Welcome to the Tuesday, September the 6th, 2022 meeting of the My Peelier Design and Review Committee. Committee members and staff can introduce themselves. Benjamin Cheney, Member. Meredith Crandall, Staff. Steve Everett, Member. Martha Smirsky, Member. Hello, everybody. Hello, everybody. Unless anything, anybody has anything else to add at this point, we will let Meredith review the remote meeting procedures. Just a quick note. Do you have the back. Speaker that points to the back on. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks. All right. So this is really just going to be for. Anybody who's watching the orca media because we don't have any remote meetings or members of the public right now. So for anyone viewing this meeting via orca media, you can participate in tonight's design review committee meeting via the zoom platform, either using the link shown here. You can type that right into your web browser and it should bring you right into the meeting and I'll let you in. 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Then the meeting will need to be continued to a time and place certain I will hand the meeting back over to the chair. If everyone set a chance to look at the agenda do I hear a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. And I second it. All in favor of the agenda speak your name. Ben. Martha. And Steve, the agenda is approved. And without any further ado. Once you're ready, Sandy. We'll have you come describe your additional features on the application. Okay. At this point, I'm not even sure where the application is, but I don't therefore. As we were refining exactly how the boiler was fitting in with the plumbing in the building, we realized that it had to. Change this orientation and that it needed more height. So, and they knew hot water heater would not fit in the existing roof so I've asked to change the shape of the boiler shed, which would just be bringing the rest of the roof up so the whole roof would be raised. And also, thank you in doing that we realized that the boiler, the pellet silo does not need to be on the side of the shed but rather it could be in the back. So, that is shown on the floor plates. So we've got things are a little bit out of the order from how I had submitted them. I can also show it on screen. Okay, that would be helpful. So, there you go. So the pellet where we had gotten it for permitted before was next to these existing porch. The street is off to the right of the building, the front. This is at the back of the building to the front of the buildings to the right as well. And so this just kind of shields the silo better from the street. And it also actually makes it easier to use the access doors where the boiler is going to be. So, can you go to the side elevation? Yeah, so the pellet silo was blocking those access doors. We made those a little bit larger. It's kind of immaterial, not much larger. So, what was previously approved was the silo kind of below the shed and only half of the roof being raised. Maybe what will go in that space now? A car parks in the cars park, some cars park in there. It's really just paved area. Yeah, it's not a designated parking space. And you're raising the full boiler. Right, if you go back to the drawing below that in the handout. And now the whole, we had, we had the originally asked that the left side be left as is, which is about 18 inches lower. The other thing that is noticeable is we were allowed to drop the silo down. So this silo is a good four feet lower than we had it before, which will also help mask it. It's not like it goes underground or the table. It's actually about a foot. It's at the bottom of that square, which is called the utter where the, sorry, if you go back down Meredith. Yeah, at the bottom of that it goes left into the building enters the building and then rises up to the boiler level. It's a vacuum tube and a pellet tube. And it goes right across the ground basically as it comes. Yeah, we would, in case it in a, something hard, some kind of pipe. I thought one of the reasons you're raising the silo was because of the water. Yeah, we realized that every component in the silo and the other in the pipes, they're all water tight. So they actually can be below.  So that they would even further protect the, you know, 10 tons of pellets inside from getting wet. In a flood event. Yeah, so it's not going to float away it's bolted down and if there are any pellets in it would be quite heavy. The rate where Meredith's hand is up a little bit higher now, like even rate, even a little bit lower than that that that's about where the flood level is is right right around the top of the ball art. So, that it was really no problem to let the silo be below. Flood level. Anyways, I'm not asking to drop it. But we are asking to move it to the back and we're asking permission to raise the rest of that roof up. Yeah. We did it through a taller silo isn't they came in its big drop it. I know it doesn't mean we send back to you guys because clearly it would be less noticeable if it's shorter. Right. But we have to do and we give them the same. The silo to the rear. Anyway, different step back. And that was enough significant enough to. And again, how, how much are you anticipating right raising the shed group. 18 inches. So it would have the exact same shape that it does now it just would go up 18 inches. Originally we're only asking to raise half of it, but it's still behind the main, the main building completely. Yeah. Go up above the main building, not not at all. So on the right on that drawing that's on the screen, you can see the adjacent porch, the porch is higher than the shed roof. And then that that where the hand is now is the top of the man start roof and the bottom of the man start roof with a significant cornice is that one. Yeah, where the hand is now. So it's all well below the mass of the building. This is the, this line back here is the rear. Yeah, what we call the low man start roof. Yeah, it's a, it's a one story building. Yeah. It's higher than the silo to now. Um, no, it's the windows that but maybe they will have some, yeah, they may have discussion about other price. Any questions on the other portions of the silo and shed. Okay. Next on the list is your windows. It is. And that's the biggest request for tonight. So there are how many windows there's so many windows on this building. They're replacing something like 37 proposing to change out 37 of them, but those are the rectangular ones and ones in the back. I think there are more than 60 windows in the whole building. And they may be closer to 70 or 80 I have an inventory of them but my papers got spread out so I don't have them right now. But the anyways, you can see on the elevations that the attempt is to make to only replace windows that are rectangular and in the back of the building. So the truly character defining windows that have round tops and face the road and are visible from either angle as you approach the building. They would be restored. And we have a contract already started to we're in queue to get them restored over a, I think it'll be a three year plan, but we're already doing that and they all have interior storms already. Except for a couple on the back, but they, they so the owners making concentrated effort to give back to the community where they, they can really have an impact. The rectangular windows are able to replace pretty much in kind the we were suggesting using all tracks for the outside but it's a narrow profile so it will look almost exactly like the original windows and they were one over one so that's not an issue. So I'm just talking first, because I think these are the most important windows on the front and the two public sides of the building. That they would, those are the only ones that would be replaced ours with an R on them. So all of the, the first level or segmental arches and the upper ones are actually semi circles semi semi arch windows those would all be restored. At the back of the window. Those are basically impossible to see from the public realm. The, the side over the right but yet but next to the you now you can hear really get a sense of how small the boiler shed is compared to the building. The, those back windows, you can't even see from school street because of the church blocks them.  Right now and we're proposing that they be exchanged out for rectangular windows. It does have a photo from the inside of one of what the angle tops are there's one to their to their one on the rear and then two or three on the three on that side. So it's a total of six. Yeah, six are angle top now but the rest are all rectangular. And the picture that you're looking for this one is the second floor window yeah, that one. And it gives you an idea of how bad the shape, the condition is that the windows. That's what the inside looks like.  So, the idea is so that most of those storms already. Sorry, most of those windows have outside storms which are already rectangular topped, they've been that way for probably 40 years. And the idea would be just to get take the storms off and, and then just fill in discreetly following the example of the one that was always built as a rectangular back on the. Back to the west side, Meredith, yep, where the porch is. So that window right there was is a bathroom window in it was always a rectangular window like from the inside it's a flat dormer ceiling. And it's clear if you look carefully at the outside that it was always a rectangular window so we would copy that one around the back of the building and just fill in the triangle. And then fill in with with the rectangles. Again, you can't see it from school street on the back is the river, and then on the east side of the building is a big tree. So, you just, you can't see them. Okay, from anywhere. Wood trim to look like the panel. Yeah, I would can't thank you a panel. You can leave it recessed when you replace the other window against stops you could even put a wood panel against the stops where the glass was and then insulated on the interior. Oh yeah, the bathroom one that is existing has a horizontal piece of black trim that matches the two coming down and so and then the train is the tip of right. Yes. Yes, that's that. The tip of them is painted green. Yeah, you can just see the, the small corner of the recessed panel. Yeah, and that's what we're planning to do. So this is, we're all on the same page there. But it's just prohibitively expensive to replace them with angle top pieces and those windows need to be operable. They shouldn't just be fixed so for a lot of reasons that made sense to try to replace them.  Do you mind going scrolling down Meredith, I'm just gonna stop share for a second. I can scroll a little faster. I'll share again which page it was that you were on it. Oh, sorry, I thought you meant to another page. It's all right. We give people where to go if you scroll too quickly. So if you go down just a little to the next row of drawings, there's the back of the building and see on the third floor. There are the three Rs on windows and the far right one is a tiny door. So those windows, both a historic preservation consultant and I believe are not original to the building. We actually don't even think those dormers are original to the building. I'm trying to figure out we don't know where they came from but you can see in this picture that they are very random. And one of them has muntins in it. It seemed like they use salvage when they made those windows. They are crazy and efficient like just shaking. One doesn't even have a storm. Basically they have socks trying to shim them hold them tight. And then the far right hand on the third floor is a door that is very small. It's like two feet by six foot something. And we're able to replace it with a single it has its two lights wide and five high but we could replace it with just a single light that seemed to be better. It's not again we don't think it's original. None of the hardware on the door matches the rest of the hardware in the building. Was the door meant to be an egress. It's, it can't be an egress because it's only two feet wide by, I mean, it would count as an egress window, but not an egress door. Is there an egress from the third floor additional. Well, that's why we the whole sprinkler issue is in a separate department right now. Basically the building cannot get a fire escape. So, there's no way to do it. So, it's so I suffices to say it's not an egress door but the idea is to improve it so it actually is airtight, and can continue to be used it's used now, as there's a little roof deck up there that's not shown that the tenant has access to. I don't know if, rather than do a one over one double hung if you could do like a casement window that would still allow. Oh, it's actually a door hinges and doorknob. Yeah, it's two feet wide and six foot something. You're going to replace that with a window. No replace it with another door with another able to get we just got a custom door order. So, it's a. So that was the door referred to is that 31 37 windows plus one door. Yeah. And that and that I'm just trying to figure out exactly what the site is a tiny kind of door. Does the replacement door have a glass in it. Yeah, it would be a single light door. It's basically full glass light kind of keeping with the rest of the windows up there that would be one over once. And I'm sorry I don't have a better picture of it but it is that hard to find that like you, you can't, you can't get to it. Okay, see it from the ground. Trying to see if.  The balcony. Yep. And that's where the door is, but you can see how it's basically impossible to see it. And that balcony doesn't go to the set of stairs. No, it doesn't. It's just it's not an egress. Well, that's Audra had put in we were looking at the chimney since we further up. Do you want to put in a Google the street view from the street street. And I'm wondering if we could. Yeah, you can I can see it. I can see it. It's on the right there. That's bad. Yeah. But I mean that's, that's, that's the kind of view you get from the only place I think you can see it right. Or from maybe a rooftop over here if solar panels. Yes. And then it's important to zoom out because you're not your view isn't focused on that one object you're looking at the whole landscape. Yep. So, yeah, the actually the ladder is up to see the lab that's the only way to get up there. So, I'm happy to answer any questions about those windows. Yeah. I think your diagrams here shows windows in porch area. Are you anticipating changing those now. Do you mind going back to the elevations of the building I think they're the most useful. Anything with an R on it we're asking for permission to replace those side porch windows. Yep, those are that that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's on the first floor in the back of the building. Yeah. I think they're just going to be rectangles. Yeah, they're just going to be switched. Yeah. Well, one of them looks like it is shaped. That one has a modern out stuff exterior storm on it. And what you're seeing is the, the much later applied exterior storm. The window itself is rectangular. I don't see why they put that exterior storm on. Maybe they had it from a different window. It's really bizarre. And there are no other storms that look like that on the building. There was probably one kicking around in the basement from somewhere else and used whatever it doesn't fit. It doesn't work. It doesn't close. It's not just used whatever they could find at the moment. It's not functional. I see on your window descriptions here that at the bottom it says a nailing fin, which indicates to me that it's being put into me. Yeah, I would have to refer to the contractor who's doing this but I think they're going to be ripping off the nailing fins so that they can get a full type fit up against, and then ceiling, because they didn't get the things on. They didn't want to be the description because they make the window without enabling them. Well, I asked if we could order it without it and I was told you just break them off. Oh, okay. Because evidently these come only with the fin on. Okay. But the, I was trying to avoid the glass size being reduced. It was very important to try to keep the glass size the same. So they're actually taking out, they're not taking out all of the jams, but they're going right to them. And then this is a replacement unit. So it has pretty thin. So it's not, it's not changing the glass size. Yeah, they only give you like a quarter of an inch dimension because they want an eighth of an inch on all sides, depending on how square the opening. That's right. And you have to just hope for squareness. And we've actually measured each opening like three times to make sure that things will fit. But I think, I think that I can report that accurately. I'm not intending to use the nail fin. But there's no place to, for it to go in. Right. That just made me nervous when I saw that. Without the fence, they basically just for an insert from the inside out to the exterior casing.  As far as I understand it. Right.  And then you, yeah, because the old original windows with the sash would mount up against the actual exterior case. Yep. So with these, you just strip everything off on the inside and then this one day as a unit goes up against that case. Right. Yep. As long as you don't have male fins in the way. Correct. Yep. The upper right hand. Yes. You're anticipating replacing those second floor windows. Yep. Only the rectangles on facing the street. So the bottom windows have a very shallow segmental arch. And the top windows are actually a semi circle at the top. And all of those will be where we're. To the left of the door. I think they're the same size as you can see. But they're actually the same size as you can see. So it's really worth the effort. Is willing to restore. It's really pricey to get the arched windows. They're very expensive. And they're definitely character. I mean, it would be harder to get them. You can't get them as an insert. A replacement. You know, with a thinner. Well, they come with a fixed upper sash, so you can get them, but they're super expensive. And it's nice to keep as many restored as you can. And this restoring will include fixing the weights which are broken on at least two-thirds of the windows. Well, you want to get rid of that weight because you want to insulate that space. That's a, yeah, that's a question. But there are a lot of windows with cracks. There are a lot of windows that the interior storms aren't on or they're not fitting. So all of that's being fixed. There's one more small item first chimney and roof. So this application, the question of a possible conversion doesn't go before DRC to the apartment. This is on the right. Yeah, the apartment doesn't, but the only thing that is, is this idea of adding one exhaust fan. Oh, yeah. So I just need to bring it up because it's in the recline. So we were proposing adding one exhaust fan to that east side of the building. And I, there's a page with it. And then I have a cut sheet after the whole window. And there's an event would go back out a little bit right there. And I, and I submitted a cut sheet as well. It's just a standard orange, black, black that would just go right there. It's as high as up as I could get it without getting it into the trim. It seemed to me the best compromise on the outside of the building. It could go right up against the, the soffit, but then it would be disturbing the brickwork, which seems to me an important defining character. So I, I'm suggesting dropping it down a little bit to where the hand is on the trolley. And this is on the side headed north, right? What we're calling the east side, it's where the, right below this arrow is where the meters are. So this is a great picture, this one that I've given earlier for the windows. It's way up there. Yeah. Where we had originally talked about getting, putting the condenser here on the wall. And the meters, you can't see behind the bay, but it's just up there. And this is not certain, but we're trying to pave the way in case it does happen. We don't, I, I'm trying not to come back multiple times, although this is my third visit. Do you think you have any right left adjustment in that so that it might be more centered between the, the brace and the wall? It's really a question of where it is in the, the joists and maybe we have to lower that ceiling in there, but it kind of hate to, because then it will have to have another sprinkler. But we'll see. Is that, if that's important, we definitely encourage you to. I trust you to do the right thing. It's more just a, is there a, there was much as you can think about it. Tuck it into that band. So try to make it go towards the bay window. I think so. Okay. That's fair. Any other questions on the then? The last item totally got me set by surprise. It is extremely hard to get up to the high roof. And I went up very bravely. I thought, I thought I was going to die. And I went up and I saw that a, the roof is in terrible condition. And there were a whole lot more events and they're actually two pipe vents that I don't even know what they go to that are extremely old. So there were a lot of these, these penetrations that from an energy retrofit point of view are a nightmare because they let cold air down their avenues for water.  Of these. So I'm not talking about the one that's on the lower, the middle roof. I wrote lower roof. It's, there's one that is more dominant down there. You can see it if you look at the, like the image in your packet. Yeah, and it captures it kind of. It's also, I think, visible from the, some of the ground photos. From the rear, yeah. In this photo, you can see the one that I'm talking about is, I'm not accepting this one up here is one of the, we're hoping to take down. So, of the four that are on the high roof. So the high roof is different from the other two roofs, they are shallow slope and they're already covered with TPL. The high roof is crushed stone on asphalt. And it goes to a separate drain. And there are these four. And I would say of them, the top one on the sheet labeled recent propane chimney is recent the bricks do not match the mortar does not match. And we are hoping to remove that propane hot water heater and take up a propane after building. So that chimney will very quickly become archaic. And it's not historic. It's my mind is not even contributing. It's actually a negative up there. Then right below it is the large rectangular chimney, which is in, in poor condition. And it doesn't have a cap or anything. And then the other two that are closer to the tower that one of the bottom left are in good condition. But our thought is to take all four off simply to clean up the roof and to be able to insulate it so the only way to insulate that roof is through a hatch, which I don't show on the drawing but it's great. So you can see it from the picture. Yeah. And when you go in, it's really not more than like, it's like 28 inches high at the perimeter and goes down to eight inches in the middle. It's a pretty unpleasant space to be in. And we have to stuff it full with sunglasses is really the best way to deal with it. And at that point, it's a real liability of water leaks down into it from the from the roof. And at this point, I think the owner is talking about replacing the roof in kind. There's a small possibility we'll change the material to TPO, but what is the TPO. I knew it is Teflon poly opal and it's now called thermal plastic. And it looks like that. Thank you. Yes. Does that last longer than the 60 mil membranes. Well, this has this one might be 60 million this one has at least used to have a 70 year warranty for commercial buildings. 70. Yeah. Wow. So it would be it's what I usually recommend I've done it on residential buildings there's no warranty on residential by the way, but it's still the same product. It's still the same solution. But it's a good roof, and it's more walkable than the stone on asphalt. It's a real problem. So, I suppose that's not part of this application tonight to change that material. But the owner would really like to get some guidance on the chimneys because right now that that route that attic is scheduled for insulation in early October. And we've got to name on it. It's getting cold. It's coming. So the way I feel about it is I really looked hard walking from the library towards 138 towards around about you can only see one or two on the west side, the ones that are in good condition. For not more than really like 30 feet. There's a very small space on the sidewalk. I made a diagram where you could walking in the other direction. You can see the Yeah, I did that. That chart. Yep. And then to walking in the other direction from the roundabout towards this country, you can see the from page in me for a lot longer than you can see that the big chimney that's hidden in the middle. But that is relatively, I don't know I think I wrote there. So four to three, you can see chimneys and one to two, you can see chimneys, right? Yeah, four to three. I wonder if it's a little span from the main stream. That was really the extreme. It's just appearing now beyond the medical field and then in position number two. And then the same thing was disappearing before and then disappearing. From all the photos here, you can barely see them. And even from the rear, when all the rest of the detail on the building, I would not call the chimneys a character defining feature. And I just have been working on the building since June and I didn't even know they were up there. I was completely shocked when we went up there. They aren't mentioned in the historic registered listing. Just saying they aren't part of the description of the building. So, in terms of anything that's no longer being used obviously because of technology and newer heating systems, anything that's not being used is not a character defining feature. I don't have any problem with it going away. None of them are used. Does anybody else on the committee have any issues or suggestions regarding the chimneys. And if you were penetrations in the roof of the building, the better off for a sustainable roof and also for purposes of insulating. Would they put rigid on top of the, when they do the new roof, would they use rigid on top or just go on. And how they went up there. They were, we're going to be averaging between eight and 28 so let's say an average, what's it 2010 18 inches of, we're going to do two inches of foam, and then fill the rest with cellulose so I think there's a pretty decent our value up there. I mean, it certainly would be a great idea to add a couple inches more on the top to have continuous installation, but no one's even discussed that yet I should write down and know. Two inches of rigid on top of the roof sheathing. And then the membrane or whatever the TPO on top of that. That's all we've ever done. Yeah, I'm going to write it down. And then below that you can just cram that full of dense pack. Yep. Yep, by eliminating any boy we don't have a sprinkler up there. That would be for it becomes a real liability if, if it does leave that would be one huge massive wet less blanket, really scary terms of way, the image of the building and then trying to get it out, like how do you get that out. I do have a question from one of Meredith pictures here. There's a chimney, but what is this thing right here. I don't know if I could show it. I think that that's the tower. Yeah, that's the, I think that's the tower for that. So let me scroll back. If you look at the front of the building, you see the power up there. So that is. That's this chimney and that's the tower in the front. Okay, that's part of the building. Yeah, yeah, yeah, going in. Okay. No, they're suggested to that. Yeah. I can't even get into that. If they put two inches of rigid on the top they actually can do a seam seal between the sheets, which will further eliminate any potential leaking. That's very helpful. Hold my head up higher. I'll mention that. Thank you. It's just an extra backup. Yeah. Any other questions regarding any of these components that are being proposed. Comments questions suggestions from anyone. Steve, I don't want to be accused of surprising anyone. So we had an issue happen today on the job site that I do need to know if they're you about. I can do that afterwards or I can do it now, whichever you prefer. It's kind of a big deal. Okay. The airlock. None of us noted after three different visits and various measurements that the slab the granite slab has shifted out of plump. So it's not level it's off by an inch. And the door design because it's seasonal. The door, there's no threshold to level things off. If you think about it, there's two side panels coming down on either side of the door, and there's no way to get them level. Because is there any way to re level the slab. I really know. No, I mean they're massive. That's an eight foot by eight foot by probably four to eight inches deep of in the walls are I mean, and then everything else surrounded is is inputs. And from underneath has its own foundation of granite. So, so there's a whole inch difference between the two panels are either side of the door, and they went through over and over about what they could do. And the best thing they can do is to drill additional holes down and then add a piece under the, the one that's higher up to get it to level. And and or cockpit and Alex Tolstoy is an historic preservation consultant he used to be with Vermont preservation trust for many years. He worked with Eric, and he just looked at me and he said, this shouldn't be removal. This should not be a seasonal airlock. And after I sat here and talked about the seasonality of it. I feel kind of sick to bring this up. But it's a really big issue, and we can do it and still make it removable, but there will be more scars on the floor and when it gets removed every spring. What's going to have to happen is there's going to be more stuff on the floor, more holes in the floor probably. And then, when it goes back and it has to be probably recall every year, and to get it to be stable. Because the door, can they not use a compressible foam if it's only an entry compressible foam underneath the ceiling, they went through their whole vocabulary of how they could solve it. And Alex actually whipped off this letter. This can be tabled for a couple of weeks, I told them that they may not be able to install it on schedule, because I had to talk to you about it tonight. I think it's not a good solution that we can wait. But I just feel really wrong to let you finish the agenda items and not mention this at all. So the outer portion of the slab has lifted up an inch. So the foundation that's under it. The frost has gotten underneath and lifted it. So you could have to drop it back down. There's a move seasonally up and down. There's no, there's no, there's no nothing visible about it moving. And it's absorbed it in the roof so that's why I mean, they have lasers on this back in June. I'm just not sure why we found it out today. The good news is we found it out today before it actually went in. But I just because I've talked to you about it being removable, I didn't feel comfortable not bringing this to your attention.  You know, he's mentioned this. I don't need to bring it to as an emergency that needs a decision tonight. I just wanted to notify you about it. And again, we can put off installing it and wait till the right decision is found. But the pieces that are all fabricated for it to be removed. So either way to do it. I mean, we have to amend that permit. Yeah, be an amendment to come back for an official. I mean, it's in there in the records and having that as a condition that it's removable and it's only up during certain months of the year. And I know that was an important part of our discussion. Right. I don't feel comfortable making any decision at all today. Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't feel comfortable asking you to sounds like I don't know when the next deadline is, but I should just submit this as a formal request for reconsideration. That's, yeah, it's going to have to be an amendment to the permit that has to come through the DRC. That's not something I can. Yeah, I agree with the group. Sure. That would be a request for reconsideration. So take a look at it. If that moves, if that slap moves seasonally, because we've had an issue with a, with a porch that's moved seasonally, even though with the last time we put sonotubes down. I think the ground the darn thing still moves three quarters of an inch up and down. Don't ask me why I've seen porches foot in Vermont. Well, this one just moves about three quarters of an inch up and down seasonally, even though they've been replaced the third time, six, six and a half feet down and frost seems to like to grab it somehow and move it. So we actually have a inside because there's a doorway that it affects more than anything and we've actually have a phone that can handle the expansion and contraction. Right, because if they install it permanently and it just keeps shifting, it's going to have gaps or no gaps. Yes. Yeah, I don't know. So if it does move you want to have an installation that can handle that. That change over a season. I missed this meeting. But I feel like there's scenarios where there are, you can make a panel and then it has more of like an inner tube around the goes around the outside of it that you can then fill with air that would then push against all sort of irregular surfaces and if they were to move.  Same, same effect as the phone, but it gives you more shift space. Basically, if you think about the foam insulation that you put around piping. Yeah, it's round. And if you crush it. Yeah, and then release it it comes back to its original shape. I think the problem is the hinge. The hinge on the door. Sorry, it's actually hinging outside, but the hinge right now is an inch off the ground. So that most corner of the airlock is an inch off the porch floor. Why don't I just bring it back next week and I can take so I can't take the hinge is the doors niche off the floor you can have some kind of a floating. Well they're talking about adding another pin there. Okay. And the consultant is worried about having additional holes in the brand up. We don't want too many holes to create a crack, right. And then the one that is going in happens to be uphill now, but it's, you know, sizable distance away from where traffic is going in and out possibly assault on their feet. Whereas this one is right where, you know, very close to where people would be walking. And he just was like, yeah, he's like, no, this is not good. So I don't know what to do. So I'll bring it back to everyone can think about it. And also go back, go back to the, go back to the consultant with the idea of something under there that's somehow, you know, has to take, has to take significant stress from the door opening shutting it's going to be a lot of. Yeah, create something that floats on top of a movable insulation or fall or something that can take that a little bit of movement. It's still bold. I don't know. Okay. All right, I will go back to join. Okay, and I'll submit it by the deadline. The request for request for amendment. Is that right? It's a request for an amendment to that existing permit for that. Okay. This other than the Other than that issue. Does anybody have any questions, comments, suggestions on the rest. Otherwise, I'll go through the criteria. Excuse me. For all projects, exterior design and materials of new construction or alterations of existing building shall be consistent and compatible with the characteristics of the existing building or other properties in the district. The removal of historic materials or alteration of features and spaces that characterize an historic property shall be avoided. Character defining features finishes and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a historic building shall be preserved deteriorated character defining features shall be repaired rather than replaced, where possible, where the severity of deterioration requires the development of a character defining feature. The new feature shall be replaced in kind. Any treatments that cause damage to historic materials including but not limited to chemical or physical treatment such as sandblasting shall not be approved. The proposal for windows and other parts of the structure are acceptable. The existing building shall be recognized as a physical record of their time place and use in the new development shall be differentiated from the old but shall respect and be compatible with the massing size scale. Architectural features detailing an overall character of the primary historic building and nearby historic properties. Location and appearance of all utilities mechanical equipment trash storage and fencing shall be cited to minimize adverse visual impact or adequately and appropriately screened from public view, actually the moving of the silo further back is Rhythm the visual patterns established by the alterations of solid walls or an openings windows and doors and the facade of a building shall create a rhythm patterns of solids and opening shall be preserved to the extent feasible acceptable Roof shape and equipment. Consider similarity or compatibility with roof shapes and immediate area concealed rooftop equipment and features on flat roofs from my level view from adjacent public rights of way and from the ground level of any adjacent properties acceptable Architectural features, including but not limited to cornices windows shutters fan lights and tabulator trim and other forms of molding or character defining detailing prevailing on the existing building should be considered in the alteration of a building acceptable Windows and doors on historic structures character defining windows and door patterns placements sizes proportions and original features such as trim sash and molding shall be preserved to the extent possible. When preservation is not possible such character defining windows and doors must be rehabilitated or replaced in kind. Windows and doors that are not character defining may be replaced by such replacements must be compatible with the historic building style materials and architectural features acceptable. End of criteria. All in favor of the application is proposed. Ben. I say yes in terms of the boiler shed and the pellet silo and the vent the bathroom event. I, I say no on the windows. I'm okay. I say yes in terms of the chimneys, the removal of the chimneys they were not original. So it's no problem to remove those with the windows with no the chimneys. You're, you're saying no on all of the windows. I'm saying no on the wind, the windows that are slanted. The windows that are. So the angle top correct so you don't want to replace the angle top the particular correct. Okay. So thank you. Only two. Thank you for everything else. So technically I could approve the other stuff, but not the replacement of the angle top with it so you'd have the opportunity to appeal the denial windows to the deer. I have to make that exactly with the actual permitting on that we might have to hold up there is the permitting and so we get that. Is there a scenario where you can replace the window and then just leave the just restore that piece of glass the triangular piece of glass at the top of the window. I'm not sure how. I think what will happen is that if we can separate it the other ones need to be done this winter and they'll just be massive holes in the other windows. I'm not sure what else we can rather than put a panel line. There's one you have literally this large a hole in that window and it clear comes right in and out. When I rather when you remove the glass and put a rectangular window when instead of putting a panel in that space. What if you got port with can make a insulated glass double or triple piece of insulated glass instead of apply with panel with insulation, you could take a double a small triangular window they can make several of those I've had to make those before. Yeah, can they do a double insulated or triple insulated glass panel that you put in and put a stop around. So now you have glass in that opening. I mean, literally you're talking about a piece of glasses this big. Yes, I know. I think we'll appeal it to DRB with all respect. Yep. No, that's fine. And just throwing it out as an option. It's valuable option. Thank you. I appreciate you're trying to help solve the problem. So whatever do right down vote three to nothing in favor of all items with the exception of the angle top windows. Yeah. So as I just said, the vote was three to nothing in favor of all items with the exception of several angles. When every angle top window replacements. And I just said, a member just not approve the replacement of the several angle top windows with rectangular replacements. So I can get you to. Well, if she's, yeah, no, she's not going to sign it because she's going to be able to feel it. Yeah. I mean, if the fence was open to the glass at the top, would it need to come back or would you be okay with the top being replaced with glass triangle counter? I would be okay with that. Maybe just throw events because maybe appeal to the DRB. I've got a double check to see it. That would go to on the same meeting as the two weeks or if I have to wait for the last year, would you be willing to read to me what I would be signing? What it what goes along with the signature. If you sign on this, then you're okay with not replacing the angle top windows. Right. When that ends, then I issue the permit for everything that you don't need to read what my signature line says. It just says signature. There's nothing else on here. It just means you agree with what this says, and you're not going to replace the angle top windows. Even if I do agree with what that says, including Martha's exception. Why can't I sign that. So that's if you're not going to appeal what's been said. How many angle top windows are there? There are six. Six. So can't you parse out that one section. It's pretty important that we start with this. Can we talk about this tomorrow when I can talk to Audra to see how we can. I'm happy to sign whenever physical permit software. Usually we only have people sign this if they're not appealing part of it. So, if you can actually make it into the office tomorrow, I won't be in until probably new because I have doctors to the morning. Yeah, then. I'll have my people who can, because I haven't had this situation. When is the next DRB. You can't make it to the next DRB meeting. I don't have that great. Can we just talk to her? Sure. Because what I want to suggest is that I would draw the angle top windows from this application. And it could be part of the, of the next one. And then it goes through DRB in the middle of October. So what I'm just trying to do is make it simpler for you to issue a permit for everything else. Yeah, if you want to withdraw that. Just fine. Just if you didn't know that applicant withdraw the angled window. Through the angle windows from consideration on that's this permit with that work. And we can wait till tomorrow if you want to talk to Audra. They would have to sign off on that. If you withdraw that. I don't know if that makes sense to you. Then if we still end up with the same place. And you're still. But then we'll be on the D we have to go. We'll be late on the DRB. I'm guessing that we're not going to be able to go to the DRB until October 17, regardless. Not necessarily. I just don't have the days in front of me right now. I can't remember what the actual deadline is. But Audrey, if it was, if the deadline was this past Friday, Audra was supposed to sign off public notice today and I did not see those. So it might be that this Friday is the deadline for DRB. But if you withdraw from this application. I don't know if I can send you the DRB. It's an appeal from a withdrawn item. It's a technical thing. I think we should just not rush it. It's the same thing as with the airlock. Let's let it go. Not rush for those particular windows because you can do all the others. I'd rather be able to move everything else forward. I think it's just calmer that way. If I, if we just agree that those angle talk windows are withdrawn from this application.  Is that just for cost or for aesthetics or. I can't even begin to understand what that cost would be. It would be really big, but I don't think the cost. I think it's just a complication to have be trained to put two through two scenarios. So in my mind, it's easier just to take them off of this application and let the known universally accepted items keep going on. I know I'm coming back in two weeks to say hi to you because of the airlock. So they could go on the airlock application. So here's a better idea. And then in the meantime, I could look at that price. If they're willing to approve it with the triangle glass top. Instead of saying that's what you'll agree to. If you want to change that, if that ends up being priced too much, then you come back with that two weeks. If it works, then you don't have to come back. You can tell you that I had a. Probably about a 28 inch. Half round window. That had been single pane. And we. Made a new frame had a new frame made by a custom. House. Portland class. Made and insulated. Half round window. 28 inches. Half round. That cost me $140. So. What I'm hearing is that it might be better to accept. The amend the change to putting a glass fixed glass panel in above those six windows. And that if that's not acceptable to the builder. Or to the owner. I could put that change in without. Huge animus. Yes. Could put that in with the airlock. That's acceptable. You wouldn't have to come. If you're okay accepting that as an approval. Does either that or. It's unacceptable. Right. That's why I'm thinking. Yeah. It's an acceptable just to make, take it off this list and let it be lacked. Two or four weeks. That's acceptable to the builder and to the owner. Yeah. You can have six of those made up. What I'm thinking is why don't we just take it off completely and let it go. Yeah. Yeah. I understand what Sandy's saying. It's just taking it off and then letting cleaner to be able to go forward with everything else. Yeah. But she would be able to cover it with everything else. Cause we would pursue the purpose. It will go forward separately. Yeah. That's what I need on its own calendar. That's what I need. Yeah. Is that if you take that piece out of your application, then you can go forward with everything else that's on the application. Okay. I'm sorry, Meredith. Nope. Just say that our applicant withdrew. To the six angle. No replacement. It feels like there's going to be a lot of amendments to this application. Well, I have to come again because of the airlock. So. I will be here. At the next opportunity possible. It was too good to be true to think this would be the last visit. I thought you liked coming to us. I do like to see your thoughts. Thank you, Mary. When I just said applicant accepts withdrawal of the six angle top windows from the application. And then I can get rid of this because we're voting three. And nothing in favor with that recommendation. All right. So now if you can sign that we can issue that permit. And then yeah, we need to get out of the room because you've got to gear up. You have time to do a quick review and approve August first minutes. If you guys have had a chance to look at them. Thank you. Thank you, Sandy. Any comments, questions or changes to the minutes? No, they look good to me. You hear a motion to approve. Second. Second. All in favor of minutes. Speak your names. Then. Steve. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you. And it's approved. And I already took attendance next meeting. We hear a motion to adjourn. I so move. Second. All in favor of adjournment. Speak your name. It's been Martha. Steve. Thank you.


This video will teach you how to search EBSCO's Business Source Complete. Business Source Complete is a database devoted to business and economics topics and contains thousands of scholarly journal articles that you can use in your research papers and projects. Unlike Google, which allows you to search complete sentences, this database requires that you use specific keywords to search the collection. For more information on creating keywords, see the keyword searching link in this video's description. Under the search boxes, you will also see a number of search options and limiters. This will ensure that you will only get the results that are most useful for your research. I like limiting by full text, which means I will only get articles that I can read right away. In business, it's also important that you use only the most current research within your field. I can change my date range by using the publish date limiter to the right. As we scroll down, we'll also see limiters that can help us limit by type of source. You can even limit your search to articles about specific products or companies. If you're not sure how specific you'd like your search to be, don't worry. You can always add limiters once you have done a broad search. I'd like to find articles about how managers deal with crises. So I'll start by putting management crisis in my top search box. I'm deliberately using broad keywords so we can see what type of results we get. Now let's click on full text and limit our search to peer reviewed articles. For more information on the peer review process, check out the library's What is Peer Review video in this video's description. Once I hit search, I'm brought to my results list. This search gave me over 4,000 articles, which is a huge list that I don't want to have to go through myself. You will see each of your current limiters on the left-hand side, and you can always click on the gray X if you'd like to remove one. You will also see more ways to limit your results. For example, you can limit your search to articles published within the last five years, or click on subject the source term or subject if you'd like to limit your results to more specific topics, such as crisis communication. After I've selected some limiters, I can start to review my results. I'm interested in article number two. To find out more information about this article, I can click on the blue title. This page includes more information about the authors, keywords that describe the subject matter of the article, and an abstract or summary of the research. If the abstract seems relevant to my research, I can click on the link to the left-hand side that says full text finder or PDF full text. This will bring me to the entire article. If you don't see either of these links, it means that you might have forgotten to use your full text limiter. But don't worry, you can request the article by emailing the article information to libraryatirse.edu. If you think the article would be useful for your research, you can also email a full copy to yourself by using the email link on the right-hand side. The best part about finding articles from the databases is that they'll also create an entire AP citation for you, which you can also send with the full text of the article. Just make sure that you select APA under citation format. You can click on the site button on the right-hand side of the page to see that APA citation. One word of warning. Even though these citations are usually fantastic, they're automatically generated by the database. So there might be some small errors. See the APA video in this video description for more information on how to use the APA lip guide and to double check your citations. Finally, you can make use of the subject keywords on the article information page to find other articles about your topics. For example, I like the keyword corporate communication. When I click on that link, I'm brought to more articles about that subject. Remember, IRSC librarians are always happy to assist if you have any trouble with any part of this research process. Check out irse.lipguides.com slash Ask a Librarian for more information on how to contact us about your research needs.


Yeah, hello everyone, I'm Robert. I work primarily on a project called PokerDot, but I work a lot with Parity Technologies. I'll be talking today about Parity Technologies' work on not Shasper, very sorry, on Serenity. Basically, what we've been doing so far, we're building it on this platform called Substrate. First, I'm gonna go into what that is, a little bit of background on Sharding, on Casper, on Serenity, Vitalik and Justin, and the others can explain that way better than I can, so I'm sure you've seen their talks as well. And then basically dive into what we've been doing, what we are doing in the future, and what we're doing now on building out all of that. So a lot of you might have heard recently there's been some buzz about Parity Substrate. So what Parity fundamentally is is a blockchain development outfit. We're a group that's built a lot of different nodes for a lot of different chains, so the best known one is the Parity Ethereum node. It's the, other than the Go Ethereum client, it's the most widely used Ethereum node. It's used by infrastructure, it's used as a light client, it's used in a lot of different ways. It's not just an Ethereum node, it supports all kinds of different consensus algorithms and stuff as well. We've done a Bitcoin implementation. Recently announced is that this is soon going to be also modified somewhat into the first alternative Zcash implementation. So we're a blockchain development outfit. And at some point we realize we've been writing these nodes and we're duplicating a lot of the same work over and over again. So stuff like synchronization, peer-to-peer networking, database, Merkle trees, light client algorithms, that kind of thing. It's actually a lot of infrastructure that you have to build around. Ultimately what you really care about is a blockchain developer, which is the state transition system that you're putting together. So that's basically what Parity Substrate is. It's something like a blockchain in a box that you can build a chain with. And it's something that's going to be useful for sidechains and we're also using it in a bunch of our own projects, like to build Polkadot for example, and as well to build the Ethereum 2.0 client. So the way that Substrate works basically is you have LibP2P networking, although you could swap that out for something like DevP2P. My understanding is that Ethereum 2.0 is heavily leaning towards LibP2P right now. So that's what I'll talk about for the moment. LibP2P networking that lets you run a consensus process that does agreement over state transitions that are encoded in WebAssembly that we call the runtime. So the runtime is the actual work of the chain. And this is something that we've designed so that you can upgrade it on the fly for Ethereum 2.0. That's not really a feature that you need. So you don't need it to be WebAssembly. It could actually be native code in this case. But Substrate's general model is around WebAssembly state transitions where the state transition logic itself can be upgraded. And that's gonna be composed maybe of many different reusable components or modules like governance or slashing, staking, for Polkadot, we wrote one for parachains and for smart contracts and that sort of thing. For Ethereum 2.0, we've basically written a runtime from scratch because the beacon chain implementation is very, very unique. So what Substrate gives you is a abstract block format. It's agnostic as to what kind of backing database you use. So it could be like a key value store in base 16, a Merkle Patricia tree. It could be a binary Merkle tree. It could be something like just a key value store column that's not cryptographically committed to if you were writing something like a UTXO based chain. At its core, basically all you have to do to write a chain in Substrate is put together a implementation of function execute block. So that takes in a blob of data and it tells you was that a good block with the backing database. So that's basically what we've done. And it's got some extensible networking and other utilities as well. So one big part of what we're doing is pluggable consensus. So that was a feature of Parity Ethereum for a while to support proof of work as well, proof of authority and contracting system around that. But for Substrate, we've come up with a pretty nice set of abstractions that lets us do a lot of different complex things in Substrate. Like we've done Rotodendron, which is a instant finality probe call that's derived from PBFT. We've got Grampa and Orand, which are a hybrid consensus together. It's something like Casper FFG in the hybrid model. You could do Casper FFG as well with this. You could also do stuff like Ava that Amin was just talking about fairly easily in this model. So it's very, very extensible in that sense. And what you get is hot swappable consensus is one feature we've talked about where essentially you can move between consensus algorithms. For example, if you deploy your chain right now with some relatively simplistic longest chain rule, then you could upgrade it to something else and actually fork the chain onto another system. A hot swappable state transition function. I'm not gonna go through all of these, but one of the ones that I do really wanna stress is that it's got a light client from day one. I'm one of the few people who's written a light client for Ethereum. I can tell you that adding that onto a blockchain node after the fact is awful. It is a lot of work. So having that supported from day one, having networking protocols for it from day one is really, really important to make sure that you can actually have light client infrastructure in the end. Of course, there's things like the module library and if you wanna plug into something like Polkadot, that's supported as well. But to get more to the direct point and the question on the forefront of a lot of your minds with this conference is that Ethereum basically needs to scale. So the EVM can't process the proof of work consensus. The EVM can't process enough transactions for the uses that we're already seeing. That's just the case. Sidechains and bridges, which Bjorn talked about a bit earlier on the main stage, are a temporary solution to this problem, but they only mitigate it. At some point, even if you have a ton of sidechains and a ton of bridges, you're sort of fragmenting the ecosystem, which isn't ideal. And also you're just delaying the scaling issues because at some point, you won't be able to get all those bridge notifications onto the chain as well. So you really need a root-level chain that's scaling. So the solution proposed by the Ethereum research team is Serenity, Ethereum 2.0. So this is a name that's been around for a while. I mean, Serenity has been on the Ethereum roadmaps for years. The exact feature set that it's encompassing is just being nailed down now. So the spec is about 60% complete now. It doesn't cover everything like block authorship, but it does get the core of the state transition system, validator shuffling, changing validator dynasties and collecting attestations and that sort of thing. So the main piece of the sharding design is a beacon chain. And this is what we're building on substrate. So it's sort of a shard coordinator. It manages proof of stake validators. It adds blocks to the chain. It finalizes them. It gets cross links from shards, which are attested to by committees of validators. So all the validators will be split up into small committees, each committee being assigned to a specific shard for a period of time. The assignment is done by a randomness beacon, which is what's called a beacon chain. And basically these guys just attest to blocks that exist on shards. It operates as a proof of stake chain. The validators might take turns proposing blocks, which would be finalized by Casper FFG. So Casper FFG is one of the caspers that's floating around. It's basically just a finality gadget. So the term finality gadget is a bit nebulous, but it's essentially part of a hybrid consensus process where you have a probabilistic consensus algorithm adding blocks to the chain. And then you have finality gadget adding accountable safety onto that. So then if blocks that are finalized by the gadget are reverted, you get this process called accountable safety, which means you can identify who acted in reverting those blocks and punish them. So Casper FFG does that by voting on checkpoints every end blocks. And if you get two checkpoints in a row that gets super majority support, you've finalized a block. It influences the fork choice rule in sharding of the block production system as well. The cool thing about Casper FFG is that you get information on chain about which blocks have been finalized and the slashing conditions are really, really simple. So this is sort of a diagram from the sharding website of what the Casper FFG fork choice rule is doing. So you have some checkpoints which are getting closer and closer to being justified. Like you always follow the most recently justified checkpoint, but then you also look at which messages people are passing around on unjustified checkpoints and use that to influence your target block on the main chain. So shards are basically freestanding chains. They're secured by their own consensus algorithm. They're typically proof of stake and they're linked to the beacon chain via these cross links. These attested to statements that make their way onto the beacon chain. So to look a bit at this diagram that we got from Xiaowei and Ben Ejington, we can see that the architecture of sharding looks something like this. So the proof of work main chain is the anchor layer. This is actually like the Ethereum 1.0 chain. It's got this one directional lockup stuff where you can basically lock up your ether on the existing chain, move it over to the beacon chain and then get the beacon chain tokens for participating as a validator there. Other than that, it's not particularly relevant. The beacon chain is doing this randomness beacon stuff coordinating between validator sets and the shard chains are actually doing computations with a WebAssembly virtual machine. So now I'll get into the part of basically our implementation progress. Like where are we with that? So first I'll zoom back in time. Originally, there was a plan to have a hard fork in Ethereum to implement Casper FFG, to hard fork the Ethereum main chain that we're using now and make a Casper FFG hybrid consensus model with the proof of work that's going on there. So the first step that we took towards sharding shortly after the Taiwan summit was to do this implementation. So that's been closed because this plan has been abandoned, but we did this work, we spun up a test net and we showed that it was at least in a proof of concept stage. So now the plan has pivoted somewhat to incorporate this beacon chain architecture and we are doing ParityTech slash Shasper is the repository. So the developer who's been doing most of the work on this is a guy called Wei Tang from China. We've, the rest of the substrate team has been contributing bits and pieces through architecture and pluggable consensus and that sort of thing. Basically this is a repository that contains more or less everything that's specced out in the state transition aspect of the beacon chain. Block authorship, et cetera, still to do, but as those parts are further specced out those will be added. So most of it exists as a runtime, that piece of WebAssembly code that actually processes the logic of the chain. So what this is is processing new attestations, crystallizing them, handling new validator set changes, and that sort of thing. Substrates native block formats are a bit different than the ones that the beacon chain uses. So the beacon chain will have fields like the Randall reveal or a pin to the proof of work chain, the anchor layer that it's attached to. But substrates native block formats don't really have that stuff. So we use an adapter. So basically on disk we've got one set of block types which are the substrate block types where these extra values are encoded as extrinsics and on the networking layer we've transformed them into Shasper or Serenity blocks so that when you communicate with other nodes like those perhaps built by prismatic labs or lighthouse that they're all using the same block format but actually under the hood it's using a different block format. Ethereum 2.0 is very likely to use LibP2P for networking. So substrate has been using LibP2P from day one. At parity we even did, well to wind back a little bit LibP2P is a set of networking libraries first designed, built and described by protocol labs of IPFS and Filecoin. So this is intended to be a set of cross-platform and future-proof networking libraries. At parity we did an implementation of those in Rust and we've given that back to open source and we're in the process of moving that over to parity Ethereum as well so that parity Ethereum can use LibP2P as a backing network but we're also building substrate out with LibP2P as first class networking. So the next steps, what's next in the implementation side of things for Ethereum 2.0 for us? We are going to see this through. Parity is 100% committed to finishing the Ethereum 2.0 implementation. Thank you. So the next step will be basically better pluggable consensus. So we've now just in the past few days merged the commits into substrate that generalize the consensus framework. I think I've got a picture of this. So we've merged this pull request, you've got a few more coming. What's next is basically to implement Casper FFG on substrate. Start to do that block authorship work so that not just processing the blocks is done on our Shasper repo but actually authoring them as well. One other thing that we'll need is multi-tree support. So the validator set might grow pretty large. Right now it's just stored in this SSZ serialization, simple serialization format that's described in the sharding spec. But if the validator set is large enough and continues to grow dynamically then you would need to probably encode it in some kind of tree structure. So this is a feature where basically rather than having a single storage root in the substrate header you have one that references a few others. But it's also a valuable feature for example, building an Ethereum 1.0 client on substrate because this is roughly the same model that you would use for the accounts tree versus account storage trees in Ethereum 1.0. So one possible application of that could be to probably fairly easily put together a light client in substrate for Ethereum 1.0 or for Ethereum 2.0 shard chains. So I guess I'll conclude it there. Get substrate, give it a try, continue to follow what's going on with Parity's Ethereum 2.0 work. We're doing it a bit quietly in the background but slowly plugging away at it. As the specs solidify, we really intend to keep it up to date, keep our code up to date with what the specs are saying so that we're always on the ball with the sharding stuff. Thank you very much. We have time for a few questions. Hi, thank you very much. My question is, could you maybe elaborate a little bit about the crystallite states? Like in what form are they happening and if it's kind of the benchmarks that you have in proof of stake and if these benchmarks are something centralized or is done in a decentralized way? Yeah, so benchmarking the crystallized state is the question. So the crystallized state is just something from the sharding specification. So basically the state of the chain is spit into two parts. You have the active state and the crystallized state. So the active state contains sort of attestations that have not been processed yet and the crystallized state stores attestations that have been processed and checked and as well like what the head of all the shards are, that sort of thing, as well as the validator set. We haven't benchmarked it yet. It's a bit early stage for that. I mean, there's not really much to benchmark until you have something like block authorship going. But as soon as you have a chain up, you would start to see maybe how many transactions you can process, but right now is sort of the stage more for experimentation. Like there aren't even really, none of the beacon chain implementations are really at the stage where you could attach shards to them yet.  You said that the substrate works with the beacon chain, but does it work with the shard chains as well? Yeah, exactly. So you could use substrate to write the beacon chain, which is what we're doing now, and you could also use it to write the shard chains. Like those are most likely going to be proof of stake chains on their own that are running Iwasm as the state transition. From the perspective of the beacon chain, the shard chains are just blobs of data, so we sort of step aside from that problem for now, but you could definitely write an Ethereum 2.0 client for the shard chains in substrate. And in fact, that's what we will be doing as one of the next steps. So do you have any plans to upgrade some of the other products you support, like the Bitcoin, the Zcash one you just announced, the Ethereum 1.0 with substrate once it's up and running and ready to go? Yeah, so it's quite possible that you could do a Bitcoin implementation on substrate. I think with the existing products like Parity Ethereum, particularly with Parity Ethereum, there's a lot of extra code around it, like things like warp sync and the light client protocol and stuff like that, that's a bit different than the way substrate looks at things. So just with that amount of like three years of code, supporting that all over to substrate would be a bit too much work probably. You could definitely write an Ethereum client in substrate, but it's unlikely that the Parity Ethereum code base would migrate over to substrate in the near future. The Bitcoin client is a lot less complex simply because Bitcoin is a lot less complex. So I think it's very possible to do a, at the very least, a UTXO based chain on substrate where you execute Bitcoin script transactions. The question at that point is really just optimization. It's for sure possible to optimize a substrate node to get to the level of like a specialized Bitcoin node, but that would just at this point be duplicating efforts since we've already written one. I think substrate sort of at its niche is more focused on less migrating over existing blockchain products because then people have already done all those pieces of work that substrate is supposed to save you from duplicating and rather focus more towards like new blockchain products to get people off the ground a bit faster. Like we found it to be immensely useful for the charting stuff. Wei wrote up the state transition in like two weeks which he would think is, you know, if someone told you that beforehand you would think that that's impossible but managed to do it just because all of this stuff was completely taken away from developers. Are you using GRPC for the interface at EPI or? GRPC? Yeah. Is there a rust implementation of that? Because I think- I'm actually not familiar with GR, we are using JSON-RPC, like there's some JSON-RPC methods but I'm not familiar with GRPC. Okay, it's just a Google, I think just a Google library. Ah, I gotcha. The Go versions use it. Ah, okay, okay, so like as like a JSON-RPC server. Yeah, yeah. No, so we've written, like Parity has written our own JSON-RPC library and rust. Actually the guy who wrote most of it is sitting right behind you. So, talk to him. But yeah, so a lot of this stuff doesn't exist in Rust yet when we started to use Rust, like these libraries, like we had to write a lot of them ourselves. So, mostly our own code. Just another one off the top of my head. You mentioned alternative networking protocols. Is I2P in any sort of plans or anything like that? I2P, what's I2P? Sorry, say it again for the mic. Covery for Mineros was to have additional privacy guarantees over PDP. Ah, okay, yeah. I don't see why not. Basically none of the code that uses networking assumes anything about the networking protocol that's being used. So it's fairly generic, like usually, at least in the consensus algorithm stuff or the block propagation stuff, it's like you have a stream of incoming messages and a stream of outgoing messages on some topic or some peer-to-peer connection. So it doesn't really matter what you're using for that. LibPTP is one option and that's the one that we've coded up, but it shouldn't be too hard if you have an I2P library that you can link into Rust or do an implementation of that in Rust to slot that in as well. We're not probably going to do an implementation of that ourselves, but it's an open-source project and that kind of contribution is the stuff that we actually really want to see. So if there were to be a pull request open to implement I2P support and substrate, we would definitely review it and merge it. Yeah, we'll do it. All right, that about wraps it up for this room. I'm Corey Petty from the Bitcoin Podcast and Status and there's still some more stuff on the main stage. So thanks guys.


Section 4 of The Willows. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michael Robinson. The Willows. By Algernon Blackwood. 4. It's the Willows, of course. The Willows mask the others, but the others are feeling about for us. If we let our minds betray our fear we're lost, lost, utterly. He looked at me with an expression so calm, so determined, so sincere that I no longer had any doubts as to his sanity. He was as sane as any man ever was. If we can hold out through the night, he added, we may get off in the daylight unnoticed or rather undiscovered.  Hush! he whispered, holding up his hand. Do not mention them more than you can help. Do not refer to them by name. To name is to reveal. It is the inevitable clue, and our only hope lies in ignoring them in order that they may ignore us. Even in thought? He was extraordinarily agitated. Especially in thought. Our thoughts make spirals in their world. We must keep them out of our minds at all costs, if possible. I rake the fire together to prevent the darkness having everything its own way. I never longed for the sun as I longed for it then, in the awful blackness of that summer night.  He went on suddenly. I slept badly a little after dawn. I replied evasively, trying to follow his instructions which I knew instinctively were true. But the wind, of course. I know. But the wind won't account for all the noises. Then you heard it, too? The multiplying countless little footsteps I heard. He said, adding, after a moment's hesitation, and that other sound. You mean above the tent and the pressing down upon us of something tremendous, gigantic? He nodded significantly. It was like the beginning of a sort of inner suffocation, I said. Partly, yes. It seemed to me that the weight of the atmosphere had been altered, had increased enormously so that we should have been crushed. And that, I went on, determined to have it all out, pointing upwards where the gong-like note hummed ceaselessly, rising and falling like wind. What do you make of that? It's their sound, he whispered gravely. It's the sound of their world, the humming in their region. The division here is so thin that it leaks through somehow. But if you listen carefully, you'll find it's not above so much as around us. It's in the willows. It's the willows themselves humming because here the willows have been made symbols of the forces that are against us. I could not follow exactly what he meant by this, yet the thought and idea in my mind wore beyond question the thought and idea in his. I realized what he realized, only with less power of analysis than his. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him at last about my hallucination of the ascending figures and the moving bushes, when he suddenly thrust his face again close into mine across the fire-light and began to speak in a very earnest whisper. He amazed me by his calmness and pluck, his apparent control of the situation. This man I had for years deemed unimaginative, stolid. Now listen, he said. The only thing for us to do is to go on as though nothing had happened. Follow our usual habits, go to bed and so forth. And we feel nothing and notice nothing. It is a question wholly of the mind, and the less we think about them the better our chance of escape. Above all, don't think, for what you think happens. All right. I managed to reply, simply breathless with his words and the strangeness of it all. All right, I'll try, but tell me one more thing first. Tell me what you make of those hollows in the ground all about us, those sand funnels. No, he cried, forgetting to whisper in his excitement. I dare not, simply dare not, put the thought into words. If you have not guessed, I am glad. Don't try to. They have put it into my mind. Try your hardest to prevent their putting it into yours. He sank his voice again to a whisper before he finished, and I did not press him to explain. There was already just about as much horror in me as I could hold. The conversation came to an end and we smoked our pipes busily in silence. Then something happened, something unimportant, apparently, as the way as when the nerves are in a very great state of tension, and this small thing for a brief space gave me an entirely different point of view. I chanced to look down at my sand shoe, the sort we used for the canoe, and something to do with the hole at the toe suddenly recalled to me the London shop where I had bought them, the difficulty the man had in fitting me in other details of the uninteresting but practical operation. At once in its train followed a wholesome view of the modern skeptical world I was accustomed to moving at home. I thought of roast beef, an ale, motor cars, policemen, brass bands, and a dozen other things that proclaimed the soul of ordinariness or utility. The effect was immediate and astonishing even to myself. Psychologically I suppose it was simply a sudden and violent reaction, after the strain of living in an atmosphere of things that to the normal consciousness must seem impossible and incredible. But whatever the cause, it momentarily lifted the spell from my heart and left me for the short space of a minute feeling free and utterly unafraid. I looked up at my friend opposite. "'You damned old pagan!' I cried, laughing aloud in his face.  You superstitious idolater! You—' I stopped in the middle, seized anew by the old horror. I tried to smother the sound of my voice as something sacrilegious. The sweet, of course, heard it too. The strange cry overhead in the darkness, and that sudden drop in the air as though something had come nearer. He had turned ashen-wide under the tann. He stood bolt upright in front of the fire, stiff as a rod, staring at me. "'After that,' he said in a sort of helpless frantic way, we must go. We can't stay now. We must strike-camp this very instant and go on, down the river. He was talking, I saw, quite wildly, his words dictated by abject terror, the terror he had resisted so long that which had caught him at last. "'In the dark?' I exclaimed, shaking with fear after my hysterical outburst, but still realizing our position better than he did. Sure madness! The river's in flood, and we've only got a single paddle. Besides we only go deeper into their country. There's nothing ahead for fifty miles but willows, willows, willows!' He sat down again in a state of semi-collapse. The positions by one of those kaleidoscopic changes nature loves were suddenly reversed, and the control of our forces passed over into my hands. His mind at last had reached the point where it was beginning to weaken. "'What on earth possessed you to do such a thing?' He whispered with the awe of genuine terror in his voice and face. I crossed round to his side of the fire. I took both his hands in mine, kneeling down beside him and looking straight into his frightened eyes. "'We'll make one more blaze,' I said firmly, and then turn in for the night. At sunrise we'll be off full-speed forka-mourn. Now pull yourself together a bit and remember your own advice about not thinking fear.' He said no more, and I saw that he would agree and obey. In some measure, too, it was a sort of relief to get up and make an excursion into the darkness for more wood. We kept close together, almost touching, groping among the bushes and along the bank. The humming overhead never ceased, but seemed to me to grow louder as we increased our distance from the fire. It was shivery work. We were grubbing away in the middle of a thickish clump of willows where some driftwood from a former flood had caught high among the branches, when my body was seized in a grip that made me half-drop upon the sand. It was the swede. He had fallen against me and was clutching me for support. I heard his breath coming and going in short gasps. Look! By my soul! He whispered, and for the first time in my experience I knew what it was to hear tears of terror in a human voice. He was pointing to the fire, some fifty feet away. I followed the direction of his finger, and I swear my heart missed a beat. There, in front of the dim glow, some thing was moving. I saw it through a veil that hung before my eyes like the gauze drop curtain used at the back of a theater, hazily a little. It was neither a human figure nor an animal. To me it gave the strange impression of being as large as several animals grouped together like horses, two or three, moving slowly. The swede, too, got a similar result, though expressing it differently, for he thought it was shaped and sized like a clump of willow bushes, rounded at the top and moving all over upon its surface, coiling upon itself like smoke, he said afterwards. I watched it settle down through the bushes. He sobbed at me. Look! By God! It's coming this way! Oh! Oh! He gave a kind of whistling cry. They found us! I gave one terrified glance, which just enabled me to see that the shadow we formed was swinging towards us through the bushes, and then I collapsed backwards with a crash into the branches. He's failed, of course, to support my weight, so that with the swede on top of me we fell in a struggling heap upon the sand. I really hardly knew what was happening. I was conscious only of a sort of enveloping sensation of icy fear that plucked the nerves out of their fleshy covering, twisted them this way and that, and replaced them quivering. My eyes were tightly shut, something in my throat choked me, a feeling that my consciousness was expanding, extending out into space, swiftly gave way to another feeling that I was losing it altogether and about to die. An acute spasm of pain passed through me, and I was aware that the swede had hold of me in such a way that he hurt me abominably. It was the way he caught at me in falling. But it was the pain, he declared afterwards, that saved me. It caused me to forget them and think of something else at the very instant when they were about to find me. It concealed my mind from them at the moment of discovery, yet just in time to evade their terrible seizing of me. He himself, he says, actually swooned at the same moment, and that was what saved him. I only know that at a later date, how long or short is impossible to say. I found myself scrambling up out of the slippery network of willow branches, and saw my companion standing in front of me, holding out a hand to assist me. I stared at him in a dazed way, rubbing the arm he had twisted for me. Nothing came to me to say, somehow. I lost consciousness for a moment or two, I heard him say. That's what saved me. It made me stop thinking about them. You nearly broke my arm in two, I said, uttering my only connected thought at the moment. A numbness came over me. That's what saved you, he replied. Between us we've managed to set them off on a false tack somewhere. The humming has ceased. It's gone for the moment at any rate. A wave of hysterical laughter seized me again, and this time spread to my friend, too, great healing gusts of shaking laughter that brought a tremendous sense of relief in their train. We made our way back to the fire and put the wood on so that it blazed at once. Then we saw that the tent had fallen over and lay in a tangled heap upon the ground. We picked it up, and during the process, tripped, more than once, and caught our feet in sand. It's those sand funnels, exclaimed the Swede, when the tent was up again and the firelight lit up the ground for several yards about us, and look at the size of them. All around the tent and about the fireplace where we had seen the moving shadows there were deep, funnel-shaped hollows in the sand, exactly similar to the ones we had already found over the island, only far bigger and deeper, beautifully formed, and wide enough in some instances to admit the whole of my foot and leg. Neither of us said a word. We both knew that sleep was the safest thing we could do, and to bed we went, accordingly, without further delay, having first thrown sand on the fire and taken the provision sack and the paddle inside the tent with us. The canoe, too, we propped in such a way at the end of the tent that our feet touched it, and the leased motion would disturb and wake us. In case of emergency, too, we again went to bed in our clothes, ready for a sudden start. It was my firm intention to lie awake all night and watch, but the exhaustion of nerves and body decreed otherwise, and sleep after a while came over me with a welcome blanket of oblivion. The fact that my companion also slept quickened its approach. At first he fidgeted and constantly sat up, asking me if I heard this, or heard that. He tossed about on his cork mattress, and said the tent was moving, and the river had risen over the point of the island, but each time I went out to look I returned with a report that all was well, and finally he grew calmer and lay still. Even at length his breathing became regular, and I heard unmistakable sounds of snoring. The first and only time in my life when snoring has been a welcome and calming influence. This I remember was the last thought in my mind before dosing off. A difficulty in breathing woke me, and I found the blanket over my face, but something else besides the blanket was pressing upon me, and my first thought was that my companion had rolled off his mattress onto my own in his sleep. I called to him and sat up, and at the same moment it came to me that the tent was surrounded. That sound of multitudinous soft pattering was again audible outside, filling the night with horror. I called again to him louder than before. He did not answer, but I missed the sound of his snoring, and also noticed that the flap of the tent was down. This was the unpardonable sin. I crawled out in the darkness to hook it back securely, and it was then for the first time I realized positively that the suite was not here. He had gone. I dashed out in a mad run, seized by a dreadful agitation, and the moment I was out I plunged into a sort of torrent of humming that surrounded me completely and came out of every quarter of the heavens at once. It was that same familiar humming—gone mad! A swarm of great invisible bees might have been about me in the air. The sound seemed to thicken the very atmosphere, and I felt that my lungs worked with difficulty. But my friend was in danger, and I could not hesitate. The dawn was just about to break, and a faint whitish light spread upwards over the clouds from a thin strip of clear horizon. No wind stirred. I could just make out the bushes and river beyond, and the pale sandy patches. In my excitement I ran frantically to and fro about the island, calling him by name, shouting at the top of my voice the first words that came into my head. But the willows smothered my voice, and the humming muffled it, so that the sound only travelled a few feet round me. I plunged among the bushes, tripping headlong, tumbling over roots, and scraping my face as I tore this way and that among the preventing branches. Then quite unexpectedly I came out upon the island's point and saw a dark figure outline between the water and the sky. It was a swede, and already he had one foot in the river. One moment more and he would have taken the plunge. I threw myself upon him, flinging my arms about his waist and dragging him shorewards with all my strength. Of course he struggled furiously, making a noise all the time just like that curset humming, and using the most outlandish phrases in his anger about going inside to them, and taking the way of the water and the wind, and God only knows what more besides, that I tried in vain to recall afterwards but which turned me sick with horror and amazement as I listened, but in the end I managed to get him into the comparative safety of the tent and flung him, breathless and cursing upon the mattress where I held him until the fit had passed. I think the suddenness with which it all went, and he grew calm, coinciding as it did with the equally abrupt cessation of the humming and pattering outside. I think this was almost the strangest part of the whole business perhaps.  My life, old man, it's my life I owe you. But it's all over now anyhow. They found a victim in our place. Then he dropped back upon his blankets and went to sleep literally under my eyes. He simply collapsed and began to snore again, as healthily as though nothing had happened, and he had never tried to offer his own life as a sacrifice by drowning. And when the sunlight woke him three hours later, hours of ceaseless vigil for me, it became so clear to me that he remembered absolutely nothing of what he had attempted to do that I deemed it wise to hold my peace and ask no dangerous questions. He woke naturally and easily, as I have said, when the sun was already high in a windless hot sky, and he had once got up and said about the preparation of the fire for breakfast. I followed him anxiously at bathing, but he did not attempt to plunge in, merely dipping his head and making some remark about the extra coldness of the water. "'Rivers falling at last,' he said, and I'm glad of it. The humming has stopped too,' I said. He looked up at me quietly with his normal expression. Evidently he remembered everything except his own attempt at suicide. Nothing has stopped, he said, because he hesitated. But I knew some reference to that remark he had made just before he fainted was in his mind, and I was determined to know it. Because they found another victim, I said, forcing a little laugh. "'Exactly,' he answered. "'Exactly. I feel as positive of it as though—as though—I feel quite safe again, I mean,' he finished. He began to look curiously about him. The sunlight lay in hot patches on the sand. There was no wind. The willows were motionless. He slowly rose to feet. "'Come,' he said. I think if we look we shall find it.' He started off on a run, and I followed him. He kept to the banks, poking with a stick among the sandy bays and caves and little backwaters, myself always close on his heels. "'Ah,' he exclaimed presently. "'Ah!' The tone of his voice somehow brought back to me a vivid sense of the horror of the last twenty-four hours, and I hurried up to join him. He was pointing with his stick at a large black object that lay half in the water and half on the sand. It appeared to be caught by some twisted willow roots so that the river could not sweep it away. A few hours before the spot must have been under water. "'See,' he said quietly, the victim that made our escape possible. And when I peered across his shoulder I saw that his stick rested on the body of a man. He turned it over. It was the corpse of a peasant, and the face was hidden in the sand. Clearly the man had been drowned. But a few hours before. And his body must have been swept down upon our island somewhere about the hour of the dawn. At the very time the fit had passed. "'We must give it a decent burial, you know.' "'I suppose so,' I replied. I shuddered a little in spite of myself, for there was something about the appearance of that poor, drowned man that turned me cold. The sweet glanced up sharply at me, an undecipherable expression on his face, and began clambering down the bank. I followed him more leisurely. The current, I noticed, had torn away much of the clothing from the body, so that the neck and part of the chest lay bare. Halfway down the bank my companion suddenly stopped and held up his hand in warning. But either my foot slipped or I had gained too much momentum to bring myself quickly to a halt, for I bumped into him and sent him forward with a sort of leap to save himself. We tumbled together onto the hard sand so that our feet splashed into the water, and before anything could be done we had collided a little heavily against the corpse. The sweet uttered a sharp cry, and I sprang back as if I had been shot. At the moment we touched the body, there rose from its surface the loud sound of humming, the sound of several hummings, which passed with a vast commotion as of winged things in the air about us and disappeared upwards into the sky, growing fainter and fainter till they finally ceased in the distance. It was exactly as though we had disturbed some living yet invisible creatures at work. My companion clutched me, and I think I clutched him. But before either of us had time properly to recover from the unexpected shock, we saw that a movement of the current was turning the corpse round so that it became released from the grip of the willow roots. A moment later it had turned completely over, the dead face uppermost, staring at the sky. It lay on the edge of the main stream. In another moment it would be swept away. The swede started to save it, shouting again something I did not catch about a proper burial, and then abruptly dropped upon his knees on the sand and covered his eyes with his hands. I was beside him in an instant. I saw what he had seen.  Beautifully formed, and exactly similar in shape and kind to the sand funnels that we had found all over the island. Their mark. I heard my companion mutter under his breath. Their awful mark. And when I turned my eyes again from his ghastly face to the river, the current had done its work, and the body had been swept away into midstream, and was already beyond our reach and almost out of sight, turning over and over on the waves like an otter. End of IV.