Monthly Archives: March 2017

Utopia for Realists and How We Can Get There by Rutger Bregman digested read – The Guardian

Posted: March 5, 2017 at 4:40 pm

Everyone is bored of being made to be happy all the time Rutger Bregmans book Utopia for Realists. Illustration: Matt Blease for the Guardian

Lets start with a history lesson. In the past, everything was worse. Look, I know you may not be happy that there is famine in large parts of Africa, that Islamic State is in control of a large part of the Middle East, that North Korea could nuke someone for a laugh and that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are bound to make things even more unstable. But count yourself lucky that you are still alive. If you had been born 600 years ago, theres a fair chance youd be dead by now.

What weve all got today would have been seen as a utopia in the middle ages. Thanks to medical advances, only a few of us are really deformed, most people have fresh water, somewhere warm to sleep, enough money to get by and internet access. Some scientists think it wont be long until someone lives to be 1,000.

All this comfort has made us lazy. People used to dream of utopias because their lives were so miserable. But now utopias have become dystopias, with everyone bored of being made to be happy all the time. Weve lost the will to change society for the better. So lets play utopia!

Its May 2009 and an experiment is under way in London. Its subjects: 13 homeless men. These men rack up 400,000 a year in court costs and social services. So what did a charity do? It gave each one 3,000 to spend as they liked. Within a year, theyd all turned their lives around and were productive members of society, apart from some of them.

Giving people free money works. They live longer, they contribute more and are less of a burden on the state. They tried it in Canada and it worked. President Nixon almost pioneered a universal basic income of $1,600 in 1969, before he was persuaded it wasnt such a good idea after all.

We can end poverty for good by just giving people money. Try it. Next time you see a poor person, give them a decent wedge of cash and see how it transforms their lives. But dont just give them a spare fiver, because that will change nothing: nudge economics only increases dependency and keeps people in poverty.

Imagine a world where everyone was a millionaire because the state had given them lots of dosh. Then we wouldnt need to spend money on the NHS, because everyone would be eating and looking after themselves so well that no one would ever get ill. And the few people who did get ill could afford private healthcare. Sorted. Its just a shame there will be no nursing staff as everyone will be too rich to bother with a job that doesnt pay very much and involves long hours.

Have I mentioned that Nixon almost introduced a universal basic income in 1969? Oh, I have. But it was the main point of this book, so I had better repeat it. By the way, the only reason it didnt go ahead was because someone told Nixon lies about what would happen if he were to do it. Only saying.

Heres some other things Id like to happen. We all work far too many hours, except for people who dont work at all. The ideal should be for everyone to work 15 hours a week and spend the rest of the time watching TV. And that is perfectly possible, though I agree it might be rather annoying to find that everywhere you wanted to go with your new time off was closed because staff are on a 15-hour week. Our kids might also be a little thicker because the schools would only be open for three hours a day, but at least theyd happier and I have a case study of a primary school in Amsterdam to prove it.

GDP is another downer. Countries swear by it, forgetting it never existed before the 1930s. So lets get rid of it and measure things differently. Lets do away with robots and bankers, too, as they have all proved more trouble than theyre worth. Cast your mind back to a time when your boss couldnt email you with a pointless query at 10.30 at night. Wasnt it so much nicer to get a good nights sleep? Ignorance is utopian bliss. And as for immigration, if there was free movement of labour, all the worlds problems would be sorted. Everyone who is starving in South Sudan could come over here to do the jobs the rest of us dont have time to do as were only working 15 hours a week. Win-win!

Digested read digested: Living the dream.

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Inside Julianne Hough’s Fun-Filled Bachelorette Caribbean Cruise – E! Online

Posted: at 4:38 pm

Now this is a bachelorette party!

Julianne Hough, who is engaged to Brooks Laich,recentlyset sail withand her besties, including BFF Nina Dobrev, aboard a Celebrity Cruises luxury cruise-linerfor abachelorette beachelorette trip to the Caribbean.

TheDancing With the Starspro-turned-judge and her pals enjoyed plenty of beach time and also snorkeled through the reefs in Cozumel, Mexico, embarked on ahelicopter tour above the Grand Cayman Islands and zip-lined through Falmouth, Jamaica, E! News has learned exclusively.

Hough postedon Instagram Friday a pic Dobrev took ofthe group. She wore a pink bachelorette sash over a white bikini.

"#JulesBEACHelorette #BitchinB4TheHitchin #HastaLaVistaHough #TheFinalHoughrrah #TheLastFlingB4TheRing #BEACHeloretteWithMyBEACHES #BeachCrew," Hough wrote. "Thank you @celebritycruises for the gift of this amazing Bachelorette party!"

Dobrev also shared group photos on her page.

On the ship, they stayed in apenthouse suite, which featured interactive entertainment systems, a baby grand piano, marble floors, sweeping balconies, a living room, dining room, music center, a private veranda with a whirlpool and a European-style butler service. While onboard, Hough and her friends spent time soaking up the sunandsipping on cocktails.

Hough and Laich, a hockey player, got engaged a year and a half ago. They have not announced their wedding date. Bachelorette and bachelor parties are typically held no more than a month before a wedding.

Last September, Hough indicated toE! Newsthat she and her fianc were in the early stages of planning their nuptials.

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Extra T20s added to Pakistan’s Caribbean tour – Sportstarlive – Sportstarlive

Posted: at 4:38 pm

Two additional Twenty20 internationals have been added to the itinerary for Pakistan's upcoming tour of the West Indies.

The two teams were set to meet in two T20s in the Caribbean, prior to three one-day internationals and three Tests.

However, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) confirmed on Saturday that four T20s will now be contested, with extra matches taking place in Barbados and Trinidad.

The series will begin in Barbados on March 26.

"Twenty20 is an exciting format and this is another opportunity for our fans to indulge in the thrilling atmosphere that surrounds these matches," said Roland Holder, the WICB's manager of cricket operations.

"We look forward to fans in Barbados and Trinidad coming out and cheering our team on to victory."

The Windies are currently hosting England in a three-match ODI series. The second match takes place in Antigua on Sunday, with England 1-0 up following a 45-run win at the same venue.

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Mysterious wave of death strikes the Bahamas famous swimming pigs – SFGate

Posted: at 4:38 pm

Ben Guarino, The Washington Post

A mysterious wave of deaths recently struck Big Major Cay, the uninhabited Bahamas island famous for its tourist-friendly swimming pigs.

Up to half of the pig colony died and the bodies were tossed into the sea, according to reports from over the weekend. Early investigations could not identify an explicit cause of death.

Wayde Nixon, a Bahamas man who brought the pigs to the island decades ago, suggested that tourists killed the animals with a lethal diet. With unrestricted access to the pigs, visitors had been seen giving the animals junk food as well as booze.

"We had the government vet in there [and] examined them all thoroughly," Nixon told the Nassau Guardian. Seven or eight pigs died, he said, leaving about 15 alive. The ones that survived appeared to be healthy.

Kim Aranha, president of Bahamas Humane Society, indicated to the Nassau-based newspaper Tribune 242 that there were fewer pigs remaining on the island than initially reported.

Photo: Barcroft/Barcroft Media Via Getty Images

A pig swimming in the Bahamas. Swimming in the crystal clear waters off the island of Big Major Spot in the Bahamas, these playful swimming pigs wow locals and holiday makers alike. Known locally as "Pig Beach", the brown and pink feral adult pigs and piglets are fed by locals as they trotter along the tropical beaches. After lounging in the sun the piglets run into the water and even sometimes swim out to incoming boats. (Photo by Eric Cheng / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

View of pig at Island Routes Caribbean Adventure Tour during Sandals Emerald Bay Celebrity Getaway And Golf Weekend on June 3, 2016 in Great Exuma, Bahamas. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Sandals)

Two swimming pigs off the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas.

The famous swimming pink pigs at Staniel Cay on June 15, 2012 in the Islands of the Exumas, The Bahamas. (Photo by EyesWideOpen/Getty Images)

A swimming pig off the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas. These amazing pigs swim every day in the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. They show off their piggy-paddle to visitors who flock to their beach to see the extraordinary site of wild pigs making a splash in the beautiful turquoise sea. One bright pig called Plato has become so famous he now stars in his own book, The Secret of Pig Island, where his exploits have been captured by photographer and ocean guide, Jim Abernethy, 52, from Florida. As this collection of photographs from the book shows, the pigs are remarkably well adapted to their beach bum lifestyle of frolicking the water and lazing on the sand. (Photo by Jim Abernethy / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

A pig on the beach on the island of Big Major Cay, in the central Bahamas. These amazing pigs swim every day in the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. They show off their piggy-paddle to visitors who flock to their beach to see the extraordinary site of wild pigs making a splash in the beautiful turquoise sea. One bright pig called Plato has become so famous he now stars in his own book, The Secret of Pig Island, where his exploits have been captured by photographer and ocean guide, Jim Abernethy, 52, from Florida. As this collection of photographs from the book shows, the pigs are remarkably well adapted to their beach bum lifestyle of frolicking the water and lazing on the sand. (Photo by Jim Abernethy / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

A pig (Sus scrofa domestica) swimming in the Bahamas. Swimming in the crystal clear waters off the island of Big Major Spot in the Bahamas, these playful swimming pigs wow locals and holiday makers alike. Known locally as "Pig Beach", the brown and pink feral adult pigs and piglets are fed by locals as they trotter along the tropical beaches. After lounging in the sun the piglets run into the water and even sometimes swim out to incoming boats. (Photo by Eric Cheng / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

Mother and baby pig on a beach in the Bahamas. Swimming in the crystal clear waters off the island of Big Major Spot in the Bahamas, these playful swimming pigs wow locals and holiday makers alike. Known locally as "Pig Beach", the brown and pink feral adult pigs and piglets are fed by locals as they trotter along the tropical beaches. After lounging in the sun the piglets run into the water and even sometimes swim out to incoming boats. (Photo by Eric Cheng / Barcroft Media / Getty Images)

Mysterious wave of death strikes the Bahamas famous swimming pigs

"I understand there are seven or eight pigs still alive," Aranha said, though she said this was about equal to the number of deaths. Veterinarians collected samples of the dead pigs, but it was unclear how long a laboratory analysis would take.

"It's really a mystery as to what killed these beautiful animals. I believe most of the carcasses were in the ocean," Aranha told the Tribune. "It could just be a horrible accident where they ate something poisonous. It could be malicious but I don't really see why someone would go out of their way to hurt those lovely animals."

She added that there were "silly sailors" who were known to try to get the pigs drunk. But tour operators out of Nassau treated the animals with respect, she said.

Part of the Exuma island chain, Big Major Cay, also known as Pig Beatch, sits in the Caribbean Sea to the southeast of Nassau. Until the deaths, the cay had been billed as a sort of porcine paradise. The pigs dog-paddled through the crystal sea, drank from the island's spring of fresh water and got fat on a steady supply of food brought by tourists, who visited the island by the boatload.

But selfie-happy tourists were not the only indignities that the four-legged residents survived in recent years. The pig colony endured an invasion of bikini-clad reality show contestants during an episode of "The Bachelor." The pigs had a brief cameo in the 2013 music video for "Timber," the Pitbull dance-pop number featuring Ke$ha. Fueled by celebrity visits, a feature on NBC's "Today Show" and a beach made for Instagram, the pigs' popularity expanded.

So, too, did their origin stories. Ancient mariners had left the pigs behind on the island, some said. The cache of would-be pork was forgotten, then rediscovered. Or perhaps the beasts were the only living remainder of a crashed pirate ship. That foreigners had accidentally released pigs into the Bahamian wilds was not an alien narrative. Feral boars on the Great Inagua Island, to the south of Pig Beach, were descendants of pigs housed in a mid-1700s French garrison.

The truth, according to the "Today Show," was that the swimming pigs were the result of a more recent fable. When fears about the cataclysmic Millennium bug reached a fever pitch in the late 1990s, two farmers, fearing that food supplies would crash along with computers, bought the pigs and raised them on the island.

After the pigs were discovered dead over the weekend, Nixon, one half of the Y2K farmer pair, lamented that the Pig Beach phenomenon had spiraled out of control.

"Right now it's blowing out of proportion with people, anybody bringing food there, anybody doing what they [want to] do," Nixon told the Nassau Guardian. "We have people coming there giving the pigs beer, rum, riding on top of them, all kind of stuff."

The Bahamas government has now barred tourists from feeding the pigs. Nixon sought support from the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism to restrict visitors from getting too close to the pigs. Establishing a safe viewing distance would still allow tourists to photograph the famous swimming pigs, he said, while protecting the animals that remain.

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Franck Cammas Sails From Offshore To Inshore – Bernews

Posted: at 4:37 pm

His longest non-stop race took more than 48 days, but now Franck Cammas will cross the line in about 22 minutes.

The 44-year-old French skippers route to the Americas Cup is unconventional, but having lapped the planet several times, including once in a giant trimaran, his experience is second to none.

Cammas is from the French school of offshore adventurers, and with a string of big wins and record-breaking ocean passages, he has become one of its most accomplished pupils.

One of his biggest feats was to set a record for sailing around the world, winning the Jules Verne Trophy on the 103ft trimaran Groupama 3 in 48 days 7 hours 44 minutes in 2010, shaving more than two days off the previous mark.

His other globe-spanning victory was as winning skipper of the 2011-12 Volvo Ocean Race in the monohull Volvo Open 70 Groupama.

Cammas, from Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, scored his first major victory in the Solitaire du Figaro single-handed race around the French coast in 1997 at the age of 24.

The following year he came third in the prestigious Route du Rhum solo transatlantic race from Brittany to Guadeloupe in a new 60ft trimaran called Groupama.

In 2001, Cammas clinched another transatlantic classic, the two-handed Transat Jacques Vabres, from Le Havre in France to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil. He added further wins in 2003, and then in 2007 on Groupama 2.

Now he wanted the big one. The Jules Verne Trophy. But records dont come easy.

Cammas first bid in 2008 ended in disaster when Groupama 3 capsized off New Zealand. A second attempt was scuppered by damage off South Africa the following year. Undeterred, it was third time lucky, though the record now stands at just over 40 days.

Turning to unfinished business, Cammas had Groupama 3 reconfigured for solo sailing and won the Route du Rhum later in 2010 in nine days, 14 hours.

Following his Volvo triumph, Cammas focused more on domestic events. He won the Tour de France a la Voile, and twice won the International C Class catamaran championship.

The Americas Cups evolution towards multihulls had also grabbed his attention.

Cammas had been involved before, as a coach for BMW Oracle Racing when they raced in a 90ft trimaran in 2010. And he coached Italys Luna Rossa for the 2013 Cup in San Francisco.

So in 2013, Cammas helped launch Groupama Team France to target the 35th Americas Cup.

However, his dream at least as a sailor was almost ended in 2015 when his foot was nearly sliced off by the rudder after he fell from his foiling GC32 catamaran off Brittany.

It kept him out of the water for five months, and cost him a shot at the French Olympic team in the Nacra 17 catamaran for Rio 2016.

But Cammas, a maths scholar, spent the time with Groupama Team Frances designers and engineers to arm himself with yet more technical knowledge of foiling cats.

The classically trained pianist is well placed to get a perfect tune out of his ACC boat in Bermuda.

- Photos above courtesy of Ricardo Pinto

#AmericasCup

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Advancing Data Functionality for Offshore – #OILMANNEWS (blog)

Posted: at 4:37 pm

Systems and Services that Optimize Organizational Results

By Jennifer Delony

The industrial internet of things is transforming the offshore oil and gas sector. One estimate claims that a typical offshore oil platform generates up to 2 terra bytes of data per day thats the equivalent of 1 million digital camera images.

Cisco, in its report A New Reality for Oil and Gas, said that, if oil and gas companies properly leverage the data they produce, they can capture $600 billion of value at stake through 2025. For a $50 billion oil and gas firm, that translates to an 11 percent bottom-line improvement, the report said.

That doesnt mean that offshore companies are all jumping on the big data bandwagon instead, theyre carefully evaluating the possibilities to understand what data, and the analysis of data, can do for their operations.

To get a glimpse into where the offshore sector is headed in terms of data and its applications, and what systems and services it is leveraging to get there, take a look at BP.

At the end of last year, BP announced it is working with GE on the deployment of a new integrated system called Plant Operations Advisor (POA). BP said that it started using POA to manage the performance of one platform in the Gulf of Mexico, and given success there, the company will deploy it to other BP facilities around the world this year.

According to BP, POA will help prevent unplanned downtime and improve facility reliability by helping engineering teams respond quickly to issues as they occur in real time.

The POA tool was built on GEs Predix operating system a software platform that is used to collect and analyze data from industrial machines. This cloud-based platform-as-a-service works at industrial scale for asset performance management (APM) by connecting machines, data and workers.

APM lies at the heart of this next-level digital system. It puts enterprise asset management software together with real-time information from production and data analysis and advanced analytics. In a nutshell, it allows companies to see their assets, make decisions to optimize those assets and optimize organizational results.

ARC Advisory Group, in a report on how APM overcomes challenges in oil and gas, said that currently too much time is dedicated to collecting, aggregating and analyzing available data, rather than converting it to meaningful business decisions. That is due to the application of data to disparate systems with no integration. APM alleviates these issues.

These solutions, based largely on todays increased connectivity, use of open standards, and increasingly more capable platforms for predictive and prescriptive analytics, enable oil and gas companies to move from largely re-active, conventional approaches for managing their critical production and automation assets to todays far more effective proactive and predictive approaches, the report said.

According to BP, the POA system rapidly integrates operational data from producing oil and gas facilities to deliver notifications and analytical reports to engineers so they can identify operational performance issues before they become significant. The system provides simplified access to a variety of live data feeds and includes visualization capabilities including a real-time facility threat display. It also incorporates an extensive case management capability to support learnings from prior operational issues.

GE plans to make this technology available to the entire oil and gas industry.

More Options

Offshore companies have also turned to OSI Softs PI System for collecting, analyzing and visualizing data for real-time management. The PI system allows a company to integrate whatever data they want, and create a customized display of that data.

According to Kevin Walsh, industry principal T&D, for OSI Soft, one of the strengths of PI is that it allows platform managers to perform predictive analytics.

He said that PI has different modules that allow for the input of mini-analytic calculations based on certain attributes or time frames to create an operational band. If operations go outside of that band for example, plus or minus 1 percent for more than three minutes in a row, PI notifies managers that an alarm-level event is immanent. This feature gives managers a visual on possible problems before they happen a huge advancement in data functionality.

Srikanta Mishra, Ph.D., Institute Fellow and chief scientist for energy at nonprofit Battelle, says his organization offers analytics to the oil and gas sector under its Elucidata service.

Offshore companies have been slow to engage with their data at the level offered by Battelle, but Mishra says they are interested.

According to Mishra, the Elucidata service is an umbrella for a process that Battelle provides to integrate data from multiple sources.

The task that Battelle undertakes is intended to bring all of this data into one easy-to-use platform that can then be utilized for knowledge and discovery, he said. The idea here is to learn from the data and then use that to make decisions.

Under the knowledge discovery component of Elucidata, Battelle offers clients a combination of advanced statistical capabilities and in-house subject matter expertise.

In addition, Mishra said that Battelle captures information from the knowledge discovery component in customized software solutions and user interfaces that makes it easy for managers and decision makers and, on the platform, operators, to make decisions that are based on what has happened in the past, and from which robust insights can be derived.

In the offshore environment you might say that there are two discriminating factors one is the situation with respect to automation; a very high level of automation is becoming more and more commonplace, Mishra said. The second is the data that we get from offshore environments is really big data in the sense that we get lots of data we get very frequently sampled data so the challenge is how do you process this information in real time, as opposed to doing it offline, and make decisions with respect to the behavior of your system in the near future?

He said that, for example, a company might monitor pressure and temperatures and flow rates, and seek to understand, given the kind of conditions, what the pressure is going to be in the next hour, the next 24 hours, and whether its going to trigger some danger threshold that needs to be mitigated.

In terms of predictive maintenance, Mishra said, the organization can look at the past history of failures and near failures and correlate them with other indicators of the system, with respect to pressure or temperature, for example. With that information, its possible to establish a trigger system, so that if the system crosses X value of pressure and Y value of temperature, certain equipment is likely to undergo failure because it has failed in the past under these kinds of conditions.

The challenges are really in how do you take this massive amount of data and then process them in a real-time or near real-time environment, he said. And after you go through the knowledge discovery part, having gone through the data acquisition and management part, how do you capture that learning, and those insights, into some sort of a decision support interface that can be used by the operator on the platform or somebody who is sitting in a control room in onshore office?

Whats Next?

ABS Groups Matt Mowrer, director of applied technology and data analytics, says that there are many applications for business analytics coming in the near future.

Mowrer said that the next step beyond predictive analytics is prescriptive analytics.

I really see that working on the risk side, where Im not just providing alarms to operators about anomalous conditions based on multiple data feeds, but actually giving them the recommended action to minimize the time it takes them to make the decision and also hopefully eliminate bad decisions, he said.

Also down the road, Mowrer sees the possibilities for the development of augmented reality for operations and maintenance workers, where they are in the physical environment and they have access to a virtual environment.

He said that, from a wearable technology perspective, such as Google glass, operations and maintenance workers can access maintenance procedures, and have an interface where they interact with equipment to minimize time spent troubleshooting or identifying tools and procedures.

Youre seeing these things on the consumer side, and I think theres some natural industrial applications for them, he said.

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See How This House Was 3D Printed in Just 24 Hours – Singularity Hub

Posted: at 4:34 pm

3D printing is being used to produce more and more novel items: tools, art, even rudimentary human organs. What all those items have in common, though, is that theyre small. The next phase of 3D printing is to move on to things that are big. Really big. Like, as big as a house.

In a small town in western Russia called Stupino, a 3D printed house just went up in the middle of winter and in a days time.

Pieces of houses and bridges have been 3D printed in warehouses or labs then transported to their permanent locations to be assembled, but the Stupino house was printed entirely on-site by a company called Apis Cor. They used a crane-sized, mobile 3D printer and a specially-developed mortar mix and covered the whole operation with a heated tent.

The 38-square-meter (409-square-foot) house is circular, with three right-angled protrusions allowing for additional space and division of the area inside. Counter-intuitively, the houses roof is completely flat. Russias not known for mild, snow-free winters. Made of welded polymer membranes and insulated with solid plates, the roof was designed to withstand heavy snow loads.

Apis Cor teamed up with partners for the houses finishing details, like insulation, windows, and paint. Samsung even provided high-tech appliances and a TV with a concave-curved screen to match the curve of the interior wall.

According to the company, the houses total building cost came to $10,134, or approximately $275 per square meter, which equates to about $25 per square foot. A recent estimate put the average cost of building a 2,000 square foot home in the US at about $150 per square foot.

Since these houses are affordable and fast to build, is it only a matter of time before were all living in 3D printed concrete circles?

Probably notor, at least, not until whole apartment buildings can be 3D printed. The Stupino house would be harder (though not impossible) to plop down in the middle of a city than in the Russian countryside.

While cities like Dubai are aiming to build more 3D printed houses, what many have envisioned for the homes of the future are environmentally-friendly, data-integrated smart buildings, often clad with solar panels and including floors designated for growing food.

Large-scale 3D printing does have some very practical applications, though. Take disaster relief: when a hurricane or earthquake destroys infrastructure and leaves thousands of people without shelter, 3D printers like Apis Cors could be used to quickly rebuild bridges, roads, and homes.

Also, given their low cost and high speed, 3D printed houses could become a practical option for subsidized housing projects.

In the US, tiny houses have been all the rage among millennials latelywhat if that tiny house could be custom-printed to your specifications in less than a week, and it cost even less than youd budgeted?

Since software and machines are doing most of the work, theres less margin for human errorgone are the days of the subcontractor misread the blueprint, and now we have three closets and no bathrooms!

While houses made by robots are good news for people looking to buy a basic, low-cost house, they could be bad news for people employed in the construction industry. Machines have been pouring concrete for decades, but technologies like Apis Cors giant printer will take a few more human workers out of the equation.

Nonetheless, the company states that part of their mission is to change the construction industry so that millions of people will have an opportunity to improve their living conditions.

Banner Image Credit: Apis Cor

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Major projects at two Ascension Parish high schools take shape – The Advocate

Posted: at 4:31 pm

New classroom buildings for freshmen are steadily going up on the campuses of two Ascension Parish public high schools, mostly unfazed by the August flood.

Work on the freshman academies at East Ascension and Dutchtown high schools, both of which escaped flooding, came to a halt for two or three weeks after the flood, while construction workers dealt with their own flood-damaged homes, said Travis Parker, the school district's project manager for the academies.

But in the months since, "We've been back to full force and moving along," Parker said.

The two freshman academies, each approximately 38,000 square feet, broke ground in the fall of 2015 and are expected to open for students in the spring of 2018, he said.

On the campus of East Ascension High on Worthey Street in Gonzales, the $17 million Freshman Academy project, paid for by sales tax revenues and a 2009 bond issue, also includes the building of a new kitchen and cafeteria/auditorium that will serve the entire student body.

Currently about 70 percent complete, the Freshman Academy is a two-story, free-standing building that will tie into the main school building by walkways.

The freshman building will incorporate the colors and textures of the existing school, in an updated look for the East Ascension High campus, which opened in 1965, Parker said.

The $12.8 million Freshman Academy at Dutchtown High, on La. 73, will be almost identical to the main school building, one of the newer schools in the district, that opened in 2002 and recently had its cafeteria expanded.

The freshman building, funded by sales tax revenues and currently about 40 percent complete, will tie into the main school building on both its first and second floors, Parker said.

The Ascension Parish school district has, for several years, had a "freshman academy" program in each of its four high schools, three on the east bank and one on the west bank, with freshmen having the same group of teachers throughout the day, intervention for those who are struggling and their own associate principal.

The new freshman academy buildings, each designed for 600 freshman, give ninth-graders their own space, as well, and ease overcrowding in the three east bank high schools.

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ST. AMANT A two-story classroom building just for ninth-graders is being built on the camp

In February, the opening of the school district's first Freshman Academy, at St. Amant High School on La. 431, was instrumental in the student body's return to the campus.

St. Amant High students, who had been going to school at host site Dutchtown High in the afternoon hours since the flood, are now back at their home campus in temporary classroom buildings and the Freshman Academy.

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ST. AMANT For the past six months, St. Amant High students have carried on the school year

The freshman buildings are a way "to help students move from the eighth grade, where they are on top, to high school, where they are beginning anew," Lisa Bacala, director of secondary education for the school district, has said.

Follow Ellyn Couvillion on Twitter, @EllynCouvillion.

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Ascension Academy’s Jeff Zheng wins Regional Spelling Bee – Amarillo.com

Posted: at 4:31 pm

As the competition went on, the words got tougher and tougher.

But, in the end, Ascension Academys Jeff Zheng outlasted 15 other competitors over 35 rounds plus the championship word to win the 69th Regional Spelling Bee on Saturday at the Region 16 Education Service Center. Zheng, 12, moves on to the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., for Bee Week, beginning May 28 and culminating in the nationally televised competition.

Zhengs championship word was monstrosity, which he spelled just after bifocals.

My last five words were the most difficult, Zheng said.

Eli Alley, 12, almost got stuck on the word wiseacre, which he didnt know before the competition. But now that the Buffalo, Okla., student knows its definition, Alley thinks its an apropos self-descriptor.

I like that word, he said. I feel like I could be described that way sometimes.

Alley placed second in the competition after faltering on the word imitate. He improved after last years fourth-place finish and says hes ready to compete and win next year.

I find spelling fun because you get to learn new words that youve never heard before, he said. It gives you a feeling of relief when theres a word you dont know but someone else gets that word. Sometimes it feels unfair because someone gets such an easy word and youre stuck with a word you had to guess on.

Perrytons Nicholas Battin won third place and said he loves the challenge of competing. Battin says he was eliminated in the third round during his last trip to the Regional Spelling Bee, so this time he studied for about two-and-a-half hours a day.

There are some words that I struggle with that have weird spellings; those I have to constantly spell, Battin said.

Kinley Rehder from Shattuck, Okla., said she started competitively spelling about three years ago.

The first year I tried out, I came here and got fourth place, she said. I love the meanings and definitions of words.

Rehder, the last girl standing at this years Bee, said her biggest challenge is learning to slow down and take her time. She was eliminated on the word lulled.

Some of the junior spelling champions from the regions counties were also in attendance.

Storm Heger, whose favorite word is contraband, traveled with his family from Hugoton, Kan., to watch big sister Gillian compete.

Some words are challenging but I usually just look them up on the internet or in the dictionary, Storm said. Theres nothing I cant overcome.

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Ascension Academy's Jeff Zheng wins Regional Spelling Bee - Amarillo.com

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Jeff Bezos Expected to Unveil Further Plans for Private Space Exploration – Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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Jeff Bezos Expected to Unveil Further Plans for Private Space Exploration
Wall Street Journal (subscription)
The burgeoning space-transportation company owned by Amazon.com Inc. chairman Jeff Bezos this week is expected to announce some customers and new initiatives, the latest step toward its long-term goal of building rockets powerful enough to penetrate ...
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Jeff Bezos Expected to Unveil Further Plans for Private Space Exploration - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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Monthly Archives: March 2017

Utopia for Realists and How We Can Get There by Rutger Bregman digested read – The Guardian

Inside Julianne Hough’s Fun-Filled Bachelorette Caribbean Cruise – E! Online

Extra T20s added to Pakistan’s Caribbean tour – Sportstarlive – Sportstarlive

Mysterious wave of death strikes the Bahamas famous swimming pigs – SFGate

Franck Cammas Sails From Offshore To Inshore – Bernews

Advancing Data Functionality for Offshore – #OILMANNEWS (blog)

See How This House Was 3D Printed in Just 24 Hours – Singularity Hub

Major projects at two Ascension Parish high schools take shape – The Advocate

Ascension Academy’s Jeff Zheng wins Regional Spelling Bee – Amarillo.com

Jeff Bezos Expected to Unveil Further Plans for Private Space Exploration – Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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