The difficulty seems to be in the "evaluation". People inventing things in the basement, for example, often don't know what the purpose of the thing is going to be in real life - they tinker for the fun of it. Then somebody looks at the thing and says "hey, that would be great for solving x...".

And then they go and take whatever thing the inventor made, and use it ways the inventor probably never thought of, or even intended. And it gets adapted, and changed over time, to do even more things the inventor never intended.

I'm not sure we have enough command of the "chain of events" to ever know what can happen with the thing we build in the basement. How do we build "fail-safes" into the process to prevent the basement thing from taking over the world?

Please report back on your experience !

It's interesting that your group attracted people who already had skills - possibly in order to share with peers ?

The question I'm pondering is whether certain skills are transferrable - if someone who can solve the problem of, let's say, building a household robot, can also solve the problem of repairing a tractor.

If so, then having kids participate in any "Maker" activity would be good grounding for a life with less energy, because it wakes up the problem-solving part of the brain. If the only thing they learn is how to plug something into an outlet, it seems it is poor preparation.

Glad to hear it's moving forward. I remember talking about it here with you before the first seminar. Are you thinking in terms of outreach? Perhaps you could encourage attendees to invite/bring friends, neighbors, and grandchildren?

Thanks for attributing the quote.

I think "tinkering" is a very old activity that has led to a lot of the basic "advances" we've made. I'm sure even ancient cave dwellers, once they had a full stomach, retired to a quiet corner and tinkered with arrows to see if they would fly better.

I wonder more about the direction of the tinkering, rather than the activity itself.

"Technology, or what most believe on this site to be Humanity's Saviour"

Martian:

I can't imagine how you could draw such a conclusion reading this site. The postings that I read here, in general, show an incredible understanding of our situation nonwithstanding the situation of the writer.

Of course there are exceptions, but they are just that.

Jim

And think of all those useless jobs directly and indirectly involved in producing all that useless crap, and the wasted energies and lives involved. And the thefts/controls in the form of taxation, licenses, and tickets, etc..

Slavery and imprisonment abounds.

Advertising exists only to purvey what people don’t need... advertisers sell their services on the basis of how well they are able to create needs where there were none before. I have never met an advertising person who sincerely believes that there is a need connected to, say, 99 percent of the commodities which fill the airwaves and the print media. Nor can I recall a single street demonstration demanding one single product in all of American history. If there were such a demonstration for, let’s say, nonreturnable bottles, which were launched through tens of millions of dollars of ads, or chemically processed foods, similarly dependent upon ads, there would surely have been no need to advertise these products. The only need that is expressed by advertising is the need of advertisers to accelerate the process of conversion of raw materials with no intrinsic value into commodities that people will buy.
~ Jerry Mander

The Matrix is everywhere... You can see it when you... turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.
~ Wachowski brothers' The Matrix

If I wish to commune with nature, I visit a national park, or go to the beach, or shop in the hippie aisles of the local Whole Foods store ... which is just about all the nature I need on a weekly basis.

Very few of those places are free of man's control over nature. There are those of us who like a bit more contact than that...... There have been cities for a long time before fossil fuels, and doubtless there will be after too, so you can rest assured there will be ways to isolate yourself. However, without fossil fuels I doubt we can have such a large percentage of people quite so isolated from the natural surroundings.

Both parties are being rapidly discredited, in my opinion.

You mean they can go further down?

"Both parties are being rapidly discredited" - yes, but there is a space between being discredited and being pushed out.

I am taking a course on Japanese Edo literature. Literature during the Edo period is known for it's satirical elements and for the commercial aspect - although people tend to talk about "feudal" Japan, Edo era Japan was sort of proto-capitalist. Speculators worked financial markets and real estate markets, money was an everyday concern, businesses flourished and their owners became rich (despite being officially on the bottom of the caste system)... Even for people in the country, it was not exacly classically feudal. This created a tension as the old feudal caste system and closed country policy were in tension with realities of the society.

However, one aspect that shows within the satire is that most people pretty much accepted that the system couldn't be changed. There were banned books and true subversives, but for the most part, it was like people watching South Park today - they laughed at the messed up system and hypocrisy, but laughed knowing they weren't going to try to overthrow it.

I think that both parties are long since discredited, but on the whole there is not enough strain within the system to create revolutionary fever. I do wonder, though, if peak oil will be the strain, like Perry's boats were in Japan, that leads to a radical change in the system.

but everybody here knows that oil prices will remain high in real terms as far as the eye can see

Republican's who claim oil prices are high due to inflation and money printing can point to the value of Silver from 1964 and the retail price of Gasoline of 1964 VS today.

(the Austrian school of economics)

Indeed ... as an Australian who visits the US reasonably often, the water use (and mis-use) always hits you between the eyes. Australia is the best country on earth (just ask any Australian), but I have lived almost my entire adult life with water restrictions that I think many Americans would find draconian in the extreme.

But they are not hard to get used to ... and water use per person has dropped considerably over the last decade or two. Our lawns go brown in summer, and our cars are not sparkling clean, but so what?

In hurricane country, if you can't take a hint, they usually ask you to write your social security number on your torso with an indelible marker... It makes identifying the body easier.

Living in the north end of hurricane alley, I can confess to being guilty of being blase sometimes about warning sirens in the past. I usually do try to check to see where they are, but if it looks as if it is in some far corner of our rather large county, I don't usually cower in the basement right away.

In the last couple years, though, we have had two tornadoes whip through neighborhoods just a couple miles from ours with very little warning, so I'm a bit more jumpy these days.

Oftentimes folks in rural areas aren't able to hear the sirens, so they have to depend on the radio or TV for warnings. Usually you keep an eye on the sky, and if you see nasty looking clouds coming in, you automatically turn on the radio.

Sure whatever. Too often when the siren goes off, it means the sky is clear and blue, but there's a dark cloud two counties away which is headed out of the region. Yawn.

What kind of a moron doesn't heed a siren warning of an imminent tornado

Ones who live in concrete dome homes?

The domes come with a hurricane, earthquake and tornado guarantee. .
The sturdy concrete construction combined with the dome shape make these innovative homes nearly impervious to tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes.

And then the 'flood' came and swept them all away.

I decided to do a table at the local farmers market this year - so I'm in prep mode. Watching the movie was inspirational. I have pots of seeds and seedlings all over the yard...

Our weather has been really dry - with all the big storms further south, somehow the clouds keep drying up before they reach us. I've been watering the veggie beds daily.

EDIT : we got thunderstorms last night, finally, and more on the way. We're expecting a half-inch tonight.

... this is her favorite foodie movie.

Are there a lot of foodie movies out there to choose from?

Seafood (including beaver) is a legalistic end-run around abnegation, much like wigs as hair coverings.

"PS: Why does the Catholic Church treat eating seafood as penance ? Every Lent we celebrate here :-)"
When I was a kid in the 50's the Catholic Church required the faithful to eat fish on Friday. They later dropped that rule. A friend of my parents who was one of the finest people I've ever known but not religious at all said: "What!! How can they do that?! What about all those poor bastards burning in hell that ate fish on Friday?! And now they just change it?! I was around 12 yrs old. It started me thinking...

Re PS: LOL: some years ago I was in Japan for a week with a group from the Midwest, on a cultural exchange. Let's just say the food aspect was entertaining: Midwesterners and fish - even nicely cooked fish, the Japanese don't eat it all raw - didn't mix overly well on the whole. That despite the fact that the Friday fish fry is still alive and somewhat well around here.

So, aside from fish being a dodge around the old Roman Catholic meatless rules, some folks like it, and some folks hate it. And actually, that makes it a lot like other things bandied about around here - to the great frustration of utopian idealists, such as those who expect to remake the entire housing or transportation system from scratch at the arbitrary snap of a finger, one size will not readily fit all. Not even in a matter as minor as fish.

luxary cars were leased before that.

also just because to you now there seems nothing there worth stealing. this was 15 or so years ago, electronics had only started to become mainstream in cars and elsewhere. it was one of the first for the past 70+ years electric car that was more then just a glorified golf cart aimed at mass production possibly.

there was something in them. either the control circuitry or the motor that they did not want the other car companies to get a hold of. either because they were in the process of or had already gotten a patent on.

the simple truth of the matter is that no matter how good you 'think' a product is for what ever cause you back. if it CAN'T be sold, NO company will make it. yes the people who had the ev1 liked it, but too few did to make such a expensive car worth it.

GM definitely sunk a LOT of money into the EV1... But they were also a funder of the Heartland Institute, an 'libertarian' think tank with some notorious positions, notably on global warming. My feeling is that it was a "conspiracy" in that they didn't want to make it and hoped it would fail, but due to what I've heard about GM corporate culture from various auto sites and their comments, this was a very emotional failure. There was malice, but from an intellectual point of view it was pure incompetence.

As an example - let's take Bob Lutz as the perfect symbol of GM, as he helped drive the thing into the groud but also helped them be very successful while gas was cheap. He's super macho, former fighter pilot, performance car freak who pretty much didn't believe that anything about "environmentalism" was true. A real poster boy of American manhood. Do you think he thought much of small cars? Or of how to be a leader in fuel economy? Or peak oil?

Apparently this was the case throughout GM - if you worked on small cars, you were looked down on, denied promotion, and thought of as "unmanly". Look at what happened to Saturn, which was created to make small cars - it was subsequently slowly destroyed by neglect after Roger Smith left. The EV1 was the epitome of everything GM culture hated, so they had to kill it. It was created basically on orders of a left-wing, coastal state (California, which had zero-emission laws), it was small, it was "eco", and it not fast or "manly". GM basically had an autoimmune response to the EV1.

Now, GM put together the Volt, which is still no Prius - if they had kept the EV1 and developed it over 15 years, they would be ahead of Nissan's Leaf and probably would have the technical know-how to take on the Prius as well (GM has worked on hybrids for years as well, behind the scenes). But they put their emotions ahead of their intelligence, and they failed.

To this day, still seems conspiratorial to me.

Conspire - v. con·spired, con·spir·ing, con·spires. v.intr. 1. To plan together secretly to commit an illegal or wrongful act or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.

If one can show the illegal act, then you don't need the 'weaker' wrongful act.

your moving the goal posts back to the only the generators. natural gas is cleaner but not green, wind & solar are not green and are not a alternatives to fossil fuels as they are needed to make them. they are whats called fossil fuel extenders as use a bit less fossil fuels then the current way but are still dependent on them.

but lets ignore that because it brings up the uncomfortable fact that nature doesn't care about where 'you' put the goal posts or hang the curtain and ignoring everything behind it. it sees the whole picture and nothing else.

the fact of the matter is the only way you can 'say' ev's and plug in hybrids are better is if you ignore everything that goes into making them. but since you do that with wind and solar it's not that much of stretch.

badly only in hindsight. completely and utterly normal and correctly if your looking at it from their point of view.
forward looking vision only looking ahead at least a quarter and at most a year and not any more. They also are not governments or university's all parts of the organization have to make profits. no or a very limited scope of research is allowed to be a loss for a 'just in case' even that they don't see past their limited forward looking sight.

as for any thinking there is any kind of conspiracy like relationship between oil and auto industries are ignoring how 'small' the car market is to oil companies.

Sounds a bit dystopian, but recycling all that captured solar biomass solves some rather serious problems of what to do with disposing it all, once a die-off really gets going.

I swear Dr. Suess's The Cat in the Hat is a brilliant piece on handling any mass disposal problem. I think he was writing to a larger audience than just children. The Lorax also comes to mind, now a movie. I assign those books to my graduate students, who of course think I'm crazy.

Could we possibly ban "Soylent Green" from Drumbeat - gosh it is clichéd.

"In current American society do people need their own vehicle to be "employable"?"

It's a function of where you live and who you work for. My boss won't even go for a 4-10 work week. Everyone must be at work during the core work hours. In fact, we have three different starting times for three different groups of workers. That makes mass transit pretty much unworkable as well since you can't get enough people going the same direction at the same time to make it cost effective.

That's 3 million cars that unemployed and barely employed youngsters could pick up for a couple of thousand dollars apiece to at least make themselves employable.

And it has put some of the smaller used car lots out of business.

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/wi04_moore/pr120505.html

his legislation would establish a 5-year, $50 million grant program through which states, localities, and nonprofits could apply for funding to strengthen existing low-income car ownership programs or create new ones. Studies show that people are more likely to find steady employment and earn a decent wage when they have access to a car.
"For many low-income families, getting to a job can be even harder than getting hired in the first place. Entry-level jobs of low-income workers are increasingly found in the faraway plants, warehouses, strip malls, and office parks of suburbia," Congresswoman Moore said. "This bill would assist these workers in getting to their place of employment, whether it is in a factory in a neighboring town, or during the graveyard shift when public transportation does not run."
In recent years, a number of states and non-profit organizations have developed programs to assist the working poor with the purchase of a car by making available-for subsidized sale or lease-donated vehicles or vehicles purchased wholesale from dealerships that have been repaired to good working order.

Only the last ones may be the 'clunker grade' units.

Lets see if this person who understands how important it is for the working poor to have car transportation understands what happens with 'cash for clunkers'?

www.thepoliticalguide.com/Profiles/House/Wisconsin/Gwen_Moore/Views/The_...
Gwen Moore voted in favor of the Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act.
http://www.ontheissues.org/House/Gwen_Moore_Environment.htm
Voted YES on $2 billion more for Cash for Clunkers program.

$2 Billion for the rich or $50 million for the poor spent over 5 years.

Of course! To which my response would be the following questions. What exactly was it that happened in 1970 when US crude production peaked? What legislation was enacted and which government agency was set up to protect the environment? Just askin'.

Alan from the islands

http://www.helium.com/items/2129635-nasa-admits-all-previous-warming-tre...

Now, however, new study released from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland measuring the global temperature variance during the past 100 years has found the sun’s heat and variable cycles have indeed made a significant, measurable impact and greatly influenced Earth’s climate.

In fact, the influence extends as far back as the Industrial Revolution.

Goddard’s research shows that the solar cycle’s ups and downs directly affect the temperatures and long term climate. During solar minimum they discovered about 1.36 watts per square meter of solar energy hits Earth’s mesosphere; solar maximum escalates to 1.40 watts per square meter.

It’s well-known that the sun passes through cycles of 11-year and 22-year intensities. Currently, the sun is on the upswing towards solar maximum when sunspot activity and solar flares will peak. The height of the maximum is expected during 2012-2013. Earth now cooling

After the current peak, NASA and other space agencies believe the sun will go unusually quiet for the next 30 years or more.

Edit http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2010/02/anatomy-of-ipccs-himalayan-...

So you think scientists that play with mathematical "models" are a more reliable source than ENGINEERS who build things that get tested in the Real World? Pretty naive attitude on your part!

Just curious, with everything else aside, do any of these idiots even know that the Communist Party is a legally established political party in the US?

Well I tend to agree certain attacks on deniers while they may seem well intentioned making someone feel like an idiot is not a way to make them agree with you. That being said I look at peak oil and global warming from a selfish position I guess. The problems are so big and so intrinsic that to argue with deniers is a waste of time-- I don't think we are going to get out of this one before we run out of whale oil. So there is no room for them on the Ark. I want to survive the upcoming catastrophe and hopefully profit a little from it. I am thinking if oil has one more downturn in price I am going all in on my chips but I have been waiting a long time for that. I have Republican friends and democratic friends and here is there outlook---Peak oil Republican--there is plenty of oil out there we just need the liberals to get out of the way so we can drill it and make gas cheap again. Democratic view--- there may be peak oil there may not...we just need the government to invest in alternatives and our problems will all be solved---conservatives need to get out of the way so we can get things done.

Seems a terrible pity (looking back in retrospect) that Apollo 17 made it safely home to earth.

I would think switching to an e car, is a half way step (half way to switching to a bicycle). With an e-car, you gotta think about the energy consumption, don't want to run out of charge. Your total energy being limited, means you had better pay attention. maybe the engendered attitude can spread to other things.

It's true that 'just living' is energy intensive these days. But driving is one of the most, if not the most, energy intensive and environmentally damaging aspects of 'just living.'

Of course I understand that driving an e-car is an improvement over driving a regular car. But I argue the improvement is incremental at best. Most of the environmental benefit gained by not driving a gasoline car will be cancelled by driving an e-car.

And most of the people who think they are "dependent on cars to get to work, run errands, etc." are, in fact, not.

You're saying don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good. I'm saying don't fool yourself about what is good. If you take something that is really damaging, and call it "good" because it is somewhat less damaging than what you were doing before, it might actually become an obstacle in the way of meaningful improvement. It might become an excuse keeping you from making the most meaningful lifefestyle changes -- like not driving so damn much.

'Cutting a hole in the body cavity -----> bad for the patient.. but is it worse than leaving that bullet in there?

Ouch! Well, Imagine having holes drilled in you elbow so they can insert screws and wires... that's what
I'm looking at on Monday due to having had my elbow shattered at work last Friday morning... While
I'm a pretty good bush doctor, this isn't something I can just fix myself. If I were living out in the boonies by myself, I'd be pretty much up the creek with no paddle. If we are truly headed for collapse someone with this kind of injury would at the very least lose the functionality of their arm... Made me think even more deeply about our general predicament and how oblivious most of us are to the consequences of peak fossil fuels on our civilization.

Giving up our SUV's will be the least of our problems...

Cheers!
Fred

Yes. Discussions on the internet and the like are also 'bad for the environment.' So is, say, going for a hike. Everything we do has impact. But driving a 3000-pound vehicle filled with electronic devices, seat heaters, defrosters, etc. is orders of magnitude more damaging and also incredibly extravagant and unnecessary. We don't see it because we're in it. At some point, if we're lucky, we'll look back and laugh.

No Green Buttons for driving. We will not save the world through driving.

E-cars are part of the denial phase.

Whatever happened to the Courier pickup, like this one from Brazil?

It's doing just fine thank you! I think it now has a really nice flex fuel engine built in Brazil...

http://www.at.ford.com/news/cn/Pages/Ford%20Brazil%20Celebrates%20Produc...

In 2010, the factory started the Sigma 1.6 engine production, with a global platform, which equips the Focus assembled in Argentina, and the New Fiesta assembled in Mexico for North American and Brazilian markets. Lightweight, durable, economical and with low noise and emissions, is the first flex-fuel Ford's engine with block, cylinder head, crankcase and aluminum pistons. It is the most modern line of Ford engines in Brazil and around the world, with technology and latest generation equipment to ensure the manufacturing processes

But it uses way too little gas or ethanol to be sold in the US.

I love my Ford Ranger! It's the perfect size truck. I might've traded for a different Ranger had they continued sales here in the USA. As it is now, I will drive my truck till it dies a painful death on the side of the road someday in the future.

I was looking at cars recently and was quite surprised at what I found. Among other things:

- a full size sedan needs at least 250 horsepower to be considered a competitive product.

- a seemingly monstrous crossover vehicle was not nearly wide enough to carry a 4x8 sheet of plywood lying flat. Curiously, this vehicle was wider than most traditional minivans that could. I suppose one could have carried it on the roof rack, but the vehicle was high enough that placing it there would have called for the services of a couple of full size men.

Robert

Unfortunately these memes refuse to die down. If anything I'd want people driving small cars, not just because they are more efficient but also because they are safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Giving people a car that looks like a tank is not a very bright idea.

I suppose the inherent stability of big, heavy cars is why my old Cherokee had a roll over warning sticker on the sun visor.

NAOM

Dinosaurs mating.

http://www.ford.com.au/commercial/new-ranger/specifications/power-perfor...
Plenty for sale in Oz, 2.2l & 3.2l diesel and only one petrol engine at 2.5 litre. Looks like others thought the 4l V6 was too thirsty as well as it is not available any more.

or

Its, twin brother the Mazda BT50
http://www.mazda.com.au/vehicles/bt-50/specifications

The Mazda BT-50 looks like it only comes in diesel, with the 3.2l being a inline 5 cylinder engine

And when bought as a cab chassis and a drop sided tray top installed as most working vehicles are in Oz are, then loading with a fork lift is a breeze and the famous 8' x 4' sheet fits without any problems. I don't know why the drop sided tray top tray top is not seen on American roads.

Or there are others to choose from,

http://www.toyota.com.au/hilux/range?WT.ac=VH_Hilux_TopNav_RangeandSpecs
or
http://www.mitsubishi-motors.com.au/vehicles/4wd/triton/specs-and-featur...
or
http://www.nissan.com.au/webpages/models/Navara_model.html#/specificatio...
or
http://www.holden.com.au/search/holden_rodeo

There maybe a few more makers to choose from, but these are the most popular. Happy window shopping

I'd say it's obvious - they are doing both.

I'm probably not the best person to ask why people on this site do things the way they do because I've been on this site less than a year. In fact I haven't even been paying serious attention to energy issues for all that long(maybe a year and a half in all), but I've really learned a lot during that time. Now I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on the basic information. What I'm still struggling with is the human, economic and political aspects. Some things I’m struggling with is how people should live, how they should use energy and how exactly energy and economics connect to each other. In regards to your post, how should an economic system count costs(in detail) and exactly what effects would changing the economic system have on society as a whole?

I used to work for CRAY. This stuff is now done by clusters of mostly commodity PC chips. The workstation in my office, is more powerful then that roomful of CRAY's back in its heyday! I really loved that tech, but it could not compete against the attack of the commodity chips...

http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNum...

Some of the "public" details of advanced supercomputing. The "non public" poop is that there is a parallel development group at ORNL (UT-Batelle) that will be outfitting a new and HUGE data and encryption cracking center in Utah, so that the intelligence folks can sort through and really make use of all the personal data they are alleged to be collecting about us. Here is one article on that:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/03/16/nsas-new-data-cente...

[I have examined the coding options (tags allowed) at TOD and cannot for the life if me figure out how to embed a web link in a word or phrase. Could somebody give me a clue? My email address is at my TOD "profile. Thanx -- Lizzie]

Rocky - It' still hard to believe the Yankee disposal rules laws. And I read the report: there are no loop holes...these are the speccific laws on the books. They still specifically allow it to happen. And let's not forget La: when I'm drilling in a wetlands area I have to ring my location with a 2' dike. And what do I have to do with rain water that accumulates in side the dike? Yes: I have to have it hauled off and disposed. Yes...RAIN WATER. And imagine what they would do if they caught me dumping frac fluid on the ground. And some folks say the oil patch lobby controls the rules down here.

And if the companies threaten to stop drilling if the change the laws thelocals should just call their bluff. It hasn't stop us from drilling down south. I've spent $millions during my career dispose of oil field waste properly. Don't care to see those operators up there playing by a different set of rules.

I know, and the study notes that too. It says that Himalaya bucks the trend which means that most glaciers are actually melting. Anyways the point I am concerned about is that this will now discredit the IPCC, which IMO will be a tragedy because they got most of their predictions correct except a few, which is how reality works but not the public mindset.

NAOM - Yes...always dangerous to over reach if an effort to prove your point. I haven't seen it lately but at one point someone was using the retreat of the glaciers at the Columbia Icefield in Alberta as an example. Unfortunately you can stand on the ice field and see the markers on the opposite side of the road showing where the ice once extended in the 1800's...long before the industrial revolution. One could argue that AGW accelerated the process but I think when you have to start splitting hairs like that you're losing a good bit of the argument.

And in those countries where the population is tending towards stability or gradual decline mass media and pundits from every part of the spectrum grossly exaggerate the decline and predict a imminent "population implosion". There are a great, great many people who have themselves utterly convinced the worlds population is about to crash and we need to up the birth rate almost everywhere.

But this is complete nonsense and is based on a combination of ignorance of demographics and wishful thinking. If the problem is overpopulation after all, that cannot be solved except by pain and sacrifice lasting decades. If its underpopulation, then that can be solved by...more copulation. You can see which problem people would much rather believe in.

$100,000 sounds like plenty of benefit to me. Especially when you consider taxes.

My parents are planning to downsize, and they already know where they'll move. The condo we lived in when I was in grade school. They figure that as they age, they won't be able to handle home maintenance, lawn care, etc., and in a condo, they won't have to. It's also closer to their families.

The McMansions could be converted into multi-family homes. Though they are often so shoddily built it might not be worth it.

How long till human involvement in wars disappears altogether? Would be a tragedy on an enormous scale. Imagine the power to wage wars without worrying about casualties.