text:
"A Matter of Diffusion"

by Keith Yates

Like many Stereophile readers, I have often sped home from a concert to fire up the audio system and then, to the sore vexation of my wife and guests, spent the rest of the evening plunged in the morbid contemplation of what, exactly, was missing.

Every lover of music has his pet theories and every theory, it seems, its season. Speaker efficiency and wide frequency response were popular in the 1950s, during the heyday of those hulking Klipschorns and James B. Lansings. The Quad ESLs caught on a few years later, when midrange transparency seemed to be what separated hi-fi from the real McCoy. In the late ’60s Amar Bose of MIT concluded that the ratio of direct to reflected sound was lopsided, and redressed the ostensible imbalance with his model 901s.

Jon Dahlquist, Richard Vandersteen, and others converged on loudspeaker time and phase discontinuities in the ’70s. Up in Canada, Mike Wright reworked the textbook electrostatic speaker for maximum bass slam and dynamic scaling; he had to seal the resulting apparatus in a fragile shroud of sulphur hexafluoride gas to keep it from arcing itself to death. Near Los Alamos, physicist Alan Hill blamed excessive moving mass; he weighed in with a near-massless tweeter comprised of a helium-bathed plasma that expanded and contracted in mid-air at audio frequencies.

While Pass (Threshold), Iverson (Electro Research), Curl (Mark Levinson), Otala, and others tackled amplifier linearity problems, over in Scotland Ivor Tiefenbrun impishly insisted the front end was to blame, eventually elevating the turntable in general and the Linn Sondek in particular to new import.

Without wishing to deny the aforementioned trailblazers their due, it is my lot to report that a peculiar-looking device called a “quadratic residue diffusor” leaves little doubt that what largely separates the listening room from the concert hall is the acoustic “fingerprint” of the listening room itself.

Most anybody could have told you so (my grandma for one: “Can’t put a gallon in a quart jar, son”), but I’m here to say these diffusors represent a powerful new way to address the fact. They’re already turning up in recording studios and some concert venues, and once you’ve heard them, as you will, in the soundrooms of dealers and the living rooms of fellow audiophiles, you’re likely to accuse your own listening chambers of having heretofore obstructed your very pursuit of the high end—of having bludgeoned sonic detail, mocked correct instrumental timbre, and thwarted the replication of concert-hall soundfields.

The concept of diffusion will be new to most audiophiles. By and large, we’re accustomed to thinking that sound striking a surface can be either reflected (as when a billiard ball bounces off a side cushion) or absorbed (as when it drops into a pocket).

Think of diffusion this way: The billiard ball strikes the cushion and is instantly shattered into sawdust-sized microballs that scatter across the whole table. You need reflection and (especially) absorption to win at billiards; to get your living room to sound like a symphony orchestra playing in a good concert hall, you’ll need diffusion, too.

To grasp why, consider that, at your ear, the arrival schedule of acoustic reflections supplies the brain the information it needs to get a “fix” on the listening room: its approximate dimensions and geometry, and to some extent the treatment of wall surfaces and other large objects.

Let’s assume that, with software of appropriate quality, your audio system successfully resolves the nuances of timbre, imaging, and acoustic space that mark the recording site as Carnegie Hall. What happens in your listening room? The ear-brain is presented with two conflicting acoustical field reports: Carnegie Hall on the one hand and your living room on the other. Maybe if you trained yourself long enough, you could become deaf to the living-room layer and experience only the Carnegie Hall layer. (If so, I promise you’ll be the subject of great curiosity among psychoacoustics researchers.) At best you’ll learn to live with the dichotomy you’ve got.

Theoretically, diffusion chips away at the listening-room layer in several important ways. First, it tampers with the arrival schedule of normal room reflections in ways that make it hard for your brain to get a clear fix on the listening-room layer. In an untreated room there will be clearly defined energy spikes over time as the sound ricochets off hard surfaces and arrives at the listening position. The position of these spikes on the time track is what tips off the ear-brain as to the location of side walls, ceiling, floor, and other large planar surfaces. Increase the distance between your speakers and room boundaries and you move the spikes further down the time track, away from the direct sound. A strong energy spike arriving 15ms after the direct sound suggests a reflecting surface, say a side wall, nearby. Because sound travels about a foot every millisecond, the reflected path length is only about 15′ longer than the direct path length, putting the speaker rather near the reflecting surface. (If the time gap between the direct sound and the first reflected spike is less than 10ms, the ear-brain processes the information as a disruption, or shift, in image.)

Place a diffusor at the reflecting site and you scatter that energy across a very broad angle (functionally 180 degrees), meaning only a very tiny fraction of the reflected energy will be steered directly to the listening position. Deprived of the clear 15ms spike, the ear-brain should not be able to accurately “fix” the location of the side wall.

Secondly, the diffusor breaks up irritating slap and flutter echoes that often plague playback in domestic listening environments. These echoes—artifacts of reflective, parallel room surfaces—overlay the music that follows and obscure its inner details.

Thirdly, the diffusor tames comb-filter-type frequency colorations, previously addressed only by laboriously tweaking the physical position of the speakers relative to room boundaries. By decreasing the depth and increasing the density and irregularity of comb-filter notches, the diffusor makes optimum speaker placement decidedly less critical.

The fourth and potentially most remarkable benefit of diffusion is that the flooding of the listening room with diffuse sound fosters a sensation of complete envelopment or immersion in a musical event, as opposed to the disengaged puzzling over sonic minutiae that too often passes for the audiophile listening experience.

In sum, with adequate diffusion, you can theoretically get a small listening room to sound rather like a very good concert hall because, psychoacoustically, all the same basic ingredients are there: a large enough time gap between direct sound and first reflected spike; lack of slap and flutter echoes and comb-filter colorations characteristic of small rooms; and the envelopment that comes from a dense, smoothly decaying reverberation that permeates the whole room.

The trick to designing an efficacious diffusor is to get it to exhibit no prejudice for frequencyamplitude, or angle of incidence or reflection. This is not an easy task, for physical structures generally operate, acoustically, only on narrow slices of the frequency band and within a restricted range of incidence angles, making them effective only for a small percentage of the total sound energy impinging on them. To be sure, recording studios and the like have relied on large polycylindrical diffusors for years, but these have been cumbersome, restricted in frequency range, and impractical in domestic environments. The upshot is that diffusion—at least up until now—has been more a theoretical solution than a practical one.

What amounts to the first commercially viable broad-range diffusor is the main enterprise of RPG Diffusor Systems of Largo, Maryland. Working off the findings of Dr. Manfred Schroeder, the German mathematics professor and Bell Labs researcher who conceptualized an acoustic “reflection phase grating” (RPG) device a few years ago in the Journal of the AES, the RPG is a 2′ by 4′ by 8″-deep affair of wood and aluminum.

For all the higher math involved, it is a low-tech-looking affair comprised of thin aluminum slats defining wooden “wells” of constant width (about 31/2 inches) and varying depths. The exact depth of these wells and their sequence are what, according to the literature, imbue the RPG with its nearly ideal diffusion characteristics. The RPG diffusors I tested cost $295 each, and are available through RPG directly at 12003 Wimbleton Street, Largo, MD 20772.

The Set-Up
Coached over the phone by RPG president Dr. Peter D’Antonio, I deployed 24 of his model QRD(R)-734W diffusors in my store’s main soundroom, a purpose-built facility some 19′ wide, 23′ long, and 10′ at its highest point, the ceiling being a coffered affair. The wall directly behind the speakers (hereinafter called the front wall) is a 55-ton construction of concrete, cork, and sand; it is well over 2′ thick and nearly 20′ high (the upper floor is used for storage). Walls and ceilings are of conventional 5/8″ sheetrock nailed to 2×6 studs. The room is of the “single-speaker demonstration” variety, meaning that speakers not under direct audition are normally ensconced in a separate, acoustically isolated closet to prevent interaction with the pair being played.

Over the years the room has seen a fair amount of acoustical experimentation, including full Sonex treatment on the front wall, dozens of ASC tube-traps crammed into corners, and half-rounds scattered around side walls. For critical auditioning, 6 RPGs were elevated about 2′ off the floor and screwed into the front wall; up to 7 were set along each side wall; and up to 12 were stacked in a 16′ by 6′ monolith a few feet behind the listening positions (see diagram).

It was an imposing sight, to be sure. A wide variety of high-grade components was used during more than a full year of listening evaluations, beginning in late 1986. Front-ends included a Goldmund Studietto/T5 ‘table/arm set-up with Linn Karma or Koetsu Black Gold Line cartridges; a Linn Sondek/Ittok with Grace F9E Super, Linn Troika, or Linn Karma; several Michell Gyrodecs with Zeta, SME, or Eminent Technology tonearms fitted with Madrigal Carnegie, sundry Koetsu, or Grado Signature series cartridges; and The Source turntable from Scotland, fitted with SME V and a Carnegie One. Original master tapes and dubs, played on a Don Alley-modified Revox B77 and a stock Tandberg TD20A-SE, were also used on occasion.

On the digital side, CD players seeing the most action were the Meridian 207 Pro, Nakamichi OMS7A MkII, Tandberg 3015A, and California Audio Labs Tempest Revised; an Accuphase DC80/DP81, Kinergetics, and Stax Quattro were also used for shorter times.

Electronics included the Mark Levinson ML7A and prototype No.26 preamps; Levinson No.23 and No.20 Class A monoblock amps; the full assortment of Conrad-Johnson Premiers; a Spectral DMA-100; the Jadis JA-30 class-A monoblocks; Bryston 3B and 4B; and various loaner or trade-in electronics from Audio Research, Krell, Cello, Rowland, and Accuphase.

I used a range of speakers familiar to most Stereophilereaders: the Apogee Diva, Scintilla, and Duetta ribbons; Quad ESL-63 electrostatics; Magnepan MGIIIa planar magnetics; and KEF 107, Vandersteen 2C, Spendor SP1, and Spica TC50 electrodynamics. I also included two new electrodynamics that may be unfamiliar to most: the Waveform Loudspeakers and Booth Curvefront IIs. Although many others were tried as well, I shall restrict my comments to the aforementioned, as they cover a broad and representative range of operating principles, polar patterns, tonal personalities, and, as it happened, results.

For the formal listening sessions I settled on a Gyrodec turntable fitted with SME V tonearm and Carnegie One cartridge feeding the Levinson ML7A preamp (L3A phono modules) and Levinson No.23 power amp. The amplifier was selected after much care because it was found to be particularly well suited to the test, displaying both the iron grip to deal firmly with the unruly Scintillas, and the finesse to coax the Quads and Spicas to their delicate best. Cabling was by Monster, MIT/Brisson, and Belden.

I brought in my recording engineer, John Oster, to record the sound of the system playing both with and without the RPGs deployed. A pair of the new B&K omni mikes, placed at the listening position, fed a modified Revox B77 reel-to-reel and a Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck. Later I went back and “A/B’ed” the room with and without the diffusors by replaying the tapes over Stax Lambda Pro electrostatic headphones and comparing my original notes.

Although the more controlled part of the test involved evaluating the diffusors with speakers of various types, it is worth noting that substituting any of the other source components, electronics, or cables for those in the reference playback system had little or no effect on results found for the RPGs. In other words, there was no case in which a different combination of source components, electronics, and/or cables produced results that were at odds with those produced with the reference system and described in this overview.

However, the RPGs did alter the sonic environment in ways that often made it easier to get a handle on the sound of a particular component; they illuminated certain equipment characteristics that previously lurked only as vague impressions. I suspect this was due to the fact that the diffusors remove sonic grundge (comb filter and echo effects) that otherwise masks some of the subtleties of certain components. At any rate, the fact that the diffusors did not turn component preferences topsy-turvy is interesting.

The Particulars
I’ll begin with the clearest success story: the KEF 107s. In the untreated soundroom the much-praised 107s betrayed a blare and honk that deepened my appreciation for unalloyed silence. After finding the speakers and the supplied equalizer (the KUBE) to be in proper working order, I got a feeling worse than buyer’s remorse: I felt I’d been saddled with a patient with severe personality disorders—and one that was hard to move, took up valuable floor space, and cost me a fair chunk of change into the bargain.

When the diffusors were deployed it was as if the patient had undergone electroshock therapy. A ratty blare gave way to a sweetness and harmonic balance of which I had never thought the speaker capable. Violins and violas shed their pinched, hollow sound; and the brass—jeeminee, I about wore out the preamp’s mute switch every time they started that insufferable blatting and hooting—actually bore a commendable similitude to the real thing. The soundstage virtually uncorked itself, opening up in all dimensions, and the clumping of instruments around the speakers gave way to a handsome delineation of placement along all three axes—left/right, front/back, and up/down.

The whole room seemed acoustically and infectiously energized. Especially on orchestral, big band, and Dire Straits-type pop music, the effect was big, fleshy, and compelling. If not in quite the same league as the admittedly much more expensive WAMM, Infinity IRS, or Apogee Diva systems, the 107s began to sound like they deserved some of their glowing press and word-of-mouth accounts. During one listening episode, a customer who had heard the 107s in the room’s pre-RPG days walked in and asked, incredulously, “What did youdo to those things?”

I’m going to lump the Apogees and Magnepans together—ah, what strange bedfellows acoustics make—not because I’m ignorant of their political differences, but because the diffusors are. Being dipolar line-source designs, both are sensitive not only to rear and side wall proximity, but to the physical attributes of those walls as well. Highly absorptive surfaces like Sonex or Owens-Corning acoustical panels rob the speakers of their characteristic lively, expansive sound, while plain reflective walls can impart a “slap” that creates an interesting but sometimes unnatural spatial effect. If you want the best from them, you seem forever consigned to fussing with their placement.

With diffusors in place, the hard slap gave way to a more evenly distributed foldback of the rear wave into the room. Here I mean “evenly distributed” in both the tonal sense (viz, no erratic or spiky colorations) and the spatial one (e.g., no more listening-position hot spots).

The Divas offered a ferocious grip on the music coupled with a rich ambience—almost a “wraparound” effect—that seemed to deposit the listener nearer the stage, but in a larger and more acoustically inviting space. It seemed the overall energy level had been turned up.

The change affected the very way one experiences music. The urge to dissect the sound gave way to just basking in it. Recordings like Gary Karr’s Albinoni Adagio, the old Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances on Vox Turnabout, and Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo on Mercury Living Presence unfurled a concert-hall acoustic you wanted to reach out and touch. Once-submerged details of orchestration and phrasing were presented with a tangibility that often brought a new sense of proportion and wholeness to complex orchestral music.

On many recordings, music flowed with a rolling or “speaking” quality with the Diva/RPG combination. Certainly I have never heard Apogees anywhere to rival the hall-type glow that music regained with the Divas played in the diffusor-treated soundroom. With the Scintillas, Duettas, and MGIIIas, the diffusored systems improved markedly, yet it must be said that never were the speakers “transformed” into sounding like something else—such as Divas or Quads or Acoustats, for example. Rather, they were clearly themselves, minus some familiar warts, and stretching out in a friendlier and more exciting space.

With all three, musical images appeared to move off the surface of the speakers and into the room, where they assumed more realistic shapes and positions. It should be noted that the diffusors also ameliorated a dry middle-treble range on the MGIIIas, yielding a fuller, more harmonically natural lighting to violins, violas, clarinets, and trumpets. Owners of the various Apogees and Magnepans (and other dipolar line sources) will likely find that a cluster of RPGs on the walls behind and around the speakers will facilitate placement of these otherwise fussy monoliths.

In the untreated soundroom the Booth Curvefront IIs—$3500 hand-finished beauties resembling the Dahlquist DQ-20s or the larger Keveks and employing a choice selection of Dynaudio drivers—had suffered a lack of top-to-bottom tonal consistency that bordered on discombobulation. Powerful and “physical” nearly throughout their range, they unfortunately never allowed one to settle in and unwind with the music. They displayed an unhappy knack for taking a recording with a full soundstage, collapsing it into two small boxes, then megaphoning what was left of it into your face.

With the RPGs, the Curvefront IIs were a somewhat different animal, with a generous and sometimes downright comfortable presentation, and at least hinting at an octave-to-octave seamlessness that had previously seemed far away indeed. The megaphoning gave way almost to a dipole-like ability to illuminate all corners of the room effortlessly. A nasal, ringing coloration subsided, bringing a more natural timbre to male voices of all types, from Fischer-Dieskau and Hermann Prey to Johnny Hartmann and Mick Hucknall (Simply Red).

The change—”transformation,” rather—was strikingly effective, and again I suspect that, given normal, sheetrock sidewalls, the Booth’s significant off-axis energy output had previously exaggerated and distorted their true midrange potential.

The Quad ’63s have always seduced more than impressed. By enlarging and enlivening the room acoustic, the diffusors rendered the Quads more extroverted, more “commanding” and less reticent. Oh, they’re still seducers, these, but they’re now seducers of a saucier type. On Chicago Pro Musica’s Till Eulenspiegel(Reference Recordings), the effect was one of lusty and infectious merriment, altogether closer in spirit to this ensemble’s live performance of the piece.

The specificity of acoustic images the speakers suspended in the room (always a forte with Quads) was complemented by a wider, deeper soundstage, a decidedly less dry-sounding acoustic, and an addicting sensation of being in the middle of the action.

Listening analytically, you’d have to say the changes were almost purely spatial or related to power level (the speakers often sounding as if they’d been harnessed to a more assertive amplifier). This is probably because, even in the untreated main soundroom, the ’63s seem miraculously free of tonal aberrations, grundge, detail smudging, or other problems—problems that the RPGs had a knack for mitigating with other speakers.

Listening naturally (emotionally), though, the RPGs seemed to represent a giant step toward the real, live experience of participating in the original music-making event. This was heard on many recordings, independent of genre or technical quality. Perhaps the somewhat different nature of sonic improvement with the ESL-63s has to do with their unique, electronically steered directional characteristics: The speaker develops relatively little energy much off-axis, largely to minimize unpredictable interaction with nearby surfaces. At any rate, the spatial realism afforded by the RPGs seemed to energize the “retiring” Quad personality in an altogether useful and flattering way.

With or without the companion powered subwoofer (the 2W), the Vandersteen 2Cs have always sounded coherent and believable in the main soundroom. Pushed to around 98dB or more, though, the upper midrange/lower treble begins to “trumpet” and coarsen, an effect owing to either limitations of drivers or room acoustics, I could never clearly determine. The RPGs revealed the blame to be with the room, not the speakers. With the full diffusor complement the Vandersteens showed that they can be pushed quite hard in a large-ish room without distress. (A good test for this is the Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia, Nimbus CD 5019.)

The diffusors did not seem to alter the specificity of the 2Cs’ already sharply drawn images, but they wrapped these images in a larger, warmer, and more alive space. They also suppressed a slight “a” (as in “cat”) coloration in the speakers, previously evident at moderately loud levels and up.

These were unambiguous improvements: On a purely commercial level, we found sales of 2Cs to increase dramatically during the evaluation period. The diffusors had no detectable effect on the sound of the matching subwoofer, but did reveal the supplied crossover unit, with its 8-switch blocks, to be wholly unsatisfactory. (Vandersteen suggests using it only to establish the correct capacitor value, then ordering that specific value in a single-value, in-line package.)

Imaging on the Spendor SP1s has always been strong at center-fill, even without toeing-in; with the diffusors in place the space around instruments seemed to expand literally, well past the side walls. The speakers seemed to energize the room’s entire air space, not just the area between and behind the speakers themselves. As with the Divas, Vandersteens, and Quads, the diffusors often seemed to escalate the overall musical energy level in the room. The diffusors did not alter the SP1s’ characteristic upper-bass “plumminess,” which probably issues from the speaker’s thin-wall cabinet construction rather than dispersion problems or room interaction per se.

The Spica TC50s fared similarly, sounding far bigger than they look, and again seeming to drive the 4500 cubic feet of listening room with relative ease. This effect was also clearly in evidence when I substituted a modestly powered integrated amp, the British Fidelity A1. With diffusors, treble reproduction sweetened tonally and deepened spatially.

Now we come to the puzzler—the $17,000 Waveforms. Looking like nothing so much as a chopped-and-channeled pyramid in the Art Deco style, this 200-lb. bruiser is based on research done at the National Research Council’s facility in Ottawa, Canada. Furniture designer John Otvos—a charming young fellow from the old school—decided to leave his imprint on the speaker architecturally rather than sonically. For the sonics he sought Paul Barton of the NRC, requesting a design that, on the NRC’s kind of controlled, double-blind listening tests, would consistently outscore all competitors. No constraints were placed on driver technology, parts costs, or enclosure design.

Barton’s prescription is surprisingly conventional: a 15″ woofer, two 6-inchers, a soft-dome tweeter, and ribbon supertweeter. An active crossover is supplied, and the speaker must be biamped.

This was the first time Otvos had played the speakers in a US dealer’s showroom, and he worried aloud about the effects the RPGs might have on the sound. Having experienced positive results with all other speakers, and having considered the supporting technical rationale, I wondered if Otvos wasn’t voicing a preliminary objection in order to later dismiss the auditioning results if they turned out unfavorable.

We played the speakers—the Levinson No.23 on top, the stout Bryston 4B on bottom—and found that Otvos had not worried in vain.

But let me give you the good news first. Without the RPGs, the Waveforms had the upfront, grab-you-by-the-glands presence that lifted you from mid-hall to the conductor’s platform. Music sounded zesty and sure-footed, an effect like that of a crack orchestra triumphantly returning from a long road trip to play a favorite old lollipop for eager hometown supporters. Bass was generous, lively, yet relatively free of overhang. Up to what I would guess to be 100dB or so, dynamic gradations were first-rate, harking back to those mammoth designs of the JBL era. (It turns out those 15″ woofers issue from that very firm.)

The Waveforms set up a nicely delineated lateral soundstage, receiving markdowns for a foreshortened and somewhat clouded front-to-back perspective. I quibbled with some lower-treble peakiness, caused, it later turned out, by a minor miscalculation in the crossover, and probably exacerbated by those side walls. Yet on balance the musical effect was one where the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. Here then were speakers for the sybarite looking for a rollicking good time from his music, and who will trade away some finesse to get it.

With the RPGs, however, the speakers sounded tidier but strangely less involving. The sound lost much of its spirit and hence its fun. Although I was more engaged acoustically—immersed in the soundfield, really—emotionally I was oddly disengaged. This effect was commented upon by other listeners who were not predisposed by Otvos (or me or my staff) to the Waveforms’ “unsuitability” with the RPGs. The soundstage became larger and more credible, and even the lower-treble peak seemed to lose its edge, but these were “improvements” of an oddly unflattering type.

After living with the Waveforms and RPGs for some months, I called “Dr. Diffusor” D’Antonio about it and he, too, was at a loss to account for the effect. Otvos could offer nothing more than the observation that the speakers were designed to be used in a fairly reflective living-room-type environment. But there you have it: a case where the untreated room “outperforms” the same room with the full RPG complement.

The Big Picture
Without question, the diffusors did more to upgrade the overall musical experience in the main soundroom than any previous mitigation measure, whether it happened to be installing 4’x8′ Sonex sheets on the front and forward walls, standing Tube Traps in corners, or isolating all undriven speakers in the separate holding area.

The reduction in sonic grundge, the exposure of previously obscured inner detail and interleavings, the marked sense of envelopment within a musical event, and the perception that the walls had been blown down all contributed to a heightened sense of involvement in the music-making.

The results obtained in the main soundroom were duplicated in a smaller adjacent soundroom as well. This room has a low ceiling and a somewhat unpleasant sound, mitigated (partially) by the installation a few years ago of Owens-Corning floor-to-ceiling acoustical wall material on the front wall.

When the diffusors were “parked” in this room (during the times we were “A/B’ing” the main soundroom), the sound was transformed in ways consistent with my descriptions of the treated main room.

Final Thoughts and Remaining Questions
Because all of us audiophiles—consumers, retailers, manufacturers, critics—are accustomed to seeing audio “solutions” take the more familiar form of devices that can be set on a shelf, plugged in, auditioned, paid for, and carted home in the back seat of the car, there is a chance the diffusor may not get the real “hearing” it so richly deserves. During the course of my year-long evaluation, a prominent high-end firm informally introduced the diffusors to select dealers at Chicago CES. The feedback they got suggested that most audiophiles would not purchase anything as unwieldy, expensive, and aesthetically unflattering as the RPG units, despite clear-cut and often dramatic sonic improvements.

I hope this pessimistic prediction proves untrue, for it seems unlikely we’ll have much meaningful audio progress unless and until we deal with the fundamental acoustic limitations of the average listening room. I would also like to point out that in order to reduce the variables in the test, I avoided mixing in other acoustical treatments, such as Sonex or ASC Tube Traps, with the diffusors. Yet it is almost a surety that the diffusors will work best as part of an overall listening-room overhaul that would include products like the Tube Traps in corners (for dipolar speakers), and broadband absorbers against the front wall and forward portions of side walls for most forward-firing designs. The diffusors seem to have little or no effect in the sub-150Hz region where Tube Traps can be effective in “equalizing” pressure buildups in room corners. I would like to experiment with diffusion and/or absorption on the floor and ceiling (to scatter or kill those strong and largely monophonic early reflections) and Tube Traps in the corners.

In the meantime, RPG has introduced their own line of additional products, including the ABFFUSOR(R), a broadband absorber offering some diffusion, and the TRIFFUSOR(R), an equilateral triangular prism that can be rotated to expose absorptive, diffusive, and reflective sides. (The TRIFFUSOR(R) is also available as the Korner-Killer[tm], which is one diffusive and two absorptive sides, for “Tube Trap”-type effects.)

There is the issue of whether similar results could be had without resort to brute-force acoustics, say with active electronic manipulation a la surround-sound or time-delay systems. My experience to date is that existing aftermarket components do not offer the same degree of blow-down-the-walls enhancement because they leave intact the normal acoustic cues that aurally define the small room; they only superimpose another set of aural cues that suggests a bigger room. I wonder if the mental “dissonance” of receiving several sets of acoustic cues might not lead to confusion and perhaps listener fatigue for some. With existing electronic enhancers, the time interval between the arrival of direct sound and its first reflections remains that of a small room; the denser and longer reverberant tail of the sound suggests a bigger room, but for me it suggests more than it persuades.

Undoubtedly units like the Yamaha DSP-1 six-channel system will evolve, opening up at least the (admittedly remote) possibility of some day getting RPG-type improvements electronically.

There is no question of the diffusors’ offering good value: few component upgrades or acessories can approach their price/performance ratio. There remains, though, the question of whether mass production could significantly lower the cost of the RPG units to the consumer. As it is, you could “diffuse” a couple thousand dollars in RPG’s direction to get the results I’ve described in a typical 12’x18′ listening room.

I asked D’Antonio whether he’d considered moving to an injection-molding process instead of time-consuming assembly of furniture-grade wood slats and metal strips. “Yes,” he said, “but at the end of the day, you have one configuration, one color, a fire-rating problem, and an acoustically diaphragmatic entity. Consequently, we made a conscious decision to use wood, a material which has endured the test of time.”

Despite the diffusors’ high value and good finish, I suspect some Audio Cheapskate partisans will try to buy the raw materials locally and copy the RPG design as best they can. N.B. Cheapskates: D’Antonio hints that a lower-cost version may be in the offing.

Another suggestion: The manufacturer should provide an easy way to affix grille fabric to conceal the wells. The standard lacquered birch versions I received played to mixed reviews in the looks department during their year-plus of nearly continuous display. Of course, care would need to be taken in the choice of fabrics, as at high frequencies and very shallow angles of incidence some “acoustically transparent” material is actually quite reflective. Perhaps RPG could make available swatches of acoustically acceptable fabric, along with replaceable speaker-grille-type frames.

On a related note, D’Antonio indicates that custom finishes–from plexiglass for see-through applications to mirror, laminate, paint, and select hardwoods–are available at extra cost.

Finally, the RPG’s greatest contribution could be that it catalyzes widespread interest not only in acoustically rehabilitating existing listening rooms, but also in the next logical step: the construction of purpose-built music environments in the home. That is the high-end’s next frontier, and it is now at our doorstep.

Recalibrating the Listening Room
Sonex and ASC Tube Traps are perhaps the best-known acoustical treatments. But the successful recalibration of most listening rooms will require more diffusion than broad-range absorption (Sonex) or low-frequency corner attenuation (Tube Traps). Before spending dime one, it’s imperative that you understand just what you’re trying to accomplish. The goal of room makeovers is generally to remove the room’s characteristic small acoustic “fingerprint” and replace it with the space, warmth, envelopment, and liveness of a very good concert hall.

These—the removal of one “layer” and the installation of another—are two separate tasks. Broad-range absorbers like Sonex’s sculpted open-cell foam can remove the cues that cry “small” by killing the early reflections from nearby surfaces that tip off the ear-brain as to the real size of the room. The best locations of these absorbers are typically arrived at by placing a mirror on the front and side walls and moving it until, from the listening position, one or both speakers are visible. At these points, attach Sonex, Owens-Corning, Armstrong SoundSoak, or similar acoustical products.

The second task, the setting up of a soundfield that cries “big,” requires diffusion, especially in the areas flanking and directly behind the listening position. The ideal diffusor takes broad-range acoustical energy and scatters it in a non-frequency and non-temporally related way throughout the room, regardless of the angle at which the energy initially impinges on it.

By eliminating hard “specular” reflections and flooding the listening environment with ambient energy, the diffusor fosters the smooth, logarithmically decaying reverberation that marks the best concert halls. Poor concert halls and most all domestic listening rooms have erratic energy/time curves as a result of inadequate diffusion and/or unfavorable ratios of room dimensions. Ideally, reverberation will ramp down to -60dB in approximately 500ms (RT60=0.5s).

There is an audiophile wrinkle to this classical prescription. Many, perhaps most, audiophiles own or at least hanker for speakers that happen to have polar patterns that assume a reflective, not absorptive, area behind and around them. Most planars—e.g., those from Quad, Magnepan, Apogee, Martin-Logan, Eminent Technology, Acoustat, Sound Lab, Infinity IRS, and old-timers like the KLH 9s and the Dayton-Wright XG series—are configured as dipoles, meaning they direct as much energy backward as they do forward. Many others, like the Ohm Walsh units, Bose 901s, dbx Soundfield series, ESS/Heil air motion transformers, and dozens of others similarly not on the current “best-dressed” list, also rely heavily on broad polar shaping to achieve their characteristic sounds.

By installing too much absorption in the areas around planars and these latter devices, you disrupt their intended tonal and spatial properties, as the foldback of the rear and side waves figures prominently in establishing the speaker’s “musicality.” For these reasons, it is often desirable either to replace the absorbers with diffusors (which are, after all, a special kind of reflector) behind and around the speakers, or to mix diffusors with broad-range absorbers. Consider experimenting with absorption by constructing an absorbent “muffler” to go around the back side of the speaker, varying its distance (or angling it) to allow more or less rear-radiated sound into the room. (If you’re not a do-it-yourselfer, look into a set of Watkins “Echo Muffs.”)

The Numbers Game
Manfred Schroeder came up with the basis for the RPG diffusor after studying over 20 famous concert halls in Europe. He and his associates found that listeners preferred high, narrow halls to low, wide ones. He reasoned it had to do with the fact that in a high, narrow hall, the first reflections come from the side walls. These reflections are acoustically dissimilar, whereas in wide, low halls the first reflections will be from the ceiling, and will be acoustically similar—actually, nearly monophonic.

His next project was to design acoustic ceiling “gratings,” functionally analogous to optical diffraction gratings, to direct sound to the side walls. Schroeder turned to quadratic residue sequences for an answer. Such a sequence might be based, for example, on the prime number 17. The first sequence number is the “residue” (or remainder) after the first number, 1, is squared and divided by 17. The answer is 1.

Squaring all the numbers from 1 to 16, then dividing by 17 to find the residue, yields the sequence: 1, 4, 9, 16, 8, 2, 15, 13, 13, 15, 2, 8, 16, 9, 4, 1. For larger numbers, the pattern simply repeats. Finding the depth of a given grating well involves multiplying the appropriate number in the sequence by the longest wavelength for which the grating is designed to scatter sound efficiently, then dividing by a factor that depends on the well’s numerical position.

Mathematical analysis shows that for such an arrangement the spectrum of energies scattered into different directions is essentially flat. Schroeder says the reason number theory works so well is in the way waves cancel or reinforce each other, depending on whether a crest of one wave meets another wave’s trough or crest. For perfectly periodic waves, destructive interference (ie, partial or complete cancellation) occurs whenever one wave lags behind the other by half a wavelength or 1 1/2 wavelengths or 2 1/2 wavelengths and so on. In every case, the result is the same. Hence, in wave interference it’s not the path difference that determines the resulting pattern, but the residue after dividing by the wavelength. Similarly, in modular arithmetic what counts is not the numerical value itself, but the remainder after division by the modulus (17 in the example). —Keith Yates


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Keji Li

Bibpdf, a simple reference manager

This is a paper management system that is light (and easy to change) but with some important features others lack. It is supposed to be used with bibtex only, but should work with anything that eats .bib files. With setuptools, it creates a script named 'pdf'

Github Repo

  1. faster at including pdf file, cleaner database, cleaner .bib output. never name tag conflict (as sometimes seen in Mendeley or Zotero).
  2. output all papers logged in database to a single .bib file so you can use for latex documents.
  3. exposed database with simple structure, so you can use sqliteman or other browsers to do complex search. File name contains enough information for simple search
  4. search papers written by author or by keywords
  5. everything is fast. makes you wonder why Mendeley freezes at some simple operations
  6. eat big .bib files for easy migration from existent management systems

See --help. It uses a paper archive folder, a temporary folder where pdf file and new .bib files are found, and a comment folder where comment files go. The paths of the folders are configurable in ~/.config/bibpdf.json This script also supports multiple files for a single paper.

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Thursday, August 2, 2012

Breastfeeding: What I'd do differently

The list of things I'd change has gotten longer, the further out from Zachari's birth I've gotten. It was as if all the stuff I knew about (labor, delivery and) breastfeeding went out the window when she was born and I became well... dumb. Looking back, I realize that I really did not know much in comparison to now, but there were very obvious things that I would do differently this time around. And God willing, I'll get to do things differently because I'll have a big, healthy, full-term babe with no need for the NICU and a speedy discharge so we can be home, free of hospital interruptions. I realize that so often my plans aren't the ones that in reality get carried out, but in a "perfect" world, they would be. Here's hopin'.

This time around, our plan is to have no separation of baby and mama for the first 24 hours. That's right, an entire day from the minute of birth. As soon as the baby's born, we'll allow the staff to weigh and measure him or her, do the APGAR tests, etc., but then its right to my chest. I've opted for this rather than straight from the womb to the chest so that there's no need for interruption once we're skin to skin (STS). Aside from my need to pee, shower or maybe eat something with two hands, I plan to have that child on my chest consistently if possible. This means no visitors for the first 24 hours of life. I think I might make an exception for Zachari though. The benefits of having continuous STS are incredible. Allowing baby to do the breast crawl finding my breast on her/his own is a perfect introduction to nursing. No "screwing the baby on" as was done to me and Z (and so many other mom-baby teams) and no rushing the baby to get on the boob with my own agenda.  I'm sure this will be a little difficult at times. The nurses won't want me to sleep with her/him in my arms, I'll be exhausted, etc., but I'm telling myself now to push on. I will hold that child like my life depends on it and while the babe and I are safe, that's how we'll stay. When I need a break, Papa will be the one caring for Wee One so that he can bond with her/him too. I'm really looking forward to this time with our baby.

With this child I won't worry so much about being covered while I nurse. I will be discreet of course, but I'll worry less about having the nursing cover all the time or what others will think. I think those things can get in the way. I'm not a large-busted woman so the fear of someone seeing the girls isn't so big. And if they do, they do! I'll be much more comfortable and confident this time around, so that'll help too.

Another thing, I needn't stress over nursing. That'll do a number on ya. I know what I'm doing now. I know a little bit about what the bebe should and shouldn't do. I won't be afraid to ask for help, I know of good resources for help and getting questions answered, I just need not fret. I don't ever want formula to be my backup plan because I want to be successful from the get go and not need that. But, if supplementation - either with formula or my pumped milk becomes absolute necessity - then so be it. Take each moment as it comes. That's all I can do. I do know one thing though, I will not be taking the complimentary Similac package home from the hospital. That's a Booby Trap if there ever was one!

When I started this post Zachari was napping and all was quiet. She's been up for a little while now and I'm losing my train of thought. Oh well, this is enough for now. Second day of World Breastfeeding Week - yay!

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Sunday, December 22, 2013

Complete preciousness

Through Facebook I found this site and the pictures, as well as the idea behind the photos, is totally precious. When Matty and I have been married for 61+ years I hope we're as adorable and in love and youthful as these two. Here's to love!

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Monday, March 4, 2013

Juniper (ScreenOS) concepts

Juniper (ScreenOS) concepts

Basic concepts

  • Zone. Juniper controls traffic between "zones" using policies. Each interface of the Juniper firewall device belongs to a certain zone. For example, the interface to the internal network is marked as connecting to a zone named "trust", the interface to the Internet is marked as connecting to a zone named "untrust". The idea is that you can multiple interfaces connecting to the same zone (e.g., to the "trust" zone), they can be grouped together so that you don't need to configure policies for each interface. Instead, you only configure policies for traffic between the "trust" and "untrust" zones.
  • Obviously, the interfaces in the same zone should have the same security protection. Therefore, traffic between different zones must be checked and traffic between different interfaces in the same zone is NOT checked (by default).
  • Virtual router. There are multiple "virtual routers" in a Juniper device. Each virtual router contains its own routes so that, for example, routes for internal network are separate from other routes. The idea is to avoid exposing the routes to the outside, e.g., through RIP or OSPF. Virtual routers are just like physical routers: if you need to forward a packet from one virtual router (VR) to another, just define a route and use the latter as the gateway.
  • Each zone is associated with a virtual router (also called a "routing domain"). As each interface belongs to a certain zone, it also belongs to a certain virtual router, so packets arrived at it are processed by that virtual router.
  • There are two pre-defined virtual routers: trust-vr (for all routes) and untrust-vr (for routes to be exposed to the Internet).
  • Policy. Stateful TCP and UDP inspection is performed by a policy so that reply packets are automatically included. That is, to allow HTTP access from untrust zone to a host in the DMZ zone, it is enough for the policy to allow the first packet (untrust => DMZ) and there is no need to explicitly allow the reply packet (DMZ => untrust).
  • For NAT and VPN, policy checking is done before translation or encapsulation (initiating from internal to the Internet) and after translation or decapsulation (reply from Internet to internal), so you will use the "original" addresses in the policy. For example, to allow public access to a web server (using a private IP) in the DMZ through a public IP, the destination address in the policy should be the private IP instead of the public IP.

  • Source NAT. To access the Internet with source NAT, just put the internal interface (usually in the "trust" or DMZ zone) into "NAT mode". When a packet is passing through it to the "untrust" zone, the device will perform source NAT on the packet. The reply packet is also handled automatically.
  • The external interface (usually in the "untrust" zone and connecting to the Internet) should be in the "routing mode".
  • If a packet is passing between two internal interfaces in NAT mode, no NAT is performed. The idea is that NAT is only used for accessing the Internet, not between different departments in the company.
  • Source NAT can also be done with a policy (instead of in the incoming interface). In that case ("policy-based source NAT"), the mode of the incoming interface isn't important anymore and the NAT policy will take priority. Policy-based source NAT can perform NAT more selectively, but then you can not apply further policies to restrict the traffic (but it is not required really because if NAT is not done, the packet can't go out).
  • Destination NAT. This can be done with MIP (mapping a public IP to a private IP), VIP (mapping a public IP+port to a private IP+port) or a policy.
  • MIP is usually defined in the public interface (more precisely, the "hosting" interface should have be on the same subnet as that MIP). It will accept incoming packets and the reply packets automatically. In fact, it will perform source NAT when the internal host initiates traffic to the Internet.
  • VIP is similar to MIP except that you can map different ports of the same public IP to different internal hosts. Also, NAT will not be performed if the internal host tries to initiate traffic to the Internet. To allow that, normal source NAT is needed. A VIP can be the same IP as that of the public interface, while this is not allowed with MIP.
  • All MIP and VIP "interfaces" belong to the "global zone". They are special because they are just "proxies" for the private IPs.

  • There are two ways to implement a VPN in Juniper: policy-based (encapsulate the packet when it matches a policy) or route-based (encapsulate the packet when it matches a route and is processed by a tunnel interface).
  • Route-based VPN. It is implemented using a tunnel interface on the two sides. The tunnel interface in the Juniper device is configured to be in a certain zone. It can be different from the ultimate outgoing physical interface (e.g., the tunnel interface may be in "branch-office" zone while the physical interface in "untrust" zone).
  • Route-based VPN works by routing packets to the tunnel interface, which is bound to a VPN tunnel (or called the "VPN gateway"). All the VPN information such as pre-shared key,  algorithms to use and the peer IP is stored in the VPN gateway. The tunnel interface doesn't need an IP.
  • Dial up peer. If the peer is using a dynamic IP, there is no way to set the peer IP in the VPN gateway object. In that case, just choose "dynamic" so that it will just wait for connections from the clients and use their IPs. To compensate the security (to authenticate user instead of device), you should specify a user or user group in the VPN gateway object and bind that user to an "IKE user" who can be authenticated with PKI or a pre-shared key.
  • Proxy ID. In ISAKMP in phase 2 (establishing phase 2 SA), it is possible for the gateways to establish different tunnels (SA's) for different "entities" (e.g., different internal servers, different internal networks). Each such entity is identified by an ID. Juniper calls it the "proxy ID". Usually, it can be just a string representing the internal network such as The local Juniper gateway will send its local proxy ID (specified in the VPN gateway object) to the Juniper gateway at the other side, which will try to match it against the remote proxy ID (specified in the VPN gateway object). So, make sure that they match.
  • Why not merge the concept of VPN gateway and the tunnel interface into one? Two reasons:
    • A VPN gateway can be referred to by a policy to set up a policy-based VPN.
    • A tunnel interface can be bound to multiple VPN gateways (but why is this needed? It seems to be an "artificial" feature).
  • Null route. Juniper can monitor a VPN tunnel (SA) to see if it is still working by pinging it from time to time ("VPN monitoring").  If using a route-based VPN and the tunnel is detected as down, the interface will be marked as down and then the route will be skipped. Then the traffic may be sent to the default route (the Internet)! Either don't use VPN monitoring or add a route that sends the traffic to the Null interface (which just drops the packet). The route should be similar to the route performing encapsulation but with a higher metric so that it is normally not used.
  • Policy-based VPN. The source IP used in the policy is the IP assigned to the tunnel interface on the client.
  • Route-based VPN is more versatile than a policy-based VPN as:
    • You can apply multiple policies for a single SA. This is because filtering (policy) and encapsulation are done independently.
    • You can use a routing protocol to propagate the route to the remote site throughout the headquarter internal networks. A policy is not a route and can't be propagated.
    • The tunnel interface can be put into a desired zone (e.g., "branch") instead of the "untrust" zone.
  • L2TP VPN. It is possible to use IPSec tunnel mode to build a VPN, but IPSec can't assign IP to the client. To do that, you should use an L2TP VPN. L2TP can be considered just like PPP (IP assignment and encapsulation) except that PPP requires a point-to-point. So, by configuring the peer IP, the L2TP protocol software can emulate a point-to-point link to PPP, then it can use the peer IP to deliver the PPP packet (PPP inside a UDP inside an IP). L2TP doesn't provide encryption, so it is used with IPSec to build VPN. L2TP, just like PPP, can use PAP and CHAP for user authentication.
  • To configure for establishment of L2TP tunnel:
    • Set the L2TP configuration (e.g., IP pool to use, authentication method) as global default or in the user object.
    • Create an L2TP tunnel object,  specify the user group that is allowed to connect and create a policy to send the packets to be encapsulated to that tunnel. The source address can be set to the "Dial-Up VPN" address book entry (What does it mean? All the IPs connected with L2TP and IPSec?).
  • L2TP over IPSec. To apply IPSec to protect the L2TP packets, in the same policy enabling the L2TP tunnel, enable the IPSec tunnel by setting the IPSec VPN gateway. Each user are both an IKE user (for IPSec authentication) and L2TP user (for L2TP authentication).


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Irma wrecks tourist spots in Caribbean, spares Disney

This Thursday, Sept. 7, 2017 photo shows storm damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma in Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands. Irma scraped Cuba's northern coast Friday on a course toward Florida, leaving in its wake a ravaged string of Caribbean resort islands strewn with splintered lumber, corrugated metal and broken concrete. (Jalon Manson Shortte via AP)

Walt Disney World theme parks and Universal Orlando Resort have reopened in Orlando after Hurricane Irma hit Florida, while the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg planned to reopen Wednesday. But many other destinations in the state and the Caribbean affected by Irma and other storms remain off-limits to visitors, in some cases with extensive damage or power outages that will take days if not weeks to resolve.

Irma was at one point the most powerful recorded storm in the open Atlantic and its hit on the tourism industry will be significant, although an exact figure is still unclear.

Tourism accounts for 1.4 million jobs in the Sunshine State, where more than 112 million people visited last year and spent $109 billion. More than 7 million Americans visited the Caribbean last year, trailing only Europe as a top destination, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

AIR Worldwide estimates that Irma's damage to insured property in the U.S. will range between $20 billion and $40 billion, with damage in the Caribbean between $5 billion and $15 billion. Other estimates go higher, and that only accounts for damage covered by private insurance.

Here's a snapshot of how the tourism industry is faring so far:

Universal Orlando Resort reported "relatively minor damage" to fences, trees, signs and facades as its theme parks reopened Tuesday. Its popular Halloween Horror Nights event will go on as scheduled Friday. Disney's water parks won't open till later this week but most other attractions are running.

The Dali Museum's massive geodesic glass bubble, known as the Glass Enigma, "is fine," but its "Wish Tree," where visitors tie wishes written on their admission wristbands, was felled in the storm. Museum spokeswoman Kathy Greif said the museum hopes to restore the tree.

Florida Keys tourism spokesman Andy Newman said travelers should postpone trips there until "the destination is ready to receive visitors." He said Key West's famous "90 Miles to Cuba" marker is solid concrete and "ain't going nowhere" but cleanup and restoring utilities, communications and other services will take time.

Impact in the Caribbean varied. Widespread damage was reported in the British Virgin Islands, Barbuda, St. Martin and St. Barts, including its famed Eden Rock Hotel. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Croix was said by the Caribbean Tourism Organization to be "getting back to business," but visitors were encouraged to avoid St. Thomas and St. John. Turks and Caicos had just a couple of open hotels, with others closed anywhere from one week to two months. But the Dominican Republic fared OK, and many hotels in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas — including the popular Atlantis, Paradise Island — reported being back to normal.

Despite the fact that not all Caribbean destinations were devastated, Professor Robin DiPietro at the University of South Carolina's College of Hospitality, Retail and Sports Management, predicted in an email that the storm could have "long term impact ... as tourists generalize the Caribbean as a bad destination." DiPietro said. "Fear may take over on tourists' future planning, and people may book trips to other destinations."

Kelli Howard of Tulsa, Oklahoma, canceled a January honeymoon in St. Thomas and instead will head to San Francisco: "We were worried that things on the island wouldn't be rebuilt in time."

Monique Pignet, who owns 18 rental luxury properties in St. Bart, was busy placing orders for new furniture. "We only had two cancellations but we received a lot of support messages," she said in an email. "For New Year's Eve we think we might be able to have 50 percent of our villas ready."

Many cruise ships that homeport in Florida or were on Caribbean itineraries when Irma developed were kept at sea, had sailings canceled or made unscheduled port calls, in some cases stranding or delaying passengers. Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, for example, was kept at sea to avoid the storm, delaying passengers from returning as scheduled and postponing its next sailing.

Caroline Makepeace and her family were on Carnival Vista when it became clear the ship would not return to Miami as scheduled. "We had a choice to get off the ship in Cozumel, Mexico, and make our own way home," she said. They flew home to Raleigh, North Carolina via a flight from Cancun.

Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor at large for, counted some 50 sailings impacted by the storms across seven cruise lines, noting that it's rare to outright cancel a cruise but that "Irma caused at least 20 outright cancellations." Caribbean itineraries, which she said account for 50 percent of cruise business, will be drastically altered. Norwegian Escape, for example, has shifted ports of call for the foreseeable future from the Eastern Caribbean — including the U.S. and British Virgin Islands — to the Western Caribbean, which includes ports in Mexico.

Mike Driscoll, editor of the industry publication Cruise Week, said he expected many cruisers will "put off booking a Caribbean cruise near-term" because the overall message vacationers heard "was that the Caribbean was devastated." The cruise industry typically sees bookings increase for the new year beginning in November, but Driscoll said he believed many cruisers would hold off until after Jan. 1 to see how things shake out.

Florida ports were "not measurably damaged," Spencer Brown said, but the reopening of PortMiami was delayed Wednesday, with several media outlets reporting sunken sailboats amid debris that needed to be cleared before cruise ships could dock.

According to Frank Comito, CEO of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association, less than 20 percent of the region's total hotel room inventory has been affected by Irma and the time needed to rebound varies tremendously by destination.

"Places like St. Thomas and the Turks and Caicos should rebound fairly quickly," Comito said in an email. "Other areas which were impacted less like Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis, St. Croix, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and The Bahamas have already rebounded and are open for business, having minimal damage, with airports fully operational."

One small blessing is that September is typically low season for the region, with the busiest time of year several months away, when travelers head south to escape the cold and celebrate the holidays. September 2016 and September 2015 registered the lowest hotel occupancy rates for any month of the year in Florida, according to Jan Freitag, a senior vice president at STR, which collects hotel data.

Freitag noted that hotels that are undamaged by storms can sometimes fare OK in a storm's aftermath even if tourists stay away as rooms fill with insurance adjusters, emergency management personnel, construction workers and displaced locals. And "for the properties that need renovation or refurbishment after the event, it is an opportunity to reinvent themselves."

Associated Press business writer David Koenig contributed to this story.


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Astons Specialities @ East Coast Road

Today while we were all so busy in the morning, one colleague who is suffering from overloadedness proclaim, let’s go have some real meat. Let’s go to Astons.

This is it. Housed in a very nice shop house eh?

What you will see right in front of the shop. Yes, we got to the right place.

Look on what’s on the blackboard specials!
But we did not order those there, we missed the blackboard on the way in!
Only when we were going out then we realised, wagyu leh..

Curious to find out what we ate? Here you can peep the photos that will be published for tomorrow’s post.

The address:
Aston Specialties
119/121 East Coast Road
Singapore 428806

Tel: 62477857 63462131
Operation Hours: 11.30 AM – 11:00 PM
Close on Monday

View this location on Earth@Sg here.

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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Holidays...oh how I love you, but I'm also so happy to see you go. Anyone else understand what I'm saying? This holiday season was SO much fun (who would have thought it would be so amazing to see your child get gifts), but also SO exhausting. Call me Scrooge, but I'm kind of ready to get back to "normal" life. It definitely doesn't help because while Kev gets a week and a half off from work, I have to work extra because everyone wants to get their surgeries in by the end of the year. Silliness.

Wow, I sound so negative, but we really did have an awesome time with both families. On Wednesday, we hung out with Kev's family and then Thursday after work, we made the trip to Texas. It was all a whirlwind, but also a lot of fun. I haven't gotten a chance to download the pics from Kev's family, but here are a few highlights from the visit with mine.
The girls
Hanging with Aunt Lacey. Talk about some serious bed head!
Anja and I chilling with the dogs (minus Truman...he was there but just not in the picture).
LOVE this expression on her face!
Styling in my new boots from Mimi. Speaking of boots, she now has 4 pairs. Jackpot.
Christmas Eve. Love our tradition...we have all kinds of hor d'oeuvres-like foods (which I love) and a little bit of wine. It is so much fun!
Elliott "opening" her presents. She had so much fun...at least I think she did. :) She actually took a nap mid gift opening at my parent's house so I don't think she was too excited.

I meant to say this on my last post but I forgot. Isn't that what always happens? As soon as you hit publish, you think of at least 2 other things you were going to mention. Anyway, I was just going to say that Miss Elliott is indeed a big girl, but she really had no choice. I was looking back at my baby book to see how big I was at 4 months...I was 17 pounds and over an inch shorter than her. So I was even a bigger baby because I weighed more and was shorter. Poor girl never had a chance to be petite. :)

Sunday, December 19, 2010

A weekend of firsts...

It was a weekend of firsts for Miss Elliott. She went to her very first wedding, and she behaved like an angel. She sat through the whole wedding quietly and was fascinated by all the decorations and the church. After the wedding, she was due for a nap so Kev took her home and I went to the reception solo. Can I just say, I LOVE wedding receptions! I love the decorations, the food, the dancing, the fellowship...pretty much everything about them. At this reception, they had cupcakes instead of a cake and they were uh-mazing!

The other first for Elliott was she wore tights. She looked so cute in her little dress with her little black tights. I was actually thinking about the fact that Miss E has never worn shoes...ever...in her entire life. Is that weird? At first, I blamed it on the fact that her feet were too narrow and none of the shoes we got fit her. Now I'm afraid it might just be laziness on my part. I would like to find her some little boots, but I never see any. Any advice on where to get baby boots that aren't like crazy expensive?

She also got to meet our sweet friends Andrew and Andrea for the first time. They recently moved to Houston (sadness), but they were in town for the wedding and stayed at our house all weekend (we felt so blessed to have them)! She was a big fan of them (as was Truman), and she kept giving Andrew little smiles. Maybe her first crush? :)
So thankful for you friend!
Hmmm...don't really like my outfit post baby. Things don't quite fit like they used to. :)

Friday, December 17, 2010

Blog Envy

There are times that I seriously have blog envy. Does anybody else understand what I'm saying? I look at some people's blogs and they are super creative or they look beautiful, and it makes my blog look so boring. Or they take great pictures and it makes my pictures look like the snapshots of an amateur. Or they write deep and profound posts, while I'm talking about my baby pooping on me. I'm really a boring person that likes to be in bed by 10:30, that eats oats and walnuts every morning for breakfast (I do branch out occasionally), that finds excitement in a good conversation over a cup of coffee. I don't go to cool concerts or events, but I love to hang out with my sweet husband in the evenings. One of my favorite parts of the day is putting on my sweat pants at night.

Boring and all, this is me. And have I mentioned I LOVE my life and wouldn't want it any other way. I'm so thankful for my sweet husband and little girl, for the amazing friends I'm surrounded by, for loving families on both sides, for having money to pay the rent and put food on the table. God has blessed us so abundantly, as undeserving as we are. So I guess I'll take boring. But I would really like to learn how to take good pictures. :)

Does anybody else ever feel like this or am I the only one out there?

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

4 Month Update

How is it even possible that our baby is 4 months old?! I know I say this every month, but it is so amazing how quickly time goes by. Here is our overdue 4 month post.

  • Still wearing 3-6 month clothes but sometimes her pants are a little tight on her belly.
  • Wearing size 2 diapers but I think we're transitioning to size 3s...still having lots of blowout diapers so I think it's time.
  • She is eating 5-6 ounces from a diaper when I work. This girl loves to eat!
  • Eating every 3.5-4 hours during the day. We have recently decreased her feedings to 5 a day, and she is doing really well with this.
  • Her last feeding is now between 8:30 and 9 and she sleeps until 6:30 or 7. We are still swaddling her at night, and we usually find her in a totally different place in the morning. We love to get her in the morning...she gives us big smiles and talks to us. So cute!
  • She usually takes great naps, especially in the morning.

  • Still loving her pacifier! It's hard to believe I ever wondered whether or not I should give it to her. :)
  • She is staying up about 1 hour and 20 or 30 minutes between her naps. So fun!
  • She is still loving her activity gym. She is now reaching for her toys and looking at them intently. She also has started trying to bring things to her mouth.
  • She also loves to read books...she really looks at the pictures now!
  • She has rolled over 3 times and just seems totally content to lay on her belly and look at/suck on her hands. She's a pretty chill baby so who knows when she'll really start rolling over intentionally.
  • She is still really ticklish. The new spots I have discovered are her feet and the back of her neck.
  • She still gives us lots of smiles, but is pretty serious in groups. She is definitely still a thinker and just takes everything in.
  • She LOVES to sit up. In fact when we have her propped up on something (boppy or pillow), she strains to sit up.
Our 4 month doctor visit:
Weight: 16 pounds 8 ounces (94%)
Length: 26 1/2 inches (98%)
Head circumference (93%)

We are so in love with our precious girl and we love to see her grow! Kev did a "photo shoot" with Elliott and the pictures turned out so good!!

Friday, December 10, 2010

So much can happen...

One year ago, I found out I was pregnant. Definitely one of the top 5 best days of my life!! I still remember it like yesterday...waking up early to take the test, watching in disbelief as the little positive sign appeared, joyously telling Kev. It makes me smile just thinking about it. I remember feeling completely ecstatic and yet filled with a paralyzing fear that something might happen to our sweet baby, wanting to rejoice and tell everyone we knew and yet also feeling like we should proceed cautiously since we already had one miscarriage. Such an emotional day!

It's hard to believe that 8 months from that day, we would have this precious girl.
"I think I might wake up but everything is so bright!"
"Hello world!"

And now she's getting so big! It's hard to believe she is already 4 months old! We're so thankful God has blessed us with this sweet baby girl and so thankful for that day one year ago!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Book recommendation

So I have been in a book club for about one year. Call me a nerd but I love it. We have read a lot of really interesting book, all different types, but we recently finished a book that I felt I must share with you guys.

It was called The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and it was INCREDIBLE! You will not be disappointed (or hopefully you won't). It is very intriguing, but in warning, it is a little slow at the beginning. Persevere, it is definitely worth it.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Wow! I have definitely been a crazy non-blogger lately. I think I'm still trying to figure out my schedule with working. On the days I work, I try to spend as much time possible with Miss E, snuggling and kissing her sweet face, when I get home. On the days I don't work, I'm still feeling a bit like a fish out of water. Before I started back working, we had a great little schedule going for us. Now when I'm home, I can't decide if I feel like getting out to run errands, just staying at home resting, or what so I end up wandering around getting nothing accomplished. I've got to figure out some kind of balance! Also, work has been really busy lately...everyone trying to get their surgery in before the end of the year. Don't get me wrong, I love to be busy at work, but I definitely come home one exhausted girl.

Miss Elliott is FINALLY almost completely over her cold. It's about time! She is back sleeping in her crib, and we are having to remind her that she can sleep through the night (she seemed to forget this since she wasn't sleeping well when she had her cold). Funny how quickly she forgets! I'm definitely enjoying sleeping more at night, but there is something so sweet about snuggling a sick baby at night!

Here's a few other things we've been doing lately.
Put up the Christmas tree. Yay! I should put a picture of the finished product.
This guy turned three! Hard to believe he is already 3 years old (and still acts like such a puppy). I'm not sure Truman will ever act his age.
We've been loving baths lately! I still don't love our bath seat, but I'm not sure what's better. Any thoughts on how to bath a baby (you would think I had this figured out by now)?
And some tummy time. She's rolled over 3 times, but I think it might have been an accident. Usually she's just content to suck on her hands while she's laying on her tummy.


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The Character of Our Country

By Patrick Cooke

The Wall Street Journal

Copper-riveted jeans, the first oil rig, running shoes, dry cleaning and the 23-story-high clipper ship—as American as apple pie.

Among the many rewards of America the Ingenious, Kevin Baker ’s survey of Yankee know-how, is stumbling on its buried nuggets. Here is a handful. The computer onboard Apollo 11’s lunar landing craft, Eagle, possessed less memory than today’s average cellphone. The letters in the Morse code message S.O.S. don’t mean anything; they’re just easy to send and hear. In the 1920s people spent five to six hours on weekend days at fabulously baroque movie palaces like the 3,000-seat Strand in New York City. Before 1930, most American cars were so aerodynamically ineffective that they were more efficient driven backward. Les Paul nearly died when he was electrocuted in his Queens, N.Y., apartment while perfecting the electric guitar.

Readers will unearth one or two such treasures on nearly every page as Mr. Baker examines a wide range of the achievements that have made, and still make, America great again—and again. There are 68 entries in all, most of them no longer than the length of this review. His subjects vary in scope from public-works projects like the Southern California Aqueduct to everyday items like Liquid Paper and the lowly safety pin. “The inventions in this book are inextricably linked to the American experiment,” the author writes. “They were inspired, shaped and made possible by the character of our country.”

Mr. Baker launches his tour with a look at the prairie schooner, the nearly indestructible wagon design that took some 500,000 pioneers west in the middle decades of the 19th century. About the size of a minivan, this beast weighed 1,300 pounds and could haul 3,000. At two miles per hour under ox power, it covered 15 to 20 miles a day. Its front wheels were smaller than the rear for easy tight turning—circle the wagons, boys!—and the whole thing could float if need be. Most schooner owners preferred to walk rather than ride in a rig so rough that a bucket of milk left inside in the morning was churned by nightfall.

From this departure point Mr. Baker skips hither and yon in time, breaking his subjects down into loose categories. “Apparel” includes entries on copper-riveted jeans, the first bra, running shoes and dry cleaning—a process that owed its origins to the production of poison gas during World War I. “Powering” examines, among other creations, the first oil rig and the original solar cell. “Roaming” explores the building of the Panama Canal, a dream car called the Lincoln Zephyr and the stately 23-story-high Yankee Clipper sailing ship of the mid-1800s, capable of covering close to 465 nautical miles in 24 hours.

Some readers may find a few of Mr. Baker’s selections questionable. He cites Jazz and the Blues as being just as much an American innovation as, say, the pioneer-era Pennsylvania Rifle. Fair enough, even if musical idioms feel a touch beyond his brief. A section on transportation subtitled “How Will We Travel in the Future?” seems a departure from known innovation into the Buck Rogers science-fiction fantasy of the 1940s: The levitating hover board? It doesn’t exist. Nor has the flying car given a lift to the world of aviation—though it is interesting to learn that there have been 2,400 flying-car designs, and 300 prototypes have taken flight, however briefly.

Mr. Baker is good at pointing out the unanticipated consequences that arose from some inventions: Richard Jordon Gatling, inventor of the Gatling gun, a fearsome instrument of battlefield butchery still in use in some forms today, believed that his contribution would save lives—depending on which side of the gun you were on—because one man operating the weapon would reduce the need for other soldiers. The inventor who created television, Philo Farnsworth, believed that his device could bring about world peace. “If we were able to see people in other countries and learn about our differences, why would there be any misunderstandings?” he wrote. “War would be a thing of the past.” And you wouldn’t need the Gatling gun.

Like Farnsworth, many of the inventors in “America the Ingenious” came from impoverished upbringings and had little formal education. Walter Hunt, creator of the safety pin, was educated in a one-room schoolhouse but went on to invent scores of other items, including a device that allowed circus performers to walk upside-down on ceilings. Elisha Graves Otis, of Otis elevator fame, was a high-school dropout who, according to his son, Charles, “needed no assistance, asked no advice, consulted with no one, and never made much use of pen or pencil.” Of the innovators who undertook world-changing engineering feats, it is remarkable how often they brought them in under budget and ahead of schedule, among them the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam and New York’s Hudson and East River railroad tunnels.

Mr. Baker’s book neatly follows the fluid boom to bust to boom times of the nation’s history: Telegraph begets trans-Atlantic cable. Andrew Carnegie ’s revolutionary steel-processing system makes skyscrapers possible and thus the modern city. Whale oil fuels train headlamps that show the way across the west at nighttime. Refined petroleum replaces whale oil just in time for the arrival of the automobile. Hoover Dam delivers electricity to Southern California and the Southwest, which in turn run newly invented air conditioners that make scorching deserts habitable and prompt a middle-class migration.

America itself is an ingenious idea, the author concludes, and the man who he insists most exemplifies its spirit is Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant “who grew up in wretched and sometimes horrible circumstances in the West Indies.” Hamilton would rise to become the nation’s first secretary of the Treasury. Not a particularly sexy job but a vital one. He recognized that to succeed we would “require education, capital, machines, cities, better communications [and] faster transportation.” As Mr. Baker writes: “Hamilton is great because he made America a country that could make things.”


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Turns out, the way your precious little angel handles that balance is the BEST way to figure out how their grades are going to turn out.

In a new study at George Mason University, a researcher found that the two best ways to predict a college student's GPA are the amount of time they spend studying . . . and the amount of time they spend drinking.

Alcohol was a better predictor than the amount of time a student spends watching TV, messing around on the Internet . . . or even spends in class.

Todd Wyatt, who led the study, says, quote, "[With] more time spent partying with alcohol, there's a significant decrease in GPA . . . these students might not be reaching their full potential as a result of the alcohol consumption."

Via (Yahoo News)


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Flight Museums

Flight Path Learning Center and Museum    (424) 646-7284
View the LAX tarmac. Closed Sunday and Monday. Free admission. 6661 W. Imperial Hwy., Los Angeles. www.flightpathmuseum.com
Lyon Air Museum    (714) 210-4585
View the John Wayne Airport tarmac. Admission: $6-12. 19300 Ike Jones Road, Santa Ana. www.lyonairmuseum.org
March Field Air Museum    (951) 902-5949
Interactive play area and tours offered. Closed Monday. Admission: $5-10. 22550 Van Buren, Riverside. www.marchfield.org
Museum of Flying    (310) 398-2500
Also features an interactive flight simulator (48” height restriction). Admission: $6-10, extra fee for flight simulator. 3100 Airport Ave., Santa Monica. www.museumofflying.com
Planes of Fame Air Museum    (909) 597-3722
Annual air shows, tours and monthly living-history events, plus the Aviation Discovery Center, a fun hands-on experience using STEM; open on Saturdays only. Admission: $4-11. 7000 Merrill Ave., #17, Chino. www.planesoffame.org
Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum    (310) 618-1155
Aircraft exhibits, Tuskegee Airmen Learning Center, and Sky Lab Computer Center, plus after-school programs. 961 W. Alondra Blvd., Compton. www.tamuseum.org
Western Museum of Flight    (310) 326-9544
Make-and-take model days throughout the year. Closed Monday. Admission: free – $5. 3315 Airport Drive, Red Baron, #3, Torrance. www.wmof.com


text:
 killer-directory.com

The Importance of Birds in Ecology

Jan 13, 2015 |
 The importance of Birds in our Ecology is often overlooked. They make several contributions to ecosystems - spreading seeds to enhance plant growth, pollination of plants. ... Read more

Global Ecology and Our Future - A Book Review

Jan 7, 2015 |
When we talk with futurists, especially those that are serious environmentalists they want to shock us about what is going to happen in the future. Take Al Gore's famous docudrama about global ... Read more

The Intersection of Tea and Ecology - How Holistic Thinking and Sustainability Relate to Tea Culture

Jan 7, 2015 |
Tea and ecology have rich and fascinating intersections. What is Ecology? I'd hope that we all know what tea is. Ecology, on the other hand, is something that most people have slightly less ... Read more

Economic Development and Environmental Awareness

Dec 5, 2014 |
Companies began to cooperate to minimize negative effects of pollution and require environmental responsibility. Agreements and international cooperative action have been able to police and prosecute ... Read more

Bali Ecology

Dec 5, 2014 |
The wild forests of Bali stretch on the northern western part of the island. Wildlife thrives in Bali. Curious monkeys with hands stretched out constantly asking for a treat, lizards living in harmony ... Read more

Peak Experience - Personal Ecology by Dr Lloyd Glauberman

Dec 5, 2014 |
Peak Experience - Personal Ecology by Dr. Lloyd Glauberman focuses on the idea of Hynpo-Peripheral Processing or HPP. HPP is the process of tapping into the subconscious mind to access the power ... Read more

Iguana Ecology - Environment Iguanas Really Love

Dec 5, 2014 |
Iguanas are crucial to survive extinction, as it is part of the eco-system. Without the iguanas, the balance of ecosystem may be damaged. That is why we, as more intelligent creations must help to ... Read more

Eco-Friendly Interior Design - A Guide to Creating a Sustainable and Ecological Interior

Dec 5, 2014 |
It is not often realized that the materials used for interior design could be threatening the environment or even your health. It is always a wise option to look out for an eco-friendly interior ... Read more

Plantable Paper - Marigold

May 28, 2015 |
This seed paper is plantable paper and is “tree-free”, so no trees were cut down to make it. The base fiber consists of post-consumer waste, and the paper is made with pure North American ... Read more

Washable pro Emulsion

May 28, 2015 |
Washable, white emulsion wall paint that is ideally suited for use on surfaces in highly loaded areas. This highly opaque interior paint provides perfect coating results and is the Auro emulsion wall ... Read more

Revolutionary Ecology

May 27, 2016 |
Expounds on the topic of biocentrism and deep ecology. By Judi Bari. ... Read more

May 27, 2016 |
Information on life and the environment. With feature stories, club listings, facts and more. ... Read more

Ecology Photographic

May 27, 2016 |
Offers pictures of nature and the environment by Joseph W. Doughert. ... Read more

Vermont Guardian Ecology

May 27, 2016 |
Provides news on nature and the environment. ... Read more

May 27, 2016 |
Presents reviews of papers on various topics pertaining to the environment. ... Read more

Bacteriophage Ecology Group

Apr 4, 2016 |
Possibly the only site dealing with bacteriophage virus ecology. Includes a wealth of photos and drawings of these viruses as well as all you'd ever need to know about them. ... Read more

Ecological Society of America Journals

Apr 1, 2016 |
The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, Ecology, Ecological Monographs, Ecological Applications, Ecological Archives, and Conservation Ecology. ... Read more

Industrial Ecology: Some Directions for Research

Feb 26, 2016 |
Pre-publication information lists group, foreword, preface, and annotated table of contents. ... Read more


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KINGSPORT Restaurants, Kingsport's comprehensive restaurant dining guide.
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Cootie Browns

Cuisine: Food

1919 N Eastman Rd,
Kingsport, TN 37660

Phone: 4232474723
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Thursday, 19 May 2016

Bottled Electricity: Batteries - Why Lithium Will Power Us For The Next 50 Years And After That Robots.

"Increasing demand for batteries with applications in consumer electronics, electric vehicles and the grid present opportunities and challenges for rechargeable batteries. This lecture will analyze the nature of energy storage and the existing technology, and present the promising future batteries, which can have significantly higher energy density, lower cost, better safety, and longer life. Novel battery chemistries and materials are key for a revolutionary change.

This talk was presented on March 8, 2016 as part of the MITEI Seminar Series.

About the speaker:

Yi Cui is an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D in Chemistry at Harvard University (2002) and his B.S. in Chemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China (1998). He was a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley before joining Stanford University as an Assistant Professor in 2005. His current research is on nanomaterials design for energy and the environment and two-dimensional materials. Yi Cui is an Associate Editor of Nano Letters. He is a co-director of the Bay Area Photovoltaic Consortium of the US Department of Energy. He is a highly prolific materials scientist and has published ~310 research papers, filed more than 40 patent applications and has given ~300 plenary/keynote/invited talks. In 2014, he was ranked number 1 in Materials Science by Thomson Reuters as “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds.” He has received numerous awards including MRS Kavli Distinguished Lectureship in Nanoscience (2015), Resonate Award for Sustainability (2015), Inaugural Nano Energy Award (2014), Blavatnik National Award Finalist (2014), Wilson Prize (2011), the Sloan Research Fellowship (2010), KAUST Investigator Award (2008), ONR Young Investigator Award (2008), MDV Innovators Award (2007), and the Technology Review World Top Young Innovator Award (2004). He has founded Amprius Inc. (2008) to commercialise breakthrough high-energy battery technology and co-founded 4C Air Inc. (2015) to commercialise the PM2.5 filtration technology from his lab."

  Yi Cui makes another brilliant presentation about the future of the batteries. Now you can understand why I am insisting that Lithium will power us for the next fifty years and after that robots. Lithium with its lowest atomic mass and highest reactivity allows to produce batteries with the highest energy density, resulting in the smallest volume and weight for the largest amount of available power and energy.
  This video is science heavy, but you will realise what it takes to commercialise the new even lithium based chemistry. It takes dozens of years and billions of dollars in R&D. Sony has commercialised lithium-ion technology in 1991 in recorders and walkmans. By 2005 lithium chemistry NCA was introduced on commercial level for the power tools, Panasonic is still using the 10 years old technology to power Tesla. Elon Musk went for the solid existing solution on the lithium cells level and built his Tesla power-train around it. GM has believed in lithium NMC and you have to read the book by Steve LeVine "The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World." to understand why Envia has never delivered NMC 2.0.
  Elon Musk has announced incredible breakthrough, which is totally missed by the public not involved in our industry. Now Tesla can produce all-in cost for lithium batteries at $190 per kWh! New frontiers are coming with Lithium Solid State, this technology will allow to produce lithium batteries with cost of $100 kWh and Tesla will get 500 miles range. Next will be Lithium Air and there we can talk about cost below $100 kWh and electric cars with 1,000 miles range. I believe that Elon Musk is already working on Lithium Solid State at his Gigafactory and now Dyson has bought Sakti3 to commercialised this technology as well.

International Lithium At Wentworth 2016 Presentation.

Lithium-Air Battery Breakthrough Will Make Diesel And Petrol Cars Obsolete.

  We have The Silicon Valley economics at work. Now three Trillion dollar industries are investing into research and development of Lithium Technology: Mobile Communications, Electric Cars and Energy Utility Storage. This Lithium-Air Battery has been known already for quite a while. Once it is commercialised - we will have the major breakthrough in energy density for the lithium batteries. Electric Cars will be able to go for more than 1,000 miles on a charge matching the diesel and petrol ICE cars. It is not really necessary for EVs with Tesla Superchargers network mushrooming all over the world, but it will hammer the last nail into the corrupted distortion of reality created by fossil fuels and auto industries.

  And we even do not need it now to move fast forward. Next stage is LSS - Lithium Solid State Batteries like Sakti3 is developing - it was bought by Dyson this month. GM has invested in SSL with Sakti3 as well before it. I personally think that Elon Musk is working on Solid State Lithium Batteries at Tesla Gigafactory. It brings lithium battery cost down to $100 per kWh and doubles the energy density. Now lithium battery cost is around $350 per kWh at Tesla and it is going down, GM Bolt will have already $145 per kWh with LG ChemIt means that Tesla Model S 90 battery cost will be just $9k! Tesla Model 3 with 50 kWh lithium battery pack will be just $5k and range over 200 miles. Elon Musk is talking now about Models S and X with range over 500 miles in 2 years! All it means that we are approaching very fast the mass market stage for EVs.
  Below is the best video presentation on the batteries for the future. All your questions are answered including: Why Lithium?

   Lithium is the magic metal at the very heart of this rEVolution. Now this Green Technology metal is getting on the investors' radar screens and into the institutional portfolios. Prices for lithium are up already 16% - 17% this year, new contracts are up 15% - 20% for 2016 and Gigafactory is coming only in 2017. Joe Lowry estimates 88% increase in lithium demand in 5 years and "The industry is approaching a full blown shortage situation" - according to him.  Read more."

Is Elon Musk Working On Solid State Lithium Batteries For Tesla Model 3 At Gigafactory?

  "I will not be surprised that we are going for another treat in our Lithium Technology space by Elon Musk! Chatting with my friends today on twitter we are getting drift that actually Tesla can be moving into the prismatic lithium cells to be produced at Gigafactory and used in Tesla Model 3 and its other EV models. I will speculate that in this case we are talking about Solid State Lithium Batteries. Solid Sate Lithium Technology is the new breakthrough which promises safer batteries with higher energy density. They promise higher performance, even lower memory effect and no thermal run away. Translation - batteries will be more powerful and much safer allowing you to store larger amount of Energy in the same volume and weight! Is it the magic which allows Elon musk to go as low as $100 per kWh cost of lithium batteries to be produced at Gigafactory? I guess, that we will receive confirmation very soon now if it is the case. We have The Silicon Valley economics in action now. Quite a few companies went already bust promising the Holy Grail for Mobile Communication and Electric Cars, but GM has invested quietly in this technology and recently billionaire inventor Sir Dyson has picked up Sakti3. I bet that Elon Musk is way ahead of all of them and that is why we get from time to time his statements about incredible range of over 500 miles coming to Tesla Electric Cars in the nearest future. Below you can find out recent news from Solid State Lithium Technology space, presentations and its description. Read more."

Lithium Fever Goes Upstream: Buying Spree Of Battery Start Ups And Lithium Projects Expected.


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Winterfeld to Attend Dordt

Dordt_Defenders logoMarcus Winterfeld, a senior at Sioux Center High School, has announced his intention to attend Dordt College and join the Defender basketball program.

Winterfeld is currently averaging 17 points, ten rebounds and 4.5 assists per game for the Warriors one season after posting averages of 12.2 points, six rebounds and two assists per game. Winterfeld earned all-Siouxland Conference third-team honors last season and was part of a Siouxland Conference champion team during the 2013-14 season.

Winterfeld is listed 6-5, 200 pounds and has played forward for Sioux Center and has played in the Iowa Mavericks AAU program.

“We are elated Marcus will be a part of our program the next four years. He is a versatile player who can make a difference on both ends of the floor and possesses the ability to impact our program immediately. As a multi-sport athlete at Sioux Center high school, Marcus has been a part of numerous successful athletic teams during his career. These experiences will help him transition quickly to the college game. Marcus has received excellent coaching from Todd Arends and has also been a part of the Iowa Mavericks AAU basketball program where he gained valuable playing time. In addition to his success on the court, Marcus also excels in the classroom and we are excited his leadership skills will be utilized on our campus,” said Dordt College coach Ross Douma.

Marcus is the son of Doug and Sheryl Winterfeld of Sioux Center, Iowa. He plans to studyelementary education at Dordt College.

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Coaches give a lot of reasons for losing ball games. Their opponents won the battle at the line of scrimmage. Their team didn't take advantage of opportunities. But, the reason Coach Broyles says the Hogs lost to Texas in 1969 might surprise you.

It also might shed some light on why the Hogs always seem to come up juuuust short. (Clint Stoerner's fumble, Reggie Fishin' it in Atlanta, Grovey's safety in Miami.. the list goes on and on.)

I stumbled upon this little tidbit while reading an article on Sports Illustrated about the drama that always seems to surround the Razorback football program. I'd never heard this before, but now it all makes sense!

According to the article, Arkansas' loss to Texas in the "Great Shoot Out" in 1969 can be blamed on Broyles dog, Lady. Since that game, the Hogs have always seemed to come out on the short end of the stick. So close, yet so far away.

Apparently, the Reverend Billy Graham had brunch at the Broyles house the morning of the big game and their, usually gentle, german shepherd  nipped Graham's 11 year old son. George Schroeder, the writer of the article quotes Broyles as saying "that's why we lost".

It all makes sense now. The Razorback program is plagued by the "Curse of the German Shepherd". I read somewhere that a group of Cubs fans has tried to "reverse the curse (of the goat)" by giving goats to poor people in 3rd world countries. Maybe Hog fans can try giving German Shepherd's to the blind?

Sigh. I guess that would be funny to people NOT from the state of Arkansas. To us, we know all too well the disappointments that come with being a Razorback fan. Always a day late, dollar short..