Michaelmas, observed on September 29, is the traditional Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels. In the old English calendar it was also one of the four quarter days, when rents, accounts and other obligations were settled and the turning of the season formally marked. Falling near the autumnal equinox and the end of harvest, Michaelmas became associated with the beginning of autumn work and institutional life. Its name survives conspicuously in the Anglosphere’s educational tradition: Oxford and Cambridge still call the opening term of the academic year Michaelmas Term, preserving an ancient connection among faith, season, learning and the calendar.
“For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man
standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”
— Paraphrase by Winston Churchill
University endowments are comprised of money or other financial assets that are donated to academic institutions. Charitable donations are the primary source of funds for endowments. Endowment funds support the teaching, research, and public service missions of colleges and universities. In the case of endowment funds for academic institutions, the income generated is intended to finance a portion of the operating or capital requirements of the institution. Today we will pick through few reports where safety and sustainability claims are listed and described.
This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send mike@standardsmichigan.com a request for subscription details.
NFPA 70 committees are replacing the legacy **Class 1, Class 2 and Class 3** circuit classifications with the more functional concept of **power-limited circuits** as part of the NEC’s broader reorganization. The older classifications evolved across separate articles and applications, producing overlapping terminology, requirements and wiring rules that became increasingly difficult to apply as controls, communications, PoE, LED lighting and other low-energy technologies converged. The new framework organizes requirements around available electrical power and associated hazards rather than historical circuit labels. The objective is greater consistency, easier navigation and a code structure better suited to emerging power and communications technologies.
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 observe National Poetry Month 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
The developing sequence itself may be significant: artificial intelligence → generative AI → frontier AI → agentic AI → capability thresholds → superintelligence. Formal standards organizations are standardizing much of the first half of this vocabulary while laboratories are still creating much of the second. There is not yet a mature standards catalog specifically for superintelligence. Instead, a vocabulary and governance architecture is forming around frontier AI, general-purpose AI, capability thresholds, evaluation, scaling and catastrophic risk.
ISO/IEC 22989 — Artificial intelligence concepts and terminology
The foundational vocabulary standard for artificial intelligence. It establishes common concepts and terms — a natural Language Monday starting point because a new technical order first requires a stable language.
Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP)
An emergent private specification rather than a consensus standard. It links increasingly capable AI models with progressively stronger safety, evaluation and security requirements.
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
