#like this entire route on campus is a major accessibility issue

[goldensunset]

the problem w using tumblr as a diary is sometimes i have things i can’t share without doxxing myself smh

[beardyallen]

Well, that went quickly...

What day is it? I’m starting to lose track of how long I’ve been here...

Well, it’s been a week since my last post, and it seems that a lot must have happened, but honestly I feel like I’ve just been cranking through a bunch of comic books.

But I do know that Friday and Saturday involved a good deal excitement, so I guess we had might as well pick up pretty much where we left off!

Last Friday was Orientation for ICB, which meant getting all of the 35-40 instructors, 10 staff members, and the 6-8 people in charge of this program together in a room to introduce us to...basically what we’d been doing all that week. Also, aside from a couple study-abroad-undergrads and my officemate and me, everyone there had probably already heard the spiel.

It was scheduled from 5p-6p with a buffett afterwards, but a bunch of the Communications people from my floor were going out to eat (again?) afterwards, so I made plans with NR. She wanted to try this Mexican restaurant in what I’ll describe as the “international district” of Beijing. Most everything around us when we got there looked like it belonged in literally every metropolitan area in the world. Every major brand you can imagine had a store. Multiple. Too many...

But the Mexican restaurant we visited is owned and managed by a Mexican expat, apparently. He even stopped by our table to ask how the food was, and let me tell you: that quesadilla was the BOMB!!! And the margarita was pretty good (not as good as MHO’C’s, though!). By the time we finished up dinner, it was kind of late, so we wondered around the shopping center, found a bookstore. You know: the usual.

Fun fact: when a store or restaurant wants to indicate to their patrons that they are getting ready to close, they play smooth jazz and turn the lights down. Like for real. Had their not been windows open to the pavilion outside with it’s hundreds of light displays, I would have been seriously concerned when the lights in the place just went out and Kenny G popped up on the speakers.

We entertained the idea of finding the cinema nearby to see Alita Battle Angel, but during the 15 minutes that we spent wondering around in search of the complex, it seemed to elude us. Plus it was getting close to that time when the subway shuts down, and I wasn’t exactly hankering for a taxi ride this early in my stay....if at all.

The next morning, I got up early to meet back up with NR at the National Museum near the Forbidden City. Now, for the most part, the stairs I get don’t bother me. But I will say, if you’re going to stair at the pasty white guy with a hard-to-describe-its-color-accurately-beard, maybe don’t do it when you’re going 15 mph on a bike, facing in the wrong direction! *sigh.....Some people’s kids...

But what really bothered me, especially at the time, was the father-of-three who straight-up filmed me on his phone from 5 feet away for a solid 6 minutes, three hallways, and two escalators! I get it, I’m funny looking. But I really think I a picture would have done just fine...

One of the things that bothered me the most about that experience was that (a) he had a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, (b) his daughters seemed rather embarrassed, (c) he filmed me with the screen aimed at me so I could watch myself on his phone, (d) there was text on the screen, and (e) it went on for a solid 6 minutes.

In hindsight, I was wearing sunglasses and a hat, in a subway system, in the morning, heading to the center of Beijing. Maybe he thought I was a celebrity? I had spoken to a Communications graduate student the other day who happens to be black, and he told me the story of how a citizen here pull out their phone with a picture of Samuel L. Jackson on it, and gestured to him as it to ask if it were him...even though SLJ is for sure at 70 years old and this kid is no more than 35. And he looks 25. #smh

Anyway, after dealing with whatever the hell that was, I got to visit the museum! They, for whatever reason, were not allowing people to bring their charging blocks into the museum (external battery that you can use to charge your cell phone and other devices on-the-go), but more surprising to me was just how many people carried one with them! At least, it was surprising until I took a moment to think about it. As I’ve mentioned before, basically every payment made in Beijing is through WeChat, which needs internet access, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising. You also really can’t navigate through the city with some sort of Maps app; there are just too many bus routes, train routes, terminals and stops to keep logged in your head.

As far as the museum itself goes, the gifts to China from foreign governments exhibit and the Ancient China exhibit themselves took most of the day. Also, no surprise: the gift that took up the most floor space was given by a U.S. President. I also got a refresher in 8th Grade Social Studies. Too many small countries to remember all of them, and that space made me feel somewhat moronic.

The Ancient China exhibit was exceptional, though. They broke up the last, oh...750,000 years of human-ish life in China into 8-10 separate eras, the first few cataloguing the life and evolution of Homo erectus pekinensis into Homo sapien, while the latter eras were segregated dynastically. I’ve never seen the progression of human evolution laid out in such detail! The rock tools became better rock tools, then pottery and paper, stamps, buildings and so much more! There were even ceremonial helmets that would put the Juggernaut to shame!

It was strange, though, to have all of this knowledge just beyond my fingertips both literally and figuratively. The literal sense isn’t too shocking, as I’ve been to a museum before and know not to touch the pieces, but to have placards written in a language that would take years to learn was frustrating. Fortunately, NR has a never-ending supply of patience, and she translated much of the text. She even quizzed me on several of the characters. I’ve worked out how to write “rock” for sure.

After the museum, we wondered over to a nearby mall that, honestly, puts the Mall of America to shame. No joke. This place was huge! It just kept going and going and going! There was a particular alley that has all of the “exotic foods” that you might see on The Amazing Race, which I haven’t tried yet but intend to, but the rest is mostly-outdoor shopping center. Our reason for being there was to find food (we had been in the museum for a bit over 7 hours), and then sit our fine asses down in a movie theater to watch Alita.

We found a restaurant that served food traditionally found where NR grew up. It was exceptional. And the beer just made it better. :P

The movie experience was something else entirely. I’ve gotten used to watching television and movies with subtitles so that, when people decide to talk to me, I can follow along with both bits. Or if people are just talking near me while I’m watching television, I don’t have to rewind the show. That helped a lot; the movie was still spoken in English, but there were Chinese subtitles. I recognized the Chinese character for “1″ frequently enough, but that was about it.

The movie itself was way more than I expected. I shouldn’t be surprised, given that one of the primary characters is played by Christoph Waltz. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely consider it.

Also, additional fun fact: I’m thinking that most (if not all) showings of major motion pictures here are in 3D. *shrug* Side note: we’re going to see Captain Marvel tomorrow and I’M SO FREAKIN’ EXCITED!!!!

After the movie, we wandered back to the subway station and parted ways mid-subway-ride to head home. The next day I spent playing Kingdom Hearts 3 and sipping some beer in the 3rd Floor Lounge. All day. It was blissful.

This workweek has consisted of four main things: teaching responsibilities, a bit of dissertation work, trying out another one of the cafeterias on campus, and reading comic books. Oh, and beer. But that kind of goes without saying, doesn’t it? There’s a convenience store on the other side of the building in front of the Guest House that has cans of beer. You can buy them individual for 3 yuan, or roughly 45 cents. I won’t lie to you: I bought 12 of them and it didn’t cost me more than 6 bucks. And it’s really not bad, and even more convenient than the liquor store I lived by in Denver.

Anyway, as I said, I’m going to see Captain Marvel tomorrow, then to “W-Town” (originally Watertown...so glad they shortened it...) in northern Beijing, which sits at the base of part of the Great Wall. More than 20 people from ICB will be heading up to their on Saturday, so I imagine one of them will take pictures. Probably ML or S. So you’ll have those to look forward to since you know I won’t be taking any!

Oh!!! I almost forgot the biggest thing that happened this week! Actually, it might be the biggest news of my entire stay!!!

I did laundry.

And I washed my slippers. I’m not convinced that they’ve stopped smelling, but I’m holding out hope that I’ve finally figured out how to resolve an issue that I know humanity has been seriously struggling with for decades. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough, people, I swear!

Anyway, time to finish this beer, read a bit more of Scott Lynch’s Republic of Thieves (WE FINALLY FIND OUT ABOUT SABETHA!!!!), and head to bed. Big couple of days ahead...

Sláinte,

BeardyAllen

P.S. I bet you thought I was gonna forget! After class on Wednesday, I worked out how to make a phone call from here to the States to wish my Mom a Happy BIrthday. Caught her at work, and we got to chat for a good long while. It really put a nice cap on my evening, and it seemed it gave her a good start to her day. Anyway, I hope you had a great evening, found something nice at C&B and enjoyed that glass of wine you mentioned! Love you!!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

6:15am Gripes Post lads!! 🥂

im in one of those things where something innocuous bugs me for days b/c its just a personal irritation...i saw something for like a book or a game on twitter & it was like “this is about being a teenager” and it looked like it was about the kind of teenagerdom where you hang out with your friends after school & have a few romantic partners where it doesn’t all go smoothly because youre both inexperienced and havent figured things out enough to have a really healthy mature relationship but its complicated and there’s good things in there too so its all just a mixed bag and classic teenager

anyways theres nothing wrong with that in and of itself of course but i dont like getting what is a specific narrative conflated with a universal narrative...i.e. while that might be a common experience, being 13-19 isnt defined by that kind of usual teenage experience checklist. i mean, everyone who’s been a teenager has an experience in that time which must also be a teenage experience you know. and of course mine happens to be the kind that was nothing like the being out late with friends and having awkward date moments of bewilderment and figuring out who you are and all

i dont love to be reminded that theres a specific narrative thats meant to describe the General Universal Experience, when thats not my experience. what does that make my experience, and by extension, me

like i already feel invalidated enough by the course my life happened to go, i dont need a reminder that it was supposed to go This Way actually, and if it didnt then are you even a real person. and theres a ton of ways peoples lives could differ in major ways from whatever idea of whats universal that are also different from mine, so i dont know how not to be a bit annoyed from that angle either. i dont know its like....i guess ~Adolescence~ is especially treated as some flat, formuleic, predictable time in life where everyone is simple and shallow when its all really the opposite. its as complex and varied as ever and so are teenagers & people are completely wrong to act like teens are all just self centered immature kids—and not only wrong to do so but actually writing off really serious issues that affect teens as like “angst!!” or whatever...lord

anyways so i was like actively suicidal from like 14? 15? i say “was” when its just more like “have been,” but anyway. theres that part, and i didnt go to high school, which im sure would be for the better for anyone, and i wasn’t interested in dating anyone & also didn’t, and i was kind of having a version of the Universal Teen Story in that i was getting to be away from home for weeks at a time with only a weekend back every now and then (and breaks between semesters) and doing so finally let me like, even start to be a person who could exist outside the hellzone of my house. which made going back home for say, long summer breaks increasingly laden with friction. teens and their spats with parents right!! but actually it was that my situation was abusive & i had to figure that out on my own & in the meantime i did think i must be doing something wrong in trying to feel like i actually had the right to my own identity, because i must be doing something wrong if it makes me get along with my parents less. and really the idea that teens are just angsty & rebellious & argumentative was further damaging b/c i trivialized my own abuse as i always had (b/c all i had to go on was that it must be normal) & blamed myself for not succeeding in this impossible situation. it was really Not the universal experience even with the conflict and identity questions and growing familial pains

also i still had few friends, but i at least had a bit more room to Do Shit than at home. idek how to say how isolated i was for the entire like, well most of my life but a tiny bit less so during college. i had campus & a 1.5 mile radius and occasional trips and stuff, and being able to just do things as i wanted. at my parents house, the location made it so you couldnt really walk anywhere, and our town didnt really have a lot of hangouts anyways, and i didnt have any friends really. i did get a few from school and friendly acquaintances but i would rarely see any of them outside school, and that was mostly only middle school anyways. i was on the fringe even in preschool, which i imagine helped w how i read all the time at school and at home. and home and the abuse and having nowhere else to be also had to contribute to how i live in my head, i have to guess. i dont mind that, my head is great. but other people think im weird and in terms of being someone who grew up exposed to long term trauma & bad attention & memory & an awful lot of pretty specific things seem to align w autism but if i mention that ppl (irl) like to talk abt how well really everyones autistic in SOME ways (which well they arent unless you want to have a huge talk abt the entire field of what it means when usually nt ppl define Disorders) anyways the point is that i also dont trust people much because theres a slight history of taking a chance on ppl who seem interested in being friendly w/ me only to turn around & realize i was being laughed at to a degree for things that were just part of how i personally socialize, thanks. but not all of it. ive met some really solid people. but im not that eager to meet people as im wary of a lot of them & my instincts are usually justified when i take a dislike to somebody. and ive just never been in a position to make or have a lot of friends. and that sucks, coz the few times ive been able to be around multiple people i like is always a lot of fun, usually the result of some roadtrip or special occasion or something and very short lived. i WISH i’d had a period of constant access to a friend group, that i couldve left my parents house and had somewhere to go anytime i felt like it, that i had people i could do things with and all. i dont need adventure, i like parking lots and just doing nothing but hanging out and all, but that didnt happen. i was stuck in my parents house & i didnt even think i had maybe been cheated out of anything & maybe i wasnt just a inferior quality person until i started to figure out for myself around 18 that i might actually be abused, and it took me another couple of years to really believe that i didnt deserve it

and i mean still i didnt just take an “alternate route” to the same endpoint everyone else did. i cant do buzzfeed quizzes about You And Your BFF / Friend / Friend Group coz i cant even fake my way through them. i know i have an identity and am as much a person as anyone but i know that the chances to explore life that are supposed to be Common and Universal werent available to me, and that who i am as a person, aka a normal one, not a terrible one, was info i didnt know for most of my life and had to figure out on my own. and im still figuring out on my own, because shits never exactly been okay yknow

anyways my experience may be “worse” but its not lesser or less real or valid or makes me less of a person because i didnt get to do it your way. idk

tldr it annoys me like thanks for reminding me ive never got to have friends even though that’s still one of the few things i’ll feel bad about b/c i know just how much that hurts me & how much ive missed my fleeting chances to have a micro taste of what that couldve been like. and for a reminder that whats considered Real Full Person’s Experience is so default it doesnt even need modifiers, & so what does that make me if it doesnt apply at all?

funny how much an throwaway almost joke of a sentence bugs me but thats how it goes huh

[csrgood]

Business Continuity Planning Today

Cisco Blogs | COVID-19

We are living in uncertain times with the recent threat of a global pandemic in our midst. Every business is struggling with how to keep their businesses running while keeping their employees and customers safe. Companies are putting in drastic measures such as canceling events, eliminating business travel and in-person meetings, and having employees work from home. Cisco is actively dealing with these topics, and I wanted to share some of the practices we are putting into place to address business continuity in the short and long term. We are all struggling with the same issues, and I wanted to start the conversation so we can work through this together.

Business continuity of our customers and partners is our priority in this unprecedented time. We are donating video conferencing and networking solutions to medical facilities and doctors on the front lines. We expanded the capabilities on our free Webex offer in all countries where it is available. We are giving free new or expanded licenses to Cisco Umbrella, Duo, and Anyconnect security products. We are working through how to enable remote work most effectively, while keeping safety at the forefront.

I recently spoke with Bailey Szeto, VP of Cisco IT, about Cisco’s approach to business continuity planning, and how Cisco IT is responding.

His team has been actively investigating what it would take to provide work from home capability for the entire company in the case of a global pandemic. The thinking on business continuity is evolving from localized, data-centric strategies to a fully global view of what it takes to keep businesses running virtually.

Cisco IT took a broad view of global remote access for our employees and developed a four-layer framework to put the business and IT capabilities in place. The four layers are:

Providing base level Virtual Private Network (VPN) connectivity

Ensuring that basic collaboration tools such as e-mail, Webex, voice, instant messaging are functional and reliable

Determining appropriate access to critical applications, function by function in areas such as engineering, sales, and Customer Experience (CX)

Investigating connectivity for key CX partners into Customer Service and Technical Assistance Centers

Bailey gave us a closer look at each of these areas:

Basic connectivity – VPN VPN expansion started recently due to the need to support employees working from home in the Asia Pacific, Japan and China region, and we expanded capacity (bandwidth, IP pools, etc.). In Europe, Middle East and Africa, overall capacity is good, but needs additional resiliency. In the Americas, we are increasing resources at our U.S. campus in Research Triangle Park, NC. VPN access points can also be set to automatically redirect and globally distribute traffic as needed.

The team is also looking at a configuration change called “split tunneling” to optimize traffic. Currently all traffic comes back to Cisco while connected via VPN. For known good internet connected services, such as Office 365, Webex and Salesforce, we can send that traffic directly through the internet without the need for it to come to Cisco first. We are working with Infosec for investigation and approvals.

Basic collaboration

Webex Meetings – A lot of traffic goes back and forth between Cisco and Webex. Beyond the standard Webex meeting traffic, Webex leverages Cisco’s call control infrastructure. Currently we are only using about 12% of our total capacity between Cisco and Webex. If needed we also have agreements to increase our interconnects by using additional bandwidth, albeit at a higher rate. Since we already use Webex for most Cisco meetings, we do not anticipate a major change in traffic patterns if people work from home.

Webex Teams – overall, this is a low bandwidth application for messages. It is also available directly over internet. Split tunneling VPN could further reduce some of the traffic to Cisco.

Email – we use Office 365, directly accessible via Internet which is overall a low bandwidth application. Split tunneling VPN would further reduce traffic to Cisco.

Voice – most employees are likely to use mobile or home phones. CVO or IP voice clients are much less common.

Business applications We are ensuring that business-critical applications can perform securely in the expanded infrastructure. We are building critical application lists for each function, including engineering, sales and CX. The initial assessment is that most business-critical applications will be available via VPN.

Complex use cases, partner services Our global team has more work to do to enable remote access for call center workers, so that call center calls can be routed directly to representatives working from home. And, as many recent conferences and events have been cancelled, and travel is restricted for some, we’re looking at the best ways to host large virtual events and help our customers do the same as needed.

It’s our hope that by sharing some of our own experiences, best practices and free resources, we can work through this uncertain time together.

Resources: Cisco product offers for this unprecedented time

Cisco expanded the capabilities on free Webex offer in all countries, and provides free 90-day licenses to businesses who are not Webex customers. Read full announcement here. https://blog.webex.com/video-conferencing/cisco-webex-supporting-customers-during-this-unprecedented-time/

Webex special offer https://www.webex.com/pricing/index.html

Webex for virtual learning https://www.webex.com/webexremoteedu.html

Cisco supports customers with expansion of free security offers for Cisco Umbrella, Duo, and AnyConnect https://blogs.cisco.com/security/cisco-expands-free-security-offerings-to-help-with-rise-in-remote-workers 

Learn more about how Cisco is supporting business continuity planning during the COVID-19 pandemic

source: https://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/44052-Business-Continuity-Planning-Today?tracking_source=rss

[bikethevote]

2019 L.A. City Council District 12 Candidate: Stella Maloyan

Candidate campaign page: https://www.stellamaloyan.com/

Stella Maloyan’s response to our questionnaire can be summed up with one exceptional quote: “Vision Zero is insufficient. We need Action Zero.” While she doesn’t call anyone out by name, Maloyan makes clear that she’s dissatisfied with the inadequate pace of progress on the City’s signature street safety initiative, pointing out the hypocrisy of politicians who talk a good game on the need to address climate change but continue to stand in the way of meaningful improvements that would make it easier for more people to walk and bike.

Maloyan is committed to getting 10 miles of protected bike lanes installed throughout the 12th District in her first term, including a route connecting Cal State Northridge to Metrolink. At the same time, she pledges to work hard at engagement and coalition building so that crucial improvements gain lasting support from the community. Between her strong commitment to safe streets and her background in the nonprofit sector, Stella Maloyan is poised to be a strong and effective ally for bike and pedestrian advocates on the City Council.

Bike The Vote L.A. 2019 Primary Grade: A

(See below for full candidate questionnaire response)

Let me say at the outset that I am a strong supporter of public transit and active transportation. Most politicians would follow that sentence with a BUT; where they’d equivocate about why we can’t build protected bike lanes — too soon they’d say — or lower transit fares or increase frequency of bus service. With me, there is NO BUT. If elected, I would be the strongest ally on council to bicyclists, pedestrians and transit users. Period.

My seventeen years with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) taught me many things. The first is that progressive change is achievable; I know this because my organization helped achieve great policies at LA City Hall. Second, winning policy requires team effort. It takes multiple progressive sectors coming together to push in smart ways. Finally, it takes leadership. I’m running for office because I’m tired of politicians saying one thing and doing another, or talking around an issue as a way to offend no one. You can’t have a councilmember preaching action on climate change while they’re blocking the construction of bicycle lanes from public transit to the largest commuter school in the entire United States.

1. What role do you see for walking, transit, and biking in the getting residents and students in Council District 12 to and from local businesses, parks, and schools?

Walking, biking and public transit are currently being used by people in the 12th District. My goal is to dramatically increase the opportunity for people to leave the cars at home. If people are given the opportunity to enter the street feeling safe and supported, I know they will walk and bike to school/work more often and use our streets for recreation.

It’s an infrastructure question, and this is where city council must stand firm: we must design streets so that pedestrians and bicyclists feel welcome and safe.

The design of LA’s streets, as well as the pace of our car-centric life, must be challenged. And I’m willing to do that. For me, it’s a quality-of-life question. Why must we cede so much of our public space to the automobile? Why do we make safety a secondary priority in order to allow cars to speed through our neighborhoods? Our priorities are off. And it’s critical to recognize that burning gasoline is LA’s #1 contribution to climate change. Our current convenient way of “getting around” is posing a danger to our children’s future.

LA City’s Mobility Plan 2035 lists over 150 strategies to reduce automobile use and make streets safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. Unfortunately, the City has been slow to implement the plan, and too many of these strategies remain merely ideas on paper.

Specifically, my goal in the first four years of my term will be to construct at least 10 miles of protected bicycle lanes in CD 12, with a particular focus on connecting Cal State Northridge (CSUN) with the Metrolink Northridge Station, and to begin to connect CSUN with the Balboa Orange Line Station, five miles away.

Second, I will work with LAPD to enforce speed limits and safety measures along key thoroughfares. Drivers need to be on notice that they must share the road.

Third, I will work with the City and Metro to expedite the construction of the North San Fernando Valley Bus Rapid Transit project. Metro has a lot on its plate right now, but that cannot be an excuse. I will use my position to prioritize this project – to move it from study phase to implementation. I will also work with Metro to ensure that these new rapid buses have room for bikes to be safely placed inside the buses as well.

Next, well-intentioned members of the Northridge public have opposed double-tracking Metrolink’s Ventura County Line. I sympathize with them. Nevertheless, I would work to negotiate with all parties to get a win for residents while making the line safer, reducing air pollution, and speeding the movement of passenger trains.

Last, although not in my district, I will help expedite the design and construction of the Sepulveda Transit Corridor and the East San Fernando Valley Transit Corridor. Once built, these lines will help CD 12 residents move about the region.

2. Thirty-eight percent of Cal State University, Northridge students do not have access to a car for their daily commute. What actions can Los Angeles take to make the CSUN campus more accessible for students, staff, and faculty including better bike, pedestrian, and transit connectivity around the campus? Additionally, do you support implementation of protected bike lanes on Parthenia Street to connect Metrolink Northridge Station to existing protected bike lanes on Reseda Boulevard?

California State University Northridge campus currently sees over 200,000 weekly car trips. I would work with the City and campus administrators to set measurable time-specific targets to reduce car trips. There are many options, from van-pooling to dedicated buses connecting the campus from the Red and Orange lines, from removing parking spaces to subsidizing Metrolink passes. (Today, CSUN offers reduced fares on the Metro U-Pass, but not for Metrolink.)

Yes, I support protected bike lanes, and Parthenia Street is acceptable. But a more suitable route may be Aliso Canyon Wash to Nordhoff Boulevard. A well-designed, well-lighted bike path along the wash, under the shade of oak trees, could make the bicycle commute more inviting, thereby drawing more students to this way of commuting. Through Measure M, Metro may even have funds for such a path.

3. CD12 sees some of L.A.’s worst speeding and street racing, with three out of the top five most dangerous intersections in all of California located within the District. In response to the condition of dangerous streets across the city, Los Angeles adopted a ‘Vision Zero’ program with the goal of significantly reducing the 240+ annual roadway deaths that the City currently sees. Do you support prioritizing safety on L.A.’s High Injury Network streets in CD12 such as Reseda, Roscoe, and Balboa Boulevards, even when there may be trade-offs in terms of automotive travel time or on-street parking?

Vison Zero is insufficient. We need Action Zero. Yes, I fully support prioritizing public safety efforts along CD 12’s major boulevards.

That said, I am sensitive to businesses that view street parking as benefitting their bottom line. I think it’s a question of education and smart planning. As part of street safety, I would establish a concurrent economic development taskforce to help businesses realize the financial benefit of having more livable (slower) streets.

4. LADOT has determined that speed is the predominant factor in whether traffic collisions are deadly. Despite this fact, Los Angeles recently increased speed limits on 100 miles of local streets to abide by state law, including raising the speed limit to 45 mph on Winnetka Ave., Wilbur Ave. & Reseda Blvd. in CD12. Would you support implementation of lane reductions and other traffic calming infrastructure in order to reduce vehicle speeds on surface streets in CD12?

Yes, with a caveat. Traffic calming must not look like big government telling people how to behave – that approach never works. Instead, there needs to be collaboration between government and on-the-ground communities and institutions. Local groups can provide context on why the change is needed. The best outcome would be for the CD 12 public to tell me what they want – and that they want traffic calming. I’m ready to lead on the issue and support dramatic changes to protect the public. But it will take a coalition, not just one leader standing alone, to achieve this goal.

5. Los Angeles’ traffic woes are compounded by the reality that many parents, students, and workers don’t feel safe commuting even short distances or performing school drop-offs walking, rolling, or by bike. What would you do as Councilmember to improve active transportation options around schools, public transit, and in commercial districts to provide better mobility options for CD12 residents?

As explained above, I will work with LAPD to enforce speed limits and promote safety measures in key areas, and I will work to build many miles of protected bikeways in the district. However, there is a human element as well. Angelenos are unaccustomed to sharing the road. As councilmember, I’d promote bicycling via various media, my newsletters and via social media.

6. While one of Los Angeles most recently developed districts, CD12 also has the largest senior population by percentage in the city. What improvements to mobility options would you implement to empower CD12's senior population to comfortably age in place?

AARP is a major supporter of CicLAvia, which is a great reminder that we shouldn’t assume being older entails becoming inactive or immobile.

Affordable senior housing is one of my core issues – and to make those facilities livable by promoting biking and walking go hand-in-glove. Just as I will work to build affordable housing in my district and throughout Los Angeles, I will focus these efforts along transit corridors and work with planners to co-locate commercial and cultural attributes within walking distance.

[webdevelopmenttopic]

Perception System Official Blog | Latest IT Industry News and Article

Today, mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are in every hand. Recent data say iPhone is the first choice for a smartphone in the USA, Canada, and European regions. Android is ubiquitous.

Increased Mobile Usage and Demand for Mobility

The majority of the population of the world prefers access to the Internet and other services through their mobile devices. It means healthcare services are not aloft from the increased mobile usage trends.

This one is solid, and the first reason describes why hospitals must have a mobile application. Of course, mobility comes with mobile devices and mobility has myriads of advantages in itself so, I will not go to explain all here, we all know it well.

Advanced and Technical Reasons for That Hospitals Need to Have a Fully Functional Mobile Application

To describe other reasons, I would like to take a bit different route so you can get technicality involved in it in comprehensive manners.

Hospitals are a part of the healthcare industry/niche. Healthcare industry has a number of components including

Healthcare End-users: Healthcare beneficiaries such as patients and fitness seekers.

Healthcare Experts: Healthcare services providers including doctors, nurses, clinical assistants, help desk service providers, and cashiers/accountants.

Healthcare Infrastructure: Healthcare service is providing institutions including medical colleges, clinical research institutes, large to mid-size hospitals, mid to small size clinics, first aid treatment centers.

Healthcare Aids: Healthcare drug, equipment, emergency vehicles, and sanitary chemical providers such as pharmacists, surgical stores, and mobile units (Ambulances).

Here, I have described the major four categories of users of the healthcare industry in a nutshell. Based on these, you can imagine how large and complex the industry itself. It is true that a single mobile app hardly covers most of the users and meet their advanced expectations of features, functionality, and syncing ability in highly collaborative ways.

If you are a tech-savvy doctor, hospital admin, or a good manager, you can imagine a mobile application with a single back-end may prove inadequate and inefficient in delivering satisfactory results for the large to mid-size hospitals.

As a software developer for years, and serving healthcare industry, I know it demands a data-driven and efficient web application with powerful back-end and website/web portal like front-end would be the first need to support the mobile application/s attached with it.

Now, we will see how mobile healthcare application can fulfill the demands of described user categories.

Healthcare App Meets Demands of End-users:

Patient Module

If we look at the patients’ journey carefully, we can imagine when and where patients need a mobile app. As per my guess, following are use-cases & features in the patient module.

A search of Hospitals: Patients have to find the hospital in the vicinity and suitable for their requirements as well as budget. Location maps, directions, distance, and details of hospitals are expected data in the hospital app for needy patients.

Search for Doctors: Depending on the disease or issue, the patient looks for the availability of expert doctors in the hospital. The app helps the patient to find the right doctor and check details as well as reviews to assure appropriateness of the doctor for the requirements.

Booking an Appointment: A patient can get details of the availability of the selected doctor including the calendar and book an appointment within a suitable time slot. The app gives notification in the response of the booking to confirm it.

Prescription & Tests: A mobile app eliminates the need for paper-based prescription and doctor can input prescription data in patient’s module. Similarly, the laboratory can imprint the results of various medical and physiological tests in the patient’s module. These ways, the app can keep the entire history of the patient and makes the relevant data available to the concerned professionals including doctors, nurses, assistants, lab technicians, and pharmacists.

Patient Module enables patients to find a hospital, doctors, book appointment, and get treatment quickly, easily, and with completely digital records/data. It saves time, money, and hurdles in getting sophisticated healthcare services.

Receptionist Module

The app enables receptionist to attend the following tasks.

Attend the inquiries from patients and other components of the hospital system.

Collect the patients’ info, based on it register the patient so patients will have their modules in the app, and proceed for booking appointment for the registered patients.

Helps in checking the schedule of concerned doctors and book appointments for patients with the consent of doctors.

Notify patients for the appointments and after the arrivals of the patients, notify the doctors for their presence.

Receptionist Module eases the life of helpdesk attendants as well as facilitates patients to get a quick and accurate appointment via the app without waiting for phone call services.

Providing accurate patient data to the hospital’s digital system becomes easy.

Physician Module

Physicians or doctors can enjoy the following privileges in an app module devoted specifically to them.

Physicians or doctors are receiving primary data of new patients in their modules before their arrivals.

Doctors have a complete record of the history of the repeat patients as soon as they enter in consulting room or OPD.

The doctor can approve or reject the appointment requests of the patients according to the calendar in the app and confirm the appointment with notification to the helpdesk as well as patients directly.

The doctor can check the medical history of patients including tests, reports, and prescriptions made before.

The doctor can add new diagnostic data as well as prescribe medicines accordingly through the app so patients can obtain medicine from the pharmacists directly without any paperwork and paper file.

Doctors can access the status of various medicines in the pharmacy store in the hospital as well as externally affiliated stores in the vicinity. Thus, they can make or change the prescriptions according to available inventory.

The doctor also fixes the appointment for the next visit, surgery or any especial treatment needed for the patient through the app.

Physician Module saves the time of doctors a lot so they can treat more patients in a given period. Availability of patient’s data in the app is ease the job of doctors and bring precision in diagnostic, treatment, and tests.

Nurse Module

The app helps nurses and assistants to accomplish their duties with ease and comforts without rising adrenaline in emergencies.

Nurses and other medical assistants can access the patient data instantly on the app.

Medical history, doctors’ instructions, test reports, and prescriptions are available in the nurse module for the admitted patients.

It eases the decision-making process for the treatment, and proceed for the treatment swiftly.

During the treatment of admitted patients in emergency wards or trauma centers, medical assistants and nurses can communicate doctors as well as subject specialists quickly without making any call and disturb the experts.

Nurses can know the medical inventory, equipment availability, and status of beds to make a quick arrangement of emergency and repeater patients.

Nurses can fill patient data in the app regularly and save paper and work a lot.

Nurses can be sent patient-data instantly to obtain the help of the doctors or experts

Nurse Module saves the time of nurses in wards and enables them to collaborate as well as communicate with doctors in the treatment of admitted and non-admitted patients swiftly and accurately.

Pharmacist Module

The majority of hospitals have their own pharmaceutical stores and keep inventory to get medicines within the campus, all at no profit basis and provide the best quality. Thus, pharmacy is an integral part of the hospital and attached closely with the entire digital system of the hospital. Pharmacist module can help the healthcare industry in the following ways.

It helps patients to obtain medicines in the accurate ways because we know how the writings of doctors are famous on prescriptions!

The store manager can get the status of inventory and order the medicines accordingly to the wholesalers directly via the app.

Storekeepers can communicate directly to the concerned doctors via an app for required changes due to the availability of stocks of medicines in the prescriptions of patients without sending them back.

The store manager can update the stock regularly.

Pharmacist Module saves the time of patients buying the medicines from the in-house store in the hospitals. It also helps the store manager to update the inventory, communicate with doctors, and place orders via the app.

Admin Module

A mobile application attached to the back-end of the intranet or Internet application eases the entire hospital administration in astounding ways. Following advantages are common with admin modules.

Super admin can allocate different admin roles with different privileges like a manager, head of the department, team leader, and so on.

App alleviates the paperwork for the entire hospital and save time to keep files and transfer those frequently from one table to another.

The mobile application brings transparency in the entire administration process and makes everyone responsible involved in the processes of the hospital.

App speeds up decision-making process at every level from top to bottom by syncing the data and processing it in consumable formats for all.

App provides mobility to each component of the administration and improve productivity with the required precision.

Mobile app cut the administration costs drastically and solve problems pertaining to talent acquisition as well as retention.

An app eases admin processes for the allocation of various medical resources like infrastructural facilities, amenities for staff and patients, beds, stretchers, mobile vans, ambulance, equipment for tests and treatment, medicines, and incentives for the working staff.

An app eases communication among all components of the hospital in highly collaborative ways to deliver excellence.

Admin Module enables hospitals to provide cutting-edge services at far cheaper rates. Improve productivity and bring transparency in the system.

Clinical Research Module

Most of government-sponsored clinical research involves a number of large to small hospitals, medical education institutes, and pharmacy companies working at the global level. If your hospital is a part of it, the clinical research module can help the researchers, scientists, doctors, and field assistants in the following ways.

App obtains the data of patients involved in clinical research automatically to the research scientists.

Make form filling easy for patients, field workers, doctors, and nurses taking part in clinical research

Rapid retrieval of data for students, scientists, and doctors to take decisions based on scientific findings.

Collection and storage of data in a safe way becomes a possibility with the secured app and backend system. The cloud-based database is an excellent choice for the app.

Clinical Research Module enables scientists and doctors to accomplish their research speedy, precisely, and comfortably for all components involved in it.

Takeaway:

We have seen how the healthcare software system is large and encompassing myriads of software modules to gain immense benefits to its different kinds of users and public. Today, without a mobile application integrated with the existing software system, hospitals are unable to deliver cutting-edge healthcare services at competitive rates.

Now, the question is who can deal with such large scale and intricate Healthcare Mobile Application Development? Perception System, San Jose, USA had prior experiences to create such software systems and delivered excellent mobile experiences in the mobile app development for healthcare and pharmacy industries.

[stephenlibbyy]

Switch stacking for campus design: There’s a better way

We often receive the following campus design question: “do you support switch stacking?” This is a fair question, as many of the legacy vendors have promoted stacking designs for the past decade. It’s popular enough that people ask for it, so we must support it, right?

Well, the popular option isn’t always the best one, and switch stacking designs are a very good example of that philosophy. So when people ask if we support stacking, we think to ourselves “heck, no” before politely telling them that we do not because better options exist.

“Perfection is attained, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.”

At Cumulus Networks, we believe that simplicity is the corner-stone of network design.

Or, to say it another way, complex designs fail in complex ways (shoutout to Eric Pulvino for that quote!). Our former Chief Scientist, Dinesh Dutt, gave an excellent explanation around the importance of simple building blocks in his Tech Field Day 9 Presentation (6min 50 seconds in).

Let’s address a little history on switch stacking and then break down the major technical downfalls of a stacking design, the stacking protocol itself, and then compare and contrast that design with Cumulus’ preferred alternative.

Why do switch stacks exist?

For stacks to exist at all, there must have been a problem (or problems) that wasn’t being solved by existing technologies… some missing piece or pain that wasn’t being addressed which forced the ire of customers and the invention of a new management technology. And indeed there were numerous problems that stacks were created to address — however, as we’ll see, these problems are old problems that are all solved today in much more appropriate ways that don’t require the use of a switch stack.

Too many boxes to manage

25-30 years ago all networks were collections of single small standalone switches. Customers’ networks were a bit smaller then, due to the relatively limited sprawl and high price of compute, but the networks themselves were comprised of a lot of simple switches. While functional, it was also painful to drive. Each switch needed to be managed individually, which required a whole lot of network admins and keyboard time (And that’s all you had back then. More switches always meant more keyboards and network admins. There was essentially a linear relationship between switches and people (15:1) to manage the switches). As a result of this trend, it was customers that drove the big networking vendors of the day to build bigger boxes so customers could own fewer, but bigger and more dense switches and they could lessen their administrative burden and headcount.

ASIC hardware limitations — Making lemonade switchstacks with lemons

When switch stacks and chassis systems were invented back in the 90’s, the availability and capability of switching ASICs themselves was very different from what exists today. At that time, you had the entire 6500 Chassis with the SUP32, which had 32Gbps of forwarding capacity. If you wanted lots of density you HAD to have lots of ASICs. There simply were no single ASICs that had the capability to handle aggregated density at the access layer. To address customer demands for density, vendors essentially had to link multiple ASICs to build switch stacks and chassis systems.

What has changed?

Firstly, the software. Today we have new tools to handle the problem of configuration management. Specifically, purpose-built automation and configuration management tools. These tools allow companies like Google to operate with efficiencies of 1 person managing 40,000 servers (40000:1). With the same Linux operating model in Cumulus as you have in the server paradigm, we see folks achieving higher efficiencies today within our customer base.

Secondly the hardware, now we have products like the Tomahawk 3 ASIC with 12.8Tbps of forwarding capacity in a single switch. A single ASIC that could terminate (128) 100Gb ports or (12800) 1Gb ports if you could somehow handle the breakouts. Those same hardware drivers for stacks are no longer relevant.

The primary driver for switch stacks continues to be “simplified” management but we do not believe the goal of simplified management has ever been consistently delivered and a high price has been paid in search of the goal when you consider the tens of thousands of lines of extra code and software complexity that has been introduced into the network in search of it.

Stacking management plane

The management plane of a networking stack is where a lot of the complexity is hidden. A stacking protocol will span and synchronize the management planes of multiple switches into a single, logical switch.

Often, this requires that each switch must be running the same version of code. It also requires that each switch must be from the same vendor, and often the same model or same family, as the other members of the stack. This can limit your options on the speeds and feeds, and it sometimes involves forcing code upgrades that may not be warranted.

The upgrade process is where a lot of the stress of managing a stack comes into play. The underlying philosophy is that there will be a rolling upgrade across all of the stack members. This is accomplished by an ISSU (in-software service upgrade) across the stack that will gracefully reboot line cards, followed by routing engine cards, all without interrupting traffic on upgraded, and stack members that are ready to be upgraded, all while not losing connectivity to the stack’s management IP address.

That’s what is supposed to happen. But if we’re serious, is that what we see happen in our real-world experience? Of course not. Sadly, the reality is that this upgrade process is far more complicated, stress-inducing and rarely occurs the way the marketing flyer told us it would.

In a past life, I accepted that this was just how things were done, folded my hands in prayer and often rebooted all of the stack members at the same time, hoping that I had enough console cables in case something went horribly wrong.  Ask any seasoned engineer who has worked on stacking products if their customers wanted them on-site during these upgrades? You will often get a shoulder shrug and an acknowledgement that this was just part of the job.

Surely, you think to yourself, there must be an easier way! And that’s exactly why Cumulus Networks chooses to support alternate designs over stacking. Why support a design that’s such a needlessly complicated hassle just because it’s popular, when more appropriate solutions exist?

So, what’s the alternative to switch stacking? We believe that the way around the complexity of a stacking protocol shared management plane, running the same version of code and ISSU, is to jettison the complexity and run each switch as an independent actor.

Let’s take a deeper dive into what we recommend:

  There are two designs that we would recommend with this physical topology. First, you could do a complete L3 design. In this design, each IDF would announce locally attached VLANs via OSPF or BGP. The IDFs would have routed, ECMP-capable connections back to the MDF. Each MDF would then receive a default route from an upstream connection and pass along the routing updates from the downstream IDF switches.

The other design would be a mix of L3 and L2. In this design, each of the IDF switches would be independent; they are connected with an LACP connection back to a pair of MDF switches that are running CLAG/Multi-Chassis LAG for L2 redundancy. The gateways are advertised from the MDF using VRR for L3 redundancy.

In terms of managing both designs, we would recommend a network automation tool, such as Ansible, to configure all of the IDF and MDF ports. An Ansible playbook would be the single point of management for all of the switches. That way, you don’t have to configure either design in a box-by-box manner.

In the Cumulus designs, a single IDF switch will not bring down the other IDF connections. Each switch can run different versions of code independent of the other switches, and be rebooted without an adverse effect to the IDF and the MDF.

A hidden benefit of this design is that, not only will this provide stability, but it will also give you options that you did not have before. For example, one can run any vendor switch in each IDF — this gives you the option of what speeds and feeds you want to provide to your end users or to compute nodes.

Hopefully, if there’s one helpful bit of advice you take away from this, it’s to not go along with something just because it’s popular — always be on the lookout for innovation! Speaking of innovation, if this blog post has you interested in leveraging automation to eliminate box-by-box configuration, we’ve got just the podcast for you. Tune into episode one of Kernel of Truth, a Cumulus Networks podcast, for an in depth discussion of how incorporating automation into your skillset can optimize your network and bolster your career goals. Happy listening!

The post Switch stacking for campus design: There’s a better way appeared first on Cumulus Networks Blog.

Switch stacking for campus design: There’s a better way published first on https://wdmsh.tumblr.com/

[slap190-blog]

Assignment 2. Do bodies have politics?

[search for two videos posted before this]

Wendell talks about how structures and the environment a person with a disability exists in influences that person’s way of life, and how the world around us is not built for people with impairments even though we’d like to think it is. She asserts that Handicap is the relationship between a disabled person and the physical, social, and cultural obstacles that they encounter. In order to examine Wendell’s argument, we decided to consider some of the facilities provided by the UCSD campus for Handicapped students. Even though UCSD has made accommodations and wheelchair accessible routes for people with disabilities, they are limited and prove to be highly inconvenient. We chose to explore this in two videos where people could see the rout a “normal” able-bodied person can take from point A (Price Center) to point B (our classroom in the Communication building), and the route a person in a wheelchair could take. By exploring this we can begin to acknowledge the issues that people with disabilities face every day.

Other significant limitations encountered by disabled individuals include:

1.       The lack of a map of the wheelchair accessible routes on UCSD campus.

2.       The absence of an Accessible button on all entrances of buildings so the person has to use one specific door.

3.       The lack of efficient space in the classroom for a disabled individual to choose their desired area of sitting. This individual is mostly limited to sit at certain areas.

4.       Many accessible routes are either unknowingly blocked, or are unfit for accessible travel.

Since 1990, with the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act ( ADA), buildings, technology, and information are all required to be accessible to all Americans, regardless of ability; we see in in this small excerpt of travel on the UCSD campus that although a person can in fact gain access to similar spaces as “able-bodied” individuals, it is obvious that these spaces are retroactively, or secondarily made accessible to them if they do not fit into the perceived definition of “able”, rather than considering all individuals that may interact with the space.

To be “normal” is to walk, with your own feet and legs, without assistance from machinery or other people. A majority of the population travels this way and so they are the first consideration when designing a building, walkway, or campus. However, the creation of these environments are what create the notion of someone being un-able, or dis-abled to interact with a space; the designs for those spaces could have been created to be accessed by those who use wheelchairs, which “able-bodied” individuals would easily be able to interact with also. The idea of utilitarian design defines a majority, an implied normal or standard, and caters to it while being able to categorize an entire group of people as not normal or below standard and then making them unable to interact with space, in essence prescribing “disability” to them.

[tendance-news]

 1:38

View from above: Fires ravage Southern California

Drone footage captured fires burning near Lake Casitas on Dec. 5 (Nicholas Weissman/The Washington Post)

OJAI, Calif. — The flames came from all sides, tearing across cliffs and roaring down mountains, burning through homes and engulfing cars. Entire communities were evacuated, forcing people to grab what they could and flee as raging wildfires spread rapidly, and in multiple directions, across Southern California.

Early Thursday, officials said that the worst of the wildfires — an enormous, fast-moving blaze known as the Thomas Fire — had surrounded Ojai, a popular winter retreat with about 8,000 residents. Most of the Ojai Valley was under a mandatory evacuation order

Yet even as they scrambled for shelter from the choking smoke and flames that turned idyllic communities into apocalyptic backdrops, many people worried about the dangers still to come. Officials warned that the wildfire threat could increase through the end of the week, with the same “red flag” weather conditions fueling the fires forecast to intensify.

The wildfires in Ventura and Los Angeles counties have so far forced tens of thousands to escape, destroying hundreds of structures and emptying homes, hospitals, schools and multimillion-dollar mansions alike.

In Ventura, the Thomas Fire burned across 90,000 acres by Wednesday night, spreading through an area larger than the city of Philadelphia. Officials there said they had evacuated more than 50,000 people from 15,000 homes, before issuing even more orders to flee.

Several areas east of the city of Santa Paula were placed under mandatory evacuation late Wednesday due to imminent danger, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.

The columns of flame began stretching toward Santa Barbara and surrounded Highway 101 — a major north-south freeway that straddles the Pacific Coast north of Ventura. The California Highway Patrol said early Thursday that it was closing a lengthy stretch of the highway, between Ventura and Carpinteria, an oceanside city in Santa Barbara County.

[ ‘Armageddon’: Apocalyptic images show the devastation caused by Southern California fires ]

Los Angeles County faced comparatively smaller blazes in the Rye and Creek fires, both of which erupted Tuesday north of downtown Los Angeles.

But a new blaze, known as the Skirball Fire, began early Wednesday in Bel Air, temporarily shutting down Interstate 405 — one of the country’s busiest freeways — and forcing the evacuation of 1,200 homes across the posh hillside neighborhoods near the University of California Los Angeles campus. UCLA officials canceled classes Thursday — just two days before final exams were to begin.

Officials confronted the growing Skirball Fire while continuing to battle the Creek Fire, which had crept into the city on the other side of town.

But by late Wednesday, strong winds caused new flare-ups in the Bel Air area, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Peter Sanders said. Firefighters made late night water drops from helicopters in hopes of keeping the fire from jumping west of Interstate 405.

With overnight wind gusts up to 80 mph expected in some areas, Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Daryl L. Osby issued an ominous warning Wednesday night: “It’s critically important for people that live in wildland areas that you sleep with one eye open tonight.”

Los Angeles officials said that 265 schools in the San Fernando Valley and West Los Angeles would be closed for the rest of the week as a safety measure.

“Our plan here is to try to stop this fire before it becomes something bigger,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) said at an earlier news briefing. “These are days that break your heart. But these are also days that show the resilience of our city.”

That resilience could face serious tests in coming days.

Officials in Ventura said they expected the fire to grow to the north and west over the next two days, as well as what one Cal Fire official, Tim Chavez, said was a “large probability of spot fires that will spread easily and spread rapidly.”

In Los Angeles, officials said they were bracing for another night of extremely strong winds as high as 80 miles per hour, which, combined with dry weather and parched vegetation, made the region particularly vulnerable to new fires. At an afternoon news conference, Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Ralph M. Terrazas said the winds could blow embers as far as 10 miles away. The index that the department uses to assess environmental conditions for the fire risk is at the highest level he has ever seen in his career, Terrazas said.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell was one of many officials who urged residents in areas near the fires to prepare to evacuate “should the need arise.”

Not far from the Skirball Fire, residents and visitors alike were weighing whether to stay or go. Two roommates who live in the Brentwood area packed their bags and were “just hanging tight,” said one of the men, 23-year-old Wes Luttrell. Montevis Price, who was visiting Los Angeles from Miami, promptly checked out of his hotel when he saw the blaze.

“I saw the little mountain on fire and that was it,” Price said. “You can prepare for a hurricane, but you can’t prepare for something that happens all of a sudden.”

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) declared states of emergency in Los Angeles and Ventura counties because of the fires. More than 4,000 firefighters and other first responders fanned out across the region to save lives, protect homes and evacuate residents.

Osby, the Los Angeles fire chief, said that many of the firefighters who had been working on the fire since Monday had not slept. Hundreds of other firefighters and engines were en route from Northern California and nearby states.

“You can probably understand that most of our resources are pretty tapped,” he said.

As of Wednesday evening, officials said no deaths had been recorded as a result of the blazes, but some areas that had burned were not yet accessible.

The scenes of areas around the fires in Los Angeles brought to mind the horror of a disaster film.

Day appeared as night along the coast, the smoke-masked sun casting a deep red light into the sky. Massive flames rolled down chaparral-covered cliffs toward Highway 101 from Santa Barbara south to Ventura. On the 405 highway near the J. Paul Getty Museum, videos taken from cars passing through showed a hellscape of fire and darkness: black hillsides covered in smoke and burning embers. Palm trees, a symbol of the region’s laid-back lifestyle, went up in flames.

The smoke from the fires was visible from space, according to photos taken on the International Space Station and posted by NASA.

Robbie Fox

✔@RobbieBarstool

Maybe the craziest thing I have ever seen. Looks like a real life apocalypse.

5:11 PM - Dec 6, 2017

 8484 Replies

   2,852

2,852 Retweets

   6,254

6,254 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy

“When you get those 40-to 50-mile-per-hour winds, the fire just rolls like a steam train and you have minutes to get to safety,” said Ventura City Councilman Erik Nasarenko.

He was in a city council meeting on Tuesday when the evacuation order came.

“It was crazy,” Nasarenko said. “In the middle of the council meeting, the city manager tells me our neighborhood is on mandatory evacuation, so I raced home, grabbed the guinea pig and the kids and bolted.”

 2:05

'It's devastating': Ventura evacuees watch homes burn, buildings collapse in wildfires

Southern California residents are fleeing relentless wildfires that have devastated homes and caused apartments buildings to collapse. (Monica Akhtar, Nicholas Weissman/The Washington Post)

For some, the flames had already consumed nearly everything they had.

The fire began beneath David and Theresa Brock’s house in upper Ojai around sundown Monday, jumping the road and sprinting up toward them. But a shifting wind pushed it away within a few hundred yards, and the couple believed their home of 12 years was safe. They stayed up through the night, smoke covering the grounds around them.

“I thought we were doing great, real great,” said Brock, a state-certified operator of public water systems.

At about 4 a.m. Tuesday, the winds shifted again. The fire raced toward them, covering five miles in 15 minutes. Brock turned to Theresa and said, “Let’s get outside in the dirt.” The couple keeps cattle, and the wide, grazed area outside their hilltop home acted as a natural fire break.

“At least out here,” he told her, “there’s nothing to catch fire.”

NASA Armstrong

✔@NASAArmstrong

During an engineering flight test of the Cloud-Aerosol Multi-Angle Lidar (CAMAL) instrument, a view from @NASAArmstrong's ER-2 shows smoke plumes, from roughly 65,000 feet, produced by the #ThomasFire , around 1 p.m. PDT on December 5th, 2017. Photo Credit: Stu Broce

12:43 AM - Dec 7, 2017

 1515 Replies

   246

246 Retweets

   815

815 likes

Twitter Ads info and privacy

As the couple watched the flames approach, a transformer blew adjacent to their home, igniting a pepper tree. Sparks were sucked into their attic.

“Then we saw smoke coming out of the vent,” Brock, 57, said. “And I thought, ‘well, that’s it, we can’t save it now.’”

Brock pulled his Ford Torino and tractor out of the garage, keeping them in the fire break, and with the help of firemen, managed to pull a few items out of his house.

“But what do you take?” he said. He chose a few family photos, but the cedar chest where Theresa kept all the family documents burned.

“Then I just stood back and watched,” he said. “You see these people on TV who have lost everything, and you can’t imagine it, until it’s you. Now I am that person. I have the clothes on my back.”

A firefighter tries to keep flames from spreading while battling a wildfire in Ventura, Calif. (Noah Berger/AP)

Others felt the fear of what could come next.

“I’m scared,” said Beth Dorenkamp, a 25-year Ojai resident. “I saw the fire start at the east end of town, like a plume, but I never thought it would end up like this.”

Dorenkamp and Kathe Hanson huddled on a chilly morning at the Riverview Ranch in the Meiners Oaks neighborhood, which had been threatened but spared Tuesday as the Thomas Fire grew. The women keep horses at the ranch, and spent a mostly sleepless Tuesday night keeping watch over them.

“We all have trailers ready to go, but all of the roads are closed,” said Hanson, masked against the falling ash, holding the reins of her horse, Mozart. “So we’re sleeping in the barn and waiting to see what happens.”

Around the property, F-250s and Tundra pickups were hitched to trailers, ready to evacuate some of the 80 horses stabled there. The escape route had narrowed significantly, though, with some of the roads north into Santa Barbara County threatened by fire.

Word of mouth appeared the most common form of neighborhood newsgathering, with cell service spotty in the best of times in these high canyons, the power unstable because of the fire, and the Internet out in parts of the city.

[ Thanks to climate change, the weather roasting California and freezing the East may thrive ]

The Carver family fled their home in Meiners Oak on Tuesday morning with flames less than half a mile from their property.

“We’d been up all night watching it,” said Cindy Carver, who with her husband, Thomas, and their two children, Caleb and Danika, moved to Ojai about eight years ago.

The family’s power had gone out, and Thomas, a ham radio operator, used a radio repeater on Sulfur Mountain as an indicator of how close the flames were and which direction they were heading. If the repeater failed, he would leave with his family. It remained active all night.

Preparations began before dawn. Thomas, a family therapist, let the turkeys, goats and chickens the family raises loose in their pens. He and Cindy grabbed the passports, a couple wedding photos, a little cash and jewelry and corralled the kids into the camper. They also grabbed Hondo and Jetta, two rescue dogs, their four cats and 10 kittens.

“There was a point where I just thought I was going to lose it, and then we all said, it’s just stuff,” Thomas said.

Caleb, 12, and Danika, 8, attend Ojai Valley School, which was closed like the others in the area. The upper campus was damaged on Tuesday, when a girl’s dormitory burned down along with several other buildings. But the students had been evacuated early, which Cindy praised.

The day off from school seemed by turns fun and frightening, given the uncertainty the afternoon and evening held. The family is keeping their camper in a parking lot, and heading home in quick visits to eat and shower.

Caleb said he was amazed that as they left home, everything around him seemed to be taking place as it did any other day — a guy riding his bicycle through the smoke, a hiker on a nearby nature preserve trail.

“How are people so normal about this?” he said.

Berman and Rosenberg reported from Washington. Noah Smith in Los Angeles; William Dauber in Van Nuys, Calif.; Travis Andrews, J. Freedom du Lac and Jason Samenow in Washington contributed to this report, which was first published on Dec. 6 and has been updated numerous times.

[kalachand97-blog]

New Post has been published on Globeinfrom

New Post has been published on https://globeinform.com/nepean-sports-activities-dome-nevertheless-closed-four-days-after-deflating/

Nepean sports activities dome nevertheless closed, four days after deflating

The dome is used for a number of sports, together with indoor football, rugby, lacrosse and closing frisbee.

Dave Louden turned into hitting golf balls on the time of the deflation. He advised CBC News Monday that there has been unexpectedly a “quite dramatic” rip within the dome’s seam, observed by the roof beginning proper up. Blue Mountains Journey – Blue Mountains Accommodation, NSW

The Blue Mountains, simply 2 hrs from Sydney, is an area of the extensive desolate tract, romantic and peaceful Accommodation, excellent eating, indulgent buying, awe-inspiring caves and staggering countrywide parks. With several lookouts, you may enjoy the fashionable scenic perspectives of towering escarpments and plummeting waterfalls. The begin of the Blue Mountains includes the lovely villages of Lapstone, Blaxland, Glenbrook, Springwood, and Lawson. This place functions lovable waterfalls, swimming holes, countrywide park walks and artwork & craft galleries. At the far reaches of the Blue Mountains, Lithgow & Oberon offers the gateway to the wonders of latest South Wales Explorer United states of America and hosts the Jenolan Caves and Kanangra Walls.

Our extensive range of Blue Mountains Lodging helps you to explore all of the vicinity has to provide: From bushwalking and horse using, to abseiling and rock sports; from vineyards to culinary delights; from artwork galleries, to stunning surroundings and locations of Aboriginal cultural significance. We’ve the Blue Mountains expensive hotels, bed and breakfasts, retreats, health spas, self-catering residences, and guest houses to suit every budget and holiday need.

Whether or not taking a bushwalk or the Scenic Skyway cable vehicle, our Blue Mountains Accommodation is an exceptional base for exploring the breathtaking natural splendor of the vicinity, specifically the Jamison Valley, which incorporates the 3 Sisters, Katoomba Falls, and Mount Solitary. The rugged pristine surroundings can also be enjoyed and liked by taking a paddle wheeler cruise along the scenic Nepean gorge or an abseiling or journey tour inside the Jenolan Caves. Our Blue Mountains Accommodation, cottages, and vacation houses also make a perfect base for appreciating the artwork and subculture of the area: from antique centers to arts and crafts presentations; from the Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum, to Casey’s vineyard, which specializes in cool weather wine.

The pioneering spirit of the excellent land can be preferred on the Megalong Australian History Centre, which is a celebration of Australian rural life where you may learn how to crack a whip, muster, milk a cow and shear a sheep. The Zig Zag Railway is likewise a beautiful monument to the pioneering spirit. Built in the 1860s to enable tourists to be taken to Sydney from the Blue Mountains, the railway become seemed as one of the engineering wonders of the Victorian age. Our Blue Mountains Lodging acts as a fantastic base for exploring the region’s rich Aboriginal cultural history. The history behind the 3 Sisters rock formation is explained by way of Aboriginal Dreamtime myth of 3 sisters of the Katoomba tribe who fell in love with 3 brothers of the neighboring Nepean tribe. The unions, where became now not approved below tribal regulation, and so while a tribal battle broke out a witchdoctor turned the Three sisters to stone so that you can shield them. The spell changed into unable to be reversed after the witch doctor became killed and the rock formations of the Three Sisters stand as a reminder of the struggle to destiny generations.

Our Blue Mountains Lodging is high-quality for enjoying one of the place’s diverse festivals: From the party of the alternate of seasons in past due June, the Iciness Magic Competition; to celebrations of track, the Blue Mountains tune Pageant featuring folks, roots and blues and the Kowmung music Festival, which features chamber music and jazz in uncommon venues like limestone caves and farm animals sheds.

BookBlueMountains.Com.Au offers different styles and types of Accommodation: Whichever you choose, the style is heat, welcoming, and clean – the provider pleasant and casual. So e-book your Lodging online via our website to obtain the best rates available On the web!

West Ottawa – The Metropolis’s Trendiest Vicinity to Stay Transportation

The West Give up is without problems reachable through bus via the Transitway – OC Transpo routes 95, 96 and ninety-seven all pass through Lincoln Fields station (close to Richmond and Carling). In case you’re renting an Ottawa rental near Lincoln Fields, you are right beside one of the major transit hubs within the Metropolis, as the station connects dozens of local and citywide buses in a single handy location. If you have your very own automobile, both the Queensway and the Ottawa River Limited-access highway are simply minutes away, quick connecting you to the relaxation of the City.

major shopping Centres

If you’re searching for an apartment for rent in Westboro or Nepean, you will be happy to recognize that those neighborhoods are bustling with several purchasing opportunities. In addition to the many small impartial stores (which includes several out of doors sports shops), there are numerous large purchasing centers in the area, which include Bayshore buying Centre. A Three-degree mall containing greater than a hundred and fifty shops and services, it’s far preferably positioned simply off Dual carriageway 417. You should also take a look at out Carlingwood shopping Centre, which includes more than 125 stores and services with plenty of unfastened parking.

Different West Ottawa shops consist of Lincoln Fields purchasing Centre (which incorporates a Wal-Mart and a Loeb), Pinecrest purchasing Centre (with the famous IKEA keep overlooking the Queensway), College Square (a favorite destination for Algonquin College college students and people with condo rentals near Baseline and Woodroffe) and Westgate shopping Centre (presenting a totally useful 24-hour Customers Drug Mart).

Faculties

A Paramount Homes West Ottawa condo is perfect for college students attending Algonquin University, as our Maples residences are within on foot distance of the faculty and our Greenbank, Carling Park and Wellington residences can speedily get you to campus by using the bus. And for those with young families, West Ottawa additionally has over 20 public essential Colleges, 9 Catholic elementary Colleges, five public high Faculties and a pair of Catholic high Colleges.

Museums and art Centres

For those residing in a Nepean condominium and looking to research a little bit more approximately the history in their community, the Nepean Museum (16 Rowley Road), which is domestic to numerous antiques (such as a few over 100 years old), is the precise afternoon getaway.

For the outdoor sports activities fanatic, head over to the Canadian Ski Museum (200-1960 Scott Street). Based in 1971, it is the largest public collection of skiing memorabilia in Canada, housing over 6,000 snapshots and ski gadget courting back over 150 years.

Theatre-lovers will want to test out the Centrepointe Theatre (one zero one Centrepointe Drive). This 1,000-seat theater is the home of numerous first-rate nearby performing companies, which include Orpheus Musical Theatre Society, Savoy Society, and Les Petits Ballets.

fairs

West Ottawa is thought for its many fairs – and In case you’re living in a Westboro condominium constructing, you’ll find yourself proper in the middle of the excitement. each yr, the Ottawa folks Pageant takes over Britannia Park, showcasing Canada’s people traditions thru tune, dance, storytelling and crafts.

WestFest, Ottawa’s most up-to-date huge-scale Pageant, is a diverse 3-day birthday celebration that includes tune, visual arts, dance, spoken phrase and overall performance artwork right within the heart of Westboro along Richmond Road. It functions numerous concert events by way of pinnacle-level artists and is unfastened for the majority.

Different Points of interest

If physical activity is more your issue, and you’re looking at a condo for lease in Nepean, you can’t cross incorrectly by way of spending an afternoon at the Nepean Sportsplex (1701 Woodroffe Street). This huge facility incorporates the whole lot you want to revel in a recreation of baseball, hockey, soccer, basketball, curling, soccer, squash, lawn bowling and lots extra! The Sportsplex additionally offers a host of tremendous packages for children and seniors.

along the Ottawa River is the beautiful Westboro Seaside, that’s run through the Metropolis of Ottawa and has been a venue for public swimming for the reason that early 1920s. The Seaside, that is surrounded via hiking and cycling trails, additionally, consists of a spot for canoe and kayak leases as well as a café entire with patio and kitchen.

Britannia Park is a picnicker’s paradise, with numerous tables scattered On the grass and plenty of bushes to offer color on the one’s warm sunny days. There are play structures and a swing set for kids to play on, and it is an extraordinary Vicinity to go swimming or windsurfing, as there may be a lifeguard on duty from mid-June via to Labour Day. additionally in the Park is the Ron Kolbus Lakeside Centre, a banquet corridor and community center that holds as much as 300 humans for special occasions.

[myupdatestudio-blog]

New Post has been published on Myupdatestudio

New Post has been published on https://myupdatestudio.com/schooling-secretary-devos-visits-orlando/

Schooling Secretary DeVos visits Orlando

ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) – Schooling Secretary Betsy Devos made her manner lower back to Important Florida on her first solo journey out of Washington D.C. This Friday morning. That is her second time right here in only one month. She visited Valencia University’s Advanced Manufacturing Training Center.

                                        Schooling Secretary

Free Online Schooling

Devos’ visit comes as she’s specializing in schools that offer twin enrollment publications and technical schools, like Valencia. She said That is any other alternative for individuals who can’t afford to go to College for four years.

College officers stated Valencia College has the lowest tuition in Primary Florida, at $103.06 consistent with credit score hour for Florida citizens. So on common, a full-time scholar will pay approximately $1,500 a semester.

DeVos met with numerous college students and body of workers individuals at some stage in a roundtable discussion about Valencia. A single mother who graduated from the College instructed DeVos she used to work at IHOP and desired to make more money, so she joined Valencia’s Manufacturing Training Middle and found out construction.

“It’s been splendid I started with a shovel, I learned the way to operate the heating machines, and now I operate the unload trucks,” stated Samantha Rogers at some stage in the roundtable.

DeVos additionally made her manner to Valencia University’s Osceola campus, wherein she became met with the aid of protesters. One student yelled to the secretary, “You must be ashamed!”

A small organization of students and instructors held signs and expressed anger that she become right here. The organization informed us Valencia University continues to be no longer less costly for a few college students and there should be more furnish possibilities.

“Her being here’s a slap in the face to Valencia,” stated Valencia student Michelle Lopez. “some humans don’t have the chance to come back to school, it’s a financial burden, people can’t have the funds for it; humans can’t even afford to stay.”

The secretary said the Trump Management is working on approaches to make College greater inexpensive.

“President Trump has certainly made it a priority to deal with the affordability of higher Schooling,” said DeVos. “Valencia is an amazing example of an affordable route to higher Education.”

That’s not necessarily real. Paul Threet graduated from the construction software 9-months ago at Valencia. He’s seeking to take a direction to discover ways to become a foreman at his creation employer but it expenses $1, two hundred and he stated that’s something he can’t manage to pay for proper now.

“There’s no longer quite a few funding for the smaller lessons, small men who want to get available and it’s just crucial to a process run an excavate, or run a loader, or to be a regular welder. If we will get extra investment for that kind of Education I accept as true with it may enhance the financial system,” said Threet.

Other humans want to see the secretary attention on Ok-12 funding however the president is presenting to shrink extra than $nine-billion in public Education.

“I have a look at Betsy DeVos as a wrecking ball for public schools; to deter investment from the schools to constitution schools,” stated President of the Orange County Study room instructors Association Wendy Doromal.

“It’s disrespectful to our college students because what they’re trying to do is take the money, starve the public faculties after which to mention the most effective choice is a charter Faculty because all the public schools are failing and the best cause they’re failing is due to the fact they’re taking our investment away,” said a Seminole County High College teacher Bobby Agagnina. “So it’s simply robbing Peter to pay Paul and I simply disagree.”

a few instructors desired to pay attention to the secretary’s roundtable dialogue have been advised they were not welcomed.

“They started it turned into a personal occasion and no public citizens may want to are available,” stated a Seminole County Excessive College teacher Bobby Agagnina.

We requested the secretary to the president’s proposed simplest and he or she said not anything is set in stone.

“The president’s finances isn’t but finished. We’ll be talking more about that in the coming weeks however we’re focused on investing on matters which have proven to paintings,” said DeVos.

The decline in Educational Requirements – Now What?

Richard Devos

At the commencement of the 09/10 Academic yr, President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, had been busy making untiring efforts for the improvement of techniques to preserve the competitive status of Yankee better Training within the twenty-first century monetary chaos – probably due to the fact that within the preceding 10 years, The united states has gone down from the primary role to the tenth among countries giving beginning to graduates. amongst others, the Obama – Duncan duet have various strategies on the go to make bigger the educational yr, making the College hours similar to the time Other nations spend coaching their people. Levels are required to enhance and getting suitable funding has grown to be extraordinarily essential.

all through his speech At the Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, Big apple within the middle of September 2009, the President threw mild on some of the troubles. In line with the President, it’s miles that a relatively knowledgeable kingdom might result in an incredibly competent American future. The development of recent industries is without delay dependent on green people who’ve clean and entire understanding concerning their abilities in specific fields. Up till now, our primary and secondary schools have been trailing numerous competitors, particularly in foremost fields consisting of math and technological know-how. A majority of Excessive Faculty graduates who are completely geared up for College do now not attend four-year or -yr schools because of the affordability issue. And approximately forty percentage of college students who start College don’t absolutely finish College Training. A majority of college students slip via the cracks, all alongside the instructional pipeline. Now, this loss isn’t always only limited to college students however it truly results in the loss of each our u. S . and it’s economy.

But, considering the brighter facet of this photograph, the House of Representatives simply surpassed the ‘direct pupil mortgage program’. Consistent with reports on ‘Congress Matters’, Obama’s techniques take account of:

* Making an investment of around $2.55 billion in Traditionally Black colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions for the provision of students with the assist they require to maintain College and graduate.

* Making an investment of $3 billion to bolster the accessibility of University and crowning glory of support applications for college kids,

* Making an investment of $40 billion boasts the most yearly Pell grant Scholarship to $5,550 I 2012 and to $6,900 through 2019,

* Reducing the interest costs on want-based totally – or financially supported – federal pupil loans by using making the hobby costs on such loans choppy beginning in 2012. These hobby prices are currently maintained to shift from 3.4% to 6.8% in 2012,

* Making it extra convenient for families to apply for economic help via making the FAFSA shapeless complicated;

* Providing loan forgiveness for military contributors who’ve to go away for responsibility in the middle of the academic yr.

* Improving the Perkins mortgage application, a campus-based application that gives low-value federal loans to learning people.

individuals who are vigilantly trying Obama’s rules together with Invoice Clinton and Randi Weingartner have favored Obama’s plans and are keenly searching forward to their completion.

Aside from investment, there are some of Other hot issues as properly. First of all, the transport device of the higher Schooling seems to desperately need and may require fixing as a result of the hundreds of Yankee college students displeased with the price of Schooling from the 8261261b8ee23b46c3c262a065603e2e non-public institutes. A majority of them would rather join in a cheap kingdom University having installed first-class coaching strategies and avoid graduating with an extremely good debt once they gain their degree. A great range of college students does now not consider graduating from a High-status non-public University having achieved ‘not anything’ and departing with a big debt. On the other hand, on-line Tiers serve to be an inexpensive alternative and have become increasingly more popular, nowadays. So, on-line take a look at can show to be a really perfect alternative.

The Washington Monthly has just published a new College ranking – that is definitely exclusive the conventional U.S. Information and World Document. According to with the Washington Monthly’s ranking, all kingdom universities hold the pinnacle popularity inclusive of College of California at Berkeley, San Diego, and Los Angeles. The metric machine implemented in These universities for figuring outrank position is dependent on: Pell Presents for every scholar, general wide variety of students Providing national carrier, and numerous Other much less conventional initiatives.

within the modern economic turmoil, public (nation) colleges may function a really pricey desire for the center-classed circle of relatives. The new American Basis supports an asset-developing application that has impending and priceless analyses concerning households that are badly affected by the financial crisis.

A superb beginning ground for These families to start improving 529 University savings plan is to ensure that the states provide a variety of conventional investment schemes together with: capital maintenance investment alternatives, like a cash market mutual fund, and finances granted on the idea of age that start out greater strictly, however, sooner or later grow to be greater protection-focused once the kid reaches the age of attending a College.

Orlando Bloom

An extra measure taken for the improvement of University financial savings plan is to make sure entire disclosure which is and simple to be aware of. This allows the households to have a perception on what they’re spending in and the extent of threat present in a mission such investments.