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Symbolism In The Gothic Setting of "The Yellow Wallpaper" Gothic literature is incredibly distinct. There is a sort of formula involved with writing in the Gothic style, and one of the most important aspects of this is the setting, which can include anything from the architecture of the buildings to the color of the leaves on the trees. The setting of a story is a vital element, as it would seem to be that the most effective way of drawing someone into the story would be allowing them to envision it, and it's much easier to envision something once it has been described.
The setting can also be used as a source of symbolism, which is very apparent in "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. As the story is written in journal entries, the symbolism is not as easily stated as it can be in third-person, but is included through the description of the setting. "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a prime example of the Gothic setting and the symbolism it can have.
Gilman makes the style of her story very clear from right from the first page. The building the narrator describes is a "colonial mansion… a haunted house" (Gilman 83), which is very typical of Gothic literature. Gothic buildings tend to be castles and are often old, decrepit, or haunted. This house is "an Americanized, domesticated format of the physically charged contested castle" (Carol Davison). The grand colonial mansion on a large block of land resembles a more modern castle, which provides the feeling that the house is looming, stuffy, and, for lack of a better term, creepy.
Though the narrator does say that the house is not actually haunted, she does state that "there is something strange about the house" (Gilman 84). This lets the reader know that this story will have strange elements to it, which is normal of Gothic literature.
The protagonist doesn't walk about the house too much, as she stays in solitude in her room for most of the story, but when she does, "[her] exploration, often at night, of the apparently haunted Castle's maze-like interior involves confrontation with mysteries whose ultimate unravelling signifies a self-discovery" (Carol Davison). As she becomes less and less imprisoned in the house and more involved with the wallpaper, she finds a sense of freedom. The setting is most clearly shown to be that of Gothic literature through the furniture in the house that the protagonist is staying in. Many things about the room that the protagonist is staying in represent imprisonment , which is a common theme in Gothic literature. Gilman states that "the windows are barred" (84), which immediately gives the reader an idea of not being able to escape. The bed in the room "is nailed down" (Gilman 88), which is also apart of the idea of prison.
The unmovable bed foreshadows the solitude of the protagonist, as she becomes consumed by the wallpaper and does not leave the bedroom. Each item of furniture in the room is used to symbolize something, as "the bars on the window suggest the trapped nature of female gender roles. The window symbolizes freedom" (Conrad Shumaker). Along with this, the rooms is described to have "rings and things in the walls" (Gilman 84). Though there are a few different reasons why there would be rings, one of them could be that the room used to be a sort of prison or torture chamber, which would mean the rings were used for chains of sorts. This explanation would fit in with the idea that the room that the protagonist occupies becomes a prison for her. Along with the theme of imprisonment, much of the setting and it's description symbolizes the isolation that the protagonist faces. When stating the location of the house, it is described as "quite alone… quite three miles from the village" (Gilman 83). This is how isolation is first introduced, and it is quite literal. Much of this theme of imprisonment is included to represent female oppression.
Of course, the biggest element of the setting of "The Yellow Wallpaper" is, in fact, the yellow wallpaper. The narrator states that she "never saw a worse paper in [her] life" (Gilman 84). The in-depth description of the paper tells the reader how horrible it is to the protagonist. Her way of describing it makes it almost more eerie than ugly, as she says "when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide" (Gilman 85). The protagonist of this story is sick, most likely mentally ill, but her husband, who is also her doctor, refuses to believe that the sickness is anything but physical. This little nod in the wording toward a mental illness ties the wallpaper into her sickness. K.V. Rama Rao observes that her description is "almost like a metaphysical conceit obliquely suggestive of the condition of women.
These are not words normally used to describe wallpaper." The paper is clearly symbolic of many different things. It is one of the many things that leads back to Gilman's stance as a feminist. In the story, "the narrator represents male fears about femininity and female sexuality. [Female sexuality is] represented by the color yellow and the smell of the wallpaper" (Mary Jacobus). As the story continues, the paper "becomes a phantasmagoria screen onto which is projected her sense of her situation" (Carol Davison). The protagonist thinks of it as a living being, as it has an effect on her and "looks at [her] as if it knew what a vicious influence it had" (Gilman 86). The protagonist also begins to see a person in the wallpaper, and she is "quite sure it is a woman" (Gilam 92). The paper takes over her life, as does the woman she sees in the paper.
This obsession is because of her being isolated in the bedroom, which ties back to the entire room being a prison for the narrator. In further description of the paper, it is described that "at night in any kind of light…it becomes bars…and the woman behind it is as plain as can be" (Gilman 92). As we can see, the paper is being used to symbolize imprisonment, and "these words are a clear statement of the author about women – the woman is behind the bars built by society!" (Rama). The author makes a clever move in her descriptions by touching on a few different topics in her symbolism. Not only does she include the theme of imprisonment to show the effects of isolation on mental patients, but also to suggest the importance of gender equality, as women are imprisoned by the roles society places them into.
Works Cited
Rao, K. V. Rama. "The Yellow Wallpaper — A Dynamic Symbol: A Study Of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Story." Poetcrit 19.1 (2006): 38-44. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Wiedemann, Barbara. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Short Fiction: A Critical Companion (1997): 64-72. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Davison, Carol Margaret. "Haunted House/Haunted Heroine: Female Gothic Closets In "The Yellow Wallpaper." Women's Studies 33.1 (2004): 47-75. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Gilman, Charlotte P. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Literature: A Pocket Anthology. Boston: Longman, 2012. 82-97. Print.
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Fire Education Committee
Firefighter Timothy Duffy, Chairman
Chief Thomas Wutz, Vice Chairman
Coordinator (Ret.) Joseph DeFrancisco
Deputy Chief (Ret.) Paul Melfi, Staff Liaison
Assistant Chief Chris Rea
Commissioner Kevin Whitney
Hands-On Training Sub-Committee
Training Chief William Hanrahan, Vice Chairman
Assistant Chief Scott DeNinno
Chief Jeff Dygert
Assistant Chief Kurt Mulligan
Chief Daniel Schwertfeger
Chief Curtis Wicks
Programs Sub-Committee
Chief Gerard Raab Jr., Vice Chairman
Chief Joseph Badala
Lieutenant Gary Benedict
Chief David Campbell

subset: commoncrawl


text: Well over a year ago I went to my local DMV and it was a nightmare. All I wanted was to do was change my address and renew my license. It took me forever. I was angry enough by the inefficient service to write an email to our governor and complain about the DMV. And after my trip to the DMV yesterday is was obvious that Arnold listened to my complaints because I went in to get my name changed and it took me 15 minutes from start to finish! 15 minutes! And that's with the lady messing up the first time she attempted to make the changes I wanted. It was well organized and people were moving through the lines quickly and efficiently. It was amazing. I was completely astonished. See people, it does pay to write to your political leaders. I did and I am sure glad that I did.


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Quentin Tarantino is now an established director in Hollywood, having had a string of commercial and critical success', the release of his films are treated with a similar sense of anticipation as those of Ridley Scott and Martin Scorsese. This, however, was not always the case. In 1992 he released his first feature length film, that he also wrote called Reservoir Dogs. From a budget of only $1.2m, raised by co-producer and star Harvey Keitel, it only took just over $2m at the US box office based on almost no marketing, however it was embraced in the UK where it took over $6m. After his later success with Pulp Fiction, it was rereleased and was able to take even more.
Drawing inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's The Killing, with elements from other 1970s pulp films, Reservoir Dogs introduced the cinema-going world to Tarantino's non-linear film structure. While he did not create it, he did popularise showing a narrative out of order to increase dramatic tension and it can be seen in a host of films and more notably television shows. Reservoir Dogs follows the aftermath of a failed bank heist and takes place almost entirely in the gangs' hideout after the event, with brief flashbacks highlighting their individual stories.
As in The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, the ˜Dogs' themselves are named after colours to hide their true identities, but are made up of a slew of famous character actors: Mr White (Keitel), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Pink (Steve Buschemi), Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker) and Mr. Brown (Tarantino). Such a fine cast of actors, given Tarantino's whip-smart dialogue and forced to create tension and atmosphere with almost no props (other than a chair, a knife, a gun etc.) create a very low-budget, almost stage approach to the action. But because of their skill and innate chemistry it works wonderfully. Reservoir Dogs is at all times, disturbing, violent, hilarious and utterly engaging.
The standout memorable scene belongs to Madsen's Mr. Blonde, who dances to Stealer's Wheel will mutilating a cop for no other reason than he enjoys it. The combination of threat, music and superb performance make this one of the most iconic scenes in Tarantino's collection. The soundtrack is almost as impressive as the film-making, as with all of Tarantino films. Reservoir Dogs' cracking retro 1970s soundtrack, full of lesser-known classics, which have since found fame off of the back of the film, helps place the action in the twisted and genius world of Tarantino's creating and it's difficult to imagine any other songs doing the job.
It's no wonder that off the back of such a debut feature that Tarantino went on to make the superior classic Pulp Fiction. However without Reservoir Dogs leading the way we would never have got to see Vincent Vega and friends.


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The "secret question," writes security researcher Nik Cubrilovic, is the single most popular, most effective way for a hacker to gain access to your online accounts.
The security question is, essentially, the Achilles' heel of every password-protected site. Facebook requires access to an associated e-mail to change passwords. Sites with two-factor verification necessitate a physical phone. But on certain sites, including iCloud, you can gain access to the account — and change its password — merely by answering a handful of easily guessed or researched questions.
For instance, to gain access to my brother's account, Apple asked me:
- His Apple ID, which is commonly the user's primary e-mail address. (It was.)
- His birth date, which is available on social media. (Easy.)
- The city where our parents met. (Super-guessable — it's the city where my brother lives.)
- His childhood nickname. (Also guessable. Like virtually every boy in America, my brother was called for many years by his last name.)
And voila! Just like that, I'm in. If I wanted to, I could browse his photos (… which I'm sure are entirely PG!), or reset his password, or buy music and apps from his account. And that's just iCloud. On Gmail, where he has regrettably not set up two-step verification, I'm asked only the approximate date he started the account, the names of frequently e-mailed contacts and my dad's middle name.
Anyone who knows him or has ever known him — relatives, friends, former landlords, jealous exes — would theoretically have that kind of information. And even people who don't know him could obtain it. Birthdays and personal histories are frequently flaunted on social media; current and past addresses are easily found via Google search; and blunt-force scripts, in the absence of easier solutions, can try millions of possible answers until coming up with the right one.
It makes sense, then, that the Celebgate hackers seem to have accessed the accounts of people such as Jennifer Lawrence and Kirsten Dunst that way, deploying — in the words of Apple's statement on the subject — "a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions." Security questions are a gaping, well-documented vulnerability, "the biggest joke in online identity verification." And yet we still use them. Worse, we use questions like "in which city did your parents meet?" or "what's your mother's maiden name?" — minor bumps that can be Googled and gotten out of the way.
Security experts have suggested some solutions, of course: For starters, choose more difficult questions, or consider writing another password instead of the actual answer. (A hacker would be unlikely to guess, for instance, that you always say you're from the city of YqGAH7nE.) On the corporate level, companies could also move away from knowledge-based authentication — the technical name for all those personal questions — and toward another model, such as location authentication (based on where you are) or biometric authentication (based on things like your fingerprints).
In either case, we're stuck with this particular system for the present. Which is pretty unfortunate, truth be told: In an age in which oversharing comes standard, there's precious little about you that nobody else knows.


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Deadline for comments on the plan is this Friday April 29. The plan can be viewed at http://www.ccrpcvt.org/our-
Comments by
Tony Redington
on the
Draft "Chittenden County Active Transportation Plan—Recommendations March 26, 2016"
April 24, 2016
My name is Tony Redington and am a resident of 20 North Winooski Ave., Burlington, VT. I am not a car owner and move about the City all year on foot and by bicycle and public transit. Am an active member of: Neighborhood Planning Assembly 2/3 (NPA 2/3), the Burlington Walk Bike Council (BWBC), Safe Streets Burlington (SSB), the Pine Street Coalition PSC), AARP Vermont Livable Communities Group, and the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP). Also a member since the formation of the Vermont Bicycle Pedestrian Coalition (VBPC) in 1993, now merged into Local Motion (LM) in Burlington.
First, some general comments on the draft "Chittenden County Active Transportation Plan" (ATP) produced by the Chittenden Regional Planning Commission (CCRPC). With exception of perhaps a few blocks (and no intersections) for bicyclists along Dorset Street and the four blocks and adjacent street sections (but not intersections) of the Marketplace for pedestrians, there is not a walkable/bikable transportation facility in the County along busy streets (collector and arterials). (By transportation facilities in these comments, it is meant a facility must be available 24/365 with lighting and winter maintenance--and possess for other than local street sections, all-modes safe connectivity, i.e., in most cases modern roundabouts or strong traffic calming at intersections.) Also important, because there are no safe busy intersections for the walk mode other than the Marketplace and none for the bicycle mode, there are no "low stress" corridors of two or more blocks because there are no "low stress" intersections. The ATP top rank of a "1" for "low stress" remains truly a mirage in our County.
The term "mirage" for walkable and bikable is not an overstatement of current conditions. Burlingtonians point with pride at the Church Street Marketplace completed over three decades ago in 1981. Meanwhile the current Walk Bike Master Plan uncovered an ugly set of intersections pedestrian injury data. Every single intersection along South Winooski Avenue from Pearl Street to Main Street made the "dirty 17" pedestrian crash list with at least one injury per year 2011-2014. How disturbing it is that perhaps the safest stretch of street--the Marketplace—has a parallel street where every single intersection is high pedestrian injury crash site—a true street Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide in parallel streets!.
As the CCRPC staff and consultants well know, with a half century of data on five downtown/town center roundabouts and the Burlington Walk Bike Master Plan data on pedestrian injuries (2011-2014) note carefully the following:
a. in a 52 year span Vermont roundabouts recorded one non-serious pedestrian injury and four minor car occupant injuries. Pedestrian injuries rate for the five roundabouts was under two injuries per century for each intersection.
b. Burlington at 17 intersections (13 signalized) experienced almost one injury per intersection per year (0.9). Pedestrian injuries rates (which included one fatality) for the 17 intersections currently average 90 injuries per century for each intersection.
Vermont and U.S. walk and bike injuries are on the rise and our rates of injuries and fatalities for healthy modes are about three times that of urban Germany and the Netherlands where a large cross section of the population bicycles compared to mostly young adult males bicycling here in Vermont (about two thirds male nationally).
Bicycling and walking safety is serious business but one would not know it by reading the draft ATP. The five most recent urban fatalities in Burlington/South Burlington occurred at signalized intersections (three pedestrians, two drivers and a cyclist). Nowhere in ATP is the "problem" of bicycle and pedestrian safety identified, discussed or addressed in a quantitative manner.
Nor does the draft ATP recognize or address the new federal highway planning regulations which require Chittenden Country Regional Planning (CCRPC) to calculate rates of bike and pedestrian injuries rates separately for a five year period (and separately from motor vehicle injury rates), and produce a plan for reducing those rates along with specific measurable progress methods. In other words ATP is not in conformance with new federal highway planning regulation and policy directives as actual walk and bike injuries are not addressed and remedies identified—even qualitative analysis would be a start. (No paint and bulbouts please!)
When U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx earlier this year announced the new walk, bike, and motor vehicle safety management requirements for state agencies and metropolitan agencies like CCRPC, he went out of his way to express concern for the increase in walker and bicyclist deaths in America.
While my own interest is primarily safety for the walking mode, the only treatment available for routine application for busy intersection safety for those who walk is the roundabout, therefore the addition of roundabouts to my walking advocacy. The importance of the roundabout to walk safety is investigated in my Canadian Transportation Research Forum (CTRF) paper "Modern Roundabout Technology Unlocks the Stifled Walking Mode in Canada and the United States—Toward a Roundabout Centered 'Walking Service Level' Classification."
The paper presented in 2010 contains an addendum, an evolution of the CTRF 2010 classification. It turns out the roundabout—long prized for its safety benefits for car occupants—promises nearly the same level of benefit to the cyclist as the cycle track era has emerged and bicycle accommodation in roundabout design marked evolved.
Clearly, the modern roundabout with a 0.1 "crash modification factor" (i.e., reducing the rate of injuries by about 90% in the single lane format for each mode) which can be applied to walk and properly designed accommodations for cyclists. In the one lane format the roundabout represents a no-regrets approach to addressing absolutely deplorable injury rates now for those who walk and bike (much less to those who occupy motor vehicles) in our County. AARP supports converting signals to roundabouts for safety. Dan Burden in his Burlington AARP livable communities workshop in 2014 calls for all roundabouts along the lower Pine Street corridor (from Pine and Maple Street southward). Burlington's land mark North Avenue Corridor Plan with a goal of a world class, safest for all modes 2.8 mile street calls for at least three of seven signals replaced by roundabouts and cycle track (dooring free) end to end. (Did not see dooring free lanes addressed in ATP—perhaps it is there.) These reports and recommendations and plans can be identified or at least be annotated in the report.
The absence of any mention of the Champlain Parkway current design in the draft ATP also speaks volumes as the current design would significantly increase both bicycle and pedestrian crash numbers, not only from increased rates of exposure in the South End of Burlington but in great part from introducing four particular traffic signal systems—Sears Lane/Parkway, an entirely new pedestrian intersection; Flynn Avenue/Parkway where a T sign-control intersection becomes a more dangerous signalized cross intersection; and converting two four-way stop intersection--viewed as the safest sign or signal control approach—to quite likely a far more pedestrian crash producing signalized control.
To advocate in a government policy document residents to walk and bike without addressing the fundamental lack of safety for these modes on busy County streets from lack of proper and safe infrastructure in effect recommends our residents—young and old—undertake activities known to be hazardous to our collective health.
Five corridors of three or more roundabouts in Vermont are in various stages of development: North Avenue, planning stage; Putney Road, Brattleboro commercial corridor, 5 roundabouts, in final design stage; Manchester, one built and one partially in place; and Montpelier, one built, one in design and two others in plan stage. Chittenden County outside of Burlington lags Vermont terribly in highest safety level intersections for all modes—the roundabout, the "intersection safety belt" (obviously in regard to walk and bike modes applicable in this draft ATP).
With over 5,000 U.S. roundabouts now and not a single pedestrian fatality recorded in North America through 2015 since the first roundabout in 1990, it does not take much more evidence to conclude that both short term and long term investments (as little as $50,000 for mini roundabouts with the best safety record) must include the high benefit cost ranking roundabout intersection conversions. Of course one does not have to mention the annual reductions of 10,000 and over motor fuel consumption at roundabouts over signals with 15,000-20,000 entering vehicles along with about a third reduction in global warming gases and other pollutants—or the reduction of pedestrian waiting times to less than five seconds. (Note, about 90% of County signalized intersections can be converted to roundabouts and about 75% or more being single lane.)
In short the draft ATP calls for the County to continue its devolution of walk and bike safety while major Vermont towns and cities as well as Counties pass our Chittenden County by in walkability and bikability. Even Bennington County—home in a recent report to 30% of the high accident top 100 statewide intersections list by the Agency of Transportation--this very day has it first roundabout under construction as the entrance to its new Walmart.
Please consider the following specific comments:
- Page 6--Additional Goals for Next Decade Please add:
a. Install at least one all-modes low-stress intersection (primarily single lane roundabouts) in each County City and Town Center.
b. Install at least one all-modes low stress corridor of three or more roundabouts
- Page 7 Conclusions of Existing Conditions Assessment. First sentence: Chittenden County is making great strides in advancing its inventory of bicycling facilities." This statement is a flat out lie. Suggest the following: "Chittenden County first and foremost needs to make it first significant strides In advancing an inventory of low-stress bicycle facilities." The only low-stress transportation facilities in the County (versus seasonal facilities) are cycle track on a section of Dorset Street in So. Burlington and some multi-use facilities, such as the Kennedy Drive between Dorset Street and VT 116. Would suggest a listing of these and perhaps others I may not be aware of somewhere in the report. By definition "low stress" would include cycle track and roundabout intersections (such as the Burlington Shelburne Street roundabout design) where a cyclist has a choice of "taking the circular travelway" and/or a separate pathed (Assen, NL design preferred). Other than "low stress" facilities the vast majority of those able and willing to bike do not and cannot (safely) bicycle in the County. Year round facilities, of course, mean both adequately lighted and plowed (similar in nature to the Montpelier East and West Bikepaths now scheduled to be connected by a one-lane Main Street roundabout). These comments are consistent with the Illinois State Bicycle Facilities Plan (2015).
- Page 7—Last sentence: "....and safer walking and bicycling" More walking and bicycling within the County does not necessarily result in "safer walking and bicycling." More bicycling without sufficient walk facilities can lead to more congestion and lack of safety for the walk mode. Probably not the most important comment—but the connection is very weak.
- Page 12--Crash Frequency: Bicyclists and Pedestrians First, pedestrian safety and needs always end up last in consideration but always should be first. Everyone walks and must walk at certain points. Same cannot be said of bicycling. The entire emphasis of this chart misleads. There is a general level of unacceptable frequencies of crashes for each and every mode in the County because of the lack of safe infrastructure—sidewalks and cycle track on busy streets and all-modes safe intersections (mostly roundabouts). With a downtown frequency of only one pedestrian crash in over a half century (five roundabouts in Manchester, Middlebury and Montpelier) and just four minor car occupant injuries at those same intersections—any busy intersection with a disabling injury per decade or so for any mode operates at a questionable level and requires attention, placed on a list and prioritized for conversion to low-stress, safe status.
- Page 13—Public Input: Charettes and Wikimap Since the County does not have a low-stress busy intersection or bicycle street cycle track (excluding the three Church Street Marketplace intersections for the walk mode and cycle track along Dorsett Street for bike mode) holding charrettes and interviewing local residents of the County hardly represents public input. A 2004 charrette in Montpelier about City needs came up with two—more roundabouts and a bus circulator service (both implemented with one additional roundabout in place and at least two more on the way). Page 13 represents at worst planning malpractice.
- Page 14 Public Input—North Avenue [Burlington] The reference to North Avenue needs to addressed at some point by referencing the North Avenue Corridor Plan which calls for car-free cycle track from end to end of the corridor and converting at least three of seven signalized intersections to roundabouts. Suggest a note number or asterisk with this information suggesting that concerns already addressed.
- Page 19 Level of Traffic Stress This appears to be mis-labeled as it appears to be a discussion of bike facilities not walking facilities. First paragraph talks about low-stress really being low-crash rate prone in order for all able to bike willing to bike—but then the safety aspect gets lost in research jargon—the Minetta model never is really explained.
- Page 20 Stress Examples for Cyclists This misleads as it shows a recreation path—clearly without lighting for night use and very likely in a snow climb unplowed (like all County bikepaths, I believe).
- Page 21 Level of Traffic Stress in Chittenden County This is very misleading as it appears to continue to count recreation (seasonal and/or unlit) paths as part of the transportation network. Certainly such a network can be described but it must be identified as such with a second map showing a year round network. One can argue also that multi-use paths even if plowed/lighted do not qualify for LS 1 status with moderate to high traffic (note Riverside Avenue in Burlington in this regard—also with a high crash section for pedestrians). Note, again, this map should be labeled for road sections/street sections only a there are no bicycle LS 1 intersections in the County (versus, say the Cambridge, Hyde Park, and Morrisville roundabouts along VT 15 in Lamoille County).
- Page 22 Level of Stress About the same comment as on Page 21—no low stress intersections along busy routes for any mode—cure like that proposed and rejected for Taft Corner and US 2/Industrial Drive in Williston, roundabouts of course.
- Pages 23-32 Developing a Regional Network The description of a "walking" as well as a "bicycling" network for the County as a whole probably, really, a bicycle network not a walk network. Walking trips of more than a 1,000 to 1,200 feet (maximum for access of public transportation) likely represent the reach or extent for determining a "walk network" and connecting to an adjacent "walk network." A countywide approach really does not represent any kind of a useful tool or policy makers.
- Page 35 Infrastructure Recommendations: Long-Term/10+ years
a. "Separated facilities"--this should be balanced in the same sentence with "and continued installation of all-modes safe intersections, i.e., roundabouts" along prioritized corridors and nodes" These investments would be primarily "town centers and arterial streets" benefiting primarily the walk mode and secondarily the bicycle mode.
b. Jughandle: Convert the jughandle to a two-lane roundabout with actuated pedestrian/bicycle pathing
c. Address once and for all the Winooski Circulator by installing two two-lane roundabouts (a "dog bone" design) with diameters of about 130-140 feet to improve traffic movements, all modes safety, and shifting unused "dead space" inside the Circulator to useful park/plaza/cafe space to the outside. Again, though little used, ped/cyclist actuated signals for crossings.
d. A recreation path along the Circ should come second to converting VT 15 signalized intersections to roundabouts accommodating cyclists—most all would be single laners.
- Page 36 Infrastructure Recommendations Short Term/Immediate to under 5 years
Of the seven recommendations (the word walking and pedestrian does not appear a single time) only one addresses anything remotely connected to the walking mode and continues the economic and social injustice suffered by anyone who chooses to or by circumstance must rely on the walk mode in our County downtowns, village centers and built up areas. Overall, there does not appear to be a single significant short or long term infrastructure investment recommendation which addresses in a substantial way to improved walking and bicycling for the population at large—or to address improved safety. (For example, why not support the Burlington installation of the "free" roundabout on Shelburne Street which right now may get completed in a planning and construction process of about 20 years, or implement the North Avenue Corridor Plan roundabouts and cycle track?)
I have suggested in comments to the Annual Workplan of CCRPC that all major
intersections be examined for roundabout conversions and the prioritized for implementation. (Why not benefit cost analysis being applied roundabout conversions versus other CCRPC projects?)
- Pages 38-44 Non-infrastructure Recommendations These pages on enforcement, education, education and engineering all rest on a deep level of lack of safe infrastructure quicksand. The ideas and program elements sound fine until one goes out and tries to bicycle and walk on busy County streets and negotiate actual intersections. As the architect of Copenhagen's program for reaching 50% of all trip by bicyclist said succinctly: "start with infrastructure first." The draft ATP does not even address infrastructure in a tangible manner.
- Pages 45-46 Next Steps The "next steps" can only follow and rest on a rationally thought out plan. ATP is not a rationally developed plan so the next steps really have little or no meaning.
Finally a last comment on the size and scope of walk/bike safety investments facing us in Chittenden County. There are three major threats to life and limb for our residents from early adulthood through early middle age. Each nationally amounts to about 30,000 deaths yearly: highway crashes, gun violence, and in recent years the drug deaths, i.e., the oppiad epidemic. Each of these areas involves public policy and investments to reduce deaths substantially. In the case of highway fatalities and injuries—and our concern here is primarily for those who walk and bike—the investments required in our County certainly reach hundreds of millions over the next decade. This is the level of investments already undertaken in the past in Western European nations mostly over the past 30 years as the U.S. once first in highway safety in 1990 now rests at 19th—with 13,000 excess deaths based on the rate achieved by the current leader (we were once co-leader with them in 1990), the United Kingdom.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this draft plan.


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August Everding's Die Zauberflöte dates back to 1978. It is a traditional, beautiful production, where the director tells the story by following the libretto and all of Schikaneder's indications on the changes of scenery. The original sets and costumes, by Jürgen Rose, have been restored and re-vamped in 2004, thanks to a re-staging by Helmut Lehberger. Some aspects of the production may feel dated or corny, but the visuals are beautiful, and the direction of the singers-actors is meticulous and effective. Everding emphasises the fairy tale and the funny aspects without discarding the moral lessons, and focuses on the human traits of the characters.
Die Zauberflöte is a deeply symbolic work, and this of course has excited the imagination of opera directors who, in recent decades, have set it in the most bizarre stagings, adding their own interpretation and symbolism, some more successful than others (see, for example, the new production by Yuval Sharon in Berlin. Not Everding. He doesn't challenge the audience, doesn't try to "make us think", any more than the original authors wanted to. Everding lets Mozart and Schickaneder speak, and doesn't try to speak for them, or over them. For once, the flute is really a flute and the glockenspiel is a glockenspiel, and not some weapon, or sex toy. It was refreshing, for once.
Tamino, the foreign prince whose costume would have been perfect for Calaf in Turandot, was Pavol Breslik. His tenor was easy on the high notes, light but powerful. His interpretation of "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön" was remarkable, with beautiful legato and elegant dynamics. Olga Kulchynska was Pamina, his beloved, who sang with great projection and silvery bright high notes. Her legato was perhaps not always perfect, but overall her performance was very enjoyable.
Kathryn Lewek was a great Queen of the Night. Her super-high notes were secure and full, she didn't just "touch" them, she really fully sang into them, and the effect was dramatic and exciting. At the same time, the centre of her voice is well set in the middle, which gives depth and authority to her interpretation. The triplets in the second aria were sweet and heart-melting, judiciously phrased. What a Queen! Mika Kares sang Sarastro with his deep, warm bass; his high notes round and well set. He exuded a calm, a natural authority that fit the character very well. His second aria "In diesen heil'gen Hallen" was particularly heartfelt and beautiful.
Sean Michael Plumb was a young, spirited Papageno, with a natural flair for comedy and humour, as requested by the character. His lumberjack physique, highlighted by breeches and suspenders, helped the interpretation of the "man of nature", clowning around while Tamino went through the initiation in Sarastro's temple. The duet with Papagena, spiritedly sung by Sarah Gilford, was one of the cutest (and corniest) ideas in the production: about a dozen little children ran on stage, jumping and dancing, and at the end Papageno stuffed them all in a wheeled cart and pulled them away. Not the most original idea, but very well executed, and perfectly in style with the music.
The three ladies – Kiandra Howarth, Samantha Hankey and Okka von der Damerau – stood out for their precision and interpretation in the ensembles; they also showed great acting abilities, intertwining their movements as well as their musical phrases with ease and confidence.
Ulrich Reß was a suitably creepy Monostatos, sung with a clear, pleasant tenor. All the other singers, Milan Siljanov as the Speaker, Wolfgang Grabow, Scott MacAllister and Peter Lobert as the priests and the armoured men, contributed to a high-level cast with beautiful singing and interpretation. The three boys, from the Tölzer Knabenchors, were dressed in 18th-century clothes and wigs (they looked like three mini-Mozart's); they sang with competence and were quite funny.
Asher Fisch led the Bayerisches Staatsorchester with a strong hand, keeping all the many ensembles together with ease, and highlighting beautiful phrases. Perhaps not a most inspiring reading of the score, but a very effective one. The chorus of the Bayerische Staatsoper was the most penalised by the director's choices: they often sang off stage from afar, or from an awkward position, and it was hard to hear them at all.
The performance was (obviously) in German, and with no subtitles! Many children were in the audience (even if it was a school night), well-behaved and attentive, laughing at Papageno's jokes and applauding the most successful ideas of the production. It was almost strange to not have the constant distraction of the shining words in our line of vision: a welcome blast from the past.


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The Touring and Dissemination of Work Scheme is designed to support touring and dissemination of work across a range of art forms and arts practices.
The closing date for tours starting from January to June 2021 will be Thursday, 30th April 2020.
Application forms will be available through online services from 17th March 2020.
The scheme is open to individuals and organisations who wish to tour between January and June 2020, and who are resident or based in the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland.
Successful applicants to Strategic/Arts Centres/Partnership Funding are not eligible to apply to the Touring Scheme.
Since its introduction in 2010 the Touring schemes have been based on the principle of collaboration between those who produce and those who present work to audiences.
For details on the scheme, please contact Val Ballance or Regina O'Shea. If you have questions specifically related to art forms, then email the relevant team. All contact details are on the Arts Council's website Contacts page.


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San Antonio Spurs assistant coach James Borrego is close to a deal with the Charlotte Hornets to become their next head coach, according to a report from Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
Spurs assistant James Borrego is finalizing a deal to become the next head coach of the Charlotte Hornets, league sources tell ESPN.— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 8, 2018
The Hornets parted ways with former coach Steve Clifford on April 13. Clifford coached five seasons in Charlotte, posting a record of 196-214. Charlotte finished the 2017-18 season with a 36-46 record.
Here's more from Wojnarowski on Borrego and the reported deal:
Borrego is one of the most well-regarded assistants in the league; his coaching career has included two different tours on Gregg Popovich's staff. Borrego turned down the University of New Mexico in his home state last year, choosing to continue pursuit of an NBA head-coaching job.
Borrego made a strong impression in his interview with Mitch Kupchak, the Hornets' new president of basketball operations and general manager. Kupchak became more intrigued once he started to canvass NBA executives, coaches and players who have worked with Borrego, sources told ESPN.
Hornets owner Michael Jordan triggered the team's rebuild when he hired Kupchak on Apr. 10 to serve as general manager and president of basketball operations. Kupchak won five NBA championships with the Los Angeles Lakers when he served as GM from 2000 to 2017.


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fruits de la région naturels ou biologiques
confitures de fruits du jardin ou du coin avec moins de sucre et souvent rapadura ou agave
pain maison, ou du marché avec des céréales anciennes
possibilité de petit déjeuner sans gluten ou pour des intolérants (me le dire à l'avance)
laits végétaux
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Takashi Murakami and the cure for restlessness
How does one deal with the restlessness that drives their work?
It's difficult to think of a figure that embodies 'restless' more than Takashi Murakami. At 57, the prolific Japanese artist, designer, filmmaker and cultural phenomenon continues to work at a dizzying pace, challenging his contemporaries both conceptually and on sheer volume alone.
Murakami is in Sydney to help launch Japan Supernatural, a new exhibition from the Art Gallery of New South Wales exploring the long-held Japanese obsession with ghosts, ghouls and monsters. His inclusions in the exhibition (alongside works by Kaikai Kiki resident Chiho Aoshima and legendary 18th-century artist Katsushika Hokusai) include two large-scale works of impossible detail; one of which the gallery commissioned for their upcoming Sydney Modern expansion project. As we talk between his two five-metre tall sculptures of Oni or Japanese trolls, he's right at home.
Long respected at both the high-end and street-level, Murakami is in a unique position for someone of his level. He is undeniably famous, able to do as much or as little as pleases with no shortage of collectors willing to fund his ambitions. But he is also restless, and unable to wholly commit to what his high-art and low-art audiences expect of him. "I can't focus on one thing, which is why I do everything" he says, referring to the dozens of projects fizzing away at his Japan studio and collaborative space 'Kaikai Kiki'; think fine-art pieces for The Gagosian, street-level works for DIY exhibits like Beyond the Streets, collaborations with Off-White or films for superstars like Billie Eilish and you're scratching the surface. "I can't even relax with my family. I went on a holiday to a quiet island and was on my phone the entire time scrolling Instagram or talking to my team. It's very bad."
"Actually, I have no talent" he adds, with zero hints that he's joking. "I needed to work very hard over a long time to get the chance to do what I do. That's why I stay in my brain and keep control of my ego."
Ego is a topic that is constantly referenced as a benevolent force threatening rather than enhancing his work. Even at his level of success, this obsession with the fragility of one's perception of the world is of great importance; and in today's cultural economy, social media is the great leveller. "Watching Instagram and Twitter now is a good exercise for training my brain to throw out my ego," he says, referring to its self-service nature as both an accelerator of work and a huge barrier to not losing control of your own curation.
Though prolific, it's this lack of ego that has allowed him to collaborate with some of the world's most recognisable names and connect to pop-culture in a way that few fine-artists are able to do; Louis Vuitton, Pharrell's Billionaire Boys Club, Uniqlo and Drake's OVO are a few of those who have sought out his incomparable eye for consumable world-building.
What makes him different is the sheer diversity of output — not in the realm of gallery-level art but through music, film, objects, fashion and collectables from the affordable to the museum-worthy. He defines success in this process as the ability to deconstruct your own vision to re-assemble it with that of another. "It's easier with, say, a musician, because musicians and visual artists use completely different brain systems," he says. "There is a dual understanding — they are a creator, I am a creator — and we can work together toward the same target. Visual artists are more difficult to work with, as are brand new clients who have little understanding of his, or any, creative process. You really need someone who understands how to communicate using the same creative language that you do".
A primary collaborator of late, Virgil Abloh comes up as an anomaly because his distinction as a designer of function is a perfect match for Murakami's ornamental tilt. In many ways, their partnership seemed an inevitability; both collaborated heavily with Kanye West (West's ongoing fascination with the artist included having him design the cover for Graduation, Abloh was the former creative director of his DONDA creative team), both have worked closely with Louis Vuitton (Murakami's pieces from 2003 onwards are considered landmark design artefacts; Abloh is now menswear artistic director), and both share an affinity for pushing the bounds of creative collaborations across disciplines, forms and spaces. "He's different because he's both a functional designer and visual creator," Murakami says of the Chicago-based figurehead. "We see the same target, but from two very different perspectives."
Material innovation seems something he's interested in, considering a history of sculpture and painted works reliant on aluminium, silver, gold leaf, wood, glitter and whatever other building blocks he deems necessary for a piece to succeed. Seeing as though we're standing under two towering, glittery trolls, I wondered how an artist known for his 'superflat' theory constructs in the third dimension. "I make models in clay and we blow it up, but we simply use the materials that are best suited to the story of the piece" he says, pointing to the sculpture as a mix of plastic, steel and glitter (contemporary) as well as wood dried over 40-years (traditional). I ask about his evolving ideas for materials, referring to a long-held interest in using plant biology to construct new types of textiles. "You know how Dr Lecter makes his mask in The Silence of the Lambs? It's kind of like that" he laughs. "I'm a very creepy guy."
Kaikai Kiki is known for its high-volume output while Takashi himself is constantly jetting around the world exploring new places, people, cultures and creative executions. I asked how one filters out the sheer volume of references and inspiration to stay focused and definitive in what you are doing (when a piece like the AGNSW commission takes a year to create, surely ideas must evolve in the process). "I have trained myself to create complete emptiness in my brain," he says. "From there, you select a new idea; we have a very good design team who are free to suggest new things, and we make decisions step by step towards the final product."
I asked again if he had any tips for how others could deal with their restlessness to create good work. "I watch a lot of Netflix" is his response. "Star Trek, Mindhunter and Black Mirror."
So for anyone who is feeling restless out there, that's how you do it.
Japan Supernatural is open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia until March 20, 2020. More info here.
Feature image: Portrait of Takashi Murakami Features artwork at rear: Takashi Murakami, 'Tan Tan Bo Black Hole' 2019 Acrylic, Gold and platinum leaf on canvas mounted on aluminum frame, 240 ×735 cm Headpiece and Foot Casting: Amazing Studio JUR
(Part of the costume for the 2014 Exhibition Opening at Gagosian New York) © 2019 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: Takuo Arai
(Part of the costume for the 2014 Exhibition Opening at Gagosian New York) © 2019 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: Takuo Arai


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Dancing on the Rail
Late August/September 2004
Dance and politics may seem like disparate fields, but choreographers have long been delving into the world of politics with dances of protest and dissent. One that immediately comes to mind is Kurt Jooss's 1932 The Green Table, a dance theater work that took issue with war and politicians. The Green Table begins and ends with men in suits and masks situated around a green table, gesticulating and genuflecting, who are meant to embody, in the choreographer's words, "the powers which gain in war." Nearly 75 years later, as New York City—dance capital of the world—prepares for the RNC, the same sentiment of protest can be seen in the Imagine Festival, which will present a series of performances, including dance, in opposition to the convention and the Grand Old Party. Among the dance performances, three that sound promising are Brooklyn's own Urban Bush Women, who will be performing at Joe's Pub; Eiko and Koma at the Asia Society; and WAX's The Bridge series. The Urban Bush Women's Are We Democracy? explores voting rights and apathy. Eiko and Koma's Mourning, part of the larger The Forgiveness Project, which blends Beijing opera, Korean dance, and Japanese butoh to tell a Chinese tale of murder and vengeance, focuses on grief and the stages of mourning. WAX (the Williamsburg dance venue that will be closing its doors this November due to the loss of its lease) presents their dance theater series The Bridge, with Nicole Bindler, Kinetic Architecture, and Refractions Dance Collective, performing works dealing with the theme of justice.
Are We Democracy? Sept. 1, 7:30 pm. Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, 212.539.8778, www.telecharge.com. Tickets: $15.
The Forgiveness Project, Aug. 28-29, 7:00 pm. Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue at 70th St., 212.517.ASIA. Tickets: $15, $10, $7. www.asiasociety.org; www.dancinginthestreets.org
The Bridge (Justice), Aug. 31, 8 pm. WAX, 205 North 7th Street, Williamsburg. Tickets: $10. www.wax205.com
For those who prefer dance minus the partisan politics, there are plenty of other dance performances come September. As the dog days of August come to a close, the fall dance season begins afresh with two major fall festivals—the Dancenow Festival, celebrating its 10th anniversary and the new, much anticipated Fall for Dance Festival at City Center.
Dancenow Festival September 8-18
Dancenow has built a reputation as the festival that kicks off the New York fall dance season. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the festival will take place across five different neighborhoods—SoHo, the East and West Villages, Harlem, and Washington Heights. The festival opens with a performance and party on September 8, which is meant to showcase performance highlights from the past, present, and future. Performers include Monica Bill Barnes, the Brian Brooks Moving Company, Doug Elkins, Nicholas Leichter, and Zvi Dance. But it's the popular Base Camp Series that is the most interesting and engaging mixed-bill performance series this festival has to offer. The Base Camp series, held at the Joyce SoHo from September 13-18, with two performance nightly (7:00 and 9:00 pm), focuses on little-known companies and choreographers presenting both off-the-wall and down-to-earth works. While some of the dance here can miss the mark, others are often full of pleasant surprises. Dancemopolitan at Joe's Pub is also part of this year's festival, featuring a well-known host for the evening's onslaught of drinks and dance. Hosts include Paul Matteson and Jennifer Nugent and the Happy Hour Comedy Trio. Most tickets are $15 and some events are FREE. For more information visit the festival Web site: www.dancenow/NYC.org.
ContributorVanessa Manko
VANESSA MANKO was the former Dance Editor for the Brooklyn Rail.
The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–1570By Christian Kleinbub
SEPT 2021 | ArtSeen
If you think yourself immune to the seductions of visual propaganda, go check out the current Met exhibition, The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 15121570. It will test you.
Politics with Normal CharacteristicsBy Adam Theron-Lee Rensch
OCT 2020 | Field Notes
The reality is that Trumps presidency has been anything but not normal. It has continued the same brutal worldview of his predecessors, albeit with unorthodox theatrics that has made the mockery of our two-party system transparent.
Editors Note: End Times PoliticsBy Paul Mattick
APRIL 2020 | Field Notes
Politics may, as Karl Marx suggested, be an epiphenomenon resting on the economic foundation of society, but still have interesting things to tell us. The Democratic Party seemsI write this in the aftermath of Super Tuesdayto have successfully eliminated Bernie Sanders as a candidate. This was the work not just of party officials, who made no secret of their intention to control the nomination, but also of the voters, who in most places stuck with the old political machinery.
Thinking with the Body: Dance and Performance at the 13th Gwangju BiennaleBy Emily May
MARCH 2021 | Dance
This years Gwangju Biennale, set to take place in Gwangju, South Korea in April, includes the work of two celebrated choreographers, Trajal Harrell and Cecilia Bengolea. Through interviews with these dance artists and the biennales curators, Emily May explores the history of Gwangju; the organizing theme of Intelligence and the Expanded Mind; and the prominence of performance in the program.


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Imagine it, build it, and make it go! Break the limits of your imagination by designing a unique personalized robot. Powered by the LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT Software, you will explore the exciting world of robotics while overcoming robotic engineering challenges throughout the week. Break your FEAR FACTOR while discovering sound, light, touch, and ultrasonic sensors. This week is one big challenge, doing things you never thought you would or could. Who will conquer fear….YOU will!
WHEN: Session 1 June 16, 17, 18, 19 9:00-11:30 OR
Session 2 June 16, 17, 18, 19 12:30- 3:00
WHERE: Wyoming STARBASE Academy
COST: FREE but you must submit an essay
Wyoming STARBASE Robotics camp is open to any student who attended STARBASE in the 2013-2014 school year. In 200 words or less, tell us why you want to attend robotics camp. Have a parent fill in the form below and e-mail it with your essay. There are twenty spots available. Registration opens April 25, 2014. This is a first come, first serve camp!
Please submit your essay and information below to email@example.com. If you have questions, please call us @ 777-8191
Student's Name: _____________________________________
School: ____________________ Teacher: ___________________
Parent's Name: _______________________________
Phone number: _______________________________
Parent's Email Address: _______________________________
Announcements >


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Makoto AzumaThe fragile beauty of nature
Ask world renowned artist Azuma Makoto what his greatest inspiration is, and he'll answer with one word and without hesitation: Nature. Why? He's fascinated by its fragility and is passionate about using such a delicate medium to transcend borders.
"It's all about pushing creativity to new levels."Makoto AzumaWorld-renowned Artist
Based in Tokyo, Makoto's exclusive flower boutique is the epicentre of his creative experimentation. Yet, he also often crosses the borders of his hometown to travel the world, exhibiting, performing, and discovering new types of flowers or plants. He's constantly working to identify limits and surpass them, to create something that has a true impact on people.
Following nature's leads
"I have a deep connection to flowers. I always keep in touch with them – whether it's at my studio in Tokyo or during my travels."
Makoto's art originates from "Ikebana", the traditional Japanese art of arranging flowers. For him, putting the flowers in exactly the right place and communicating with them during the process leads him into a meditative state. In these moments, he is completely at peace and can let his creativity flow freely. The ice sculptures he created for Miele locked in this moment, making it possible for others to experience this state with him.
Azuma-san and the chefs
"I watched the chefs and was impressed by their wonderful craftmanship. How could they create so many different expressions in only one dish?"
As the son of a chef, Makoto would often observe his father at work and developed a great respect and enthusiasm for the profession: "Cooking is great art, which is similar to creating art with flowers. In both crafts, you choose, arrange and control natural materials, all the while considering how this may stimulate others". So if he's not just creating extraordinary flower art, he might be in his kitchen cooking impressive dishes, using Miele technology.
It's all about the equipment
When you ask Makoto about his artistic methods, he will inevitably begin to speak about his scissors. He believes that if you want to achieve anything great, you must have tools that you can trust, that are an extension of you, that allow you to control every detail. For him, being able to precisely cut the flowers is one of his secrets to creating his works of art.
Makoto created four different floral installations, each inspired by the core technology within the appliances and used natural landscapes to tell their stories. A glacier for the Dialogue Oven, a desert for the Oven, a lake for the Hob and a rain forest for the Combi Steam Oven. The results are combinations of colours and textures that depict worlds no one could have ever imagined before seeing them. Each one is an invitation to go beyond the ordinary.
"It is important to create convenience, but also to enrich people's minds."


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"Spot-on vocals and visuals that magically
capture Nicks' stage presence."
Gypsy faithfully recreates Stevie Nicks' live show with striking accuracy.
Rikki Lee Wilson gives a stunning performance as Stevie Nicks with spot-on vocals and visuals
that magically capture Nicks' stage presence.
The feel of authenticity in Wilson's performance is enhanced by the lush backing vocals of Deanna Carroll and Terry Pavia.
The ever talented Kyle Wilson fills the role of a Stevie Nicks guitarist with effortless fidelity and musicianship.
From the other side of the stage comes authentic synth textures and keyboard parts tastefully executed by Sid Cherry who has all the right sounds from Stevie Nicks' biggest hits. A blazing performance by Adam Tese on saxophone is matched by his skills around the array of percussion instruments he plays throughout the show. Anthony Lombardo's melodious bass playing and the steadfast drumming and exceptional vocals of Steve Stewart complete the eight piece line-up.
Gypsy, celebrating the music of Stevie Nicks, has a production value that gives their audience
a stellar experience second only to the real thing.
The way up to the very young at heart.


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St. Gregorios Panel #1580
Saint Geevarghese Mar Gregorios is the first canonized Oriental Orthodox saint from India. He is popularly known as Parumala Thirumeni (Bishop of Parumala) or Kochu Thirumeni. Bright and beautiful stained glass art brings grace and beauty to your home, church, or cathedral. This custom stained glass panel can be fit for a window or door insert or a wall hanging. This timeless and inspiring piece of art will last a lifetime.
A religious window like this would make a good addition to a house of worship or a hospital chapel.
Need help paying for church stained glass? See our fundraising guide for effective solutions to any financial hurdle your church may be facing.


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Michael Lasko, manager of safety and quality for Boyle Transportation, has been named the winner of HDT's 2018 Safety and Compliance award at the Fleet Safety Conference in Henderson, Nev. on Oct. 30.
Lasko has been fundamental in helping the Billerica, MA, fleet achieve an enviable safety record, logging a 100% accident-free rate in 2017. In 2016, the company had a miniscule 0.691 accident rate. Boyle uses a multitude of cutting-edge safety systems, combined with good, old fashioned proactive management to achieve these results, including an aggressive drug and alcohol testing program, mandatory new hire training for any format, online safety training sessions, coached driver training sessions behind the wheel, ongoing classroom training, risk scoring, a safe driver rewards program and a zero tolerance policy for cell phone use while driving.
To further enhance fleet safety, all new Boyle tractors are equipped with front crash avoidance systems, lane departure warning, stability control and rollover prevention systems as well as in-cab cameras. The fleet also specs automated transmissions to help keep drivers focused on dynamic driving environments.
"Our company was founded in 1971 by Tom Boyle who had previously served as a Military Policeman in the U.S. Army and then later as a Massachusetts State Police trooper," Lasko said. "His early experiences with the tragedies of highway crashes drove him to do whatever he could to prevent catastrophic crashes and he instilled a passion for safety into our company. Boyle Transportation has been an early adopter of onboard safety systems. Although these systems have become more prevalent recently, we began deploying them in the late 1990s. We spend about $15,000 extra per truck in safety technology, because we are committed to providing our professional drivers the tools to do their job as safely as possible."
Moreover, Lasko said, a culture of safety is simply mandatory for Boyle Transportation, since the fleet specializes in transporting sensitive commodities for the U.S. military and life-saving medicine for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. "These customers do not look to us to simply haul freight," he explained. "They need us to apply comprehensive, proactive systems to ensure safe and secure transport of critical cargo. Therefore, we move safety from the "back office" to the forefront in everything we do."
Lasko says that although many fleet managers today criticize the scoring methodology behind the FMCSA's CSA program, Boyle's safety team decided to embrace the concept of safety performance metrics. "When CSA rolled out in 2010, our management team was developing safety-related key performance metrics at the same time," he said. "As part of our ISO quality management system, our cross functional management team meets weekly to review such metrics. If we see recurring problems or trends, we identify their root causes and implement corrective actions. Such actions could include changes in equipment specification, personal protective equipment, and individual training."
In addition to external metrics such as SMS scores, Boyle Transportation has implemented a video monitoring system that analyzes driving behaviors and assesses risk. According to Lasko, this system serves two purposes. First, the use of video technology allows Boyle to protect its professional drivers and the company from false claims. Secondly, Lasko and his team can identify coaching and training opportunities and tailor them to fit the needs of the individual. A risk assessment score based on observed driving behaviors, is assigned to all professional drivers and to each site within the company every week.
Professional drivers at Boyle are engaged on the topic of safety via frequent coaching and feedback sessions. Those coaching sessions are documented and follow up performance is used to measure the effectiveness of the coach and the coaching session in a separate metric. The video system connects to all active safety technologies, including radar-based collision avoidance, lane departure warning, roll stability, and side view blind spot cameras. These systems are standard on every Boyle Transportation truck.
"Utilizing that connectivity allows us to understand and aid every professional driver in a holistic fashion rather than a 'cookie cutter' response to an incident," Lasko said. "During the coaching session, the professional driver's score is reviewed and compared to the company and site average scores. All relevant event videos are then analyzed and discussed with the professional driver and a mutually agreed upon action plan is put in place. In many cases, this tool has empowered our professional drivers to improve safety in a variety of ways and not only for Boyle Transportation. Recently, we were able to work with the manufacturer of our collision avoidance system to address a safety concern with the system that affects every truck on the road with that technology. That was a direct result of our professional drivers' feedback during coaching sessions."
Marc Boyle, CEO for Boyle Transportation said, "We're very proud of Mike and what he's been able to accomplish here. He's done a great job supporting our professional drivers and improving our performance along dimensions of safety and quality."
"Boyle Transportation has a culture of safety that goes back to our founders," added Ben Curtis, fleet maintenance manager for Boyle. "The systems Mike has employed are state of the art and help our professional drivers perform to the high standards our customers have come to expect. Mike has helped hone our safety standards and goals we strive to achieve. He successfully initiated forward-facing cameras to our fleet and works closely with our professional drivers to identify driving practices that may need improvement. Mike has been a professional driver and knows how to interact and coach without alienating anyone in the process."
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In rather unexpected turn of events, Spain's head coach Julen Lopetegui has been sacked just two days before their opening match against Portugal. The Spanish Football Federation called in a press conference on Wednesday and announced its decision. The timing of this announcement is extremely bizarre as Spain is currently preparing for the World Cup in Russia. The decision comes a day after Real Madrid had announced that Lopetegui would be becoming the club's manager after the World Cup. Assistant coach Fernando Hierro will take over as the head coach of the La Roja.
Lopetegui accepted the top job at Santiago Bernabeu after agreeing to a three-year deal and is set to succeed Zinedine Zidane, after the frenchman shockingly revealed that he was stepping down as the manager of the Los Blancos. The Spanish Federation thus felt that it was inappropriate for Lopetegui to continue as the coach of the national team.
The Spanish Football Association President Luis Rubiales was set to attend the FIFA congress in Moscow on Wednesday but instead flew to Spain's training base late on Tuesday -- soon after Real Madrid's announcement -- to deal with the matter. Rubiales in the press conference said that the negotiations between Lopetegui and the club happened without the knowledge of the Spanish FA and that they were informed just five minutes before the press release.
He has also said that the players and the staff will try to take the team as far as possible in the FIFA 2018 World Cup. "To win is very important, to have the best coach very important, but above everything is acting in the right way. Maybe this is tough now, but in the end it will make us stronger," Rubiales was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
Spain will play its first Group B match against Portugal on Friday. The other two teams in the group are Iran and Morocco, who the La Roja will be facing on June 20 and 25 respectively. Lopetegui was tipped to take Spain to their second World Cup triumph after dominating in the qualifiers and the warm-up matches. The highlight of his short stint would be beating Argentina 6-1 in a friendly in March.
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Forte Q&A: Founders of edge-computing startup Edgeworx discuss the role of AI, blockchain, the edge, and the cloud in shaping the future of the Internet of Things.
The Illinois Technology Association (ITA) kicks off its sixth annual IoT Summit today, where Chicago thought leaders and innovators will discuss the future of the Internet of Things (IoT).
The theme of this year's summit, "Pilots to Production," will explore why so many organizations see the successful launch of IoT products but struggle to scale those successes to full production.
In advance of the event, we spoke with two IoT thought leaders: Kilton Hopkins and Farah Papaioannou, co-founders of Edgeworx, an edge computing startup that recently announced funding from Samsung NEXT. Edge computing is the practice of processing data near the "edge" of a network, on or near the device itself. Edge computing enables data produced by IoT devices to be processed at the source of that information, rather than sending it to a data center or cloud for processing.
What follows is our discussion with Kilton and Farah on edge computing and other IoT topics that will be addressed at this week's summit.
[Related: Kilton Hopkins tells Amazon Web Services how not to use the cloud]
What do you see as the biggest inhibitor and enablers in progressing IoT within enterprises today?
Kilton Hopkins: One of the biggest enablers for progressing IoT is the push for companies to obtain more and better data. Organizations need that data to do things like enhanced services, predictive maintenance, and real-time analytics. If companies want to remain competitive, IoT will become mandatory to obtain that data. Four years ago, companies might have been able to stay ahead of the competition without this data. Now, if you don't have the data, you're falling behind.
Across all these different industries, the same inhibitors keep coming up. The inhibitors are universal, but in different industries, they're different things. In the oil and gas industry, for instance, it's called a "truck roll," meaning they're sending someone out in the truck to fix what's happening with the digital technology at the oil pump. But then in, say, commercial real estate, they may not call it a "truck roll," but it's the same idea: Someone on foot is going around fixing things.
The basic concept is that you've got these things that prevent scale. It's not that it prevents the proof of concept (PoC)—it prevents them from growing it.
So, companies are getting stuck in the pilot phase instead of moving to the production phase. What else, in addition to a lack of automation, is holding back production?
Kilton: One of the reasons that companies are having difficulty moving past the pilot phase is that the systems they used to set up their pilot were never designed to be operated at scale.
Think about it this way: If you use Amazon's AWS [Amazon Web Services] IoT to do your pilot, it allows you to buy some ready-made sensor boards, then you can install the AWS SDK [software developer's kit] into your boards. That gives you some immediate functionality and your data starts flowing.
You might say, "Okay, this pilot has been pretty cool! We have data now from our IoT sensors, we're analyzing that data, and we did it for 20 machines in the factory." The boss loves it and asks what it will cost to roll out to 10,000 machines within the company's factory system. The cost of the hardware? $1 million. The cost of labor? $10 million. That's because the AWS IoT software and infrastructure platform takes so long to set up a single device that you'll have employees do nothing but set up sensors for an entire year. That doesn't make any sense. It's why people are having trouble going from pilot to production.
To move forward, we need systems where pilots can be easily created, but then production can be scaled with the push of a button. That's one of the things we focus on at Edgeworx. We realized years ago that if you can't find a way to roll something out easily and cheaply, it'll never get rolled out and the project will get canceled.
You mentioned a couple of industries that understand what the issues and opportunities in IoT are. Which verticals "get it"? Which verticals struggle?
Farah: Edge computing is a new term and people are just starting to invest in it, but edge computing has been around forever. Your mobile device is an edge device: It computes at the edge and takes data from your surrounding resources.
The verticals that have been doing it for a while—oil and gas, for instance—those guys are far ahead of the curve. In others, where you're starting to see adoption, like what you might find in a smart home or autonomous vehicle, they're a little slower, but they're equally as excited and they're going to get there in their own time.
Kilton: Another one is the telecommunications industry. The reason they're adopting edge computing and IoT faster than others is that they're at the center of the data flow for everybody, everywhere. So, whether it's the fiber backbone or the cell towers, providers like AT&T or Verizon are that center point for the data flowing through. It's a golden opportunity for providers to implement IoT subsystems, and especially edge computing. We see that as one of the key reasons that they're picking up faster than the others. They're either going to be a commodity pipe, where peoples' data flows through and they don't add any value, or they can modernize themselves with new revenue opportunities before they become obsolete.
The oil and gas industries are adopting faster because they must. If they're going to survive in an era of increasing costs (the cost of human beings keeps going up and the price of oil keeps going down) the only way to survive is if they can find a way to stop sending a person out who costs $400 an hour to fix every problem. They can't suffer it anymore, and they're adopting IoT and edge computing to solve it.
AI and machine learning are at the center of the IoT Summit agenda. Are these just the buzzwords everyone is using, or do you see each as a fit for IoT advancement?
Farah: AI has been a big driver for what we're trying to do at the edge. Everyone wants to collect more data. One of the challenges is that when you collect more data and do more analytics, you must send all that data back over a network to some sort of cloud. There's a huge cost for the bandwidth, latency, network connection, and security associated with that transfer of data.
For example, in autonomous vehicles: if you find a few cars at a four-way stop, there's some intelligence required to decide who goes first. With the way things are set up today, you send it over a network to be processed in the cloud. That transfer—sending the data, analyzing it, and sending data back—creates something like a 250-millisecond latency. Well, the cars aren't going to wait that long. There's going to be some sort of accident.
With edge computing, you can run those algorithms right there at the edge, on the device itself. There's no need to send some data back to the cloud. AI is driving what we're doing at the edge.
When that data is analyzed on the device rather than in the cloud, does it increase the hardware cost of each device? How does that cost influence edge adoption?
Kilton: Depending on the level of AI, your increase in hardware costs could be as low as $10 or as high as $1000. Somewhere around the $500 mark, you get almost as much capability as a cloud server has. That's for the most extreme cases, like real-time video analytics for a security video, for instance.
It varies. The hardware cost increases can be substantial, but in most cases, there's a real ROI. So, you'll invest in the new hardware and the savings will pay it back within a few months.
Farah: With most of the customers Edgeworx is working with, we're running on existing hardware that's out there. Often, you can add additional capabilities via software rather than hardware.
Another hot topic: Blockchain. What do you see as blockchain's role in IoT?
Kilton: It's mostly been used for experiments. But then, if you think about recording really important information, yeah, you can record it in the blockchain, but public blockchains aren't going to be the key enabling technology that makes it happen. Anyone who says IoT and blockchain together is the perfect combination should probably try to do IoT first, then see how much they really need blockchain.
One of the primary values of blockchain is that you can store information that's accessible to all different parties, it can be verified, and it's immutable. Once it's recorded, it can't be changed. That's valuable for audit trails, supply-chain transactions, verifying the authenticity of medical equipment—all these are great uses for blockchain.
But the truth is, there are other ways to store information with that sort of reliability. Even if you do use blockchain, very rarely do you need to record that stuff in the blockchain with any kind of a real-time framework. Most of the time, it would be enough to summarize a whole day's worth of transactions in the IoT system and record a fingerprint in the blockchain for that may be daily or hourly.
So, the hype around blockchain is that folks talk about how blockchain is going to give IoT some kind of real-time, immutable record of everything that's happening. However, the current blockchain can't support that—and the private blockchains don't have the security. There's not really any situation we've ever come across where someone absolutely needs blockchain as the technology for IoT.
I like blockchain, I just don't think it's that valuable for this situation.
Do you think panelists at the IoT Summit would agree?
Kilton: My guess is that panelists that are part of a blockchain-related company would disagree by pointing out the amazing capabilities of their blockchain system. But I think larger companies would agree: We've yet to see a scenario where blockchain is necessary. But I'd bet those that are promoting blockchain would give 1000 reasons why you have to have it.
What opportunities do you see for companies to partner with platforms like Edgeworx?
Farah: We love organizations like Forte Group and other integrators. Our business model is largely predicated on those partnerships. We're a completely horizontal platform. We like to think of ourselves as something like, "Android for the edge," in that we provide you a platform for developers to make it very simple to deploy code on any piece of hardware.
We like the integrators for several reasons: One, they have the subject-matter expertise. Kilton and I don't have the specific subject-matter expertise, nor do we want to. We do not want to be in the business of writing applications. We want to be the platform that serves those applications; we want to be the infrastructure for the edge.
A lot of SIs [system integrators] come to us and say, "Hey, our customers are saying we need to do things at the edge. We don't know how to do that." In some cases, they'll tell us, "We tried it ourselves. It's very, very difficult." Edgeworx offers that technical capability, which allows SIs to focus on integration and subject-matter expertise—neither of which we want to focus on. So, it's a great partnership.
We've worked very closely with SIs [system integrators] in our partner program. We're enabling them to be successful at the edge, and we're making it very simple for them to do that. It's a huge part of our strategy and allows us to stay where we want to stay, which is providing the infrastructure layer, providing that software layer, and enabling everyone to be successful.
This allows organizations like Forte to focus on designing and developing custom apps without starting from scratch with a new toolset. Developers can build using their existing toolkits, which makes it very simple to deploy using any code or framework, using any language, and using any SDK. Integrators can build on the Edgeworx platform and businesses can focus on what they do best: Running their business.
Kilton: This is essentially how we're going to be able to have our technology help across every vertical: The people that already have the industry relationships and the know-how.
Where do you think IoT will be in three-to-five years?
Kilton: I love making predictions like this. Now let's see if any of them turn out to be correct! In the next three to five years, people will be saying that open-source for your infrastructure is the only thing that makes sense. That means that we'll have more and more organizations moving away from their private blend of operating systems and specialty code. They'll start to look to open-source as being the foundation of their smart devices.
If you think about it, if a company is making, say, home security cameras using IoT technologies, they're required to have their own cloud and their own software on their security devices. Unless they're the best team out there, eventually someone using open-source is going to beat them, because open-source is being cared for by the whole world. There's no way a single company will beat all other companies. So, open source wins.
Another prediction: Right now, we have real problems with data. Ownership of data, privacy, and protection and security around data. We're talking a big game. Everyone's talking about security being the number one issue on their mind, especially regarding IoT.
People are well aware that there's no security in IoT, but they're not doing anything about it. They're not doing anything about protecting data, they're just saying that "we need to do this." Data provenance—the concept of knowing where every piece of data is, and where it's been sent from generation all the way to retention—is a serious concern right now. In three to five years, it won't be a concern. It will be a requirement.
Companies will say, "we can't use your product if you can't guarantee us the location of our data at all times." That's something we specialize in at Edgeworx, and it's difficult to do. Most companies are kicking the can down the road because they don't know how to address the data problem, but they're getting a little scared because there's no security and there's no data control.
Security, over the next three to five years, will be the major issue.
About the Event
What: ITA IoT Summit Chicago: Pilots to Production
When: Nov. 27-28, 2018.
Where: W Chicago City Center, 172 W. Adams St., Chicago, Illinois
Attending? Come say hello! You can get in touch with Forte Group CEO/President Steve Kreynin at email@example.com
About Edgeworx
Edgeworx is an edge computing startup based in Silicon Valley. The company's technology, the ioFog Platform, is open-sourced under the Eclipse Foundation, turning any Linux device into an edge software platform. Developers can now simply and securely deploy and manage applications and microservices at the edge and get started easily at https://iofog.org. For more information, visit https://edgeworx.io or follow us on Twitter at.


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Movie review: 'Morning Glory' evokes some laughs but comes up short in the end
I knew going into "Morning Glory" that there would be some laughs. After all, the film's name is a potty-humored penis euphemism. (Google "morning glory euphemism" if you're in the dark.) What I didn't expect is for it to rise to the occasion like it does in spots. Romantic comedies have been awful this year, and I expected this to be just as flaccid. (OK, I'll stop now.)
As if the film's trio of stars – Rachel McAdams, Diane Keaton and Harrison Ford – isn't promising enough, "The Devil Wears Prada" scribe Aline Brosh McKenna wrote the script and Roger Michell ("Notting Hill") directed. Even pumped up with all that talent, the film ultimately goes limp (sorry, last one) in the third act, when it abandons the jokes and dialogue that made it watchable and turns all touchy-feely and predictable. That's because the narrative is so paper thin that even a writer as successful as McKenna runs out of charm and hilarity.
It's through no fault of McAdams, radiant as always as Becky Fuller, an eager and young (28!) executive producer charged with pulling the pathetic morning show "Daybreak" out of the ratings toilet. Her shot in the arm is hiring a once-distinguished broadcast journalist in Mike Pomeroy (a deliciously curmudgeonly Ford looking exactly like a veteran newsman). He's fallen from grace and has has ended up in the chair next to Keaton's Collen Peck, the lightweight co-host. While she is game to don a tutu or a fat suit to boost ratings, he won't lower himself to do a cooking segment or say words like "fluffy."
Of course things don't go smoothly. Becky's life is all work and no play. There's a short-lived romance with another producer (Patrick Wilson), but work kills that, too. She is consumed with managing her two feuding anchors and appeasing her salty yet sarcastic boss (a scene-stealing Jeff Goldblum). A loose cannon, Pomeroy needs to be coddled by Becky, so much that she has to sleep at his apartment to make sure he gets to work the next day. Their relationship turns into a master/apprentice type arraignment with him resisting her every advance. Don't worry, it's not romantic at all, but their bond is the film's big contrivance. Growing up, Pomeroy was her idol. She was starstruck upon first meeting him and enthralled after his first growl to her. This mentorship-from-hell plot string is rote and was done a lot better by George Clooney and Anna Kendrick in last year's Oscar-nominated "Up in the Air."
In fact, McAdams was in a similar situation as a naive young blogger to Russell Crowe's seasoned journalist in the vastly superior "State of Play," but these two movies are too different to compare.
Most appealing about "Morning Glory" is how it toys with the question of what is the definition of news and what do people want – hard-hitting pieces about politics, scandals and crime or softer and lighter features about entertainment, cooking and celebrities. It's an age-old question that is batted around in media outlets everywhere and that debate, and the behind-the-scenes glimpse of a a news show, are the most interesting parts of the film.
But Michell and McKenna choose to focus on the relationship between Becky and Mike and whether she can soften him up and if she'll realize that his life story is her cautionary tale. The pivotal scene where these questions are resolved is rushed and doesn't feel genuine, nor did the tidy gift-wrapped Hollywood ending. It's predictable, but the three leads and a supporting cast of smaller players do make the film funnier than it has a right to be, especially a short stint by "Modern Family" actor Ty Burrell, playing the smarmy "Daybreak" host Becky fires. In the end, though "Morning Glory" just isn't ready for prime time.
Reach Dana Barbuto at firstname.lastname@example.com.
MORNING GLORY ( PG-13 for some sexual content including dialogue, language and brief drug references.) Cast includes Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, Patrick Wilson and Jeff Goldblum. Directed by Roger Michell. 2 stars out of 4.


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Gestures in this environment are hard. Ridiculously hard. There is a ReadGesture function, but it doesn't work. Let's imagine that you want to detect the following gestures:
Double Tap
Not exactly complex. We'll need to know some basic information about each gesture:
Tap: where have we tapped
Double tap: where have we double tapped (and that the two taps are in the same location)
Drag: the start and end positions of the drag.
Let's have a look at some code:
TouchPanel.EnabledGestures = GestureType.FreeDrag | GestureType.DragComplete | GestureType.DoubleTap | GestureType.Tap; while (TouchPanel.IsGestureAvailable) { GestureSample gs = TouchPanel.ReadGesture(); switch (gs.GestureType) { case GestureType.FreeDrag: System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("FreeDrag: {0}", gs.Position)); break; case GestureType.DragComplete: System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("DragComplete: {0}", gs.Position)); break; case GestureType.DoubleTap: System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("DoubleTap"); break; case GestureType.Tap: System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("Tap"); break; } }
So, let's run this and see what we get. We certainly get all the gestures. However, there are the following issues:
1. The DragComplete doesn't provide any information at all, other than the fact that the drag isn't taking place anymore
2. The drag works in bursts, so you get many drag events for a single drag
3. The Tap event fires, but a Double Tap doesn't replace the Tap, so you get both.
There's a bit of rolling-your-own here. Let's start with the drag, because it's actually the easiest problem to solve. We know when the use finishes dragging, so a simple variable to say that they are dragging and where they started will solve most of this problem:
private Vector2? dragStart = null;
Why is it nullable? Well, this variable stores two separate states: whether the user is dragging, and where they started.
Next, we need to know where they were last (if anyone from Microsoft ever reads this, please feel free to give a detailed description in the comments why this hoop jumping is necessary!):
private Vector2? lastPosition = null;
Then we need to store and check these variables; here's the new section of the switch statement:
case GestureType.FreeDrag: System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("FreeDrag: {0}", gs.Position)); if (!dragStart.HasValue) { dragStart = gs.Position; } lastPosition = gs.Position; break; case GestureType.DragComplete: System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("DragComplete: {0}", gs.Position)); if (dragStart.HasValue) { var gsDragDelta = lastPosition - dragStart.Value; if (gsDragDelta.Value.LengthSquared() > DRAG_TOLERANCE) { if (gsDragDelta.Value.X != 0 || gsDragDelta.Value.Y != 0) { dragStart = null; // Do stuff on drag complete break;
That handles the drag. Next, the tap. Handling the Tap is easy, but what if, as I did, you want to handle Tap to do one thing, and Double Tap to do another? This fried my brain for a while; then something occurred to me. What if you delay the action:
case GestureType.DoubleTap: dblTap = true; // Do stuff on Double tap System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("DoubleTap"); Task.Delay(100).ContinueWith((args) => { dblTap = false; }); break; case GestureType.Tap: Task.Delay(100).ContinueWith((args) => { if (!dblTap) { // DO stuff on Tap System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("Tap"); } }); break;
I imagine the delay needs to be experimented with. 100ms seems to work for me.
As usual, if you have any suggestions, comments, or ways to do this better then please leave a comment.