1. Zipcars: Starting on Thursday, June 22nd, UMBC will have zipcars available on campus!

• This new website provides a central location for access to information on all transportation alternatives inclusive of transit, carpooling, parking, and zipcars. The link is http://www.umbc.edu/tag.We look forward to the campus community experiencing these valuable new resources!

Passive House; what is it and how does it work?

Brian Uher, ECORE Living

4:00pm Wednesday 20 July 2011
MD Clean Energy Technology Incubator, UMBC South Campus

Brian Uher will discuss the engineering and design principles behind Passive House – a rigorous building performance standard that ECORE Living is deploying in the Mid-Atlantic region.

The term passive house (Passivhaus in German) refers to the rigorous, voluntary, Passivhaus standard for energy efficiency in a building. It results in very low (<80%) energy requirements for space heating or cooling. Any building can be constructed to the standard. Passive design is not an attachment or supplement to architectural design, but a design process that is integrated with architectural design. Although it is mostly applied to new buildings, it has also been used for retrofits. As of August 2010, there were approximately 25,000 such certified structures of all types in Europe, while in the United States there were only 13. ECORE Living is in negotiations with several developers in the DC and Baltimore areas for initial implementation in this region.

Brian Uher is a co-founder of ECORE Living, LLC, a subsidiary of ECORE Ventures. He has developed methods for incorporating return-on-investment with standard energy modeling and auditing techniques to quantify and extend the value of intelligently applied sustainable building techniques, including market projections and capital project analyses. Brian has spoken widely to the real estate and development communities with a focus on a market-based approach to selling green and high performance building. He is currently working on several deep retrofit projects and is developing Passive House optimization strategies for East Coast row houses that will be deployed at scale in 2011 and 2012.

Brian is a LEED accredited professional, HERS/RESNET certified, BPI analyst and envelope professional and taught the Green Remodeling course for the Washington DC chapter of National Association of the Remodeling Industry. He is also a certified Passive House Consultant (residential and commercial standards), the most rigorous performance standard available today. He holds a masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and the Wharton School of Management, holds a master's of science degree in molecular biology from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Chicago.

1 Peter 5:5b-7 (NIV)

“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”

⁶Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. ⁷Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Reflection

What does humility and anxiety have to do with one another? Being humble might mean losing face, not being recognized for our achievements, admitting we’re wrong when we make a mistake, or realizing when we need someone else’s help. Humility stands in contrast to pride. In this context, pride is expressed by not looking to God for help or coming under His authority. As we read this passage, we realize that humility is very much intertwined with our anxieties. True humility means entrusting ourselves to God by casting all our anxieties on Him.

Responding to the Transmission

God cares for us tremendously. May we look to God and bring before Him our anxious thoughts and the things that worry us. Let’s pray to God for our practical concerns like finances, jobs, families and relationships. Let’s pray for the concerns of our church. Let’s also pray that we would be humble and be quick to turn to God in every circumstance.

Image courtesy of Good Education.

Across the country, poor starving college students are subsisting on Ramen noodles and insulating their drafty apartments with stacks of unpaid bills.

Is a college degree worth the hassle?

With tuitions soaring and the job market remaining tight, it doesn’t take a college degree to grasp that students graduating with a massive debt are in a tough situation.

The Huffington Post Investigative Fund has put faces and names on the indebted. They ahve launched a startling series in which college students discuss their thoughts and fears on the size of their personal debt.

Many students and graduates offer warnings for those entering university. James Moreau, an undergraduate at Suffolk University said,

“ I really wish I had taken classes at a state school rather than paid the premium cost of private education that didn’t get me much more.”

Across the pond, officials in the U.K. are focusing on the lack of jobs available for graduates. They are proposing a system in which major programs would be required to compile and release data about the employment and salary prospects of the degrees offered.

The goal is to provide incoming freshman with the materials to make informed choices about courses and job opportunities.

Here in the U.S. the Department of Education has just launched a new web site listing college’s tuition, the rate of tuition increase, and the total cost of attending each institution.

The web site will enable students to see at the click of a button the schools with the highest and lowest tuitions (where does your college rate?).

Knowledge is power, but will being informed about the real costs of college help?

Or will Ramen noodles the meal of choice for the next generation of students?

There may be a false ceiling in the US Treasury – and not just any ceiling.

THE ceiling – the one that has been so vigorously debated in Washington for the last few months.

That’s right, the debt ceiling might becompletely irrelevant.

The United States has racked up $14 trillion in debt, around 97% of its GDP and alarmingly close to the statutory limit of $14.3 trillion established by Congress last year.

Fears that the government will not be able to issue debt to fund its programs have led to cantankerous shouting matches in Washington.

But all this shouting might be for nothing.

The answer can be found in Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, (which is mostly known for defining citizenship of the United States after the Civil War).

Section 4 of this amendment validates all US public debt, stating that it “…shall not be questioned”, in order to ensure that the US did not default.

In a Civil War context, this was meant to ensure faith in the US government after a crisis, and also to invalidate any debts taken by the Confederacy during the war.

Today however, it means that any debt issued by the Treasury must be considered valid under the Constitution, regardless of debt ceilings established by Congress.

There is no doubt that the United States must find a way to cut spending – but if push comes to shove and Republicans refuse to yield on debt reduction plans, it might not matter.

Image Thanks to the BBC!

Minnesota’s state government shuts down…and not just for the holiday weekend.

Saved by the bell…I mean, by the judge!  Kansas judge blocks new abortion clinic regulations.

Terminating the Terminator: Maria Shriver files for divorce.

It’s alive!!!  The Oxford Comma, that is.

Watch out, New Jersey!  You’ve got a baboon on the loose!

Stop the Photoshop! The American Medical Association says it may be hazardous to your health.

The American Medical Association (AMA), the premiere organization of physicians in America, adopted a new policy discouraging advertisers from using photo alterations

in a manner that could promote unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image.

What are some examples of such “unrealistic expectations”? Let’s take a look at a few examples…

Heads aren’t usually supposed to be wider than one’s waist, regardless of what this altered Ralph Lauren ad suggests.

Generally hip and leg bones are aligned and attached – unless you’re modeling a Victoria’s Secret halter dress.

And finally, what already slim model doesn’t need a few additional inches photoshopped off of her waist?

These are just a few examples of the type of Photoshopping the AMA policy is seeking to target. The organization cites

a large body of literature [that] links exposure to media-propagated images of unrealistic body image to eating disorders and other child and adolescent health problems.

The organization’s newly-adopted policy encourages advertisers to work with child health groups to develop guidelines for ads in youth-oriented media that discourages photo editing.

Is this AMA policy a step in the right direction or too little too late?

Should policies only focus on the health impact of photo-altering in teen magazines – or should the AMA and other public health advocates be considering broader issues and audiences in the modeling and advertising industry?  Tell us what you think!

My my. So many people losing their valuables, yet none lost what I have found.

Here is my story fellas. I found <?> lying on the parking lot next to the huge building under construction. My date of finding <?> was Friday, July 1st, sometime around 6 pm. Very close to the A parking lot.

If anyone or anyone you know lost something before that time period, please let me know via my email alex23@umbc.edu. I will require a detailed description of <?>. And spread the word if you would please.