text:
The periodic table of elements in Justin Urgitis's office is unusual. It contains the same notations for all the elements, including carbon, silicon and germanium, in the same positions, as does any other. But his table at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Inc., also boasts lavish pictures of his own samples of carbon, silicon and germanium on it, thanks to a large (and growing) collection at his home in Uncasville, Conn. In fact, it allows him to use that age-old line: "Want to come upstairs and see my barium?"
A small but growing number of element collectors—enabled by the vast marketplace of the Internet—can actually extend such invitations. Elements-seller Dave Hamric of Metallium, Inc., says he has about 2,000 names on his mailing list. Using the periodic table as a shopping list, they gather elements used either in technical applications or compounds mixed with other elements or in nearly pure form, amassing collections that can be beautiful, instructive and representative of the fundamental components of our universe.
Urgitis' longtime interest in chemistry is typical of his fellow element collectors. "In high school, I loved going to class and seeing the teacher's demonstration of something in the lab, maybe blowing something up," he says. He often proposed dangerous experiments that his teacher nixed, such as producing nitrogen triiodide, a contact explosive, in his high school lab. Then, in college, where he earned a degree in forensic chemistry, he began to acquire iodine, magnesium, aluminum, cobalt and other elements in pure or nearly pure form. The samples of these common elements can cost as little as a few dollars.
One day, "it occurred to me that it would be fun to have samples of all of them," he remembers. He found some Web sites devoted to element collecting, and over the past five years has assembled a hoard of nearly every one that it is possible to acquire—82 of the 118 known or presumed elements, by his count though this number varies from collector to collector. (The remaining elements are too radioactive, expensive and/or rare to collect even in small quantities.)
Thirty years ago, before the Internet, an element collector could not have made such rapid progress. Sales venues like eBay now list thousands of specimens for sale at any one time, making collecting far less burdensome than searching in person through chemical supply stores and curiosity shops. "I have every stable element on the periodic table, plus thorium and radium," Urgitis says, and he treats these mildly radioactive elements carefully.
Some collectors still acquire a few specimens for the collection the old-fashioned way. They pull tungsten filaments from lightbulbs, cannibalize silicon chips, find sulfur compounds in pharmacies, chip magnesium from campfire starters, and buy neodymium magnets. Or, like Heather Harrison, a mechanical engineer in Salt Lake City, they extract radioactive americium from smoke detectors. Harrison is a collector of old recordings, wine, and antiques (she spoke over a collectible telephone from the 1920s when interviewed for this article)—"the sort of person you'd read about someday being killed in an avalanche of her own collections," she says. "For me elements are just a part of that pattern," one she memorized in the form of the periodic table as a child.
She began seriously acquiring elements three years ago and is currently about 15 specimens short of making her collection as complete as it can get. "I'm missing osmium, iridium and some of the remaining platinum-group metals," she says. Retailers typically make such precious elements affordable by selling them in minute quantities. Most collectors interested in buying the rare metal rhenium, for instance—as Harrison recently did—will have to be satisfied with a tiny amount, because its price in nearly pure form has fluctuated around $10,000 per ounce.
Harrison keeps her mercury, which is toxic, in a bottle cradled in foam and sealed in an airtight case. Her specimens of rubidium and cesium would ignite or explode with exposure to air, so she purchased them entombed within sturdy acrylic blocks. Many easily available elements such as sodium and fluorine are dangerous if touched, inhaled or allowed to combine with others. Collectors reduce the risks by researching the toxicity and dangers of every element they acquire, keeping their baubles out of the reach of pets and children, and adding to their collections in small quantities.
"You have to research every one of them for toxicity," says Harrison, who uses the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics as a guide. "Risks can be managed, but you need to understand what you have. The vast majority of elements are quite safe."
Given the perceived dangers, she does not share her enthusiasm for elements with everyone. "If I talk to people who are not scientifically inclined or are afraid of science, I might not want to say anything about it," she says. "They might get the idea that I'm a mad scientist who cares nothing about safety. I may be a mad scientist, but I'm far too safety conscious to be a real mad scientist."
For these element collectors the risks are just part of the fun. "There are only a small number of icons that are universally recognized," says Theodore Gray, an element-collecting guru and Illinois software developer who manages a spectacular element resource at periodictable.com. "The periodic table is one of them. We don't often think of it as something populated by real objects, and it's a revelation when you can see it's made of real stuff, not just words printed in the table."
Strange but True: An Elemental Quest for the Building Blocks of the Universe
Element collectors love the thrill of the chase but tread carefully when necessary
The periodic table of elements in Justin Urgitis's office is unusual. It contains the same notations for all the elements, including carbon, silicon and germanium, in the same positions, as does any other. But his table at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Inc., also boasts lavish pictures of his own samples of carbon, silicon and germanium on it, thanks to a large (and growing) collection at his home in Uncasville, Conn. In fact, it allows him to use that age-old line: "Want to come upstairs and see my barium?"


text:
1963 Ford F-100 Pickup - First Truck, Hot Truck!
The Ultimate Sunday Afternoon Cruiser
Related Video
Creativity takes many forms and building a custom truck has to be one of our favorite examples. Whether you opt for a restored original or fabricate a high-horsepower screamer, it becomes a piece of modern art that will either blast you down the 'strip in the 10s or tote yer groceries home in style. Scott Winter from Germantown, New York, is the owner of this '63 Ford F-100 unibody and an artist by nature, owning his own textile, screen-printing, and embroidery business. Although he has been a lifelong automotive enthusiast, this is his first truck and as you can see, the vintage Blue Oval is anything but your average starter vehicle.
Getting into the game at the top, Scott is quick to point out that the adventure was made possible thanks to a pair of good friends: automotive enthusiast Kevin Schulstrum and ace welder, Larry Rich. The idea began with something near and dear to Winter, the '63 Ford that belonged to his grandfather, William Gronwoldt. Granddad bought it new in 1963 as a work truck for his apple farm. Scott drove the truck as a kid and had fond memories of cruising through the orchards. When his grandfather passed away, the farm and the truck became his. At the time, Scott had no use for the truck and sold it, but he had second thoughts and bought it back almost 20 years later. Rust had taken its toll, but it was still the perfect choice for Scott's plan to build a Pro Street truck. "I am a speed junkie," he said with a smile.
With some loosely defined plans that included a big-block, Pro Street chassis, and a series of body mods, work got underway with sheetmetal repairs that made the truck solid once more. Once the cab was stripped, it became the perfect time to create the 3-inch top chop.
"A fellow in Connecticut did an amazing job of cutting the windshield and the wraparound rear glass to fit the new opening," Scott told us. Part way through that process, the next big change was to stretch the cab and add the unique third door. That created a domino effect where the team removed and relocated the rear cab wall, added a Dodge van roof skin with visor, and filled in the passenger side with sheetmetal. The new door was built from scratch with Kevin Schulstrum adapting a Cadillac electric trunk latch to keep it closed. In addition to the chopped and stretched top, the custom hood was sliced and raised for clearance. Three loops were cut in the rear to accommodate the outside gauges and a second hood was brought into play to create the distinctive dual air cleaner. Frank Buffa fabricated the air cleaner and did all the aluminum trim.
While the bodywork was going on, the original chassis was also being reworked. New motor mounts, transmission crossmember, and repositioned body mounts were designed, then the rails were boxed and fitted with a Fatman air bag front end and QA1 shocks. The owner-fabricated rear clip uses a triangulated four-link with Dominator bags and a second pair of QA1s to stabilize the Moser 9-inch rear with 4.11 gears. Stopping power comes from ABS electric power brakes and Wilwood six-piston calipers with 12-inch discs behind all four wheels. The black powdercoated rims are Centerline Convo Pros, with slim 15x8s up front and fat 15x18s in the rear, all wrapped in Mickey Thompson rubber. Scott filled the pickup bed with the air suspension compressor on one side, the reserve tank on the other, and the fuel cell in the middle.
Once the modified body and modernized chassis were joined together, the motor was next. The heart of this truck is a 460-based V-8 from Pacific Performance Solutions in California, now punched out to 533 ci and loaded with a hot rodder's dream sheet of upgrades. While the truck was not designed for the dragstrip, it's safe to say that mediocre performance was never part of the plan. Scott wanted a responsive package when he floored the long skinny pedal on the right and the big inch V-8 does not disappoint. The combination puts out an estimated 650 hp and 685 pound-feet of torque, easily capable of frying the doughnuts in the rear. To handle the power, Scott chose an AOD automatic with electric overdrive from FB Performance Transmissions.
After the rollcage was installed inside, Gillan Upholstery in Middletown, New York, handled the rest of the interior, beginning with '09 Grand Prix seats in black and gray leather. Billet accents are everywhere and the Auto Meter gauges, mounted on the dash and overhead, keep track of the big motor while the Hurst Quarter Stick controls the shift points. The door panels retain their classic sheetmetal look and were painted to match the exterior; PPG Viper Red and Tungsten Gray paint, sprayed by Brian Semancik, contrasts with the black powder accents added to the wheels, bumper, and grille. It took five long years but now, Scott says the truck is the perfect vehicle for a Sunday afternoon blast and it's always surrounded by crowds at local car shows. "For me it's a piece of art, and I especially like when people recognize the changes."
The Details
Scott Winter's 1963 Ford F-100
460 V-8 crate motor bored to 533 ci, Assembled by Pacific Performance Solutions (Anaheim, CA)
4340 forged steel crank, H-Beam connecting rods, and Manley pistons
Crane hydraulic roller cam
Trick Flow, ported and polished aluminum heads
damBEST 1,050-cfm carburetor
Edelbrock Victor Jr intake
Custom air cleaner
MSD ignition
Be Cool Radiator and fan
FB Performance Transmissions AOD with electric overdrive
2,200rpm stall speed converter
Hurst Quarter Stick shifter
Moser 9-inch rear
4.11 gears
Custom-made headers
3½-inch exhaust powdercoated black
Flowmaster Pro mufflers
Stacks exiting straight up in the bed
Front: Fatman airbag front end, QA1 shocks, Fatman rack-and-pinion steering
Rear: Owner-fabricated rear clip with triangulated four-link, Dominator air bags, QA1 shocks
Front: ABS electric brakes, Wilwood six-piston calipers, 12-inch discs
Rear: ABS electric brakes, Wilwood six-piston calipers, 12-inch discs
Front: Centerline Convo Pros, 15x8
Rear: Centerline Convo Pros, 15x18
Front: Mickey Thompson Sportsman 25/8.50x15LT
Rear: Mickey Thompson Sportsman Pro 29/18.5x15
Full rollcage, '09 Grand Prix bucket seats in black and gray leather, Vintage Air, Auto Meter gauges, custom center console, Hurst Quarter Stick shifter, Lokar parking brake, billet accents, door panels painted to match the exterior
Body has been chopped and stretched; shaved hood emblem; custom third door; custom metal hood with inset air cleaner and gauge cutouts; tubbed bed fitted with air suspension compressor and reserve tank, 20-gallon fuel cell, and Optima Red Top battery; Tungsten Gray and Viper Red paint by Brian Semancik (Rhinebeck, NY)
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When we left Dad to die
Back in the 1970s I was fortunate enough to camp at Carolina Beach State Park several times each summer. It was always fun and carefree, but then again I had never experienced a tropical storm while camping.
As my parents set up the tent, the local radio stations kept talking about this tropical storm that would arrive during the night. Mom wanted to leave, and Dad wanted to stay. Well, Dad won, kinda.
We settled in for the night to a nice breeze and distant lightning. All was good for a few hours. Dad was snoring, and Mom was awake and highly irritated. As the wind got higher, she told him to "get up!" He said, "I like storms. Go to sleep."
Well, Mom said, "heck with him," and packed us into the truck. She aimed the headlights toward the tent hoping Dad would get up. Almost immediately, a gust took a few tent poles, and all you could see was a monstrous figure fighting to get out of a tent. The rain began to pour down. Dad was so mad that we "left him to die." Hilarious now!


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text:
For a conference,
I once drew a cartoon about spreadsheets. It showed a City gent staring
at an Excel formula while behind him, Excel developers in Canary
Wharf fretted. Like this:
In the cartoon, I'd assumed it was his own spreadsheet, but it could have been someone else's "legacy" spreadsheet that he was trying to decipher — and that's what I'm going to write about. My mind has been running on the topic since a colleague asked me to explain my work on what I call "structure discovery": making explicit the things an author knows about his spreadsheet but didn't write down.
To demonstrate, I've written a tiny cash-flow
spreadsheet, pictured below. Its formulae are realistic, but I've
reduced the number of rows and simplified the currency and date formats
so that it doesn't take up too much space on the screen:
The first thing one needs is a listing of the spreadsheet's formulae. Oddly, Excel doesn't provide this; but below, I do so by reading the spreadsheet into a reverse-engineering tool I've developed. This parses the Excel file, extracts the formulae, associates them with their cells, and lists them. That's something that will be useful again later on, when I go on to transform the formulae to make them easier to read. But to start with, here are the formulae without any processing:
Cells Sheet1!A1:F12 where: Sheet1!B1 = "Simple cash-flow spreadsheet" Sheet1!B2 = "Demonstrates Jocelyn Ireson-Paine's reverse-engineering software" Sheet1!F4 = "Opening cash" Sheet1!F5 = 1000 Sheet1!B7 = "Month" Sheet1!C7 = "Income" Sheet1!D7 = "Expenses" Sheet1!E7 = "Net profit" Sheet1!F7 = "Cash at start of period" Sheet1!B8 = 1 Sheet1!C8 = 120 Sheet1!D8 = 27 Sheet1!E8 = Sheet1!C8-Sheet1!D8 Sheet1!F8 = Sheet1!F5 Sheet1!B9 = 2 Sheet1!C9 = 120 Sheet1!D9 = 41 Sheet1!E9 = Sheet1!C9-Sheet1!D9 Sheet1!F9 = Sheet1!F8+Sheet1!E8 Sheet1!B10 = 3 Sheet1!C10 = 150 Sheet1!D10 = 64 Sheet1!E10 = Sheet1!C10-Sheet1!D10 Sheet1!F10 = Sheet1!F9+Sheet1!E9 Sheet1!A12 = "Totals" Sheet1!C12 = SUM(Sheet1!C8:Sheet1!C10) Sheet1!D12 = SUM(Sheet1!D8:Sheet1!D10) Sheet1!E12 = SUM(Sheet1!E8:Sheet1!E10)
Having the formulae in a single listing I can print is nice, but it would be even better if the cell addresses were replaced by meaningful names. So suppose again that the cash-flow spreadsheet is someone else's that I'm trying to decipher, and suppose also that from its layout, cell colouring, and labels, I've guessed which cells belong together. For example, suppose I've guessed that cells B8:B10 are successive months, and that C8:C10 are successive incomes. I could summarise my guesses like this:
'Sheet1'!F5 is opening_cash. 'Sheet1'!B8:B10 is months. 'Sheet1'!C8:C10 is income. 'Sheet1'!D8:D10 is expenses. 'Sheet1'!E8:E10 is net_profit. 'Sheet1'!F8:F10 is cash_at_start_of_period. 'Sheet1'!D12 is total_expenses. 'Sheet1'!C12:C12 is total_income. 'Sheet1'!E12:E12 iso total_profit.
Equipped with such a mapping from addresses to names, one
could then regard each group of cells as an array. For
example, B8:B10 would consist of the elements
months[3]. Similarly, C8:C10 would consist of
income[2], and
income[3]. It's then fairly simple to
rewrite each formula, replacing cell addresses in it
by named array elements. I've implemented such
transformations in my reverse-engineering software, and
below, apply them to the cash-flow spreadsheet. Notice how much
more intelligible it becomes:
Cells total_profit[1] total_expenses[1] total_income[1] Sheet1!A1:F12 cash_at_start_of_period[1:3] net_profit[1:3] expenses[1:3] income[1:3] months[1:3] opening_cash[1] where: Sheet1!B1 = "Simple cash-flow spreadsheet" Sheet1!B2 = "Demonstrates Jocelyn Ireson-Paine's reverse-engineering software" Sheet1!F4 = "Opening cash" Sheet1!B7 = "Month" Sheet1!C7 = "Income" Sheet1!D7 = "Expenses" Sheet1!E7 = "Net profit" Sheet1!F7 = "Cash at start of period" Sheet1!A12 = "Totals" cash_at_start_of_period[1] = opening_cash[1] cash_at_start_of_period[2] = cash_at_start_of_period[1]+net_profit[1] cash_at_start_of_period[3] = cash_at_start_of_period[2]+net_profit[2] expenses[1] = 27 expenses[2] = 41 expenses[3] = 64 income[1] = 120 income[2] = 120 income[3] = 150 months[1] = 1 months[2] = 2 months[3] = 3 net_profit[1] = income[1]-expenses[1] net_profit[2] = income[2]-expenses[2] net_profit[3] = income[3]-expenses[3] opening_cash[1] = 1000 total_expenses[1] = SUM(expenses[1]:expenses[3]) total_income[1] = SUM(income[1]:income[3]) total_profit[1] = SUM(net_profit[1]:net_profit[3])
Although such a listing is more intelligible than the
original formulae, it can become tedious and very long if the
spreadsheet has lots of repeated formulae such as those for
To overcome this, I've implemented
a "run detector". This compares each formula with the
ones next to it, looking to see whether it's either
identical or differs by 1 in a cell address or constant. When
it finds a run of two or more formulae that are thus related,
it summarises them by factoring out
the common parts and replacing these by a variable,
written here as
V0. Here's output
from the run-detector applied to the cash-flow spreadsheet:
total_profit[1] = SUM(net_profit[1]:net_profit[3]). total_expenses[1] = SUM(expenses[1]:expenses[3]). total_income[1] = SUM(income[1]:income[3]). Sheet1!A12 = "Totals". Sheet1!B1 = "Simple cash-flow spreadsheet". Sheet1!B2 = "Demonstrates Jocelyn Ireson-Paine's reverse-engineering software". Sheet1!B7 = "Month". Sheet1!C7 = "Income". Sheet1!D7 = "Expenses". Sheet1!E7 = "Net profit". Sheet1!F4 = "Opening cash". Sheet1!F7 = "Cash at start of period". cash_at_start_of_period[1] = opening_cash[1]. cash_at_start_of_period[V0>1] = cash_at_start_of_period[V0-1]+net_profit[V0-1]. net_profit[V0] = income[V0]-expenses[V0]. expenses[1] = 27. expenses[2] = 41. expenses[3] = 64. income[V0<3] = 120. income[3] = 150. months[V0] = V0. opening_cash[1] = 1000.
In case this isn't clear, the equation
months[V0] = V0
means that for all
V0 within the bounds of
months table, the
V0 month is
That is, the first element of the
months table is 1, the
is 2, and
so on.
Similarly, the equations for
cash_at_start_of_period say that the first element of
is equal to
opening_cash, and that each subsequent
element is the value for the previous month plus that
month's net profit. This, by the way, is a
common pattern in spreadsheets:
an initialisation formula followed by a run of formulae that
pass information from one row to the next. In effect, it's
recursion, but over space rather than time.
The run-detector also works on "raw" spreadsheet listings: those without name substitutions. Here it is, applied again to the cash-flow spreadsheet:
Sheet1!A12 = "Totals". Sheet1!B1 = "Simple cash-flow spreadsheet". Sheet1!B2 = "Demonstrates Jocelyn Ireson-Paine's reverse-engineering software". Sheet1!B7 = "Month". Sheet1!B[V1 in 8:10] = V1-7. Sheet1!C7 = "Income". Sheet1!C[8:9] = 120. Sheet1!C10 = 150. Sheet1![V0 in C:E]12 = SUM(Sheet1![V0]8:Sheet1![V0]10). Sheet1!D7 = "Expenses". Sheet1!D8 = 27. Sheet1!D9 = 41. Sheet1!D10 = 64. Sheet1!E7 = "Net profit". Sheet1!E[V1 in 8:10] = Sheet1!C[V1]-Sheet1!D[V1]. Sheet1!F4 = "Opening cash". Sheet1!F5 = 1000. Sheet1!F7 = "Cash at start of period". Sheet1!F8 = Sheet1!F5. Sheet1!F[V1 in 9:10] = Sheet1!F[V1-1]+Sheet1!E[V1-1].
I had to invent a
notation for variables that range over row and column numbers.
This is illustrated by the line
Sheet1!B[V1 in 8:10] = V1-7.
This says that
Sheet1!B8 = 1, and that
Sheet1!B9 = 2, and so on. Similarly, the
left-hand side
Sheet1![V0 in C:E]12 says
V0 ranges over column addresses
C to E. And on its right-hand side, the
Sheet1![V0]8 denotes
Sheet1!C8 or
Such a listing is useful because it helps discover runs of related formulae, and hence determine which cells are part of the same group. For example, it refers repeatedly to rows 8:10 and 9:10. If we didn't already know that the cells in these rows of each column were related, the listing would be a good hint. That isn't actually necessary in my cash-flow example, where the grouping is obvious by eyeballing the spreadsheet, but it can be very useful. I once worked on a 10,000-cell 200-sheet monster of a housing-finance spreadsheet which contained some 60 20×40 interrelated tables. The run-detector was invaluable in showing which formulae were related. 60 × 20×40 is 48,000 cells; I was able to reduce these to about 120 equations. I say 120, because each table tended to be defined by two sets of formulae: one set to initialise its first row, and one to progress down subsequent rows, in a similar way to the recursion mentioned above. The formulae within each set differed only by column address, and hence the run-detector could summarise them into one equation.
Finally, here is a spreadsheet that I've seeded with errors:
This spreadsheet looks like the one I showed earlier, but Excel is not
happy with it, which it signals with the little green triangles
in cells E9 and D12. It displays these when it thinks a
formula is out of step with those around it. To find out what's
wrong, I listed the formulae with name substitutions again; and
three errors become apparent. The value for
is a hard-wired constant rather than a formula.
The formula for
net_profit[2] subtracts from
and not
income[2], an error hard to see by inspecting
the spreadsheet because both cells have the same value. And
the SUM making up
total_expenses[1] has run off the end
of its range:
Cells total_profit[1] total_expenses[1] total_income[1] Sheet1!A1:F12 cash_at_start_of_period[1:3] net_profit[1:3] expenses[1:3] income[1:3] months[1:3] opening_cash[1] where: Sheet1!B1 = "Simple cash-flow spreadsheet" Sheet1!B2 = "Demonstrates Jocelyn Ireson-Paine's reverse-engineering software" Sheet1!F4 = "Opening cash" Sheet1!B7 = "Month" Sheet1!C7 = "Income" Sheet1!D7 = "Expenses" Sheet1!E7 = "Net profit" Sheet1!F7 = "Cash at start of period" Sheet1!A12 = "Totals" cash_at_start_of_period[1] = opening_cash[1] cash_at_start_of_period[2] = 1093 Error cash_at_start_of_period[3] = cash_at_start_of_period[2]+net_profit[2] expenses[1] = 27 expenses[2] = 41 expenses[3] = 64 income[1] = 120 income[2] = 120 income[3] = 150 months[1] = 1 months[2] = 2 months[3] = 3 net_profit[1] = income[1]-expenses[1] net_profit[2] = income[1]-expenses[2] Error net_profit[3] = income[3]-expenses[3] opening_cash[1] = 1000 total_expenses[1] = SUM(expenses[1]:Sheet1!D11) Error total_income[1] = SUM(income[1]:income[3]) total_profit[1] = SUM(net_profit[1]:net_profit[3])
In bigger spreadsheets, the "out-of-step" errors would also
become evident when I list by runs. The spreadsheet here doesn't
really have enough related formulae for this to happen. However,
the following extract from a by-runs listing does show that something
is amiss with
net_profit[V0<3] = income[1]-expenses[V0]. net_profit[3] = income[3]-expenses[3].
All three kinds of error, by the way, have occurred in real spreadsheets. I've got repeated formulae wrong in my own spreadsheets, though I've always caught the error before the spreadsheets went live. I seem to remember horror stories of naïve spreadsheeters overtyping a formula with the number it has calculated, to "save the computer work"; and other anecdotes of the same being done to defraud. And errors in SUM ranges are notorious. SF author and critic David Langford once received only half the royalties he was due because a SUM in his publisher's royalties spreadsheet missed some cells. And the European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group has a horror story (search for "$38K spreadsheet error") of a hospital's Medicare bad-debts spreadsheet whose SUM ranges were misprogrammed. Because of this, the hospital claimed $38,240 more to compensate it for bad debts than it should have.
Making existing spreadsheets easier to understand is one important aspect of spreadsheet safety, and is the main point of this posting. But it's also important to avoid bugs when writing new spreadsheets. I've worked on this too, and I'll finish with a summary of the work. It's based on a language I've developed called Excelsior, which can compile listings like those above into spreadsheets. This means that you can write meaningful identifiers rather than cell addresses. Separate layout statements in the program specify how these identifiers map to cells.
Excelsior also lets you write reuseable modules that can be shared between different spreadsheets. In other words, code reuse. That's something lacking from Excel, where to share code between spreadsheets, you have to copy cells from one spreadsheet and paste into another. And then, of course, you end up having to maintain several copies of your formulae.
The following links give more information on this work. In How to Document a Spreadsheet: an Exercise with Cash-Flow and Loans, I show how to develop, in Excelsior, a spreadsheet that represents several loans, and for each month, decides which is best to borrow from. The algorithm is fairly simple, but it's subtle, and it would be tricky to get right if coding directly in Excel. Having the formulae all available in front of you, with sensible cell names, makes it much easier.
A much longer exercise of the same kind is Gliders, Hasslers, and the Toadsucker: Writing and Explaining a Structured Excel Life Game. In it, I show how to develop a spreadsheet that implements a well-known cellular automaton, John Conway's game of Life. I wrote my article for maths teachers who might want to introduce secondary-school students to Life. Having the primary source code be an Excelsior listing, rather than a spreadsheet, makes it much easier to show students the equations that update the cellular automaton.
Rather different is the science-fiction generator at Ireson-Ireson-Paine Spreadsheet Parts Repository Excel science-fiction generator. I based this on a jokey diagram in an old SF anthology, Gahan Wilson's The Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer from Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss's The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 5. It's a familiar idea: a network of linked boxes where each box contains a plot event such as "Earth falls into the Sun" or "And so everybody dies". The links between boxes indicate which events can follow which. My spreadsheet implements this as a transition graph, which it recurses over to generate a story. I wrote the spreadsheet entirely in Excelsior; the recursion would have been very tricky to program if using only Excel.
Those examples use the idea that one can avoid bugs by generating spreadsheets from easily readable programs. Another way to avoid bugs is to build spreadsheets from prefabricated components. That's demonstrated in Spreadsheet Components, Google Spreadsheets, and Code Reuse, where I apply it to Google's online spreadsheet, enabling users to load library formulae into it in the same way they can load charts. The use of modules is an important part of spreadsheet safety, but much neglected.


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Throwing the Book at 'Religious Right'
Halloween and the election are over, but the media's favorite boogeyman is still roaming the land.
The Christian right menace is alive and well, and the media are touting a slew of books designed to demonize or alienate it. The hammering began in October, when the networks featured Bush insider David Kuo's "Tempting Faith" (Simon & Schuster), which alleges that the administration took religious conservatives for a ride and derided them behind closed doors. It was the perfect pre-election offering, with CBS's Lesley Stahl giving it a lengthy segment.
Likewise, Andrew Sullivan's "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It and How to Get It Back" (HarperCollins), received kid gloves treatment from bastions of social liberalism like the Washington Post Book World, New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times Book Review and the Economist magazine.
The Economist describes Sullivan's book as "the strangest, often the most perplexing, and always the most intriguing" of several recently released political books. Well, yes, trying to meld Roman Catholicism with a libertine sexual ethic does present opportunities for intriguing, perplexing argumentation. Three-ring pretzels have a straighter line than Sullivan's gymnastic logic in trying to make the case that two men are functionally identical to a husband and wife. No wonder the Economist, after acknowledging the difficulty of Sullivan's task, concludes that his book is "peculiar and inconclusive, but it is also intellectually challenging and thoroughly captivating."
I haven't read "The Conservative Soul," so I don't know how captivating it is. I've debated Sullivan and read his book "Virtually Normal." All I can say is that I'm saddened that a fine writer and speaker has wasted so much of his considerable talent pursuing an unworthy cause—legitimizing aberrant sexuality. As with the release of David Kuo's book, Sullivan's publisher (HarperCollins) apparently was trying to boost sales by smacking the GOP base just before the election.
Other curiously timed books include "Letter to a Christian Nation" (Borzoi Books, an imprint of Random House's Alfred A. Knopf division) by Sam Harris, and "The God Delusion" (Houghton Mifflin) by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
Overall, Harris' and Dawkins' anti-faith barrages received respectful, if not totally adulatory reviews. Jim Holt's New York Times review of "The God Delusion" took some good, clean shots at Dawkins, accusing him of a "smug" tone and "logic occasionally sloppy," while agreeing with Dawkins' characterization of Pat Robertson as a "buffoon," along with the "fundamentalist pastors like the one who created 'Hell Houses' to frighten sin-prone children at Halloween." It's always okay to beat up "fundamentalists" in the course of any analysis, especially those in the Times.
Curiously, the New York Times did not think it worthwhile to review Bill O'Reilly's book "Culture Warrior," which made it to the top of the Times' bestseller list. Nor have the Timesters thought that David Limbaugh's best-selling book, "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party," merited even a thrashing, er, review.
Nor did they take any interest in "Donkey Cons," by Robert Stacy McCain and Lynn Vincent, published earlier this year by Nelson Current. That book's subtitle is "Sex, Crime and Corruption in the Democratic Party." You can just picture the editors at the Times yawning and blinking as they set it aside in the stack for staffers to grab and sell at their next garage sale. More surprising is that no major conservative paper other than the Washington Times (where McCain works as a deputy national editor) bothered to review it, either. Could it be because donkeys are so good at kicking back, in every sense of the phrase?
Clay Waters, director of TimesWatch.org, which monitors the New York Times, says that the Gray Lady rarely reviews conservative books, and when it does, the reviews typically are scathing.
"When lead book critic Michiko Kakutani does address conservative books, it's almost always uniformly negative," Waters says. "For example, on October 31, here's how she described John Yoo's 'War by Other Means': 'A book that is strewn with preposterous assertions, contorted reasoning and illogical conclusions.' She wrote that Fred Barnes' recent bio of George W. Bush, 'Rebel-in-Chief,' was replete with 'ridiculous generalizations,' and 'absurdly rosy pronouncements as to undermine any credibility.' She dismissed Richard Posner's book 'Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency,' as 'shrilly titled' and 'chilling.'"
Meanwhile, amid helpful publicity, Sam Harris' "Letter to a Christian Nation" (Borzoi Books, an imprint of Random House's Alfred A. Knopf division) made it to the top 10 of the New York Times bestseller list. Harris is a very charitable guy who wants to show Christians the errors of their ways, especially those who are trying to show him the error of his ways. So he read lots of letters from Christians and then wrote a short book full of red herrings as a sort of atheist manifesto.
National Public Radio devoted two segments to Harris's book: "Keeping Religion Out of Public Policy," October 2, and "Rethinking Religion and Politics," October 3, followed by a sympathetic chat with evolutionary biologist Dawkins on October 6 titled, "Fundamentalist Religion and Science." During the last week in October, NPR did a session with David Kuo, along with Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and, for balance, Rich Cizik, the moderate spokesman for the National Association of Evangelicals. Any resemblance to a pattern of opportunistic Christian-bashing is purely coincidental.
Here's some fodder from the opening paragraph of Harris' "Letter to a Christian Nation": "The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While we may want to ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that such hatred draws considerable support from the Bible. How do I know this? The most disturbed of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse."
Somehow, I don't think Harris got many letters from Franklin Graham, Pope Benedict or volunteers at the neighborhood crisis pregnancy center.
Calling all nutcakes. You're getting your moment in the sun to star as representatives of 2,000 years of Christendom. Make the most of it, and get your invective-filled missive to Sam Harris right away. He might include it in his next book.
By the way, if you buy Harris's diatribe right now, you can get an Amazon.com discount on Barry Lynn's "Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom" (Harmony), released in—surprise—October. Amazon knows who's going for this stuff, and it's not the folks down at the Knights of Columbus Hall or the bowling alley.
To see an example of the type of reader Amazon is shooting for, read this review of Harris's book posted on Amazon: "'I can't sign my name to this blurb. As a New York Times best selling author of books about business, my career will evaporate if I endorse a book that challenges the deeply held superstitions and bigotry of the masses. That's exactly why you should (no, you must) read this angry and honest book right away. As long as science and rational thought are under attack by the misguided yet pious majority, our nation is in jeopardy. I'm scared. You should be too. Please buy two, one for you and one for a friend you care about." —Unsigned."
The anti-faith barrage continued after the election, when Time magazine's November 13 cover featured the false dichotomy headline "God vs. Science," as if everyone assumes that belief in God is incompatible with scientific inquiry. That notion would be news to Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, among many others. Fortunately, the exchange inside between Dawkins and Christian scientist Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Institute, provides a more balanced look at competing worldviews.
The publishing assault on God and the so-called religious right is just beginning. With blood in the water following the Democrats' takeover of Congress, books that assail faith and blame conservative Christians for everything from acne to AIDS are likely to keep rolling off the presses.


text:
Backcountry Monopoly
Tom Chapman's cunning real estate deals have made him a lightning rod in the battle over property rights in the wildlands of the West. Is he gaming the system or just playing smarter than everyone else?
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ONE DAY LAST APRIL, I followed a 25-year Telluride local as he slid up to a boundary rope at the top of the resort's Revelation Bowl, glanced over his shoulder to see if anybody was watching, and ducked out of bounds. We traversed the rim of the famous Bear Creek drainage, a shimmering, 3,000-plus-acre playground of 45-degree couloirs and untracked powder ringed by the high, jagged peaks of Colorado's San Juan Mountains. A dozen other skiers were visible up the valley.
Let's Not Make a DealRead more about the four real estate transactions that put Tom Chapman on the map
My guide—who asked not to be named, for fear of losing his job and his ski pass—picked a line, and we plunged downward, carving into creamy spring snow. Five months earlier, this terrain wouldn't have been off-limits, but in December 2010 the U.S. Forest Service—leaseholder of Telluride's more than 2,000 acres—had forced the resort to close the gates into Bear Creek, shutting down some of the best lift-accessed backcountry skiing in North America. At issue is a 30-acre bacon strip of land that separates Bear Creek from the town of Telluride, 2,850 feet below.
The controversial real estate speculator Tom Chapman had bought the parcel and several others for $246,000 from a doctor named George Greenberg the previous spring; then he complained to the Forest Service that skiers were trespassing as they exited the drainage on their way back to town. Chapman says that he and his business partner, a hippie turned chef named Ron Curry, plan to erect a gold mine on the site or perhaps build a European-style backcountry chalet. In January 2011, Chapman also filed a lawsuit against the resort's parent company, Telluride Ski and Golf (TSG), contending that he has the right to keep an old road to his claim open year-round—a road better known to Telluride skiers as See Forever, an intermediate run and one of the hill's main thoroughfares.
Judging by a letter he wrote to the Forest Service in May 2010, soon after he closed on the claims, it appears that Chapman's goal is to force TSG to buy the land from him—in theory, the only way to halt his disruptive plans. Chapman insists all he wants is road access and to prevent trespassing on his land.
"What you are witnessing in Bear Creek is a massive appropriation of private property without compensation, with over 5,000 skiers a month passing through private lands," he wrote in a May 2010 letter to the Forest Service. Before buying, Chapman had learned that the resort was exploring a boundary expansion into upper Bear Creek. Greenberg "mentioned that he'd received a request from TSG to cross his lands for the purposes of conducting a snow study," says Chapman. Citing potential injury liability, he argued in his letter that the resort needed his land if it wanted its expansion: "TSG should own every acre above the Nellie mine before making an application for boundary expansion or guided skiing permit."
Chapman, who's 61 and has lived most of his life in and around Paonia, Colorado—two hours northeast of Telluride—isn't your typical small-town realtor. Over the past two decades, he and his investors have bought more than two dozen wilderness properties and figured out ways to boost their values before reselling them. Last year, The Wall Street Journal called him "the Buzzard of the Backcountry" for the way he serially sniffs out, snaps up, and threatens to develop Colorado's pristine inholdings—chunks of private property surrounded by protected federal land—unless the government, conservationists, or local communities pay him what he calls a fair market rate and they call a ransom.
As Chapman tells it, he's simply defending the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees that private property can't be "taken for public use, without just compensation." Just compensation is defined as fair market value, and when the government offers what seems like less than that, through an appraisal process that's as complicated as it is arbitrary, landowners turn to Chapman for help. Greenberg, for example, bought his claims as an investment but was unable to sell them for a suitable price to a public or private buyer. Chapman stepped in with more money than any conservation group would offer.
Now, he has cut off skiers from backcountry access they'd been enjoying since before the resort opened in 1972. Not surprisingly, the townies are upset: stickers reading TOM CHAPMAN IS A DOUCHE BAG have cropped up all over Telluride. In public, Chapman denies that he's looking for a buyout, and TSG's management, aware of his tactics, hasn't made any offers.
"I'm not going to come crawling on my hands and knees to this guy," Dave Riley, the company's CEO, said last April. "Maybe he just needs to sit up there and think about it for a while."
I FIRST MET CHAPMAN and Curry in January 2011, at a diner in Paonia. Chapman—who's about six feet tall, with a head of thinning brown hair and eyes set close to a beakish nose—was polite and talkative, though he doesn't like dealing with reporters in person and avoids being photographed. That way, he told me in an e-mail, "I can ride the chairlift with you at Telluride, and you haven't the slightest idea who's sitting next to you."
After lunch we hopped in Curry's car and drove a winding county road. Along the way, Chapman pointed out fields where he bucked hay as a boy and ranches he sold as a young realtor. At an overlook, he pointed to a peak in the distance. "I've cross-country skied under full moons with some of my liberal environmental friends, all the way up that mountain," he said.
Gesturing toward a valley below, he pointed to a structure. "There's a roof… That's where my house is." In 1982, Chapman built a 950-square-foot hydroelectric-powered log home that requires a ten-minute ski-in during winter. He lived at the remote cabin year-round until the late eighties. Now he spends time there in the summer with his family. "It's not big, but it's gorgeous," he said. "We used to have these wild parties up there every year.… You had all this natural beauty around you."
Reminiscing, Chapman doesn't sound like the vulture he's been made out to be, and when you hang around Paonia many old-timers describe him as principled and hardworking. "He's always been willing to lend a hand and has helped us out a lot around the property," says Tom Beach, a retired physician and one of Chapman's neighbors. He's a decent piano player, too, and gives free concerts at nursing homes in the area. This Tom Chapman is a good old boy sticking up for the ordinary folks he grew up with.
"My value system is based on doing what's right," he told me. The way he sees it, his deals are made possible by the overreaching of a corrupt and unjust government.
"The preservationists who created the wilderness inholding in the first place did not have in mind that the entrapped landowner would have more than one option," Chapman said. Follow his lead, he suggests, and you can make money while getting the government off your back. "The big and as yet untold story," Chapman wrote in a mass e-mail response to the Journal profile, "is the regulatory taking of private lands all across America, with no compensation or values being diminished by a monkey-wrenched federal appraisal system."
CHAPMAN'S BUSINESS MODEL is complicated—involving things like land swaps, mining patents, and conservation and access easements—but his strategy is simple enough: gain leverage by threatening to destroy something priceless, then cut a deal.
It's a model that even the American Land Rights Association, an advocacy group for private property rights and inholding owners, has come out against. "Chapman is not an advocate for inholders and, in fact, does great damage to inholders nationally," says Chuck Cushman, the group's founder and executive director.
"He has no idea what I do," responds Chapman. "That guy makes his living charging everybody $30 to subscribe to his newsletters."
When the federal government moves to designate a roadless wilderness area, park, forest, or preserve, landowners inside the newly protected area aren't always willing to sell. In the old days—for example, during the creation of Yosemite National Park in 1890 or Shenandoah National Park in 1935—the feds basically condemned the land and booted everybody out.
Such strong-arming doesn't happen anymore, thanks to the negative political fallout. These days the government offers landowners a take-it-or-leave-it price based on an appraisal. Chapman has represented a few of these people, but most of his deals start with people who bought existing inholdings.
In the national parks system, there are currently between 9,000 and 10,000 inholdings. Of the nearly 15 million acres of national forest in Colorado alone, there are about 1.5 million acres of inholdings. Inholding owners can buy and sell and can build structures, subject to county zoning laws, but they'll never be able to drive to their properties if the land is located within federally designated roadless areas.
Still, inholdings are valuable, since their undeveloped state is crucial to an area remaining wilderness. And that's Chapman's bargaining chip. He buys properties that, in a sense, have contributed to the public good for free—either by remaining pristine or, in cases like Bear Creek, serving as playgrounds for hikers and skiers—and then extracts the value of their enjoyment. When he buys up inholdings and threatens to hammer together a mansion out in the woods, he forces government officials to give in to his demands or see the value of public land decrease.
William Wheaton, a real estate economist at MIT, says Chapman's style represents "a classic holdout problem in land assembly, only in this case the assembler is the federal government rather than a private developer." When the government assembles raw land into large contiguous areas, it all becomes more valuable. It's that wilderness premium, rather than the usefulness or beauty of his own holdings, that Chapman trades on. Wheaton believes that the government would fare best by simply condemning the contested land and determining what to pay Chapman for it in court.
Only it won't. The Forest Service doesn't want to encourage copycats by dealing with Chapman, and it doesn't want to look like a bully by condemning him. So it ignores him, until it can't. Even if it were to go after him, Chapman is usually one step ahead, as some of his past fights show. In his favorite sandbox—Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, near Montrose, Colorado—he first discovered his knack for fighting the government and winning, and he's repeated the formula several times.
THE DEFINING EPISODE happened in 1984, when a rancher and Chapman buddy named Dick Mott found himself in financial trouble and decided to sell 7,200 acres bordering what was then Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument. At the time, Chapman was a successful small-town realtor in Paonia. Mott first offered the property to the National Park Service. The government didn't want it, so Mott hired Chapman and began to prepare the land to sell on the open market, putting in a water line and having Chapman file the paperwork to subdivide it. They also cooked up some publicity: Mott and a neighbor used a bulldozer to make it look as though he'd actually broken ground.
"We took a D7 dozer, hooked a big bush onto the corner of it, and went roaring up the hill kicking up dust," says Mott. "It looked like we were starting to build a subdivision. But we did it for effect. We never had any intention of building condos."
The stunt did not go unnoticed. A headline in High Country News blared, BULLDOZERS NIBBLE AT NATIONAL MONUMENT. The paper's publisher at that time, Ed Marston, once one of Chapman's fiercest critics, recalls the incident with a chuckle. "We were all hysterical over the idea. Tom is a master of drama."
Three weeks later, President Ronald Reagan signed a law expanding the monument's boundaries and effectively condemning 3,920 acres of Mott's land, citing "threat of increasing development." The government offered $200 per acre. Mott, whose appraisers told him his land was worth $700 per acre, sued on Fifth Amendment grounds. In 1987, when government lawyers realized they were going to lose—they were in clear violation of the Constitution—they settled out of court for $2 million, or about $510 per acre.
"The government was trying to cheat the landowner by paying him for the land's agriculture value but claiming that they wanted to preserve the viewshed, which is the development value," says Chapman.
When Congress finally turned the monument into a national park in 1999, it added a specific clause voiding the government's right to take land inside the park by condemning it.
Having achieved a decisive victory and seen how the government could bully landowners, Chapman had a business model and a motive to replicate it. In 1989, he helped another local landowner shut down access to a property that fly-fishermen had been crossing for years to reach the gold-medal trout waters of the Gunnison River. Community leaders raised $400,000 to buy public access to the river.
In a 1992 land-swap play, Chapman and a group of investors paid $960,000 in a seller-financed deal for 240 acres high in the West Elk Wilderness. Chapman had represented his childhood friend Bob Minerich as the buyer's agent three years earlier, when Minerich bought the same property for $240,000. Chapman subdivided the land, raising its value, and then began helicoptering logs out to a ridgetop cabin site that was visible for 25 miles in all directions.
Colorado Senator Hank Brown quickly pushed for a land swap, and the Forest Service offered Chapman 118 acres just outside Alta Lakes, near Telluride, in exchange for the West Elk parcels. Chapman's property now appraised for $640,000, the same as the Alta Lakes property. Before the swap was completed in 1994, a man named David Forrest—who says Chapman approached him about becoming an investor in the deal—tried to warn the government of what he said was a price-inflation scam by writing a letter to U.S. Forest Service chief Jack Ward Thomas.
"Mr. Chapman explained that the price had to be high in order to justify a higher value for a trade," Forrest wrote. "They believed that just a few helicopter flights to bring in building materials would be enough to convince the Forest Service that they would build."
The land swap went through, despite the objections of Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell and conservation groups in Telluride, one of which took out ads in the Telluride Daily Planet claiming that the Alta Lakes property was worth at least $3 million. But even if Chapman had been scheming, it was the government that grossly undervalued its holdings. He sold the 118 acres for $4.2 million less than two years later.
DURING OUR TIME together last January, Chapman seemed to relish his war stories past and present. As we drove out of Paonia, he pointed toward the West Elk Wilderness and asked if I'd seen the video of him torching the unfinished cabin that he'd built up there. Then he perked up when we passed a snowy hayfield.
"This is Bill Koch's," Chapman said.
Bill Koch, 71, is the lesser-known twin of David Koch. David, along with elder brother Charles, helps bankroll the Tea Party movement and runs Koch Industries. Reclusive and quirky, Bill is probably best known for winning the America's Cup sailing race in 1992 and, more recently, for opposing a windmill development off Cape Cod. He currently runs the billion-dollar Florida conglomerate Oxbow Carbon, which has a mine outside Paonia. Unlike his brothers, Bill Koch donates to both Democrats and Republicans.
Koch's 4,500-acre Bear Ranch, two unjoined parcels near Paonia, is currently the subject of a land-swap feud that has pitted him against Chapman and an unlikely Chapman ally, Ed Marston, the retired publisher of High Country News. A staunch and outspoken environmentalist for the past 30 years, Marston had long been one of Chapman's biggest detractors. But since August 2010, the two have joined forces in their battle against the land exchange. "He has been very helpful, and there's nothing in it for him," says Marston. "So perhaps he is driven by ideology."
In the proposal, put forth in 2010, Koch wanted to trade the federal government 911 acres he owns in Gunnison County—along with 80 acres in Utah's Dinosaur National Monument—for a 1,846-acre strip of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) property that would connect the two sides of his ranch.
Marston has opposed this deal, which at press time was still pending, both for the lack of transparency in the process and because Paonia would lose its traditional access to the Ragged Mountain Wilderness. "There's nothing in it for Delta County," says Marston. Chapman, too, is fiercely opposed to the deal; he says it reeks of political cronyism.
"He's basically buying his way into public lands through the influence of public officials," he says of Koch. This is a reference to the fact that, since 2007, Koch and Oxbow employees have donated $30,000 to former Democratic congressman and current Colorado agriculture commissioner John Salazar—who proposed the Bear Ranch exchange in Congress—and that Koch had hosted Salazar, who is the brother of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, for several elk hunts at his ranch.
Koch sees things a little differently. "Chapman is a private-property-rights advocate as long as it's to his advantage," he said when I reached him at his home in Florida. In trying to join his two ranches, Koch pointed out, he has agreed to fund a mountain-bike trail from Carbondale to Crested Butte, offered various easements, and, in the latest version of the proposal, improved access to the Ragged Mountain Wilderness.
The concessions have done little to appease Marston and Chapman. But even as they toured the state together beginning in August 2010 and lobbied county commissioners and trails-and-recreation committees against Koch's proposed exchange, Chapman was working behind the scenes to try and strike his own deal with Koch.
ON MARCH 15, 2011, Chapman walked into Koch's Bear Ranch office and dropped off a package. He'd learned that Oxbow was eyeing some BLM property near Paonia for a new coal mine that, Koch acknowledges, is "definitely happening." As in the past, a deal was about to get done and Chapman just happened to be there ahead of it.
The package contained detailed maps and a six-page letter that laid out a complex plan in which Koch would buy several properties from Chapman—only one of which Chapman actually owned at the time—and then trade them with the government for the Oak Mesa mine site. The letter to Koch, which Outside obtained from Oxbow, provides perhaps the clearest look at how Chapman operates.
"After everything I'd heard about him," says Koch, "my first thought was that this is how Tom Chapman figures he's going to get into my wallet—by fighting us on the [Bear Ranch] land exchange and then all of a sudden telling us he has a magic solution."
One of the properties Chapman offered was a subdivision back in his old stomping grounds, Black Canyon National Park. "I control two compelling properties," Chapman wrote. "One … is of course the Black Canyon National Park lands, all 112 acres including the new home."
Chapman had bought those 112 acres for $240,000 in 1998, two months before legislation was introduced to make it a national park. Only this time, when he threatened to develop, the Park Service ignored him. So in 2009, he subdivided and built a 4,700-square-foot house, Casa Barranca, on 33 acres, which he still owns. He sold the other 79 acres—five plots known collectively as Signal Hill—for $2.1 million to a Maine wood-products manufacturer named Kim Cartwright.
In his letter to Koch, Chapman set Cartwright up as a bogeyman: "I understand he intends to build an estate-sized home, which will no doubt significantly alter the nature of the park." Chapman, who'd already built next door, was ready to ride to the rescue, sort of. "If I can't find a way to protect this Park," he wrote Koch, "then I'm fine with construction on Signal Hill." Yet, when I called Cartwright, he told me, as he'd told The Wall Street Journal, that he'd bought the land to preserve it, not to develop it, and that he was aware of Chapman's effort to resell his land. "I'd like to see the park get it eventually," he said. As to Chapman's claims that he plans to build on it, he added, "Sometimes you tell little white lies to get what you want." Chapman declined to comment.
The letter also proposed that Koch buy the Signal Hill properties from Chapman. How could Koch buy Signal Hill when Cartwright already owned it? Because Chapman and Cartwright had written a $3.1 million buyback provision into their deal. "Only a few people are aware of this option," Chapman wrote Koch, though it had been published in the Journal. "A signed notarized deed back to Canyon Partners"—one of Chapman's many entities—"is in place today in a vault in the office of Land Title Guarantee Company in Denver.… I simply walk into Denver with a cashier's check and walk back out with the deed to the Signal Hill parcel."
Koch would then "earn plaudits," as Chapman put it, from both the government and the public by swapping the land with the federal government for the new Oak Mesa coal mine. "The Signal Hill parcel lays well for an RV campground," wrote Chapman, suggesting that the Park Service could use the Casa Barranca house, too. "It would be similar to the Jenny Lake Lodge cabins at Grand Teton National Park.… I would lease the campground, including the new home, to the Park Service for five years. Doing this would be like giving cocaine to a cocaine addict."
SO THAT'S THE simple half of the swap. Koch's other trading stock would come from a package of 19 prime wilderness plots–known as the TDX parcels–that Chapman sold to Montrose businessman Mark Young in 2006 for $1 million. Young put $250,000 down in cash, and Chapman owner-financed the balance. According to court documents, Young planned to pay off his debt to Chapman by donating conservation easements on the parcels (a conservation easement is a kind of deed rider that restricts development) and selling the tax credits he got from them. But after Young was late on two payments, Chapman, as the mortgage holder, withheld permission for Young to donate the easements.
"If Young couldn't do any more easements, he couldn't pay off his loan to Chapman," says David Masters, Young's lawyer.
Chapman sued and then moved to foreclose, asking the court to return the land and reverse the four conservation easements Young had donated. Chapman seems ebullient at the prospect of voiding the easements.
"It's an explosive untold story—potentially an environmental story of the year," Chapman wrote to Koch. "The extinguishment of Colorado conservation easements has never happened.… When revealed, this situation could lead to the demise of the already-tenuous conservation easement program. It's probably a fair bet to say I'm the last person in the world the government and conservationists would like to see retake possession of these wilderness lands."
Chapman would then be free to sell the parcels, along with the 112 acres in Black Canyon, to Koch. Bundled together, Signal Hill and the TDX parcels would, Chapman wrote, "bring to the table $3.6 to $4 million in exchange value," and "an unbiased appraiser, a well-chosen appraiser will come in around $7.5 million" for the Casa Barranca house.
"He's a clever guy," says Koch. "He dug into what we were doing and figured it out and came to us with a clever idea. But it was—how should I say it?—a little too cute."
There are other problems, too. A review of county records turned up irregularities in documents associated with Signal Hill and Casa Barranca. Those records indicate the Black Canyon land may have been subdivided into lots smaller than 35 acres without county approval. "Based on our information and what we've seen in the deeds, it's an illegal subdivision," says Montrose County planning and development director Steve White. Chapman contends the split was made by the government in the sixties, when it purchased a road that cut through the land.
"Chapman created a mess," says Daniel Markofsky, a real estate attorney from the Denver law firm Feldmann Nagel. "It could easily trap an unsuspecting buyer."
Chapman also placed restrictions against mobile homes on the Signal Hill deed that would protect his ability to sell all 112 acres using the buyback provision. After all, who'd want a luxury home and a trailer park? "He thought some rich guy might buy Casa Barranca only if he could get all 112 acres," says Cartwright. But according to Markofsky, Chapman didn't use a legal description when creating the restrictions. "They may be unenforceable," he says. "You could build almost anything anywhere." Chapman disputes Markofsky's analysis and insists the restrictions were properly recorded.
But perhaps the oddest part of the offer Chapman made to Koch didn't involve real estate but the goodwill of his new pal Marston.
"For 30 years, Ed Marston has been my staunchest critic," he wrote. "I now have a positive relationship with him. I know what Ed wants. I can mediate your Bear Ranch land exchange." Chapman didn't tell Marston about his offer to Koch.
After getting no reply from Koch, in June Chapman drafted another letter, this time more conciliatory, and forwarded a copy to Black Canyon National Park superintendent Connie Rudd. "I'm solidly pro-environment," he wrote. "I'm a big fan of our parks and wilderness system. However if the other side is not willing to participate in finding solutions that are equitable to entrapped private landowners, then I'm more than willing to walk to the front of the line."
BACK IN TELLURIDE, county and town officials are watching to see what happens with Chapman's lawsuit against Telluride Ski and Golf. The case hinges on mining laws and historic use of Gold Hill Road up See Forever trail. If Chapman wins and begins plowing his road, TSG may be forced to buy him out. As for the standoff in Bear Creek, county commissioner Joan May thinks there's little chance Chapman will be able to keep skiers and hikers from crossing his claims. "Let's just say there's a big precedent for historic trails remaining public," she says.
Lately, Chapman and Curry have been taking out provocative full-page ads in the Daily Planet decrying the violation of their civil liberties, warning citizens that they've placed armed guards up in Bear Creek, and sending pictures of their presence to the press.
But Telluridians haven't flinched. Increasingly, everyone from Bill Koch to the town's ski bums have followed the government's lead by refusing to engage with Chapman. Locals are still brazenly skiing and hiking across his land—and tearing down his NO TRESPASSING signs—but that's about it.
"I think [Chapman and Curry] expected more public outrage," says May. With access in question and tough high-country zoning laws, May thinks it's doubtful anything will happen in Bear Creek for years, if ever.
Perhaps Chapman, too, is getting tired of this game. According to Marston, he hasn't been immune from the real estate crash. "He doesn't have as many options financially as one might think," Marston says.
Last December, after 38 years in the business, Chapman deactivated his real estate license. He wants to focus on other interests, he says. Maybe he'll spend more time at his cabin. That's one property that has very little chance of changing hands.
"I don't care how much money you try to give me," Chapman told me. "There are some things in life that aren't replaceable, and that's one of them."


text:
The Oaks Building
106 Manners Street Wellington, New Zealand 6011
Joined September 14, 2004
Family-run Arty Bees Books was born in 1988 and has books covering most subjects. We are particularly proud of our New Zealand History and Literature sections. Only a small percentage of our stock is online so please contact the store directly regarding other titles. Currently we have less than 2,000 titles listed here but over 80,000 titles in store. Owner, Pippa Burch, took over the business from her father, who had a soft spot for second hand books. In fact, the name Arty Bees comes from her father's initials R.T.B. (his name is Robert Burch). The store has seen many different locations over the years, but is now well and truly settled into its Manners Street home. The shop boasts over 80,000 books on over one kilometre of shelving. Arty Bees is well-known in Wellington for its impressive collection of science fiction novels. In fact, they probably have the largest collection of titles in the country. The 7 staff have amassed over 50 years of service to Arty Bees. All have different fields of expertise and can often answer the trickiest questions. When I was twelve I enjoyed a book with a green cover. Do you have it?
We accept Visa, Mastercard and AMEX. We also accept cash, cheque or Direct Debit
within New Zealand. Any book found to differ materially from our description may
be returned for a refund but please notify us first. Books will be held on
confirmation of an order but will not be despatched until payment is received.
Arty Bee's Books is a Limited Liability Company, NZ Registration No 902122,
GST#70-063-166. Contact Pippa Burch, email@example.com, Tel +64 4 3845339
Orders usually ship within 2 business days. Shipping costs are based on books
weighing 2.2 LB, or 1 KG. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we may contact
you to let you know extra shipping is required.


text:
Thursday, September 3, 2009
A Touch of Tuscan
Posted by Things That Inspire at 7:45 AM
Labels: Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles, Tuscan style
34 comments:
Even the 3x3 1/2 houses at Menteluce look huge.( Living rooms with that shape, style, and window scheme keep appearing uncannily in your posts.)ReplyDelete
This Neel Reid in Druid Hills has been on sale for too long. I'm not sure if it's exactly Tuscan but it's an Italian beauty that reminds me of similar one's in Buckhead.
I love it when a reader knows my blog so well that they can see common threads in my posts that not even I was aware of....ReplyDelete
I like this very much, the colors in the LR are very much mine and I do like how the French chair is upholstered. I saved the pix for my files. Nice master BR too.
You always find the neatest things!
Beautiful! Love the green fabrics and art!ReplyDelete
I love Atlanta Homes. I've subscribed for years and don't know how I would get along without it! I recall when this home was featured, loved it then and love it now. Great post!ReplyDelete
Angela in WA
I love the slipcovers on the dining chairs {I'm into slipcovers lately}, and that green and white striped chair - I could live with that.ReplyDelete
Beautiful! I love the large interior planters.ReplyDelete
This is a beautiful home! AxReplyDelete
Great photos, love the color pallet.ReplyDelete
I have the same living room on my blog today...great minds think alike. I love that house.ReplyDelete
I love this twist on the Tuscan style. I've always seen the deeper warm tones, but it is lovely to see the cooler, lighter colors.ReplyDelete
I'm definitely going to have to look into the Atlanta H&L. I'm missing all my magazines!
* Now THIS is totally charming and it "feels" soooo "barefoot comfy"! (The true test for me!)~~~ Everything marries up so beautifully AND livably... and the colors (or should I say "NON-colors"?) in the MBR I find stunning!!!ReplyDelete
I AM curious to know if the CLOSENESS of the houses bothers/concerns anyone else. Obviously aware of the cost, I still believe it's WORTH paying the larger amount of $$$ to have more "breathing space" and privacy~~~ anyone else feel that way?
As always, a beautiful journey into a wonderful home full of great style & taste!!!
Many sincere thanks,
Linda in AZ *
Thank you for the insight - I think I like this home because of its nice architecture (the casual elegance of it, the windows, the beams) and because of its color palette. I do not like rich tones - rich yellows, reds, oranges - but the palette of this house is nice and light, textured, and appealing to me. There is not too much dark wood everywhere you look, which is often in the Americanized version of Tuscan. I wonder what the kitchen looks like?ReplyDelete
Linda, I see you went to the website for the community! I did not go to this showhouse (I tend to only go to the ones inside the perimeter, which is the loop that surrounds Atlanta), but I would love to see this community in person. It looks like the community was designed with retirees in mind - people who don't want the maintenance of a big yard, but want a beautiful home and a beautiful environment. From what I can tell, the community looks like a little village in Italy at the base od a mountain range (I believe this community is in the foothills of the mountains). The website says there are 1 acre lots available, though.
I want that headboard!ReplyDelete
The pictures are stunning. I love the button detail on the slipcovers.ReplyDelete
- Michele @ MicheleBeattyInteriorDesignSeptember 3, 2009 at 12:42 PM
You had me at Tuscan but this is my favorite kind. You mentioned that it's a lighter brighter version, yet still has the rustic charm of the beams and finishes. Great post!ReplyDelete
What a beautiful home. I love the living room. It is very serene and the painting over the fireplace is very calming as well. I'll have to check out that magazine... I was just thinking yesterday how sad it was that Southern Accents went kaput. Thanks for sharing.ReplyDelete
I love the decoration on the wall in that dining room!!ReplyDelete
This is a beautiful home. It is subtle yet lovely. The colors are delicious!ReplyDelete
Absolutely beautiful home. Tuscan and Spanish style architecture has become really popular hear in Houston in the last decade or so, totally eclipsing Georgian as the design of choice for both surbanites and their urban counterparts. That said, I think it can often come off as a bit hooky or theme-y for me, but this space really mixes it up in terms of style and doesn't read as trying to look like the house is straight out of some Tuscan fantasy.ReplyDelete
I really love the slipcovered chairs in the dining area.ReplyDelete
It's a very sophisticated design. It's not crowded, and not minimalistic either. Just right.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousSeptember 3, 2009 at 9:31 PM
I am not a fan of Tuscan, but I like this. Your title is good - just a touch of Tuscan - but the right touch, the light touch. It works!ReplyDelete
~Gorgeous decor'! I adore Tuscan style. You have a wonderful and inspiring blog. Love it!ReplyDelete
Have a blessed Holiday weekend. ~Melissa :)
I agree, the living room is lovely! Very nice post.ReplyDelete
I'll take one of the one-acre lots! Why not dream big?ReplyDelete
Another beautiful post! Thanks for joining my party and sharing it with us. Hope you have a lovely weekend. :-)
I just love that living room.ReplyDelete
gorgeous!!! love the great room!!ReplyDelete
Luscious! The ART, THE FLOWERS THE DECOR; i LOVE IT! oOPS SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS i AM TOO TIRED TO CHANGE AT THE MOMENT! i did finish a new painting I will post soon!ReplyDelete
I just read your first comment. You truly have the eye and creativity of a designer. I had once chosen a textured carpet with a diamond pattern along with 2 others to bring to my clients home. When I got there, I noticed that her millwork had accents of a diamond pattern in the doors which would now be repeated in the area rug. Something I had not consciously picked up on the first time I was there. That's when you know you should keep your day job :)ReplyDelete
You most definitely have that gift as well! Love this room and especially the large stripe on that chair!
Love the beam...actually have one in my kitchen..but sometimes they can weight down a standard height room. Love how all the photos seem to have higher ceilings. Thanks for the Atlanta mag tip. TrishReplyDelete
The button slipcovers are delicous..a wonderful touch. The striped seat against a solid background looks smashing in this setting.ReplyDelete
Tuscan, but not in your face thematic...really well done...and the artist...beautiful work, in a perfect scale.ReplyDelete
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text: Organizations sometimes rush to implement security solutions without taking the time to ensure that the products will work optimally in their environment, in hopes of dealing with immediate security shortfalls. But putting in the effort to meld new solutions with the existing infrastructure increases the likelihood of a successful deployment.Vistaprint, an online provider of professional marketing products and services to more than 14 million micro businesses and consumers, had a lack of endpoint visibility that posed a security threat to the company.Managers had no way of knowing on a global scale what devices\u2014including desktops, servers, phones, mobile devices, printers, and networking devices\u2014the company had on its network, says Nick Duda, senior lead information security engineer at Vistaprint.[Also read BYOD keeps expanding and IT just has to deal with it]The company wanted to have real-time visibility into the security posture of all devices on the network, including both physical and virtual machines, in order to tightly manage endpoint compliance. And they wanted to a way to deliver configuration changes and software installations to all company-owned devices via an agentless process."We needed a solution that could give us 100 percent total visibility without introducing any major infrastructure changes" or rely on clients or agents, Duda says.VistaPrint deployed four CounterACT appliances and one virtual appliance from ForeScout Technologies Inc. to monitor 13 offices and about 15,000 devices. One of the advantages to the technology is that it easily fit into Vistaprint's environment."One of the primary challenges we needed to overcome was introducing a solution without any major infrastructure changes," Duda says."CounterACT is completely out-of-band, not in-line with any other technology."This allowed the company to configure the device with an IP address and turn it on, providing immediate results. "With this kind of implementation we were able to quickly deploy CounterACT appliances globally, and have them all online giving us immediate results within days of flipping the switch on," Duda says.There were hurdles to overcome, however. "One challenge was making sure all of our networking gear [such as switches] were properly configured to work with CounterACT to address our primary goal of achieving 100 percent total global endpoint visibility," Duda says. This required resources from the networking department.Another challenge was showing immediate value of the technology to business executives in order to justify the investment. The security product "closed gaps in our infrastructure security that other solutions didn't, so we were able to show immediate value with CounterACT, and that was key to getting approval in the budgeting process," Duda says.With the technology in place, Vistaprint now has accurate reporting on any endpoint device, as well as its security posture and whatever software is installed on the device. The company has reduced risk by more effectively enforcing corporate security requirements such as anti-virus software and data encryption, and it has improved ability to document compliance with PCI regulations.Another benefit is reduced workload and resources for tasks that might otherwise take days or weeks to complete. "Within minutes we can write policies to search for all endpoints with a specific criterion and perform any action on them, without any scripting knowledge," Duda says."By reducing workload and resources this inherently saved the company money."


text:
Is There Anything Better Than a Laser Barcode Scanner for Logistics Applications
The logistics industry has been using existing laser barcode scanning technologies for quite some time now. What has gone into optimizing the efficiency of these systems? Well, for the most part, the optimization has gone into how the 1-D linear barcodes are printed onto labels to compensate for the limitations of laser barcode scanning systems.
First, there are length to height ratio requirements making barcodes larger in size and taller in height so that laser scanners can deal with rotational variation of packages as they goes past the scanning points.
Secondly, print quality is tightly controlled to make it easier for lasers to do the best they can. Generally, damaged or lightly printed barcodes cannot be read by most laser barcode scanners.
So why, even with these efforts, are the read rates within the logistics industry still averaging below 99%.
What is needed in order to solve this problem? Can image-based barcode reading technology change the way that you do business today so that you can significantly improve read rates and lessen the effort put into compensating for antiquated laser technology?


text:
Product Description
The end of a school year or semester is always a challenge for English Language Arts teachers. Between the marking, end of the year activities, and packing up your class for the following year, creating individual and meaningful comments on students' report cards can be challenging.
I say, take back your weekends! I am sharing my mid and end of year report card ELA comments with you. There are over 70 comments for you to use and personalize your ELA report cards.
There are comments on:
-supporting an opinion
-argument development
-theme development
-theme development while using historical context for analysis purposes
-supporting arguments in essay form
-Reading strategies
-reading comprehension
-Group work and literature circles
-novel study
There are also a slew of next step comments as well.
Each section is divided by levels 1,2, 3, and 4 where you can select the appropriate comment to accompany the mark the student received.
It's teaching made easy!
You may also be interested in the following products:
Lord of the Flies Unit (No prep required)
Hamlet Unit (No prep – Complete Unit)
Death of a Salesman (No prep required)
Frankenstein (No prep – Complete Unit)
Poetry Unit for Senior Students (NO PREP)
Romeo and Juliet – A No Prep Unit
Thesis Writing Activity with PowerPoint Presentation
Essay Evaluation Comments with Drop Down Boxes
It's teaching made easy!
Total Pages
6 pages
Answer Key
Teaching Duration


text:
Even for women taking a modest 500 mg/day of calcium supplements, the risk of developing PHPT was 59% lower than those taking no calcium supplements.
Moderate calcium supplementation in women should be encouraged, says editorial
Primary hyperparathyroidism or PHPT is caused by overactive parathyroid glands secreting too much parathyroid hormone, which can result in weak bones, fractures and kidney stones. In recent years, several studies have also suggested a link between untreated PHPT and an increased risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke.
PHPT affects one in 800 people during their lifetime. It is most common in post-menopausal women between 50-60 years of age.
Calcium intake is known to influence parathyroid hormone production and therefore may be important in the development of PHPT. However, no study to date has explored this relation in detail over many years.
So a team of US-based researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital set out to examine the association between calcium intake and risk of developing primary hyperparathyroidism in women.
They tracked 58,354 US women participating in the Nurses' Health Study I aged between 39 and 66 years in 1986 with no history of PHPT. Calcium intake (from both dietary sources and supplements) was assessed every four years using food frequency questionnaires over a 22-year period.
During follow-up, 277 cases of PHPT were confirmed.
Women were divided into five equal groups, according to intake of dietary calcium. After adjusting for several factors including age, body mass index and ethnicity, women in the group with the highest intake of dietary calcium had a 44% reduced risk of developing PHPT compared with the group with the lowest intake.
Even for women taking a modest 500 mg/day of calcium supplements, the risk of developing PHPT was 59% lower than those taking no calcium supplements.
Further analyses to test these results did not significantly change the association between calcium intake and risk of PHPT.
The authors point out that "there could be unknown confounders that we did not control for in our analysis." However, they conclude: "Increased calcium intake, including both dietary and supplemental calcium, is independently associated with a reduced risk of developing primary hyperparathyroidism in women."
And they suggest that future research "should examine other environmental and lifestyle risk factors that could chronically stimulate the parathyroid gland and thereby affect subsequent development of primary hyperparathyroidism."
An accompanying editorial says this study "provides evidence to support physicians in confidently encouraging female patients to take calcium supplements."
James Norman, Chief of Surgery at the Norman Parathyroid Center in Florida argues that daily calcium supplements in modest doses "are likely to provide more benefits than risks" …. and, over many years, even a moderate increase in calcium concentration probably helps reduce the incidence of parathyroid tumors."


text:
Many of the earliest English surnames referred to places: places of birth, places of residence, workplaces, and so forth. These location-based surnames ranged from very broad descriptions (e.g., a cardinal point) to very narrow ones (e.g., a tree, a field).
Tash is one of the latter. It was derived from the Middle English phrase atten asche, meaning "at the ash (tree)."
The Middle English word asche comes from the Old English word æsc, which mainly referred to the tree, but in certain contexts also meant "spear." Ash wood was a particularly popular wood for spear-shafts, as it's both strong and flexible.
(This strong-but-flexible quality also made ash an in-demand construction material during the early days of automobiles and airplanes. The very first airplane, the 1903 Wright Flyer, was made of ash and spruce.)
Here's an early example of "atten Asche" being used as a surname: in 1326, a man named William atten Asche received one-and-a-half acres land in Walton (now part of Aylesbury) from a man named John atte Grene.
Surnames became hereditary in England during the centuries following the Norman Conquest. As the phrase "atten Asche" was passed down to successive generations, it evolved into diverse forms.
Modern surnames that can ultimately be traced back to "atten Asche" include not only Tash but also Ash, Ashe, Nash, Nashe, Nayshe, Naish, Tashe, Tasch, Tasche, Tesh, Tesche and Tosh.
Of these, Nash is the one that occurs most frequently in the United States. It's followed by Ash and Ashe. Tash, in comparison, is much less common.
So has the surname Tash ever been used as a first name?
Yes, but rarely. The baby name Tash has only appeared on the national list a handful of times: exactly 3 times as a girl name and 3 times as a boy name. And only one of those appearances has happened since the turn of the century:
- 2014: unlisted
- 2013: unlisted
- 2012: 5 baby boys named Tash
- 2011: unlisted
- 2010: unlisted
- 2009: unlisted
- 2008: unlisted
- 2007: unlisted
- 2006: unlisted
- 2005: unlisted
- 2004: unlisted
- 2003: unlisted
- 2002: unlisted
- 2001: unlisted
- 2000: unlisted
This means that the name Tash is usually given to fewer than 5 baby boys and fewer than 5 baby girls per year in the U.S.
The rarity of Tash as a standalone first name (as opposed to a nickname for Natasha, Latasha, etc.) possibly reflects its rarity as a surname. In other words, parents may be opting for Tash less often than Nash, Ash and Ashe simply because they aren't aware that it exists.
This makes me think there's some untapped potential here, as -ash names in general have become trendy within the last few years. Right now there are four -ash names in the boys' top 1,000:
Other -ash names on the SSA's list right now include Crash and Flash. As fringe as these may sound, they're still more popular than Tash!
The name Tash is snappy, stylish, and totally unexpected. And it's associated with nature — a big plus for many people.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Tash?
- Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 1990 Census
- Nash and Tosh @ The Internet Surname Database
- Seary, E. R. and William Kirwin. Family Names of the Island of Newfoundland. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998.
Image: Adapted from Magnificent Ash tree Higher Wraxall by Nigel Mykura under CC BY-SA 2.0.


text: Back Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (Blood) Does this test have other names? SHBG blood test What is this test? This test measures the level of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) in your blood. SHBG is a protein made by your liver. It binds tightly to three sex hormones found in both men and women: estrogen; dihydrotestosterone, or DHT; and testosterone. SHBG carries these three hormones throughout your blood. Although SHBG binds three hormones, the hormone that's critical in this test is testosterone. SHBG controls the amount of testosterone that your body tissues can use. Too little testosterone in men and too much testosterone in women can cause problems. The level of SHBG in your blood changes because of factors such as sex and age. It can also change because of obesity, liver disease, and hyperthyroidism. Why do I need this test? You may have this test if your doctor suspects that you have abnormal testosterone levels. The test can help diagnose various conditions and diseases, including: Androgen deficiency. The hormone androgen causes general weakness and sexual problems in men. In women, androgen may help with thinking and bone strength. It may also help the ovaries working the way they should. Hypogonadism. This condition occurs mostly in men. It is found in men with low testosterone and low sperm production. What other tests might I have along with this test? Your doctor will likely also order total testosterone blood test. This is because SHBG levels tend to change. Both the SHBG and total testosterone tests are needed to confirm an androgen deficiency. What do my test results mean? Many things may affect your lab test results. These include the method each lab uses to do the test. Even if your test results are different from the normal value, you may not have a problem. To learn what the results mean for you, talk with your health care provider. Low levels of SHBG can be related to: Obesity Type 2 diabetes Hypothyroidism Acromegaly, or too much growth hormone, causing body tissues grow larger over time High levels of SHBG can be related to: Hepatitis Hyperthyroidism HIV Anticonvulsants, or medicine used to treat seizures How is this test done? The test requires a blood sample, which is drawn through a needle from a vein in your arm. Does this test pose any risks? Taking a blood sample with a needle carries risks that include bleeding, infection, bruising, or feeling dizzy. When the needle pricks your arm, you may feel a slight stinging sensation or pain. Afterward, the site may be slightly sore. What might affect my test results? Pain killers called opiates, medications for the central nervous system, and recreational drugs can all affect your test results. Having an eating disorder or engaging in excessive, strenuous exercise can also affect your results. How do I get ready for this test? You don't need to prepare for this test. But be sure your doctor knows about all medicines, herbs, vitamins, and supplements you are taking. This includes medicines that don't need a prescription and any illicit drugs you may use.


text:
Since I've managed to piss off some who think I'm killing the article (I'm not; instead I'm raising the bar, arguing that articles need a reason to exist and that reason is to bring new value not old facts), I might as well go to the next stage of Defcon-J and question another sacred construct:
Long-form journalism.
In his smart continuation of the discussion about the fate, need, and requirements for the article, Jonathan Glick says that nuggets of news won't have to be embedded into articles all the time and that frees journalists to add real value in the articles they write: context, analysis, perspective…. I agree with him except for one thing. He calls this…
Long-form journalism.
I hear that more and more these days from journalists looking for safe harbor for their lengthy ambitions. But I think it's a terrible description of the form.
Length does not equal intelligence, no matter what Nick Carr says. I know we've all read lots of long and stupid things. And I've read plenty of smart and short things.
Indeed, it's harder to be short than to be long. Thanks to my editor's picking at loose threads in my manuscript, I just cut more than 11,000 words out of Public Parts that I either shouldn't have written or wrote only to think something through until I found the right expression of an idea.
When I used to write for publications, I tried to write 20% long and then it was in the editing and cutting that I really wrote, exchanging a better word for one only good enough, organizing more efficiently, getting rid of repetition,
excising excess. I certainly don't always succeed but that's the goal. That's a key benefit of print (yes, there are benefits): The scarcity of space forces economy of thought. We don't have that scarcity here online (what I find scarce is time to write).
I dread unleashing writers to believe that they can now be as long as they want and that that is the measure of their quality. Save us! I fear the label alone — long-form journalism, long-form writing — will encourage words for their own sake.
We need another description that better conveys the value and the goal.
Heavy journalism. No, that's not too enticing.
Thick journalism. Triple entendre.
Perspective journalism. That means the journalist has to have one. Oh, no, that leads to whole 'nother fight.
Analysis. I never much liked that, either. It says that the journalist can figure out things we can't figure out. It also for too long has been used to excuse the journalist from the collection of facts.
Value-added journalism. In advertising terms, "value-added" is a pejorative that actually means less value (it ought to be a Britishism). Too bad. I like the requirement the journalist has to add value.
Narrative journalism. No, it needn't tell a story. I've also questioned the notion that journalists are necessarily story-tellers.
Smart journalism. No, that label must be applied only by the reader, never the writer.
Thoughtful journalism. Maybe. That says one must do more than regurgitate to make an article worthwhile.
I fear I've failed and I risk going on for too long. What do you think we ought to call it?