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Similar idea by Buckminster Fuller.
link

``There are three types of floating cities: There is one for protected harbor waters, one for semiprotected waters, and one for unprotected deep-sea installations. The deep-sea type is supported by submarine pontoons positioned under the turbulence, with their centers of buoyancy 100 feet below the ocean's surface. Structural columns rise from the submarine pontoons outwardly through the water to support the floating city high above the crests of the greatest waves, which thus pass innocuously below the city's lowest flooring, as rivers flow under great bridges. The deap-sea, deeply pontooned floating cities will be as motionless in respect to our planet as are islanded or land-based cities.

Cloud Nines. Here's a URL:

Link.

The simple truth of the matter is that there is plenty of room for closed source solutions without impacting open source at all. Games, Kiosks, and software solutions for major industries are all perfect examples of closed source that no one really minds. For example, the software that allows Visa to authorize and settle transactions probably will remain closed source for the course of my lifetime because there's no real reason to open it.

However, I don't need to be paid for all of the software I create, anymore than I need to be paid for every web page, every peice of advice, and every photo I take. many of them I can give away for free at no loss to myself.

And this is where I actually get wealthy. These contributions come back because I no longer just have access to my little bit, but I have access to everyone else's contributions as well.

When it's over I have a large photo collection, an operating system, a graphics editor, a coding enviroment, and a plethora of other tools.

As Bucky Fuller long alo realized, by giving away the right things to the right people, I can make myself wealthy.

Life is not a zero sum game.

This thought occurred to me as well. The major stumbling block that I see is how to connect two of these matrixed-carbon poles together.

If I wanted to build a gigantic geodesic dome, I could use this material to form the edges of the triangular panels, but how would I form the connectors at the corners? If I have to transition to another material to make the joint (one of the photos in the article showed an aluminum end-cap), how much strength do I lose?

For that matter, how does this material help me create stronger panels for my dome? Could you form a sandwich with it, sort of like the aluminum honeycomb material used in Formula One race cars?

Chip H.

You forgot to credit your cut and paste source :p

What are fullerenes and buckyballs?

Buckyballs are your friend.

They can fight many different types of nerve damage, they may help treating cancer, they can be superconductors at high temperature (now imagine a bewolf cluster of these!), and lots more.

From The R. Buckminster Fuller FAQ:

The exciting part of the discovery of C60 molecules is that they are only the third naturally occurring form of carbon to be found (graphite and diamond of course being the first two). C60 was first isolated from graphite (I think) in 1985.

As Paul Houle writes, C60 is formed in the shape of a geodesic sphere (like the panels of a soccer ball), hence the name ``buckminsterfullerene'' or ``buckyballs'' for short. Each carbon has three sp2 hybrid orbitals and the fourth electron of each carbon resides in a delocalized pi orbital that ranges over the entire ball (like benzene).

The physical appearance of C60 is very much similar to graphite, as are some of its physical properties. C60, unlike graphite, can be dissolved in benzene to form a translucent amber solution.

Other developments of buckyballs:

1) Radicalization - Besides just the pure C60 form, researchers at Rice have added hydrogen molecules to the carbon junctures to form molecules such as C60H36. Also, work is progressing on making C60 radical groupings (similar to benzene -> phenol).

2) Property measurement - Although many of the properties of C60 are known, most of the properties of its compounds are still hazy.

3) Higher molecules - Other stable forms with greater numbers of carbons have been isolated as well, including C70, C72, and a couple of others I can't remember. All of these have geodesic shapes as classified by Buckminster Fuller and look like lopsided versions of the normal C60 molecule.

4) Ionization - One can trap metallic ions such as Fe++ and Mg++ in the cage of the C60 to make the molecule act as a very large ion.

5) Superconductivity - As far as I know, the 18K Tc for C60 is the correct figure. This of course is much lower than high-temperature superconductors, but this fact may be used in some way at a later date.

Buckminsterfullerene (C60) is becoming ever easier to get in quantity and shows many interesting optical properties. It stops light -- the brighter the light the more effectively it stops it. Nano and pico-second laser pulses are effectively and instantly opaqued by small quantities of C60. A helmet visor treated with fullerene will instantly block an incoming laser beam -- the stronger the ray, the faster the face glass turns dark (cooler than those ``photosensitive'' sunglasses) (Patterson AFB in Ohio is studying such applications). Many other optical properties of the fullerenes are under study.

However, C60 remains forty times more expensive than gold. As Smalley put it ``it's the yield, stupid'' -- i.e. the central issue facing fullerene researchers, in Smalley's opinion, is how to get more of it. The Smalley team approach of using parabolic mirrors to sun-generate fullerenes (to produce ``sunnyballs'') appears to be a potentially promising approach. Concentrated sunlight has less of the damaging frequencies in high-powered lasers that apparently to inhibit fullerene formation from vaporized carbon).
Fullerene is quite reactive and can be used as a building block in other structures. In some crystal formations, doped with potassium for example, it conducts electricity with no resistance (is a superconductor).

was a frood who really knew where his towel was. Here's the Fuller FAQ, as well as a coupla other (+1; Informative) links to Bucky/Buckyball info...