I wasn't going to do this but I ultimately decided it was important.
As we get older, we realize some things just aren't the same anymore. The kids get younger and the trends that once were popular in our day have suddenly died out, paving way for the next best thing. When sports start featuring kids from the 90s, and eventually 2000s, you know there is no where to go but up – or forward. The athletes you looked up to as a kid suddenly are younger than you.
There becomes a disconnect between generations and understanding. You don't know where to turn and really don't know know how to fit in with the new wave. A certain bit of jealously comes along the way as well, such as wanting to be back in school again and relearning all the things that were so fun.
But getting older has its advantages. You have more opportunities and freedoms in the world. There's more respect. Can drink and gamble – responsibly. Get into any kind of film you choose; of course, I was already watching adult movies before I turned 18 and had had my share of magazines.
At what point do birthdays become as pointless and boring as soup? At what point do you just want to freeze time or start going backwards. I'd say it would be when you reach middle age and life seems to have gotten stuck in neutral. When it is no longer cool to act like a kid and society would think you're short a few screws.
A new batch of kids are going to see Star Wars for the first time when it comes out on December 18. The seventh major film in the megabillion dollar franchise comes out during one of the most social periods in human history. The last film in 2005 didn't have the luxuries of multiple ways of sharing content online with just the click of a button. If I wanted to see the trailer for Phantom of the Menace in 1999, I'd have to either wait for it to appear on TV or get a sneak peak of it before a feature film in the theater.
The film is obviously going to be a smash hit and most will likely shatter box office records within a day, no matter what the critics think. I have already pre-ordered tickets from Fandango for a December 17 screening, citing the thought that it will be hard to get tickets when the film is released. The film comes out on the 18th, so this must be a special pre-screening for a limited number of individuals. Lucky me will get to be one of the first to see the anticipated film, but will have to keep quiet for one day so not to spoil the fun for those fans who have been waiting three long years since Disney met George. This will be the first time a Star Wars film comes out where I am familiar with the story, having just recently watched all six films, and am actually mildly interested in seeing one.
Many despise having any more films after the original trilogy because of the story being wrapped up so nicely in Return of the Jedi. But money speaks loudly, especially in the brain dead creative space of Hollywood that definitely is in love with sequels. Do we really need a Toy Story 4? A Woody and Bo Peep love story, are you kidding me? What's next, Woody finding out Bo is having an affair with Hamm? I believe this beloved franchise should be put to rest before it is exhausted to death.
One of my favorite bloggers, Insach, had his birthday a few days ago and I decided to expand upon his post about changes.
That is so true. Whenever I stumble upon cartoon network, I see these really strange cartoons and I end up missing my favourites; jetsons flinstones scooby doo and so on haha. The new generation has no idea – what they have missed, but then again it could be that we have just grown up and can not relate to the current things/cartoons/trends anymore.
Your right. I miss the old cartoons that I used to watch as a kid and as I'm older everything I used to like doesn't seem so great now but is kind of lame and embarrassing to watch.


text:
#ifndef itkTreeContainer_h
#define itkTreeContainer_h

#include "itkTreeContainerBase.h"
#include "itkPreOrderTreeIterator.h"

namespace itk
{
/** \class TreeContainer
 *  \brief A tree container.
 *
 * This class derives from the TreeContainerBase class.
 * The class is templated over the type of the elements.
 *
 * \tparam TValue Element type stored at each location in the Tree.
 *
 * \ingroup DataRepresentation
 * \ingroup ITKDeprecated
 */
template <typename TValue>
class ITK_TEMPLATE_EXPORT TreeContainer : public TreeContainerBase<TValue>
{
public:
  /** Standard type alias */
  using Superclass = TreeContainerBase<TValue>;
  using Self = TreeContainer<TValue>;
  using Pointer = SmartPointer<Self>;
  using ConstPointer = SmartPointer<const Self>;
  using ValueType = TValue;
  using TreeNodeType = TreeNode<ValueType>;

  /** Iterators type alias */
  using IteratorType = TreeIteratorBase<Self>;
  using PreOrderIteratorType = PreOrderTreeIterator<Self>;

  /** Method for creation through the object factory. */
  itkNewMacro(Self);

  /** Run-time type information (and related methods). */
  itkTypeMacro(TreeContainer, TreeContainerBase);

  /** Constructor */
  TreeContainer(int defaultChildrenCount);

  /** Constructor */
  TreeContainer(TreeContainer<TValue> & tree);

  /** Set the root as an element */
  bool
  SetRoot(const TValue element) override;

  /** The the root as an iterator position */
  bool
  SetRoot(IteratorType & pos);

  /** Set the root as a tree node */
  bool
  SetRoot(TreeNode<TValue> * node) override;

  /** Return true if the element is in the tree */
  bool
  Contains(const TValue element) override;

  /** Return the number of elements in the tree */
  int
  Count() const override;

  /** Return true if the element is a leaf */
  bool
  IsLeaf(const TValue element) override;

  /** Return true if the element is a root */
  bool
  IsRoot(const TValue element) override;

  /** Clear the tree */
  bool
  Clear() override;

  /** operator equal */
  bool
  operator==(TreeContainer<TValue> & tree);

  /** Swap the iterators */
  bool
  Swap(IteratorType & v, IteratorType & w);

  /** Get the root */
  const TreeNodeType *
  GetRoot() const override
  {
    return m_Root.GetPointer();
  }

  /** Add a child to a given parent using values */
  bool
  Add(const TValue child, const TValue parent);

  /** Get node given a value */
  const TreeNodeType *
  GetNode(TValue val) const;

protected:
  TreeContainer();
  ~TreeContainer() override = default;

  typename TreeNodeType::Pointer m_Root;

  int m_DefaultChildrenCount;

  void
  PrintSelf(std::ostream & os, Indent indent) const override;
};
} // namespace itk

#ifndef ITK_MANUAL_INSTANTIATION
#  include "itkTreeContainer.hxx"
#endif

#endif

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: what is the fastest way to copy all data to a new larger hard drive? I was certain this would have been covered before, but I cannot find an answer amongst all the almost-duplicates that come up; sorry if I've missed something obvious.
I have a full 320gb disk inside my machine, a new 1tb disk to replace it, and a USB 2.0 chassis.
It is only data on a single partition, no OS/apps involved, and the old drive will be kept somewhere as backup (no secure wiping etc).
The simple option would be to put new disk in USB chassis, copy files, then swap them over.
But for USB pen drives, reading is around 4x faster than writing. If the same is true for a USB SATA chassis (is it?) then it would be significantly faster to swap the drives first and read from the old drive over USB, right?
Then the other consideration is that copying lots of files is usually slower than a single file of equivalent size.
Is Windows 7 smart enough to do everything in a single lump like that, or is there specialised software that should be used instead?
(Even if SATA->SATA copying is faster than involving USB, knowing what to do when it isn't an option is useful information.)
Summary:

*

*Does a USB SATA chassis suffer from a read/write inequality? (like a USB pen drive does, but unlike a direct SATA connection)

*Can Windows 7 do sequential access? (I can't find confirmation if Robocopy does this.) Or is it necessary to use a bootable CD/USB with something like Clonezilla to achieve sequential copy speeds?

A: If you connect both disks inside your machine by SATA you will have a quicker transfer than USB 2.0 but, due to probably using the same SATA processing chipset, you won't get the full SATA-to-SATA performance. It will be considerably quicker than by USB, however.

A:
Does a USB SATA chassis suffer from a read/write inequality? (like a USB pen drive does, but unlike a direct SATA connection)

No, not really. The read/write speed inequality is a result of the storage media used (cheap flash memory), not the USB interface.
You may see a slight difference in speed on reads and writes, but unlike with a thumbdrive the dominating factor will likely be file system overhead and fragmentation, not the storage media itself.

Can Windows 7 do sequential access? (I can't find confirmation if Robocopy does this.) Or is it necessary to use a bootable CD/USB with something like Clonezilla to achieve sequential copy speeds?

You won't need to do sequential access. In my experience, copying data over a USB interface can reasonably easily achieve speeds of a few tens of megabytes per second, if the storage media itself can sustain such speeds (which a hard disk drive can, unless the data on it is fairly heavily fragmented). That means that copying ~300 GB of data will take no more than a few hours. (As a data point, I recall that when I primed by backup drive, copying ~1.5TB of data took about one full day, for an overall average of ~17 MB/s, but that also involved a lot of seeking which is the real killer for performance.) It may be longer than that if you have lots and lots of very small files (on the order of a few tens of kilobytes), but given the amount of data you are talking about I find it unlikely that this would be the case.
It won't be a problem using the computer while the data is being copied, as long as you don't touch the data on the drive that you are copying from. If you want to work with the data while it's being copied, just copy those files first to a separate folder on the new drive and work with those copies, then copy those modified copies over the originals (on the new drive) when it's finished.
Or simply let the whole thing run over night.

A: Summary:

*

*If the machine has at least two SATA ports, download Clonezilla ISO (~150MB), create a bootable CD/USB, and use that to clone the drives. Will take 1-3 hours, during which time the machine is unusable for other tasks.

*Otherwise, proceed as originally planned - just put the new drive in the USB enclosure, and it'll probably take between 3-6 hours, but at least the machine can still be used during this period.

Details:

Does a USB SATA chassis suffer from a read/write inequality?

Probably not. Since a WD Elements external hard-drive has similar read/write speeds, it is likely that another USB chassis/enclosure will have not have slower writes than reads.

Can Windows 7 do sequential access?

Short answer seems to be: only by paying for Acronis True Image or similar software.
As best I can tell, Windows/Robocopy will only work at the file/directory level, it doesn't have options to clone data directly.
(I haven't seen this explicitly stated, it's inferred from reading between the lines and lack of explicit mentions of how to do it.)
All the options for cloning a drive from within Windows are proprietary/shareware - the Free Software options all require creating a bootable CD/USB (rendering the machine otherwise unusable and thus negating that as a disadvantage of SATA->SATA copying if multiple connections are available).

A: A quick way to do it since the destination disk is larger is by using clonezilla as you said. Just go to the terminal and run dd command like this:
dd if=/dev/source_disk of=/dev/destination_disk bs=1M

Just make sure any of the disks are not mounted

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Burkhard from CARBONlite, covers the prefab construction process on an absolute immaculate Passivhaus job, in a beautiful spot located in Melbourne Australia. It doesn't get much better than this. Outdoor living to die for. Prefab has many benefits for the construction of passive house homes, watch to find out more.
Solar Passive Design or Passive House? - Duration: 5 minutes, 25 seconds.
Waking up with a headache? Bedroom air quality could be the issue! - Duration: 6 minutes, 19 seconds.
Aquatic Centre condensation examples build up inside details - Duration: 67 seconds.
The big commercial air tightness test MISTAKE! - Duration: 4 minutes, 42 seconds.
NCC2019 now includes building airtightness testing, ISO 9972.
ecoEVO #4 THE Prefab Passive House (Mansion!) - Duration: 20 minutes.
NCC 2019: Duct Air Tightness Testing (Building Code) - Duration: 7 minutes, 12 seconds.
Top 5 Building Performance Issues - Duration: 16 minutes.
Garage conversion/fit out to Passive house principles office. - Duration: 12 minutes.
Perforated Grill mask tape, Method B blower door & duct testing - Duration: 104 seconds.
Door seals, window seals the good, the bad and the ugly (2019) - Duration: 2 minutes, 56 seconds.
How to install wall insulation, BETTER... (IN 2019) - Duration: 5 minutes, 52 seconds.
Presentation - Practical Building Air Tightness 101 - Duration: 41 minutes.
ecoEVO #1 CLT Cross Laminated Timber Passive House principled home - Duration: 13 minutes.
How to install a Downlight Mitt, for thermal insulation and fire rating - Duration: 2 minutes, 23 seconds.
The Downlight Mitt is the only Downlight cover product on the market to tackle the problem of downlights head on with an R-Value, a Fire Rating and an LED energy efficient Lamp.
DOOR SEAL & WINDOW SEAL: HOW TO: efficiencySEAL (EFFECTIVE & QUICK) - Duration: 3 minutes, 49 seconds.
ecoEVO #2 Straw Bale Home | Low Energy Passive House (2018) - Duration: 29 minutes.
Does roof ventilation work? (KEEP AUSSIE HOT ROOF OUT) - Duration: 113 seconds.
How to Sound Proof recessed lighting OR in-ceiling speakers - Duration: 76 seconds.
Heating Losses through Evaporative Cooling - Duration: 3 minutes, 1 second.
How to Improve Ducted Heating Energy Efficiency - Duration: 117 seconds.
Efficiency issues with LED Downlights. Effects on Insulation & air infiltration - Duration: 3 minutes, 32 seconds.
How to do a Ducted Heating Clothes Drying Cupboard - Duration: 82 seconds.
Downlight Mitt (Cover) with Gimble vs Downlight no cover with Gimble. - Duration: 2 minutes, 12 seconds.
Stop BATHROOM Mould in a shower & reduce home energy (EFFECTIVE VENTILATION) - Duration: 7 minutes, 30 seconds.


There's No "I" in Teamwork!
With heavy heartfelt thoughts and prayers concerning the disaster of Isaac, I figured now is as good a time as any to discuss "teamwork." After messy Isaac rip roars its nasty head through land, it will take hours of teamwork to clean and repair the clutter. It will also take a team of folks to roll out at a moment's notice to help others to safety. From first responders to firefighters, medics, police, 911 operators, sheriffs, national guard, neighbors, family and friends to nurses, doctors, hospital staff and all those in between, good people along the gulf coast have geared up for action and are in the thick of it right now.
1. cooperative or coordinated effort on the part of a group of persons acting together as a team or in the interests of a common cause.
2. work done with a team.
In other words, a joint effort to obtain, capture, create or achieve a common goal or purpose with no one individual, but a group of individuals working together.
As a football mama, I can only name a hand full of sports that truly define teamwork in unequal but remarkably similar ways to public service personnel or military folks. Football, of course, is one of them. Can you name any others? In football it takes all 11 men executing the game plan. But think for a minute about the entire concept of an offensive linemen's job.
O-Lineman takes the majority of pounding and the brunt of contact hits on every down in order to protect his quarterback, thus moving the ball out of the pocket to increase yardage. Hopefully, that yardage is in the right direction, if the OL does his job! But, it doesn't stop there. The QB has to be doing his job too and then so do the guys who carry the ball. Execution = Effectiveness of a team. Teamwork.
Yet, can you name one OL in the NFL, or on the college level? But, I bet we can all name at least one quarterback on either level. The sportscasters will mention the five guys up front usually during action. And they might call their names out in the lineup for offense before a commercial break. Still, these guys personify the teamwork message, taking the hits so the other guys get the glory. Ask any offensive linemen if he cares that he is not singled out the way running backs or wide receivers are and his answer may shock you. He doesn't. He isn't out to seek glory or hot-dog. The psyche of an O-Lineman strikes me as the essences of a man's unselfish heart and character. Teamwork.
Alec Baldwin's character as Lt. Colonel J. Doolittle in the movie "Pearl Harbor" said, "There's nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer." How true! It took men and women in uniform who volunteered with an unselfish heart to achieve unimaginable triumphs in WWII or in other conflicts and wars that we as a country have endured. I see no It's in any of their stories. Teamwork.
Astronaut Neil Armstrong is another example of a "no I" guy. What a great American! He took no credit for what he did. The man was the first to step on the moon and he gave all the credit to his fellow teammates, including the folks on the ground in the space program. That's the very heart of teamwork.
So, maybe at the end of the day, teamwork is best described as an unselfish act or action taken by individuals for the greater good. That sounds like some purdy amazing men and women and yes, football's offensive linemen! But one more group of people that cannot be over looked in the teamwork category is Mom's. Most moms know a thing or two about sacrifice, unselfishness and teamwork. Yes, we could learn a lot about teamwork, with no I-formation, from these America's heroes and football and moms!


The first in the Conceptual Art group, examining intellectualised art.
This plain panel has meaning only as part of the full group of five works where this serves as a start, a palette cleanser for the coming works, like a plain note, like the first notes of Beethoven's 4th Symphony, nothing but a setting of the scene. The title also evokes the calming effect, settling, preparation.


Well hi, hope you all are doing well, preparing well for the DMRD Admission. Well, today I am going to throw some light on the DMRD Admission. Basically, this is a 2 year Course which includes in-depth knowledge of Radiodiagnosis, Radiotherapy, and Radiology.
Course Details:-uses of high frequency in human diagnosis and sonography which includes treatment of cardi0, vascular and muscular disorders.Study of exposure to constant Radiation and live motion of X-Ray used to image the digestive system, monitor the administration of a contrast agent to highlight vessels and organs or to help position devices within the body.Radiography to look through tissue to examine bones, cavities and foreign objects; include cardiovascular imaging and Interventional radiography.Computed tomography, which provides cross-sectional views (slices) of the body, can also reconstruct additional images from those taken to provide more information in either 2D or 3D.Magnetic Resonance Imaging(MRI) FOR 2D and 3D Mapping different types of human organ.Nuclear Medicine, which includes tracer of radioactive elements to consider whether different parts of Body like heart, digestive systems are working well or not. We provide admission for diploma in radiology at best package in top private colleges of India.DMRD Admission at most affordable packages in India call – 09916439069 Radiotherapy i.e treatment of cancerous cells.Mammography and Mammotherapy:- Use of X-ray to image breast tissues and treatment of breast cancer.
Take DMRD admission through management quota through India's most trusted educational consultancy in India.
Get 100% to confirm and guaranteed admission in diploma in Radiodiagnosis through management and NRI quota at best budget and packages in India's top private medical colleges and institutions.


text:
Midnight Dunes
by Laura Griffin Laura Griffin
Paperback(Mass Market Paperback)
Paperback-$8.99 eBook-$8.99 Audiobook-$0.00 View All Available Formats & Editions
When the shocking discovery of a murdered woman's body disturbs the tranquility of tourist season, the police detective in charge of the puzzling case must work alongside the new filmmaker in town to pursue every lead in the new romantic thriller from New York Times bestselling author Laura Griffin.
After a scandal derails her television reporting career, Macey Burns comes looking for a change of pace in Lost Beach, Texas. She's ready to focus on her first passion—documentary filmmaking—and has a new job working for the island's tourism board, shooting footage of the idyllic beachside community. Her plans for a relaxing rebound are dashed when she realizes the cottage she's renting belonged to the woman whose body was just found in the sand dunes.
Detective Owen Breda is under intense pressure to solve this murder. Violent crimes are rising in his small town, and he can't stand to see anyone else hurt…especially not the beautiful documentarian who keeps showing up at the precinct.
With the clock ticking, cameras rolling, and body count climbing, Macey and Owen must use all their resources to find the killer without getting caught in the crosshairs.
Texas Murder Files Series , #3
Laura Griffin is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than twenty-five books and novellas. She is a two-time RITA Award winner as well as the recipient of the Daphne du Maurier Award.
Macey Burns drove through the drumming rain, gripping the wheel until her knuckles were white.
"Are you here yet?" Josh asked.
"I'm running late," she told him over the phone. "I hit traffic leaving town and then it's been pouring the last two hours. I just crossed the bridge."
"It's-"
Noise drowned out his words.
"What?" she asked.
"It's a causeway. No one calls it a bridge here."
"I can barely hear you. Where are you?"
"At that bar I told you about, the one with the pool tables," he said. "You're going to love it."
Macey tore her gaze away from the highway to check the clock. It was almost eleven, and what should have been a four-hour drive had taken more than five.
"Sounds good, but not tonight. I haven't even found the house yet, and I still need to unpack the car."
"That's okay. I'm about to leave anyway. Where are you, exactly?"
"I think I may have missed the turn," she told him. "I just passed a sign that said White Dunes Park, five miles."
"No, it should be coming up on your right. You'll see it."
Josh had been on the island all week scouting locations and already knew his way around.
"You need help unpacking?" he asked.
"I'm good."
"So, hey, heads up. I just found out that Channel Six is down here."
"Channel Six from San Antonio?"
"Yeah, Rayna and her crew. They're reporting on that woman who went missing two weeks ago. She disappeared without a trace."
Macey had read an article about it online. It was the type of story that normally would have captivated her attention, but she'd managed to push it out of her mind.
"We're not here to do news," she reminded him.
"No kidding. I just thought you'd want to know. In case you see them in town."
Rayna had once been Macey's fiercest rival, but that was months ago, before Macey walked away from her job and her life and the endless slog of the twenty-four-hour news cycle.
Her tires hit a slick patch, and she clenched the wheel. She didn't want to think about her old job right now. She just wanted to get to her destination. Her shoulders were in knots from the drive, and she wanted a glass of wine and a steamy shower.
"So, are we still on for tomorrow?" she asked Josh. "Nine o'clock?"
"Assuming the weather clears. No use scouting locations in the rain."
"It's supposed to be beautiful," she said. "Let's start on the north end. We can meet at my beach house."
Beach house. She pictured the sun-drenched deck overlooking the surf. She'd been daydreaming about it since she first found the listing.
"Sure you don't need help with the equipment?" Josh asked.
"I can handle it."
"Okay, well, see you tomorrow, then."
She ended the call and squinted through the swishing wipers at the sign up ahead: White Dunes Park, 2 Miles.
A strobe of lightning lit the sky, revealing empty fields on either side of the two-lane highway. She was well past the tourist center of Lost Beach, past the hotels and restaurants and T-shirt shops.
She hit a bump, and the car jerked right. Her heart skipped a beat as the Honda fishtailed and skidded. She clenched the wheel and tried to get control, but it careened onto the shoulder with a jaw-rattling thunk. She jabbed the brakes and slammed to a halt.
Macey blinked at the windshield, shocked. Her heart raced as she tried to catch her breath. The car was tilted, and the headlights illuminated a patch of weeds and a gravelly strip of shoulder.
Macey put the gearshift in park and shoved open the door. She started to get out, but the seat belt yanked her back. Unbuckling it, she slid out. Rain pelted her as she looked around in a daze.
What the hell had happened? One second she'd been driving along and the next second it was like aliens had seized control of the car. And she'd definitely felt a bump. Had she hit something?
Glancing at the road, she saw no other traffic. She retrieved her cell phone and slammed the door. Her wet flip-flops thwacked against the gravel as she walked around the front of the Honda and checked for damage. No dents. No sign of an animal.
She stopped beside the front bumper. The right tire was flat.
"Crap."
She switched on her cell phone's flashlight and aimed it at the tire. Rain streamed down her face and neck. What now? She turned off the flashlight and called Josh, but he didn't pick up, so she sent him a text:
SOS! Flat tire. Call me.
A car raced past and sprayed her with water. She yelped and whirled around, but the driver didn't even slow. Cursing, she glanced up and down the highway. This end of the island was fairly desolate-mostly campgrounds and nature parks. She'd passed a marina, but that was a ways back.
When she'd planned her trip down here, she had wanted seclusion. After weeks of scouring listings, she'd been ecstatic when a long-term rental popped up on the island's north end, just footsteps from the beach. The idea of being away from town, surrounded by sand and waves and the soundtrack of nature, had been immensely appealing. But now she wasn't sure. Maybe she should have followed Josh's advice and rented an apartment in town for the summer.
Macey shivered and rubbed her bare arms, chilled from the rain despite the warm temperature. Her tank top and jeans were already soaked through, and she was out here alone and stranded.
I can handle it.
Ha. Famous last words.
She went back around the Honda and reached inside once again, this time to pop the trunk. It was a new-to-her car, and she didn't know the spare tire situation, but surely there was something in back. Macey had helped a boyfriend change a tire in college once. Well, maybe not helped, but she'd watched, and it had seemed pretty straightforward.
She tromped back to the trunk and slid aside the tripod and the suitcase filled with camera equipment. After finding the corner tab, she peeled back the layer of carpet.
Score! A spare tire, along with a heavy metal tool-a lug wrench?-and what had to be a jack.
But the spare seemed . . . off. She frowned down at the anemic-looking tire. Pressing her fingers against it, she confirmed her suspicion.
The spare was flat, too.
"Crap," she said again.
Macey checked her phone. Still nothing from Josh. She hated asking a man to rescue her, but it was freaking pouring, and she was out of options.
Another lightning strobe, followed by a clap of thunder. Then a jagged white bolt zapped down from above.
She looked up at the sky, awestruck. The ferocious beauty of it reminded her of why she'd been attracted to Lost Beach in the first place. She'd been lured by the film project, of course, which would pay her bills while she got her life sorted. But beyond that, she'd been attracted by the dramatic juxtaposition of nature and people. She'd been lured by the rugged Texas coast and one of the last long stretches of untamed beach and twenty-foot dunes.
Rainwater trickled down the front of her shirt, reminding her of her plight. She stared down at the useless tire.
Her trip was off to a rocky start. She wasn't superstitious-at least not usually-and she refused to take tonight as a bad omen. She was here for the entire summer, and no matter what happened she planned to make the best of it.
A flash of light had her turning around. A pair of headlights approached, high and wide apart, like a pickup truck. The truck slowed, and she felt a ripple of unease.
But maybe this was just what she needed-some Good Samaritan here to help her.
The truck rolled to a stop and the driver's-side door opened.
Macey squinted into the glare. Nerves fluttered in her stomach as a man got out. Tall, wide shoulders, baseball cap. She couldn't see his face, only his towering silhouette against the light as he walked toward her.
As he got closer, she saw that he was very tall-six-three, at least, and he easily outweighed her by a hundred pounds. Oftentimes Macey liked being short because people underestimated her. This was not one of those times.
"Need a hand?"
The deep voice sent a dart of alarm through her.
"I'm good, thanks."
He continued moving toward her, and she took a step back.
"Is it your tire?"
She spied something in his hand, something black and bulky, like a club or-
A flashlight. He switched it on and approached the tire.
"It's fine," she said.
"It's shredded."
"I've got it handled, actually."
He took a step toward her, and she stepped back, clutching her phone and wishing it was a tube of pepper spray. She kept one in her glove box for emergencies. She'd never needed it before, but of course now that she did, it was well out of reach.
He walked around her and aimed the flashlight at her trunk.
"Spare's flat, too."
She eased away from him, and he seemed to get the hint because he lowered the flashlight and stepped back.
"You need a ride?" he asked.
She stared at him. Did he seriously think she was going to climb into a truck with a complete stranger?
"My boyfriend's coming. He's on his way now. He's a mechanic," she added inanely.
The man watched her from beneath the brim of the hat. The shadows made it hard for her to make out his features, but he seemed to have a strong jaw. Beads of rain dripped from it as he stood there, looking her up and down. He was checking her out, she realized, and the back of her neck tingled.
She disappeared without a trace.
Macey's heartbeat thrummed as they stood there in the rain. He wasn't going anywhere. She'd told him she didn't need his help, and he was just standing there, looking at her.
A distant glow caught her eye as another car approached. She held her breath, watching as the low headlights drew near. Josh's ancient hatchback came into view, and she felt a rush of relief. He slowed and rolled past her, his taillights glowing as he pulled onto the shoulder.
"That's him!" Macey slammed the trunk with maybe a bit too much force in her hurry to put some distance between them. "Thanks for stopping!"
She strode toward the Toyota as the driver's-side door opened. Josh didn't get out right away, and she quickened her pace. Why hadn't he parked closer?
She glanced over her shoulder as the stranger trudged back to his truck without a backward glance.
"What the hell happened?" Josh asked as he got out.
"I had a blowout."
"How?"
"No idea. Maybe I hit something in the road."
Relief filled her as she took in Josh's familiar appearance-the ponytail, the scruffy goatee, the green army jacket. She reached up and hugged him.
"You okay?" he asked, clearly caught off guard. She wasn't a hugger.
"Fine. Thanks for coming."
He looked over her shoulder. "Who was that?"
"Some guy." She glanced back at the pickup as it pulled onto the highway. Shuddering, she watched it speed away.
"Shit, Mace." Josh walked toward her little blue Honda. "It's completely flat."
"That's what I told you."
"We're going to drown out here trying to change this."
"We can't." She strode past him. "The spare's flat, too. Here, grab a bag. You can give me a ride."
She opened the back door and reached for one of the two black duffels.
"You're just going to leave it overnight?" he asked.
"I don't know yet, but I'm definitely not leaving ten thousand dollars' worth of equipment on the side of the road."
Together, they hauled all the luggage to his car. He popped the back hatch, and they managed to squeeze everything inside. Then she went around to the passenger seat, where she shoveled fast-food bags and empty cups onto the floor.
"This is a pigsty," she said as she got in.
"Thank you, Joshua, for coming to get me in the middle of a thunderstorm," he said.
She yanked the door shut. "Thank you." She sighed. "I owe you."
"I'll add it to your tab," he said, starting the car. The engine made a little coughing sound before coming to life.
Macey grabbed a Dairy Queen napkin from the cup holder and squeezed rain from the ends of her hair. Josh looked over his shoulder, but the duffels blocked the view. He used the mirrors to check for traffic as he pulled onto the highway.
"You think there's a towing place open this late?" Macey asked.
"Who knows? You could look."
She used her phone to do a search.
"You're on Primrose, right?" he asked.
She glanced up. His car's wiper blades were in worse shape than hers, but she was able to make out a street sign up ahead.
"Yes, Primrose Trail. That's it there."
He hung a right onto a narrow caliche road that wasn't nearly as picturesque as the name implied. They passed a water tank and a clump of squatty palm trees, then a leaning wooden mailbox. Macey peered out the window, searching for the house that the mailbox belonged to, but it was hard to see past the overgrown vegetation.
The Toyota bumped along as they passed another mailbox. This house was closer to the road, a weathered wooden cabin on stilts. It was dark and empty-looking-maybe someone's weekend place. Macey leaned forward, searching for anything that resembled the little white bungalow that she'd fallen in love with on the website.
"I still don't get why you wanted to be all the way out here," Josh said.
"We came here for the beach. I want to be near it."
"Um, no. We came here to film commercials for the tourism board."
"Well, when we're not working, I plan to hit the beach."
"You'll burn to a crisp."
He wasn't wrong. With her strawberry blond hair and fair skin, she'd spent her whole life slathering on sunblock.
"Not to sunbathe," she told him. "I'll take pictures. Or do yoga. Or maybe take up running."
He lifted an eyebrow but didn't comment on the likelihood of her suddenly becoming athletic.
They hit a rut, and she braced her hand on the dashboard as they passed a dilapidated house on stilts, this one with a rusted boat trailer in the driveway.
An animal darted in front of the car.
"Cat!" she yelped.
Josh slammed on the brakes. "It's a possum."
"That was a cat."
Griffin's exhilarating third Texas Murder Files romance (after Flight) finds former television reporter Macey Burns moving to the island of Lost Beach, Tex., to film an ad campaign for the small town's tourism board. Shortly after she arrives in town, the previous tenant of her rental house, Julia Murphy, turns up murdered—and Macey's investigative instincts won't let her leave the case alone. Det. Owen Breda is determined to catch the killer and welcomes Macey's input. As the pair work together, sparks fly while the body count rises, with their initial prime suspect turning up dead. It soon becomes clear that the killer's got a secret to hide and he's not taking any chances. Griffin's characters leap off the page, and she throws myriad twists, turns, and red herrings into her taut plot as it rockets to a heart-pounding finale. The result is a high-stakes romantic thriller that's sure to please. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary. (May)
"Griffin's characters leap off the page, and she throws myriad twists, turns, and red herrings into her taut plot as it rockets to a heart-pounding finale. The result is a high-stakes romantic thriller that's sure to please."—Publishers Weekly
Praise for Laura Griffin and her novels
"I love smart, sophisticated, fast-moving romantic thrillers and Laura Griffin writes them brilliantly."— New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
"Gritty, imaginative, sexy! You must read Laura Griffin."—New York Times bestselling author Cindy Gerard
"Top-notch romantic suspense! Fast pace, tight plotting, terrific mystery, sharp dialogue, fabulous characters."—New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan
"A gripping, white-knuckle read. You won't be able to put it down."—New York Times bestselling author Brenda Novak
"An emotional, exciting page-turner. Griffin deftly balances the mystery and the love story."—The Washington Post
On Mystic Lake
The Lies I Told
Silver Creek Bodyguard
Tough Customer: A Novel
Sweet Surrender (Sweet Series #1)
Fatal Consequences (and Fatal Destiny) (Fatal Series #3)
Politics can be murder…
Lieutenant Sam Holland has no sooner accepted Senator Nick Cappuano's proposal than she's back on the job. A woman has been found brutally murdered and evidence points to
Fatal Deception (and After the Final Epilogue) (Fatal Series #5)
Murder comes to the White House…
The wife of the White House deputy chief of staff has been beaten to death, and their one-year-old daughter is missing. DC police lieutenant Sam Holland is in
Gansett After Dark (Gansett Island Series #11)
A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller!
Owen Lawry is days away from leaving Gansett Island to attend the trial of his father, who is charged with assaulting his mother almost a year ago. He has
Fool for Love (Gansett Island Series #2)
Sometimes you have to rock the boat . . .
Joe Cantrell, owner of the Gansett Island Ferry Company, has been in love with Janey McCarthy for as long as he can remember. And for just as long,
Surrender (Careless Whispers Series #3)
Chris and Sara from Inside Out return in the explosive finale to Ella's story from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones with the third book in the sexy, suspenseful Careless Whispers
Dirty Rich One Night Stand (Dirty Rich Series #1)
DIRTY, RICH ONE NIGHT STAND.
That's all it was supposed to be. Her. Him. Pleasure. And then a fast goodbye. He's a stranger. And yet, he's not. She knows him even though he doesn't know her.
He's the
Dangerous Secrets (Tall, Dark, and Deadly Series #2)
Being a divorce attorney for the rich and famous isn't all it's cracked up to be. Julie Harrison has learned that love doesn't last, and she's sworn never to make the same mistakes as her mother, or
En tu piel (If I Were You)
Haunting Adeline
The Manipulator
I can manipulate the emotions of anyone who lets me.
I will make you hurt, make you cry, make you laugh and sigh.
But my words don't affect him. Especially not when I plead for him to
On the eve of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993, Terri Zimmerman returns to her childhood home in South St. Louis, and her life is changed forever. When she was growing up, Terri lived with
Hunting Adeline
The conclusion to the Cat and Mouse Duet is here...
Death walks alongside me,
But the reaper is no match for me.
I'm trapped in a world full of monsters dressed as men, and those who aren't
Vipers and Virtuosos
From the second I saw her, I knew she'd be my ruin.
Sitting all alone at the bar, she looked like an angel.
Eurydice in human form; her beauty eclipsed by demons.
Now, I'm one of them.
Still Beating: A Dark Romance
When Cora attends her sister's birthday party, she expects at most a hangover or a walk of shame. She doesn't anticipate a stolen wallet, leaving her stranded and dependent on Dean—her arch
Stolen Heir: Illustrated Edition
Beauty and the Beast with a Mafia Twist
Nessa Griffin leads a lonely life. Compassionate and gentle, she fills no role in her family's mafia empire. She struggles to prove herself at home and at her
Hideaway: A Novel
"Reading Hideaway is like a mini vacation, as Roberts transports you from the sun-drenched mountains of Big Sur to the rolling hills of Ireland to the bustling streets of New York City." - Associated
Hideaway is like a mini vacation, as Roberts transports you from the sun-drenched mountains of Big Sur to the rolling hills of Ireland to the bustling streets of New York City." - Associated " data-ean="9781250207111" data-title="Hideaway: A Novel">See Details

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Duplo International
About Duplo
Duplo Supplies
Chapel Shoulders Increased Workload With New Speedmaster
By Rhys Handley, Monday 12 August 2019
Chapel Press has bought a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster CX 75 to accommodate a recent surge in orders.
The CX 75 will help carry some of the work currently run by Chapel on an XL 75
Due to be delivered to the Stockport operation in September, the new Speedmaster cost £700,000 and will join a 10-colour XL 75 which has been working a 24/5 week with some weekend overtime required.
Chapel also drafted in a Duplo 600i bookletmaker to further enhance its provision to books clients. Installed in early August, it represents a further £60,000 investment for the company.
Managing director Tim O'Shea said: "We have been extremely busy over the past 12 months and therefore needed extra press capacity. We have been a Heidelberg house for many years but felt we needed to look at other press manufacturers. We considered Komori, but felt that the CX 75 was overall a stronger press: better built and a better investment.
"With already having a 10-colour perfecting press, the five-colour will obviously take on all the single-sided work and with having a coating unit it will do all the quick turnaround work.
"We also have a client who we produce a lot of CMYK plus gold plus seal. The CX 75 will improve both turnaround speed and any drying issues."
Heidelberg's B2 Speedmaster CX 75 runs at speeds up to 15,000sph. It will run on a single-shift basis on its arrival but is likely to step up to double-day shifts within six months, according to O'Shea. It is also likely to lead to further hires to Chapel's 33-strong staff.
The Duplo 600i runs at a maximum speed of 5,200 booklets/hr, taking paper from 64-300gsm and taking sheet sizes up to 350x508mm or 230x610mm.
"We like to think of ourselves as a one-stop shop," concluded O'Shea. "We print B2 litho on five- and 10-colour presses, digital on Ricoh and a recently installed Kodak NexPress, comprehensive finishing department along with a wide-format and promotional gifts department."
O'Shea's 36-year-old company currently "squeezes everything" into a 1,490sqm factory, so he said a move or expansion is likely on the cards in the near future. Currently turning over £3.25m, O'Shea anticipates reaching £4m with the help of the new press.
A new platesetter is also likely to be installed, due to the increased demand the will be felt from running a dual-Speedmaster shop.
Source: PrintWeek
Tweets by DuploUK
Duplo continues sponsorship of Small Posts and Islands Postal Forum 16-19th April 2018, Cyprus
stay connected with Duplo
Duplo Sites:
Copyright © Duplo International All Rights Reserved 2020


text:
Golden Hurricane run over San Jose State
In the season opener against San Jose State, the Golden Hurricane run-game led by junior running back D'Angelo Brewer, routed the Spartans 45–10. The offense looked sharp throughout the first half, picking up right where they left on in the Independence Bowl, scoring within 46 seconds after touching the ball.
These two teams looked to be an even match throughout the week leading up to the game. This was the seventh time that the Golden Hurricane and the Spartans have played, with the lifetime series being split 3–3 before the game. They also both finished 6–7 and went to bowl games.
The Golden Hurricane started the game on defense and forced a San Jose punt to get the ball back on their own 8-yard line. The offense and returning wide receiver—who missed nine games last season due to injury—didn't miss a beat with the first offensive play of the game a 46 strike to Lucas deep. Two plays later Brewer made his case as the leader of the Tulsa run-game with a 38-yard run into the endzone. Four plays, 46 seconds, touchdown.
Lucas' return is big news for the Golden Hurricane. He was a 1,000 yard receiver in 2014 and on pace to do that again last season picking up 409 yards and five touchdowns in less than four full games. He led the team in receiving yards in Saturday's win with 112 yards, his seventh career game of over 100.
For the next couple of drives the Spartans and Golden Hurricane traded punts with neither team seeming to make any ground. Defensively the Golden Hurricane were standing strong, forcing incompletions and finishing drives off with sacks. With five minutes left in the quarter the Spartans got the ball back but once again didn't seem to be doing anything on their drive that started with a penalty for 12 players in the huddle. But, with one throw—a 64-yard pass from Kenny Potter to Rashead Johnson—San Jose State tied up the game at 7–7 apiece.
Tulsa responded by rattling off 38 unanswered points starting just two minutes later. On the ensuing Tulsa drive, Brewer ran around the Spartan's defense, but the drive stalled at the 18, forcing the Golden Hurricane to settle for a field goal. After their defense forced a three-and-out on two pass deflects, Tulsa once again ran straight over San Jose State, capped off by a five-yard touchdown run by Brewer, his second of the game.
On the first play of the next drive, Jesse Brubaker picked off Potter's pass after it was tipped and ran it in for a 24-yard touchdown return. Dating to last year this was the fifth pick-six in Tulsa's last seven games. After the first quarter Tulsa led the Spartans 24–7.
The next Spartan drive ended in another turnover, this time a fumble recovered by Frankie Davis Jr. Tulsa took advantage and put up another seven points on an 11-yard pass from Dane Evans to Dustin Hobbs, Evans' only touchdown of the game.
After stopping San Jose late in the second quarter, but having their drive stopped immediately after, TU's Dalton Parks rocketed a punt 61-yards. The Spartans couldn't keep control of the ball and fumbled it into the endzone where it was recovered by Mckinley Whitfield for another Tulsa touchdown putting the Golden Hurricane 31 points ahead of the Spartans at the half.
The second half started off almost the same as the first did, with the Golden Hurricane scoring on their opening possession, once again on a Brewer touchdown, his third and final touchdown of the game. After an impressive four-play goal-line stand in the middle of the third quarter, TU started running down the clock to preserve the win. Sophomore quarterback Chad President subbed in for Dane Evans in the fourth quarter to get playing time.
San Jose State scored a field goal at the start of the fourth quarter but couldn't muster any more offense against the Tulsa defense as they were held to just 287 yards. In comparison, Tulsa rushed for 305 yards and had 512 total yards of offense in the win. Tulsa held the Spartans to just 53 rushing yards, the lowest in any game since 2012.
Brewer rushed for a career-high 164 yards and already has half as many touchdowns as he did all of last season.
"Well, I thought it was a great team win. Obviously we've still got a lot of things to improve on, but those are a whole lot easier to correct when you get it after a win, being able to go in a fix those things on tape. But I thought the way our guys came out and competed, especially early, I thought we captured momentum early. The big pass to Keevan [Lucas] kind of set the tone there in the first drive, and then defensively coming out and playing as well as they did, I mean, I thought they did an outstanding job stopping the run all night." Head Coach Philip Montgomery said in his postgame press conference.
Later when asked, Montgomery emphasized just how important the rushing defense was for the Golden Hurricane. "I'm really pleased with what we did stopping the run. They had four of their five offensive linemen back plus their tight end back. The only thing they were really missing from that running game last year was their running back. So I thought our defensive line handled that front really well and did a great job of stopping the run, and I thought we — Coach Young, Coach Norwood did a good job of keeping them confused and giving them different looks and keeping us on the edge right there. Really pleased with what we did defensively today, but we've still got a lot of room to grow."
The Golden Hurricane (1–0) will be in action again next week on the road against the Ohio State Buckeyes (1–0). Ohio State — currently ranked sixth in the country — won the Fiesta Bowl last year and were the National Champions the year prior. In their first game against Bowling Green they won 77–10. That game will be broadcasted nationally on ABC at 2:30 Tulsa time.
Categories:	Sports	/ No Responses / by tucollegian 7 September 2016


Here is 1 brand new 75CK093G or 75CK093 PowerCut. 3/8 or (.375 pitch) .063 gauge or (1.6mm) and 93 drive links. Fits 28" bar.
If you have a 75 ,A3 ,(45,50,or 83 in Husqvarna) mark stamped on your drive link and there is 93 drive links these will fit your saw. Check bar for info stamped on it.


Eric Loepp discusses how he uses data to stimulate student learning on episode 192 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.
Eric Loepp completed his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh and is currently an assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he teaches courses in American government, political behavior, and research methods. His scholarly research focuses on candidate evaluation and electoral decision-making, particularly in primary elections. In the classroom, he emphasizes team- and data-based teaching, developing activities and assignments that focus on data generated by students themselves. An article documenting this "data-driven classroom" concept has been published in the Journal of Political Science Education, and he is currently working on a project to facilitate collaboration among faculty to share best practices and ideas concerning data-based teaching.
Bonni: [00:00:49] Today's guest Eric Loepp completed his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Eric is currently an assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater where he teaches courses in American government, political behavior, and research methods. His scholarly research focuses on candidate evaluation and electorial decision making particularly in primary elections in the classroom, Eric emphasizes team and database teaching, developing activities and assignments that focus on data generated by students themselves, as you're going to hear in today's interview with Eric. Eric, welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed.
Eric: [00:01:34] Hi Bonni, thanks for having me.
Bonni: [00:01:35] I told you that I was reading your article that today's conversation is based on and had about 500 questions that I wanted to ask you, so I'm going to try to narrow it down a tiny bit. And one thing I first want to begin with is just how did you start thinking about using data in your teaching.? Just in general, what piqued your curiosity and interest in that?
Eric: [00:01:59] There were a few things that did that for me. Number one is I always thought there was kind of a disconnect for academics when we go to graduate school, we are trained to be researchers and to use data and all that and then we also get some training on teaching. And we often think of those as two different parts of our job. And so early on I was thinking why can't we take advantage of our technical skill and our ability to do research and leverage that into the teaching side of things? And not treat them so much as separate entities?
Eric: [00:02:30] So that had always been a curiosity for me and it was really reinforced when I started teaching here a few years ago because I noticed a lot of students, as we all deal with, maybe don't always want to engage with the book. I have a lot of non majors taking a lot of my courses. And I started thinking What are ways that we can engage the current college student and how can we make class more lively and interesting.
Eric: [00:02:55] And one idea I had was well, we're dealing with a selfie generation, right. A lot of people are interested in what's going on in the world and it's a very kind of personal type of society that we live in now. What if we leveraged our technical skills and collected information from students that we could use in the course of illustrating our course concepts or engaging in class activities. Why not rely on the students in front of us for that information rather than say a survey or a graph or a table or some other figure in a textbook that the students aren't really a part of?
Bonni: [00:03:30] You title your article Beyond Polls: Using Science and Student Data to Stimulate Learning. And one of the things I took away from reading it is that it's not like you don't think that polls are good or some of the ways and approaches that different disciplines are using. Like you give the example of peer instruction, which people who've been listening for a while or reading in this space might recognize as I get asked my opinion or I get asked to answer a question that does have a correct answer. I give my answer, then I talk to the person sitting next to me. Then I see if my answer has changed at all.
Bonni: [00:04:05] I mean those are all good practices, but you really wanted to go a little bit deeper into what's possible in using some of these technologies. Could you talk about your early experiments with doing this? How did you first start into going a little bit beyond what traditional polls are thought of?
Eric: [00:04:24] Right. The first thing that I did was make my own life very complicated by doing everything with paper and pencil. I would have an idea, "Hey could I explore this phenomenon by doing a little experiment with my students?" And randomly assigned some of them to read this or to see that and then compare their answers on the big screen. And I did that and it worked pretty well.
Eric: [00:04:45] But it was incredibly time intensive and I couldn't give them results on the spot. And so there would also often be a lag. And maybe what I talked about last week is not as applicable to what is going on this week, but now I have data from last week available this week and it got kind of complicated.
Eric: [00:05:00] So I really got into the idea of can I collect data in a little bit more of a formal fashion. Can I do it early on? And is it possible to get information from students that maybe you can't get using a a polling system. I think they're great. They can be wonderful for a lot of things, low stakes assessments and asking students how things are coming across and things like that. But what if we wanted to show some sort of experimental results? Or what if there was something qualitative? I know the Polling technology is getting better and can increasingly facilitate things like free responses. But a lot of what we have available is somewhat limited in the types of inquiries that we can pose to students.
Eric: [00:05:41] And I wanted to go a little bit beyond that and create different activities and even assignments coming out of data that they provide. And so I found that putting it all together in a large survey, with perhaps some follow up surveys throughout the term, gives me much more dynamic data than I could get using a polling system.
Bonni: [00:05:59] You contrast of course using external data in a political science class with using internal data, where we use students as the data. And I wanted to just stop for a moment because I think that like me, many people who listen to the show are- I shouldn't say I think, I know that most people who listen to this show are into politics and are aware of just how important it is for us to be civic minded.
Bonni: [00:06:23] You talk about external data being used in political science classes and you give this example of just some of the amazing data visualization that is happening today. And I'm curious if you have one or two sites where you just think that's my go to for data visualization when it comes to politics? Any interesting sources that we might be able to link to in the show notes?
Eric: [00:06:47] Sure, absolutely. FiveThirtyEight is the website started by Nate Silver, it has gained a lot of popular attraction. It's kind of an interesting fusion of both the technical side of politics and information while also being somewhat accessible to most people who have a basic understanding of data. So I've liked FiveThirtyEight in the past. Occasionally newspapers, The New York Times or The Washington Post will have an article or a web page.
Eric: [00:07:14] One of my favorites that a newspaper did was they let you go onto their web page and they had a empty graph showing the eight years that Barack Obama was president. And you could drag your mouse across and indicate what did you think happened in the economy during those eight years while Barack Obama was president. Did it go up? Did it go down? Were there peaks? Were there valleys? And you draw your lines in. After that you can press a button and the actual data will be overlaid on top of yours. And the kind of the fun element is you could see as the newspaper put it, are you as smart as you think you are? Is what you thought happened actually what happened? And I find those can be really, really valuable and some of them are programs that students can use, some are just kind of more for fun. But I think anything we can do to try to help students engage with data is very, very helpful.
Eric: [00:08:08] One kind of side benefit of this whole program is helping students develop basic data literacy skills which increasingly we're seeing in higher ed is becoming a priority. How do we prepare a generation to work with data? Be able to communicate effectively? Understand it effectively? And that's not even the main goal of what I'm doing here. But I found it's been kind of a residual effect very much to my pleasure.
Bonni: [00:08:30] I really get intrigued by this part of learning. I was first introduced to some of the formal research around it by James Lang's book called Small Teaching. But just the importance of using prediction in our teaching and how that can be a powerful way to both engage students and help to deepen their learning. So it sounds like with some of these interactive tools you're talking about I can use that right there when we're talking about that technology.
Bonni: [00:08:56] Yeah. I've enjoyed the ways in which some of these creative data visualizers just present information and I think that's a great example of one where we can even predict. And did you find that your students or yourself were as smart as you thought you were?
Eric: [00:09:11] I'm trying to remember exactly how I did. I remember I was always off a little bit maybe I had the general patterns right. But it's very interesting because a lot of people are generally knowledgeable about what's going on in the moment. But you go back a few months or a few quarters, I don't know what the unemployment rate was a year ago.
Eric: [00:09:29] Yet we know that in politics a lot of people's perceptions of political figures and how is the country going? Right direction? Wrong direction? That kind of thing. A lot of people in political science would argue that's kind of a running tally. It's an opinion that we update from time to time even if we're not really consciously following exactly why we're updating it.
Eric: [00:09:49] So I cannot admit to getting a perfect score on that. But actually one of the great things that those sorts of exercises can do is help us see how fleeting our political knowledge is and how quickly we forget certain things. So I think even if we don't get everything right, it can be a very valuable learning experience.
Bonni: [00:10:06] When you contacted me to share this article that you had written and suggested that if I ever wanted to have you come on the show, you were willing to. Of course I had to go and do my research. And one of the things that I was very impressed by was watching you- I don't remember the topic, but I did find a video of you on YouTube just talking to a public audience, people who had come into your institution but it was general community members and how patient you were with the questions that were really statements disguised as questions. That is that is a very patient person there.
Bonni: [00:10:40] What is your philosophy about when you're talking with your students or when you're talking with members of the community about how much you think that your own beliefs and opinions about politics should be expressed and how much you think you should attempt, although it's an impossible quest, but you shouldn't attempt to just be stating as much fact as is possible? Again, it is not possible. But where do you want- What does your aspiration for how much students and members of the community might know about your opinions?
Eric: [00:11:10] As a general rule, I try not to go too far into the personal opinions, especially on issues that really are kind of personal judgments. So if there is something like, "is abortion a good idea?" or something. My opinion is not really any more valid than anyone else's. Now there may be certain areas like "how much should we read into a public opinion poll or what can we draw from this or that election system? What are the advantages or disadvantages of say the Electoral College?" Those sorts of things I'm happy to share some of the technical information and what people of various political persuasions would say. But I tend to be very, very protective of the notion that my principal objective is to help people engage with politics. And if you come to an event that I'm a part of and you learn something. My goal is not to reform you to have you come in and necessarily change your mind, but I think it's really important especially with a lot of the content that we cover in my sorts of courses that everyone is well informed. And there are certain things that you kind of have to know and that's kind of where I focus my attention. But as a general rule, if I can help share information and help you form a more well-rounded opinion, I'm not going to focus too much on making sure your opinion comes out any one way.
Bonni: [00:12:38] When it comes to those really controversial issues like you brought up abortion. Do you believe it is important to help students or members of the community uncover what might be some conflicts in what they say are their principles? The most classic one with regards to abortion would be someone who says they believe in the value of life and then you say "how do you feel about the death penalty?" And then it gets really quiet or there's a nervous laugh like wow wait a minute. Do you find that to be important to have them dig a little deeper? I picked an easy low hanging fruit when there, but do you try to do that in helping us be more consistent in our thinking about our principles?
Eric: [00:13:20] I do, I think that's really important. And again, one of the things that we know about the way politics works today is that we are increasingly parts of echo chambers where the people, and the websites, and the social media with which we interact tend to reinforce the political views we already have rather than educate us to a new perspective.
Eric: [00:13:40] So I will tell students that we may deal with our particular topic. I'm not here to change your mind, but I'm also going to let you know what we know to be true? What is the social science evidence? So one example might be something like in a recent class on ethnic politics, we talked about the wage gap, the difference between pay rates for men and women. And one of the things we talked about was you cannot really deny that there is a gap out there but it's also reasonable for people to say well what about the various other factors that we need to integrate? What are the real causes of a wage gap? Is it purely discrimination? Is it a matter of choice? And so with the students I again don't typically try to say you need to leave here believing this or that but I do tell them that I'm going to share with you what we know to be true, what the evidence suggests about various phenomenon and you're going to need to know that and if you don't want to embrace it, then you're going to need to defend why not.
Eric: [00:14:41] But I do worry sometimes that if we kind of push too hard that you can also turn off some people to receiving any sort of new information and finding that balance is right. Because I also don't want to support false information at all.
Eric: [00:14:57] I tell my students and the various audiences that I speak with that I'm coming at this from a place of here's what we know legally, here's what we know scientifically and I'm going to share with you everything I can to help round out your knowledge. And then from there we can talk about opinions.
Bonni: [00:15:11] I know one of the ways you're trying to attempt that is through an approach called autoethnography. Many of our listeners will already know that term, but some are in a discipline where they might not be familiar with it. Could you share a little bit about what autoethnography is and how you're using it and some of this teaching?
Eric: [00:15:28] It was a new term to me as well so I will cop to that. Autoethnography is the idea that you can conduct research and analysis as a researcher using yourself as kind of the object being investigated, if you will. Auto of course referring to oneself. And the inspiration for me with that was again kind of going back a little bit to the selfie generation type of attitude where- which is not to say by the way that all students are you know completely self-absorbed or anything like that, simply that we're in a society where things are very very personal. We have our own Twitter accounts and Facebook and things.
Eric: [00:16:08] And I found just before I was doing anything was data driven teaching that any time I took a poll of a classroom, the students were much more interested in the results than if I showed them the results of say the American National Election Survey, which is kind of the gold standard in my discipline for getting a nice representative sample of the country. And I remember thinking boy you all should maybe be a little bit more impressed with these data I'm showing you they were hard to get. That's a big survey. But when it was external to them, some students were like "OK I buy that" but there was kind of a new layer, a new dynamic, a kind of new leaning forward in their seats if I said OK let's do a poll in the room and I'd like to show you what happened when your class was part of this experiment or was asked to reflect on this or that issue.
Eric: [00:16:56] And so I started getting more into this auto ethnography and reading up on what do we know about how we can use students as subjects and allow them to kind of study themselves and their peers rather than relying on information from other data sources or things that do not involve them.
Eric: [00:17:15] And I found there's been a great deal of perception especially among the non majors, among people who are perhaps not naturally drawn to the material. They really respond. And you know you can almost sometimes have a little bit of a of a big reveal and wait an extra beat before revealing the slide with the answers. And never are so many eyeballs interested in what's on a screen then if you're about to reveal the results of an experiment you did or something like that with the group.
Eric: [00:17:43] So they really enjoy looking at themselves and their peers and I'm trying to leverage that as much as I can into making our classroom interesting. But also a place of engagement and active learning.
Bonni: [00:17:53] I know that you do this all of the time, but I wonder if you would just pick an example of a time when you did this where you really sensed the students curiosity had been piqued. And could you walk us through more systematically ofhat do you show on the screen? What what tool are you using? How are the students then responding? And then when do you show the answers? Kind of walk us through what it would be like if we were sitting in that class as we're all having our own curiosity.
Eric: [00:18:21] One of my favorite experiments I do as part of our discussion about civil liberties. And I should probably mention most of this is being done in an introduction to American government course. So a survey course that touches on various aspects of American political life. And when we talk about civil liberties, one of the issues we discuss is freedom of religion, and the establishment clause, and what is the relationship between practicing religion and what can the government restrict with religion and things like that.
Eric: [00:18:50] And one thing I do with the students is an experiment which they don't know they're participating in. But every student who is taking the survey will read a short story and the story is saying there is a group in the town next to yours and they believe an animal sacrifice as part of their religious expression and so one thing they do is sacrifice animals like kittens and other small mammals in the course of practicing their religion.
Eric: [00:19:18] Do you think they should be allowed to practice their religion? Is this a reasonable thing to do? Is that a protected form of expression? And so students will read that and they will say they should be allowed to do it. They should not be allowed to do it. But what the students don't know is that some of them were told that the group will sacrifice kittens and small mammals. Another group of students, all randomly assigned, will be asked about sacrifices involving chickens and other poultry. A third group, randomly assigned, is not told about any type of animal, they are just told there's animal sacrifice.
Eric: [00:19:51] And when we get to class, I show them the results of this experiment and we look at how support for animal sacrifice differs as a function of what type of animal is being sacrificed. As you might imagine, support for animal sacrifice if it involves kittens and mammals is much lower than animal sacrifice if it involves chickens. And so we go step by step, I show them first that control group with no animal reference and then I show them the result.
Bonni: [00:20:21] Wait wait. I want to I want to get really clearly. They have read this short story, you've passed it out in class. They've read it. They don't know that there are differences? Or did they read it outside of class?
Eric: [00:20:35] They read it outside of class. Their first course assignment in September or in January is to complete this long survey which is filled with all sorts of experiments and other goodies. So by the time we get to class, it's usually several weeks after they have read it and they do it online. So I have an electronic data set with all of their responses.
Bonni: [00:20:53] Oh okay. And what did you use to gather that initial data dump?
Eric: [00:20:58] There are a number of survey firms out there that can do this sort of thing. We use Qualtrics at my university and I've found that to be pretty effective for my purposes.
Bonni: [00:21:06] So they read this short story that was done in conjunction with other data that they were providing that will come up at different times of the class. And now they're sitting in the classroom and how much longer after? A few weeks after they failed that first thing out?
Bonni: [00:21:22] And then now they're sitting there. Tell me how you bring it up? Like how do you? At what point in time does the mystery get revealed?
Eric: [00:22:04] And then we work through each of those experimental conditions and we start with no reference to animals and then we show the support for chicken sacrifice. Usually I've done this two or three times now, and actually support for animal sacrifice tends to go up when you reference chickens relative to referencing no animal at all. So you know I might make a joke about what do you have against chickens? Or whatever.
Eric: [00:22:28] And then our third group was people asked about animal sacrifice involving kittens. And that is the one that will usually they'll be really excited to see. And again that might be a big reveal or a little bit of a tease. I'll usually show them what the answer was or excuse me the question they answered before I actually show the data, just to jog their memory. This is what some of you saw. This is what some of you saw.
Eric: [00:22:53] And then we get to that big reveal and they see support for animal sacrifice involving kittens. And of course it's usually much lower, the support, but there's always one or two people that still strongly support it. And again someone might say all right which one of you hates cats? Or whatever happens to be something funny an outlier in their are particular data set. So they kind of have a good time and there's usually some laughs. But what is great is to kind of leverage that. And while we have their attention, then show them, maybe compare one graph with the chicken results and one graph with the kitten results and then we have a more serious conversation.
Bonni: [00:23:32] I'm wondering on your chart, do you actually have like stacked up kittens in the chart?
Eric: [00:23:39] That is a great idea, Bonni. Maybe I should institute that next time I don't want to. I don't want to do anything too activating. That's kind of a stressful image. My dad is actually is a vetenarian. But I just have a bar graph but that is one way to do it, I suppose.
Bonni: [00:23:53] That's a stacked bar graph.
Eric: [00:23:54] I'm not sure if there are many stock photos or images available so we might have to get creative.
Bonni: [00:23:58] Yeah. So I did want to just mention something because I'm feeling a little bit protective of some of our listeners who are newer to higher ed. But what has been described so far might have made a few of our more experienced faculty prickle a little bit when talking about experiments on our students. In most IRB's, that would be the institutional review board that is governing and making sure that human subjects are treated fairly in our various experiments.
Bonni: [00:24:31] It would mostly be in everyone that I'm aware of, okay to do these sorts of experiments in your classroom as long as you didn't publish the specific results. So Eric has written an article about his pedagogical techniques but he didn't publish the results of the kittens and the animal sacrifices. Though I did just want to make that distinction so that people understood that when we start talking about the scholarship of teaching and learning, if Eric did want to publish these specific results around having read the short story then he would need to have received approval from his IRB and then he could share all the stacked kitten charts that he wanted to in whatever journal he wanted to. So you didn't mention that that distinction, but I just for some of our less experienced faculty I wanted to make sure and share that little point with them.
Eric: [00:25:20] No, you're absolutely right. And actually the article does have data published from one semester. Not the kitten example, but some other experiments that I did and that one was mostly focused on one week of class just to kind of dive in. And that one did have IRB approved research both for publishing the data from class and then also I did a separate assessment survey with students asking them how well the data helped as a learning tool and all that stuff.
Eric: [00:25:47] So yeah, it is something to be careful of. And as a general rule, if you're in the classroom and not seeking to publish or publicly air the results, you don't typically need that. But I did go and make sure that all of the stuff that is published has that coverage just because it never hurts to be careful and make sure you have all that stuff passed through somebody before it's in print.
Bonni: [00:26:08] Tell us a little bit about the way you queried your students about the word bureaucracy.
Eric: [00:26:13] That one was fun. Bureaucracy is, with all due respect to my friends who study it, it just sounds like a boring word. And it's often a boring chapter for a lot of students. One thing I do as part of that survey is I ask students what parts of the textbook, what are the themes that we might talk about that you're most interested in? And bureaucracy is always one of the lowest, it's just not something people find very exciting.
Eric: [00:26:37] And so I was thinking how in the world can I integrate some data in a way that makes bureaucracy somewhat interesting to talk about? And I had the idea of well what about a word association. A lot of people have heard the term bureaucracy, but a lot of people could not define it. And I think of some of my favorite shows, you know a show maybe like Parks and Rec which kind of makes fun of bureaucracy at times.
Eric: [00:27:00] And I thought so I bet a lot of students would think of something if they heard the word, but they may not be able to find it. So to start the week talking about bureaucracy and the executive branch of politics, we began with a word cloud. I had every single student write down the first or I should say they typed the first word that came to mind when they heard the term bureaucracy. They were instructed not to try to define it, not to think too hard but simply to give me that snapshot reaction.
Eric: [00:27:27] And we opened a class that day with a word cloud with what were the common responses and themes and associations that students had. And it was really, really interesting because it gave I think a pretty accurate picture of what people think bureaucracy is and words like red tape and corruption. Some of the things that we tend to think about were very prominent. Other things, rules, regulations also showed up a bit. But it was a great starting point for us because I showed the students the word cloud and then in groups they get together and try to characterize the word cloud. Was it was highly complimentary? Was it really negative? What was kind of the overall groups sense of bureaucracy? And inevitably and invariably, it is usually a pretty negative connotation. And then we start talking about what the bureaucracy really is and what are some of the ways in which it works and what are some things that maybe don't work so well. And throughout the course of the week, we kind of reflect back to that first word cloud.
Eric: [00:28:29] And students will weigh in with is word cloud very fair? Why do we have these assumptions? Is it waiting in line at the DMV, does that shape your entire perspective? Because if so, a lot of us would probably have the best view. But it was a great way to kind of start that conversation again about a subject that most people are not naturally drawn to.
Eric: [00:28:51] But we ended I'm having some some pretty serious and heavy conversations about how fair is it? How reasonable are these assumptions that we're making? And to what extent, if any, should we revise them? And maybe some students did, maybe some students didn't. But as we discussed earlier, my main goal is that they know what they're talking about and they can draw their opinions with as complete information as we can cover in that course.
Bonni: [00:29:14] Before we get to the recommendation segment, I did want to ask about the feedback that you got from your students about your use of this data driven method.
Eric: [00:29:22] Yeah. I did a survey at the end of the semester for which I was collecting data for this article and I wanted to get a sense from students, how effective was it both in a kind of a it captured my interest but also in terms of did it really helped me learn, did I internalize information better? And pretty overwhelmingly the response was positive.
Eric: [00:29:45] I asked students to rank order all the various elements of the course, the textbook, the lecture, the videos, all the different things we did to help them learn, and data was right up there with the lecture as the number one and number two items students reported in terms of being helpful to their learning. And what's interesting is things like the textbook and review session, some more traditional teaching strategies, actually didn't rank so well. So they really responded positively to it.
Eric: [00:30:55] And so I was I was really happy to see that. Two other things that really stood out to me. Number one is there was no significant difference, statistically, between majors and non majors in terms of their reports and their evaluations which says to me that this wasn't just something that really fired up the students that are already interested in politics. It really spoke to students that were not as well. And maybe this is a way to get some people to try additional political science courses. I asked students "do you want to see more data in classrooms?" And overwhelmingly to the tune of 90 percent or so students said "yes, I would like to see more data in classrooms." I even asked them "Would you be more likely to take a course if you knew there would be data involved?" If you were more involved in a part of it.
Eric: [00:31:41] And a pretty solid majority somewhere 60, 65 percent actually said "I'd be more likely to take the same course if it had a data component versus if it did not." So I think there's a lot more to do on this and especially in terms of kind of the causality and are our students actually performing better as a result? These are mostly self reports at the moment, but overall the the student feedback has been very positive and I'm encouraged to see that a lot of them are looking for more of this sort of thing. So I'm hoping to contribute to that however I can.
Bonni: [00:32:12] What is the average size class that you might be using some of these techniques in?
Eric: [00:32:17] Typically the class is 40 students, give or take. I will usually combine into one survey various sections will take it. So I could actually compare the Monday/ Wednesday class to the Tuesday/ Thursday class. Or now increasingly, I might compare what is this semester think about an issue versus last semester? Maybe something happened over the summer.
Eric: [00:32:38] And we can compare pre and post. So I'm lucky to be at a university where I can typically get around 80 to 100 students every semester partaking. So I can get a nice new group and I can try new experiments and things like that to to continue to build on this foundation we've already started.
Bonni: [00:32:56] When you build the kittens chart, are you building it for a section specifically? Or are you are you combining that that semesters or terms data all in one kitten chart?
Eric: [00:33:08] It usually depends on the question and kind of how relevant I think it would be to compare. If there's a major difference between one section and another for instance, that might be worth talking about. If they're the same, I might just put them together. My goal this last summer was to create a program where I could essentially feed the data into the statistical software and then I have this file where I can basically press go and it will generate a graph.
Eric: [00:33:33] So what I have done is set it up such that I can just with a few keystrokes limit the data and I can say give me only fall of 2017. Or give me everybody since spring of 2017. Or give me only people that identify as male. Or only political science majors. Those sorts of thing. So it depends on the question, but I'm very happy to be at a place now where I can do those sorts of comparisons with relative ease.
Bonni: [00:33:58] I'm picturing a big complex pivot table in excel but I don't know the chart part.
Eric: [00:34:04] Right. Yeah. I try not to do too much of that in excel, but sometimes Excel can be good for things like pie charts. And one thing the students do is give the president a grade and then I throw in Excel pie chart up with all the different numbers of students who gave the president different grades and they love seeing political stuff like that.
Bonni: [00:34:21] Yeah. Well this is the point in the show where we each get to give some recommendations and since I know that this episode is going to air the day after Valentine's Day, maybe people still have romance in the air. I'm not a big Valentine's Day person, so I'm not sure how I'll be feeling. But one very unique romantic comedy that I saw actually some months ago and still I'm thinking about it today is a huge recommendation.
Bonni: [00:34:47] And that is called The Big Sick. This is a true story, it is about the Pakistan born comedian Kumayl Nanjiani and his now wife and at the time grad student Emily Gardner. And I'm reading from the Internet Movie Database this description now. "They fall in love but struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness." That's why the movie is called The Big Sick, by the way. "Kumayl finds himself forced to face her feisty parents, his family's expectations and his true feelings.".
Bonni: [00:35:24] And it is absolutely a delightful movie. It's funny and also just makes you think at the same time. There are wonderful ways in which some of the cultural differences are expressed. Ray Romano and Holly Hunter play the parents of Emily Gardner and they are just delightful, just delightful. And I just, I can't recommend this movie enough and actually I think it just came out on Netflix. I'll check and if it did I'll put a link to that in the show notes because I know I had bought it on iTunes but I think since I had bought it, it's actually been released somewhere you could see it for free. Highly recommend the Big Sick and now I'm gonna pass it over to Eric for his recommendation.
Eric: [00:36:07] So my recommendation is maybe not as fun as that one, but I think a really interesting thing. It's more of a current event in politics that I really encourage people to follow and that is what is the future of free speech in our digital world? We've seen a lot lately with college campuses and issues of free speech and protest and all that kind of thing.
Eric: [00:36:29] And one thing that is really neat to follow right now is how old Facebook and Twitter and various online platforms regulate speech and to what extent should they do so? This is something that's been picking up quite a bit of traction lately. Who knows, this may be a major Supreme Court case at some point. But kind of a question of should the American constitution and free speech laws as we have them now, should they also apply online? And how do we govern communication in the future? And I think regardless of what you teach, students are going to find this sort of thing really fascinating. So I really encourage everybody to keep an eye out for new happenings in the world of free speech online because the laws have not been written. The framers had no idea this would be coming. And it's one of those things that is still developing. And I think all of us and higher ed, especially anybody involved in politics ought to be following the trajectory of this very important issue.
Bonni: [00:37:27] And just to support your overall pedagogy, you have not told us what you think. So we're going to have to just have our curiosity work. Where can we go to find all your opinions? Where's the secret backdoor? It is on the dark web. Yes.
Eric: [00:37:46] I'll launch the website as soon as the tenure paperwork comes through.
Bonni: [00:37:48] Oh I can't wait. Can't wait. That sounds perfect. Well Eric, I am absolutely delighted to have had this conversation with you. I will of course on the show notes be posting to the article that you wrote which is just absolutely a delightful read and an important one. And you've given me and all the people who listen to Teaching in Higher Ed such a great inspiration for how we might use data in our classrooms in a really unique way. So thanks so much for coming on the show.
Eric: [00:38:14] Well thank you so much for having me on Bonni and if I can ever help anybody out, it would be my pleasure.
Bonni: [00:38:19] Thank you Eric Loepp for coming on to the Teaching and Higher Ed podcast. And thanks to all of you for listening. If you would like to get the links to what Eric and I talked about and each of us the show notes that come out on a weekly basis as well as an article about teaching or productivity written by me. You can subscribe to the weekly update.
Bonni: [00:38:40] And that subscription is at teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. And if you have yet to review the show on iTunes or whatever service it is that you use to listen, I would encourage you to do so because that's one of the ways to help spread the word about the show. But of course you can also just send an email off to your colleagues tell them episodes that you like to listen to and introduce them to Teaching in Higher Ed. Thanks so much for listening. And I'll see you next time.


The Bulletin is a FREE local shopper's guide - 12,946 distributed door to door every month by Royal Mail covering the 'Stewartry' area in South West Scotland - this encompasses all residential and business postcodes starting DG5, DG6 and DG7.
Local businesses, organisations and the general public - in fact anyone who wants to advertise their products, services, offers, events, promotions and items for sale.
Distribution is the first week of each month and is completed from Monday to Saturday. Click here for a list of distribution dates. The copy deadline for artwork is two weeks prior to publication date - see distribution dates for deadlines.
Sarah, who started and produces the Bulletin, can put your advert together for you. With over 25 years experience of advertising and graphic design I am happy to help with copywriting of your advert too.
All you need to do is call me for a chat or email giving basic details required and supplying any logos, photos etc, - I will do the rest - you will receive an email 'proof' of your advert to approve before the Bulletin is printed.
Alternatively, you can supply your own artwork by email as a pdf or jpg file - minimum 300dpi.
Please book early to guarantee a space.


One year after being nominated by President Obama, the Senate confirmed Vivek Murthy as America's next surgeon general. The delay was due to NRA lobbying against 37-year-old Murthy, who is a vocal critic of the gun-rights group. Obama issued a statement about the confirmation, saying it "makes us better positioned to save lives around the world and protect the American people here at home." Murthy is the first Indian-American and the youngest person to serve in this position.
This entry was posted on December 16th 2014 at 9:06am/09:06 and is filed under Live News Column 1, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


text:
Q: SAS daylight savings time conversion SAS I am trying to do a time zone conversion in my program and am running into some difficulties. Below I have
data GMT_conv;
    set table;
    if city in ('Atlanta', 'Baltimore' , 'New York') then conv = -5;
    if city in ('Minneapolis') then conv = -6;
    if city in ('Salt Lake City') then conv = -7;
    if city in ('San Francisco') then conv = -8;
run;

however, this is only correct during not the summer months. Daylight savings time changes the 2nd Sunday in March and the First Sunday in Novemember. I cant think of a way to do this if statement (in either SAS or proc sql)
what I want:
if (between 2nd sunday in march and 1 sunday of november)
       then conv +1;

any tips?

A: My suggestion would be to use SAS's built in timezone functions and formats/informats, rather than rolling your own.
First, SAS's help page on time zones shows how to specify times with a time zone. Then, you can see how to use the TZONES2U function to convert SAS datetimes to UTC, or TZONEU2S to convert back.  That will automatically handle daylight savings time!
For example:
data time_data;
format dtval datetime17.;
input city $ dtval :datetime17.;
datalines;
Atlanta 08JUN2021:11:00:00
Baltimore 08JAN2021:11:00:00
Chicago 08JUN2021:11:00:00
Dallas 08JAN2021:11:00:00
;;;;
run;

data want;
  set time_data;
  length tz $32;
  if city in ('Atlanta','Baltimore') then tz='America/New_York';
  if city in ('Chicago','Dallas') then tz='America/Chicago';

  format dtval_utc datetime17.;
  dtval_utc = tzones2u(dtval,tz);
  time_diff = dtval-dtval_utc;

  format time_diff time8.;
run;

That shows the DST difference (note how Atlanta, in summer, is 4 hours off, but Baltimore, in winter, is 5 hours.)
You still need to be able to know what the right time zone is, of course; you can do that by hand, as you are doing initially and how I did in the example, or you can look it up to some extent (perhaps using the zip code and SASHELP.ZIPCODE).


text:
package org.hisp.dhis.datastore;

import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals;
import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertNotNull;

import java.io.UncheckedIOException;

import org.hisp.dhis.test.integration.SingleSetupIntegrationTestBase;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonProcessingException;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;

/**
 * @author Lars Helge Overland
 */
class DatastoreServiceTest extends SingleSetupIntegrationTestBase
{

    private final String namespace = "DOGS";

    @Autowired
    private DatastoreService service;

    @Autowired
    private ObjectMapper jsonMapper;

    @Test
    void testAddGetObject()
    {
        Dog dogA = new Dog( "1", "Fido", "Brown" );
        Dog dogB = new Dog( "2", "Aldo", "Black" );
        addValue( namespace, dogA.getId(), dogA );
        addValue( namespace, dogB.getId(), dogB );
        dogA = getValue( namespace, dogA.getId(), Dog.class );
        dogB = getValue( namespace, dogB.getId(), Dog.class );
        assertNotNull( dogA );
        assertEquals( "1", dogA.getId() );
        assertEquals( "Fido", dogA.getName() );
        assertNotNull( dogB );
        assertEquals( "2", dogB.getId() );
        assertEquals( "Aldo", dogB.getName() );
    }

    @Test
    void testAddUpdateObject()
    {
        Dog dogA = new Dog( "1", "Fido", "Brown" );
        Dog dogB = new Dog( "2", "Aldo", "Black" );
        addValue( namespace, dogA.getId(), dogA );
        addValue( namespace, dogB.getId(), dogB );
        dogA = getValue( namespace, dogA.getId(), Dog.class );
        dogB = getValue( namespace, dogB.getId(), Dog.class );
        assertEquals( "Fido", dogA.getName() );
        assertEquals( "Aldo", dogB.getName() );
        dogA.setName( "Lilly" );
        dogB.setName( "Teddy" );
        updateValue( namespace, dogA.getId(), dogA );
        updateValue( namespace, dogB.getId(), dogB );
        dogA = getValue( namespace, dogA.getId(), Dog.class );
        dogB = getValue( namespace, dogB.getId(), Dog.class );
        assertEquals( "Lilly", dogA.getName() );
        assertEquals( "Teddy", dogB.getName() );
    }

    private <T> T getValue( String namespace, String key, Class<T> type )
    {
        return mapJsonValueTo( type, service.getEntry( namespace, key ) );
    }

    private <T> DatastoreEntry addValue( String namespace, String key, T object )
    {
        DatastoreEntry entry = new DatastoreEntry( namespace, key, mapValueToJson( object ), false );
        service.addEntry( entry );
        return entry;
    }

    public <T> void updateValue( String namespace, String key, T object )
    {
        DatastoreEntry entry = service.getEntry( namespace, key );
        if ( entry == null )
        {
            throw new IllegalStateException(
                String.format( "No object found for namespace '%s' and key '%s'", namespace, key ) );
        }
        entry.setValue( mapValueToJson( object ) );
        service.updateEntry( entry );
    }

    private <T> T mapJsonValueTo( Class<T> type, DatastoreEntry entry )
    {
        if ( entry == null || entry.getJbPlainValue() == null )
        {
            return null;
        }
        try
        {
            return jsonMapper.readValue( entry.getJbPlainValue(), type );
        }
        catch ( JsonProcessingException ex )
        {
            throw new UncheckedIOException( ex );
        }
    }

    private <T> String mapValueToJson( T object )
    {
        try
        {
            return jsonMapper.writeValueAsString( object );
        }
        catch ( JsonProcessingException ex )
        {
            throw new UncheckedIOException( ex );
        }
    }
}


Prices when renting a cabin.
Minimum booking is for 2 nights for 2 people, $125 per night, $250 for the weekend. For each additional person, please add $25 per night. Maximum 4 people per cabin. In this case, 4 people pay for a weekend (for 2 nights) $350, which is an amazing deal. Little children (under 5 years) can stay for free with their parents. If booking for a week, you can get a 10% discount. If interested please contact us. We might ask you for more info and/or for references.
Booking the main (big) cabin costs $150 per night for 2 people. Minimum booking is for 2 nights, $300 for two nights. For each additional person, please add $25 per night. Maximum 6 people in the big cabin.
Payments have to be made in advance and in full. You may pay with cash, per e-mail, via PayPal, or by certified checks. We accept credit cards, but no debit cards. Please add 3% when paying with a credit card.
By cancellation you will get a refund, but there is a 20% penalty. Refund can be issued to 7 days prior. Refunds will not be issued after 7 days prior to booking, sorry.
When you arrive, a security deposit of $100.00 might apply. The security deposit will be refunded upon checkout, after a successful inspection of the cabin.
Check out is at 11 AM, check in is at 2 PM.
Firewood for the fire pit is available and costs $5 per medium bundle, or $10 per wheelbarrow. Firewood for the woodstove inside the cabin is free of charge.
Booking by application only! Please fill out our quick application, you can download it via right mouse click from here, or just open and copy the questions and answer them in your e-mail. Thank you! Your answers will help us to accomodate your needs better.