I don't think this proposal is "in San Jose". I'm pretty sure it is in Los Gatos, since it is going to that city's council. And this is the full proposal, with two buildings: http://assets.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/LosGatos_ProposedNetflixBldg.jpg I'm not sure where you got the above rendering.

10% sounds bad, but if it is a representative sample of the possibly-available information, that could be pretty sold. The Von Neumann quote reminds me of Richard Hamming's theme for his book on numerical methods in computing, "The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers."

If you are curious how big a neckerchief should be, I compiled the numbers for current and historical neckerchiefs, and added in the published sizes from various vendors. If you want to use it as a bandage, I also included the sizes for triangular bandages, both common and ANSI-standard. http://wunderwood.org/most_casual_observer/2010/11/how_big_is_a_scout_neckerchief.html

Take a look at the checklist/survey in the Senior Patrol Leader Handbook. Very good.

There is an excellent checklist/survey in the Senior Patrol Leader Handbook. It is much better than the checklist that Commissioners are supposed to use to evaluate troop meetings.

A few things come to mind. The PLC meeting isn't canceled because the SPL doesn't want to be there. It still happens and is run by the ASPL or the PLs draw straws, or just meet. Give the SPL authority. When Webelos and parents visit our troop, I ask the SPL to come over, and I introduce him, "This is our SPL, he's in charge, I just advise." A friend of mine made T-shirts for the adults in his troop with the official answer for Scouts that come to them with a question. It said, "Do I look like your Patrol Leader?" If the Scouts primarily want to do activities that are forbidden by the BSA, that takes some delicate advising and salesmanship. Once they experience Scouting stuff, they'll want to do it again. Our troop loves camping and hiking, but they still have a hard time going to new places. Imagining new activities is a hard skill and this is a great time to learn it. We tried a troop meeting with "elevator pitches" about new places, where either Scouts or adults could talk about their favorite outing ideas. It didn't work all that well, but it is worth trying again.

You forgot to mention "affordable". Here is my pyramid tent review (an MLD Speedmid): http://wunderwood.org/most_casual_observer/2010/03/mld_speedmid_tent_less_is_more.html And here is how much room there is inside: http://www.flickr.com/photos/walter_underwood/4573142335/in/set-72157623980063688/ I'm of the grey persuasion, because I find colored tents a bit weird to be inside for long. My favorite tent color is "blinding white", which makes a flashlight inside more effective. Good luck finding one used, people don't seem to want to let go of a pyramid, even their old four pound Megamid. I was reading Hillman's account of the ascent of Nanda Devi and noticed that their tents were all pyramids. The Boy Scouts used to offer a pyramid tent, the "Miner's Tent": http://books.google.com/books?id=Z6M4MJyVmjcC&lpg=PA28&ots=I7UF3J8fOL&dq=bsa%20miner's%20tent&pg=PA28#v=onepage&q&f=false

Thanks for correcting the "visit" requirement. I'm not sure of the point of sending a letter to the the NSM, but it does make the badge possible for all Scouts. One source of old time Scouting games are the historical publications at The Dump: http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/nonfict.html You could start with the Gilcraft Book of Games: http://www.thedump.scoutscan.com/Gilcraft%20Games.pdf Or try the Thurman Throw from the current BSA Troop Program Resources. That is named after John Thurman, camp directory at Gilwell from 1942 to 1969.

This must be the only merit badge that requires spending hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to visit a small set of specific places. Adventure Base 100 went through California months before this was published, and a couple of hundred miles from our troop. The requirement to visit specific events or places should be removed.

Nicely edited video, give that man an honorary Cinematography merit badge. He gets to hang the bear bag from now on. I see he's another Tundra Tarp user, but why didn't he use the quad loop for the center pole? Our next venture patrol activity is practicing pitching tarps. Thanks for the resource.

Are they phrase searches? Phrase matching and scoring varies widely between engines.

Were you only looking at relevant results? If the non-relevant results are different, that isn't a problem. Were the results a multi-way tie? The tie-breakers will be different for each engine. Are all the documents in the index for each engine? Parse errors and dupe detection can be different between engines. Are the counts of relevant docs the same? That is, P@1, P@3, p@10.

The quote from page 29 of the advancement book is about boards of review. Just realized that wasn't clear.

I completely agree about an orientation for Webelos parents. A friend of mine tells them that they can come on an outing as long as they know there only one answer they can give to a question from their son, "Do I look like your patrol leader?"

My 1967 Boy Scout Handbook teaches the "shadowless shadow-stick method", which doesn't depend on time of day. Angle the stick so there is no shadow, then wait until you get a shadow six inches or longer. That shadow will point east. It adds that the method is quite exact in the middle of the day and good enough at other times. We have a tomahawk throwing range at our Mountain Man Rendezvous camporee.