I can't speak to the landscape part of the question, but as to the architects conference and the question, "should urban projects have an artist on staff?"... Not all architects do the same thing or have the same strengths. Some architects are "designers". Others are more detail-oriented, engineering-oriented; more practical. Frank Gehry is a designer. His staff worries about how to build what he designs. In that sense, Mr. Gehry is an artist. Different aspect: public buildings present better if they include public art. This can be sculpture, or, (I hesitate), landscape design. Not landscape design in the sense of paths, trees, borders; but landscape desing in the sense of the design of the Vietnam War Memorial, for example, or the gardens of the Getty Center. Landscape Design with capital letters. There's a point lost in there somewhere I was trying to make...

Dang, I couldn't stump you all. Sierra and Ana are exactly right. The lower level, with three subjects, was known as the trivium, and the word trivial was applied to things that any beginning student would learn. Eventually, in the 20th century, the word trivia appeared, and meant things of little importance. Aren't you glad you know this now? So we had a trivia question about trivia itself. :-) for Sierra and Ana, two very clever ladies. Thank you all very much for playing trivia this weekend. ThinMan

Vee, my high school had about a thousand students and probably close to one hundred teachers (not counting support staff). Using English as an example, there was at least one teacher for every grade level, thus I had a different English teacher every year. One year I actually had two: the one who taught grammar and composition during the fall term, and the one who taught literature in the spring term. Btw, that sequence -- grammar in the fall, literature in the spring -- held through all of my four years of English. Donnamira, I loved diagramming sentences! I wonder why it was discontinued, as it seemed to me to be a wonderful way to learn the structure of English. I can relate to your experience of understanding a limit in trig! Those breakthroughs were always worth much more than the price of tuition, I think. You had a lot more exams than I remember taking. I don't think we had anything like your Regents exam. We took the Iowa Achievement Test every year from about third grade; but as it was supposed to be an assessment of how much we had already learned, we were not drilled on what we could expect to appear in it. And I never studied specifically for it -- I don't think anyone did. Neither did I cram, as so many students later have done, to take the ACT and/or SAT. I took both, very casually. Vee, I don't recall my schedules of classes, but I think we had each subject daily much the same as Kath and Donnamira did. I didn't have "blocks" before college. High school began at 8 a.m. and let out at 3.45 p.m. We had seven class periods and lunch between those times. We were discouraged from talking, as well, especially during class. I'm always surprised to hear the din in modern classrooms.

To be clear, it is not just the beam-to-post connection. It is the single ply 2x beam, which can span about 4', holding up a floor with posts that have a span of about 10' between them, and the amount of moment those loads are putting on that connection to the post. And the end wall where these beams have no post at all. And the footings. And . . . Will it collapse? Who knows, I've been in early 1900's houses where after removing lath&plaster, the only thing holding a floor above was nails half-pulled out. Will it sag? Joists crack or check? Bounce? What if they store some engine blocks up there? Rec Room with tile and a slate pool table? Why bother with the mathematical science of structures, and all the progress it has made in the last 100 years? You only pick and choose things, like rafter spans, but not connections? Only what you want to believe in your small world view because this falls under "codes," and you think codes are red tape? Do you question the numbers that some anonymous scientists came up with of how your high blood pressure medication works - because you'd keep living (for a while) without it anyway? Do you question the depth of tooth cavity drilling done by some anonymous researchers on cadavers - because your tooth will still be able to chew? Or do you give your "expert" opinion to your doctor and dentist too? Such is the downfall of these internet forums. You get the commenters who are completely out of their wheelhouse, some of whom sure sound reasonable, have an LLC behind their name or built a shed thats "still standing," but have absolutely no idea other than to measure with their thumb.