TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 76: Addressing Uncertainty about Future Airport Activity Levels in Airport Decision Making provides a systems analysis methodology that augments standard airport master planning and strategic planning approaches. The methodology includes a set of tools for improving the understanding and application of risk and uncertainty in air traffic forecasts as well as for increasing the overall effectiveness of airport planning and decision making.

As all aspects of transportation deal with the unfolding effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are research needs, gaps, and potential ways to leverage innovation revealing themselves across all modes, systems, and disciplines in transportation. In keeping with the mission of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide trusted, timely, impartial, and evidence-based information exchange and research, TRB is issuing an urgent and directed call for Research Needs Statements sp...

As all aspects of transportation deal with the unfolding effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, there are research needs, gaps, and potential ways to leverage innovation revealing themselves across all modes, systems, and disciplines in transportation. In keeping with the mission of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide trusted, timely, impartial, and evidence-based information exchange and research, TRB is issuing an urgent and directed call for Research Needs Statements sp...

From a friend: Please explain to me your enthusiasm for controlled digital lending. Please let me know what you think...

Subtitled: What’s the Yahoo! Internet Life for this generation? From a friend: A nice older lady asked for advice on...

Lots of people are very confused about the topic of Forgiveness in the Bible. This study looks at what the book of Acts teaches about forgiveness, and in this way, we see a glimpse of what the Bible teaches about forgiveness. This study is an excerpt from from my Gospel Dictionary online course.

Problems aside, no one is sure how useful phone-based tracking will be

The NHSX, a technology group within the UK government's National Health Service, has released the source code for its Android and iOS COVID-19 coronavirus contact-tracing apps in an effort to allay privacy concerns and improve the code.…

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) results from expression of the full-length double homeobox 4 (DUX4-FL) retrogene in skeletal muscle. However, even in cases of severe FSHD the presence of DUX4 is barely detectable. In this issue of the JCI, Bosnakovski et al. used an inducible, muscle-specific human DUX4 to reproduce the low-level, sporadic DUX4 expression of human FSHD muscle as well the myopathology seen in human FSHD disease. Notably, dysregulated fibroadipogenic progenitors accumulated in affected muscles, thus providing a mechanism for the replacement of muscle by fibrosis and fat.

Being back in a cold and rainy climate reminds me of Tokyo. No, seriously. Washington has four seasons, just like Tokyo did, and just like Hawaii didn’t. I suppose that’s what has been making me feel really nostalgic these days. I’m in a place with the weather of Japan, but way less awesome. I have seriously owned around seventeen kajillion books about Japan in my lifetime, and I’ve given away, donated, or sold back almost the same amount. Some of them I bought, some of them were given to me, and I even found one or two. But the thing is that I have moved so many times that the only ones I’ve kept are those that I absolutely, positively, do not want to live without. (Well, maybe I could live without them, but then would I really be living?) Anyays! Right now, I only own three books in English about Japan, and these are them, and here is why I really like them:   1. The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider’s Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan Disclaimer: A friend of mine wrote this, but that’s not why I’m recommending it.  Pat has written a bunch of books and papers, and they’re all great, but this is the one that I wish that every single otaku in the world could have. What is it? It’s seriously a dictionary, but not the kind of dictionary that we used when I was a little kid to look up stuff for our school essays. I never had a dictionary like this. You probably know what Hatsune Miku is, but do you know what a Heta-uma is? How about a kuchi-paku? Guess where you can find all of that information that you didn’t know that you needed to have? In this freaking book. I know a fair amount about Otaku culture. I lived and breathed it in Japan for almost a whole decade. But I didn’t know half of the stuff that Patrick wrote about in his book, and that’s why you need it. Plus, it’s got a lot of color, a cute mascot, and some really cool exclusive interviews. You can even learn about Tenimyu!   2. Tokyo on Foot So. I saw this book in the book store in Japan, even though it’s written in English. Maybe that’s because although there is a story in it, it’s mostly drawings and you don’t need to be able to read to get the gist of it. It was written/drawn by an artist that came to stay in Tokyo while his girlfriend was there for an internship. He spent almost every day of his six months there wandering the city with colored pencils and a pad of paper and drawing what he saw. Not only are his drawings aces, I absolutely love his little comments about places and people and things. Right after I bought this book (years ago), I was so enamored that I tried emulating his style with less than stellar results. Me and colored pencils don’t mix, which kind of makes this book even more cool (somehow)! Part of the reason that I really enjoyed this book was because it made me nostalgic for my own first days in Tokyo. I remembered thinking a lot of the same things. I just wish that I’d been good with colored pencils (and had enough confidence to write a book). You can read about my first year here on my blog, though! Honestly, I don’t think that this book is as much a must-have for otaku as the other two, but if art and impressions of Japan is your thing, I think you will love it as much as I do. I seriously only brought two English-language books back with me when I moved out of Japan, and this was one. The other was an ancient copy of The Mysterious Island that my father got when he was a kid and passed on to me.   3. Tokyo Geek’s Guide Aaaaalright. I was really, really skeptical about this one. I’ve seen a hundred other “guides to Tokyo” for otaku, but I didn’t keep any of them. This one, though? I am not only keeping it forever, I am going to give a copy to any of my friends traveling to Japan on their own to go otaku-shopping. Holy cow, I wish this book had existed when I first moved to Japan, because it covers things that it took me years of living there to find on my own! It’s a bona-fide travel guide, minus all of the generic stuff that you can find in a normal travel guide. It doesn’t focus on hotels or nice restaurants. Instead, it lists maid cafes, anime shops, and AWESOME stuff like Swallowtail (don’t know what that is? You need to get this book and find out because it is awesome!). The book is split into districts of Tokyo, and lists otaku-related info about each area along with detailed maps and how to get to all of these places. It’s kind of big and heavy for a travel guide, but it’s seriously the only one that I’m interested in having with me next time that I travel to Tokyo. There are places in it that I haven’t even been to. Oh, and bonus? There is a whole section in the latter part of the book talking about Geeky festivals like Comicket and JUMP Festa. I REALLY, REALLY WISH THAT THIS HAD BEEN AROUND WHEN I MOVED TO JAPAN. It’s 14 years too late for that, but not too late for my next trip, and not too late for yours! It’s also in full color. If you’re reading this, I think that you will probably want this book. GO BUY IT.   This has absolutely NOT been a paid advertisement. I am just a geeky girl honestly recommending things that she likes to you that she thinks you need. :3 See you again soon la la la!

Hillary Faces Questions About Cash Donations to Clinton Foundation. Continue reading →

Ralph Nader on Campaign 2016 Ralph Nader talked about his upcoming book, Breaking Through Power: It’s Easier Than We Think, as well as the latest developments in the 2016 presidential election. Continue reading →

Unlike Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein would not continue to expand our military budget and presence in the world but would curtail both, saving American taxpayers trillions of dollars and saving the world millions, if not billions, of lives. Listen to her present a rational, humane foreign policy in this interview on The Young Turks Town Hall meeting held October 21, 2016. Continue reading →

In an interview with Cenk Uygur on The Young Turks TYT show on October, 21, 2016, Jill Stein was asked what would she do to ensure the protection of Estonia from an invasion from Russia. I found her response to … Continue reading →

Watson matched tumor board treatment recommendations in up to 96% of cases;reduced clinical trial screening time by 78%, studies find. Prostate cancer is latest add to Watson for Oncology; the tech will be available to support 80 percent of the incidence of cancer by year-end. Nine new adopters of Watson oncology offerings around the globe expands Watson's reach to 55 organizations worldwide.

The Solutions to the Climate Crisis No One is Talking About

Both our economy and the environment are in crisis. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few while the majority of Americans struggle to get by. The climate crisis is worsening inequality, as those who are most economically vulnerable bear the brunt of flooding, fires, and disruptions of supplies of food, water, and power.

At the same time, environmental degradation and climate change are themselves byproducts of widening inequality. The political power of wealthy fossil fuel corporations has stymied action on climate change for decades. Focused only on maximizing their short-term interests, those corporations are becoming even richer and more powerful — while sidelining workers, limiting green innovation, preventing sustainable development, and blocking direct action on our dire climate crisis.

Make no mistake: the simultaneous crisis of inequality and climate is no fluke. Both are the result of decades of deliberate choices made, and policies enacted, by ultra-wealthy and powerful corporations.

We can address both crises by doing four things:

First, create green jobs. Investing in renewable energy could create millions of family sustaining, union jobs and build the infrastructure we need for marginalized communities to access clean water and air. The transition to a renewable energy-powered economy can add 550,000 jobs each year while saving the US economy $78 billion through 2050. In other words, a Green New Deal could turn the climate crisis into an opportunity - one that both addresses the climate emergency and creates a fairer and more equitable society.

Second, stop dirty energy. A massive investment in renewable energy jobs isn’t enough to combat the climate crisis. If we are going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we must tackle the problem at its source: Stop digging up and burning more oil, gas, and coal.

The potential carbon emissions from these fossil fuels in the world’s currently developed fields and mines would take us well beyond the 1.5°C increased warming that Nobel Prize winning global scientists tell us the planet can afford. Given this, it’s absurd to allow fossil fuel corporations to start new dirty energy projects.

Even as fossil fuel companies claim to be pivoting toward clean energy, they are planning to invest trillions of dollars in new oil and gas projects that are inconsistent with global commitments to limit climate change. And over half of the industry’s expansion is projected to happen in the United States. Allowing these projects means locking ourselves into carbon emissions we can’t afford now, let alone in the decades to come.

Even if the U.S. were to transition to 100 percent renewable energy today, continuing to dig fossil fuels out of the ground will lead us further into climate crisis. If the U.S. doesn’t stop now, whatever we extract will simply be exported and burned overseas. We will all be affected, but the poorest and most vulnerable among us will bear the brunt of the devastating impacts of climate change.

Third, kick fossil fuel companies out of our politics. For decades, companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP have been polluting our democracy by pouring billions of dollars into our politics and bankrolling elected officials to enact policies that protect their profits. The oil and gas industry spent over $103 million on the 2016 federal elections alone. And that’s just what they were required to report: that number doesn’t include the untold amounts of “dark money” they’ve been using to buy-off politicians and corrupt our democracy. The most conservative estimates still put their spending at 10 times that of environmental groups and the renewable energy industry.

As a result, American taxpayers are shelling out $20 billion a year to bankroll oil and gas projects – a huge transfer of wealth to the top. And that doesn’t even include hundreds of billions of dollars of indirect subsidies that cost every United States citizen roughly $2,000 a year. This has to stop.

And we’ve got to stop giving away public lands for oil and gas drilling. In 2018, under Trump, the Interior Department made $1.1 billion selling public land leases to oil and gas companies, an all-time record – triple the previous 2008 record, totaling more than 1.5 million acres for drilling alone, threatening multiple cultural sites and countless wildlife. As recently as last September, the Trump administration opened 1.56 million acres of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, threatening Indigenous cultural heritage and hundreds of species that call it home.

That’s not all. The ban on exporting crude oil should be reintroduced and extended to other fossil fuels. The ban, in place for 40 years, was lifted in 2015, just days after the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement. After years of campaigning by oil executives, industry heads, and their army of lobbyists, the fossil fuel industry finally got its way.

We can’t wait for these changes to be introduced in 5 or 10 years time — we need them now.

Fourth, require the fossil fuel companies that have profited from environmental injustice compensate the communities they’ve harmed.

As if buying-off our democracy wasn’t enough, these corporations have also deliberately misled the public for years on the amount of damage their products have been causing. 

For instance, as early as 1977, Exxon’s own scientists were warning managers that fossil fuel use would warm the planet and cause irreparable damage. In the 1980s, Exxon shut down its internal climate research program and shifted to funding a network of advocacy groups, lobbying arms, and think tanks whose sole purpose was to cloud public discourse and block action on the climate crisis. The five largest oil companies now spend about $197 million a year on ad campaigns claiming they care about the climate — all the while massively increasing their spending on oil and gas extraction.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans, especially poor, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, already have to fight to drink clean water and breathe clean air as their communities are devastated by climate-fueled hurricanes, floods, and fires. As of 2015, nearly 21 million people relied on community water systems that violated health-based quality standards. 

Going by population, that’s essentially 200 Flint, Michigans, happening all at once. If we continue on our current path, many more communities run the risk of becoming “sacrifice zones,” where citizens are left to survive the toxic aftermath of industrial activity with little, if any, help from the entities responsible for creating it.

Climate denial and rampant pollution are not victimless crimes. Fossil fuel corporations must be held accountable, and be forced to pay for the damage they’ve wrought.

If these solutions sound drastic to you, it’s because they are. They have to be if we have any hope of keeping our planet habitable. The climate crisis is not a far-off apocalyptic nightmare — it is our present day.

Australia’s bushfires wiped out a billion animals, California’s fire season wreaks more havoc every year, and record-setting storms are tearing through our communities like never before. 

Scientists tell us we have 10 years left to dramatically reduce emissions. We have no room for meek half-measures wrapped up inside giant handouts to the fossil fuel industry. 

We deserve a world without fossil fuels. A world in which workers and communities thrive and our shared climate comes before industry profits. Working together, I know we can make it happen. We have no time to waste.

Vroom.

'...So, basically a tube?'

In the latest episode of their double-double podcast, Ken and Robin talk regional word magic, Eco vs. Superman, the bane of werewolf movies, and the Dyatlov Pass Incident.

In the latest episode of their improvisatory, highly customizable podcast, Ken and Robin talk Armitage Files and Dracula Dossier for Fall of Delta Green, Chicago film fest, James Damato, and Cornelius Agrippa.

In the latest episode of their hot and tangy podcast, Ken and Robin talk handling player absence, video game money laundering, chili, and the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors.

In the latest episode of their podcast of many things, Ken and Robin talk magical artifacts, the Shakespeare riots, Dr. Jekyll, and Dick Nixon, FBI.

An epic arc reaches its pulse-pounding conclusion as Ken and Robin confront the wonder and terror of the Sno-Voyageurs Cookbook! (And also talk the system matters debate, Profumo Affair and 1911 Ark of the Covenant expedition)

In the latest episode of their visionary, extravagantly muscled podcast, Ken and Robin talk Blake at the Tate, Colby Elliott, and Ken's latest London book raid—complete with record-scratching twist!

Live at Dragonmeet, Ken and Robin talk Hindu mythology's secret role in the Norman Invasion, crisis on infinite podcasts, drinks to write by, and the real reason Ken had to make Trump president.

In the latest installment of their well-rounded and informative podcast, Ken and Robin talk resource refreshing, the espionage career of the inventor of the pie chart, Earthdawn, and Gustavus Aldophus.

In the latest episode of their scrappy but determined podcast, Ken and Robin talk underdog opponents, the Sandby Borg massacre, All Rolled Up's Fil Baldowski, and lunar metal.

In the latest episode of their chainsaw-handed podcast, Ken and Robin talk comedic horror games, OSS graphic design, Guy Maddin, and sky amoeba UFOs.

In the latest episode of their mephitic podcast, Ken and Robin talk playing the secret assassin, sand pirate GPS spoofing, Clark Ashton Smith, and the terrible name megalosaurus almost had.

In the latest episode of their always activated podcast, Ken and Robin talk sandbox encounters, our top 2019 movies, and the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz.

In a very special episode dedicated to The Yellow King Roleplaying Game, Ken and Robin talk time as a game mechanic, the Skin Affair, strange machinery in the Belle Epoque, and the Martinist magician Papus.

In the latest episode of their delicious yet impeccably organized podcast, Ken and Robin talk GUMSHOE with more die rolling, Auguste Escoffier, Hellenism at the British Museum, and Belle Epoque bookhound Edmond Bailly.

In the latest episode of their pageant-like podcast, Ken and Robin talk where to start with Earth, your conspiracy bookshelf, Moina and Samuel Mathers, and The Rise of Skywalker.

In the latest episode of their starry starry podcast, Ken and Robin talk alternate reality tech levels, Sarah Saltiel, emergent continuity and Belle Epoque astrologer Ely Star.

In the latest episode of their multi-layered podcast, Ken and Robin talk narrative voices in RPG play, Whitey Bulger & MK-ULTRA, curse tablets, and Oswald Wirth & Stanislas de Guaita.

In the latest episode of their crispy-in-a-good-way podcast, Ken and Robin talk agency in the sandbox, air frying, Alphonse Bertillon, and numbers stations.

In the latest episode of their unswervingly loyal podcast, Ken and Robin talk Night's Black Agents vampire concealment, Gideon & Longknife, Robin's Yellow King novel, and Time Inc vs the Iowa caucuses.

In the latest episode of their feathery but unruffled podcast, Ken and Robin talk history spoilers, political pigeons, Sarah Bernhardt, and the Dark Watchers.

In the latest episode of their swelegant podcast, Ken and Robin talk GUMSHOE One-2-Ones you should writer, an Esperanto commune, screwball comedies, and the Takenouchi Documents.

In the latest episode of their high-flying double-decker podcast, Ken and Robin talk making mind control fun to play, Nadar, the occult adventures of Bruce Lee & Jimi Hendrix, and the Rotodyne.

In the latest episode of their safely sheltering podcast, Ken and Robin talk remote play tips, secret museum scans,  war movies you can nerdtrope into Yellow King RPG: The Wars scenarios, and USAF involvement in UFO patents.