every song i write feels like the last song I'll ever write, and the moment it's done I fully forget how I did any of it lol. if artists were fully honest in interviews half our answers to Qs about "process" would probably be "i don't know dude"
Several musician friends this morning retweeted the above thought by Mitski. I've enjoyed some of Mitski's records (last year's 'Be the Cowboy' had some great moments and often put me in mind of Jens Lekman) but I found the tweet even more interesting: "every song i write feels like the last song I'll ever write, and the moment it's done I fully forget how I did any of it lol. if artists were fully honest in interviews half our answers to Qs about "process" would probably be "i don't know dude"". Perhaps unsurprisingly it is the reference to process that interests me, or more specifically the explanation of process. This is something our students are expected to do as part of their art/photography GCSE and it is always one of the most difficult things for them to do. The phrase I keep using in class is "you need to tell the examiner what's going on inside your head" and I'm always intrigued by the differing degrees of response to this. Some are able to unpack that thinking process fairly well (I model it all the time when we do one to one tutorial sessions) but other just don't seem able to do it at all. Of course this is all tied into metacognition and we know from research that metacognition is perhaps the 'strategy' that has the single most positive impact on learning.
Now I understand artists' wish to keep the secrets of their creative processes hidden because it maintains the mystery and magic and it may be that Mitski is being somewhat disingenuous with this tweet because I really believe that if someone asked the correct questions ('tell me about your creative process' is rarely a question that will get you to that answer) she would have some really interesting insights into what happens. Mitski might genuinely feel she 'forgets' how she has written any one song but the 'secrets' of that process are clearly woven into her neural pathways. She does know, but she seems to be telling herself (or us) that she doesn't. Perhaps this is a self-preservation mode kicking in or perhaps it is, as I said, a somewhat disingenuous dodging of the issue in order to maintain the mystery.
This is fine because as an artist you don't have any exams to pass where someone is going to judge you on your ability to explain your creative processes, but from an educational perspective it is critical. It brings to mind a research project I did around 20 years ago (when funding still existed to facilitate such things) exploring the creative process within film editing. My findings from that project were largely around unpacking the creative process and debunking the notion of creativity as some innate skill or 'gift' and this has driven much of my own thinking (and practice) in education in the intervening years. My favourite phrase for a time (apologies to the colleagues who must have wearied of hearing it) was "the creative process is the learning process and vice-versa" and an intrinsic part of that creative process is that very metacognition that we know leads to progress. Mitski might want to think about that if she ever needs to pass a GCSE in art..
There is a terrific moment towards the end of 'The Loneliest Girl''s closing track (the lovely 'All I Need To Do') in which Princess Chelsea sings about watching Springsteen and Little Steven singing 'Promised Land'. Initially hearing the reference is something of a jarring moment, but then we quickly realise that it is the perfect connection for it punctures the notion of Springsteen as an essentially masculine figure and illuminates him as theatrical character (we'll come back to this in a few days time), just as Princess Chelsea herself is a crafted Pop persona. And here we are again at this point where we celebrate Pop as theatre; Pop as the rejection of inherited definitions of authenticity.
'The Loneliest Girl' is a knowingly, lovingly constructed illusion housed within a carefully documented reality. Or is it the other way round? Certainly there appears to be an autobiographical narrative going on here but from the cover photograph/illustration to the songs themselves there is always the question mark hanging over concepts of truth and reality. Where does Chelsea Nikkel end and Princess Chelsea begin? Or indeed vice-versa. This is the eternal, essential Pop Star conundrum.
There is certainly something of Saint Etienne in Princess Chelsea too (the icy cool take on 'And I Love Her' would be her 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' if only the title track from this album hadn't gone and made such a cheeky wonky photocopy of the Young vs Etienne classic), and since we are on the subject can I slip off on a momentary tangent and say how much I have been enjoying the 2018 re-issue of 'Fox Base Beta'? It completely passed me by previously and though I was initially sceptical it really is rather tremendous, isn't it? I'm aware too that this should not come as any sort of surprise really for when has anything involving Saint Etienne ever been less than magical?
When too has Princess Chelsea ever been anything less than magical? Certainly listening to The Loneliest Girl, then revisiting The Great Cybernetic Depression and L'il Golden Book (plus her terrific 2016 covers set 'Aftertouch') I'm struck that the answer is Pretty Much Never. Looking back too I have been reminded of those great Brunettes records (and man, there was another Springsteen reference right there in 'Summer Love' too) and let's not forget that it's Brunettes' Jonathan Bree whose collaboration helps make 'The Loneliest Girl' so terrific and hey, wasn't his own 'Sleepwalking' set just the best Magnetic Fields record that Stephin Merritt didn't make in 2018? And whilst we are also on the caffeinated rush of writing, let's also point out Chelsea's contribution to a couple of cuts on that set returning the compliment as it were.
Glistening gems populate the entirety of 'The Loneliest Girl' but it's to one of the most obviously autobiographical numbers that I keep coming back to. 'Growing Older' is a song about, well, growing older. Lyrically it is very straight and almost diaristic. Chelsea recounts facts and moments ("some of us are almost thirty /some of us are older" precedes the recounting of an encounter with a younger girl in a bar in which haircut envy appears to be the driving force of the observation) whilst metaphorically shrugging her shoulders and admitting that getting older is a lot more enjoyable that she might have thought a decade ago. A simple keyboard refrain roots the song whilst squalls of guitars and feedback seep into the background to lend texture and shade. This spacious sound stage on which Chelsea's vocal drifts is not a million miles away from Molly Nilsson (whose terrific '20/20′ set only just missed out on appearing here) or the gorgeous blissed out sparseness of Cara Dal Forno (whose 2016 'You Know What It's Like' set I somehow missed at the time despite adoring single 'Fast Cars'). At its best (which is almost all of the time) Chelsea's voice drifts over like Connie Stevens seducing Nico or Trish Keenan singing Ann-Margret numbers in that hillside meadow where we never did get to listen to Tracey Thorn. It's a voice we at once recognise as being utterly familiar and yet simultaneously find ourselves being drawn into by the details of difference. It's a good reference point for Princess Chelsea in general for she is an artist who can on the surface seem glimmeringly, glamorously Pop yet once the surface is touched the ripples reveal an intriguing and darker subterranean depth. To put it another way, Princess Chelsea is perhaps a Mrs Maisel of contemporary Pop. She's certainly every bit as marvellous.


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Back in December, in the Roll Call thread, I made a passing reference to MQTT and how I wished Premise supported it. After quite a bit of code-wrestling (and it's not over yet) I'm pleased to report I've taught Premise to speak fluent MQTT.
In a nutshell, if a Light's Brightness changes from 0.25 to 0.75 (25% to 75%) Premise will announce it via MQTT. Anything external to Premise that speaks MQTT is able to receive the message (like another Home Automation system, a UI client, a relay, etc). Premise also listens for MQTT messages and will act on them. For example, it can receive an MQTT message to set the Light's Powerstate to off.
In an ideal world, I would've implemented this new functionality as a native Premise driver. However, I was unwilling to invest the substantial time needed to write a driver in C++ and incorporate all the finer points of the MQTT protocol. It was too steep a learning curve (for me). I turned to open-source software to get the job done. In other words, this solution requires another resource to work. That resource is Node-Red. I have it running on a Raspberry Pi but there's a version available for Windows (which I have not tried).
I created a driver called SyseventBroker (implemented as a Module) that sends/receives data to Node-Red via TCP. All of Premise's state-changes (sysevents) are transmitted, in JSON format, to Node-Red. A 'flow' in Node-Red converts it into an MQTT message and 'publishes' it to an MQTT Broker (more open-source software in the form of Mosquitto running on the Raspberry Pi). The same flow receives MQTT messages and converts them into a format more palatable to Premise. The flow sends them to SyseventBroker (via TCP) which converts them into actions (turn lights on/off, adjust the thermostat, arm the security panel, etc).
It may look like there are many links in this chain but the transit time is virtually instantaneous.
The first challenge I encountered is that Premise has no 'sysevent highway'. By that I mean there's no single place where you can monitor all sysevents (state-changes) taking place within Premise. If there is such a place, I'm unaware of it. My solution was to extend each and every Device class. Now when any Device's property changes state, it reports it directly to SyseventBroker. In turn, SyseventBroker passes the state-change on to Node-Red which publishes it as an MQTT message.
There's still work to be done. For starters there's still much more testing I want to do because I've already learned, the hard way, that its possible to create a nasty little feedback loop. How? Easy, if you're handling temperature values! Premise stores temperature in Kelvin, so if you send it out via MQTT in Fahrenheit (for convenience), it'll get echoed back to Premise in Fahrenheit. Except Premise will handle it as Kelvin! This causes another state-change that is sent out in Fahrenheit, echoed back in Fahrenheit, treated like Kelvin and ... the whole mess goes round and round like this until you stop it. I've mitigated the endless looping but not the problem of receiving temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius (it *must* be in Kelvin). It's glitches like this that may demand design changes so more testing is needed.
I also want to add a 'heartbeat' function to SyseventBroker so that it can monitor the health of its TCP connection to Node-Red.
Edited by 123, 23 March 2018 - 10:05 PM.
Here have configured Node Red, OWFS on a RPi 2 now running with Stretch in the attic and just made a new RPi / temperature hub for the basement (covers main floor of the house).
This is sort of a mini 1-wire hub using a Maxim 9097 for just multiple temperature and humidity reads.
I have configured OWFS to output in Fahrenheit. I am also using MQTT and that is working great on the mothership.
Only issue that I have is that my temperatures to MQTT are all in Celsius. Watching my Red Node flow debug numbers are always in Celsius.
Just curious what I am doing wrong and why my temps stay at Celsius even though my OWFS configuration is Farenheit.
Reading a bit it seems that I have to create a mini script in my Node Red flows for conversion.
Curious if you know why the Node Red OWFS flow reads the temperatures in Celsius?
I don't mean to sound snarky but I think the simple answer is the entire world uses the Metric system ... except two (three?) outliers. So, speaking as a Canuck, "Celsius" is the norm.
But seriously, I've never used OWFS (not with Node-Red or anything else) so I'm unfamiliar with the specifics of how it converts (or doesn't convert) data in Node-red/MQTT messages. It seems like if you specified Fahrenheit then it should respect that choice when transmitting its data. Unless, of course, that choice is limited to being a "display format" (i.e. only converts for presentation) and is ignored for transmission (i.e. for export). Of course, that's kind of weird for 1-wire devices since everything they produce is expected to be transmitted for use elsewhere.
Premise stores property values in Kelvin, meters, grams, etc and uses "LocaleSettings" (configured by the user) for converting them for display purposes. If you specify "Fahrenheit" then temperatures are automatically converted from Kelvin to Fahrenheit for display purposes. It means you have to be careful when setting or getting temperatures.
The native unit is Kelvin, so Temperature=72 means 72 K and not 72 F or 72 C. The correct way to do it (in Premise) is Temperature.Fahrenheit=72.
Similarly, if you retrieve (or export) Temperature, you'll get the value in Kelvin, regardless of whatever LocaleSettings say because that's used exclusively for presentation purposes. To export Temperature in Fahrenheit, you have to export Temperature.Fahrenheit. Perhaps OWFS works in a similar fashion ... or it's just an old-fashioned bug!
Worst case, add a Function node in your flow to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit (the calculation and overhead are trivial).
Edited by 123, 27 March 2018 - 10:17 AM.
Understood and thank you 123. Will create a conversion node.
Still in learning mode relating to Node Red use. Used xAP / xPL for multiple 1-Wire sensors and did do the conversion at the display side of things.
Lately before playing with MQTT and Node Red been outputting a text file using Digitemp and doing a line by line conversion to variables which works but is sort of the long math way.
Digitemp outputs concurrently in Celsius and Fahrenheit.
I have been following your blog posts concerning your explorations with Node-red and MQTT. It's powerful technology and I've only scratched its surface. Node-red is fantastic "glue" for binding together disparate sources of data (as per their slogan "a visual wiring tool for the Internet of Things"). Meanwhile, MQTT is shaping up to becoming "The One", namely the long-desired "one universal protocol" for Home Automation (insert requisite XKCD reference here).
MQTT will open new doors for Premise. It'll be able to communicate with other devices and HA systems that speak MQTT. For example, I can leverage Node-red's extensive connectivity or even connect to openHAB or Home Assistant and use their device-drivers. Both offer custom nodes for Node-red so I can, theoretically, connect Premise to both using a flow in Node-red. Instead of migrating away from Premise, as was my original intent, I can maintain my decade-old investment (in time and effort and driver development) and simply extend it via Node-red and MQTT.
Upon receiving the first inbound TCP transmission, you save the "session ID" in a global variable. Later, when you need to send something back through the TCP port, you retrieve the global variable and set the outbound message's "session ID". Now it'll happily use the same TCP port. Otherwise, it tries to use a new TCP port and gets nowhere.
The "gotcha" is that at least one inbound message has to arrive first in order to set the "session ID" for use by outbound messages. Basically, when the external source connects to Node-red, it ought to transmit something (anything) to get that "session ID" recorded.
Edited by 123, 27 March 2018 - 11:19 AM.
Just typed a paragraph here and Firefox took a dump.
Here was doing a Python script which read 1-Wire stuff and sent it out via MQTT and mostly just tinkering with MQTT.
The RPi in the attic doing node red has an internal ZWave GPIO card, 1-wire 9097, running Domoticz and an SDR (doing satellite maps). No issues right now running all of this stuff. Just updated this RPi from Jessie to Stretch in vivo remotely.
Homeseer MCSSprinklers author Michael McSharry wrote a Homeseer MQTT plugin in the last quarter of 2017 that works in Linux.
I have yet to venture in the the automation pieces and only currently tinkering with the 1-wire Red Node stuff.
"ESP8266/Sonoff units that sell for under $5 and these include the power supply, Wifi, Relay, multiple discretes and a well supported software environment for hacking. Emulation for Wemo and Hue is included so Echo/Alexa voice control is built in"
Here are some snapshots of the configuration. I am doing this baby steps fashion. I have two RPi's configured right now using Node Red going really slow with it. Two Homeseer servers are configured running in Ubuntu 16.04 / 64 bit. One is doing multiple Oracle Virtual Boxes for Windows only stuff like Microsoft SAPI (collect voice fonts here).
I should've realized that any attempt to send property values may require converting them to another unit of measurement and receiving them requires validation prior to conversion! In other words, it took a bit longer to complete this phase of development.
SyseventBroker handles the following property types (validation and conversion wherever required).
FWIW, there are a few property types SyseventBroker does not handle and simply rejects them (like Color, HTMLColor, ObjectReference, Picture, StaticText, etc). Otherwise, all the principal property types (listed above) are covered.
powerstate, set the payload to 0 or -1 (off, on).
brightness, set the payload to a value between 0 and 1.
I've successfully tested SyseventBroker with MQTT-Spy and with Home Remote (using its MQTT client). Communication is virtually instantaneous. There's one more thing I want to add before sharing it.
Edited by 123, 29 March 2018 - 06:06 PM.
Wow! Thanks so much for all your hard work on this. I can't wait to use it.
Here is the flow (still a bit kludgy to me).
FWIW, if you like brevity, one line of code can do the trick.
Although this one-liner won't improve performance noticeably, there's no real need to create variables (tempc, tempf) if they're not referenced many times. You can avoid performing a division (9/5) if the result is already known and entered as a constant (1.8).
BTW, are you using the change node to set the received message's retain property to true (or false)? If so, is there a reason you're not using the mqtt node to perform that step? It would eliminate the need for the change node.
Edited by 123, 04 April 2018 - 04:23 PM.
Yes retain property is set to true. This was a copy and paste from someone using OWFS for 1-wire.
I am still learning. Looking to maybe shorten said 1-wire flow to maybe 3 nodes using nro read.
Curious 123 are you using Node Red for your MQTT stuff or are you just writing specific python modules for instances of MQTT?
Still in learning mode here and mostly trying to keep it to using Red Node on the RPis and now testing python MQTT on the micro routers which operate using OpenWRT.
Node-Red serves to connect Premise to MQTT. Effectively, I'm using 'off-the-shelf' software to get Premise talkin' MQTT.
Instead of creating a native MQTT driver for Premise (a non-trivial undertaking), I'm using Node-Red's ability to speak MQTT (and TCP). The driver I've written (SyseventBroker) reports all state-changes (via TCP) to a flow in Node-Red and it, in turn, publishes them as MQTT topics. The flow is also subscribed to all Premise-related MQTT topics and reports them to SyseventBroker in Premise. SyseventBroker converts units for all inbound and outbound data and also validates inbound data. The result is seamless integration between Premise and MQTT (without having to write a native MQTT driver).
The flow is shown in the attached file.
The flow receives messages from Premise via TCP.
It stores the TCP session ID for later use.
It converts the incoming message into a JSON object.
It reformats the JSON object into an MQTT message.
It publishes the MQTT message.
If the incoming JSON object is a heartbeat, the flow echoes it back to Premise via the TCP port (heartbeat is used to periodically monitor the connection's health).
The flow is also subscribed to all Premise topics (premise/#).
Received topics are converted into a format understood by SyseventBroker and sent back via the same TCP port (using the session ID stored earlier).
Edited by 123, 14 April 2018 - 03:54 PM.
I've completed MQTT for Premise (a.k.a. SyseventBroker). It's been running reliably in my home for over a month. There's very little configuration to do beyond installing it. In a nutshell, all sysevents in Premise (i.e. all state-changes) are automatically reported as MQTT topics (except for MediaZone and Buttons). It also listens for incoming MQTT topics and converts them into Premise sysevents.
The first application of MQTT was for a new UI for my Android phone and my wife's iPhone and iPad. I used Home Remote (which talks MQTT, among other things) and we now have native apps with instantaneous control of Premise devices and their status.
The second use was for two simple graphs of indoor/outdoor temperature and luminance. It was ridiculously easy using Node-red Dashboard and MQTT (see the attached images).
Future MQTT applications will probably involve inexpensive devices based on the ESP8266 (i.e. WiFi-controlled sensors and switches). Just about all home-brew devices talk MQTT nowadays and it can also be used to bridge Home Automations systems. For example, you can get Premise to talk to openHab or Home Assistant or the SmartThings Hub because all have the ability to communicate via MQTT.
Rather than spend time documenting SyseventBroker and posting it here (let's be honest, there are precious few Premise users left), if you're interested just let me know and I'll share it with you and help you get it running. Be advised it needs an MQTT Broker (a pre-requisite for any use of MQTT) and Node-Red. I have both running on a Raspberry Pi but there are other options.
Edited by 123, 24 May 2018 - 09:00 PM.


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text:
Analysis: Nancy Pelosi loyalists speaking up
FILE - In this April 12, 2018, file photo, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, speaks during a House Democratic election night event in Washington on Nov. 6, 2018. Bloomberg photo by Yuri Gripas
By Kimberly Atkins | kimberly.atkins@bostonherald.com | Boston Herald
PUBLISHED: November 13, 2018 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: November 19, 2018 at 12:00 a.m.
WASHINGTON — Bay State U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, who'll helm the powerful Ways and Means Committee when Democrats assume House control in January, strongly urged his colleagues to back Nancy Pelosi for speaker, an effort to thwart brewing opposition from party members including U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton.
The Springfield Democrat sent fellow House members a letter, obtained yesterday by the Boston Herald, calling Pelosi "a shrewd, battle-tested negotiator who understands how to out-maneuver Republicans."
Neal called Pelosi "the right person to lead our caucus," adding that voters "want someone who will fight for their priorities, but also seek common ground."
Pelosi's communications office quickly recirculated the letter to members yesterday.
Neal joins other top Democrats in endorsing Pelosi, including incoming Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who will helm the Oversight Committee and Rep. Jerry Nadler (R-N.Y.) who will lead the Judiciary Committee.
All four incoming chairmen have vowed to open investigations into President Trump's administration and campaign in recent days. Neal said he would seek Trump's tax returns when he controls the committee.
The move comes just days after Moulton tweeted about a "silent majority" of House Democrats who want to block Pelosi from reclaiming the House gavel. Two years ago Moulton backed an unsuccessful bid by U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) to oust Pelosi from her Democratic leadership post.
House sources said that while they expect an insurgent push by Pelosi's critics to block her, that effort will be an uphill battle. Pelosi, coming off big wins in the midterms, is expected to use her negotiating skills to protect her path to the speakership, using key committee assignments and leadership roles to bring opponents and undecided caucus members to her side — or at least convince them to vote "present" or skip the vote rather than vote against her.
Meanwhile, 14 other Pelosi supporters in the House sent another letter to members urging them not to change caucus rules — such as dropping the threshold for the number of votes needed to advance a speaker nominee — in an effort to protect Pelosi's bid.
So far no one has announced a challenge to Pelosi. In July Moulton said he would not seek the leadership post.
— kimberly.atkins @bostonherald.com
Kimberly Atkins | Chief Washington Reporter
Kimberly Atkins is the chief Washington reporter and columnist at the Herald. She previously worked in both the Herald's State House and City Hall bureaus.
kimberly.atkins@bostonherald.com
Follow Kimberly Atkins	@KimberlyEAtkins
Editorial: Trump shouldn't pardon those charged in Capitol riot

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
Starbucks Launches Black & White Mocha Drinks to Celebrate New Year's
By Mahita Gajanan
Starbucks is going black-tie for New Year's with a new line of limited edition drinks to end 2017 with a bang.
The coffee chain has introduced three new "Black & White" mocha beverages that uses dark and white chocolate mocha to celebrate the last week of the year in style. The line follows several new creations from Starbucks over the last year, including the Unicorn frappuccino and other colorful drinks.
The Black & White mocha mixes espresso with dark and white chocolate mocha and is topped with a line of "sparkly chocolate sequins to resemble a black tie," a Starbucks spokesperson said in a statement. The other drinks include a Black & White hot chocolate, mixing the mocha with steamed milk, and a Black & White frappuccino, which blends mocha flavors and coffee with milk and ice.
The Black & White mocha drinks are available now and will be sold at Starbucks through the first week of January to kick off 2018, USA Today reports.
Write to Mahita Gajanan at mahita.gajanan@time.com.
Arrests Ahead of Gun Rally


Start the MKKF utility by typing mkkf at the command prompt. The system displays a menu page.
*Note: The MKKF utility places the keyring file in the current directory unless otherwise specified.
Select N to create a new key ring file, default file name is keyfile.kyr.
After you type in a key ring file name, the next menu screen will come up.
Select W to work with keys and certificates.
Select C to create a new key and certificate request. Type a password when prompted.
Warning: If you lose the password, you must purchase another certificate.
See the certificate replacement policy at the bottom of these instructions.
Select R to create the key and certificate request after specifing all fields.
After the key and certificate request are created,select X to exit from MKKF utility. Save the changes to the key-ring file.
*Make a backup copy of your keyring file and store it in a safe place.


text:
HNCA is a 3D triple-resonance NMR experiment commonly used in the field of protein NMR. The name derives from the experiment's magnetization transfer pathway: The magnetization of the amide proton of an amino acid residue is transferred to the amide nitrogen, and then to the alpha carbons of both the starting residue and the previous residue in the protein's amino acid sequence. In contrast, the complementary HNCOCA experiment
transfers magnetization only to the alpha carbon of the previous residue. The HNCA experiment is used, often in tandem with HNCOCA, to assign alpha carbon resonance signals to specific residues in the protein. This experiment requires a purified sample of protein prepared with 13C and 15N isotopic labelling, at a concentration greater than 0.1 mM, and is thus generally only applied to recombinant proteins.

The spectrum produced by this experiment has 3 dimensions: A proton axis, a 15N axis and a 13C axis. For residue i peaks will appear at {HN(i), N(i), Calpha (i)} and {HN(i), N(i), Calpha(i-1)}, while for the complementary HNCOCA experiment peaks appear only at {HN(i), N(i), Calpha(i-1)}. Together, these two experiments reveal the alpha carbon chemical shift for each amino acid residue in a protein, and provide information linking adjacent residues in the protein's sequence.

References

Citations

General references
Protein NMR Spectroscopy : Principles and Practice (1995) John Cavanagh, Wayne J. Fairbrother, Arthur G. Palmer III, Nicholas J. Skelton, Academic Press

Protein methods
Biophysics
Protein structure
Nuclear magnetic resonance experiments

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;) So much fun at your party!
I bet VBS was a blast...wish I could have helped!
Thank you so much Mira!!! I had fun and were glad you were at my party!
VBS was a blast..... I wish you could have been there!
YES YOU DO NEED TO SEE CARS THREE! It's great.
Oh thank you!!!! We had so much fun taking pictures and have a lot more, those were just the best.
Aww. Thank you! Love you too!
Looks like you had a fun month! I mostly just read books all month...... I did get to go to a really fun party though!
I had a great month! Oh I love books so much!!! I just finished the Left Behind series!


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Q: Webpack/Babel breaking my Typescript package So, I have this repo https://github.com/eduelias/bucket-search, and I want to bundle it's dist folder so the overall size gets reduced. The problem is: The way it is right now it works. If I add Webpack/ts-loader, than a couple interfaces declarations file end up by not being bundled correctly and the whole package stops working.
I tried adding babel (webpack + babel in fact) and it returned a couple of warnings like "reexport not possible, module not exported" on the same interfaces.
The thing is, those interfaces ARE exported as they should.
As I am not an webpack/babel specialist, I would love some guidance on how to make it work. Thanks! :D

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Q: Is it possible to set autofill form data via chrome extension? I am looking to build a chrome extension wherein I the extension can set the chrome autofill for a person (i.e. save addresses and other information like basic form data). I can then go to a few websites, fill a few forms.
The extension can then set the data for another person and the cycle repeats.
Since the forms can contain dynamic fields, I want this data set in the autofill so chrome can take care of most of the part and I can rectify any problems before submitting the form.
I haven't found a direct chrome extension API to do this. Is this possible to be done?
Thanks in advance.
UPDATE: I went through this: Import autofill data from a file into Chrome but is there any way to do it through the extension?


text:
in Disney, Entertainment, Marvel, Movies, Movies & TV, Television
"You may be bulletproof, but Harlem ain't." The newest full trailer for Marvel and Netflix's Luke Cage feels like an urban crime drama opus. A story of a man coming to terms with his gift, and choosing to use it to clean up the streets. Basically, it's everything you could want out of a Luke Cage series — at least at a glance.
"There are politicians and then there are shady characters that function on the other side of the law," lead actor Mike Colter told Entertainment Weekly in two videos. "Who does what? I won't say, but this becomes a situation where there are a lot of people who want to help Harlem and think they have Harlem's best interests, but, ultimately, just because they think or say they have Harlem's best interests, sometimes they're being very selfish or being very short-sighted. So sometimes what they're doing is actually harming the community.
So this is where Luke comes in because Luke is a person who likes to, he observes and he listens and he takes in to account what people tell him, and he's a pretty smart guy himself and he understands that some peoples' way may not be the best may not be the best in the big picture so ultimately Luke has to get involved because there are a lot of things that happen, a lot of people get hurt, a lot of lives are lost and unfortunately he's the only one who is capable of actually helping deal with this because sometimes the law enforcement is actually not the best because they're not aware or they're not capable, or maybe they're corrupt. So, without getting into too many details, Luke Cage is gonna have to step up and be the man."
Luke Cage will be released on Netflix later this year on September 30th 2016.
Tagged:DisneyLuke CageMarvelMike ColterNetflixtrailer
Sprinkles at Disney Springs to host events celebrating S'more Month, the Olympics and more in August
The Walt Disney Company makes reductions in its Imagineering workforce
Older Older post: Sprinkles at Disney Springs to host events celebrating S'more Month, the Olympics and more in August
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text:
Mediterranean Poetry
an odyssey through the mediterranean world
Posted on December 13, 2011 April 23, 2018 edited by anders dahlgren
Antonis Samarakis
Antonis Samarakis (1919-2003) was modern Greece's most widely translated writer after Nikos Kazantzakis. He published four collections of short stories and two novels beginning in 1954. His novel, To Lathos (The Flaw) has been translated into over twenty languages. Graham Greene called this novel, "A real masterpiece. A story of the psychological struggle between two secret police agents and their suspect told with wit, imagination and quite outstanding technical skill." Arthur Miller wrote that, "The Flaw is a powerful work. I only wish some people who profess democracy would read The Flaw and see what it is they actually support. We are living in a time when words and their substance are very unrelated—to the point of meaninglessness. And this is not only in the question of Greece."
Samarakis's short stories were equally well received at home and abroad, and the collection THE PASSPORT AND OTHER SELECTED SHORT STORIES – in translation of ANDREW HORTON (Cosmos Publishing) brings together eight of his finest stories including "The Last Participation","Mama", "The Knife", and "The Passport" which he wrote during the period of the Dictatorship of 1967-75 when he was denied a passport to travel abroad.
She was ironing his pants. The good ones. His Sunday pair. Just as she was about to skillfully finish the crease, the woman from the shop on the corner appeared, breathing hard.
"Have you heard? Something terrible has happened at the Kalogreza mine," the woman shouted to her from the street since she could see her ironing by the open window.
"No, I haven't heard a thing. What about my Yannis?"
"I don't know about Yannis. My sister-in-law just called and told me all about it. Supposedly all the workers in one tunnel were killed immediately by the explosion."
Upset by the news, she left the hot iron on the pants, even though she had been taking great pains to get the crease right since Yannis always complained, "Mama, how did you manage to mess up the crease again? When will I be able to congratulate you on a job well done?"
She dropped the iron and ran to the window. "What other news? Tell me, I can't stand it!"
"I don't know anything else," the woman from the shop replied. "I only know what I heard on the phone. The 2-10 shift was blown sky high. The tunnel collapsed and crushed them. What shift does Yannis work?"
"2-10," she said in a trance.
Suddenly a voice called out from the corner shop that some customers were waiting.
"I have to go now," said the shop owner's wife. "Don't worry. He might have escaped."
She hurried to the iron and unplugged it. The cloth had been burnt but what difference did it make now? The only thing that mattered was that Yannis – her Yannis, was on the 2-10 shift tonight, Saturday night.
She grabbed a shawl. She glanced at the photograph of Yannis's father; she paused a second – should she speak to him, tell him the news or should she keep silent? The father watched her calmly and with a smile as if nothing had happened. Calmly and with a smile just as he had been when he gazed at her when the Germans took him from the house in August, August 11, 1944. Yannis had begun to crawl; he couldn't say more than a few words like "dada" and "mama" and "bow wow". Then their Yannis became her Yannis: his father never again crossed the doorstep. He was lost, gone with the others to Germany, Buchenwald someone said. Dachau said another. It didn't really matter because as soon as people were snuffed out, they were snuffed out for all time.
She had to change twice to go from Perama to Kalogreza. She had to take the trolley from Perama to Piraeus, the metro from there to Omonia, and a bus from Onomia to Kalogreza.
Once before she had gone after Yannis, not because he was in any danger. It was a year and a half ago that Yannis' uncle – his father's first cousin – was passing through Piraeus. His uncle had lived for years in America, Detroit to be exact. She had rushed to tell Yannis that his uncle would be in Piraeus for only a few hours so he should meet his uncle because he was Yannis' godfather and he was sure to have a special gift for him. It had been ten years since he had last visited Greece and even then he was in a hurry. The result was that Yannis knocked himself out to get to the Macedonian on time and his uncle presented him with a fancy bottle opener. Yannis had told her what it was called but she couldn't pronounce it because it was a tongue twister.
Now she was on her way to meet Yannis with a deep ache in her heart. She didn't know what to expect.
In her haste to leave, to reach him quickly, to arrive in time, in time for what? – she forgot to take a handkerchief. She needed it for her running nose, for her tears; she was deeply upset that she hadn't taken a handkerchief because it seemed to her that everyone on the trolley and metro was staring at her when she wiped her nose and eyes with the corner of her shawl from time to time.
"If I had wings like a turtledove…" She repeated over and over to herself these words from the song she had liked in her youth before there was a photo of her husband in the house, when her husband was there himself. She felt that time stood still and that she'd never reach that wretched Kalogreza. And as the metro passed Monasteraki headed for Omonia, she absent mindedly called out, "If I had wings like a turtledove."
"Come on, lady, save your love songs for the bedroom!" commented the fellow next to her who wore a bow tie and clutched a stuffed black bag as if it were a baby.
After that she became silent, but she was so disturbed by the man's remark that she failed to realize the metro had passed Omonia and the next stop. She finally got off at Attiki.
She came out onto Patission Street stopping often to catch her breath because she had suffered shortness of breath for years. But she had to find Yannis as soon as possible. He was waiting for her.
She counted the change in her pocketbook to see if she had enough for a taxi. 11.60 drachmas in all.
There was a taxi stand at Platea Amerikis so she asked how much the fare cost to Kalogreza.
"I've got eleven and a half drachmas," she whispered to the taxi driver as if she were doing something wrong.
He told her it was impossible; it was a double rate to go so far.
She stood there trying to decide what to do.
"Alright, what if we go ahead and my Yannis pays?"
"Yannis?" said the driver.
"My son!" she replied as if it were very strange that anyone would not know Yannis.
"In that case it's okay," agreed the driver and opened the door for her.
She was ready to step in when she stopped.
"If my Yannis…?" she asked herself speaking her thoughts as she left the taxi wrapping her shawl around herself more tightly.
At the thought "If my Yannis…," she felt a chill through her chest and down to her feeet. "Never mind. I'll go by bus, she said and walked into the night.
It was so peaceful when she arrived at the lignite mine that for a moment she thought she had made a mistake, that the phone call might have been about something else, not about an accident at Kalogreza where everything was so quiet and glistening with the frost of a winter night. But inside the grounds, she saw many people including police discussing in front of the guardhouse, and she saw cars with flashing red lights, and she saw women and children. How did it happen she had not seen them at first?
She walked closer, her heart becoming a tight knot.
She stood near a badly wounded worker whose wife embraced him while
he tried to explain everything.
"My Yannis?" she asked, stepping between a sergeant and someone in a business suit who smoked continuously.
They asked her for his last name. There were five Yannisses on the 2-10 shift. When she told them his name, they did not answer. They, all those strangers, only turned and stared at her while she watched the wife of the worker who had escaped embrace her husband even more tightly.
"My Yannis…?" she asked again and fortunately the sergeant grabbed her in time before she collapsed.
No, she could not stand to spend the night without her Yannis. Her hope now, her only hope was to meet him at the morgue. If she were lucky, she would meet him there, she would embrace him, rock him in her arms, keep him warm, just as the wounded worker's wife was doing.
When they told her that Yannis might have gone there, that they might have taken him there, her heart sank.
If only there had been a miracle and her Yannis had escaped from the depths of the cold earth! If only the earth had not devoured him, so alone, unmourned, uncombed, unblessed. If only she could find him there to take him home and wash him, change him, dress him up in his Sunday best, in the grey-green checked jacket and the pants she had just ironed with the crease done just right for the first time. As for the burned spot, she knew how to mend it, fo fix it as good as new so that nothing showed. Then she would take him tomorrow, Sunday afternoon, dressed in his Sunday best, just as he had dressed as a boy when they took him for a walk on Sunday afternoons. This time she would again take him for a walk; this time, however, she would return home alone. Tomorrow, Sunday, at nightfall, alone, so alone, tomorrow and the next day, alone forever.
He wasn't in the first group, her Yannis wasn't among the eight survivors. They had written down the names of the eight. The sergeant had the list and he read it to her,giving the names one by one, clearly, as if it were a roll call. There were ten more on the shift, eighteen altogether. Of the ten who had not escaped, four were already at the morgue. The remaining six were at the end of the tunnel bound up in the womb of the earth like embryos without life and without a future.
"It's obvious that your son isn't among the living. He's among the … among the others. You should see if he's one of the four at the morgue. You see, they hauled them away so quickly that I didn't have time to jot down their names. If he's not among the four, it goes without saying that he's among the six down below buried when the tunnel caved in. Who knows how many days it will take us to get the bodies out; three? five? ten? Perhaps never."
"From Kalogreza?" asked one of the two guards at the morgue, the tall one who was searching for a station on a small transistor. "We have them over there. Second hall on the right, first door on your left."
She stood staring at him, and then at the others as if she was waiting to be shown the way since she had never been in a morgue before.
"Go by yourself!" said the tall one. "Why do you look at me that way? We're doing our job; we took care of each of them, covered them all with sheets. That's more than enough if you ask me, considering the rotten pay we get from city hall. They pay us only enough to cover them, not to uncover them as well."
Worked up about his salary, he turned his transistor up full blast and ear splitting rock music echoed in the empty room.
"Turn it down," complained his partner.
"What for? Do you think we're disturbing the customers?" He then tried to finish with her: "As for you and me, we've said all we have to say. Second hall to your right, first door on your left.
She went on alone. She felt completely empty inside. "Hey, lady!" shouted the tall one to her as she was entering the central hall. "Open the door and go right in. Don't bother to knock. Got me?"
She opened the door the guard had told her about, second hall on the right, first door on the left.
She waited for the door to creak – surely the doors of the morgue would creak like all others. But the door opened softly, without a single noise.
There were many tables in the room. High, long, narrow tables. Only the four from Kalogreza were laid out on them. "They must be uncomfortable," she thought. A miserable room with yellow light, dull yellow.
She went forward. Which one should she look at first? She paused as if deciding by lot. Finally she went to the one near the wall.
No, the first one was not her Yannis. Slowly, as if she were ashamed, she drew back the sheet, uncovering the head. She didn't need to see his face; the hair was enough. Blond, almost bleach blond. Her Yannis had dark brown hair.
No, the second one was not her Yannis. He had a moustache, whereas Yannis had none.
The third? He resembled Yannis, but the face was badly mutilated; she couldn't say yes or no. The body was the same height as Yannis. She left the head and went to the feet. She pulled away the sheet and grabbed the left shoe – they all wore the same type of boot. She pulled hard, but it wouldn't come off. It finally came off; she used all her strength almost falling over backwards with the effort. Then she took off the sock. No, not her Yannis. Yannis was missing his middle toe, damaged when he was ten by a firecracker on Easter Saturday.
She didn't have to spend much time on the fourth corpse; he too had a mustache.
Then her knees began to give way but there were no chairs in the room. With difficulty she managed to get onto the fourth man's table and sat by his feet. Just as she was comfortable, she saw the third man's foot which she had left bare.
"He'll catch a cold," she reasoned, and slid down from the table and went to put the sock and shoe back on and pulled up the sheet nicely as well.
She heard a clock strike… from a nearby church? She counted the strokes; one, two, three… ten, eleven, twelve… "Midnight," she thought, but at that instant she heard the thirteenth.
"I didn't know clocks struck thirteen," she said out loud. "When did they make the change? Ah! Things are changing too quickly in our little Greece!"
She sneezed and said, "Please excuse me!"
She was used to saying this when she sneezed with others around. Now she had others around her in the room; she had the four miners stretched out on those long, narrow tables. There were no others, on other corpses in the room. Only the four from Kalogreza.
No, her Yannis was not among the four. She had uncovered each of them. She had examined each carefully since the light was bad. Yannis didn't happen to be among the four; he remained trapped in the earth. Her Yannis, a piece of coal in a coal bed.
She didn't know how long she had been in the room with the bodies. Half an hour? Maybe longer?
She mounted the third man's table. Strange, she could no longer cry. She had run out of tears, only a running nose – but she did not have a handkerchief with her. She started to wipe her nose with her shawl but felt ashamed. She felt all four were watching her since she had left their faces uncovered. She lifted the sheet, searched his pockets and found a handkerchief, dirty and mended in two spots.
"His mother must have mended it," she said to herself. She blew her nose and put the handkerchief in the pocket of her daygown. Oh! How she had worked to wash, iron, and mend Yannis' handkerchieves! His mama… Their mama…
The longer she remained with the four men, the closer she felt to them, continually closer. They had no one else there. Their mothers weren't with them. Or were they…?
At first it seemed like a dream with many people surrounding her writing continuously in notebooks. But it wasn't a dream at all. When she opened her eyes – she had fallen asleep on the table – she saw a group of men, six or seven, coming towards her with notebooks.
She slid down from the table almost ripping her gown on a nail.
"Anybody here?" one of the group said loudly.
Then they gathered around.
"We're reporters," one said. "We're here about the Kalogreza disaster," said another. "What are you doing here?"
"Me? I'm their mama."
"Their mama?"
"Yes, their mama."
"Do you mean they're all your sons?"
"They're all my boys."
The reporters wrote hurriedly: "Unprecedented tragedy. Mother loses all four sons."
"Their names?" asked a reporter.
She pulled her shawl around her shoulders; she went to the first of the four bodies and stared into his eyes.
"My Yannis," she said.
"The next?"
She moved on to the third and lifted up his right hand, which had slipped off the table.
Then she brushed aside the hair of the fourth young man which had fallen across his eyes. "My Yannis."
Text in this post: © Andrew Horton
Published with the permission of Andrew Horton
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Charles Marecic is a poet and photographer who lives in Washington, Maine. His poems and photos have appeared in various and sundry publications over the years. Golaš' Wine Igor's dad swears that ...
Jack D. Harvey's poetry has appeared in Scrivener, The Comstock Review, Bay Area Poets' Coalition, Mediterranean Poetry, The Antioch Review, The Piedmont Poetry Journal and a number of other on-line ...
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Giuseppe Ungaretti Homeros Shakespeare Stendhal Aristotle Callimachus Nâzım Hikmet Giacomo Leopardi Hesiod Lars Forssell Ezra Pound Dionysius of Halicarnassus Adunis Odysseas Elitis Guido Gozzano Mohammed Al-Maghout Naim Frashëri Ludwig Achim von Arnim Rafael Alberti Gunnar Ekelöf Samuel Johnson Khalil Gibran Giovanni Pascoli Henrik Ibsen Constantine P. Cavafy Eugenio Montale Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Federico García Lorca Percy Bysshe Shelley Ernest Hemingway Victor Hugo Salvatore Quasimodo Lord Byron Guillaume Apollinaire Pindar Ludovico Ariosto Jean Racine Catullus Nikos Engonopoulos Nikos Kazantzakis Apollonius of Rhodes Samuel Taylor Coleridge Wislawa Szymborska Hofmannsthal Sappho Naguib Mahfouz Luis de Góngora John Keats Alexander Pope Petronius Giosuè Carducci Horace D. H. Lawrence Alfred de Musset Aleksander Wat Lawrence Durrell Robert Browning Ahmed Shawqi Paul Verlaine Odysseas Elytis Plato Dimitris Lipertis Théophile Gautier Francesco Petrarca Dun Karm Psaila Rainer Maria Rilke Christoforos Liontakis Albert Camus Bacchylides Virgil Antonio Machado Jeronim de Rada Rafael Alberti Orhan Veli Kanık Ugo Foscolo Friedrich Schiller Kostas Karyotakis Hans Christian Andersen Giacomo da Lentini Giovanni Boccaccio Bernard Spencer Seamus Heaney Alfred Tennyson Allen Tate Celine Axelos Euripides Oscar Wilde Thomas Hardy Yunus Emre Somerset Maugham W. S. Merwin Yaşar Kemal Giorgos Seferis Aeschylus Francisco de Quevedo Zbigniew Herbert Paul Valéry Orhan Pamuk W. H. Auden Gérard de Nerval Inger Christensen Elizabeth Barrett Browning Boris Pasternak Alberto Moravia Sophocles Torquato Tasso Camilo José Cela Christina Rossetti Theophrastos Tibullus François Villon Italo Calvino Antipater of Sidon Lucian André Chénier John Milton Menander Vitsentzos Kornaros Ben Jonson Frédéric Mistral Julius Caesar Aleksander Stavre Drenova Carl Snoilsky Theocritus Costas Montis Alcman Helen Barolini Alphonse de Lamartine Dante Alighieri Robert Graves Antonio Barolini Cesare Pavese Jean Cocteau Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Ivan Bunin Rosalía de Castro Osman Türkay Dimitris Lipertis Holger Drachmann Sully Prudhomme Mohammed Dib Milan Begović Henry James Sextus Propertius Artur Lundkvist Edith Wharton Seneca the Younger Kostas Varnalis Luigi Pirandello Henry Miller Umberto Saba Grazia Deledda Edith Södergran Anacreon Alexander Pushkin Bertolt Brecht Tomas Tranströmer Joseph Brodsky Mark Twain Edwin Denby
... and then, of course, there are some 400 amazing poets in more than 500 posts joining us on this site, this odyssey in the Mediterranean world!
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Knowledge is power and because every business today is so closely tied to technology, the ability to understand your competition is better now than it has ever been. However, one important aspect of researching your competitors is to take a holistic approach to your research and analyzing the results of your research.
This is true if you're planning a new business or product, or improvements to existing businesses or products. If your website plays any role in customer acquisition or sales, understanding the elements and design of competitors' websites can be critical. Here are some fundamentals.
Finding the competition. I assume you have a good idea who your competitors are, but if you don't – or you want to broaden your vision – use this Google search: "related:www.mybizURLhere.com." It will return a list of sites that Google believes have a purpose similar to yours. See if you've missed anyone.
Architecture and infrastructure. Once you have a feel for who's out there, what platforms are they using? Wappalyzer is a free Chrome and Firefox extension that will identify the software that is powering any website. The better you understand how the websites of your competitors operate, the better positioned you are to create something that's superior.
Graphics and user experience design. Every site has a "look and feel" and this can separate the winners from the losers. Sometimes it's the most critical element of a site or a product. Recently, 888Ladies published a post that takes readers through their entire process of developing a new circus-themed game. They knew that they had to create something entirely unique and brought virtually their entire team on board for the development process – including measuring up the competition.
A key finding for them was the fact that competitors were not yet using 3D animation, so achieving that became a design goal early on. It's obvious how important killer graphics and an intuitive user interface is to a gaming company, but frankly those elements are just as important to any business that has a presence on the Internet.
In ecommerce, we have all probably abandoned a purchase because the checkout process was too cumbersome or confusing. Work hard to identify those kinds of weaknesses in your competition. These analyses take the human touch. Have people thoroughly explore and test competitors' websites and note their strengths and weaknesses. And unless you're going for a "retro" feel, be sure your graphics are in line with today's style standards.
Traffic sources. When user acquisition is important to the success of your business, you need to know where your competitors are getting their Internet traffic. SimilarWeb and Alexa both offer limited free traffic analytics and more in-depth information with a paid subscription. These traffic-source websites are most useful when a small business is trying to compete with a big business. Smaller sites often don't generate enough data to register on these services.
Social media audience. Use Twitonomy to gather insights about your competitors' social media, specifically Twitter, audience. See what hashtags are getting results. With a paid subscription here you can download a list of your competitor's Twitter followers. If you felt it was appropriate, you could then Tweet an offer to them.
Google alerts. Set up Google alerts for all of your major competitors. These are almost like a spy plane roving the Internet. You can have reports automatically emailed to you on whatever frequency you desire. You'll be able to keep a close watch on them and find out when anything significant occurs with their business and it gets mentioned online.
Sales outlets. If you make a product that is sold in stores, knowing the outlets where your competitors merchandise is sold is critical. Explore all of your competitors websites and look for pages like "Where to find our widgets" and put all of those locations into a spreadsheet or customer relationship management system. When you have that information, explore those websites trying to find the name of the person who would be the buyer. Begin a relationship with that person.
Following this will be a list of keywords that were deemed important, at least when the web page was originally put together. See if you think they apply to your business and if so, would they be worth securing with Adword bids.
You can see from this list that some of this is using tools to "spy" on your competition, but in virtually every case, human analysis is even more important. Use the tools to dig deeply, but then take some time to determine what is most important and act on those items first.
NextWhy Your Business Needs to Pivot: Change Is Risky But Often Needed. Here's How To Do It Right.


text:
Non-academic Spending - US Public High Schools
Delivered January 31st, 2018. Contributors: Erika O. and
While your requested information is not readily available in the public domain, there were figures that enabled us to triangulate the answers. Based on our calculations, there is a good chance that yearly spending on student support services in U.S. public high schools is around $9,766,904,000 and the breakdown of this amount, by programming type, is as follows: health-related programs (26.07%), social work-related programs (11.20%), psychology-related programs (23.40%), speech therapy or pathology programs (21.98%), and other programs (17.35%). Since this percentage distribution was computed using figures that consider all 30,828 public high schools in the U.S., it is expected that the percentage distribution applies to all U.S. public high schools as well. As requested, these findings are presented in the attached spreadsheet.
STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICE EXPENDITURE in public secondary schools
As you indicated in your comments on the original response to this request, you are interested in the amount spent on student support services in U.S. public high schools and the corresponding breakdown of this amount by programming type. According to the most current Digest of Education Statistics of the United States' National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the total amount spent on student support in public elementary and secondary schools in 2014-2015 was $32,363,375,000. This amount was broken down into the following items. Salaries accounted for nearly 64% of the total student support expenditure in U.S. public schools.
Salaries — $20,658,101,000
Employee benefits — $7,872,711,000
Purchased services — $3,024,871,000
Supplies — $599,269,000
Other — $208,422,000
The NCES defines student support services as services that include "attendance and social work, guidance, health, psychological services, speech pathology, audiology, and other student support
services."
Although the public secondary schools' share of this total student support expenditure is not readily available, we triangulated it by multiplying the average amount spent per pupil by the total enrollment in public secondary schools.
Per pupil, the amount spent on student support services was $644. Given that enrollment in public secondary schools this year is expected to be 15,166,000, we were able to estimate that the student support expenditure in public secondary schools this year will be around $9,766,904,000. Row 10 of Sheet1 of the attached spreadsheet shows how this amount was computed.
In 2015-2016, there were 30,828 public secondary or combined elementary/secondary schools in the United States. Of this number, 23,561 were regular schools, 1,236 were special education schools, 1,391 were vocational schools, and 4,640 were alternative schools.
BREAKDOWN OF STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICE EXPENDITURE BY PROGRAMMING TYPE
The breakdown of student support expenditure in public secondary schools could not be found in the public domain as well, but there was information from the NCES that allowed us to estimate the breakdown.
In 2015-2016, there were 46,200 school counselors and 66,000 student support services professional staff that were employed as either full-time or part-time employees in public secondary/high schools. Of the 66,000 student support services professional staff, 15,760 were nurses, 9,880 were social workers, 12,870 were psychologists, and 12,180 were speech therapists or speech pathologists. Student support services professional staff do not include school counselors.
Since, as mentioned above, salaries account for most of the student support expenditure, we assumed that the distribution of the salaries by type of student support services professional staff will be indicative of the breakdown, by programming type, of the student support expenditure. Please note, however, that this is a very crude assumption given that we do not know how the number of staff breaks down into full-time and part-time employees. Following this assumption, we looked for the latest median annual pay of nurses, social workers, psychologists, and speech therapists in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook. Row 5 of Sheet2 of the attached spreadsheet shows the amounts we got from the handbook. Row 6, on the other hand, shows the total annual pay, which is the product of the number of staff and the median annual pay.
Since we could not ascertain the median annual pay of those belonging to the 'Others' category, we assumed that their median annual pay is the same as that of the social workers, which is the lowest in the group. As shown in Row 7 of Sheet2 of the spreadsheet, our calculations resulted in the following distribution of student support staff salaries across 30,828 public high schools:
Nurses — 26.07%
Social workers — 11.20%
Psychologists —23.40%
Speech therapists or pathologists — 21.98%
Others — 17.35%
Given these figures, we were able to estimate that the breakdown, by programming type, of the student support service expenditure in public high schools is as follows:
Student support service expenditure — $9,766,904,000
Health-related programs — 26.07%
Social work-related programs — 11.20%
Psychology-related programs — 23.40%
Speech therapy or pathology programs — 21.98%
Other programs — 17.35%
You may see these figures in Sheet3 of the spreadsheet. Unfortunately, there is no information in the public domain that would allow us to feasibly determine the number of public high schools that offer specific types of student support programs.
Despite the lack of pre-compiled statistics on the student support service expenditure in U.S. public high schools and its corresponding breakdown by programming type, information in the public domain allowed us to arrive at the following figures: (a) there are 30,828 public secondary schools in the United States, (b) together, these schools spend around $9,766,904,000 on student support services in a year, and (c) this amount is likely allocated to different programs in the following manner: health-related programs (26.07%), social work-related programs (11.20%), psychology-related programs (23.40%), speech therapy or pathology programs (21.98%), and other programs (17.35%).
Revenues and Expenditures for Public Elementary and Secondary Education: School Year 2014–15 (Fiscal Year 2015)
nces.ed.gov
Digest of Education Statistics - Most Current Digest Tables
Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary education and other related programs, by function and subfunction: Selected years, 1990-91 through 2014-15
Total and current expenditures per pupil in fall enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools, by function and subfunction: Selected years, 1990-91 through 2014-15
Enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools, by level and grade: Selected years, fall 1980 through fall 2026
Number and enrollment of public elementary and secondary schools, by school level, type, and charter and magnet status: Selected years, 1990-91 through 2015-16
Characteristics of Public Elementary and Secondary Schools in the United States: Results From the 2015–16 National Teacher and Principal Survey
Registered Nurses : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
bls.gov
Social Workers : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Psychologists : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Speech-Language Pathologists : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
SPREADSHEET: Calculations
Home : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics