Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

Players are looking high and low in order to find for themselves some Stacked Decks and this guide is here to aid you guys in getting you the information you need on it.

A Stacked Deck is a simple deck of cards that is used in recipes for Furnishing. It is known for its rarity considering that its a Legendary rarity resource. It weighs about 0.3 kg in terms of inventory capacity.

This item can be traded with other players.

Finding a Stacked Deck is very rare and there are even servers where players have never heard of anyone ever owning it.

The Stacked Deck has a chance to drop from Tier I, II, and III Supply Containers and Tier I, II, and III Ancient Chests.

One also has a very rare chance to find them in the Trading Post provided that someone is actually willing to sell one. The item in question is worth at least 10,000 gold and some even say that theyd be willing to pay anywhere between 15,000 to 20,000 gold for it considering how rare it is. So for those of you who happen to see that someone is selling one for below 10,000 gold then its basically a steal at that point.

Stacked Deck can be used to create the Basic Loot Luck Trophy Furnishing item which requires a player to have a level of 150 for that profession. A Stacked Deck is only one of the items and the player would need the following in order to craft it:

Players will also need to use a Tier IV Workshop to start the crafting process.

That about does it for this legendary piece of crafting material thats ultimately just going to be used to increase ones luck. For more guides on New World, you can check out our guides on Small Halibut, gold farming, and more here.

Go here to read the rest:
New World Where to Find Stacked Decks - Sirus Gaming

The Navy did not confirm to Naval News how many IRCPS missiles the converted stealth destroyers will be able to carry at once, though it has been reported that up to 12 of these weapons could be loaded onto each ship in the future. This would mean two APMs would take the place of each of the AGS turrets. This may seem like a limited number, but each one of these missiles will reportedly be some 34 and a half inches in diameter and could be 30 feet or more in length. By comparison, a Tomahawk has a length of some 20 and a half feet, including a rocket booster necessary to fire it from a VLS cell, and less than 20 and a half inches in diameter.

IRCPS' expected dimensions are based on what is known about the U.S. Army's ground-based Dark Eagle Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) system. Dark Eagle and IRCPS are using the same missile design, with a common unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicle on top, with how they are launched being the only difference between the two.

These missiles, like other designs using hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, use rocket boosters to get their payload to a desired speed and altitude. Once there, the vehicle separates from the rest of the weapon and glides back down toward its target, flying along an atmospheric trajectory at a hypersonic speed, typically defined as anything above Mach 5.

Boost-glide vehicles are also designed to be highly maneuverable, allowing for more unpredictable movements over the course of their flight compared to typical ballistic missiles, even those with advanced maneuverable reentry vehicles. This presents significant challenges for opponents in terms of detecting the incoming weapon and responding to it, including any attempts to intercept the threat. Giving an enemy less time to react also reduces their ability to relocate critical assets or just seek cover. All of this, in turn, means hypersonic weapons present an ideal choice for penetrating through even the densest air and missile defenses to strike high-value and potentially time-sensitive targets.

The DDG-1000s are the most advanced and survivable surface combatants the Navy has available to it now, despite years of watering down of their capabilities, including by adding external systems that increase their radar signature. Integrating IRCPS onto these destroyers could open up new missions for them, either while operating independently or as part of larger surface actions groups. Their stealthy qualities, in particular, would improve their ability to get within range of their targets, even ones relatively deep inside enemy territory, even just to hold them at risk as a deterrent during a major crisis.

At the same time, questions have repeatedly been raised about the exact operational utility of a class of three ships. At present, the Lyndon B. Johnson, which left port for its first sea trials in August, isn't even expected to be commissioned until 2023. All three examples are expected to be assigned to a developmental unit, Surface Developmental Squadron One, though the Navy insists that they will make regular operational deployments.

The Navy originally planned to buy 32 DDG-1000s, but scaled that order back multiple times before settling on purchasing a trio of these destroyers. This had the knock-on effect of sending the unit cost for each one of these ships skyrocketing, from the original estimated price tag of $1.3 billion in 1998 to more than $9 billion by September 2020, according to the Government Accountability Office. It's not clear how much refitting the Zumwalt class vessels to fire IRCPS, or other potential upgrades, such as new radars, might add to this price point.

The decision to add only a relatively limited number of IRCPS missiles, which would be intended for use against very high-value targets, rather than more traditional VLS cells to the DDG-1000s, could add to an ongoing debate about the Navy's overall conventional missile-launching capacity. It has been noted that the service's fleet structure plans, which remain in flux, generally involve retiring ships and submarines with significant numbers of VLS cells.

This is particularly true of the Navy's desire to divest a significant portion of its Ticonderoga class cruisers and the expected retirement of the four Ohio class guided-missile submarines. The service has said it plans to acquire new large surface warships and so-called "large payload submarines," as well as a fleet of large-displacement unmanned surface vessels (USV), which could have their own missile magazines. However, any new classes of large surface combatants or missile-carrying submarines are still years away from becoming a reality and Congress has expressed skepticism about plans for large USVs.

There has also been some discussion about the potential for increasing the missile-carrying capacity of the Navy's future Constellation class frigates. Before it selected a design, the service did change its requirements for those ships, increasing the number of VLS cells each one had to have from 16 to 32.

In 2019, the Navy said it could add between $16 and $24 million to each one, and potentially cause delays in delivery, to add another 16 VLS cells to any of the competing designs. As The War Zone has reported, the Constellation class design the service eventually selected is longer, wider, and displaces substantially more than the ship it was based on, the Italian subvariant of the Fregata Europea Multi-Missione (FREMM), or European Multi-Mission Frigate. This is in part to allow for "future growth," which might raise a possibility that space has been built in to allow for the addition of new missile-launching capacity as time goes on. At the same time, the Navy has talked about adding other capabilities to these ships, including directed energy weapons.

For the Navy, we know thats a distributed maritime operations concept that is driving a smaller, more distributed fleet [with fewer] large vessels, and more lethal, smaller vessel. That means frigates. So we should have that debate over whether we should put that next dollar into a 33-year-old cruiser, or whether we should invest in the Flight III [Arleigh Burke class] DDG," Chief of Naval Operations Gilday said back in April. We cant just be counting VLS tubes and satisfying ourselves that thats the sole metric were going to look at.

The Navy has clearly decided that arming its DDG-1000s with IRCPS missiles in the coming years is an important part of that overall plan to increase the lethality of its fleets.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

Originally posted here:
The Navy's Stealth Destroyers Will Have Their Deck Guns Replaced With Hypersonic Missiles - The Drive

After an eventful month that saw the wettest October day on record for San Francisco, a second weather system this week is expected to bring more light showers to the Bay Area on Wednesday evening.

A cold front dropped more than one inch of rain in some regions of the North Bay mountains on Monday, with San Francisco, the Peninsula, the South Bay and lower elevations in the East Bay receiving less than an inch of rain, according to the National Weather Service. The majority of showers dwindled by Monday afternoon.

As of 6:45 a.m. Tuesday, 24-hour precipitation totals included 1.89 inches at Middle Peak at Mount Tamalpais, 1.26 inches in Kentfield, 0.23 inches in downtown San Francisco, 0.12 inches in Fremont and in Oakland, 0.13 inches in Livermore, 0.05 inches in Redwood City and 0.06 inches at the Mineta San Jose International Airport, according to the weather service.

A pretty similar weather system is set to arrive on Wednesday night into Thursday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Warren Blier.

Its nothing like what we saw back on Oct. 24th, he said. Santa Rosa and Mount Tamalpais could get 0.75 inches of rain, San Francisco could get 0.10 inches of rain, the South Bay could receive less than 0.10 inches and the Berkeley Hills could see 0.25 inches of rain.

Theres essentially no wildfire risk left and thats because of the enormous amount of rain we got in the October storm, Blier said. This is a series of weaker weather systems that is coming through and that Oct. 24 system didnt end the drought but its a step in the right direction. Every bit helps.

The rain system will travel from the west and temperatures are expected to range in the mid-60s for the majority of the Bay Area, although some places could reach the low 70s on Wednesday before the second rain system arrives. On Thursday, it could reach the mid-60s, but will be still pretty mild for this time of year, Blier said.

The weather systems this week will pale in comparison to the atmospheric river that soaked Northern California last month and brought some of the highest rainfall totals on record for October, but will still be welcomed to help further alleviate wildfire and drought conditions in the state.

Another weather front is expected to bring more rain early next week, according to the weather service.

San Francisco, which received 7.04 inches of rain last month, had 750% of its normal average of 0.94 inches for October, according to the weather service. Meanwhile, Oaklands rainfall total of 5.32 inches was 605% its usual average of 0.88 inches and San Jose got 2.16 inches of rain last month, measuring 408% of its typical average of 0.53 inches.

The rest is here:
Bay Area weather: More showers on deck for Wednesday in second storm this week - East Bay Times

Kristin Chenoweth (Photo by Emilio Madrid for Broadway.com)

Here's a quick roundup of stories you might have missed recently.

Tony Winner Kristin Chenoweth to Headline in Holiday ConcertTony and Emmy winner Kristin Chenoweth will headline a holiday concert at the Metropolitan Opera on December 13.Kristin Chenoweth: Christmas at the Metis a one-night-only event that will spotlight songs from her newest album, Happiness is... Christmas! Chenoweth's longtime collaborator Mary-Mitchell Cambell will serve as musical directorwith Richard Jay-Alexander directing. For more information and tickets click here.

Zachary Quinto and Calista Flockhart to Star in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Geffen PlayhouseBroadway alums Zachary Quinto and Calista Flockhart are set to star in a new production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse. Directed by Gordon Greenberg, the play will run from April 19 through May 22, 2022. Flockhart and Quinto will play Martha and George, respectively. This production joins the previously announced Geffen Playhouse season that includes Power of Sail, starring Bryan Cranston and Amy Brenneman, and Dominique Morisseau's Paradise Blue. Also newly announced to the season is Matt Schatz's musical A Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill and Fernanda Coppel's King Liz.

Terrence McNally Honored by New York Citys Historic Landmarks and Preservation CenterThe lateplaywright Terrence McNally will be honored by New York City's Historic Landmarks and Preservation Center on November 3. A Cultural Medallion will be placed on the home McNally shared with his husband, producer Tom Kirdahy, for more than 20 years. This comes after the previously announced celebration of life that took place on November 1 and the dimming of theater lights that will also happen on November 3 at 6:30 PM ET.

Jonah Platt Joins Cast of Indie Comedy The ListJonah Platt, a former Broadway.com vlogger who took fans backstage as he made his Broadway debut in Wicked, will appear in the upcoming comedyThe List, according to Deadline. Melissa Miller Costanzo directs the film, which was written by Rob Lederer and Steve Vitolo. It centers on Abby, a woman who is about to get married when she finds out her fianc Matt (Platt) has slept with a celebrity from his free pass list. The cast also includes Chrissie Fitt, Will Peltz, Zach Reino, Halston Sage, Christian Navarro and Gregg Sulkin.

Rachel Dratch & Ana Gasteyer's A Clsterfnke Christmas Gets Release DateThe upcoming holiday movie parody A Clsterfnke Christmas, written,produced and starring Saturday Night Live alums Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer, has a release date! The comedy, which also features Broadway alum Cheyenne Jackson, will premiere on December 4 at 7PM ET on Comedy Central as part of the network's31 Day holiday extravaganza, according to Variety. Vella Lovell and Ryan McPartlin also appear inA Clsterfnke Christmas, which follows Holly (Lovell), a go-getter real estate executive from New York City who heads out on assignment to a small town to buy up the quaint Clsterfnke Inn and transform it into a mega-resort. First order of business? She must convince the inns spinster owners (Gasteyer and Dratch) to make the sale. Check out Jackson's behind-the-scenes pic below!

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Odds & Ends: Kristin Chenoweth to Deck the Halls with Holiday Concert at the Metropolitan Opera & More - Broadway.com

Join Sucharita Kodali, vice president and principal analyst of Forrester, to learn the ins and outs of a pitch deck Nov. 9 at noon. Kodali will discuss what not to do so you can focus on creating a successful pitch deck.

Kodali, an expert on eCommerce, omnichannel retail, consumer behavior and trends in the online shopping space, serves digital business strategy professionals. She is also an authority on technology developments that affect the online commerce industry and vendors that facilitate online marketing and merchandising.

In her research, Kodali covers such consumer-oriented topics as eCommerce forecasting and trends, merchandising best practices, conversion optimization and social computing in the retail world. She has also authored "The State Of Retailing Online," a joint study conducted annually with NRF.

To attend the presentation, RSVP to Vantage@mail.wvu.edu.

For questions, contact Tanya Smigocki at tanya.smigocki@mail.wvu.edu or 347-423-5008.

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E-News | Top 10 Things of What Not To Do In A Pitch Deck - WVU ENews

The time has come! Below Deck Season 9 has arrived, and our dreams of living vicariously through the crew without having to live on deck are alive again.

Of course, the idea of sailing to fantastic locations and living on a mega-yacht sounds like full glamour. However, fans know the reality is, well, different. This season, get ready for drama, fighting, and a beautiful view thanks to this seasons location.

The Bravo franchise, which has been so successful its sparked several spinoff shows, follows the lives of crew members who perform duties while working on chartered yachts. Most of us could only dream to board one of these vessels.

Theyre incredibly expensive, but before you jump into applying to every job opening there is on a ship like this (if there are even any available), the workers have very challenging jobs. Which we learn really fast while watching this reality show.

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But since Below Deck is filmed in warm, tropical locations, the view is always incredible. For long-time fans of the show, youll already know that eight out of the past nine seasons have been filmed in the Caribbean.

The only exception to this rule was in 2018 when Season 6 was filmed from Tahiti. So, its not going to be a surprise to learn that the Season 9 location is in the Caribbean, too. For this season, crew members are working aboard the luxury yacht off the coast of St. Kitts.

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The larger of the two Caribbean Islands, which also includes Nevis, is quickly becoming a trendy island for the superyachts like the one the Below Deck crew work on to park for the winter before setting out when the weather is warmer elsewhere.

The crew members aboard the yacht likely wont get to experience the extreme beauty of St. Kitts during the winter-park time of the season. Instead of swimming in the warm waters and hiking through the dream-worthy landscape of the island, which includes lava formations and tropical forests, the Below Deck crew will primarily take in the views on the boat while working.

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The yacht in Season 9, called My Seanna, has been featured on the series before, including Season 6 and Season 8. Typically, the crew is helmed by Captain Lee Rosbach, who has been a staple for eight years.

However, theres been a change in leadership this year. Not because Captain Rosbach did anything wrong, but something had to pull him away.

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The long-time captain revealed on a promo trailer from Bravo that something has come up and he has to leave the shop to attend to personal matters on land. In his absence, Captain Sean Meagher steps in.

Its not known yet if the captain change is temporary or permanent. Hes not going to be the only new face, but thankfully some favorites are returning this season, including chef Rachel Hargrove and first mate Eddie Lucas.

Below Deck Season 9 airs Mondays at 9 p.m. EST on Bravo.

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'Below Deck' Season 9: Location, Cast, and What to Expect This Season - Distractify

Prairies are characterized by grasses and wildflowers, as well as their unique soil composition. (Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie / U.S. Forest Service)

Almost as soon as it was dubbed the Prairie State, Illinois began to lose the very features that inspired the nickname.

In short order, millions of acres of prairie that had gone undisturbed since the retreat of the last glaciers were transformed into some of the most productive farmland in the U.S. or churned to make room for cities and ultimately suburban sprawl. In the process, prairie, which once covered 60% of Illinoiswas all but erased.

Whats left is measured in decimal points. Among conservationistsmost oft-cited stats, only .01 of 1% of high-quality original prairie remains. Indeed, so little prairie still exists in Illinois, most residents of the state have never encountered this rare landscape.

I dont think people have a chance to see and understand prairies, said Kelly Mikenas, assistant professor of biology and director of the environmental studies program at Elmhurst University. There arent that many opportunities to go and visit prairies.

Whereas the word forest immediately conjures up specific images people know what trees look like prairie draws a blank or, worse, the brain serves up uninformed guesses, like faulty search engine results or autocorrect failures.

Unmowed field? Not a prairie.

Rural America? Not a prairie.

Garden plot filled with native plants? Not a prairie.

Swaths of roadside weeds? Not a prairie.

The mistaken association with weeds has been perhaps the most damaging to prairies reputation, and is the impetus behind a movement to reference prairie plants by their Latin names instead of common names: Vernonia gigantea, for example, flat out sounds more desirable than giant ironweed.

A lack of familiarity with or connection to prairies has made whats left of them vulnerable to development. Without a charismatic species to rally around, prairies tend to disappear with little notice. There are no sequoias to stir public sentiment. No dramatic waterfalls, no awe-inspiring cliffs, canyons or snow-capped peaks. No polar bears.

Today, having flown not so much under the conservation radar as completely off it, prairie is one of the most endangered habitats on the planet, according to experts.

To know prairies is to love them, Mikenas said. So here, then, is an introduction.

What is a prairie?

Big bluestem grass creates a colorful burgundy ribbon in a prairie. (Laura Hubers / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

A prairie, by another name, is a grassland. Its primary characteristic, as the name implies, is the presence of native prairie grasses.

Not to be confused with the stuff of lawns, prairie grasses go by names like side-oats grama, prairie dropseed and Canada wild rye.Apart from their much greater height, prairie grasses differ from turf varieties in that they tend to grow in bunches (called clump-forming) rather than spreading like sod. Whiskery plumage, unusual seed heads and striking colors are other prairie grass hallmarks.

Big bluestem, the official state prairie grass of Illinois, is among the most dominant. It can grow taller than an NBA center, glows burgundy in fall and terminates in spikes that look like a turkey foot.

But grasses are only part of a prairies story. Wildflowers are another (technically: flowering plants, called forbs, typically of a non-woody nature), with hundreds of species ranging from familiar coneflowers to rarities like the prairie fringed orchid. Trees occasionally make a cameo, but their notable absence is another prairie calling card. Traditionally, dry conditions, fire and species such as elk kept trees from establishing in prairies.

Though Illinois prairie no longer supports elk, it does provide food and shelter to a host of wildlife, from the tiniest of insects to small herds of reintroduced bison.

This interconnected web of grasses, forbs, wildlife and microorganisms is literally grounded in prairie soil, a complex stew thats perhaps the most critical and yet least understood component of what makes a prairie a prairie.

Its really the foundation, and yet we know so little about it, Mikenas said. Weve done a lot of studying of soil cores and we can extract DNA, but that science only goes so far. We only have the ability to identify a few species of bacteria and fungi, and there are tens of thousands of bacteria in a gram of soil.

Trying to replicate an individual prairies soil is almost impossible, she said. Its not just about calculating the exact amount of certain minerals, or the ratios of sand, silt and clay, but unknowable details like the number of air pockets.

Its like trying to bake a cake, but you dont know the ingredients or the proportions, said Mikenas.

Purple prairie clover. (Jennifer Jewett / U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The most iconic type of prairie and yes, theres more than one kind is tallgrass, said Mikenas. Picture covered wagons rolling through wheel-high grasses, she said. Thatstallgrass prairie.

The soil is usually very deep and so are the roots of tallgrass plants, creating a world below ground as rich and diverse as above, andsequestering carbon as the roots extend down into the earth.

And then theres the color. Grassland may imply an unbroken sea of green, but prairies are rainbow-hued.From spring through fall, prairie flowers bloom in a riot ofpurples, pinks, yellows, oranges and whites, basking in the full sun that beats down on this almost treeless environment.

All that sun means tallgrass prairies are hot. Theres no shade and very little water, Mikenas said, and the irony is that prairies are often at their most beautiful when conditions are the most brutal for visitors.

Theyre inhospitable ... to us, but thats part of what makes them so remarkable,she said. These scrappy plants can live in these places that might be discouraging, bringing immense beauty to inhospitable areas.

Apart from tallgrass, theres mixed and shortgrass prairie, differing in soil moisture, glacial history, topography (spoiler alert not all prairie land is flat) and soil composition. There are sand prairies, gravel prairies and even dolomite prairies, where the soil is so shallow, bedrock is exposed in places.

That same bedrock, gravel or sand frustrated farmers attempts at cultivation and is one reason any prairie remnants can still be found in Illinois.

What is a remnant prairie?

Environmental studies scholar Liz Anna Kozik creates comics that depict and explain the history of prairies and their restoration. Here she illustrates the differences between prairie remnants and restoration. (Courtesy of Liz Anna Kozik)

One definition of a remnant is that its never been plowed, said Becky Barak, a conservation scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden and an adjunct professor in Northwestern Universitys plant biology and conservation program.Once land has been plowed, everything in the soil that marked it as prairie is gone, she said.

There are some 2,000 acres of remnant prairie in Illinois, which is as close as we can get to the states ancient post-glacial landscape. But to think of remnants as pristine prairie is a bit of a mischaracterization.

Not even remnants have escaped the influence of human activity, including exposure to light pollution, air pollution and herbicides applied to adjacent properties, according to Mikenas.Theres also no getting around the isolated, patchwork nature of remnants compared with what was once an unbroken vista as far as they eye could see.

All remnants have undergone some level of change, Barak said, but the degree of that disturbance varies widely. There are high-quality remnants, the rarest of the rare, which are as intact as a landscape can be considering centuries of proximity to agricultural or urban development.Other sites are so degraded, theyre scarcely recognizable as prairie. Still with care and management they can be brought back from the brink.

What all remnants have in common, regardless of quality, is that the key elements of original prairie, an ecological memory, are still present: seeds, roots and soil that have evolved together over thousands of years.

How is it possible, people might wonder, to know whether a remnant has never been plowed, grazed or otherwise tampered with? Land use records only go back centuries, not millennia.

In some cases, paleoecological studies have been conducted, Barak said, showing evidence of prairie plants dating back 10,000 years.

A far more analog method is the hands-on evaluation of a site. Scientists look for certain markers, Barak said, such as the really deep plant roots characteristic of a remnant. Theyll also catalog species, with biodiversity distinguishing a bona fide prairie remnant from a wannabe. Remnants will contain hundreds of different species in even a small section versus mere dozens in areas that have been altered.

Other indicators include the presence of rare species.

Flora of the Chicago Region is a 1,300-page plant book scientists like Barak and Mikenas use to assess a site. We know there are some species only found in remnants. They need this intact environment, Mikenas said.

Those are the species most at risk of going extinct if remnants are lost, and often the most difficult to successfully establish in a prairie restoration project.

What is a prairie restoration?

Restoration work can involve reintroducing native species to a landscape being reclaimed from agricultural, industrial, residential or commercial use. (Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service)

In some cases, restoration refers to rehabilitating a remnant, one that may have become overgrown with invasive species, for example.

In those instances, restoration can be an exercise in removal by peeling back layers, said Barak, and reintroducing natives.

More typical are situations where agricultural, industrial, residential or commercial acreage is reclaimed as a natural area, such asa farmer donating or selling their property to a land trust. Another example could be the demolition of a factory, where the site is topped off with soil and prepped for native plants, slated to become a preserve.

In these scenarios, prairie restoration is akin to historical recreation the equivalent of presenting a reasonable facsimile of the cabin Abe Lincoln grew up in because the original no longer exists.

This sort of restoration isnt prairie in the same sense as a remnant, most notably because restored prairies are engineered by human hand. Theyre created by us, Mikenas said. And theres so much about these habitats we dont know. Restoration is a scientifically informed field, but were only doing the best we can with what we have.

In a way, restoration specialists are aiming to unlock the key to natures secret sauce recipe. And theres been a lot of trial and error.

People talk a lot about the ratio of grasses to forbs, Barak said, as an example. Early restoration projects would typically include big bluestem the granddaddy of prairie grasses in their planting schemes. But big bluestem doesnt behave the same way in a young restoration as it does in an established remnant, displaying a tendency to overwhelm forbs. Today, big bluestem is planted sparingly, if at all, she said.

Perhaps one of the biggest constraints facing restoration ecologists, Barak said, is the availability of seeds for prairie plants (not cultivars or evennativars). These need to be collected from remnant prairies, where some plants are so rare and few in number, its not possible to gather enough seed to sow elsewhere. Seeds of spring blooming species are also harder to collect, Barak said, and cost is another factor.

As scrappy as prairie plants are, they can also be finicky. Some have proven downright obstinate,refusing to germinate in greenhouses or at restoration sites.

Among restorations white whales are plants called hemiparasites theyre capable of photosynthesis but they obtain water and other nutrients from a host plant. Bastard toadflax is an example of a hemiparasitic prairie plant thats yet to take hold in restorations, according to Barak, but not for lack of trying.

In some cases, hemiparasites can help keep dominant plants under control, Barak said. That and any other benefits they provide benefits scientists, perhaps, have yet to uncover are among the missing puzzle pieces in any restoration.

Given all of the aforementioned constraints, prairie restoration projects tend to rely on a short list of plants that are the easiest to establish and most adaptable to non-prairie soil think of them as restorations greatest hits resulting in far less diversity than would be found at a remnant, not just in terms of flora but also the fauna.

Think of the relationship between milkweed and the monarch butterfly without the former, the latter disappears. That kind of close relationship between species exists many times over in a prairie, Mikenas said.

Milkweed seed scattering at a Chicago Park District natural area. Prairie remnants and restoration projects go hand in hand in preserving biodiversity. (Patty Wetli / WTTW News)

Gradually a restorations soil and processes will come to resemble a prairie, but the emphasis is on gradual, said Barak. Progress is measured not in years but over the course of multiple generations of human lifespans.

The suggestion that a prairie can be translocated uprooted from a site where its existed for thousands of years and plunked down on a plot of land elsewhere manages to both vastly overestimate what restoration can accomplish and vastly underestimate the complexity of a prairie ecosystem, according to experts.

Even if you dug down 10 feet and could scrape up and move a prairie, youre not going to have the micro-topology, said Mikenas. There are all of these tiny differences. It matters and it does have influences.

Restoration isnt a substitute for remnants but rather the two go hand in hand, according Mikenas. Creating new habitat is as vital as holding onto existing ecosystems,making restoration one of the most important tools in a conservationists toolbox, she said.

The great and critical challenge of our time is the preservation of biodiversity in support of a healthy, functioning planet, Mikenas said.

You may say, This one little habitat doesnt matter. But they all add up, Mikenas said. Thats what led us to this situation now, where we have this patchwork.

The question for humans weigh is whether we can live without prairie. And if we can, do we want to?

Contact Patty Wetli:@pattywetli| (773) 509-5623 |[emailprotected]

Link:
Prairies Are Making Headlines. But What Exactly Are They? Here's an Explainer - WTTW News

By: Zephyr Melton October 30, 2021

Winter golf means you'll draw some less-than-ideal lies.

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With the leaves changing and daylight dwindling, another golf season is coming to a close. But for the true grinders among us, the fun is only beginning. For many, winter golf is on the horizon.

Playing winter golf can present some unique challenges. Courses play longer as you lose distance in the cold, and keeping feeling in your hands can be a real battle. Youll also deal with some less-than-ideal lies featuring wet grass and squishy terrain.

These wintery lies will tempt you to pull out your lob wedge to try and lift the ball out of the soppy mess, but often times, youll catch it heavy and lay the sod over it. Thats why you should leave the wedge in the bag and opt to use a hybrid instead.

As GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jonathan Yarwood explained in a recent video, youve got to build in an insurance policy when you encounter one of these lies. That means using a wide-soled hybrid instead of a wedge.

You cant mishit it, Yarwood says. The club is going to skid.

With the more forgiving hybrid selected, youll want to choke down on the club a bit for extra control. Stand a little closer to the ball and then use your putting stroke to hit the ball off the wet lie.

Make life really simple for yourself, Yarwood says. The thing just skips and hops Im not going to mishit it out of this horrible lie.

If you can make a simple putting stroke to hit the ball, your chances of mishitting the shot are drastically lowered.

Try this shot next time you find yourself with a wonky winter lie. Your scorecard will thank you.

Zephyr Melton is an assistant editor for GOLF.com where he spends his days blogging, producing and editing. Prior to joining the team at GOLF.com, he attended the University of Texas followed by stops with Team USA, the Green Bay Packers and the PGA Tour. He assists on all things instruction and covers amateur and womens golf.

See the article here:
Why you should use a hybrid to chip when playing winter golf - Golf.com

FIFA is currently in the process of finalizing venue selection for the 2026 World Cup, which will be played in the United States, Canada and Mexico. As you surely know, Seattle is among the cities still under consideration and the selection committee will be in town Oct. 31-Nov. 1 checking things out and attending the Sounders-Galaxy match.

In preparation for the visit, Sea2026.com was launched and the executive committee was unveiled. The Seattle Sounders are heavily represented with majority owner Adrian Hanauer, minority owners Ciara, Russell Wilson and Amy Hood. Joining them are outgoing Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman.

While all of that is important to the bid being successful, I suspect most of you dont really care. So lets get to the good stuff:

Seattle is one of 17 U.S. cities still in the running and there are officially two more cities in Canada (Toronto and Edmonton) and three more in Mexico (Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey). The other U.S. cities are Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., Dallas, Kansas City, Boston, Denver, Houston, Baltimore, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Nashville, Bay Area, Cincinnati, Miami and Orlando.

Believe it or not, Toronto is the only Canadian city remaining from the three that were originally proposed after Vancouver dropped out early in the process and Montreal a bit later. Edmonton was actually added later in the process and Vancouver has been making noise about getting back into it, but nothing is yet official.

That has not been officially announced and could be somewhat affected by how many non-U.S. cities are selected. Notably, this will be a 48-team tournament and even if six non-U.S. cities are selected, its expected that the same number of games would be played here as would have been played in a 32-team tournament.

In recent years, FIFA seems to prefer having 12 host venues, but they had 10 in South Africa, while the 2002 tournament that was played in South Korea and Japan featured a whopping 20 venues. A safe guess is that at least eight U.S. cities will be selected, but there are surely scenarios where as many as 14 could be used.

The goal is to wrap up the venue tours by the end of the year theres still at least one more batch to be done after this group of tours is finished and for the final decision to be made in the first half of next year.

The most common criticism of Seattles bid has been that we dont have a permanent grass field here. I wrote rather extensively about this awhile back, but the TL;DR is that I dont think thats a particularly big problem. Half the cities under consideration dont have permanent grass fields and if Seattle is selected, theyll figure out how to make grass work one way or another.

All 17 U.S. venues under consideration house NFL teams with the possible exception of the Rose Bowl, which was presumably just a placeholder for the Los Angeles bid while SoFi Stadium was completed. The most dramatic concession any of those facilities have offered is Bostons Gillette Stadium, where theyve promised to re-install the permanent grass pitch that was there before they put in FieldTurf in 2006. In Dallas, Kansas City and Washington, D.C. theyve promised to take out some seats in order to accommodate a bigger pitch.

Its not yet known exactly what Seattle is planning to do in order to make Lumen Field even more attractive, but it does have the benefit of having hosted not only the Sounders but numerous international matches. It was also built with soccer in mind, unlike many of these other facilities, so they shouldnt need to remove seats or anything like that.

It will be interesting to see how they plan to install grass, however. Hanauer has previously tamped down expectations about installing a permanent grass surface, but simply rolling out sod the way they did for Copa America Centenario or the 2013 World Cup qualifier probably wont cut it.

It has been suggested that the Sounders should try to do something like they have in Las Vegas, Phoenix or Tottenham, where a full grass surface rolls out on top of the artificial one, but that would likely require a nine-figure infrastructure investment and seems unlikely. It might be possible to install something semi-permanent on top of the current pitch since theres at least a couple months between the end of the NFL season and the start of MLS, but that would almost certainly need to be removed when the NFL starts again shortly after the World Cup.

Its not hard to imagine permanent seating being added to the 300 level, signage being installed that allows the stadium to feel less like the Seahawks home when they arent playing and maybe even a permanent soccer locker room. The last two have been on the Sounders wishlist for quite some time and maybe this is the excuse First & Goal needs to make it happen.

My understanding is the Virginia Mason Athletic Center (VMAC) will be one of the primary training facilities. I suspect the University of Washington and Seattle University will also be leveraged. But the crown jewel could end up being a new Sounders training facility. The Sounders have been talking about a need to upgrade Starfire since at least 2015, when GM Garth Lagerwey supposedly nixed expansion plans that would have better accommodated S2 and the academy. The Sounders have gone back and forth about the pros and cons of upgrading Starfire versus finding a new facility ever since, but it seems like theyre finally close to making an announcement. I would expect to hear more about that by the end of the year.

I suppose its possible that theyll stay at Starfire, but the reality is that theres not a ton of space there thats going unused. The two sites that Ive heard speculated about are both in south King County, one at the Kent Midway Landfill site that nearly became the Sounders home in 2003 and the other being the old Weyerhaeuser Corporate Campus in Federal Way. But those are really just guesses. What Im fairly certain of is that the Sounders will want it to be visible, ideally have good access to mass transit, and provide some commercial opportunities.

I dont know if anything is planned expressly around the World Cup potentially coming here, but there are a lot of things already in the works that will make the bid even stronger by 2026. Most notable is the ongoing Link light rail expansion, which will stretch north to Lynwood, south to Federal Way and east to Redmond by then. Between now and 2026, there are supposed to be at least 19 new stations opened and it will be one of the biggest municipal rail systems in the country.

Light rail will be within reasonably easy walking distance of the stadium, airport and most of King Countys 45,000 hotel rooms, nearly 15,000 of which are in the downtown core.

Theres also a pretty significant waterfront reconstruction and expansion that is currently underway and will likely be done by 2026. The highlight of that project will be the Overlook Walk.

Im not going to pretend that doing business with an organization like FIFA is devoid of drawbacks. There will certainly be some accommodations made that rub locals the wrong way. I suspect tickets are going to be super expensive, and well all probably have to tolerate a level of disruption that is annoying.

But theres also reason to think that this tournament could speed up some of these long-planned projects and, at the very least, well get a Fan Fest. Ive only been to one in Germany, but it was a pretty awesome way to enjoy the games without having to spend a bunch of money.

Most journalists who have been handicapping the process seem to think that Seattle is among the favorites. Its hard to beat our soccer culture, weve got ample space to put everyone and getting around the region will be relatively easy, at least compared to many U.S. metro areas.

Maybe the biggest drawback is that Seattle is relatively isolated. Assuming Vancouver is out, the next closest venue might be Edmonton, which is more than 500 miles away. FIFA is also a pretty massive wildcard, and they might just not like whatever it is were selling.

But if its all decided on merit, its hard to see Seattle getting passed over.

Excerpt from:
Everything you need to know about Seattles World Cup bid - Sounder At Heart

Next Tuesday is election day 2021. Auditor Charles Ross says he expects 33 to 34 percent of the ballots to be returned.

If you've waited until the last minute, you still have time to review candidate interviews at Newstalkkit.com You'll find interviews with Yakima City Council candidates and candidates running for the Yakima School District. Auditor Charles Ross reminds voters to sign the ballot envelope and place it in the mail as soon as possible.You don't need a stamp to send your ballot in the mail. You can also drop your ballot in a drop box. Drop boxes are located throughout the county including in city and town halls. To find a location of a drop box near you just click on the linkhttps://www.yakimacounty.us/1136/Where-to-return-your-ballot-and-accessib

Ross says his office sent out 128,423 ballots to registered voters in the county. So far 18,683 or 14.69% of ballots have been returned to the Yakima County Auditors Office. Your ballot is due on election day November 2. Ross says he expects 34% of the ballots sent to voters to be returned by election day.

If you are looking for information about candidates and issues all registered voters were sent both local and state voter guides.

Depending upon where you live itll be a busy ballot with city and county elections as well as propositions in Selah and Yakima. In Yakima city council seats are open in District 2, 4 and 6. A seat on the Yakima County Commission is up for election as well.KIT candidate interviews of city council candidates are available on the KIT website at newstalkkit.com

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Time For Your Voice to Be Heard, Ballot Due Tuesday - newstalkkit.com