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It’s very encouraging that the AFL–CIO (see “Workers Mobilizing to Get Fair Play for Music Artists“), the leading council of trade unions in America, has come out foursquare behind their members in the creative unions twice in the last 6 weeks or so. First, there was a resounding defense of the AFTRA–DGA–IATSE-SAG anti-theft position paper in the net neutrality hearings (as well as several other major unions who filed comments such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers). These unions were also in line with the Songwriters Guild of America that had been the lone voice opposing the loopholes in the “net neutrality” stalking horse that would permit rampant stealing to continue.
But yesterday the AFL–CIO backed the professional creators in the quest for a performance right for sound recordings in the United States, and idea whose time has definitely come (and is about 30 years overdue if you ask me). Bear in mind, practically every other country in the world has a performance right for recording artists, vocalists and musicians when their recording is played on the air (including producers in some countries). Currently–these artists get zero. The purpose of the Performance Rights Act is to create an easy to use and easy to pay license for the recordings–bearing in mind that broadcasters already pay for the songs. The sound recording is just the flip side of the same accounting and tracking that is already being done. In fact, for larger stations, the typical software packages that the big stations use to track their playlists already accounts for the sound recording in a different part of the data.
We definitely welcome the support of the AFL–CIO and the Obama administration in taking an aggressive posture to support professional creators, not to mention the domestic political clout of trade unions. We need all the help we can get to fight the hundreds of millions that Google alone spends in trying to undermine our rights and our business (Michael Geist notwithstanding).
And PS for those from Mollywood: No reason why you would know this, but “unions” are like these like people who come together to do like “collective bargaining” and they don’t take their pay in free food. In Mollywood, “collective bargaining” is venture capitalists setting a valuation, but in the United States, it’s a process that’s protected by the First Amendment of like the Constitution and stuff! OMG! And also by the National Labor Relations Act! It’s like the law, dude! And it’s not code! They also like negotiate working conditions and stuff, so don’t mention it to the code monkey in the next cubicle who you found laying on the floor naked in a pile of Ring Ding wrappers and Snapple bottles chanting “Lessig is God” or Eric might take back his options.
Geist goes after Canadian labels group for "access"
Yet another example of two-timing by Michael Geist (aka “he who shall not be named,” according to a prominent Canadian artist). (Geist is advisor to the U.S.-backed Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, the Alcan of IP with its almost 100% American board). Geist, the non-lobbyist beneficiary of tens of thousands of public dollars in “consulting” contracts from Industry Canada (not to mention the receiving over $1 million in funding for his academic seat and projects from Industry Canada and other government bureaucracies–most charged with developing copyright laws for Canada), is criticizing the Canadian label trade association for too many meetings. And how do the people know how many meetings were had? Because the trade association is a registered lobbyist and has to disclose the meetings publicly.
Either Geist, or his minders at Industry Canada, seem very interested in what is being said to Heritage Minister James Moore. Two thoughts: Before Geist whines about a lack of transparency in others, he should clean his own house. I can’t believe that he could have obtained as much money and benefit from Industry Canada as he has without having many, many, many contacts of his own. And presumably he was talking about policy. But we don’t know what he said in these discussions. And the “we” in that sentence includes “we” in the global creative community because Geist is daily becoming less of Lessig’s understudy and is taking more of a lead in policies that affect our business.
And I’m so sure that he paid his own way to testify in Europe and New Zealand with no reimbursements. I’m so sure.
“Lizard People Drop ACTA Draft from Black Helicopter” says Andrew Orlowski in The Register, in a factually correct but hysterical send-up of the level of paranoia and vitriol that was whipped up into a hate smoothie by the anti-artist NGOs and their fellow travelers. Sensing their grip on WIPO was slipping, the “let artists eat cake” crowd spurred their pale nags out to the front of what we believe was a rather sparse parade. A parade that was likely financed by those who favor the weakest copyright enforcement regime they can get, and what they can’t weaken in the law they will weaken in enforcement.
I actually had a breathless young IP student come up to me after a panel to enquire about my views on “the hated ACTA” that was being backed by “The Cartel” (obviously someone who reads certain blogs). I am ashamed to say that I could not resist.
She nodded knowingly. A neo-Baptist moment. I thought for a moment about whether I should tell her it’s a joke.
I think a survey of the literature would lead anyone fairly to agree that no one is more responsible for the recent ACTA paranoia and vitriol that works against the world’s artists than the very well funded Michael Geist (aka “he who shall not be named,” according to a prominent Canadian artist). (Geist is advisor to the U.S.-backed Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, the Alcan of IP with its almost 100% American board, and the paid consultant to Industry Canada under the many, many contracts that may—may—skirt the line on Canadian transparency laws and regulations for “untendered” payouts by government entities. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands that Industry Canada pays for his research chair.) Having cast himself in the play, he should expect to be reviewed.
But his recent obstructionist moves on ACTA have to be seen in the larger context of his role in blocking copyright reform in Canada that goes back years, and it is in this context and his recent ascendancy to the firmament of demigods of the global anti-artist movement that he must be examined. Lessig The Younger may not quite capture it, but it seems safe to guess that Geist is to certain of the Industry Canada bureaucrats what Lessig is to certain Google executives. A word to the wise—that’s not advice that is working out too well for Google.
As one of our biggest trading partners is gearing up for another attempt at bringing its copyright laws in line with the rest of the world, one can expect Geist to be taking a leading role in rallying the Cassandra chorus against professional creators and the working people who collaborate with them. His vocal opposition to ACTRA was just the prologue. The first act is yet to come. Double double, toil and trouble.
How did he know what was not in a bill that presumably was still being drafted and would not be introduced until the following June? And isn’t a draft bill subject to some kind of confidential treatment? It seems like it should be at least as confidential as the terms of an untendered contract.
“Prentice has simply decided”; “the talk in Ottawa”; “word is”; “why is Prentice throwing them in”; “Prentice hopes”; “have already been made”; “that did not exist in the delayed December bill”; “troubled by what is not in the bill”; “none of this will be in the bill”. This is not the language of guesswork, supposition or extrapolation.
It is very definite and precise.
It is the language of access.
Not only is it the language of access, it is language designed to confront. But is it designed to let Minister Prentice know that the source of his attack is Geist himself armed with inside information? Or is the attacker someone else? Someone speaking through a mouthpiece, but whose shadow is only seen on the wall of the cave?
Time will tell. Stay tuned.
The problem with high level leaks is that there are only so many people who can have had that inside knowledge and leaked it to Geist, or as one politician put it, who can coil in the tall grass and leak. Now we all know that the science of hardball realpolitik is in part the science of leakage. We are not naïve. But spewing from someone who beats the drum about transparency and then dutifully leaks that which he is told by one of the “dedicated group of likeminded people” who are Inside? Tisk, tisk, naughty, naughty schoolboy.
For what is going on here appears to be that someone in the government is leaking to an attention-starved academic who in turn is using that information to attack the government’s own Ministers, as well as trying to influence the electorate. Partly due to a desire to appear “in the know,” perhaps, or partly due to something else, perhaps something else far more tangible and mundane. Geist’s sophomoric “What Can You Do” post was mostly a list of whom in government his followers could write to about their views. Yes, literally about as sophisticated as “write your Member of Parliament.” Except that he offered a long list of people that his followers could write from the Prime Minister to their dog catcher, including some online “petitions”.
As we saw with the questionable practices that Industry Canada bureaucrats apparently did nothing to discourage in the most recent Canadian copyright consultations, this business of online letter writing is now being perfected into a rather bizarre exercise in mustering a ghostly army of secret “voters”.
Pretty stinky. (This kind of thing is jumping the gene pool–now it’s happening in the UK as well, see “Web Politics: The honeymoon is over“).
And I almost forgot—included in Geist’s “What Can You Do” list was an invitation to his followers to join Geist’s Fair Copyright Facebook group. What is amazing to me is that the fact that this group had a lot of “friends” was evidently viewed in some circles as evidence of some political influence. Yet any form of “protest” that involved mobilizing bodies by the Fair Copyright group was by any yardstick an abject failure.
So the point isn’t how people choose to express themselves politically (if these speakers really exist). All’s fair.
The point is spin. The point is bluff. The point is bootstrapping. It’s fair to ask how much weight should be attributed to various inputs from the electorate and whether having Facebook friends or online casual voting actually mean anything tangible on which policy should be based.
This is the point of the Obama administration’s recent cautionary memo and it’s the point of several posts on MTP (see below). It’s also common sense good government.
Now it would not surprise me if Geist, like most academics, thought himself intellectually superior to music industry types. But I promise you this—if any A&R at a record company came in all breathless about a band because the group had a bunch of Facebook friends but couldn’t draw a crowd at their local, they’d be laughed out of the music business. All the “impressions” in the world, all the “eyeballs” online don’t mean anything if there are no butts in seats. We live in RR—real reality—not AR—augmented reality. This is the oldest trick in the online playbook. Not to mention the fact that Canada’s privacy minister blasted Facebook for its privacy policies.
If you examine the literature of online political campaigning, you will see a sophisticated niche developing that is directed at the only thing that really means anything in political campaigns—on election day, can you get butts to the polls to vote for your candidate. Period. If you can’t do that, then your activities are weighted accordingly. As in not at all.
Now this is a very interesting criticism. The legitimacy of the “thousands of responses, the majority of which called on the government” to adopt the Geist agenda have been at a minimum found wanting and I think really have been shown to be a shoddy example of what Internet luminaries like Cass Sunstein of the Obama administration’s Office of Management and Budget have warned against.
Mr. Sunstein is clearly trying to establish best practices for the U.S. government to allow the government to benefit from the good of using the Internet to further legitimate policy making goals while avoiding the bad. Avoiding the bad includes a prohibition on basing policy decisions on the use of information that is or could be gamed in the formation of public policy by “a dedicated group of like-minded people”—inside or outside of the government. Several Canadian writers have discussed these issues at length, including the shoddy CCER form letters (as have MTP in Secret Ballots, Not Secret Voters, 100,000 Voters Who Don’t Exist, and A Dedicated Group of Likeminded People).
For the gaming can be played from outside—or inside—the government. I would submit to you that you are watching the process unfold before your eyes. Someone wrote a form letter to be used in the online submission process. That letter just coincidentally hit all of Geist’s criticisms of C-61 and then some. The CCER form letter not only could have been gamed, it was in fact gamed. I know because I gamed it.
As we have seen in the disclosed documents discussed in another post, Industry Canada bureaucrats clearly knew that the overwhelming majority of these form letters came from the same source—from CCER.
Pause there. The consultation had two key components for open public comment: live town halls and anonymous online submissions. The plan at Industry Canada seems to have been to have many more online submissions by God knows who than there were real live people show up at the town halls. Geist then could use those online submissions as the basis for claiming that a “majority” of Canadians favored his platform as expressed in the CCER letter. And when you read that quotation above “[T]he national copyright consultation…generated thousands of responses, the majority of which called on the government to abandon the C-61 approach….” did you think he was talking about Canadians? He doesn’t say that. He just says the “majority of” the thousands of responses.
If you read the CCER form letter that comprises the “majority of responses”, it is hard to believe that the drafter of that letter could just have coincidentally zeroed in on all of the issues important to Geist and that he plans on opposing if copyright reform legislation is introduced. The CCER (some of whose leaders apparently were among the first to join Geist’s new Facebook group for what that’s worth) just happened to have an articulate rendering of Geist’s principle beefs with past copyright reform legislation and that letter just happens to make up the “majority” of online responses. At the core of this bootstrapping seems to be the belief that the unelected academic somehow has superior legitimacy to the purportedly “unpure” elected representative—why, because Geist has more Facebook “friends”? No, the ministers are just blindly doing the bidding of the Yanks Under The Bed.
This is truly, truly cynical. Like Lessig the Elder, Lessig the Younger has yet to stand for office. The people he slags have. The voters have spoken on this score. They put “butts in seats” as we say in the music business. But Geist doesn’t focus much on the real people.
Just the ghostly army that Richard Owens demonstrates he tried to gin up.
It is simply Court etiquette.
There is an excellent opinion piece in Forbes by Ronald Cass, former dean of the Boston University law school. In Google’s Blind Side, he makes many good points about the unacknowledged liability exposure that Google has to the many copyright infringement cases pending against the company, and makes an overarching point that cuts against the Veoh case.
He also gives a very well-articulated explanation of why the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s interpretation of the DMCA (and that of many other Google apologists) is entirely wrong as a matter of law.
As we have said on MTP many times, Google has some serious exposure in the Viacom case and the often overlooked class action case which includes many plaintiffs who in theory could individually be entitled to damages equal to Viacom (such as the Premier League and the NMPA). A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money, even for Google.
And that’s just YouTube. This, combined with the litigation (perhaps brought by the United States, France, Germany or New Zealand for starters) that is inevitably going to arise out of the stunningly ill-advised Google Books debacle, is enough to put a significant dent in Google’s stock price.
And remember–the Google founders went way, way out of their way on the very edges of corporate law in the go-go years of the Dot Bomb boom to make sure that they and only they would have ultimate control of Google. (Does anyone doubt that the SEC would probably never allow another Google-type IPO in the current environment?) With control comes responsibility–and liability. And it all points back guess where? The smartest guys in the room.
There may be some companies that are “too big to fail,” in the popular mantra, but Google is not one of them. Neither are the artists who they are systematically destroying.
None of this should come as a surprise given the long, long line of cases where Google apolotists Lessig, Nesson, the EFF et al have done a brilliant job of making the losing argument.
See also: How Many DMCA Notices Are Too Many?
See also: Veoh: Is Continuous Monitoring Really the Law?
See also: Google to EMI: Stop Me Before I Infringe Again!
One of the unexpected highlights of the FCC’s request for public comments on its proposed “net neutrality” regulations was the coming together of many trade unions in the US. The American Federation of Radio and Television Artists, the Directors Guild of America, the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees and the Screen Actors Guild all filed a joint comment, the Songwriters Guild of America filed their own and the American Federation of Musicians filed separately. Several unions outside the professional creative unions also filed comments, as did the American Association of Independent Music.
It was encouraging to see this outpouring of union support for the speech-related aspects of the proposed regulations but resounding rejection of any gamesmanship with the “nondiscrimination” rules applied to the fundamental discrimination–between legal and illegal activity. This nuanced view is sadly lacking in these public discussions.
The far-ranging opposition of unions to the piracy that is ravaging their members was capped off by a statement by the primary association of unions in America, the AFL–CIO. The AFL–CIO clearly supported their member unions and should put to rest forever (although I know it won’t) the claims of “big media” opposing “the little guy” in discussions of piracy. As anyone who is even remotely close to our business can tell you, it is the independent artist who aspires to become a professional who is hurt the most by the consumer electronics industry and their many apologists masquerading as “consumer advocates”.
“Music Supported Here is a new movement from the Musicians’ Union.
It’s a campaign for all musicians.
not get ripped-off in the digital world.
and to remind fans that you want to control your rights.
their own stores and websites: a source of music controlled by the musicians.
And for music fans it’s a way to say that you don’t rip-off musicians.
Controlled Compositions: 10 x 3/4, 5 on EP, 2 on Single, bumps to 87.5 and full at gold and platinum, full on digital and club, 3/4 of 3/4 on mid and budget, protection for 2 outside, rate fixed on delivery, no crossing, paid on royalty bearing, US and Canada.
What did you just agree?
You just agreed to the following maximum mechanical rates, all based on 75% of the minimum statutory rate in effect at the date that you deliver your recordings to your record company. Each cap is multiplied times the minimum statutory rate. The current minimum statutory rate is $0.091 so we will use that rate for the example. 75% of that rate is $0.06825.
If the equivalent of 2 songs are written or co-written with songwriters who do not accept the controlled compositions clause, then those songs will be treated as controlled for purposes of calculating the maximum mechanical rate.
These rates only apply in the US and Canada (but note that the CMRRA sets special terms benefiting songwriters for sales in Canada under controlled composition clauses).
Mechanical royalties cannot be cross-collateralized to recoup advances under the artist agreement against mechanical royalties, except in specific circumstances (the “Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse”): Unexcused overbudget, union penalties, overpayments and indemnity claims.
Mr. Sunstein—who some might call something of an Internet evangelist—is clearly trying to establish best practices for the U.S. government to allow the government to benefit from the good of using the Internet to further legitimate policy making goals while avoiding the bad. Avoiding the bad includes a prohibition on basing policy decisions on the use of information that is or could be gamed in the formation of public policy by “a dedicated group of like-minded people.”And the gaming can be done before or after the fact, and the “like-minded people” can be outside—or inside—the government.
It is not a very large leap to imagine a truly Orwellian world where the government finds that the public supports its policies because it uses information that its anonymized supporters intentionally game or are encouraged to game to produce the desired result. As we noted in Fair Copyright Canada and 100,000 Voters Who Don’t Exist , the legitimate desire by governments to use the Internet to engage with the governed is to be admired. But if the process is selectively managed by bureaucrats with an agenda, it is to be greeted with considerable caution if not outright suspicion.
Neither Mr. Sunstein nor we are alone in focusing on these important issues–as reported in the Toronto Globe and Mail, fortunately for everyone Canadian lawyer Richard Owens has done some excellent research on the results of the failures of bureaucrats at Industry Canada in the copyright consultations (see “Noises Heard: Canada’s Recent Online Consultation Process–Teachings and Cautions” published on the IPOsgoode intellectual property blog at the prestigious Osgoode Hall law school in Toronto and “Re-doing the Math” by Canadian novelist John Degan). Remember—the consultations are conducted for the purpose of the government receiving testimony from Canadians to be used in the formulation of public policy regarding Canadian intellectual property laws. The total breakdown that followed during the Canadian experience is a lesson to us all. My references to the teaching moment in Mr. Sunstein’s memorandum is not by way of saying that the U.S. approach is the better one, but rather as an illustration of how one government is seeking to both embrace the Internet and insulate itself from the Internet at the same time.
“While the results of our study revealed a sharp gender, age and Anglophone bias in the submissions, of particular concern is the apparent lack of verification of identity, uniqueness, age (voting or otherwise) or citizenship of those making the submissions. For instance, 70% of the total submissions were “form letters” originating from a single little-known group of modchip distributors – the Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights (CCER) – that had its form letter extensively circulated internationally on BitTorrent related sites. As a result, it appears that many of the submissions were not even made by Canadians. Our study raises serious issues regarding the design and results of the public consultations, and of the need to ensure that future online consultations are better designed to properly represent the views and interests of the Canadian body politic….
Mr. Sunstein’s admonition fits nicely with Mr. Owens’ conclusions. However, neither of them have the benefit of many, many leaked documents relating to the uncritical acceptance by Industry Canada bureaucrats of the overwhelming number of CCER form letters received by Industry Canada outside of their normal process.
I confess that the first time I saw this CCER letter writing wizard it seemed deeply, deeply flawed. So flawed, in fact, that it was hard to imagine anyone gullible enough to fall for it. But leave that to one side for now.
I would start by pointing out that we submitted our own version of the corrupted CCER form letter, clearly pointing out that if the Ministers received our letter, they had been gamed. Apparently they did, because we received a form response back over Minster Clement’s name (as described in detail in Fair Copyright Canada and 100,000 Voters Who Don’t Exist) that confirmed his receipt of our letter through the CCER wizard—which clearly stated that we were submitting it to test whether the system was being gamed. It appears that Mr. Sunstein’s worst fears materialized.
The entire process is so seamlessly designed to produce a particular result, it raises a serious question of who thought of what when and whether the CCER letter was all part of the plan hatched by Industry Canada bureaucrats with their fellow travelers to game the consultation process.
Malota’s response? “Thanks!” Pip, pip, cheerio.
Wasn’t it the responsibility of the more senior to temper the enthusiasm of the junior? Perhaps not for the “dedicated group of like-minded individuals”. Or said another way (with sincere apologies to Bay Area residents with long memories)—they drank the Koolaide.
At that point the die was cast, and appears to be how policy was to be made—a prime example of Mr. Sunstein’s concerns. It seems obvious that those who could have stopped using the CCER letters not only did not, but seem to have at least tacitly agreed among themselves that lack of probative value of the ubiquitous CCER form letters was to be downplayed and used by Industry Canada to further its own agenda.
If there were any form letters that were not CCER, I saw no mention of it in this exchange. The only place that there seems to be any doubt that the form letters were from CCER is in the way that the information was shaped that would flow up the chain of command.
Informally? What does that mean, informally? Since when does a bureaucrat do anything “informally”—so there is no paper trail? And what exactly does the passive voice “if that’s the best way to communicate it” trail off to mean? If you decide that’s the best way?
“We”, that is, Industry Canada, are about to tweet the good news to the general public that a shadowy association of dubious legality has created a nearly untraceable form letter. So this would seem to mean that Industry Canada is actively promoting the use of the CCER form letter by the general public.
Not once—not one time—in all of these emails does anyone say anything like, “Gee, we better be sure that only Canadians are responding” or even, “Gee, we better be sure we can distinguish Canadian from non-Canadian submissions”. The CCER letter writing wizard advocates a self-described “Canadian-to-the-core” solution—wouldn’t you want to be sure that the phrase had some meaning?
So—if you heard Mike Lake say these words, you would probably assume that he meant what he said—that Industry Canada was taking submissions through its website for lots of Canadians to participate. Sounds great, right? Very egalitarian and digital.
The only problem is that it was not true. I’m sure that Mike Lake thought that it was true, I’m sure Mike Lake had no reason to think it wasn’t because the “dedicated group of like minded people” who likely knew it wasn’t true didn’t tell him that the overwhelming majority of the submissions were form letters from a shadowy group that were not even coming into the government through its own processes. Form letters that were being sent to the government in a way that intentionally masked their origin. Form letters that were very, very likely not even coming from Canadians, yet were clearly being identified as contributing to making policy.
Let us ask a few questions about Derek Noon. Why would the copyright consultation “team” need to have someone in charge of reporting to them on the consultation website activity? Why wouldn’t the “team” just go look themselves? What was happening on the website that the experienced bureaucrat would want to insulate themselves from knowing? Why not just send an automated website analytics report? And even so, if they were going to pay special attention to what was being done on the web, why wasn’t that handled by the usual department PR hack or (digital) clipping service? Why did they need to burn up their headcount on one person in their group who was monitoring the web?
So on the eve of the Toronto town hall, certainly a significant, if not the most influential, audience the Minister is likely to have, what is Derek Noon’s report to the “team”?
Twitter, digital locks, “wary praise” and Geist. It actually sounds like a day in the life of Geist, doesn’t it?
And that’s it for the week of September 2? That’s all that happened online on a hot topic like copyright reform in Canada? Really? CCER, Howard Knopf and the Canadian Pirate Party. It is not entirely clear that the “Canadian Pirate Party” actually existed at the time, but the Pirate Party was important enough to Derek Noon to take up 1/3 of the internal reporting on the copyright consultation. CCER “Tweets”? Why in the world would Industry Canada be spending time on CCER tweets? I guess that would depend on who was tweeting, wouldn’t it.
Another bureaucrat provides the “stats” for the August 31 to September 4 period. 4,710 submissions, 3,585 from CCER as is duly noted. No one—no one—seems the least surprised at this gross disparity in the submissions.
Are you beginning to get the idea that Derek Noon has a very narrow view of what constitutes “online activity”? Or maybe he doesn’t.
Maybe he knows that his readers are not really interested in all online activity (because there was a lot more). Maybe he knows they are just interested in certain online activity.
Former Secretary of State George Schultz had a great line during the Iran-Contra hearings—“It all starts with a cigar.” If you are going to take the public’s money and with it the public’s trust, don’t take a lobbyist’s cigar.
The point of all this is that when you read the email threads from within Industry Canada, it becomes increasingly obvious that there was something unholy going on. If I’m wrong about that, believe I am all ears. Please show me the evidence. I haven’t found it, Richard Owens hasn’t found it, and I frankly doubt that anyone else will find it either–because it doesn’t exist.
There are strange redactions that don’t seem to be necessary. There are references to emails sent in response to voice mails, and the voicemail recipient saying “I hope you don’t mind” that they are responding to voicemail with email. There are requests that this matter be handled “informally”.
There are ambiguous edits of language that create clearly misleading inferences. But most of all, there seems to be a fixation on maintaining a letter writing process that was clearly being promoted by Michael Geist, Industry Canada bureaucrats and it’s anyone’s guess who else.
The only conclusion that can properly be deduced is that somebody wanted to game the online submission process during the consultations because they were unsure of the result from the town halls.
Meaning that they were unsure of how many real people would actually show up to town halls which was the one part of this process that was not easily gamed. Moreover, they were unsure what those real people would actually say, so they wanted to create a ghostly online army that would say what the “dedicated group of like minded people” wanted them to say to compensate for the lack of real Canadians showing up at town halls who might speak their minds. Hence the ubiquitous form letter.
Why did Derek Noon limit his reporting up the chain to the very few sources he used—like the Canadian Pirate Party, against copyright reform? Why didn’t he include the other online reporting on the consultations? Do you think that a bureaucrat at his level would go rogue and just decide that he would make up his own mind about what would be relevant to his immediate audience?
No. More likely—he was doing exactly what he was told to do, perhaps “informally” in line with the admonition from Colette Downey. He was providing “informal” reports on exactly the people and the kind of activity that he knew would interest his audience.
The direction of the Government is clear. Ministers, like cabinet secretaries, must rely on their staff. It seems obvious that Minster Clement was far too busy to reach down to the Derek Noon level, and he relied on his staff to provide him with accurate information, as did Mike Lake, I’m sure.
Little did they know that their staff was busily creating a ghostly “army” of voters who don’t exist. Or it sure looks that way.
Mr. Sunstein and Mr. Owens have put their fingers on an issue at the heart of incorporating the internet into the digital society–how can we preserve the confidence of the people in the democratic process in all its aspects while at the same time utilizing the tools that will enhance deliberation and responsiveness.
Ask yourself if the consultation is a shining example of government playing by the rules. I suggest to you that at least with respect to the online submission process, the opposite is true. However well-intentioned the minsters may have been in conducting the consultations, they got really, really bad advice and were ill-served by the bureaucracy.
Like the core principles of representative democracy, it’s not as important who wins as it is that they won fair and square and played by the rules. The artists, songwriters, actors, directors, screenwriters, authors, illustrators, photographers–the professional creative community–deserve–and expect–no less. Not only in Canada, but everywhere.
It now appears that Geist has offered some defense of the CCER letters that Owens’ criticizes, which should come as no surprise. You have to wonder if he’s being paid by Industry Canada to respond, as it seems he’s being paid by Industry Canada for so many other things, why should this topic be different?
As someone who played benefit concerts for René Lévesque when most English Canadians thought he was just a chain smoking whackjob (i.e., before his Parti Québécois swept into power in Quebec in 1976), I REALLY take issue with the idea that the carefree Québécois would rather go frolicking in Morin-Heights in the summer time than concern themselves with the weighty matters of state that concern Geist. This from a province that has produced a healthy professional creative class and international stars for decades when, frankly, their English countrymen were struggling for airplay on their own radio stations. But let’s let bygones be bygones on that score.

industry_corpus2: Film & Entertainment


text:
Lauritsen, M. B., Kjaersdam Telleus, G., Hansen, A. S. K. & Jensen, C. M.
Aakjær, C., Jensen, M. B., Mainz, J., Brodersen, J., Thomsen, J. N. L., Løkkegaard, T. & Graumann, O.
A decade of research by the European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees (EFPT) - a review.
Szczegielniak, A., Pinto da Costa, M. & Asztalos, M., 2019, I : European Neuropsychopharmacology. 29, Suppl. 1, s. S595-S596 2 s.
Thai, M. L., Andreassen, A. K. & Bliksted, V., feb. 2019, I : Psychiatry Research. 272, s. 230-236 7 s.

industry_corpus2: Health & Medicine


text:
Co-operative Governance School — A Resounding Success!
Thirty students from thirteen countries around the world converged on the University of Saskatchewan for an intense week in early October for the Centre-sponsored and -organized Co-operative Governance School for Emerging Researchers. It was a truly remarkable event, with the kind of international pull that only a top global graduate school can exercise; it filled our classrooms and hallways with the excitement of intellectual exchange and an energy that was palpable. The Centre is indeed proud to have attracted this outstanding group of young scholars and to have established the U of S as a leading centre for governance studies.

industry_corpus2: Subject Education


text: Farewell Lunch Flyer Template farewell lunch flyer template going away party flyer template farewell lunch invitation email template. farewell lunch flyer template 26 farewell invitation templates psd eps ai free premium free. farewell lunch flyer template farewell luncheon flyer template pikeproductosebco ideas.

industry_corpus2: Computing & Telecommunications


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We’re dedicated to delivering an exceptional experience from our Yarrabilba office, so every member of our team strives to make a difference. That begins with our promise – We put you first.
When you need real estate services, it’s hard to beat a brand that has been independently endorsed as having Australia’s most satisfied customers but that’s us, so relax.
To find out which real estate agents rate most highly across Australia, Canstar Blue surveyed adults who had employed an agent over the last three years, whether it related to the buying or selling of a property, lease management, or renting.
It found First National Real Estate has been impressing more than any other firm, taking out five-star reviews from consumers in almost every single category, including communication and advice, problem resolution and value for money. In fact, no other real estate agent achieved top marks in any area’.
So, whether you’re looking to rent, buy or sell a property in Yarrabilba, Logan Village, Tamborine,, our team will help you find the perfect place.

industry_corpus2: Real Estate & Construction


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It’s been more than a year since the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reclassified hydrocodone from a schedule III to a schedule II drug.
The change has had the desired effect; doctors are writing fewer prescriptions for this powerful opioid.
Hydrocodone combination products (Vicodin, Lorcet, etc.) are used to treat pain or relieve coughs. It’s a narcotic that affects how the central nervous system perceives pain.
The drug is an effective pain reliever, but can also create feelings of euphoria and become addictive.
In 2011, hydrocodone combination products were involved in almost 100,000 U.S. emergency room visits. That’s twice the 2004 rate.
The DEA, in an effort to cut down on abuse, reclassified the drug in October 2014. The effect of this change is detailed in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The study published in JAMA was led by Christopher M. Jones, Pharm.D. He and his researchers used data from the IMS Health National Prescription Audit.
They compared prescriptions dispensed in the 12 months prior to the change with those dispensed in the 12 months following the change.
The number of prescriptions for hydrocodone combination products declined by 22 percent. There was a 16 percent decrease in the number of prescriptions for hydrocodone tablets.
Doctors wrote 26 million fewer prescriptions for hydrocodone combination products in the year after reclassification. That same year, 1.1 billion fewer hydrocodone combination product tablets were dispensed.
Meanwhile, prescriptions for non-hydrocodone opioids rose a bit. Dispensed prescriptions for non-hydrocodone opioids grew by almost 5 percent. Dispensed tablets increased by 1.2 percent.
According to the DEA, schedule III drugs have a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.
Schedule II drugs have a high potential for abuse due to their potential for severe psychological or physical dependence.
What does the change mean for doctors and patients?
Doctors can no longer write or call in prescriptions for refills. If a patient wants more, it means a trip to the doctor for a new prescription.
More than 73 percent of the decline could be attributed to this key factor, researchers said.
The study found that primary care physicians and surgeons wrote far fewer prescriptions than they used to. Pain specialists wrote slightly more.
Researchers said they don’t yet know the long-term effects of the changes.
For people who were already addicted, reclassification didn’t solve the problem.
Constance Scharff, Ph.D., director of addiction research at Southern California’s Cliffside Malibu Treatment Center, told Healthline that the damage has already been done.
“The medication was too widely prescribed for a long period,” Scharff said. “Now, those who were using hydrocodone are switching to heroin, which is cheaper and more readily available.
Dr. Damon Raskin, medical director at Cliffside Malibu, told Healthline it’s somewhat unusual for the DEA to reclassify a drug.
“But because of the opioid epidemic raging across this country, they decided they had to reclassify these drugs to make it more difficult for patients to obtain these medications,” he said.
The steps required to obtain a prescription act as a deterrent for both doctor and patient.
“It emphasizes the fact that this is a serious drug that requires full evaluation by a doctor to determine if the patient really needs the drug,” Raskin said.
The DEA’s action is helpful, but according to Raskin, it’s not enough.
Raskin believes it would be helpful to reclassify a few other dangerous drugs, specifically benzodiazepines (Valium, Xanax, etc.).
Too Many Hoops for People in Pain?
Caren Ragan was taking hydrocodone to treat neck pain that lingers even after surgery.
The Florida resident told Healthline the process has been time-consuming and expensive, involving a lot of back and forth with her health insurer. She ultimately had to leave her long-term doctor to see a pain specialist.
She needed pain relief, but Ragan hated getting her prescription filled.
Without pain medication, Ragan doesn’t think she could continue to work.
Her doctor tried a handful of other medications to no avail. She finally found some relief with the Butrans (buprenorphine) skin patch, a schedule III controlled substance.

industry_corpus2: Biopharmaceuticals


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In the near future, my aim is to attain an advanced education in Information Systems through a Masters Program. It will provide me the intellectual stimulation, guidance and creative energy to work on the cutting edge of technology in today’s computing field as well as with businesses, which deals with computer-based information system. I wish to pursue these goals as my long-term professional aspiration is to put my footprints in the field of Information System Design through contribution of original ideas and translating those ideas to develop high end applications and products which helps improving people’s lives.
Using my innovation and creativity I want to invent some cutting edge technology that will be beneficial in improving people’s lives. In this endeavor, I hope to contribute significantly to the human society by improving the quality of life and standard of living. In pursuit of these goals, I decided to apply to the MS in Information Systems program at Good University. I worked in XYZ company. as an IT professional where I viewed the industry from the very limited perspective of Information Technology. My curriculum was limited in the developing and some interacting relating to product to the business managers.
The idea of the core of the business related issues of an organization is somewhat vague to me. I want to learn the entire business process of the Information Systems industry, which cannot be possible without gaining hands on experience as a business professional and working 3 to 5 years at least to get a full overview of the Information System business. This is where the MS-IS program will help me. The MS-IS program deals with the study of people, technology, and organizations and the relationships among them. The MS-IS professionals help maximizing the business processes using information systems for data management.
The Good University also boasts a distinguished faculty, and I look forward to working with those, like Dr. ABC, known for his multiple research and expertise in the field of information systems and technology. I would wish to apply those skills in working with a large organization and contribute in enhancing the business processes through Information Systems. All this will develop me both as a professional and as a responsible individual with a well-rounded personality, which is why I am applying to College of Business at Good University for the Master’s program in IS.


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Proving just how surreal the debate over Net neutrality has become, we now have many people telling us that it is "the Internet's First Amendment" and that federal regulation is needed to "Save the Internet."
Apparently, these folks have convinced themselves that, at least in this instance, government regulation is really no big deal and that it won't threaten the future of the Internet. They want us to believe that the same people who have gave us Bridges to Nowhere and an endless string of unbalanced budgets are somehow now well-suited to manage something as complicated as the Internet and broadband networks. They imagine that lawmakers and bureaucrats will regulate just enough to get the job done and help bring about some sort of idyllic Internet nirvana. Moreover, they apparently believe that policymakers will do all this without expansively regulating other online activities, commerce or speech.
While it's true that I am a skeptic about government regulation in almost every instance, I am still surprised about how many Internet-savvy people are willing to make this major leap of faith and put their trust in government without considering the unintended consequences of Big Government control.
Consider the recent comments of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) regarding why she's backing Net neutrality mandates: "Each day on the Internet views are discussed and debated in an open forum without fear of censorship or reprisal."
When I read that, I practically fell off my chair. It's not just that Sen. Clinton is asking us to believe in some asinine conspiracy theory about how broadband companies are supposedly out to censor our thoughts or engage in reprisals. ("Reprisals"? For what?) No, what really blew my mind here was the fact that Ms. Clinton had the chutzpah to declare that the private sector was somehow the real threat to online speech.
After all, those of you who follow First Amendment issues know that Ms. Clinton's name frequently pops up in news stories about new government proposals to regulate speech. In the early 1990s, she promoted aggressive new federal regulations under the Children's Television Act, a law that imposed children's programming requirements on television broadcasters. In the mid-90s, she stood with her husband in support of the Communications Decency Act, which proposed a federal censorship regime for online speech. More recently, I've been writing several pieces about her crusade to regulate video game content. She's even hinted that government needs to do more about objectionable content on i-Pods. And don't forget what she said after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke back in 1998 about how "we are all going to have to rethink how we deal with (the Internet)."
Well, apparently she's been doing some serious rethinking about the Internet and its unregulated status in particular. Like other lawmakers, Sen. Clinton says Net neutrality regulation is needed to "save the Internet" from some a private sector boogeyman that doesn't exist. And she wants us to believe that she and others in Congress and at the FCC will accomplish this task without imposing burdensome new government regulations on Internet speech or commerce.
Again, why are so many people willing to take this leap of faith? Once we open the door and invite government in to regulate Internet architecture, business models, and pricing decisions, it's only a matter of time before they up the ante and propose regulating a whole lot more.

industry_corpus2: Technology & Research


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Each year as we gear up for our Summer Program at Open Window School, we are looking for interested teens to support the excellent summer program classes as Teacher Assistants (TAs). Some TAs are older siblings or Open Window School Alumni and others come for the greater Eastside community. Though TAs may earn Community Service Hours for their high school requirement, (determined by individual TA schools), many agree the TA program is a great way to learn how to help others and have fun!
Download, review, complete, and sign the Summer Program TA Application by Monday, May 6th.
Have a parent or legal guardian review and sign the document.
• Assist the classroom teacher with preparing materials and helping students.
• Help monitor and interact with students during recess.
• Report all injuries and discipline issues to an Open Window teacher or staff member.
• Any other responsibilities assigned by the classroom teacher.


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We warmly welcome all intrigued prospects to make contact with us for Sequin Iron On Patches , Iron On Patches , Sequin Sew on Patches , we will be happy to serve you.
In order to give you convenience and enlarge our business, we also have inspectors in QC Team and assure you our best service and product for Sequin Iron On Patches , Iron On Patches , Sequin Sew on Patches , If you give us a list of goods you are interested in along with makes and models we can send you quotations. You should email us directly. Our goal is to establish long-term and mutually profitable business relationships with domestic and overseas clients. We look forward to receiving your reply soon.

industry_corpus2: Manufacturing


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Conor Timmins may be a bit late on the list here, and a lot of that may be my own fault. I will admit that in retrospect I ranked him way too late, skewing the average. Ironically, I will now be the one to guide you through our profile of the 6’1, right-shot defender.
Timmins carries a lot of value; he has that deadly combination of physicality, mobility, first-pass, and offensive instinct. He started the season as an after thought in the draft, ranked late by most third-party scouting departments, but has rocked up to late first round – early second round for most services.
A team likely picks up Timmins in the mid-second but he would be no reach as a late first round selection. We ranked Timmins 39th overall in the Nation Network’s Prospect Profile series.
The cerebral, poised Timmins plays an impressive two-way game featuring sharp intuition and vision that contribute to his skilled passing and playmaking. A great puck-mover and mobile skater that excels at quarterbacking the power play. He took great offensive strides last year with OHL Sault Ste. Marie, finishing with seven goals and 54 assists in 67 contests, far exceeding his previous 13-point campaign. He could add more muscle to beef up his already aggressive defensive game.
Timmins can look like a rather boring player and isn’t going to excite a lay observer. However, his hockey sense drives a ton of value to his game. He doesn’t have “wow”-caliber skating or puck skills, but he’s one of the smartest defensemen in the CHL. Timmins is a very effective puck mover with top-level vision. You rarely see him cough up the puck, and he’s so effective at quickly relieving pressure and making a good play with the puck. Defensively, he’s solid because of his IQ and the way he battles to win pucks, though he needs to continue to bulk up.
Timmins is a very smart defenseman; he has good vision and good offensive instincts. He can read the play well, and his passing ability allows him to be a constant threat in the transition game. I like his poise under pressure, something I feel extremely important in a young defenseman.
Before I start giving our take, I wanted to give myself a quick introduction. Not everyone here will know who I am. Hello, my name is Garret Hohl, AKA Garreth of the OHL. I used to manage the Jets Nation site, and I’m the co-founder of the statistical blog Hockey-Graphs.
Some of you may recognize me for a few different reasons: I ran a podcast with former CA manager Rhys Jessop, I co-produced the 2017 Vancouver Hockey Analytics Conference with Josh Weissbock and the Vancouver Canucks, and I worked a tiny bit (far less than the other members) in the development that ultimately led to the PCS system.
I’m retiring from the fan blogs early July and the Canucks Army crew has been kind enough to let me join them for their prospect series before I walk off into the sunset.
As some of you know, I co-found and help run a tracking company called HockeyData. One of the things we do is track prospect data for teams. I want to put a disclaimer that I intentionally avoided looking up my company’s data for this series, since I can’t give the milk away for free when others are already paying for the cows. That said, prospects was my first love and what got me started writing about hockey, so I have watched a bit of the game and have my own two cents to give.
The one commonality in every profile on Timmins is hockey IQ, smarts, or cerebral player. Timmins won’t wow you with raw tools that makes you scream elite but he is easily one of the smartest defenders eligible for the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. He is a decently mobile defender and not lacking in either physicality or size, but his brain is easily his best asset.
His high intelligence leads to minimal mistakes and he is one of best zone exit defenders (again: from my eye-test, not my company’s numbers) in the CHL. Timmins gets the puck out of the defensive zone fast, often, efficiently, and rarely with any mistake or unnecessary hesitation.
Timmins’ production grew leaps and bounds in his 2016-2017 campaign. The right-shot defender put up a 0.91 point per game pace and 0.66 5-on-5 point per game pace, easily making him one of the best point producing defenders in this year’s draft. Timmins scored more at 5-on-5 than draft class compatriot Nicolas Hague despite lower level QoT and higher level QoC.
The defender put up an impressive relative 5-on-5 goal share, despite moving up to the Greyhounds top pair.
Timmins is a fairly safe player with a lot of NHL cohorts, and some of his lower GP cohorts are guaranteed to move into the 200+ games played range in time (such as Calvin de Haan).
There is quite of range of talent, from Todd Gill or Tim Gleason, to P.K. Subban and Drew Doughty. Using statistical cohorts to compare prospects at 17 and project future is still very much an inexact science but it lends some evidence to realistic ideas of ceiling, floor, and safety.
The more similar the NHL skater was to Timmins’ 2016-2017 campaign, the further along they reside on the x-axis. This means the graph suggests those on the bottom right are the most likely NHL projections for Timmins, provided he actually makes the NHL.
Looking further we see that the bulk of Timmins cohorts are second pairing defenders. This would be solid value to garner out of a late first or early second round draft selection.
So, why isn’t a high-scoring, smart, puck-moving defender not projected as either safer or higher than we or pGPS place him?
The biggest issue is age. Timmins missed the 2016 NHL Entry Draft by 3 days. Age is a huge variable to account for in a prospects development. Scoring at a particular rate as a 17-year-old in junior is worlds apart from putting up the same pace at 20-years-old. Look no further than how many high-scoring overage junior players struggle to play the AHL, let alone the NHL.
Returning to qualitative scouting, the other obvious issue in Timmins’ game is his strength. While 6’1 and 181 pounds puts him near average for a defender in the NHL (an average that is dropping slightly too!), he still could use to add some lean body mass and improve his ability to leverage himself against opponents and box out in front of the net.
Timmins is far from a defensive liability, especially with his high intelligence, but that added strength would allow him to succeed in plays that his mind sets him out to do with higher efficiency.
Thanks Garret – another solid prospect. Doesn’t Dallas hold both #3 & #39 picks? Mmmm….
Interesting pick with our 2nd there are no other defensemen left on the board after the 1st round.
Enjoyed your analysis and style.Thanks.

industry_corpus2: Sports


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This “The Best…” list is a bit different from The Best Music Websites For Learning English. That list is geared both to helping student learn common vocabulary related to music, and to also help students use the lyrics of songs for listening, comprehension, and vocabulary knowledge.
This list is focused on free sites where English Language Learners and other students can easily create their own music, primarily instrumental, and post it on their own or a teacher’s website. Then, students can write and speak about why they composed it and listeners (as well as the composer) can what it makes them visualize.
Most of these sites don’t require any registration. However, those that do offer a quick-and-easy way to do so.
Finally, I have not listed these sites in any order of preference.
The Minuet Mixer comes from the wonderful New York Philharmonic Game Room. Students can create and play their own minuets. The url for their compositions can be emailed and posted on a blog or online journal.
With the Carol-Maker you can compose a never-heard-before mashup of strange grunts with classic Christmas songs, and email it to a friend (or enemy).
Jam Studio and seems pretty easy to use. English Language Learners can very quickly compose a song, email and post the url.
I like two music games designed by a creative designer named Luke Whittaker. His latest creation is an amazing online video game called Sound Factory. It’s very hard for me to explain. Basically, you role-play a man in a factory who get to create music. That description, however, does not in any way do the game justice. There are a lot of instructions given in simple English, and students can email their final musical creation after they’ve finished the game. I also have listed the “Walkthrough” (answers) to the game on my website so students can doubly use it as a language development exercise. In A Break In The Road students can again create their own musical composition. It’s not quite a game, but I won’t even attempt to describe it. Check it out for yourself.
The only way I can explain Glitchscape is it lets you make boxes and then turns them into music. You then get the url address of your creation for posting on a blog or website. No registration is required.
At Isle Of Tune, you create music by creating a city. Yes, that’s right, you “drag-and-drop” different parts of a city — homes, cars, trees, etc. — and each one has a musical tone. Then click “Go” and the car prompts the different elements to do their thing. No registration is required, and you’re given the url address of your creation to . As a bonus to English Language Learners, the different parts of the city are labeled, so students can pick up vocabulary at the same time. Plus, they can describe their musical creations.
If you’ve ever tried Incredibox, you know why I call it the easiest and most fun tool to create music on the Web. If you haven’t tried it yet, do it now! They recently announced major improvements, including letting you save your compositions. You can now give them a title and post a link on your blog or website, or in other ways.
generates musical accompaniment to match a singer’s voice. Just choose a musical style, sing into your PC’s microphone, and Songsmith will create backing music for you. Then share your songs with your friends and family, post your songs online, or create your own music videos.
BeatLab seems like a very accessible way to create and share lots of different kinds of music. Thanks to Richard Byrne for the tip.
This will be a real boost for our music faculty. Thanks.
Very nice resource. Thank you.


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Pallet Racking System is a most useful and cost-effective storage racking system providing direct access to all pallets. It provides high capacity storage, is easily installed and adjusted, and has low equipment and capital costs.
1. Pallets can be located, accessed and moved individually.
2. Rapid handling of almost all types of palletized goods.
3. Infinitely adjustable and offering a wide range of options and components to accommodate specialized needs.
4. Maximizes space use in any warehouse configuration while retaining optimum product accessibility.
5. Strength and rigidity prevents compression damage to goods.
6. Bottom level of pallets can be stored on the floor, lowering structure costs.
Standard section sizes: 80*60*2.0, 90*70*2.0-2.3, 100*67*2.0-2.5, 120*87*2.0-2.5mm.
Standard section sizes: 80*50*1.5, 100*50*1.5, 110*50*1.5, 120*50*1.5, 140*50*1.5, 160*50*1.5, 180*50*2.0mm.
Post Baseplate, Bracing, Plastic Block for assembly of horizontal bracing, Anchors, Bolts & Nuts, and Safety Pin.
Row Spacer connecting Upright Frames for stronger structure, U-shape Post Protector, L-shape Post Protector, Frame Barrier, Pallet Supporting Bar, Steel Pallets, Plastic Pallet, Special custom-made Pallets, Cage, Mesh Container, Mesh Deck, etc.
1) can be adjustable in 75mm pitch interval.
2)Different sizes, specifications and colors are available according to customers’ demand.
3. Finish:High-quality Powder Coating Finishing.
4. Load Capacity & Dimension:According the clients demand.
7. Quick Delivery.Within 25 days for ordinary order quantity. Big production capacity allow us in a position to make quick delivery.
1. All racking shall be fixed onto the ground by means of Expansion bolts.
3. There are link bars between two back-to-back rack rows.
4. Protector is recommended to mount in the junction of over two directions.
Established in 1997s, Jiangsu Nova Logistics System Co., Ltd has developed into a medium-sized group with three factories and a joint venture company ,being considered as the leader in its field now.
From the very beginning, the group has been devoting itself to developing, manufacturing and marketing of a variety of logistic products.
Moreover, we have consultancy experts and an experienced installation team of more than 50 people to provide excellent pre& after sales service.
2) You can fly to Shanghai Pudong International Airport then come to Nanjing by High-speed railway, then we will pick you up in Nanjing South Railway Station.

industry_corpus2: Transportation


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Irish women's basketball. What is there to say? This team has the talent, and depth, to make a run at another National Championship. Notre Dame has multiple weapons that can score, and several two way players that add strength on the defensive side. Could it be a rematch in the finals once again? Let's book another National Championship. I am calling it now.
I'm signing out. Again, grab a Guinness, a shot of Bailey's, and celebrate. Cheers! Go Irish!


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When sustainability standards for commercial buildings were introduced in the mid-1990s, contractors were often expected to provide guarantees that the property would receive certification for the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) or Energy Star. But since professionals and owners lacked experience in meeting green standards, if a building ended up not qualifying for certification, it wasn’t always easy to see who was at fault.
Sustainable buildings are becoming more commonplace—the USGBC certified its 10,000th project in mid-2011, and is currently certifying an additional 1.6 million feet each day around the world—so both owners and contractors understand the certification process for new green construction much better than they did even just a few years ago.
However, when it comes to certain aspects of green building—like implementing innovations, selecting green products, retrofitting existing buildings and overall energy performance—uncertainty remains, and therefore liability continues to be a difficult issue, say industry experts.
“The concepts of green design are still so new that nobody really knows what is expected of a design professional,” says Jeff Cavignac, founder of Cavignac & Associates, a San Diego-based independent commercial insurance broker that manages risk and negotiates insurance on behalf of its clients.
Negligence occurs when the standard of care is not met, or when the professional’s performance falls below what a standard architect or engineer would do. But with green design, the standard of care is a moving target, says Cavignac.
His advice is for both owners and designers to treat green building contracts as critical, whether a design professional is working toward green standards for the first time or has a lot of experience in the achieving LEED or Energy Star standards.
Dan Null, vice president of sustainability services at WSP + Flack, a New York City-based international engineering firm, agrees. He says he’s seen owners veer from their goals because their budget changes or they simply decide they don’t like the look of a sustainable feature and switch to a standard one, which loses certification points. “In truth, achieving the desired rating goal is in fact the result of a partnership between the owner, the design consultants, the contractors, the constructors,” he says.
Sure, says Slivka, errors can and do occur on standard buildings but green designs are often characterized by intricacies that didn’t come with traditional construction.
First, many green products, including HVAC equipment and electrical and plumbing fixtures, are so new they’re untested. “Sometimes they’re being applied in a different manner to produce a more efficient effect, but we just don’t have the track record to test for true effects the way we do in traditional construction,” says Slivka.
Retrofitting an existing structure brings its own particular set of liability issues. For instance, LEED certification requires the use of at least 60 percent of recycled materials—whether concrete, steel and wood—all of which must be tested for contamination. And a traditionally built structure sometimes needs additional support to handle the load of, say, solar panels or a wind turbine on the roof, both of which increase wind load and the change of leakage.
Put simply, that puts items on a roof that wouldn’t otherwise be there says Ruben Alspector, senior vice president of the NIA Group, commercial real estate brokers covering greater New York City area. In his experience, he says, vegetative roofs, which are a green feature often added to existing buildings, tend to overbuilt to handle the load, but that’s not always the case. “We heard about a pretty spectacular roof collapsing,” he says.
And, says Slivka, sometimes adding new technology to an old building doesn’t always work out as planned. At an existing Texas hospital that attained LEED Platinum certification, for instance, a ventilation system stopped removing humidity, creating a moisture buildup on the windows and mold issues that mandated the system’s redesign and reinstallation.
The biggest problem, however, with achieving a green rating often comes after a building is completed and up-and-running. When a green building is brought online, the process of certification ends and commissioning—or monitoring a building’s systems—begins. If the building’s commissioning report shows a drop in efficiency six months after its opening, that might be an operator’s error rather than the fault of the contractors, says Alspector.
According to Null, the latest version of LEED has a provision stating that a building’s energy performance must remain at the level for which the building was certified. However, he says, both building owners and designers have to be realistic about the assumptions made for the energy modeling effort with respect to the building’s operation.
And building owners shouldn’t expect to maintain an energy-efficiency rating if their tenants end up coming to work on Saturdays as well as during the week, or leave their computers and lights on overnight and on weekends, adds Alspector.
But even if a building’s occupants and their equipment remain as estimated, weather can change everything.
Probst says he likes Energy Star’s benchmarking system because it “normalizes” energy usage numbers for buildings by taking into account weather and temperature variations. The model also tracks the number of occupants in a building on an annual basis. “A contract that makes a service provider accountable for energy reduction would have to take these kinds of things into account,” he says.
He also recommends using ESCOs—energy service companies—because they guarantee their work, install the products and continue to manage the building.
Ultimately, says Null, nobody wants to be too much of a pioneer when it comes to green building innovations. “The good and the bad about innovation is that you’re essentially talking about something people haven’t done before,” he says. “As an advocate [of sustainability] you generally tend to have an optimistic attitude toward doing new and different things—‘it’s going to be so much better than what’s been done before.’ But you always need to question what’s the worst that could happen, who could screw up.


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Frequently Asked Questions - Sunworks, etc.
Concrete countertops are the most unique, personal countertop option because they are made from scratch for each client.
If so, concrete countertops might be right for you.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of concrete compared to other countertop materials?
Custom: Concrete’s biggest advantage is that it is completely custom. Your countertop will be unique to you and highly personalized.
Practical: SunWorks Decorative Concrete’s proprietary sealer provides a surface that is extremely stain-resistant and low-maintenance. Common food items will not stain it. The sealer does not degrade, and therefore does not need to be reapplied every year like many other sealers. The sealer also exhibits great heat resistance.
Imperfections: We believe that this is an advantage. Concrete countertops are hand made and hand finished. Since concrete is a heterogeneous mixture of many different ingredients, subtle variations in color, shade, texture and overall appearance should be expected. All concrete is susceptible to harmless hairline cracks. They will sometimes appear months or years after installation, and are generally a result of seasonal movement of the cabinets and the house itself. These should be considered part of the aesthetic charm of concrete, and not a defect. Concrete exhibits natural beauty rather than plastic perfection.
Staining: Concrete countertops actually behave similar to granite in this regard. Granite countertops are also porous and have to be sealed and maintained. Most people don’t realize this, because granite is usually too dark and patterned to show stains. Food, acids and oil will not stain your countertop if wiped up immediately.
Scratching: While the sealer is very durable, it is possible to scratch it. For example, in kitchens, you should use cutting boards on concrete countertops.
Lead Time: Concrete countertops may have a long lead time depending on the design. They take approximately 2 to 4 weeks to fabricate. See the section on lead time for more details.
Even though it is a completely custom material, concrete is competitive in price with standard countertop materials. The price is competitive with high end granite, ranging from $70 to over $100 per square foot. We are happy to work with you and your designer to give you an estimate on your project, and we can help you with options to fit your budget.
SunWorks Decorative Concrete makes concrete countertops for kitchens, bathrooms, fireplace mantles, tables, desks, and anywhere else countertops are required. Horizontal countertops must be at least 1″ thick. SunWorks Decorative Concrete can make thicker countertops and fabricate front edge returns to give the appearance of a thick slab.
Concrete countertops can be straight, curved, notched, multi-level, etc. Unlike granite, which would drastically increase in cost for curved shapes, creating curved concrete shapes simply involves some extra complexity and labor in forming.
Concrete can also be used in vertical applications such as backsplashes, shower surrounds and fireplace surrounds. For vertical applications, concrete is generally 1″ thick.
Maximum slab length for standard depth countertops is about 10 feet. Seams, if needed, are located around sinks and cooktops, or wherever required for structural reasons. SunWorks Decorative Concrete will work with you to design seam placement that is both structurally sound and aesthetically pleasing. Seams are typically 1/16″ wide, similar to tile grout lines. However, it is important to realize that concrete countertops are hand made and hand processed; they are not machine cut, so tolerances for seams are more generous than with granite. Seam appearance is minimized by using color-matched acrylic caulk.
Integral and vessel sinks are possible.
Concrete countertops can be used both indoors and outdoors.
Concrete floors are a different application. SunWorks Decorative Concrete has partners who specialize in various types of concrete floors.
Any color! SunWorks Decorative Concrete has developed hundreds of colors including every color on the spectrum. Any color can be produced in a solid, speckled or variegated pattern. And, you can specify embedded stone, glass, or other objects. You can specify the color, size and density of embedments. Coupled with the many color choices, you have myriad design options.
What is the process for custom colors?
SunWorks Decorative Concrete specializes in custom color development. We can customize existing colors or match the color of an item such as a paint chip or fabric. The process takes about 3 weeks. We produce two or more 6″ x 6″ samples and submit them for your approval.
How much color variation can occur?
Concrete is a natural, handmade material. Many factors such as humidity, sand lot and cement lot can affect the final appearance of the concrete. All of our color formulas record the type of sand, type of cement, and exact measurements of pigments to 1/10th of a gram, and we use specially developed software to calculate mix design. However, colors can still vary because of the aforementioned factors.
Another factor that contributes to perceived variation is simply the size of samples. A 3″ x 3″ sample, or even a 6″ x 6″ sample, will look different than a whole countertop simply because the small sample does not capture all of the natural, random variations that will occur over a large surface. The color in a 3″ x 3″ sample may appear completely uniform, but a whole countertop in that exact same color will not appear as uniform. The same situation occurs with other natural materials such as granite. If you are looking for perfect uniformity, solid surface might be a better countertop option for you.
For concrete, edging is formed and cast rather than cut like granite or solid surface. Therefore, edge choices depend on the availability of appropriate trim moulding. For example, SunWorks Decorative Concrete can do pencil, beveled, concave and reverse cove edging, and other custom edges may be available. Edging may be placed on top or bottom of the countertop. Bullnose edging is available for 2″ thick countertop edges.
SunWorks Decorative Concrete countertops can accommodate all types of sinks including drop-in, undermount and apron front. The minimum lip of concrete around all sides of sinks is 3″. Concrete can also accommodate drop-in cooktops. The minimum lip of concrete in the front of a cooktop is 3″; we recommend 3″ for the back also, but 2″ will suffice.
SunWorks Decorative Concrete can make integral concrete sinks of almost any shape. Bathroom vanities are an excellent application of integral concrete sinks.
Concrete vessel sinks are also possible, and concrete’s versatility means that the sink can be any color and shape.
Bare concrete is very porous and will readily stain. Virtually all concrete countertops are sealed to prevent staining; however the degree to which these sealers works varies significantly. Commonly used sealers include wax and penetrating acrylic sealer. Both of these are inexpensive and easy to apply. However, neither offer significant stain or heat resistance, and both require frequent reapplication to prevent the formation of a “patina”.
SunWorks Decorative Concrete’s sealer is different. We use a high-performance sealer that is exceptionally durable and provides excellent resistance to incidental contact with staining agents such as red wine, lemon juice and olive oil.
While the sealer is durable, it can scratch if cut with a knife or subjected to heavy, sharp objects dragged across the surface. Cutting on the concrete may compromise the integrity of the sealer and allow stains to permeate the concrete matrix. Cutting on the concrete will also ruin knives, requiring a professional resharpening to reshape the damaged edge. Remember, concrete is made with stone, the same thing used to sharpen knives (and will therefore dull them just as easily).
As with almost all types of countertop surfaces, it is best to use trivets. Concrete can microcrack if exposed to high heat, and the sealer is not elastic enough to “absorb” these microcracks. The surface will appear “crazed”.
When it comes to concrete countertops, there are two basic processes: cast-in-place and precast. Cast-in-place involves building forms and pouring concrete in place, directly on the cabinets. While this avoids the hassles of transporting heavy slabs, it does tie up the site for many days (or weeks), and it involves a messy process. In addition, cast (or pour) in place provides fewer options and less control over the finished product. Generally the only finish available is a trowelled surface, which is either acid stained or colored with pigments. The quality of the concrete, the finished appearance and ultimate performance of the countertop are all hampered by the fact that it’s all being done on site under a rushed time schedule.
Precast concrete countertops, on the other hand, move all of the processes off site into a controlled environment. In the structural engineering community, it is well known that precast concrete is superior to cast in place concrete, mainly because tighter quality control can be exercised. Curing, which is a critical step that is commonly misunderstood, can be closely monitored. Moving the process to a shop allows greater flexibility in terms of the look of the concrete. Glass, stone and other objects can now be embedded; these require extensive wet grinding with diamond power tools to reveal the embedded objects and hone and smooth the resulting surface.
SunWorks Decorative Concrete often performs custom color matching and submits samples for your approval. Allow about 2 weeks for this process. See the section on custom colors for more information.
The typical time required to fabricate most concrete countertops, depending on their size and complexity, is 2-3 weeks. Note that the fabrication process may not start immediately after templating depending on how full our production schedule is. A good guideline is to contact SunWorks Decorative Concrete at the beginning of the project, or at the latest one month before cabinetry is scheduled to be installed, both to allow time for custom color samples and to secure a spot on SunWorks Decorative Concrete’s production schedule.
In the case of a residential project such as a complete kitchen remodel, homeowners are usually willing to wait longer for their custom-made, handcrafted concrete countertops. However, temporary countertops can be a way to minimize inconvenience. Temporary plywood countertops are one possible solution. Or, the contractor can preserve parts of the old countertop to provide some work surfaces.
Because SunWorks Decorative Concrete concrete countertops are precast and pre-finished, installation generally takes less than one day.
Concrete countertops are templated just like granite. Templating is done after any existing countertops are removed, or after new cabinets are fully installed. Your contractor needs to arrange for existing countertop removal. Almost all concrete countertops require physical templates from the finished and installed cabinetry.
Concrete countertops are handled and installed just like granite. Seams are caulked with a color-matched acrylic caulk. Your contractor needs to arrange for plumbing and electrical hookup no earlier than 24 hours after the countertop installation.
A square foot of 1.5″ thick concrete weighs about 17 lbs; a square foot of 3 cm granite weighs about 16.5 lbs. Typically, no special considerations are necessary for standard kitchen or bathroom vanity countertops. Cantilevered slabs, bar tops on knee walls and similar situations sometimes require brackets or other structural supports for the countertops. SunWorks Decorative Concrete can advise on support requirements.
Yes. SunWorks Decorative Concrete warrantees the structural integrity of the concrete for one year after installation. The countertops will of course last a lot longer than a year, but if any problems were to occur, they would occur in the first year. We subject the concrete to much larger stresses while handling it than clients ever could once it is installed.


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Due to the acquisition of new contracts and continued business growth we have a requirement for an experienced Logistic / Procurement Manager for a large renewable Energy project in NSW.
Manage, monitor and control all the incoming and outgoing materials and equipment on site.
Manage supplier relationships, negotiate (with the Contract Manager support) contracts, policies and deadlines with suppliers and vendors contracts, and deliveries, negotiating prices and terms.
Monitor prices by product and vendor to predict and account for financial fluctuations.
The ideal candidate will have excellent practical experience in shipping, receiving and warehouse management and be detail orientated, it is essential that you have excellent interpersonal skills as you will be engaging with multiple internal and external stakeholders.
In return this company is offering an excellent remuneration package and an excellent opportunity to work on large renewable energy project.

industry_corpus2: Power & Energy


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The testimonies of Kavanaugh and Blassey Ford start at 10:00 EDT (14:00 GMT).
This has been a busy day already from a central banking and data release standpoint.
The dollar overnight firmed by 0.7% against the Swiss franc, 0.6% relative to the Aussie dollar, 0.5% vis-a-vis the euro and loonie, 0.3% against the kiwi, 0.2% versus the yen and 0.1% against sterling, the yuan and the peso.
Share prices in the Pacific Rim fell 1.0% in Japan and New Zealand, 0.6% in India, and 0.5% in China and Hong Kong but rose 0.7% in South Korea and 0.6% in Taiwan. Share prices in Europe are down 0.7% in the U.K., 0.5% in Switzerland, and 0.4% in Spain but flat in Germany and France.
Ten-year German bund, British gilt and Japanese JGB yields slid a basis point, but the U.S. Treasury edged a basis point higher.
Oil is 1.1% firmer at $72.34 per barrel. Gold fell 0.2%.
Central banks in New Zealand and Taiwan left key interest rates unchanged.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s official cash rate has been at 1.75% since November 2016. Such was halved between June 2015 and November 2016 in a sequence of seven 25-basis point reductions.
The Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) left its discount rate at $1.375%, the level achieved after four straight quarterly 12.5 reductions from September 2015 to June 2016.
Central banks in The Philippines and Indonesia tightened monetary policies.
Officials at Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas lifted the overnight reverse repo rate by 50 basis points to 4.5% in order to counter rising inflation and higher expected inflation, which have been in part fueled by the peso’s depreciation. The key interest rate was also raised a half percentage point in August and by 25 bps each in June and May. These were the first tightenings since 2004.
Bank Indonesia’s seven-day reverse repo rate has been increased by another 25 basis points to 5.75%. This was the fifth hike in six meetings. The rate was raised by 25 bps on two occasions in May as well as once in August and by 50 basis points at the July meeting. Similar to the Filipino instance, rising inflation and rupiah depreciation have been reinforcing one another.
The final estimate of U.S. GDP last quarter showed an unrevised 4.2% annualized rate of growth, associated with a 2.9% rise from a year earlier. Consumption, non-residential investment, net exports, and government spending enhanced growth, while inventories and residential spending exerted drags. The core PCE price deflator is hovering near 2.0%, the Fed’s target.
The advanced U.S. merchandise trade deficit in August of $75.8 billion was 5.2% wider than in July. High trade deficits are driving Trump’s tariff policy.
U.S. durable goods orders leaped 3.5% in August and were 13.1% greater than a year earlier.
The four-week average of U.S. new jobless insurance claims edged marginally higher to 206.25K.
Economic sentiment in the euro area fell 0.7 points to a 15-month low reading of 110.9 in September. Industrial sector sentiment and consumer confidence were at 14- and 16-month lows, but sentiment improved in construction, retail and services.
German CPI inflation accelerated 0.3 percentage points to 2.3% in September (2.2% harmonized) with both food and energy price inflation climbing to 7.7% and 2.8%.
German consumer confidence rose to a 2-month high in October.
Finnish and Portuguese consumer sentiment fell in September to 21- and 17-month lows. Swedish consumer confidence improved to a 7-month high, by contrast.
Italian consumer confidence climbed 0.7 points to a 2-month high of 116.0, but business sentiment slipped 0.2 points. Italian PPI inflation in August of 4.4% was the highest since February 2012.
Icelandic consumer price inflation in September of 2.7% reversed the 0.1 percentage point dip seen in August.
On-year M3 money growth in the euro area decelerated to 3.5% in August from 4.0% in July and 4.5% in June. Slower M1 was the cause. Bank lending growth to firms and households each edged slightly higher.
Spanish business sentiment recovered to a 2-month high in September but remained weak with a reading of minus 3.7.
South African producer price inflation accelerated to a 21-month high in August of 6.3%. It was as low as 3.7% five months earlier.
Chinese industrial profits in August were just 9.2% higher than a year earlier. That was the smallest on-year increase since March and down from 16.2% in July and 20.0% in June.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 27th, 2018 at 7:41 am	and is filed under New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

industry_corpus2: Finance & Economics


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The Blast Gauge sensors record overpressure — spikes in air pressure generated by a concussive force like a bomb or IED, artillery or missile fire, flashbangs, breaching rounds, and more — as well as acceleration. These units can measure changes in psi in 0.05 psi increments up to 110 psi of overpressure, which is 10% higher than the threshold at which deaths begin to occur. The Blast Gauge system graphs and logs overpressure events, and all of the data can be downloaded to a computer or mobile device.
As traumatic brain injury can happen at fairly low pressure levels and repeated exposure can have a cumulative effect, these sensors are designed to track military or police personnel exposure and provide warnings and information to medical staff. As seen in the photo above, the system is designed to be a 3-sensor set worn on the head, shoulder, and chest. The sensors can alert medical or other teams wirelessly, or can simply be checked visually via color-coded warning lights for notification that medical evaluation may be necessary.
There’s a whole heck of a lot more information on the Blast Gauge website, including a significant amount of scientific research into overpressure and its effects on the body and brain and various uses for the Blast Gauge System (e.g. use multiple gauges to map how a flashbang propagates pressure inside of a home to determine how to use them more effectively and safely).
I’ve purchased two of the wireless gauges and will be using them to capture objective, accurate data on the concussion generated by various AR-15 muzzle devices. The plan is to place one off to the side to mimic what a team member near the shooter (or a neighbor on the range) would experience, and one where the head of the shooter would be. This will result in graphs of the concussive force for each muzzle device, plus a peak overpressure measurement in PSI. Cool, right?
Can’t wait to see the new test especially with the winners of the last batch of testing.
hmm. If I cannot check my email on it, I don’t want it.
Very cool. Kudos for the outside-the-box thinking here (I doubt the inventors thought of using them in this fashion).
Jeremy – Good thinking…well done! I’m looking forward to reading your findings.
If you are still testing that big fifty, I’d love to see some readings from that!
I’d like to see just how louder .44 mag is to .357 mag.
This is just a sound pressure level meter. “Spikes in air pressure” *is* sound. You should be measuring dB here, which is log-scale, not PSI. Look up ‘webers law’ to see why.
A simple calibrated dB meter would do you just as well.
I’ll definitely be using them for other testing as well. But to be extra clear just in case, these don’t measure volume level (“louder”). If all goes to plan, beginning in ~February I’ll have access to professional dB measuring equipment as well, though. At this point I sort of have to decide whether to do an overpressure test in Dec/Jan or wait until February when I can do a combo overpressure & dB level test. As excited as I am to get my hands on this Blast Gauge units (they should arrive in early Dec), I’m leaning towards postponing the test until I can include the dB data as well and do it all at once.
It will be really interesting to compare the PSI measure from this device with the dB measure. I’m mostly curios how sensitive these ‘blast meters’ are. I look forward to reading about your setup to do this!
My body is ready. Proceed.
This is sort of gimmicky right?
DB meters that are fast enough to accurately capture the rise-time of the gunshot impulse are very expensive..
True, but cheap computing is readily available to the hobbyist/hacker. It’s an off-the-DigiKey sensor, and some basic components to make the output acceptable to the I/O port on a RasperryPi. Little bit-o-code and, voila!
I’m not savvy enough to direct hack a Bosch L-Jet brain and read the code. But I did take a few simple breadboard circuits, a c-note in parts, and a ~$300 data acquisition unit and interpolate the tables using an (homebrew) interceptor box, and a bunch of banana jacks.
Take that thing apart and it’ll be unimpressive in the extreme.
I understand this line of thinking and I don’t know enough about this area of physics to be sure how that would work. When I do actually dB test these brakes with a professional metering setup, which I will do in Q1, am I going to find a perfect, scalable correlation between dB measurement and concussion/overpressure/shock wave measurement via the Blast Gauge? Have you ever seen an equation that can convert dB into overpressure (e.g. 164 dB = 1.5 psi over atmosphere pressure shock wave)? No…I don’t think they’re directly related. I basically expect that some loud muzzle devices will create less concussion than some quieter ones. Or maybe not and I’m totally off base there.
BUT…A shock wave isn’t a sound wave, even if a shock wave creates a noise. If a shock wave were a sound wave, it would travel at the speed of sound. But it doesn’t; it travels at the speed of whatever caused it and that’s often much faster than the speed of sound (e.g. a shock wave caused by the expanding gasses of an explosion).
An example would be a the shock wave (sonic boom) caused by a supersonic aircraft. That overpressure wave will rattle the windows of your home, you’ll feel it in your chest, and you’ll hear it (which could even be mostly from the effect the shock wave has on physical objects just like knocking on your window would make noise but it doesn’t mean your hand moving through the air towards the window makes noise) way before you hear the sound of the airplane itself. The sound of the boom has nothing whatsoever to do with how loud the plane is. In this same respect, if I want to measure concussion I don’t want to measure how loud the gunshot is. It isn’t the noise of the gun that’s creating the concussive force, it’s the supersonic projectile and supersonic gasses expanding behind it. Those expanding gasses create the shockwave in the air — it’s actual particles or objects that create a shock wave, it isn’t just a noise.
BTW even if your theory is solid and sound pressure and shock waves are conceptually similar enough to “dB” meter them both, shock waves may be at such a different frequency range that it’s entirely outside of the scope of any dB meter. They’re obviously made to register sounds within the human hearing range (or even just a specific part of that range). So call this Blast Gauge system silly for using PSI instead of dB all you want, but I’m not convinced 1) there’s a dB meter on earth that can measure a supersonic blast wave and 2) there’s actually a correlation between the volume of the source and the pressure of its blast wave, since the volume of the source (gunshot in our case) doesn’t have to have any correlation with the speed of the object/particles that are solely responsible for generating the shock wave (the projectile and the expanding gasses out of the muzzle, in our case).
I appreciate the thorough response here.
I use dB meters, and deal with sound all the time. I don’t want to get into this too much, as I’d like to remain somewhat anonymous, but I have a phd in bioacoustics so I have a great deal of familiarity with the subject here.
I’ll just address a couple of points.
First, a dB meter is not always made to measure only the energy in frequencies that humans can hear. Usually they aren’t made that way, actually. So when you measure dB (you don’t have to use a dB meter- you can use just a microphone and an oscilloscope) you are measuring the amount of pressure in the air- which includes the pressure you can’t hear. All you are doing is pushing the membrane of a microphone (dB meter or not). So when you describe the windows rattling when a plane flies by, that is caused by sound. Not sound you can necessarily hear, but compression waves through the air none-the-less. The membrane of the microphone on your meter will move just the same as the window moved. And when you move your hand through the air to knock on a door, you are moving air out of the way, and creating compression waves as you do that- so you are also creating sound, just at such low levels we can’t typically hear it— but it’s still sound, and I can still measure it.
Second, dB is a measure that has to be defined. Usually when we say “dB” we mean “dB SPL” which is relative to micro pascals, which is a measure of pressure. So yeah, you can correlate dB to PSI, but we don’t because dB is in the log scale, which is far more useful and meaningful (look up Webers Law).
now- MOST IMPORTANTLY- when you say it is expanding gas and particles from the firearm that are creating the shockwave… what do you think is creating the noise? It’s those same things, because we are talking about the same thing.
Okay you win 🙂 I bow to you sir. I hope for the purposes of the comparative testing I’m planning on doing, using the Blast Gauge system to measure overpressure/shock wave and a legit dB meter setup to measure how loud the gunshots are will work properly and provide results that are easy to understand.
Yes, there is an equation that calculates sound level from air pressure.
The .05 psi resolution of this sensor is unimpressive. The units of air pressure used to calculate sound level is the pascal, which is .000145 psi. I doubt you could use this to calculate any relevant sound pressure level because it isn’t sensitive enough in most of the auditory range. This is probably because it was designed to survive pressure spikes that would stop your heartbeat. Such pressure would likely cause an SPL meter to fail, making the two more complementary. I don’t know if a sensor could be made that would bridge the gap between auditory safe and nuclear blast while still being accurate, I suspect so, but I don’t think this is it.
i THINK you’re on the right track with the Blast Gauge System. Cdotson is right however: microphone based SPL meters might be ruined by overpressure, the same way burst discs operate.
A MEMS based mic I looked at on Digikey “clips” at 133 dB SPL http://www.digikey.com/en/product-highlight/i/invensense/inmp621-mems-digital-microphone. Even if this type is not damaged, it certainly won’t provide useful data above that. This article http://www.elcaudio.com/decibel.htm by Eric Carmichel may be useful in understanding why.
I’m curious about the technical specs of the Blast Gauge System: what is the maximum SPL or pressure wave that IT can handle without saturating/clipping? Also wondering why the Army has shelved the Blast Gauge System after reports that soldiers are subjected to damaging overpressure from their own weapons.