he carries for the rest of his life and ultimately redeems through a sacrificial act in the camp. Bowie’s performance is widely regarded as one of his finest on screen
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* Several trailers claim to the “Official” trailer. History is not about what happened. History is a story about what happened.
With emphasis on OB-GYN because educational settlements are where families begin and grow among the young.
Many research universities have large medical research and clinical delivery enterprises that provide significant revenue. We periodically scan public consultations for literature that sets the standard of care for the facilities and technologies in these enterprises in education communities.
Status check on the catalog of best practice titles covering the management of education community snow and ice management during the coldest months in the Northern Hemisphere.
We asked students from all our campuses and subjects to tell us what it’s like at the University of Exeter – we took their words, photos, lists, drawings and more, and turned them into this – a guide for students, written entirely by students.
This counts regular US stock market trading days (weekdays when the NYSE and Nasdaq are open, excluding holidays). December 2025 has no closures except Christmas (Thursday, December 25). December 24 and 31 are open (though with early closes), and they count as full trading days.Here are the first 12 for reference:
Dec 1 (Mon)
Dec 2 (Tue)
Dec 3 (Wed)
Dec 4 (Thu)
Dec 5 (Fri)
Dec 8 (Mon)
Dec 9 (Tue)
Dec 10 (Wed)
Dec 11 (Thu)
Dec 12 (Fri)
Dec 15 (Mon)
Dec 16 (Tue)
This date falls well before the option market close (typically 4:00 PM ET for equity options on regular trading days) and before the end of the year.
December 13 is St Lucia’s Day, a Christian tradition celebrated mostly in the Nordic countries. This annual tradition is a symbol of bringing light in the darkness of winter, warming the hearts, and offering joy. Happy St Lucia’s Day! pic.twitter.com/FHUlEfcS2y
Happy Santa Lucia Day! Lucy is a symbol of light and hope in the darkness of winter. May we all find her when we need her, and bear her light and hope for others when we find we have some to spare. As is tradition, I made Lussekatter, or St. Lucia S-shaped rolls. ❤️🕯️❤️🕯️❤️ pic.twitter.com/3dfFrYefin
On Saturday, @CBSSports will proudly present the 125th Army-Navy Game.
It’s a tradition that will continue for many years to come, following today’s announcement that CBS will remain the home of this historic and revered rivalry through 2038. pic.twitter.com/E0y69kMV7H
— CBS Sports College Football 🏈 (@CBSSportsCFB) December 9, 2024
“Savannah River Holiday” is a vibrant orchestral overture composed by Ron Nelson in 1952 (revised 1957), evoking the majestic Savannah River’s dual nature. Lasting about nine minutes, it alternates between an energetic Allegro Vivace theme, bursting with rhythmic vitality and flourish, and a serene Adagio, offering somber, reflective lyricism. Originally titled “Savannah River Payday” after Erskine Caldwell’s story, Nelson retitled it to sidestep copyright issues. This work exemplifies his “holiday” series, including Rocky Point Holiday and Aspen Jubilee, demanding technical prowess for advanced ensembles. Its bright colors and expansive melodies capture nature’s power and tranquility.
The Texas Medical Center Orchestra (TMCO) is an independent, award-winning community orchestra founded in 2000 by conductor Libi Lebel, primarily composed of healthcare professionals like physicians, nurses, and medical students from Houston’s Texas Medical Center. It operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and performs in venues such as Houston Methodist Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts.
While its founder initially approached the dean of the University of Texas Medical School for support (such as free space and promotion) to launch the group, and it has occasional collaborations—like hosting events at Rice University or featuring soloists from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice—TMCO remains a standalone entity focused on the medical community.
Today at the usual hour we review the consensus products that set the standard of care for nursing school instructional and clinical training facilities. Open to everyone. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
“Composition in red, yellow, blue and black” (1921) / Piet Mondrian
The zeitgeist surrounding data centers in higher education embodies a fervent fusion of technological ambition, sustainability imperatives, and workforce evolution, driven by AI’s insatiable hunger for compute power. Today at the usual hour we examine three projects on US campuses with special attention to the safety and sustainability boundaries set by electrotechnical strandards.
Status check on the catalog of best practice titles covering the management of education community snow and ice management during the coldest months in the Northern Hemisphere.
Today we explain our collaboration with other education settlements in the US and other nations. We conform to participation requirements set by ANSI US Technical Advisory Groups to the International Organization for Standardization but we also have liaison with other universities in the European Union who conform to the participation requirements of their own national standards bodies.
“Prometheus creating Man in the presence of Athena” (1802) / Jean-Simon Berthélemy
Monthly review of all consensus, consortia and open source codes, standards and regulations the set the standard of care for fire safety in educational settlements. We group them with fire protection standards because most of the compliance and enforcement expertise originates with fire safety expertise. Send bella@standardsmichigan.com an email for an advance agenda.
One of the most contentious aspects of best practice discovery and promulgation in any domain, and no less so in educational settlements, is an agreed-upon vocabulary and shared understanding. As we explain elsewhere in this history, when a counter-party disagrees with you, he simply switches out the vocabulary — i.e. changes definitions or adds or subtracts from the traditional meanings of things. So we approach this topic several times a year to confirm our bearing on the meaning of things.
We begin 2025 by breaking down this topic into four sections
Language 100: Survey of vocabulary in the standards catalogs relevant to building and managing education settlement real assets; including legal terms.
Language 200: Electrotechnology standard catalogs; including computer programming languages.
Language 300: The English as the language of science and innovation; the birthplace of computing and programming, the internet’s native tongue, standardization & open source development; etc.
Come see ‘Pygmalion’ this weekend at Arno Gustin Hall on campus! University of Mary students bring this classic to life in a riveting weekend of performances. 🎬
We observe National Poetry Month (April) in the United States and Canada every year with an inquiry into changes in the (meaning of) definitions at the foundation of best practice literature; frequently the subject of sporty debate among experts writing codes and standards for the built environment of education communities.
In the United Kingdom, National Poetry Month is celebrated in October, and it is known as “National Poetry Day” which has been observed since 1994. It is an initiative of the Forward Arts Foundation, which aims to encourage people to read, write and perform poetry.
Other countries also have their own poetry celebrations, such as World Poetry Day, which is observed annually on March 21 by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to promote the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry worldwide.
In past years we used a Tamil mnemonic because Tamil is the oldest surviving language and remains the spoken language of 80-odd million people of South Asia. Alas, use of Tamil confounds our Wordpress content management system so in 2024 we began coding this topic in American English
Once median household income is adjusted for cost of living, Utah emerges as the wealthiest state in the nation and Mississippi yet again ranks last. Source: https://t.co/AN3JZqtNnFpic.twitter.com/kv8U3LZlvh
Innovation – Standardization – Commoditization run along a continuum. Today we unpack some of the ideas that hasten (and prohibit) leading practice discovery; how quickly goods and services become a “human right”; why all of this is relevant to education communities and why some believe that commoditization is a myth.
From the Wikipedia
In business literature, commoditization is defined as the process by which goods that have economic value and are distinguishable in terms of attributes (uniqueness or brand) end up becoming simple commodities in the eyes of the market or consumers. It is the movement of a market from differentiated to undifferentiated price competition and from monopolistic competition to perfect competition. Hence, the key effect of commoditization is that the pricing power of the manufacturer or brand owner is weakened: when products become more similar from a buyer’s point of view, they will tend to buy the cheapest.
After months of hard work, the top five teams met at USPTO headquarters today for the final round of the 2025 National Patent Application Drafting Competition. 🏆 And the winners are … ⬇️
From creating a race car safety device that protects drivers from injury to revolutionizing chemotherapy, Spartans have contributed to more than 3,300 inventions. #SpartansWillpic.twitter.com/dchCs0BFBx
For 58 years, 7-Eleven has been protecting its iconic semi-frozen soft drink, the Slurpee. But it doesn’t stop there. The store has more than 200 registered trademarks to protect its goods and services, including “Oh thank Heaven for 7-Eleven” in 1978 and “Brainfreeze” in 1993. pic.twitter.com/b9bkkcijGg
Today at 16:00 UTC we refresh our understanding of the technical standards for the timing-systems that maintain the temporal framework for daily life in education communities. The campus clock continues as a monument of beauty and structure even though digitization of everything has rendered the central community clock redundant.
Most leading practice discovery (and innovation) is happening with the Network Time Protocols (NTP) that synchronize the time stamps of widely separated data centers. In operation since before 1985, NTP is one of the oldest Internet protocols in current use and underlies the Internet of Things build out. NTP is particularly important in maintaining accurate time stamps for safety system coordination and for time stamps on email log messages.
Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
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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