A big misconception about blindness is that a blind person only sees pitch black.
In reality, blindness is a spectrum. This is a series of examples of how differently visually impaired people see.
[📹 Blind on the Move]pic.twitter.com/EcljDkNDfN
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 30, 2024
“It’s a fine line between Saturday night
and Sunday morning” – Jimmy Buffett
“Rather a bottle in front of me
than a frontal lobotomy” — Some guy
Many people are surprised to learn what counts as a “drink”. The amount of liquid in your glass, can, or bottle does not necessarily match up to how much alcohol is actually in your drink. Even before the United States federal government withdrew from regulating alcohol, the conversation, and degree of agreement and attitude, remains remarkably regionally specific:
Missouri University of Science & Technology: What is a Standard Drink?
University of South Alabama: What is a Standard Drink?
Stanford University Office of Alcohol Policy and Education
Other nations serve alcohol to students on campus in university owned facilities.
Maynooth University Student Union County Kildare
I didn’t know that🤔 pic.twitter.com/rMT3X2fCN0
— Alix (@AlixG_2) August 17, 2024
— Dr. Maya C. Popa (@MayaCPopa) May 26, 2023
Casual reminder that Wisconsin has more bars than grocery stores pic.twitter.com/dG8YYRkoKd
— Midwest vs. Everybody (@midwestern_ope) March 30, 2025
“A drink to the living, a toast to the dead.”
— Some guy.
“John Barleycorn” is a figure in English and Scottish folklore who represents the personification of barley and the alcoholic beverages made from it, such as beer and whiskey. In folklore, John Barleycorn is often depicted as a person who is subjected to various forms of mistreatment and violence, such as being crushed, ground, and fermented, before eventually being reborn in the form of alcoholic beverages.
The figure of John Barleycorn has been the subject of various poems, songs, and other works of literature throughout English and Scottish history. One of the most famous works about John Barleycorn is the traditional English folk song of the same name, which tells the story of John Barleycorn’s journey from a growing plant to a fully fermented alcoholic beverage. The song has been covered by many artists over the years, including the British group Traffic.
The legend of John Barleycorn is not widely known in the United States, but it does have some cultural resonance in certain regions and among certain groups of people. The legend is a traditional British folk song that tells the story of a man named John Barleycorn, who is personified as a personification of the cereal crop barley, which is used to make beer and other alcoholic beverages. Some breweries in the US have even named beers after John Barleycorn, as a nod to the traditional English roots of brewing. The legend of John Barleycorn also has some resonance in American literature and popular culture. The American author Jack London wrote a novel titled “John Barleycorn” in 1913, which was a semi-autobiographical account of his own struggles with alcoholism. The novel has since become a classic of American literature and is still widely read today.
Michigan Upper Peninsula | Michigan West | Michigan East
Michigan State University Infrastructure Planning & Facilities
“ 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:
Consultation on an illumination standard runs through April 7th.
Transcripts of related standards:
2026 National Electrical Code Public Input Report CMP-15
2026 National Electrical Code Second Draft Report CMP-15
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
*More >>
State Capitals And College Towns: A Recipe For Success
Baby Boomers Are Retiring to College Towns
The original University of Michigan codes and standards advocacy enterprise interviewed an ESTA affiliate in 2015:
Many accommodations such as dormitories, fraternities and sororities have working fireplaces — wood burning and natural gas. Community spaces such as student unions, libraries and recreation spaces also have fireplaces as a central feature.
The purpose of NFPA 211 is to reduce fire hazards by discovering and promulgating best practice for the safe removal of flue gases, the proper installation of solid fuel-burning appliances, and the correct construction and installation of chimneys, fireplaces, and venting systems. The current 2019 Edition is linked below:
Free Access: NFPA 221 Standard for Chimneys, Fireplaces, Vents, and Solid Fuel-Burning Appliances
The 2024 has been released. To guide our inquiry into safety and sustainability concepts for the 2027 Edition we like review the developmental transcripts of previous edition:
Public comment on the First Draft of the 2027 Edition will be received until June 3, 2025. We encourage facility managers to recommend improvements to this standard by setting up a (Free) NFPA account the link below:
Online submission of public input and public comments
We maintain this standard on our periodic Prometheus and Housing colloquia. Consult our CALENDAR for the next online meeting, open to everyone
Link to parent standard:
University of Rochester Fireplace Safety
American Gas Association: How Natural Gas Fuels Your Holiday Traditions
Alexis de Tocqueville was born in Paris and came from a prominent lineage, with his father serving as a royalist prefect under the Bourbon restoration.
In 1831, at the age of twenty-five, Alexis de Tocqueville made his fateful journey to America, where he observed the thrilling reality of a functioning democracy. From that moment onward, the French aristocrat would dedicate his life as a writer and politician to ending despotism in his country and bringing it into a new age.
Quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America”:
In most jurisdictions the standard of care for operation and maintenance of education facilities is discovered and promulgated by a “fabric” of consensus products developed by a kind of “shadow government” created by a network of non-profit publishers; among them the International Code Council. The ICC has one of the most dynamic catalogs in the construction industry and today we drill into the the International Property Maintenance Code which completed another revision cycle in 2021. Operation and maintenance of education facilities is the (much larger) part of #TotalCostofOwnership of the real assets of a school district, college or university. Public access to most recent revision to the IPMC is linked below:
2021 International Property Maintenance Code
The transcript of public comment on the 2021 revision provides insight into the back-and-forth among the technical committee experts:
2021 IPMC Group A Public Comment Agenda
Note the concern for swimming pools, radon, light, ventilation and occupancy limits.
The ICC Group A tranche of titles will undergo another cyclic revision starting in 2023. Since so much of the ICC catalog underlies occupancy safety for education, healthcare and nearly all other aspects of the built environment we track the action on a near-daily basis. You may join any of our daily colloquia, shown on our CALENDAR, or interact directly with the ICC with the link below:
2024/2025/2026 ICC CODE DEVELOPMENT SCHEDULE
The ICC catalog is regarded as the most authoritative for education facility management. We maintain the IPMC on the standing agenda of our Hammurabi and Interiors colloquia. See our CALENDAR for the next colloquium; open to everyone.
Issue: [Various]
Category: Architectural, Facility Asset Management, Space Planning
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jack Janveja, Richard Robben, Jerry Schulte
More
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
Standards Michigan Group, LLC
2723 South State Street | Suite 150
Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
888-746-3670
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
