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Inside Requirements (Application Development Advisor 7(3), May–June 2003).

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Inside Requirements

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Inside requirements

Requirements are hard enough without throwing around vague phrases like

non-functional. Kevlin Henney sorts out the language of requirements

Inside requirements

which means that it’s important to know stuff.

Following an observation from Alan O’Callaghan,

former ADA columnist, programming is applied

thought, which means that programmers need to

think about stuff.

So, what is it that programmers need to think

about? Many, many things, but let’s concentrate on

requirements. Requirements come in many possible

flavours, but are commonly cast into two categories:

functional and non-functional requirements. As a

label, it has to be admitted that non-functional is

fairly lame. It is unhelpfully vague and amusingly

Most things that are non-functional don’t work:

washing machines, cars and programs that are

non-functional are broken. Also, by prefixing

functio nal re quire m e ntswith no n, other requirements

seem to be relegated to second- or third-class

Requirements can be better and more fairly

considered under the headings of functional

requirements, operational requirements and

developmental requirements. The requirements

that programmers must consider are not just the

customer-centric ones specified for the application

as a whole. As a problem-solving activity programming

is recursive, which means that requirements at

the level of the application generate requirements

at the level of the component or subsystem, and so

on down.

passed or it failed.

That’s the nice thing about functional requirements.

They are precise. There is no approximation. They

are easy in the sense that it’s easy to tell whether or

not they have been implemented correctly. If a

functional requirement is not met precisely, you have

a bug. Some bugs are systemic, but many functional-

requirement bugs can be traced to a single expression

or a handful of statements.

All this means that functional requirements can

be tested directly, objectively and, as a result,

automatically. This applies from the level of a

whole system all the way down to its individual

methods. Hence the idea that unit tests can

repeatedly, automatically and meaningfully pass

judgement on a component [1, 2, 3].

The common expression of functional requirements

at the class level is in terms of a contract [4]. An interface

establishes a contract between its implementer

and its user. The most common perception of

this contract is in terms of preconditions and

postconditions on methods, describing what is

required of the caller before a method is called and

what is guaranteed as a result [1, 5]. However, this is

not always effective or possible. Callbacks, or any

inversion or discontinuity of control flow such as

multithreading, do not sit well with just the pre-

and postcondition model [6]. Some functional

requirements can be expressed more simply by

other means. For example, the equal s method in

reasonably redistributed or outsourced, but

this is not to say that people haven’t tried.

Programmers are knowledge workers,

G Requirements inform and shape a

system,which means that although

functional requirements are

necessary,they are not sufficient.

G Functional requirements focus on a

system’s purpose and are,in principle,

automatically testable.

G Operational requirements focus on a

system’s quality of service.

G Developmental requirements focus on

a system’s quality of implementation

and are the preserve of the

Functional requirements

Functional requirements focus on purpose. They

collectively define what a system does, typically in

terms of visible changes that you can effect in the

system or that it can cause in the outside world. These

shared phenomena are governed by rules, and are

typically deterministic — how interest accrues

over time, how a shopping basket is totalled up, how

time-series measurement data is ordered.

Functional requirements are typically binary in

nature: you either meet a requirement or you

don’t. There are no shades of grey, no extra-Boolean

possibilities lurking between trueand fals e . It either

Inside requirements

Java, used for implementing an equivalence relation between

one object and another, is defined in more mathematical terms.

The requirements of reflexiveness, symmetry, transitivity, consistency

and null inequality differentiate correct implementations from incorrect

ones. Unit test cases can also be considered to explore a contract

by example and in executable form.

Ultimately all code is a fiction, but a fiction shaped by

expectations. Programs exist in an artificial universe, fabricated for

function, created for a purpose. The functional requirements

relate the story and move the plot forward. But a good story needs

more than just a decent plot: it needs style. A lot of it is in the telling.

This is where requirements other than functional come into

log N, giving the functional guarantee that all the elements will

be in ascending order. st d: : st abl e_sort guarantees an upper limit

of complexity of N (log N )2or, if enough memory is available, N

log N, with the stronger functional guarantee that not only are the

elements in ascending order, but the ordering of equivalent

elements is also preserved.

The subscript operator, oper at or [ ] , on STL sequences is

guaranteed to be present only if subscripting into the container

takes constant time to perform the lookup. No such contract exists

for the moral equivalent in Java. Calling get to access an element

by its index may take constant time, in the case of an ArrayLi st,

or it may be linear, in the case of a Li nkedLi st. This means that

a loop using get to visit each element of a 5000 item list will result

in 5000 accesses on an ArrayLi st… and up to 12500000 accesses

on a Li nkedLi st as the trail of links is traversed and retraversed.

It is good to separate concerns and encapsulate unimportant

implementation details, but encapsulation does not call for

smothering all operational qualities under the guise of abstraction.

In a relatively recent and retrospective move a Random Access

marker interface was added to the Java Collections API to allow

(but not require) collection users and authors to differentiate between

constant- and linear-time implementations of get.

Operational requirements

Operational requirements focus on how a system achieves its functional

requirements. Operational requirements — and the ability too meet

them — determine the quality of the user experience. Functionality

forms part of the user experience, but inasmuch as functional

requirements are satisfied, they do not uniquely determine the quality

of the experience. Of course, if the application is buggy, the user

experience will be somewhat less than stellar.

Under the umbrella of operational requirements, you can find

performance, throughput, memory footprint, scalability, usability,

availability, manageability, etc. These quality-of-service aspects are

continuous — even fuzzy — rather than binary in nature, often

lacking the concrete objectivity of functional requirements.

Application usability is somewhat harder to quantify than the desired

effect of a cash withdrawal on your account. Likewise, 99.49%

availability in a given week against a requirement of 99.5% is not

necessarily an outright failure. It amounts to around a minute in

24x7 period, which is likely to be less significant than the

accumulated standard error in the measurement.

The subjective nature of usability means that automated testing

is an impossibility. The statistical nature of many other qualities

means that deeper analysis of results is required before conclusions

can reasonably be drawn.

Unlike functional requirements, operational requirements cut

across the code structure. Where functional requirements can be

fulfilled in a modular fashion, e.g. by decomposition into classes,

operational qualities are typically emergent in nature. This is

what makes them harder to assess and to design for.

Operational questions draw a programmer into a more complex

engagement. Prototyping can be used to demonstrate both user

interfaces and the performance (or scaling, or memory usage, or...)

viability of a particular proposed design.

The absence of a will to prototype is a common problem and

can lead to architecture by guesswork. For instance, the introduction

of threading into an application is often a reflexive response to

operational requirements that call for responsiveness or throughput.

However, sometimes threading is a problem to a solution rather

than the other way around. Multithreading is not a drop-in

facility. If applied incautiously it can slow an application down rather

than speed it up. Worse, threading can introduce shy bugs, which

come out only once in a blue moon.

Operational requirements can also form part of a class’s contract.

Of course, such contractual undertakings do not fit the tidy

Boolean universe of pre- and postconditions. For example, C++’s

STL is strong on performance complexity contracts for functions.

st d: : sort of N elements guarantees an average complexity of N

Developmental requirements

If operational requirements define the user experience, developmental

requirements are about the programmer experience. The -ilities

of interest are portability, comprehensibility, changeability, etc. These

quality-of-implementation aspects do not necessarily affect

functional and operational qualities directly, but over time they

can drag on them.

As we have just been talking about performance complexity, it

seems appropriate to point out that changes to well-factored

and clear code tend to follow a linear cost curve over time, but code

that is left to rot and accumulate changes tends to follow a square

law. The resistance of such code to successful change increases

disproportionately over time, so that it can eventually reach a steady

state: as many problems are introduced as are fixed.

Where functional and operational requirements are the preserve

of the customer, developmental requirements fall to the programmer.

This means that they are often neglected, more so than operational

requirements, because they are not directly visible to or demanded

by the customer. However, it is the job of the programmer to address

these. This is part the knowledge that any domain expert is

expected to bring to the table; it is not something to be prompted

for. I

1. Andrew Hunt and David Thomas, The Pragmatic Programme r,

Addison-Wesley, 2000

2. Kent Beck, Te s t-Drive n De ve lopme nt, Addison-Wesley, 2003

3. Kevlin Henney, “Put to the test”, Application Development

Advis or, November–December 2002

4. Butler W Lampson, “Hints for computer system design”,

Ope rating Sys te ms Re vie w, October 1983

5. Bertrand Meyer, Obje ct-Orie nte d Software Cons truction, 2nd

edition, Prentice Hall, 1997

6. Clemens Szyperski, Compone nt Software , Addison-Wesley, 1998

Kevlin Henney is an independent software development consultant

and trainer. He can be reached at

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Feb 1 2010

Harrison Schmitt

Former Senator Schmitt Finds New Space Policy Cedes Moon to China, Space Station to Russia, and Liberty to the Ages

The Administration announced a new Space Policy in 2010, after a year of morale bending clouds of uncertainty. The lengthy delay, the abandonment of human exploration, and the wimpy overall thrust of the policy indicates that the Administration does not understand, or want to acknowledge, the essential role space plays in the future of the United States and of liberty. Antagonism against America’s demonstration of predominance in space continues.

With a new Cold War looming before us, involving the global ambitions and geopolitical challenge of the national socialist regime in China, President George W. Bush attempted to put America back on a course to maintain space dominance. What became the Constellation Program comprised his 2002 vision of returning Americans and their partners to deep space by putting astronauts back on the Moon, going on to Mars, and ultimately venturing beyond. Unfortunately, like all Presidents since Eisenhower and Kennedy, the Bush Administration lost perspective about space. Inadequate budgeting and lack of Congressional leadership and funding during Constellation’s most important formative years undercut Administrator Michael Griffin’s effort to fully implement the Program beginning in 2004. Delays due to this period of under-funding have rippled through national space capability until we must retire the Space Shuttle in 2011 without a replacement to access to space. Now, we must pay at least $63 million per seat for the Russians to ferry Americans and others to the International Space Station. How the mighty have fallen.

Not only did Constellation never receive the Administration’s promised funding, but the Bush Administration and Congress required NASA (1) to continue the construction of the International Space Station (badly under-budgeted by NASA Administrator O’Keefe, the OMB, and ultimately by the Congress), (2) to accommodate numerous major over-runs in the science programs (largely protected from major revision or cancellation by narrow Congressional interests), (3) to manage without hire and fire authority (particularly devastating to the essential hiring of young engineers), and (4) to assimilate, through added delays, the redirection and inflation-related costs of several Continuing Resolutions. Instead of fixing this situation, the current Administration did not retain Administrator Griffin, the best engineering Administrator in NASA’s history, and now has cancelled Constellation. As a consequence, long-term access of American astronauts to space rests on the improbable success of an untested plan for the “commercial” space launch sector to meet the increasingly risk adverse demands of space flight.

Histories of nations tell us that an aggressive program to return Americans permanently to deep space must form an essential component of national policy. Americans would find it unacceptable, as well as devastating to human liberty, if we abandon leadership in deep space to China, Europe, or any other nation or group of nations. Potentially equally devastating to billions of people would be loss of free nations’ access to the energy resources of the Moon as fossil fuels diminish on Earth.

In that harsh light of history, it is frightening to contemplate the long-term, totally adverse consequences to the standing of the United States in modern civilization if the current Administration’s decision to abandon deep space holds for any length of time. Even its commitment to maintain the International Space Station using commercial launch assets constitutes a dead-end for Americans in space. At some point, now set at the end of this decade, the Station would be abandoned to the Russians or just destroyed.

What, then, should be the focus of national space policy in order to maintain leadership in deep space? Some propose that we concentrate only on Mars. Without the experience of returning to the Moon, however, we will not have the engineering, operational, or physiological insight for many decades to either fly to Mars or land there. The President suggests going to an asteroid. As important as asteroid diversion from collision with the Earth someday may be, just going there hardly stimulates scientific discovery anything like a permanent American settlement on the Moon! Other means exist, robots and meteorites, for example, to obtain most or all of the scientific value from a human mission to an asteroid. In any event, returning to the Moon inherently creates capabilities for reaching asteroids to study or divert them, as the case may be.

Returning to the Moon and to deep space constitutes the right and continuing space policy choice for the Congress of the United States. It compares in significance to Jefferson’s dispatch of Lewis and Clark to explore the Louisiana Purchase. The lasting significance of Jefferson’s decision to American growth and survival cannot be questioned. Human exploration of space embodies the same basic instincts— the exercise of freedom, betterment of one’s conditions, and curiosity about nature. Such instincts lie at the very core of America’s unique and special society of immigrants.

Returning to the Moon first and as soon as possible meets the requirements for an American space policy that maintains deep space leadership, as well as providing major new scientific returns. Properly conceived and implemented, returning to the Moon prepares the way to go to and land on Mars. This also can provide an infrastructure for space exploration in which freedom-loving peoples throughout the world can participate as active partners.

Again, if we abandon leadership in deep space to the any other nation or group of nations, particularly a non-democratic regime, the ability for the United States and its allies to protect themselves and liberty for the world will be at great risk and potentially impossible. To others would accrue the benefits—psychological, political, economic, and scientific—that the United States harvested as a consequence of Apollo’s success 40 years ago. This lesson has not been lost on our ideological and economic competitors.

American leadership absent from space? Is this the future we wish for our progeny? I think not. Again, future elections offer the way to get back on the right track.


the studio

DDIR Architecture Studio was created in 2003 by the combined inspirations of French-Canadian architect Dominic Dube and Inge Reick, originally from Germany. Dominic has received his training in Canada and Italy and has been practicing architecture professionally for over 25 years. He has worked in countries all over the world, including Canada, Italy, Mexico, Thailand, Greece, France, the United States and, for the past sixteen years, India, and has been involved with projects of all scales, from intimate interior spaces to large town- and urban-planning schemes.

The vision of the studio is the integration of architecture and design with art (nature), technology (structure), life (light) and culture (spirit). The goal is to discover the inherent spirit in each project, accomplished through a hands-on approach and complete immersion into the design. Dominic’s instincts as a painter are evident in the work:  projects are conceived as paintings on a three-dimensional canvas. The studio consists of architects and designers from both the East and the West, and the varying backgrounds, views and experiences of the individuals involved combine to produce complex and rich spaces filled with light and life.

the directors

the team

the collaborators


Heliocentric and geocentric model of
Planet Motion

Motion of Sun:

When we look at the sun it seem to be moving around us in a circle, the vector SE (the straight line drawn from earth (E) to sun (S)) rotate with its earth end (E) fixed.

Motion of Mars:

When we look at mars it seem to be describing a "loop-the-loop" motion (also known as retrograde motion) as shown in the picture below:

This puzzle (retrograde or loop-the-loop motion of mars as observed from earth) is easily explained in the above physlet by comparing the motion of the planet mars in the two models:  heliocentric and geocentric. Watch the vector EM (the green line drawn from earth to mars) in both models as the simulation runs. In geocentric model the the E end of this vector is fixed, whereas in the heliocentric model it moves around the sun; however in both models the vector EM remains identical to each other at any given time (same length. and direction). The relative positioning of all three (sun, earth and mars) is the same in both models throughout. Thus the retrograde motion of the mars confirm the heliocentric model.

There was an earlier attempt (developed by Ptolemy (87 - 150 A.D.)) to explain this retrograde motion: here the planets moved around small circular paths (epicycles) that in turn moved around larger circular orbits around the Earth. This accounts for retrograde motion, as shown in the animation below:

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Friday, April 28, 2017

"Waiting" by Smurph

Here I sit, if you please
Waiting for my slice of cheese
I am waiting, as I must
Waiting to consume some crust
Possibly I’ll take a loss
If I do not get my sauce
All other food appears like prawns
Comparéd to my Papa John’s
Nothing else do I want, only
To enjoy some pepperoni
My disappointment starts to rise
As I dream about my pies.
Surely if I keep on strong
My food will promptly come along--
So here I am, and here I wait

For pizza soon to grace my plate.

"Who Cares About Writing?" by Phosphorescent

How is that authors are always able to write without getting tired. Years of crafting precise sentences in coffee shops accompanied by endless nights of typing. If people find printing essays difficult, imagine how authors of the 17th century felt. Not only did they have to handwrite with authentic ink, but they were also perpetuated to find reliable methods to transfer their work. Considering that the 17th century lacked resources such as email, to easily transfer their work; google drive, to prevent authors from losing their work; and, to ensure their work isn’t plagiarized by others, it was difficult to preserve and profit off of writing; however, writers persevered through it. No obstacle was enough of a blockade to these aspiring writers. This phenomenon can be seen transcending all the way to the 21st century. Writers no longer face the same dangers and circumstances as they did in the 17th century due to the advancement of technology.

Technology has allowed for more writers to not only have jobs, but to become genuine authors. For example, there is a large market for writers in the science department. Engineering requires writers to make procedures for their products, whilst Chemistry demands writers to develop coherent labs. Businesses require writers to develop eye-catching advertisements, while the film industry requires writers to make entertaining plots, characters, and stories that motivate and influence society to make the right decisions. Yes you heard that right, well technically you read that right: Writers help society make the right decisions.

Why do students study literature from the 17th century? While it might be due to the fact that your teacher is evil, it’s mostly to demonstrate how a piece of writing could influence a society to an elysian degree. This idea can even be translated to television and movies, which both can be easily translated as a 21st-century take on allegories. All of those Batman movies were really just subliminally teaching you moral lessons. Think about it this way, an adolescent born with opportunity has to grow up alone, coping with loss. All that anger, yet Bruce still fights for justice in Gotham. If that isn’t a moral lesson, then Christian Bale isn’t the best Batman. This advancement of technology has allowed writing to become an art that can be mastered, even if an individual does not wish to become an English major or author.

Just because you might find yourself reading a boring book about a telepathic ape named Ishmael doesn’t mean it should be taken lightly. Even a book about rabbits fighting (cough Watership down cough) should be acknowledged to own an important moral lesson. It’s up to 21st century writers to take advantage of the opportunity we have, the opportunity that generations of writers did not have due to the lack of technology and motivation. The ability to write without the risks and burdens of the 17th century, the ability to write with freedom and pride. Every piece of writing has a meaning and it’s our duty as humans to honor these themes throughout our lifetimes, to ensure that they remain relevant for several more generations, several more centuries, and several more civilizations in order to uphold our modern morals in the future; to ensure that humanity as a whole advances in the right direction.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

"Irrational Fears" by emily_fairy1432

I woke up and stared at the glowing stars stuck to my ceiling. Those glow in the dark sticker things were probably the best things to ever happen to me; they make me feel so safe and so at ease which is extremely important in my own home. The longer I laid in silence staring at the ceiling, the more and more frightened I got. I could faintly make out the shapes of the small Winnie the Pooh figures that were plastered on my bright yellow wall. Anyone who even took a small glance into my room could immediately tell I was a fan of the little yellow bear and his many friends. The stuffed animals of Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore were scattered all over  my room and I got increasingly more and more mad at myself as I realized I hadn’t remembered to take any of them up to bed with  me that night. I had a loft bed with a ladder on one side to get up and a slide on the other side to get down, so I couldn’t just hop out of bed and look for them. Even if I could, I’d be too scared. I never told anyone that the dark was my biggest fear because I thought if any of my friends knew, they’d make fun of me. They just wouldn’t understand. It’s not the dark itself, but it’s the thought of what’s in the dark that I can’t see. What if someone is hiding and I can’t see them? Or, better yet, what if someTHING is hiding and I can’t see IT? It’s terrifying and others should be able to see that too. After about ten minutes of pure terror went by, I couldn’t take it any longer. I grabbed Flatso, my favorite stuffed dog since I was 2 years old, slid down my slide, and full on sprinted to my parents’ room.  Usually they slept apart because my dad snored so loud to the point that you could hear it from the other side of the house. Tonight, however, they were together, which was perfect for me because that meant I got both of them to make me feel better. I ran in their room and immediately shook my mom awake. She knew exactly why I was there as I had done it every night since I had my own room in the first place and responded with a simple, “oh get in”.  Those words were just music to me ears and without any hesitation, I did exactly as she said. I hopped into their bed right in between my mom and my dad and turned on the TV for some light. It was a very comforting routine until the next morning when my mom would tell me it’s a habit I need to kick. Being scared of the dark isn’t something I can just “get rid of”. That’s not how fears work mom. Anyways, this comfort routine continued until I was in 5th grade, yes, I know. But why is this all important you ask? Well, because to this day, I’m still scared of the dark and the amount of times I wish it was still acceptable to run into my mommy’s room and climb into bed with her is just embarrassing.

"SAT: Why was it so bad?" by John Doe

Standardized tests are always a thorn in the test taker’s side. They are another glorious moment in any student’s life, Though many tests are somewhat tame, the vast majority of standardized tests pale in comparison to the hellish experience that is the SAT: the mothership of tests.

Though the exam itself was not particularly difficult on its own, the anticipation was the deal breaker. The moments before each section were marked with an air of fear and anxiety, each participant gasping for air before plunging once more into the cold depths of the “A”s, “B”s, “C”s, “D”s, and “E”s of the Scantron sheets. My prior conceptions about the test clouded the information placed before me, the questions twisting into complicated patterns and perplexing figures of bleak statistics about some new scientific discovery.

At some point, your mind just goes blank. You get tired of answering questions, the massive weight of the world pressing down upon your pencil as you struggle to allot sufficient energy to darken the circle of the Scantron paper. Once reaching this point, there is no going back. Your mind is adrift, focused on the bus outside or the birds flying outside the window. The train of the thought has left the station and crashed immediately.

If, by some miracle, you have the inherent ability to retain your focus, the test becomes immensely more difficult. From trying to recall information on math problems that you haven’t used in years to some obscene grammar rule that Dr.Hull scolded you about on the previous week, the challenges have just began once you sit down to begin the SAT.

Nothing and everything can go wrong once you open up the test booklet. It is truly an adventure, though not one worth going on multiple times. The atmosphere of test taking was the defining factor that keeps you looking at a mirage, keeps you bound to your seat in fear of
failure, or keeps you frozen with doubt in your abilities as a student. One of the most life-changing moments in a high school student’s life is certainly also one of the worst.

Looking back on the SAT experience, it was nothing you can describe. The mental gridlock is unfathomable, and the test unforgettable. No metaphor can truly illustrate the dismay that one faces upon finishing such a grueling challenge. No class can prepare you for it, the SAT is a test worthy of an epic hero, awaiting to be slain by a No.2 pencil.

"'There is Still Fear and Insecurity that Hide in the Blank Sheet Paper': Reflections on How Tutoring and Writing Have Influenced My Architectural Design Process" by HWC Alum Emma Gallagher

HWC Alum Emma Gallagher ('16) tutored in the HWC from 2013-2016. Emma wrote this essay for a class at Virginia Tech, where she now studies Architecture.

My three years as a tutor in the Herndon Writing Center have helped me more than I could imagine being an architecture major at Virginia Tech. In high school, I decided to take Advanced Compostion for many reasons: I wanted to help people; I’m (comparatively) good at writing; it would look good on a resume; I liked my classmates and my teachers. One reason that I wasn’t thinking of as I checked the box for Advanced Composition each year was that the skills I learned in this class would be applicable to my studies and life as an architect. I learned way more from just that one class than I ever thought that I would.

The writing process is one of the biggest focal points of the course. We spent the whole year not only reading about and experiencing the writing process, but teaching it to other students. In Advanced Composition we used this process only in writing. However, I have been using that process every day in my studies of architecture.

Each year on one of the first days of class we read “Madman, Carpenter, Architect, Judge” by Betty S. Flowers. The article talks about being able to just write before writing well. She emphasizes the process of the writing and recognized that that process is integral to the final product. The acceptance of bad ideas, sentences or paragraphs can help the writing overall. It’s okay to cut entire pages out if they aren’t beneficial to the purpose of the piece. Moving on and learning from mistakes are essential in creating quality work. If mistakes in the writing can be accepted and transformed, then they can even be helpful to the final product.

Learning about not only acceptance of mistakes but the process of getting over failures and moving on from them in a positive direction has helped me in the design process every day. Without process, it can be hard to start any project. At times, I feel that a bad drawing can mean so much more than a bad sentence, especially when I worry that my future learning for my college degree and eventual profession is going to be built on the learning that stems from that specific project. There is still fear and insecurity that hides in the blank sheet paper. Many of my first ideas seem to be lacking direction or don’t answer questions that I wished they would. It’s hard to accept that the project that I just spent all day creating didn’t achieve the goals I had set for it. Even in the face of discouragement, I’ve found that being too hard on myself slows the design process and hinders the development and advancement of my ideas. I can move on because of the lessons about process I learned and taught while I was a writing tutor. Being in the Herndon Writing Center helped me understand that failure is common and acceptable, but one misstep doesn’t amount to an overall lack of success. My time as a tutor also showed me how important process really is. The first step to a successful final product is often failure.

Going back to a project after a break often leads me to be able to look at it analytically. I can find where it went wrong and what it accomplished. I use those assessments to cut out the things that didn’t work (carpenter), build up the ideas that were beneficial to my idea (architect) and make sure that all the technicalities of the project (does it fit the size/material requirement, is the construction clean and stable, etc.) are met (judge).

One thing that I haven’t figured out is when the cycle of Madman, Carpenter, Architect, Judge can be stopped. Once everything is clean at the end of a paper or a project, I find that it’s always possible to go back and add to it or change it completely. It’s hard for me to tell when it’s time to put down the pencil and submit the final product. Often, I submit the final product when the deadline comes and I don’t stop developing it a second sooner. Finishing a project is not something that only I struggle with as an architecture and writing student, but that people from all fields struggle with daily.

Another thing that being in the Herndon Writing Center has helped me with is—not surprisingly—the ability to do all types of writing. My sophomore year at Herndon High School we had to write a research paper in Advanced Composition called “writing in the discipline.” Its function was to show that writing is important in every field.  I understood that after I wrote the paper my sophomore year, but I was forcibly reminded of it at the end of my first semester at Virginia Tech. My professor told our class that we would need to describe the depth of our ideas and the months of process involved in just two to three sentences per project for our final portfolio. He wanted us to connect our projects to broad concepts we learned and ideas we pursued while exploring through the project. Without my times as a tutor in the writing center I would have thought that this was impossible, but my experiences gave me the confidence to express myself through writing. I was reminded that sometimes the objects or drawing that I create don’t express every idea I wanted them too. Writing is an important communicator in every situation and profession.

Being in the Herndon Writing Center was a wonderful experience. In high school, it provided me with a good community. It was an interesting class and it was less demanding than my core classes, so I found I could enjoy it more. It helped me develop my communication skills, leadership skills, patience and so many more skills that are necessary in college and in the workplace in addition to my writing and ability to recognize the importance of process. Now that I’m in college, I have been using what I learned in Advanced Composition every day. Being in that class helps me with architecture, and I can see through my relationships with other students I can see that what I have learned is applicable in every field.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

"The Care in Carrying" by Betty Rizzo

On nights when my icecream sugar rush plummeted to a crash and the living room TV started to sound like a lullaby, one of my parents would find me curled up on the couch, fast asleep.  Mom or Dad would scoop me up with arms that were strong enough to hold me up yet so gentle that I wouldn't stir; I would only sink further into their embrace as they carried me off to bed.  Maybe there was a little moment of consciousness during the trip from the couch to my bed, though I never remembered the following morning.  Maybe when the stairs creaked under our combined weight, my sleepy eyes would flutter open to look up and see my mom or dad.  But just as fast as I opened them, the radiating warmth of my mother’s chest or the loud and steady beat of my father’s heart would have my eyelids heavy again as they pulled my bed covers up to my chin and kissed me on the forehead.   My dreams were always pleasant on nights like this.  I would wake up in the morning, well-rested but disoriented, wondering how I made it from the couch to my bed.  It was a magical feeling; in my imagination, I pictured myself floating up the stairs and into my room, or sleep walking up there like a zombie.

Now, when I think back on that surprise of waking up in my bed after having falling asleep on the couch, I think about what it means to care for someone.  It's such a small moment, such a seemingly thoughtless gesture: carrying a loved one to safety.  It seems like common sense when you look at it from a glance.  But it's the act of doing something for someone when they aren't even conscious.  Guiding someone to safety, when they themselves can’t get to safety on their own.  They say your character is built when no one is looking, same goes for committing an act of kindness for someone who you know won’t acknowledge your doing.  So why do it then, if there isn’t any reward or recognition?  For these people, the reward is the liberation of worry they experience knowing that someone they care about is safe and sound. There is care in carrying.

First, caring is a dad taking his daughter up to bed after a long day of fun left her snoozing on the sofa.  Next, it's the girl who’s had too much to drink, the one passed out in the corner of the party.  It’s the boy who waits for everyone to clear out and pushes the hair back from behind her ear, carries her up to room, and leaves a glass of water on her bed side table before heading home.  Not the douchebag jock she was talking to all night, the one who gave her the booze in the first place in the hopes of getting laid.  No, its the boy who knows his gesture will go unnoticed, the one who doesn’t mind that the girl won’t remember his kindness in the morning.  Caring is a son who helps his single mother up to bed after she falls asleep at her desk with her hands still on the keyboard.  Another stressful week at work, he knows how exhausting it is for her to make ends meet.  Caring is an elderly man who, even with his bad hip, insists on carrying his wife upstairs every night so her arthritis won’t act up.

One day, you might not be a kid anymore and you might not have a person to do your carrying for you.  You might fall asleep on the couch, and wake up in the same place.  It’s a hard reality to wake up to.  It might feel like the magic doesn’t exist anymore.  In the end, you have to care for yourself.  You have to bear that weight and climb those stairs yourself if no one is there to lessen the load.  There is care in carrying.  Where there is care, there is love, there is respect, and there is dependence.  Whether someone is doing your carrying for you or you’re out there on your own, get yourself off that couch and give yourself the comfort and respect you deserve.

"In Cycles" by Hunter Vega

I could try to check myself right now, or I could stop letting them do this to me. Julie is telling me to sit down, she wants me to stop making a scene in front of Theo. She’s wanted to drop me for like the last month.  I’m almost sure she’s sleeping with him already. What does it matter. I’m done with her. She’s been having me watch Girls and keeping me on a leash. I mean, she’s practically had my balls in her hands since we’ve gotten together. And here she goes again, with the darting eyes and cocking head. She always puts on this act in front of people. She says “baby!’ a lot, swinging the second syllable up into screeching registers before letting the word melt into a weird kind of whimper and coaching her blushing face into a mask of saddened surprise. She’ll call me Michael, pretending she knew me before I was just Mike. Invoking my mother’s voice, like she can startle me into being agreeable. The whole thing is a gross display. I’m supposed to duck my head and slink back to her side. Because I’m supposed to be a nice guy. I’m supposed to be sweet or cute, like a kid. I wasn’t supposed to get a girl like her, even though we used to be right for each other. Everyone thought I got lucky. Big things don’t happen to Mike.
Now we’re that couple. We’re a nuisance to all of our friends, and entertainment to the people I met through her. We go places to fight in front of other people. I look like a joke. Her friends laugh. One of them leaves with one of my friends. Theo’s brow knits. He talks to Julie in private. He’ll just stare at me. I almost never get what he’s trying to say when he’s staring like that. I get that there’s no respect there, though. I always fall into line like I’m not a man, and he won’t ever have a real conversation with me. And he’ll probably take Julie home one of these nights. And this group of people won’t meet up again. Because she has to put on this act.
No. I know it’s my fault. All I feel anymore is anger. I don’t get happy. I don’t get sad or afraid, I just know the heat in my face and the dark edges of my vision and the tension in my arms when we go another round. I hate that I’ve started looking forward to this. It’s the bulk of our relationship, It’s kind of all we got.
Julie and I never really had feelings for each other. So maybe this whole thing was a farce. I’ve felt obligated to be with some girl for so long. There was no reason for us to get together, but this disastrous mistake took shape almost without our consent. Everyone around us had shifted, it seems, and we ended up in this cycle of hate., or jealousy, or whatever it was everyone thought we were doing. Their ideas always seemed to matter so much more than ours.
I feel, sometimes, like she doesn’t need this as much as I do. I’m really the reacher, no matter how you look at this. She can have this sort of audience whenever she wants, she’ll call up her girls and head out to go throw drinks in guy’s faces and pretend she’s capable of getting that upset. It would hurt, but nothing really does.

So she’s acting like I’m going to sit down and watch Parks and Rec and let her lean on my shoulder again while she traces the hems of Theo’s jeans with her toes. And I’m feeling like I’m about to break a dam when someone tells us to take it outside. So we do. And when I reach down to kiss her hard, I think for the first time that this might go on forever.

"Waiting" by Smurph

Here I sit, if you please Waiting for my slice of cheese I am waiting, as I must Waiting to consume some crust Possibly I’ll take a...


People on a tour boat watch as lava pours from the Kilauea volcano into the Pacific Ocean in January.
Warren Fintz/Eppix Adventures Photography
Jim McMahon
Gases rise from a vent on Kilauea’s eastern side in 2014.
Hot Shot
In Hawaii, lava has been gushing like a waterfall into the ocean since December.

By Tricia Culligan

Hawaii is home to one of the world’s most active volcanoes, Kilauea (kee-lah-WAY-ah). The volcano has been erupting nonstop for more than 35 years. Lava from Kilauea usually pours slowly into the Pacific Ocean, creating a fiery show. But recently, a much more dramatic show started.

“Lava began gushing out of the tube opening like water gushes from the end of a fire hose,” says Janet Babb. She’s a scientist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Lava is still bursting from a huge hole on the side of a cliff on Kilauea. This rare event is known as a fire hose flow. As the lava slams into the ocean, it creates an explosion of steam and rock.

Kilauea is located on what is known as Hawaii’s Big Island. (The island’s official name is Hawaii, the same as the state.) Lava from the volcano can cause destruction when it flows into nearby towns. But it also creates land, making the island bigger. When lava reaches the ocean, it cools and hardens into a type of rock called basalt.

Last May, a new vent, or hole, opened on Kilauea. As lava from the vent flowed over land, the air cooled the top layer. That lava crusted over to form a tube. In July, lava from that tube began oozing into the sea. It eventually hardened into an unstable (likely to fall, move, or sway) landmass called a lava delta. The delta grew to be about the size of 20 football fields. On New Year’s Eve, it collapsed, along with a huge section of the sea cliff near the delta. That exposed much more of the underground tube. Millions of gallons of lava began to rocket into the sea.

Babb says there’s no telling when the fire hose flow will end. These events usually last a day or two. But as Scholastic News went to press, this one had been gushing for nearly two months.

Visitors from around the world have flocked to Hawaii to see the fiery flow. But park officials won’t let anyone get within a half-mile of it. Babb warns that the superhot steam and flying rocks are dangerous.

“Lava flows are beautiful but must be respected for the hazards associated with them,” she explains.

This article originally appears in the March 20, 2017, issue of Scholastic News Edition 4.


Fifth Grade Music Expectations

In the Fifth Grade, students will continue to develop their music literacy and vocal skills through solfege study and sight singing using more difficult literature. We will strengthen our musical vocabulary and analysis skills throughout the Composer of the Month series using a Music Listening Journal. We will expand our recorder technique and repertoire on soprano recorder through Recorder Karate and two-part music. More time will be spent developing student composition and improvisation on the Orff and percussion instruments. Advanced instruction is offered through Chorus, Orff Ensemble, and Recorder Ensemble.

(Compiled from the 1994 MENC Content Standards, NYC Arts Blueprint, and the Skills Scope Sequences of Making Music and Share the Music Series)

    -will sing in a small group and with full class with attention to blending vocal timbres
    -will experience singing with piano, guitar, and Orff accompaniments as well as well as acapella
    -will sing with accuracy in pitch, intonation, and rhythm with a steady beat
    -will sing with appropriate vocal timbre, expression, style, phrasing, diction, and dynamics while maintain good singing posture and breath support
    -will develop a varied repertoire of song literature (from memory) representing genres and styles from diverse countries
    -will sing ostinatos, partner songs, and rounds
    -will develop aural perception of melodic intervals as well as ascending,descending, and repeated melodic patterns
    -will develop audiation skills with familiar patterns and songs
    -will follow musical cues while singing including dynamic changes, tempo changes, fermatas, releases, accents, and preparatory breaths
  1. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
    -will explore percussion instruments and body percussion for sound effects in stories, poems, mini-dramas, rhymes, and songs
    -will identify names of all percussion instruments including specialization such as Soprano, Alto, Bass, etc.
    -will demonstrate awareness of timbre and specialization through sight and sound: woods, shakers/scrapers, metals, sound effects, drums/skins, and melody instruments
    -will demonstrate correct playing techniques of percussion instruments with special attention sound quality
    -will demonstrate accurate mallet technique on Orff instruments
    -will arrange Orff instruments accurately for pentatonic scales
    -will accurately perform advanced ostinato patterns on instruments and body percussion, with and without speech
    -will accurately perform intermediate melodies on the Orff instruments
    -will sing a melody accurately while playing an ostinato pattern
    -will develop basic recorder technique with attention to posture, breathing, intonation, fingering, expression, and self-control (B, A, G, E, C, D, F#)
    -will echo short rhythmic and melodic phrases
    -will develop basic ensemble skills: awareness of multiple layers, maintaining a steady beat across the ensemble, breathing together (recorder), responding to cues, performance etiquette, rehearsal techniques
    -will show proper care of instruments during classroom routines
    -will show manners and patience during instrument routines (taking turns)
  1. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments
    -will experience improvising ostinato accompaniments to songs, chants, and recorded music
    -will improvise simple phrases in call and response form or for a given number of beats/phrases on recorder and Orff instruments in various styles, tempos, and dynamics
    -will improvise expressive melodies on Orff instruments and recorder in pentatonic scales
    -will improvise a simple melodic phrase on Orff instruments over a harmonic accompaniment
    -will improvise simple rhythmic variations and simple melodic embellishments on pentatonic melodies
    -will improvise short melodies, unaccompanied and over given rhythmic accompaniments, each in a consistent style, meter, and tonality
  1. Composing and arranging music within specific guidelines.
    -will create and arrange music to accompany poems, readings, dramatizations, specific subject matter, and visual artwork
    -will use a variety of sound sources when composing
    -will compose movement and instrumental introductions to familiar folk songs and speech pieces
    -will arrange Orff ostinato accompaniment parts for songs in various styles, meters, and tempos
    -will compose expressive melodies on recorder and Orff instruments
    -will create contrasting sections within various larger forms (AB, ABA, ABC, ABACA) through change in dynamics, timbre, tempo, or texture that demonstrates how elements of music are used to achieve unity and variety, tension and release, and balance
    -will compose a simple melody that they are able to write down in traditional music notation for others to play
  1. Reading and notating music.
    -will use solfege and Curwen hand signs when echo-singing while relating to the solfege ladder and music staff
    -will identify musical alphabet and pitch names of treble clef notes
    -will identify the music staff, numbered lines and spaces, line notes, space notes, treble clef, barlines, measures, repeat signs, double bar, time signature, etc.
    -will identify symbols and traditional terms referring to dynamics, tempo, form, and articulation and interpret them correctly when performing
    -will identify the basic line-space pattern of diatonic musical scale in relation to the solfege scale ladder and music staff
    -will identify numeric intervals in written notation and aurally
    -will be able to sight-sing simple four to eight beat melodic patterns in major keys using movable Do
    -will use standard rhythmic notation to notate simple four-beat rhythmic dictation phrases including quarter note and rest, paired and single eighth notes, half and whole notes, whole and half rests, dotted half note, sixteenth notes, and selected ternary beat divisions (three eighths, dotted quarter, quarter-eighth, dotted quarter rest)
    -will distinguish between duple and triple meters in a variety of tempos
    -will perform simple four measure phrases on percussion instruments, body percussion, and recorder by reading standard rhythmic notation, alone and with class
    -will identify meter in both rhythmic and melodic examples
    -will be able to accurately label and follow a simple music score of up to five parts
    -will recognize orchestral, percussion ensemble, and symphonic band scores by instrumentation and layout
  1. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music. (Movement-see below)
    -will demonstrate appropriate listening behaviors for classroom activities and audience members
    -will identify the composer and title of the piece, identify a brief history of the composer’s life, and understand the broad format of multi-movement works
    -will identify solo, orchestral, band, chamber, and choral music according to instrumentation
    -will identify instruments by name and instrument family
    -will identify the special uniqueness of each instrument (slide, double reed, valves, chin rest, end pin, etc.)
    -will demonstrate ability to follow one instrument/melody line in a piece with multiple parts
    -will identify the tempo of the piece by accurately finding the steady beat
    -will experience music that has no steady beat
    -will identify male, female, and child voices and their roles
    -will experience many genres of music and compare/contrast them using appropriate music vocabulary
    -will identify the purpose/function of music in other cultures
    -will identify and illustrate emotional and expressive qualities of music and text
    -will identify if parts of the music are the same or different and label parts accordingly, using simple two part patterns: AB, ABA, AABB, etc.
    -will identify ascending, descending, and repeated patterns in music
    -will experience and label “home” and away for tonal centers
  1. Evaluating music and music performers.
    -will be given the opportunity to express their opinion/thoughts/preferences for music heard in the classroom through discussion
    -will share “self-critiques” about their own performances
    -will share critiques and suggestions for collaborative group performance efforts in the classroom (small group recorder/percussion performance, group dance, composition projects, etc.)
    -will grade performances and musical collaborations during class using a predetermined rubric score
    -will participate in class discussions following music or video clip examples expressing their interpretations
    -will describe the roles of participants in a performance
    -will capture and share music through a recording or performance
    -will critique recorded and group performance (too loud/soft, too fast/slow, incorrect pitch/words)
  1. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
    -will experience literacy in the music classroom through theater pieces, monologues, and by simply adding music to stories and poetry
    -will perform mini-dramas and tableaus from fairytales and fables using expressive voices and movement and musical accompaniment
    -will identify related patterns in rhythm, reading pitch notation, musical forms, and math
    -will identify the science of sound production related to instrument timbre and family including tube length and vibration
    -will experience using music composition computer programs like Garage Band or Sibelius
    -will identify similarities and differences in the meanings of common terms used in the various arts and other content areas
    -will identify the relationship between music and dance, between music and theater, and between music and visual art
    -will apply familiar observational strategies to music analysis: the 5 W’s
  1. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.
    -will learn historical purpose and meaning of folk songs, dances, and children’s games from various cultures
    -will discuss and understand roles and functions of music in different cultures across the world
    -will attend live performances and concerts in their community and school
    -will share their musical experiences with the school community
    -will share their musical experiences with the neighborhood community
    -will identify various job opportunities in the music field including performance, composition, education, marketing, and technology
    -will identify opportunities for life-long music involvment
    -will understand that music reflects a composer’s ideas, emotions, life experiences, imagination, and cultural context

Additional standards inspired by Dalcroze and Orff-Schulwerk:

  1. Movement and Dramatic Play:
    -will move purposefully to show expressive elements, musical events, and prominent musical characteristics in a specific piece of music
    -will demonstrate importance of beginning and ending a piece with stillness
    -will be able to discern and move to the steady beat and change movement in response to tempo fluctuations
    -will demonstrate ability to discern dynamic changes and show changes through movement
    -will demonstrate movement during interrupted and uninterrupted canons
    -will demonstrate respect of personal space
    -will be able to form and move in one or two lines, a circle, concentric circles, and in free space with little assistance
    -will show a variety of emotions, energy levels, styles, and moods through contrasting movements
    -will use a clear speaking voice with a variety of expressive qualities
    -will create movements to songs and poems for performances
    -will experiment with pathways in the air and on the ground
    -will coordinate their individual locomotor movements during a singing game or circle dance with those of the entire class
    -will explore concepts of large and small, heavy and light, tension and flow, accented and unaccented, and will identify relationships between these pairs
    -will demonstrate movements of various durations related to rhythmic or melodic patterns
    -will demonstrate ability to change between four movements on predetermined musical cues


Woman in Jeopardy

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Woman in Jeopardy Bookcover
George Hatcher

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Hatcher is a gifted writer and this is clearly obvious in his book, Woman In Jeopardy.

The author plot moves with a smooth pace while pouring on enough suspense to keep the reader turning the pages to find out what happens next. The dialogue is realistic, and the diabolical mindset of Francisco, the key player, and Carmen, the underdog were vividly portrayed with Hatcher's ability to create sympathetic characters that raises this novel to the next level. Although not all of the personalities are given equal treatment or enough stage time to become fully developed, those that are such as Elena, Manuela, Milton and his sister Delores, prove that the author has the skills necessary to craft a story with protagonists the audience can like, hate and relate to.

In addition, Hatcher obvious yet never heavy-handed messages about the strength of Carmen’s love for her sister, that she sacrificed herself to protect her, and in the end, did what was necessary to revenge her death, without a second thought, give the novel added depth. Overall, it is a book that grips you and doesn't let go until the last page has been turned.


Mahjong (ma jiang) is a Chinese game of skill, strategy, and calculation. Some research shows that Mahjong is beneficial for individuals suffering from dementia and other cognitive and memory difficulties. Now, Mahjong has become a game played internationally.

Mahjong is very similar to Rummy and is played with tiles. The main objective is to build sets with the tiles through drawing and discarding them. In different variants it has different tiles but it is always played by four players. Traditional Chinese Mahjong is played with 144 tiles (including 8 flower/season tiles) and some variants incorporate just 136 tiles (without flower/season tiles which are optional tiles used to apply bonuses).

In this course, we will introduce the basic rules of Chinese Mahjong and will play the game.

Instructor Bio

Dr. Xiaohong Du is an Associate Professor from Beijing Normal University, and a Master Instructor. Professor Du began to learn and practice Chinese Wushu (Martial Arts ) at 8 years old. She practices Taiji quan, Taiji Sword, Chang quan, Shaolin quan, Nan quan, Xingyi quan, Sword fighting, and Spear fighting among others. She won the Northern China college Wushu Competition and has gained the first-class athletes on Wushu in China. And now she is the director of Wushu Department of College of Sports and Physical Education, and the President of Wushu Association in Beijing Normal University. Dr Du has over 32 years experience training and teaching Tai-Chi and Wushu in China.
Therefore, Dr Du' research is about Chinese traditional culture on Wushu and Chinese traditional exercises, Chinese TaiJi and the body Aesthetics , sports and the self-concept. She have directed some important research in China, and have published several papers.


Iceland: Travel

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Looking down at the lovely Gullfoss waterfall, which is a UNESCO nature site, just north of Reykjavik, Iceland. Iceland is one of the most isolated countries at the world and has been drawing adventure tourists for years and continues to be one of the most visually stunning places in the world.


TCV Vocational Training Centre, Selakui

With the ever increasing number of students graduating out of Tibetan school system in India, it is clear that not everyone pursue higher academic studies in colleges and universities. On the other hand, there is always the need for skilled workforce in any society. More importantly, if we are to return back toTibet one day, we will need the necessary skills for rebuilding our country in different technical fields.

The VTC thus provides this opportunity for our school graduates who are less academically gifted but has the potentials to excel in a range of technical skills in varous trades so that they can serve in different industries, community centres in India or abroad and even set up their own business entrepreneurship and generate self-employment. The Center stretches over 65 acres of land and built with support of the SOS Kinderdorf International in August 2000. Today, it provides training in technical trades such as Motor Mechanic, Wireman/Electrician, Carpentry, Service Trades such as hair and skin care, hair dresser and spa therapist, professional computer application and front office combined with secretarial practice and hotel trades such as house keeping, food and beverage service, food production, bakery and confectionary.

After their training, every effort is made for their placement within and outside the Tibetan community in their respective field of trade. Encouragement and support is also given for self-employment and entrepreneurship.

Numerical Data (31/3/2013)

Students: 143
Staff: 23

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Slowing down to look

This is a heads up on thought provoking article about how we Slowing down in a Museum from The New York Times. Make a cuppa and read the article as the key point Stephanie Rosenbloom makes is to slow down and spend time with a painting. I am suggesting you slow down, read the article and think about how we encounter artworks in a gallery.  Stephanie Rosenbloom suggests that 20 minutes in front of painting will reveal more meaning to the viewer than racing to see the top 10 pieces in a collection. I agree with her.

Much of contemporary life has become about collecting experiences and catching a selfie in front of not only famous works of art but in front of famous icons such as the Sydney harbour bridge or the Eiffel Tower, London Bridge, on the Great Wall of China etc. I have nothing against selfies as such, but I do wonder what does this experience mean? What is actually happening when people dash here and there, seeing this and that? What is this fetish with collecting experiences? The activity becomes similar to someone collecting stamps.

The process puzzles me. In the case of viewing a painting if people treat the gallery experience as if they are scanning text on a computer screen the quick fleeting impression they gather will be only be partial at best and shallow at worst.

Stephanie Rosenbloom article in The New York Times opens with an image of everyone taking photos of the Mona Lisa. The last time I stood in that room I know I spent my time watching people (because I could not really see the painting) and I felt many did not quite know why the painting was so famous. In the hall next door there are 4 paintings by Leonardo da Vinci that people just walk past. There is even a seat in front of them that you can sit and contemplate the works but tired tourists sit with their back to paintings, facing the door to the room that holds the Mona Lisa usually waiting for their spouse or fellow tour companions to exit that room after seeing the Mona Lisa. Who am I to tell someone to turn around and see the Leonardo da Vinci behind them but I was left wondering what people took away from their day at the Louvre.

Cycladic figure page spread

Cycladic figure sketched at the Louvre

I will happily plonk myself down in front of any of the works in the major galleries of the world as usually if something is in their collection it is worthy of being thought about. Even if I know little about the history or context of the work usually something will reveal itself if I just pay attention and actually look with my brain engaged.

I  pull out my sketchbook and take a note of the key elements in famous painting or no so famous. The note itself may not be very important, but what is important is the slowing down to make it, the slowing down to look. I like seeing the brush strokes and seeing how the painting was made or something about the composition might catch my eye so I sketch it out.

This is important in those big block buster exhibitions where people scoot through the rooms quickly. I use a sketchbook to pace myself because if I am in a crowd that is moving at certain pace, I find I will move with the flow too. It’s like I can easily become part of heard and whisked through the exhibit. So I pull out my sketchbook, stop and stubbornly take notes! I will note the colour scheme as it is an interesting combination and before I know it I have spent a good few minutes in front the painting and I have learnt something. This ‘something’ is a discovery I have made. It is not a snippet passed on by a guide which is useful to place a piece in context, but it something I have discovered and as such will texture my mental life and become something I reflect upon.

Egyptian sculpture in the British Museum in travel journalIf I want to slow down even further I will often sketch an object. This is particularly the case in a museum, as doing so makes me slow down and look at what I am seeing. As I draw I notice all sorts of little things about an object and quite simply I get much more out of the experience of seeing one thing well than twenty things quickly. I find this is really important when travelling as often my senses are on overload and slowing down allows me to focus on key elements of the experience.

OK here is my confession. I have just said that often it appears to me that people in galleries are collecting experiences like they collect stamps yet I love books like 1001 paintings you must see before you die, or 1001 books you must read before you die. What is that contradiction about? I think some of it is that I like to secretly disagree with what is recommended. I am worse with lists of books to read than paintings to see, as I am a real sucker for a good list! In the case of book lists I love being exposed to things I may have not sought out. So there is my contradiction, I like lists but insist on slowing down and not following the crowd.

What are your thoughts? How do you approach a gallery visit?

Thanks to Danny Gregory for the link to the thought provoking  article.

Why is Art important?

What is Art for?

Free online Drawing and Photography courses offered by Open2Study

Van Gogh’s bridges – then and now

Pont Langlois

Pont Langlois [source: Wikipedia]

Pont van Gogh, Arles

Pont van Gogh, Arles

Hiroshige bridge

Hiroshige bridge [source: Wikipedia]

 And this is Van Gogh’s version:

Van Gogh-Hiroshige bridge

Van Gogh-Hiroshige bridge [source: Wikipedia]

Edo-Tokyo bridge

Edo-Tokyo bridge


Thing That Are To Be Avoided During the Pregnancy Months

Pregnancy is that time in a women’s life when she needs to be extra careful with everything that is supposed to be harmful to her health and also that of her baby. It starts with the diet that one takes to the activities that one is supposed to do during her day to day life. These all have some sort of an effect on the growth of her baby. There are certain important things that a mother is supposed to follow anytime and every time. There are also certain things that are to be better avoided during the months of pregnancy.

During the Pregnancy

Things to avoid During the Pregnancy Months

1. The most important thing to avoid during the crucial months of pregnancy is that of the consumption of alcohol. There are absolutely no guidelines that will dictate as to how much a person should intake alcohol or whether she should take alcohol at all. It is absolutely harmful and is must avoidable thing from the list. There have been studies that suggests that if a mother consumes too much of alcohol during these months she may give birth to really a poorly grown child or that may also lead to mental retarded.

2. There is a strict instruction as to not take any sort of drugs that will cause harm not only to the baby but also the mother as well. It may also result in the lowering weight during birth and many more of such sorts of serious complications. This may affect the mother after the delivery as well.

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3. Another very harmful thing that might cause serious damage to the baby and the mother includes that of smoking. It may also lead to a very premature sort of delivery and that of membrane ruptures. It resists the power to inhale oxygen for the baby thus making it really difficult to breathe. It may also lead to a very early puberty that can be especially seen with the boys.

4. If the pregnant ladies are taking a lot of hot baths or in that case steam during their pregnancy, it many often results in the overheated uterus and can also lead to the death of the fetal. There is also a high risk of defects in the neural tube of the baby.

5. If a mother tends to do a lot of hard exercises, then it may affect her pregnancy and may lead to a very high and fast heart rate. This may also lead to brain damage in some cases. Thus, it is said to do certain light exercises that include

6. It is not advisable for a mother to take excessive stress and tension especially in her last few months of pregnancy. It may cause harm in the relationships as well as affect the mental development in the case of the baby.

7. The mother is supposed to take a very balanced diet, and an unbalanced one might lead to harm to the mother’s health.

Thus, it is said that a pregnant lady should take the maximum care of herself as well as to her baby by following these following steps. There is also a need for others to take care of them in this crucial period of time.

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Graphene might hold the key to cooling the computer chips used in smartphones, computers and other electrical devices.

Researchers at Rutgers University have utilized graphene to help decrease the excessive heat generated by the increasing power of shrinking electronic components.

“You can fit graphene, a very thin, two-dimensional material that can be miniaturized, to cool a hot spot that creates heating problems in your chip,” Eva Andrei, Board of Governors professor of physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, said in a statement. “This solution doesn’t have moving parts and it’s quite efficient for cooling.

“We’ve achieved a power factor that is about two times higher than in previous thermoelectric coolers,” she added.

The power factor is the effectiveness of active cooling—when the electrical current carries heat away while passive cooling is when heat diffuses naturally.

Graphene—carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice—conducts electricity better than copper, quickly diffuses heat and is 100 times stronger than steel.

The researchers placed the graphene on devices made of boron nitride, which is extremely flat and smooth.

In a tiny computer or smartphone chip, billions of transistors generate substantial heat and high temperatures can hamper the performance of transistors—electronic devices that control the flow of power and can amplify signals.

Silicon dioxide—the traditional base for chips—hinders performance because it scatters electrons that can carry heat away.

Current methods to cool chips include small fans in computers, which is becoming less efficient and often break down. Water is also used for cooling but the method is complicated and prone to leaks that can fry computers.

In smartphone and computer chips a piece of wire connect to a hot chip and heat is carried away passively. However, if the metal has hot and cold ends the electrons zip around the hot end and are sluggish at the cold end.

The researchers applied voltage to the metal, sending a current from the hot end to the cold end. The current spurred the electrons to carry away the heat much more efficiently than via passive cooling. Graphene is actually superior in both active and passive cooling and combining both makes graphene an efficient cooler.

“There is a good chance that the graphene cooler is going to win out,” she added. “Other materials out there are much more expensive, they’re not as thin and they don’t have such a high power factor.”


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What is an investment decision rule?
When faced with new investments and projects, firms have to decide whether to invest in them or not. The characteristics of a good investment decision rule are:
 First, a good investment decision rule has to maintain a fair balance between allowing a manager analyzing a project to bring in his or her subjective assessments into the decision, and ensuring that different projects are judged consistently. Thus, an investment decision rule that is too mechanical (by not allowing for subjective inputs) or too malleable (where managers can bend the rule to match their biases) is not a good rule.
 Second, a good investment decision rule will allow the firm to further our stated objective in corporate finance, which is to maximize the value of the firm.
 Third, a good investment decision rule should work across a variety of investments.

Keeping above three in mind we have to look at which methods - DCF based or non-DCF are better.

Decision rule and interpretation:

Decision rule and interpretation:
Accept projects with returns greater than the average return on the book value of the firm, or some external ...

Solution Summary

Explains in detail the DCF and non-DCF methods for analyzing investment decisions.


West Virginia responds to devastating floods

In response to the devastating floods in West Virginia, many friends, neighbors and leaders across the country are asking how they can help citizens and communities recover. Our colleagues at Philanthropy West Virginia have compiled a list of resources to volunteer, donate, and provide immediate and long-term recovery assistance.  Please see the Disaster Philanthropy Playbook for disaster recovery resources.


Shane Larson

 Shane Larson is a research associate professor of physics at Northwestern University, where he is a member of CIERA (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics). He is also an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium. He works in the field of gravitational wave astrophysics, specializing in studies of compact stars, binaries, and the galaxy.  He works in gravitational wave astronomy with both the ground-based LIGO project, and future space-based detectors for NASA.

Shane grew up in eastern Oregon, and was an undergraduate at Oregon State University where he received his B.S. in Physics in 1991.  He received an M.S. in Physics (1994) and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics (1999) from Montana State University.  Before moving to Northwestern, he was a tenured associate professor of physics at Utah State University. He was formerly a postdoctoral scholar at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, then at the California Institute of Technology, and finally at the Center for Gravitational Wave Physics at the Pennsylvania State University.  He is an award winning teacher, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Shane is also an avid amateur astronomer, observing with two homebuilt Dobsonian telescopes, named EQUINOX and COSMOS MARINER.  He currently lives in the Chicago area with his wife, daughter and cats.  In addition to astronomy, he enjoys hiking, mountain biking, and geocaching.  He also collects Legos, fountain pens, and telescopes.  He contributes regularly to a public science blog at, and tweets with the handle @sciencejedi .

WHISPERS FROM THE COSMOS: The Dawn of Gravitational Wave Astronomy

Virtually everything we know about the Universe has been discovered from the study of photons --- light in all its myriad forms from radio waves, to visible light, to x-rays and beyond.  At the dawn of the 21st century, advanced technology is providing access to the Cosmos through detection of sub-atomic particles like cosmic rays and neutrinos, and through detection of ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself. These ripples in spacetime, called gravitational waves, carry information not in the form of light or particles, but in the form of gravity itself.  Gravitational waves are messengers which carry the stories of what happens when two black holes collide, of how the inner core of a star destroys itself during a supernova explosion, and of how the graveyard of the galaxy is filled with the quiet whisper of binary white dwarf stars that spiral together ever so slowly as they fade into oblivion.

 This talk will explore the modern description of gravity, what gravitational waves are and how we hope to measure them, and what we hope to learn from their detection.  Gravity has a story to tell, and in this talk, we'll explore some of discoveries we hope to make by listening.


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Students meet to discuss dress code policy

Around sixty students gathered at STEP on Wednesday, May 4 to discuss their opinions and experiences with Wilson’s dress code policy.

The meeting took place in room 205 and was mostly attended by girls. To start off the discussion, junior Alexandra Radifera asked everyone to answer an online survey she and other organizers of the meeting put together. The survey asked students to name any experience they might have had with the dress code, how it made them feel, and “any unfair instance [they had] seen relating to [the] dress code.” The survey also asked what actions the students think should be taken to address the dress code.

After everyone completed the survey, there was a large discussion about the dress code and what students should do about it. For a large portion of the discussion, people shared their personal experiences being reprimanded for breaking the dress code. Students talked about how they were often called out in front of classmates and friends, and felt embarrassed afterward.

Many of the students agreed that the dress code is often enforced more with girls of a specific body type, and that the dress code should be applied not just to curvy girls, not just to girls, but to all students.

“It’s so hard to have a dress code that is [enforced] so wishy-washy,” said sophomore Franny Sewell.

Claire Shaw, also a sophomore, shared a story about a male student who went all day without wearing a shirt, yet when she wore something that showed an inch of her stomach, she was yelled at almost immediately.

The meeting concluded with people talking about how to take action towards fixing the problems they had discussed. A few students made plans to set up a meeting with Principal Kimberly Martin to discuss their grievances with the current dress code policy, and move towards changing it.

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Blog: Preparing for a 21st century LASTING peace movement – #1, Introduction

Oct 27, 2011

With this blog, I will offer tips, practices, provocative contemplations, and new perspectives to address the fear, confusion, cynicism, isolation and disempowerment that seem to cripple many of the individuals and institutions that value cooperation, diversity, peace, economic balance and integrity, environmental health and care for the poor and the under-privileged.

It is possible for each of us to develop the skills and courage to make a significant peaceful impact on ourselves, those around us and on society. It is possible to open to new solutions to our current problems. It is my intention to empower and encourage the creative social activist, the peaceful renegade, the openhearted warrior and those ready to join me play a part in the unfolding of our global evolution.

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but if you are interested and intrigued, stay engaged, and let’s explore this together!

Imagine a world where each individual had the commitment and the skill to positively interact with all beings with respect and honor, even if the others views and beliefs were different. Imagine being committed to collaboration and not breaking the connection through fear, hate or anger, avoiding further misunderstandings and, ultimately, fights, crime, and war. Imagine feeling so fulfilled and confident in yourself that you naturally desire to empower others.

We have moved into an age of global connection. There is little on this planet that doesn’t in some way affect something else; every altercation has ramifications to all nations. When the economy or government of one nation shifts, ripples will eventually reach other nations. The news is filled with stories showing the volatility of the world economy and the urgency to heal our relationship with the environment. This shift requires us to be more involved with the whole.

We are currently in a phase of history where much is shifting, even crumbling. This has enormous advantages. This means we discard old, outdated ways to make room for new modes of governing and relating to one another. This also holds the possibility to cause more havoc if we are not responsible. I have been involved with the Occupy Oakland movement for a couple of weeks now and I am learning a lot about passion, frustration and the essential need for solidarity, perseverance, level-headedness and clear structures for communication and collaboration.

Conflict can only occur when we are being negatively judgmental and acting from our reactive behavior, when the goal of a relationship or an encounter is to defeat the other or when someone chooses to avoid hearing or speaking the truth. If we are going to move peacefully through the current shifts in our personal relationships, in our communities, and on a global scale, we will need to develop clearer, respectful ways to communicate in order to find new, creative solutions to current problems.

At the beginning of the twenty first century, we understand very well that our actions have consequences, and that we have the power and the right to transform and evolve. We see the potential of the individual and have created a culture where many of us have the freedom to attempt to manifest our goals.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to have this opportunity, I say now is the time to take what we have learned and do something with this knowledge! We have the resources, skills, healing, and wisdom to actually make a difference in our relationships, in the workplace, in our neighborhoods, and globally. Every small contribution makes a difference. If we can truly take responsibility for our actions and support others in their process toward conscious interaction, we will see positive change.

Peacemaking should not focus solely on law enforcement and getting armies to put down their weapons. The true work of peacemaking is teaching each individual how to shift his or her personal behavior when engaging with others. For positive, lasting change to occur, we must develop the skills to stay engaged with others in a peaceful way, even when we disagree and especially when someone has been hurt.

The true practice of the peacemaker is to manage reactive behavior while having the generosity to hear someone else’s side to a story and then skillfully reach resolution and understanding or find ways to disagree respectfully. This is the blueprint of a twenty-first century peacemaking coalition.

And it all starts with the individual! It doesn’t take place on the battlefields. It takes place in the family kitchens, the schoolyard, the workplace, in line at the supermarket, and currently in tent villages around the world. Each time we avoid or resolve conflict we move one step closer to a culture of lasting peace. Disturbing feelings and misunderstandings may still be present, but we will feel confident that we can overcome these disturbances and find a way to stay connected.

Albert Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must see the world anew.” Using complicated methods to solve problems only creates more complications. The solutions are simple: begin with first acknowledging the power of openhearted connection, which includes respect, compassion, generosity, and understanding. Then, learn the skills to engage from the heart and maintain that connection with others, even when it gets challenging. When you are in your heart you tap into your wisdom and common sense as a source of energy and power.

We won’t take action until we feel what is happening around us. When you are fully in your heart and feel compassion, you will not be able to tolerate that people are hungry, that you are fighting with loved ones, or that others are suffering. You will search for new policies and strategies that acknowledge that the only way you can win is if everyone else involved also wins.

Judgments, assumptions, and all the concepts that keep us separate (for instance, victim/perpetrator, Democrat/Republican, rich/poor) seem to fall away. You begin to feel what vulnerability really is, and more importantly, you begin to discover the enormous power in vulnerability. And I believe that it is only in your vulnerability that your true power is revealed.

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Device uses nose shape to sniff out terrorists

  • You can tell this idea came from a country where they're not big on plastic surgery. Scientists at the UK's University of Bath reckon that noses are a better way of identifying people than iris or fingerprint scans.

    Dr Adrian Evans - himself in possession of a rather noble hooter -  used a photographic system called PhotoFace to scan the 3D shape of volunteers’ noses. His team then used software to analyse them according to six main shapes: Roman, Greek, Nubian, Hawk, Snub and Turn-up.

    The researchers used three characteristics in their analysis - the ridge profile, the nose tip, and the nasion, or section between the eyes - to produce a ratio that was then used to distinguish between a database of 36 people.

    Whilst this was a small sample, the researchers found that there was a good recognition rate and a faster rate of image processing than with conventional biometric techniques such as whole face recognition.

    Dr Evans said: "There’s no one magic biometric – irises are a powerful biometric, but can be difficult to capture accurately and can easily be obscured by eyelids or glasses.

    The Bath researchers plan in the future to build up a larger database and refine the software to see if it can pick out individuals from a larger group of people, or distinguish between relatives from the same family.


The Reading Machine

The war had not yet ended in mid-1944, but Vannevar Bush was already anticipating the homecoming of the American troops. As the director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, his attention had turned from driving the war effort forward to the more delicate task of reintegrating thousands of young men — many seriously wounded on their tours of duty— back into the rhythms of daily life.

Of particular concern were blinded veterans. Although braille and audio books were already in (albeit limited) use, a man whose sight was taken by shrapnel on the front lines would be generally barred from accessing the multitude of print material available to his sighted peers. The familiar comforts of newspapers, bookstores, and handwritten correspondence would fade into a mere memory.

Vannevar Bush recalled that, since the early years of the twentieth century, there had been attempts to build reading machines — devices that converted the written word into sounds. The machines weren’t readers themselves; they neither recognized words nor synthesized speech. They merely converted pictures into other sensory modalities, like raised bumps (like the device of Gustav Tauschek, below) or noises. There was every confidence that, with the reading machine executed correctly and enough training time allowed, a man or woman of average intelligence could learn a sound alphabet. By associating distinct noises with letters, they could begin to assemble words in their heads. Intuitively, it was no different than learning to use an optical alphabet — more commonly spoken, the written word. Brains that could read by sight, could probably read by sound.

A drawing from a patent for an early (1935) reading machine by Gustav Tauschek, which output raised letters instead of sound. From http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/OCR.html

Of course, a reading machine had never worked before. But, remarking on the tremendous advancements in all areas of science during the war years, it seemed reasonable to return to the device once more. If the atom could be split, if the German “Enigma” cipher could be cracked, if radar could extend sight to the oceans and skies, was it any more miraculous to make a blind man read?

Haskins Laboratories, a small research center founded in Schenectady, New York founded in 1935 on the independent wealth of biophysicist Caryl Haskins with his collaborator, the physicist Franklin Cooper, was selected to host the project. An early-career psychologist from Yale, Alvin Liberman, was recruited. Liberman would eventually become one of the titans of speech perception and production research. He could not possibly have anticipated, in his transit to the small, independent lab, that the trajectory of his decades-long career would be set into motion by the reading machine.

The researchers began by borrowing and repairing a used Optophone from the American Foundation for the Blind. The Optophone is a device that scans over a line of text and plays a note whenever black ink occludes a light source. When a few channels are used, the working Optophone resembles the comb of a music box sliding over a studded cylinder, playing different notes when different regions of the paper were inked. An example of a simulated Optophone (developed in MATLAB by the author), playing the notes G, E, D, C, and G (one octave lower) over a scanned sentence, is found below.

Play to hear a simulated Optophone scan a sentence and output a sound-alphabet version.

Optimism for the reading machine was high at the outset. Alvin Liberman wrote that “…the perception of speech was thought to be no different from the perception of other sounds, except, as there was, in speech, a learned association between perceived sound and the name of the corresponding phoneme. Why not expect, then, that arbitrary but distinctive sounds would serve as well as speech, provided only that users had sufficient training?”

“Given that expectation, we were ill prepared for the disappointing performance of the nonspeech signals our early machines produced,” he concluded. The sound-alphabet approach did not yield easy success. Participants who interpreted sentences played through the Optophone could not do it quickly enough to be useful- most could not “read” more than ten words a minute, which is at least twenty times slower than most sighted people can read from paper. Performance did not improve after hours of training. Nor was the slowness a result of the playback speed — when the experimenters made the Optophone faster, the letters only blurred together, making them entirely indistinct and useless to the listener. Liberman called it “an imperspicuous buzz”.

Cooper, Liberman, and the rest of the team had tried a variety of sounds, hoping to find a more efficient signal. After much frustration, they began to look at human speech itself. Although the technology to synthesize appropriate speech from a picture of a word was out of reach, the Haskins group expected to gain an understanding of the principles of the speech signal that made it so easy to understand, even when delivered quickly. Whatever the organizing features of the speech signal were, they could borrow and apply to the output of the reading machine.

For the first time, speech could be visualized in exquisite detail thanks to a World War II invention, the spectrograph, which emerged from Bell Labs. The spectrograph represents the energy in a range of frequencies over time, a process similar to the workings of the human ear — within the cochlea, sound is separated into its constituent frequencies, converting the frequency profile of a sound into a spatial pattern of activation along the snail-shell shaped organ. The inventors of the spectrograph had hopes of teaching the deaf to use telephones by reading the images (spectograms) produced by their device, but this had proved nearly as unworkable as the Haskins’ reading machine. “As a matter of fact I have not met one single speech researcher who has claimed he could read speech spectrograms fluently, and I am no exception myself,” wrote Gunnar Fant, an early pioneer of synthetic speech.

Looking at spectrograms of the same phoneme (a unit of sound that distinguishes a word from another in a given language) revealed curious patterns that were at odds with the assumptions driving the reading machine. Whereas the sound alphabet had assumed that each phoneme in a word — the “d”, the “o”, and the “g” in “dog” — could be delivered separately, as its own unique segment, the spectrogram told a different story.

Consider the following classical example with spectrograms of the words “see” and “sue”:

Image credit: Matt Winn

Notice the “s” (boxed in orange) represented in the spectrograms. Before /i/, as in “see”, the consonant has a great deal of energy in the high frequencies. When the vowel that follows is /u/, as in “sue”, it is not only the vowel that changes — there is a noticeably different pattern of energy in the “s”. The acoustic signal for “s” is not a discrete segment, like a word in a letter, than can simply be slid into place besides any other sound. Just like nearly every other phoneme, its acoustics depend on its surroundings.

The phonemes blur into one another by the very nature of speech production. Even as the vocal tract is positioned to make one sound, it is prepared to produce the next. In the above example, there is less high frequency energy in the “s” in “sue” because the tongue and lip formation are already altered during production of the “s” in anticipation of the /u/. Early studies with electromyography, which measures the electrical activity of muscle tissue, suggested that the muscles of the vocal tract could function largely independently of one another, preparing for and executing gestures in parallel.

After two decades spent in a rabbit hole of speech perception studies probing these nuances and intricacies of speech, the Haskins group was forced to conclude that the acoustic representation of phonemes could not be easily split into discrete segments. The acoustic signature of a consonant informed the listener what vowel would follow, and vice versa. It was incontrovertibly clear that speech was a code that played by different rules than anything the Optophone had ever produced. Information bled in time, forward and backwards. In this way, speech was more efficient than any rigidly partitioned sound alphabet; no amount of training, and no amount of optimizing, could overcome that glaring limitation of the reading machine. Of course, this raised new questions — if the acoustic signatures of consonants differed depending on what vowel came next, and if the acoustic signatures differed so much by speaker, how could any listener so easily and confidently identify phonemes in speech? Sixty years after these questions were articulated, conclusive answers are still hard to come by.

The dream of the reading machine would not be realized until the digital age, and even then, not through the use of a sound alphabet. But something more fundamental was realized when the aspirations for reading by non-speech sounds crumbled away. In retrospect, Liberman wrote, “Acoustic alphabets cannot become part of a coherent process; I suspect, therefore, that there is nothing interesting to be learned. But speech was always before us, proof that there is a better way.” The discovery that understanding speech is characteristically different than reading, and possibly different from perceiving other kinds of sound, upended assumptions about the brain’s mechanism for converting acoustic signals into a meaningful percept of language. The next decades would see previously unimagined theories of speech perception and the fruition of ideas as divisive as they were progressive — controversies that would define the world of speech research as it exists today.

For further reading and even more history, please see:

Liberman, Alvin M. “On finding that speech is special.” Handbook of Cognitive Neuroscience. Springer US, 1984. 169–197.

Shankweiler, Donald, and Carol A. Fowler. “Seeking a reading machine for the blind and discovering the speech code.” History of psychology 18.1 (2015): 78.

Liberman, Alvin M., et al. “Perception of the speech code.” Psychological review 74.6 (1967): 431.