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Having sufficient fuel for cooking and heat following an emergency is always an concern for preppers. If you are lucky, you live in a wooded area and have access to a wood burning stove as well as plenty of wood to feed the fire. Most of us, though, turn to propane as our primary source of emergency heat and cooking fuel.
Alas, the only experience many folks have with propane is limited to the backyard barbecue and perhaps a Coleman lantern. That tells me that if the stuff hit the fan, many of us would be lacking in the knowledge needed to use propane efficiently and safely.
Today I begin a series of articles titled Propane for Preppers. This topic may sound familiar since I wrote about propane back in early 2013 but even so, the importance of this topic called for a focused update.
This time around, I have started from scratch by asking my friend Ron Brown to write a series for us that is well-grounded and includes some real-life, real-time testing. In this series he will be sharing information on how to use propane with an emphasis on safety and storage concerns. Over the next couple of months, this series will provide you with tips, tools and tricks that will facilitate the use of propane in an emergency.
Part one begins with the basics.
Propane for Preppers – Part One
This has been a difficult article to write. The word 'prepper' covers a lot of territory.
Whether it's a blackout or a race riot – and both have occurred in these United States during my lifetime – what's the plan? Shelter in place? But is that a single-family dwelling with a cellar? Or a one-bedroom apartment on the 17th floor?
Or is 'the plan' to get outta Dodge? On foot? Bicycle? Motorcycle? Car? And where will you go? To a relative with a spare bedroom? Hunting camp? Boat? RV?
Not only is the audience hard to pin down, propane (the subject of this article) is so versatile that it's hard to know where to begin.
You can convert your automobile to run on propane. And the outboard motor on your boat. And your motorcycle. And your lawnmower. And your electric generator. My sister has a backup system, a generator that runs on propane, that will support most of the electrical needs in her home – including the electric range in the kitchen. Every Friday night her lights flicker as the system goes into its weekly self-test.
There are refrigerators that run on propane. Little ones for RV's and big ones for full-time off-grid living. Not to mention furnaces and space heaters (both vented and unvented) and catalytic heaters, plus gas lamps, water heaters (with tanks and without), air conditioners (absorption chillers, by any other name, that work on the same principle as gas refrigerators), fireplaces, clothes dryers, kitchen stoves for cooking, salamanders for the construction site to keep the freshly poured concrete from freezing, and toilets.
Yes, toilets. If your land has poor drainage, you can install a gas-fired toilet that will incinerate human waste after each deposit thereof.
So which prepper am I talking to? The single gal living with her grandmother on the 17th floor? Or the survivalist with more ammo than he can carry? And what are the topics I should cover? I just now discovered an adapter, for example, a wand-like tube with a fitting on one end, that converts an old-time Coleman liquid-fuel camp stove to propane. And another adapter that allows you to run a BBQ grill from a little 400-gram Bernz-O-Matic soldering cylinder. And another that will let you hook up natural gas devices to propane.
OMG. It hurts my head to think so much.
Safety is a good place to start. Safe-mindedness.
Propane has been sold commercially since the 1920's. A lot of safety features have been engineered into propane devices – the storage tanks, for example, as well as BBQ grills and camping gear. It's best to not bypass these features. Let me give you an example.
Today, propane tanks are made such that they can't be filled more than 80%. When 'full' the bottom of the tank contains liquid propane and the top 20% of the tank contains propane in the gaseous state. Gas can be compressed. Liquid cannot.
If you bypass this safety feature and fill the tank 100% and leave it out in the sun, heat will make the liquid expand. First the blowout plug (a fuse of sorts) will go. If the blowout hole cannot accommodate the volume of propane trying to escape, the tank will burst, creating a propane cloud. A mere spark can ignite the propane cloud, sending both you and your propane tank to join all the computer files you previously sent to 'the cloud.'
There's a lot of Attitude out and about. "Nobody's gonna tell me what to do." It's a control issue. I get it. But you might want to make an exception when it comes to propane. Just this one time you might want to consider following the rules.
Call it food for thought on your journey to the hospital.
Crude oil is the stuff that gets pumped out of the ground. Crude oil is refined into a whole range of products from gases (propane, butane) to liquids (gasoline, kerosene) to solids (paraffin wax).
All of these products are hydrocarbons. The 'hydro' part of the word stands for hydrogen (symbol = H). The 'carbon' part of the word stands for carbon (symbol = C). Am I going too fast?
In refining, distillation breaks or fractures the crude oil into groups of hydrocarbons with similar boiling points. The five major fractions are (1) refinery gases, (2) gasoline, (3) kerosene, (4) diesel oil, and (5) residues.
Our interest here is in the first group, refinery gases. And there are four: methane, ethane, propane, and butane.
The refinery gases have the following chemical formulas: Methane is C1H4. Ethane is C2H6. Propane is C3H8. Butane is C4H10. This is simply a reference list. Sometimes we need to be precise in our language so as to remove any confusion regarding which gas is under discussion.
Note that the C-number or carbon-chain number climbs one step at a time throughout the progression: C1; C2; C3; C4.
The English language can be ambiguous. The word 'gas' has several meanings: [1] it can mean gasoline (petrol to the British), or it can mean [2] methane or propane ("Now you're cooking with gas."), or it can mean [3] a vapor (as in the three states of matter – solid, liquid, and gas), or it can be [4] a euphemism for farting ("He passed gas."). As we go along I'll do my best to make the meaning clear.
Methane (C1H4). Methane is used as a fuel, commonly called natural gas, and is transported via pipeline in LNG form (liquefied natural gas). Methane is also the swamp gas of UFO lore. Methane is lighter than air.
Lamps that burn natural gas inside your home, common in the gay '90s – the 1890's – back when 'gay' meant happy – are still manufactured today. Paulin, Mr Heater, and Humphrey [1] are three U.S. brands. Their use requires that you have a natural gas line into your house. If you heat with natural gas, you do. Lamps burning natural gas are wall-mounted (or ceiling-mounted) and thus not portable. Note that such lamps can readily be converted to propane.
If you put in one of these wall-mounted lamps (and, personally, I think it's a great idea to do so), I urge you to have it installed by a certified-licensed-authorized technician and not attempt the installation yourself.
Should you ever have a house fire, the insurance company will look for excuses not to pay. So let's not void our fire insurance to save a few bucks on installation, shall we?
Ethane (C2H6). Ethane is used as a catalyst in other chemical processes, more so than as a fuel in and of itself.
Propane (C3H8). I live in the country, beyond the reach of natural gas pipelines. As a consequence, I have a 200 lb. propane tank behind the house. We use propane for cooking.
The company who delivers our gas is Suburban Propane. I can drive to their storefront and refill a small 20 lb. cylinder [2] to use on a camper or RV (recreational vehicle) or propane BBQ grill. The tank behind my house and the 20 lb. cylinder contain exactly the same stuff – LPG (liquefied petroleum gas).
The skinny little propane cylinders sold for Bernz-O-Matic [3] (brand) soldering torches hold 14.1 oz. (400 grams). The more squat 'one-pounders' [4] sold for camping stoves and lanterns hold 16.4 oz. (465 grams). That's how much they hold. What they hold is LPG. That is, propane. That is, C3H8. Propane is propane is propane.
Can you hook up a propane camping lantern, [5] the kind that customarily runs on a one-pounder, to a 20 lb. propane tank? Sure. The fittings and extension hoses to do so are sold as a kit [6] under the Century brand name. And the Mr. Heater brand name. And the Coleman brand name. I bought one myself in the camping section at Wal-Mart.
Wall-mounted propane gas lamps (and other appliances such as refrigerators) are often employed in cottages and hunting camps located at a distance from both electricity and in-town natural gas lines. These appliances burn LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) rather than LNG (liquefied natural gas).
LPG and LNG lamps can look identical on the outside but propane is more highly pressurized. Propane lamps therefore use a nozzle with a smaller orifice (the hole through which the gas comes) than do natural gas lamps. If you move from city to country, or vice-versa, your gas clothes dryer presents exactly the same orifice problem. Fortunately, conversion kits are readily available.
Propane, by the way, is heavier than air. It pools in your basement. And it pools in the hull of your boat; it only takes one spark to cut your vacation short. Check out 'boat explosions' on YouTube. It will likely make you sit up and take notice. It did me.
Butane (C4H10). Like propane, butane is also heavier than air. Please note that we are still climbing the C-numbers.
It's interesting that, given the right adapters, propane can be substituted in camping lanterns and stove burners originally designed for butane. It's not just theory. I've done it. You can too.
Most butane cigarette lighters are disposable; some are refillable. [7] If refillable, you'll find a small fitting on the bottom of the lighter. Note that the butane cartridge [8] must be turned upside down to fill the cigarette lighter. In your hands, you can feel the butane cartridge get cold as the transfer of gas takes place.
Butane is used in cigarette lighters, in pressurized cartridges for one-burner stoves, and in camping lanterns for backpackers. It turns from a gas to a liquid at 31º F (almost the same as the freezing point of water).
Mexico has a warm climate and butane, they say, is favored over propane as cooking gas. Butane is even called 'Mexican gas.' If you Google for images of butane tanks, you'll find many pictures of large tanks (100-pounders and the like).
In cities with a large Asian population (e.g. Toronto, Canada), one-burner stoves [9] that run on butane cartridges [10] are for sale in all the ethnic food stores. I've also seen them on eBay and in restaurant supply stores (caterers use them). The fuel cartridges are lightweight, similar to shaving cream containers. They hold 8 ounces (227 grams).
These butane stoves are a pleasure to use – easy to light, regulate, and extinguish. Why they're not more popular with the state-park-camping crowd is no doubt their low-temperature limitations. Ditto for the use of butane in lanterns. Below freezing, a lantern that runs on butane (and there are some) will not light. How wonderful is that? (FYI, I've seen lanterns that run on these 8-ounce butane cartridges under the brand names of Kovea, Glowmaster, and American Camper.)
Adapters & Substitutions
American Camper sells (1) a butane-only lantern as well as (2) a Multi Fuel Lantern that comes with an adapter; it will run on either the 8-ounce butane cartridges or propane one-pounders.
It is interesting, is it not, that propane (C3) can, given the right adapter, be burned in the same appliance that uses methane (C1). A clothes dryer, for example. At the other end of the spectrum, propane (C3) can be burned in the same appliance that uses butane (C4). The American Camper lantern, for example.
Mini-lanterns and micro-stoves using butane cartridges (in 110-gram, 230-gram, and 450-gram sizes) are made for backpackers. Unlike the 8-ounce canisters discussed above, the cartridges have a threaded 7/16″ male coupling. (And, typically, they contain a propane-butane blend – to avoid freeze-up – rather than pure butane.)
So wadda ya do when you have a lantern [11] or stove [12] made with the screw-type coupling but only have an 8-ounce cartridge of butane to use as fuel? Come now. That's why God made adapters. [13]
Tip. Butane lanterns use mantles [14] (just like Coleman lanterns). Butane lamp instructions (auto-translated from Chinese via computer) typically say 'wicks' or 'gauze.' Oops! Sorry. They are mantles. Although mantles are beyond the scope of this discussion, it's 'mantles' you need to ask for in the sporting goods department, not wicks or gauze.
Back to our story. Say you have a butane lantern or stove made with the screw-type coupling but you only have a propane one-pounder for fuel? Solution. A different adapter. The adapter shown below is the Kovea VA-AD-0701. [15]
Aside. There's one application for propane one-pounders that I don't much care for. It's the direct-screw-on single-burner stove. [16] To me, it looks awfully top-heavy when loaded with a pot of water. Boiling water being sterilized in a grid-down situation – let's just hope the cat doesn't jump on the table and knock anything over.
Speaking of adapters, you can use an adapter to refill [17] a propane one-pounder from a 20-lb. cylinder. That will be covered in an upcoming article in the series. But before we embark upon the 'how-to' of refilling, we first need to understand some basic plumbing stuff – tanks and valves and such – so that we have our terminology straight. Plus there are safety issues that we need to understand.
MAPP Gas
And even before that, let me mention MAPP gas. MAPP originally stood for MethylAcetylene-Propadiene Propane although today (since 2008) products labeled MAPP are really MAPP substitutes.
Small MAPP 'welding sets' [18] are widely sold. They employ oxygen cylinders as well as MAPP gas cylinders. The MAPP gas cylinders are the same size and have the same threads as the soldering cylinders (Bernz-O-Matic variety) that hold propane.
So let's put MAPP gas in context.
Given the right adapter (and there are several brands of adapters we'll identify when we get to that part in an upcoming part of the series), we can refill a propane one-pounder.
And, using the same adapter, we can refill the skinny Bernz-O-Matic-type soldering cylinders. The shape of the cylinder is different from a one-pounder but the threads are the same.
And we can refill a MAPP-gas cylinder with propane. Again, the threads are the same so we can use the same adapter. Let us be clear. The MAPP cylinder comes from the store holding MAPP gas. When empty, we can refill it with propane. From a technology point of view, it's no more complicated than storing salt in a sugar canister.
But leave yourself a clear trail. A label on the cylinder would be a good place to start. As an analogy, how good are you at finding stuff on your computer? Stuff that you, yourself, tucked away for future reference. And remembering today which gas cylinder it was that you refilled two or three years ago . . . and where you stored it . . . and how you labeled it. "Houston, we have a problem."
… to be continued © Ron Brown 2014
Sources – For Reference Purposes
Ron has provided a list of items available at Amazon that are footnoted above. They may or may not be precisely the items/brands displayed in the article.
Treat this list as a starting point. At the very least, the items on this list will reveal the terminology manufacturers themselves use in describing their products (e.g. is it a canister, a cylinder, or a cartridge?). Just knowing the terminology will provide some clues about what to search for.
[1] Natural Gas Wall Lamp: Humphrey Gas Light, Natural Almond (9NA), Pre-formed Mantle
[2] 20-lb. Propane Tank: Worthington 336483 20-Pound Steel Propane Cylinder With Type 1 With Overflow Prevention Device Valve And Sight Gauge
[3] Bernz-O-Matic Soldering Cylinder: CRL Standard Propane Fuel Cylinder
[4] One-Pounder: Propane Fuel COLEMAN 16.4OZ CAMPING FUEL CYLINDER
[5] Propane Lantern: Stansport Compact Single Mantle Propane Lantern
[6] Propane Distribution Post: TXS PROPANE DIST TREE 2-PIECE
[7] Refillable Butane Lighter: 2PK Comet Lighter
[8] Butane Refill Cylinders: Ronson Universal Lighter Refill Ultra Butane
[9] Butane Stove: Camp Chef Butane 1 Burner Stove with Camping Case
[10] 8-oz. Butane Canisters: Butane Refill Fuel Gas Can Cartridge for Camping Portable Stove Gas Range [11] Butane Lantern: Snow Peak GigaPower Auto Start Stainless Steel Lantern Auto One Size
[12] Butane Stove (for backpackers): Ultralight Backpacking Canister Camp Stove with Piezo Ignition
[13] Butane-to-Butane Adapter: Kovea Dual Stove Adaptor
[14] Slip-On Mantles: Coleman Double-Tie Fuel Lantern Mantle #51
[15] Butane-to-Propane Adapter: Butane-to-Propane Adapter
[16] One-Burner Propane Stove: Coleman PefectFlow 1-Burner Stove
[17] Refill Adapter: Gascru Brass Propane One Pound Tank Refill Adapter EZ Coupler
[18] MAPP Welding: Welding, Brazing, and Cutting Torch Kit
The Final Word
When I first discussed this project with Ron, I had proposed a relatively simple rewrite of the articles posted in early 2013. Somehow, however, as we got into the details, Propane for Preppers took on a life of its own and became something quite different.
Many hours of research went into this article as well as the subsequent parts. Due to its unique nature, the copyright belongs to Ron Brown, and not Backdoor Survival. I do, however, have permission to use it in whole or in part, both now and in the future.
All that being said, I would like to thank Ron for sharing his time and patient research with us. The complete series on Propane for Preppers consists of multiple parts that I will be posting over the next couple of months. As always, if you have something to add or even if you have a question, please leave a comment below.
Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!


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STEM Science Center to House the Center for Renewable Energy
Construction will begin in 2012 on a new Science Center that will be constructed with sustainable materials and methods designed to meet LEED Silver certification standards. Once completed in 2014, it will be the home of the University's new Center for Renewable Energy. The center will engage in the study and research of alternate energy sources, such as photovoltaic and wind-turbine-generated energy.
The Science Center will use a high-efficiency energy plant and a chilled beam cooling system is proposed for classrooms and offices to lower energy requirements for the building. Low E insulated glazing with a low solar heat gain coefficient and exterior shading devices will reduce ultraviolet light in the building, which also reduces energy demand.
The building's TPO white roofing membrane will reduce the heat island effect, and R-21 roofing insulation will reduce heat gain and conditioned air loss. This will result in lower energy needed throughout the building. Other energy-saving features will include sensor operated light switches throughout the building and fluorescent high-efficiency lighting in laboratories and classrooms. These systems will be centrally monitored and controlled by Campus Facilities.
Additional sustainable practices will minimize on-site stormwater runoff by reducing impervious surfaces, native and low water usage landscaping. Water-conserving plumbing fixtures will reduce water requirements for the building. Low-VOC paints and adhesives, to be used throughout the building's interior, will contribute to the building's interior air-quality management.
The use of materials such as carpet, wood and metal laboratory casings and furniture, with a high content of recyclables, will reduce waste and the depletion of resources.
Five percent of the parking spaces will be provided for low-emission, low-energy-use vehicles in the center's new parking lot.
If you are interested in learning how you can play a significant role in the future of Johnson C. Smith University, please contact Tami Simmons at email@example.com or 704.378.1024.

subset: commoncrawl


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Real Talk TV: Gillie Da Kid On Bail
Fresh off his two-week stint in jail after being arrested for allegedly running multiple Philadelphia drug houses, Gillie tells you about 'Marijuana High' and what's up your boy GDK aka. K.O.P
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In connection with this MO post (and without any applications / motivation whatsoever), here is an apparently difficult - but nice - problem.
For a non-zero real number $s$, consider the infinite sequence $$ P_s := \{ 1^s, 2^s, 3^s, \ldots \} . $$ What is the number of terms, say $l(s)$, of the longest arithmetic progression contained in this sequence?
For instance, since there exist three-term arithmetic progressions in squares, but no such four-term progressions, we have $l(2)=3$.
It is easy to see that if $s$ is the reciprocal of a positive integer, then $P_s$ contains an infinite arithmetic progression; hence we can write something like $P(1/q)=\infty$. It can be shown that this is actually the only case where $P_s$ contains an infinite progression. (This is certainly non-trivial, but not that difficult either - in fact, in a different form this was once posed as a problem on a Moscow State University math competition).
If now $s$ is the reciprocal of a negative integer, then $P_s$ contains an arithmetic progression of any preassigned length; this is a simple exercise. Are there any other values of $s$ for which $l(s)$ is infinite?
Conjecture. For any real $s\ne 0$ which is not the reciprocal of an integer, the quantity $l(s)$ is finite; that is, there exists an integer $L>1$ (depending on $s$) such that $P_s$ does not contain $L$-term arithmetic progressions.
Three-term progressions are not rare; say, for any integer $1<a<b<c$ with $b>\sqrt{ac}$ there exists $s>0$ such that $\{a^s,b^s,c^s\}$ is an arithmetic progression. However, I don't have any single example of a four-term progression in a power sequence (save for the case where the exponent is a reciprocal of an integer).
Is it true that $l(s)\le 3$ for any $s\ne 0$ which is not the reciprocal of an integer?
Indeed, excepting the cases mentioned above and their immediate modifications, I do not know of any $s$ such that $P_s$ contains two distinct three-term progressions.
Is it true that if $s\ne p/q$ with integer $q\ge 1$ and $p\in\{\pm1,\pm2\}$, then $P_s$ contains at most one three-term arithmetic progression?
$$ $$
As a PS: I was once told that using relatively recent (post-Faltings) results in algebraic number theory, one can determine $l(s)$ for $s$ rational. Can anybody with the appropriate background confirm this?


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Engineering 390: Master of Engineering Management Project
ENGG 390 is a required course in the M.E.M. program, during which students complete an individual project for a corporate sponsor. There are no class meetings, and the intent is to give the students authentic experience working on real-world projects. Sponsors benefit from the hard work, expertise, and outside perspective of the students.


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Check out the latest RPG news | Podcasts | Twitch Streams
Not really a fan of the current bundle selections. Where's the normal game + guide option without the extra crap? Heck you can't eve pre-order the guide by itself.
Meanwhile it was just announced that Disgaea 4 is getting a Vita port. I guess I'll get that and wait for the inevitable Vita port of DD2
Just when you guys decided you've had enough of Disgaea...DISGAEA 5 GOES INTO EARLY PRODUCTIONS!!!http://www.siliconera.com/2013/07/15/disgaea-5-is-in-pre-production-fans-vote-for-their-favorite-nis-games/
Meanwhile it was just announced that Disgaea 4 is getting a Vita port.
This got a pretty negative review here but I'm enjoying it just fine I got more laughs out of the first chapter than the entirety of Disgaea 4. So glad to have the original trio back. New apprentice system is great. "Mounting" doesn't seem terribly useful but there's no turn limit like magicchange so that's cool. The first mounted prinny skill is the best


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loomis imx vs. dan craft ft blank
thinking about building a 10ftish 8wt. fly rod. looking for a fast action light rod. i know the imx is fast and light but i have heard stories that the blank is not as straight as it should be for the price. have never used a dan craft product. i am only going by what i have read. they have an ft that is apparently fast action and they are a bit cheaper. i would appreciate a response from anyone with any experience with either of these blanks (good and bad)...thanks
IMX vs Dan Craft
Well,I am a BIG Loomis fan and have been since the older IMX's first got into my hands.I have quite a few Loomis IMX rods from 8-9 1/2ft (as well as several 10ft GLX rods),but all are the older Signature rods that were and are still talked about frequently when the subject of best all time flyrods come up.I simply LOVE these discontinued blanks and fish them often.
After making the GLX no longer available to rodbuilders,Loomis reintroduced the IMX as a blank only and in 3pc models.From what I have heard,they are not exactly the same and the new IMX,which is labelled "SLATE" has a different scrim(someone mentioned it being fiberglass instead of graphite but I can't confirm that) on it so it is slightly heavier.Most reports have been that it is still a very good blank(IF you can get a straight one which many have had problems with and Loomis is less than helpful in dealing with these problems after the fact because they don't pay much attention to the rodbuilding area and haven't for some time now),but it is slightly heavier and not quite a sweet and crisp a feel to it.I can't confirm just how much of a difference there is between the new and old models,but I haven't heard enough praise about them being just as good as they use to be so that makes me wonder.Everyone still talks about the older IMX fly blanks though.They were very sweet.
With the Dan Craft blanks,most people who have used them feel they are without a doubt,dollar for dollar/best bang for the buck,the best blanks out there and I would have to agree 100%.I have quite a few already and plan on using them almost exclusively for all my future rods.There are as good as any rod I've thrown but are a fraction of the price.
I have 5 or 6 right now consisting of mostly his 3pc SIG V series which are INCREDIBLY fast recovering blanks and some of the lightest blanks you will ever see.They are even lighter than a Loomis GLX blank(I also have some FT's in the works very soon) and have compared them to rods like my Loomis IMX and GLX sticks.The SIG V's were similar in action(maybe a bit faster) to my IMX rods as far as where in the blank it bends first under load(about 1/4-1/3 down from the tip making it a medium fast action blank),but definitely has MUCH,MUCH faster recovery than my IMX rods and creates higher line speeds with less effort.The SIG V's actually have some of the fastest recovery speed I've ever seen in a blank.As fast or faster than my GLX.They were not as tip action as my GLX rods,but were easily as fast in recovery(maybe faster) and were actually lighter and easier to cast than my GLX's.I found I could get the same line speeds and distance with less effort on the SIG V's.The fact that these blanks cost a fraction of what the Loomis rods do makes them a much better deal IMHO and a serious threat to big rod company sales once more people get out there and try them.
I've cast my 10ft 7wt and 10ft 8wt SIG V's side by side with my Loomis GLX 10ft 7wt,10ft 8wt,and 10ft 9wt rods and it was a toss up as far as the blank's performance goes(I loved each but for different reasons),but the fact that the SIG V's are lighter(a 10ft 8wt SIG V weighs about the same,or maybe even less,than most companies 9ft 6wt blanks,have the same warranty,and are only $90-110US makes them a MUCH better blank for the buck and I wouldn't dream of using anything else now unless I just had to have a rod with a different look from matte grey,LOL.With all the savings on just the blanks alone I have been able to truely go to town on components(high end ceramic guides for the whole rod,flor grade/or burl cork,Venneri seats for freshwater rods and either REC or Struble seats for salt) to build the ultimate rods in looks,quality,and performance,and STILL keep the cost down to being below 1/2 the price of a factory built Loomis or Sage rod of a similar performance blank built with low to mid end components and mediocre cork.Actually,the Dan Craft SIG V would end up being less than 1/2 the price,yet with the WAY better guides,the SIG V rods are actually the better performing rods between them due to the guide performance gains).
I can't recommend the SIG V enough and if you do a search on www.rodbuilding.org you'll find dozens of posts that all say the same thing.EVERYONE raves about these blanks.
The new FT model has created more buzz lately on this site than any blank I can ever remember.It is a VERY unique and versatile blank with similar characteristics to the Sage TCR,only the FT is actually more powerful and faster.I've actually read a few posts from a guy who tournament casts and uses a TCR(as almost everyone else in the tournament did as well).He said if the FT had been available he would have chosen it first in an instant,as would his coleagues once they too got to sample the FT.It's a casting machine,but one with more feel.It is litterally a rod that can not only do it's job,but also do the job of an extra 3 rods over it's line weight.One 4wt rod for example could do everything expected from 4-8wt rods,including cast the full line with each.All you need is one rod,one reel and 4 spools,each with a different line weight from 4-8 and you could litterally take just this one rod along for all these needs.This is what guys are finding out.
The FT doesn't sound like the kind of rod I would want if say I wanted a true 6wt but already had a 5wt and a 7wt because it's just too versatile and wouldn't really fit in between them,BUT if I wanted one or two travel rods that could handle a large variety of line weights and flies,as well as handle big fish while still being soft enough in the tip for delicate work,these would be on my must have list.A 3wt and a 6wt FT for example would have you covered from 3wt lines all the way up to 9wt.
I'm not sure how many people here are familiar with the Common Cents System that builders are using to measure the action,and power a blank has(a new property known as "frequency" that several people,including the CCS developer,are working on will soon be added to these existing ones and from what I gather,this will also allow a way to measure blank recovery speed or something),but I'm sure you've often heard people say things like,"this is a 6wt rod but it feels more like a 8wt and it will cast 7wt rod a mile".Well,the CCS can measure the blank's properties and see just how much power it actually has and just exactly what the action is.
Back to the rods,some of the Sage TCR rods have been measured with the CCS and the results show that they tend to be over rated by about 2 lines.By this I mean a typical 8wt normally falls into the 8.0-8.9 range(I'm not sure if this is accurate I'm just ball parking here).The higher the number is,the more power the blank has.The Sage TCR 8wt has a power rating(ERN) of 10.70 which is what most fast action 10wts would be.Having that extra power is what allows for guys to hold more line in the air for longer distances.The action of most TCR's is also quite fast(faster than almost every other fly rod out there) with a action angle(AA) of 73 which is a very tip action blank.These features make the TCR a long distance specialty rod but people have said that in close they just don't have enough "feel".The Dan Craft FT takes the TCR and makes it more fishable believe it or not by making the action even faster!The more flexible the tip,the faster the action,but the more flexible the tip,the more delicate it is and easier to load with light lines.
The new 4pc Dan Craft FT has posted the highest ERN and AA numbers ever recorded by the CCS system so far as far as fly rod blanks go.These blanks are INCREDIBLY powerful(even more so than the TCR) and SUPER fast action(faster than the TCR) and believe it or not,can cast up to 4 line weights over their rated line weight(and we're not talking short distance casting,LOL).For example,the 4pc 9ft 6wt had an astonishing ERN(power) of 9.38(as much as many 9wt rods out there) and a ultra fast action angle(AA) of 77.This rod has rediculous power through it for distance casts where lots of line or large flies need to be airialized and when large fish need to be handled,yet the super fast action and flexible tip allows great close in fishing at almost any range,allows the rod to protect light tippets,and allows the rod to bend enough in the top 1/2 to make playing smaller fish fun(the lighter line weights are even more versatile).
Even though this 6wt blank has the power of a 9wt,it will cast a 6wt line perfectly from 15ft all the way out to 100+.Not only that,but even though the tip is very flexible and thin,it is not weak so guys are throwing FULL 7,8,and even full 9wt lines on this rod as well.Hell,guys are actually throwing full 7wt lines and large flies on the 8ft6 3wt model(it has a ERN of 7.15 and a AA of 77) to tackle some pretty big fish,yet that same rod will cast a 3wt line and deliver tiny flies with delicacy perfectly at all distances as well and bend enough in the top 1/2 to make small fish fun.They are about as versatile as any rod could ever be and guys simply can't stop talking about them(as you can see here,LOL).Best of all,they are only $90US!
For some reason the 10ft FT rods were made differently from the 9ft models and they have very different ERN and AA numbers.I guess they had a different design(not as fast and not quite as powerful) that makes them more like the SIG V for some reason(only Dan Craft knows why he changed the 10ft models but so far all the feedback on these has been EXEPTIONAL).EVERYONE who has tried these rods so far has been impressed with Bob Meiser writing several posts there on rodbuilding.org regarding the 10ft models.He said the 10ft 10wt was the best rod of that size he has ever cast and he had nothing but praise for the 10ft models that he made into switch rods(single or double hand) after extensive casting and fishing with all kinds of single and spey lines,HEAVY heads,and BIG fish.
Anyways,sorry for the LONG rambling session but these are GREAT blanks(both the SIG V for a specialty rod if you need a single line weight,or FT for a super fast,super powerful and versatile rod) and a real steal at their current prices so I wanted to share the word with others.Between these and the current Loomis offerings it's no contest IMHO.Very few people seem to be using Loomis now for rodbuilding since Shimano took over because there have been too many quality control and customer service problems.Dan Craft on the other hand is one of the most popular and well respected brands out there at this time.The All Star Austin and St Croix SCIV and SCV are also turning heads.Anyone considering building a rod should at least check them all out and read what others are saying on www.rodbuilding.org
Lastly,I have absolutely no affiliation with Dan Craft(never met him,just a very happy customer),but anyone who has done business with him will tell you the same thing.You can't go wrong and I will never build on another Loomis again as long as Dan's blanks are out there.
Hope this helps some ast.pierre.You definitely won't regret either a 3pc 10ft(it's actually closer to 9ft9) 8wt SIG V or 4pc 10ft 8wt FT.They both ROCK.
Totally agree with Tony's comments.
The FTs are amazing casting tools.....!!!
Dan Craft is doing a top notch job with his blanks, and I use the FT 10 4 pc. blanks myself for the new fast recovery 4 pc switchers.
Another very small rod shop here in Southern Oregon producing some of the finest blanks in the world !!!
Good on ya Dan.....};^)....!!!
thanks for the information. i really appreciate it. don't worry about the rambling this is the kind of information i wanted...thanks again, andre
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STATE OF OKLAHOMA v. STATE OF TEXAS(1928)
Mr. S. P. Freeling, of Oklahoma City, Okl., for the State of oklahoma.
Messrs. C. W. Taylor, of Corsicana, Tex., Orville Bullington and A. H. Carrigan, both of Wichita Falls, Tex., C. M. Cureton and W. A. Keeling, both of Austin, Tex., and T. W. Gregory and R. H. Ward, both of Houston, Tex., for the State of Texas.
Upon consideration of the responses to the rule to show cause issued on January 9, 1928 (48 S. Ct. 205, 72 L. Ed. -), it is ordered, adjudged, and decreed that clause 1 of the decree entered in this cause on January 3, 1927 ( 273 U.S. 93 , 47 S. Ct. 307), be and is changed so as to read as follows:
The clerk is directed to transmit copies of this order to the Governors of Texas and Oklahoma, the Secretary of the Interior, and Samuel S. Gannett, commissioner, respectively.[ State of Oklahoma v. State of Texas 276 U.S. 596 (1928) ]


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Power to the people! Add the Pioneer Power meter to your existing Shimano crank. Pioneer's crankset-based power meters are simply some of the best power-monitoring systems on the planet, and the Upgrade Kit gives you the chance to add it to your existing crankset. At the heart of the Pioneer Power Meter System are two streamlined strain gauge monitors that can detect the slightest tangent and radial force direction as power is applied to the crank arms. This proprietary system detects the amount and the direction of force at 12 different points in each pedaling stroke for each leg, and allows you to fine tune your pedaling to find race-winning form. The Pioneer Power Meter Installation Kit comes with everything you need to package and send your existing Shimano crank to Pioneer for professional installation and calibration.
- Compatible with Shimano Dura-Ace 9000 or Ultegra 6800 (Right Side Cranks Only)
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- Easy connectivity with ANT+ compatible Cycle Computers
- HDPower Metrics when connected to Pioneer Cycle Computers
- Lightweight Sensor Only 40 grams


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On your next trip to Suzhou, don't waste time by waiting around for stuffy buses and expensive taxi cabs. Instead, book your Premium rentals in Suzhou today here on Expedia.com and independently explore the area at your leisure. This way, whether you're in town for business or pleasure, you'll have a convenient means to travel to any meetings or conferences as well as Suzhou's must-see attractions.
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If you were hoping to purchase a Parallel Data Warehouse appliance for your environment this summer, you're going to be sad to hear that the Parallel Data Warehouse release date won't even be announced until early this summer. According to Microsoft's Data Platform Insider blog, "Although our intent was to deliver SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse in the first half of 2010, we are still gathering customer feedback and working to ensure the high quality release our customers expect. Based on feedback from the customer Technology Adoption Program, we expect to announce more specific release timing, final configurations and pricing for our hardware partners in early summer (northern hemisphere)."
Microsoft announced today that it has shipped the final Technology Preview of SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse, and the company also announced the availability of the Technology Adoption Program (TAP). If you're interested in taking part in the Technology Preview or the TAP, email [email protected].
This Technology Preview is significant because it offers the ability for the Parallel Data Warehouse to run on both SQL Server and Windows. According to the Data Platform Insider, this Technology Preview adds support for the following features:
- Integration with Microsoft's BI tools, including PowerPivot, SQL Server Reporting Services, SQL Server Analysis Services, and SQL Server Integration Services
- High scalability (up to hundreds of terabytes)
- High performance via the Massive Parallel Processing architecture
- Appliance availability planned for HP, Dell, IBM, and Bull
Microsoft says that early performance testing shows that the final Parallel Data Warehouse Technology Preview is about 45 percent faster than the first Technology Preview.
Watch for our upcoming article on the Parallel Data Warehouse. In the meantime, check out these articles about the Parallel Data Warehouse and SQL Server 2008 R2:


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Be a part of a unique online community that connects post production professionals and film academics worldwide.
You'll have access to personalize your news feed, access to Live Post Talks and much more. Contribute to the community by posting interesting post production content.
August 7, 2019, 12:24 pm
As a follow up of the release of Pro Tools 2019.6, Avid has released Eucon 2019.7 with an improvement to the "Open Windows on Workstation Attention" setting introduced in Eucon 2019.5 as well as a number of bug fixes.
July 7, 2020, 5:07 pm
It's time, once again, for another "Let's Edit" tutorial, and this time we're talking about the absolutely free Particle Illusion application that Avid Media Composer editors can take advantage of, to take their effects work to the next level. Particle Illusion has been around for a while, but Boris FX has recently resurrected it, and included it in Continuum 2020.
July 7, 2020, 5:07 pm
Let's have a look at the work of Korean company Dexter Studios on the fantasy movie, ARTHDAL CHRONICLES...
July 7, 2020, 1:27 pm
Mention the phrase 'fluid sims' in visual effects and one of the studios many people think of first is Scanline VFX. Using its proprietary Flowline toolset, Scanline's artists have turned out some of the most complex work in fluid and particle simulations in the past few years.
July 7, 2020, 1:27 pm
Whether you're capturing audio on location, recording music, or producing a podcast, the H8 color touchscreen adapts to your project's needs with three App-driven interface options. All with the touch of your finger.
July 7, 2020, 1:27 pm
The influence of Ennio Morricone on film scoring is incalculable. Though perhaps best known for his collaborations with spaghetti Western pioneer Sergio Leone, Morricone crafted scores for a wide group of renowned filmmakers, across genres. Here are the five best scores to listen to, as we appreciate and remember Ennio Morricone, who died this morning at 91.
July 7, 2020, 1:27 pm
Something to look forward to: Video data is expected to account for over 82 percent of the global Internet traffic by 2022, and with the proliferation of 4K and 360-degree video, better video codecs are needed to reduce the bandwidth and space requirements of your favorite content. That's where Versatile Video Coding (VVC) comes in, which is able to achieve the same subjective quality as HEVC at only half the bitrate.
July 7, 2020, 1:27 pm
We've lost one of the greats. Academy Award winning composer Ennio Morricone has passed away at the age of 91.
July 6, 2020, 7:21 pm
Another legend has passed. Ennio Morricone, the prolific film composer behind now-iconic scores for films including The Mission and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, has died at age 91.
July 6, 2020, 1:26 pm
Today's Hollywood reliance on visual special effects is more important than it has ever been. Most of the biggest box-office successes are movies that depict worlds that wouldn't be possible without the aid of computer-generated imagery and its clever applications. It actually provides the spectacle the pays for the ticket price at the movie theater.
July 6, 2020, 1:26 pm
Palm Springs is a romantic comedy sci-fi wedding movie that Premiered at Sundance in January and touched off a bidding war that ultimately broke the record for highest sale out of the Festival. The previous record was 17.5M, Hulu and Neon bought it for $17,500,000.69. The film and sale were extensively covered in the industry trades. The film stars Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, and J.K. Simmons. It was produced by Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island Crew. It currently holds a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Kyle Gilman discusses the editing of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Vs. The Reverend. This film is a "Pick your own ad ...
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Paul Leonard-Morgan joins Gordon Burkell to discuss composing with Philip Glass for Amazon's Tales from the Loop.
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Politics of Design Awards: Fallacies, Biases and Issues
Politics, Biases and Fallacies Are Common Issues That Design Awards Try to Avoid. This Article Discusses How to Solve These Issues and Why They Arise
During the A Prime Design Award Gala-Night, I had the opportunity to talk with fifty designers, from seven distinct continents. I asked, if did they ever feel there is something wrong going in design awards? I asked if they were subject to discrimination or nationalism and here are the answers and prominent issues that were highlighted. Political Alignment (Partisanism): Can politics change the rankings in a design competition? According to many designers, it is possible and some say that it definitely exists. Depending on the organizers' political views, Partisanism in design awards is explained by the fact that the awarded designs and designers are more likely to be chosen from the population that contains the same views. Partisan design awards support designers who share the same views. National Alignment (Nationalism) or Fascism in design awards and competitions is also highlighted by many designers. The matter pop-ups and becomes subject to arguments every year. Fascism in a design award is a situation when a particular award positions itself as international design award, but awards mostly the nationals within the country of origin.A Rational explanation why the existence of Partisan and Nationalist Design Award arguments are common among designers (even though I believe most organizations are indeed not Partisan or Nationalist) could be explained by the reach of such organizations: Many design awards and competitions reach an audience similar to that of the organizer. Therefore if the award is organized by a party that is strongly attached to a country, more winners could be from the country-of-origin (such as many national awards which accept international entries) creating the illusion of nationalism (since most winners would be from the country-of-origin). Likewise if a politically aligned organization organizes a design award, in this case more winners would share the same political view since the organizers would initially reach and invite their inner circles to join the awards. Given these principles, national design award programs would always be under suspicion and subject to accusation of nationalism and politics, even though they would not be. This happens because in many cases people do not have enough evidence to judge the process but the results are easier to discuss. To solve issues relating to Nationalism in design awards, the awards that are subject to such allegations could either change their positioning (i.e. stating they are national not international) or they could focus on international reach. Likewise awards that are highlighted by Partisanism could focus on decreasing their political links and try to get more participants from different political views.Academic Title Bias is a unique situation in design competitions when people with academic titles are awarded more often (or obtain better ranks) than others without academic titles. While it could be considered rational for people with academic titles to be experts in design and in their fields, I have been told by long-time jurors in other competitions that this indeed exists as a real phenomenon due to the fact that people with academic ranks in smaller communities all know each-other and not-awarding your colleagues could create potential issues. Solving this issue is simple; removing all identification related to the people who join awards (i.e. blind review) decreases it. However, the problem is not easily solvable in smaller design awards and competitions where community already knows who designed what. This perhaps explains why international design awards are more fair since in blind-reviewed international design awards, the international jury could potentially be less able to match designs and designers, especially when they are judged anonymously, thus reductions or removal of Academic Title Bias can be seen.Famous Company Bias is another major issue, this time in both International and National design awards. The phenomenon occurs when the jury is subconsciously effected by the Brand identity of the product designs that are subject to evaluation. This is expected since a reputable company with years of design, research and development would be expected to develop products that are unique, relevant and functional as well as aesthetic. While there is of course a positive correlation between brand identity and expected design value, this correlation should not alter the judging process; each product should be striped of the designers and brand identities and evaluated in such manner to provide a more fair competition. Jury must evaluate all designs without the knowledge of who produced them; only in this way all the products from both smaller and larger companies could be evaluated in a just manner. A further reason why this bias is perceived more than others is dependent on further fees: Some very big international design awards require winners to pay - further fees, some of these fees reach several thousands of euros and winning multiple awards become an issue of finance rather than design quality in such awards, thus of course larger corporations are more often awarded. While we should also note that larger corporations also produce more product designs, still this bias could be reduced or removed by first removing further fees thus making award winning not a financial issue, second by removing identity information and asking companies to conceal their logos thus helping jury judge the designs together with others.Won Once Fallacy is a special situation in design awards and competitions that provide monetary returns. Since the purpose of some of the awards which provide monetary prizes is to support the development of culture and economy (i.e. support of industrial sectors through organization of design competitions), some awards could usually be won only once. This implies that the designs submitted to competition will not be judged fairly and designers who had already won the awards would be eliminated. To solve this issue, eligibility conditions could be updated in a way and it would be made clear that each designer could only win once. A different opinion is to totally remove this issue: if a designer is really talent, she probably deserves to win multiple times and this could potentially make the competition more fair. However, on the other hand there could be the Always-Same-People-Win fallacy arising, this happens because usually winners of an award joins the same award multiple times. To remove or decrease the Always-Same-People-Win fallacy, design awards should communicate their evaluation methodology and be more transparent about who joins these awards.Not-Trusting Winners is another issue in design awards and competitions. While in no condition copy-works should be awarded, in some design awards there is a tendency to not to award products or designs that could be similar but indeed different from other famous works when inspected carefully. However in many cases it could be observed that those famous works are not necessary the originator of the ideas, therefore simply discarding submissions from not-known designers could potentially create discrimination towards larger companies and famous designers who have budgets and pr companies to advertise their works. The position to take (a possible solution) is to accept all works and rank them as usual; and later discard or disqualify works that are proven legally to infringe others copyrights.Age Discrimination occurs in two dimensions: In some contexts young designers will be subject to negative discrimination and their designs would be more often eliminated while seniors are given awards (since senior designers are considered more important for some organizers). The interesting fact is that the opposite could also occur and elder designers would not be given awards (especially for competitions with monetary rewards) to open way to the young generations. In both conditions, this kind of age discrimination should be eliminated by blind judging processes.Gender Discrimination is an issue in non-democratic design competitions which try to balance female and male winners or not to award third genders or designers with different gender propositions. Any discrimination of such sort decreases the ethics and fairness of such competitions. The way to solve these issues is to have the designs judged blindly without knowing the genders of the designers.Ranking Modification and Balancing are several issues that are displeasing to designers. Once a design competition evaluation finishes, in some situations jury or the organizers might try to balance the winners; i.e. by changing the number of awards won, status etc, this is totally a non-democratic non-ethical behavior and should not be done. Instead, if a design award and competition wants to organize a less fair but balanced competition, such competitions should better communicate balancing strategy beforehand; i.e. for example the following are type of criteria that could be added to competition terms to improve at least the transparency: each designer could win up to 3 awards, each category will have both young and senior winners etc..Non-Multiple Awarding is a sub-issue of balancing, some design competitions allows submission of multiple entries, therefore in some situations you might expect a dozens of unique entries from one single designer. In most competitions, that particular designer, even if would win multiple awards could be subject to post-evaluation balancing, thus her number of awards could be decreased to one (such as only grand award) etc. Like any other post-balancing mechanism, this is not fair for the designer. To solve this issue, it is better to award multiple winners multiple times or to indicate early that a designer could win only one awards and that the highest achievement would be given etc.Another issue in design awards and competitions is the awarding of Jury Relatives, Friends and Students. To solve these issues, it is suggested not to let either jury relatives to join the competitions or to ensure perfect blind judging process so that jury would not discriminate the projects. Another methodology used is to ask jury to not to vote on any designs that they know who did it, therefore in this condition jury members who could potentially discriminate simply states that they know the person and takes a step backward while others vote on it regularly.Losers fallacy: (Death to Design Awards, Award Mania, Fake Award, Problems in Award, Who Can Judge Me the Almighty Designer, Rip-of Award Phenomenon) These phenomenon occurs when a designer is not granted a design award. Some designers due to their intrinsic motivations could create negative word of mouth for awards which they lose. This is not a desired outcome for other winners since such negative marketing could decrease the reputation of awards through wrong acclaims. To avoid this issue, design awards could take actions to reduce the sorrow and pain of losing designers by either offering them additional services or good reasons and feedbacks why their designs were not awarded. Some design awards would also provide free entry and pre-evaluation to designers to decrease these negative emotions in advance since if a designer does not pay to join, she would be less angry when she loses. Pre-evaluation or filtering also reduces the amount of work by the designers, thus decreasing their initial investment in sense of time and money. Both further feedbacks and pre-evaluation methods could be integrated by awards to reduce such outcomes.Awarded Work Bias is a situation where design awards with relevant methodology and evaluation criteria could award designs that had already been awarded; since it is safer to award some design that has already won other awards. This negative situation should be evaded by making sure that the entries are blind judged, and to disconnect designers from contacting jury members. Competitions must make sure that designers would be eliminated if they try to call and pitch jurors for their works.Superficial beauty contest condition occurs when designs are judged without their context, that is why design awards should also require participants to submit not just visuals or renders but also conceptual / integration views (within the context of use), technical drawings, usage manuals and videos regarding how the design works and how people interact with it.Positive presentation bias occurs when better presented designs get better ranking awards. To stop this, the awarding committee i.e. the design award organizer should incorporate standardized presentation through templates or alternatively push each and every designer to make sure that they are all presented well so that the bias could be eliminated.Criteria Fallacy: in some conditions it could be observed that the award criteria are set by the organisations and their sponsors. However, the award criteria should be set by the judges and the designers together through surveys and research and through analysis of best practices. Changing the award criteria is changing the rules of the game to someones favor and no one has right to do so in an ethical and fair competition.Too Technical Fallacy: A further fallacy in design competitions and awards is related to the technical projects. Technical plan and engineering of products are indeed also design, however engineers and technical designers are usually not able to showcase or render projects as good as other designers. This creates an handicap for them; they have a very good very functional product that is not well communicated. In this case, design awards should ask further information regarding projects instead of simply eliminating them (which leads awards to turn into beauty pageants). The issue is solved by a preliminary filtering round where designs that are not enough understood or not well communicated are required to provide further information, visualization etc. Too Artistic Fallacy: Likewise to technical projects artistic projects could also not get enough attention when the aesthetic values of the object is too much, too strong. In such conditions jury might decide that the work is not design but art. To eliminate this issue a separate category for artistic creations could be created. In this article, some of the political and social issues in design awards are highlighted. To make better competitions and to organize more fair and ethical awards, all organizers are invited to accept these issues and to take steps to eliminate or reduce the existing discrimination, biases, and fallacies. Exerpt:During the A Prime Design Award Gala-Night, I had the opportunity to talk with fifty designers, from seven distinct continents. I asked, if did they ever feel there is something wrong going in design awards? I asked if they were subject to discrimination or nationalism and here are the answers and prominent issues that were highlighted. Political Alignment (Partisanism): Can politics change the rankings in a design competition? According to many designers, it is possible and some say that it def..
Politics of Design Awards: Fallacies, Biases and Issues Images:
End of the article, click here to go back to previous page, or alternatively go back to Design Publication homepage.


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"Remaking My Voice," looks at how the presence or absence of a voice affects the speaker, and how he had to completely reconsider speaking.
You can't just listen to the audio on this one, because Ebert makes full use of the other communications tools at his disposal: Gestures and facial expressions. He also uses other readers, including his wife Chaz, since he's found that the electronic voice he can use through his computer is monotonous to listeners (and continues to gesture while they are speaking). You'll note that most of them read from a text, an important nod to the fact that these are not their words, but his. Near the end, Chaz cries as she reads his words about how people treat him when they assume things about his disability, and she notes, "You should never let your wife read something like this." It's an amazing moment--the silent speaker and his substitute doing the crying as she speaks for him. But you'll laugh more than cry watching this, and he concludes, "I have a voice, and I do not need to scream."
The talk also ponders what it's like to feel disconnected from the audience, and his efforts to find an electronic voice that was based on recordings of his own voice, from thousands of hours of audio and video recordings--and you'll hear some samples of that famous voice.In the process, he teaches us important lessons about why intonation, phrasing and cadence are so vital to speaking. You'll want to make full use of these tools after watching someone do without them, just one insight I took away from this unusual and moving TED talk, which coincidentally occurred during Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness month.
Use the Evernote clip button, above, to save this post in an Evernote notebook. Go here to subscribe to Step Up Your Speaking, my free email newsletter that looks at a different speaking topic in depth each month...then become a fan of The Eloquent Woman on Facebook and join the conversation with thousands of other women (and men) about public speaking skills and confidence.
Inspiration, ideas and information to help women build public speaking content, confidence and credibility. Denise Graveline is a Washington, DC-based speaker coach who has coached nearly 200 TEDMED and TEDx speakers--including one of 2016's most popular TED talks. She also has prepared speakers for presentations, testimony, and keynotes. She offers 1:1 coaching and group workshops in public speaking, presentation and media interview skills to both men and women.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Roger Ebert rethinks public speaking without a voice of his own
Posted by eloquentwoman at Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Labels: finding your voice, Roger Ebert, vocal issues


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Deals of the Day: SAC Braces for Big Exodus of Funds
Deals of the Day compiles this morning's biggest news about mergers and acquisitions, banking, bankruptcy and more. Catch us on Twitter, @WSJDealJournal.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Supervalu Gives Shot to Investors: Investors who profited by running a chunk of the former Albertson's grocery empire are buying Supervalu's piece of the business and four other chains hoping to repeat their success. [WSJ]
Grocery Deal's Spice: An investment group led by Cerberus Capital Management may have landed a plum in its $3.3 billion deal to buy 877 grocery stores from Supervalu: real estate worth at least as much as the group paid. [WSJ]
Is M&A in Talisman's future? A sale is becoming Talisman Energy's best bet as analysts turn more bearish on the Canadian oil and gas producer than at any time in almost eight years. [Bloomberg]
Bankia looks to GOldman for advice: Spanish state-rescued lender Bankia is in advanced talks with Goldman Sachs about hiring the U.S. bank as its adviser on the sale of its Miami business. [Reuters]
Financial Institutions
Wells Fargo Profit Jumps: Wells Fargo's fourth-quarter profit climbed 24% as the nation's fourth-largest bank by assets recorded strong mortgage-banking income and credit, although its closely watched net interest margin declined more than expected. [WSJ]
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PALM HARBOR America's third-largest political party will be fielding a challenge to Governor Rick Scott and presumptive Democrat nominee Charlie Crist in the 2014 election. Florida Libertarian Party Chairman Adrian Wyllie officially announced his candidacy for Governor last week.
Following the trail blazed by Presidential candidates Ron Paul and Gary Johnson in 2012, Wyllie has a platform focused on economic freedom, individual liberty, and the Constitution. In one of his first campaign stops at the Lake City Tea Party last Thursday, Wyllie took a strong stand against what he sees as an overreaching federal government.
"I promise that, if elected, I will defend all Floridians from any unconstitutional Congressional act, executive order or United Nations mandate," said Wyllie. He also blamed Gov. Rick Scott for "rolling over" to the Obama administration on federal health care mandates and federal gun control.
Article Photos
Adrian Wyllie
The Wyllie campaign already has a core team of 50 volunteer staffers, and that number is growing daily.
"We will be outspent, there's no question about that, probably by a 50-to-1 ratio," said Wyllie, "but our focus will be on the ground game. Our plan is to reach more voters personally than our opponents, and we do that with motivated volunteers."
He expects to have approximately 6,000 volunteers by 2014, which is one volunteer for every voting precinct in the state.
"Our debt is unsustainable, our currency is becoming worth less every day. The Tea Party says the government is to blame. The occupy movement says the bankers are to blame," said Wyllie. "They're both right."
Wyllie says states have remedies to protect citizens from a potential economic crisis. He promotes plans like the Intrastate Commerce Act, which would make any goods manufactured and sold within Florida immune from federal taxation and regulation. He adds that this would include the manufacture and sale of firearms.
Wyllie serves as a member of the Florida Steering Committee for Fix The Debt, which is chaired by former U.S. Senator Mel Martinez and former Clinton cabinet member Donna Shalala. He is co-host of the syndicated talk radio show "Liberty Underground," which airs on three AM radio stations in Florida.
When asked if hosting his radio show will present a conflict under "equal time" rules for candidates during the campaign, Wyllie responded, "Rick and Charlie are more than welcome to join me on every show. Let's hammer out the issues for all to hear."
While acknowledging that a third-party bid for Florida's top office is a long shot, Wyllie says that Floridians are looking for a challenge to the status quo.
"We've tried Coke. We've tried Pepsi," said Wyllie. "It's time for some pure spring water called liberty. That's what I'm offering."


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We're recruiting for a senior market analyst position at our Tumwater, Wash. office.
This position is responsible for conducting market analysis of regulated entities under the direction of the Chief Market Analyst. This position protects consumer's interests and promotes a healthy business environment in this state by providing regulatory oversight of market interactions between consumers and insurance carriers.
For more specifics, duties, salary, timeline, etc., please see the full job listing.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Job opening: Senior market analyst
Posted by Anonymous at 9:30 AM


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Exploration Project
Department of
School of
Earth Sciences
| Stanford
Page Maintainer: firstname.lastname@example.com
Copyright © 2009 SEP.
On what machines Matlab should be run: cities and moods. You are not allowed to run it on vostok because of its gateway functionality.
There can be three reasons for Matlab not to start:
If "koko" is misbehaving and you need Matlab, of if all five licenses are taken and nobody would close their session, or if you need toolboxes we don't have, you can use the university's machines. Here's how.
The "-nosplash -nojvm" options will make Matlab start and run faster. It works without them too, if you like the luxury of a GUI. Among the remote machines above, "tree" was the fastest, but maybe I just caught it in a good mood.
The remote machines see your directory on the Leland systems. To transfer files to and from the current SEP system directory to the Leland directory, use sftp from koko or from your local machine:
"sftp <user>@<remote>"
After you started sftp, use "put" to transfer a file from the SEP current directory to the Leland systems home directory: "put <filename>" , and "get" to retrieve a file: "get <filename>" .
You can also use "scp <files_here> <username_there>@<machinename>:<path_to_files_there>", either from the local machine to the remote one, or the other way around.
If you need to read/write SEPlib format files from Matlab when running Matlab outside the SEP computing system, download the I/O toolbox and unarchive it with "tar -xvzf toolbox.tar.gz" or copy it from /usr/local/matlab7/toolbox/nick/. Let the Matlab Administrator know of any bugs, he'll appreciate the feedback. Solving them, or extending the capabilities of the toolbox to handle other OSs than Linux are even more appreciated.
can be found at www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/helpdesk.shtml. It is much richer than the simple line-of-command help, it has examples, pictures, and tutorials on how to use each of the toolboxes. The search feature is also quite useful, it searches through their pdf documents and through the user-posed questions, too.
In the SEP reproducibility denomination system, Matlab figures are considered Conditionally Reproducible because they require a proprietary software package ("matlab"). There are two degrees of reproducibility:
PROBLEM:On the new Matlab 6.0, when running a command such as surf, that produced a 3D display, the thing would take a huge time to display, or would crash, and sometimes the following error would appear:
"Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display "nada.Stanford.EDU:0.0".
??? Not able to create a render context" .
SOLUTION: If before running your surf command you run: "set(gcf,'renderer','zbuffer')", the 3D image will display correctly and very fast, too.
From: Biondo
Add the following line line before outputting the tiff file, and make sure to run 'xhost + ashland' on santorin console before creating the figure.
set (gcf,'XDisplay','santorin.stanford.edu:0.0')
Recently, I gave Matlab a job that required it to go through roughly 400 iterations. The job involved adding some numbers into a big matrix, nothing complex. To my surprise, after 10 hours, it still had not finished running.
I had matlab display a iteration counter. The speed of iteration slowed down fast after the first iterations, and I knew there were no convergence problems, so Matlab was sabotaging itself. I included the coomand "pack" inside the loop, and the program executed in five minutes what previously had not been able to do in 10 hours!
Matlab Digest describes how to export figures for publications in a reproducible, automatized manner. Links to part 1 and part2 of the article. The functions they provide ("exportfig", "previewfig", "applytofig", "restorefig") are now installed on koko too. The Technical Support Guide to Printing is a good resource too.
Matlab already handles naturally simple LaTeX encodings that allow introducing Greek lettters or modifying the font size and appearance in plots. The function "teximage" (now installed on ashland too) converts any LaTeX string to images and displays them in Matlab figures.
The function "noise.m", now installed on ashland too, adds Gaussian, uniform, salt and pepper, additive or multiplicative noise to an image.
Sometimes you may want to run scripts which contain plotting commands without displaying the plots and without going into the script to comment out the commands. An example: if you're working from home and it's too slow to run graphics over the network. You can play a simple UNIX trick:
" % setenv DISPLAY /dev/null
% matlab "
Exploration Project
Department of
School of
Earth Sciences
| Stanford
Page Maintainer: firstname.lastname@example.com
Copyright © 2009 SEP.


text:
It's not bad luck that's keeping this Peoria resident from the work force. He is a product of his environment - of an expanding number of Americans pushed into poverty as a result of the recession. The 2009 report on Illinois Poverty released Thursday reveals signs of increasing poverty throughout the state. Poverty worsened in more than half of the state's 102 counties even before the recession began in December 2007.
It's not bad luck that's keeping this Peoria resident from the work force. He is a product of his environment - of an expanding number of Americans pushed into poverty as a result of the recession.
The former Caterpillar Inc. 6 Sigma electrical engineer, who asked that his name not be used, lost his job about four months ago. He has no retirement. He's exhausted his savings. The Internet technology specialist applied for between five and 10 jobs that match his skill set daily throughout the United States to no avail.
An income tax refund helped make most of his bills current. But he is behind on his mortgage payment. And if his situation doesn't change in the next 30 to 60 days, he may lose his house and everything else.
"On the way to Caterpillar each morning, probably since September when I was aware of the economic downturn, I would pray that those people who had lost their jobs would find sustenance somehow. I also prayed that I didn't want to be one of those people," he said.
The story is not uncommon.
In February, there was one job opening available for every five Midwesterners. The number of workers in part-time jobs because they cannot find full-time work has nearly doubled nationally since mid-2006, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The 2009 report on Illinois Poverty released Thursday reveals signs of increasing poverty throughout the state. Poverty worsened in more than half of the state's 102 counties even before the recession began in December 2007.
The most current poverty data from 2007, therefore, does not capture economic realities, the report's authors wrote.
As many as 405,000 more Illinoisans are likely to have been pushed into poverty as a result of the recession.
"We're seeing a whole new segment of people who have never been in poverty before or needed assistance, and now they're popping up in food pantries and shelters and places that they've never had to go before for help," said Amy Terpstra, a senior research analyst at Heartland Alliance Mid-America Institute on Poverty, a not-for-profit Chicago-based organization that produces the annual poverty report.
A wake-up call
The poverty report should serve as a wake-up call to community leaders, Terpstra said.
Nearly all the counties in the Journal Star circulation area are on a watch or warning list based on four indicators: high school graduation rates, teen birth rates, unemployment rates and poverty rates from 2007.
By comparison, in 2005, no central Illinois counties made the warning list.
Peoria County's poverty rate in 2007 was 13.6 percent, earning it a place on the watch list. Being on the watch list means a county needs to be monitored, while warning means corrective action needs to be taken.
Tazewell, Woodford, Stark and Marshall counties were the only ones in the Journal Star circulation area not on a list, while Mason County is on the warning list. Statewide, nearly 1.5 million Illinoisans, or almost 12 percent of the state's population, were in poverty in 2007.
"Poverty is not a new phenomenon. While more and more families are now finding themselves in harder times, a significant number of residents were already struggling long before this current economic crisis," said Sid Mohn, president of Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights.
Poverty: the changing faces
As unemployment figures continue to climb, the number of people showing up at local food pantries has at least tripled in the past year.
The Salvation Army food pantry served 4,400 meals a month in the first six months of 2008. In the last half of the year, that figure jumped to more than 7,000.
The faces of those in need are starting to change, said Rich Draeger, assistant development director at The Salvation Army.
"You can't really put a hard and fast line on what is and what isn't poverty, but we are seeing people you wouldn't traditionally expect to see. Most social service agencies are starting to see it creep into the middle class," he said.
The federal government sets the poverty standard at an annual income below $22,050 for a family of four.
"Now, some of the people who contributed to The Salvation Army are the ones who are needing help. That's a very good indicator of the downturn in the economy," Draeger said.
Other Salvation Army services including shelters and short-term help with rent and utilities are seeing an increased need.
Absent effective interventions, about 34,500 more Illinois residents may experience homelessness by the end of 2010, the report notes.
"Luckily, at least for the time being, people are still being responsive to that in terms of giving," Draeger said. "We're more concerned down the road and our next Christmas campaign will be tougher than in 2008. People will have been in the situation for a full year, and that's going to provide a larger challenge."
An epidemic? A solution
Municipalities and counties are struggling to provide basic services as sales and income tax revenues and interest earnings decrease while consumers contract spending and individuals lose their jobs.
"In the private sector when the economy dips, orders go down. In the public sector, our orders go up as demand increases at a time when our revenues are decreasing, so it's important that everyone understands it's a challenge for government," said Peoria County Administrator Patrick Urich, who also is president of the Illinois City/County Management Association.
Demand is increasing among social service and health care agencies, placing more spending pressure on the county.
Planning is key; thus far the county hasn't cut any services and has reserve funds to hopefully weather downturns.
Businesses are cutting back. Massive job cuts at Caterpillar will affect local governments, with the city of Peoria and Peoria County most vulnerable, according to a February Moody's U.S. Public Finance report.
"Local governments in the Peoria area and elsewhere in the state will face budget and credit pressures as a result of the job cuts," the report states. "For cities, the cutbacks are likely to contribute to a further decline in sales tax collections already weakened by the general economic slowdown. Counties are likely to see increased spending for social services."
All hope is not lost.
The poverty report recommends lawmakers establish anti-poverty measures and adequate funding for human services and leverage federal resources provided through the stimulus bill to address employment and training needs of people in poverty.
The Illinois Legislature's recently formed Commission on the Eradication of Poverty is charged with creating a plan to cut extreme poverty in the state in half by the year 2015. The group will convene in May.
"There's tangible things local communities can be doing to address poverty. Leaders can create an atmosphere of opportunity for residents by working to attract and retain good-paying, stable jobs," Terpstra said. "They can remove barriers to employment by focusing on transportation and job training and ensuring local education and training opportunities are relevant to the jobs in the community and high quality."
Karen McDonald can be reached at (309) 686-3285 or email@example.com.