Slow compared to a 32SII or a 12C. Not much, but there's some latency.
I have a 32SII for the easy hand calcs and pocket carrying capacity, and the 48 for the more complicated tasks.
Despite the little bit of lag, you can keep punching away, and it remembers more keystrokes the keystrokes and executes them in turn. By they time you look down at it again, it's cought up.
I have both a 32SII and a 48GX. The 32SII is my favorite, and it started wierding out a couple of months ago. So, I wrote HP, asking about repairs. They said that they don't do that anymore, and reccomended these guys. For about $40, I got my calculator back in a week and a half, works perfectly.
I'm actually looking forward to the new HP33S . When I wrote HP, the guy said that they have a 32SII replacement planned, but had no more info.
Plus: -two lines!! -Does RPN (Yay!!) Minus: -Looks like it has soft keys, instead of the great HP rounded clicky-keys. -Does algegraic (co-workers might want to "borrow" it)
Re:But where will this technology go from here?
on
Linux Hits the Road
·
· Score: 1
They have those. About a dozen commercial models or so. Here's one of the big boys - the ARAN.
They all work, in general, by measuring the relative motions between the axle, body, and road. They use some sort of rangefinder (a laser, in the case of the ARAN) to determine the distance between the pavement and the body, and an accelerometer to determine the motion of the axle. These things are fully automated, computers ride over the roads, chew some numbers back in the lab, and spit out a ride quality number.
And as for the comment that this would only measure the areas in the wheelpaths - you are right. What you have failed to realize is that "ride quality" (what the machine like the aran determines, and what the parent post suggested) is a different matter entirely from "pavement condition". Now, the two are tightly linked, but not the same thing. To use a crude example, pavement condition is like checking to see if a girl's teeth are straight and ride quality is a "hotness" test.
I could get the Civil card for the 48, but: I already have Excel; Who does cont. beam analysis in the field, away from a computer, anyway? no Black Box (especially important since I'm not licenced yet, and am building the portfolio) Can't copy & paste between the 48 and RISA.
My 32SII started freakin' out about a week ago, so I went looking for a replacement. None to be found.
So, I emailed HP yesterday, and inquired about it. The guy replied back that among the new advanced calculators coming out is a 32SII replacement.
This is great. While I like the 48 (using a 48GX now..), the 32SII is fast, lean and mean. for what I do (civil engineering), if you can't do it on a 32SII, you might as well fire up the computer and Excel.
I'm thinking of bamboo as tubular wood. One of the problems with wood which would be even worse with tubular shapes of wood is torsional resistance. Now, I'm going to get a whole bunch of other engineers going "what? tubes have low torsional resistance? Has this guy been eating paint chips/"
You'd have a problem with the fibres seperating from each other as you twist it.
Now, I really can't think of any other bamboo uses that induce torsion, expecially since you usually don't bolt through it (because of splintering).
heavy pedaling will produce torsion in the frame - you are 'racking' the triangle.
Actually, that title belongs to Steel. Over 95% of structural steel used today is recycled.
The AISC (American Inst. of Steel Contstruction) has a nifty video where they recycle a Oldsmobible into a I-Beam in under 48 hours during a convention.
Hmm, Noatun for video? Methinks you meant KMplayer, Mplayer w/ a little KDE wrapping. Sounds exactly like what you are suggesting they do with the GIMP, but w/ video.
As far as ARTS goes - and I'd love for somebody to show me how to get this right otherwise - It seems to be the simplest way to get multiple sounds playing at the same time. Think listening to an.ogg (on noatun), beeps from window manager operations (changing desktops, new mail) and sound from a flash cartoon _at the same time_.
Otherwise, I have to pick which one gets to use/dev/dsp, one at a time. ARTS mixes.
You are right about the PIM's not working together well, at least in the stable releases. For the life of me, I can't remember what it's called, but they are working on an app for 3.2 that can run all the parts at once, as KParts. This means that they will need to work together.
As far as Koffice / OOo - according to OOo's news site, Sun's news release saying that they were going to start OOo was 17 July, 2000, but didn't release any code unil 13 October 2000. KOffice was already released w/ KDE 2.0, the release was 23 Oct. 2000. So, by the time Sun showed up saying 'hey! look at us!' the KDE folks had been hard at work on koffice.
Large orgs, (governments in particular) are seldom known for radical changes of course due to their size and institutional momentum.
So, if we replace the underlying system and keep the top, we've made a small turn. In the right direction, IMHO.
Also, they probably own the windows licences to be used w/ VMware, so there's no new costs there.
Besides, if you read the article, this guy is a hardcore MS zealot. The little blurb under "Glass Half Full Much?" and it's associated denial is pretty frickin' funny.
I think that I've actually done better than that. I'm helping to support more than (1) developer due to the magic of pooled resources. Also, they didn't contract w/ Reiser in a "contractor = employee w/o benifits" kind of way - they contracted his company, Namesys, to make some improvements to ReiserFS that they wanted, IIRC.
I know that I'm going to catch flak for this, but here goes: I don't care that much about software being Free in a RMS kind of way. I want it to work. Linux just works. Specifically, SuSE's boxed product works very well for me. So I pay money for it.
1) It's easier. SuSE sponsors KDE, contracts Hans Reiser, and makes YAST (which is cool enough that I'd just pay for it.) Should I send a couple of bucks to Hans, a couple to KDE e.v., and so on, or just buy from SuSE? I'm lazy, so the boxed set is the way to go.
2) YAST.
3) less hassle from the wife - I've got Product In Hand. A tangable return for the money.
4) Like the other guy said, it makes evangelizing that much easier / effective.
I buy the boxed sets, at least every other release. Yes, it's kind of silly, but I like having the "real" CD. It just looks sexier that way.
Vote with your wallet and all of that. Remember, the busisness world counts sales, not people.
Also, I don't program, so it's my way of giving a little back to the nice people at SuSE for sponsoring KDE developers and the like. I may not have a stall in the Bazar, but I can bring doughnuts to share.:)
Actually, this is part of the same bigger problem -
if your post could be summed up with a single theme, it's that the buyer dosen't know what it takes to get what he wants and dosen't know the ramifications of what he did ask for.
How do you deal with this? It's a multistep process. The end goal is owner education. The process has a couple of steps (in no particular order): -RFI's (requests for information) or the like. Basically, ask, are you sure that you want this? -Show examples of things done right, and what can happen when they are done wrong. -Remind them that despite the fact that they are paying, it's MY name on the project. Don't be afraid to stand up and say, this sucks, I'm not bidding.
Yes, this is painful in the shortterm, but it is the longterm industry-wide strategy that will work.
Also, you are dead-on on the quality part. We don't pour crappy footing concrete, even though it gets buried. That shows the owner that we only care about what he sees, and that we're out to screw him. Not so, we're out to make money buy working for him tomorrow.
..As I step on my soapbox, donning the asbestos...
This, written by and modded "+5, Insightful" from the same group of programers that:
1) bitched about the NSPE coming down on CS's (emphasis on the science part of CS) calling themselves Engineers with a capital letter; 2) wonders why the IT market is softer than a sponge; 3) Actually debates the need for college education in CS;
and so on.
Now, I'm sure that there are quite a few excelent CS people who deserve the moniker "Engineer" (Linus comes to mind, occuping the other end of the spectrum from RMS).
As for the lowest bidder system, I work for a construction contractor. We build highways, bridges, and the like. We do the vast majority of our work under low bidder contracts. More importantly, we deliver the product on time and of a high quality. How and why, you ask? Quite simply, because we must. We must because we said that we would. We must because the state deserves a fine highway for the money they give us. We must so that we can stay in business and make more money tomorrow. We must so that the system keeps working.
If you can't do what you do correctly, give it up. You are the people Ayn Rand warned us about.
I rowed on the crew team in college, another sport where tech dominates. Think carbon fiber out the yinyang.
Despite the computer models showing the "perfect" hull shape, different people row better in different shaped boats. It just kind of is. Back to the bikes - there is the guy a couple of comments up saying how his Scandium frame is the best thing since sliced bread, much better than those 'dead feeling' carbon fiber bikes. Well, maybe the Scandium does that little extra for him, lets him ride a little harder, a little faster. There's got to be some other guy out there that feels the same way about carbon fiber bikes - they let him ride a little harder, a little faster, in a way that Scandium can't do for him.
Or, to put it in slashdot terms, you can't 100% compare a G5 mac with a P4 X86 - they just plain aren't the same animal, despite their both being at the top of the desktop technologial lader. (flame if you want, but it's a freakin' example. count to three first.)
So, wer're back to man AND machine, not man WITH machine.
Well, in the Fountainhead, Roark designs some buldings for Keating just so he can do it - Think Courtlant.
Roark went poor so that he could uphold his principles.
Linus did it because he can, and because he loves doing it. He isn't mooching from anyone.
Re:alternatives and cultural rant ahead...
on
Working with ADHD?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
This sorta relates to my biggest ADHD experience..
About 10 years ago, I used to go boy scout camp in the summer. The way the kids are supervised is that two or three dads stay for the week and watch all of the kids. Well, my dad was one of the ones there. One of the younger campers was wicked psycho, hard to control and being pumped full fo Ritalin. Well, my dad, being his self-reliant-farmboy-self, decides that this kid doesn't need those damn pills.
It was like he went into withdrawal. Staring at shit for a full day, then normal for the rest of the week. amazing.
when we got back, his mom saw the full bottle of pills and flipped. back on the meds he went, and psycho he stayed.
however, we were in wet, wet Boston. hell, the concrete we laid down after this thing got done had a 7-day wet cure. Soaker hoses & sprinklers non-stop for a week.
It's a friction thing. The water is a steady 35,000psi stream that just wears away the concrete by rubbing off the little bits. Think of a dishwasher on crack. This is how it finds the 'bad' concrete - 'bad' concrete is weaker, and wears away much quicker.
Having been on a crew that used one of these exact machines, it is indeed potable water.
The magic is that it uses 35,000 - 50,000 psi and through a very tiny (.035", IIRC) nozzle. Very low flow, 20 gpm or so.
Actually, only about half of the water remains to be reclaimed - after the trip through the nozzle and all of the friction with the concrete & rebar, about 1/2 is lost as steam. helluva thing to watch.
As for the '15 men' comparison, here's my first-hand experience: We used men with jackhamers to remove the first two inches of concrete (down to the rebar) Crew: (1) operating engineer - man the air compressor. He's frickin' useless. (1) laborer foreman - push the men, repair the extra jackhammers, rotate into the crew (5) laborers - constantly on the hammers. (unless too many broke down. We had seven hammers, and about 5 runing.)
The robot is used to remove concrete _under_ rebar. The rebar comes out looking sandblasted - bare white metal. That's the trick that would take 15 men with jackhammers. The crew there was a robot operator and a guy at the pump. Actually, the laborer crew was cheaper than the robot.
Also, the other thing these things do real well is scarification - roughen up the surface before you put down a top coat. The other good way to do it is with sandblasting, definately nastier than hydroblasting and worse results to boot.
Premature P/T failure is a BIG deal. This would be huge, so long as you could get it into an Ironworker-Proof package.
Also, as a related note, in the new large bridges in California, Caltrans is having accelerometers and other sensors installed in the bridge and down tubes into the bottom of the piles. The idea is if they can plot the relative movement of the top and bottom of the bridge, they can determine if it's OK without a lot of destructive testing.
OK, Maybe it isn't practical to make it fully bug free, but it should be adequate.
I'm a civil engineer, and my work _has_ to be bug free. Errors = high risk of injury and loss of property. So, you see it is possible to have your work error free.
We achieve this level of perfection with many of the things that can be used with software: 1) peer review by an independent engineer. 2) having all work performed under the direct supervision & review of a registered professional. 3) very solid understanding of the basics & theory behind what we do. 4) conservativism that borders on paranoid. 5) every step and component is documented with calculations and analysis.
Anyway, this whole thread just seems like a lot of whining from people who want to be "software engineers" with out the engineering.
For DIY, you can't beat a good brick / concrete block. If you use dowels and slug the blocks, (fill them with grout) you get most of the goodness of stone and concrete without most of the hassles.
You can buy premade roof trusses and floor trusses. get some friends and rope, pull em' up. That, and plenty of love & caring should be a real good start.
Well, there's some things that can be done to make it better.
1) rebar is 'passive' tensioning. as such, it requires that the concrete yield slightly before it grabs. This much, you have said in different words. To make this work better, move to 'active' tensioning. Post-tensioning. The real kicker is then getting the P/T right.
2) most of the cracking and spalling is due to a combination of: insufficent rebar cover; plain bars. This is the chicken and the egg problem. How do you keep the bars away from the forms? Use chairs (little 'seats' for rebar). Now you have the chair penetrating the surface of the concrete, which can be just as big a problem. so, rigid rebar cages and plenty of cover to the resuce. As for plain bars, the problem is this: when steel rusts, it expands. (think of the flaky stuff around rust spots on an old car) As the corroding steel expands, it blows out the concrete. Solution: use vinyl coated or galvanized to prevent the corrosion.
As for dry, you can use rubber mastic waterproofing for stuff you don't mind looking ugly (foundations) and a paint-type sealant for the above ground parts. Many states are going to this for their bridges.
Of course, I'm a big proponent of steel. Give me a big steel bridge over a concrete one anyday.
Why, you ask? 1) epoxy paints do not withstand UV. You are always going to have a few weeks of exposure. This leads to 'hardening' of the epoxy, which in turn, leads to delamination of the coating over the life of the bar. There's a reason California (a very progressive construction state, BTW) is going to vinyl coated bar - the purple stuff. Not that the purple is bad, but galvy is just that much better. 2) extended lap lengths, 1.5 to 2.0 times that of a plain or galvy bar. vinyl also fails this test. This leads to rebar conjestion at corners and things - more laps mean more little mortar runs. bad.
3) if you go with couplers instead of laps, you have penetrations in the coating. galvy is self-healing, epoxy is not.
4) epoxy is _never_ properly field repaired after cutting in the field. no suface prep, requires a 2-part mix, restrictive enviromental conditions, etc. A trained monkey can repair galvy with ZRC spray.
Also, as much fun as P/T is, it's a freakin' horrible idea for a foundation. Corrosion is a killer down there. Think Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Bad. Don't get me wrong, I love P/T. (except when a strand gets loose...) but a foundation is supposed to be heavy. P/T makes things light.
If you used concrete walls, however, a little monostrand P/T would be a great idea. just not in the basement.
Slashdot Mirror
Slow compared to a 32SII or a 12C. Not much, but there's some latency.
I have a 32SII for the easy hand calcs and pocket carrying capacity, and the 48 for the more complicated tasks.
Despite the little bit of lag, you can keep punching away, and it remembers more keystrokes the keystrokes and executes them in turn. By they time you look down at it again, it's cought up.
I have both a 32SII and a 48GX. The 32SII is my favorite, and it started wierding out a couple of months ago. So, I wrote HP, asking about repairs. They said that they don't do that anymore, and reccomended
these guys.
For about $40, I got my calculator back in a week and a half, works perfectly.
I'm actually looking forward to the new HP33S . When I wrote HP, the guy said that they have a 32SII replacement planned, but had no more info.
Plus:
-two lines!!
-Does RPN (Yay!!)
Minus:
-Looks like it has soft keys, instead of the great HP rounded clicky-keys.
-Does algegraic (co-workers might want to "borrow" it)
They have those. About a dozen commercial models or so. Here's one of the big boys - the ARAN.
They all work, in general, by measuring the relative motions between the axle, body, and road. They use some sort of rangefinder (a laser, in the case of the ARAN) to determine the distance between the pavement and the body, and an accelerometer to determine the motion of the axle.
These things are fully automated, computers ride over the roads, chew some numbers back in the lab, and spit out a ride quality number.
And as for the comment that this would only measure the areas in the wheelpaths - you are right. What you have failed to realize is that "ride quality" (what the machine like the aran determines, and what the parent post suggested) is a different matter entirely from "pavement condition". Now, the two are tightly linked, but not the same thing. To use a crude example, pavement condition is like checking to see if a girl's teeth are straight and ride quality is a "hotness" test.
Agreed.
I could get the Civil card for the 48, but:
I already have Excel;
Who does cont. beam analysis in the field, away from a computer, anyway?
no Black Box (especially important since I'm not licenced yet, and am building the portfolio)
Can't copy & paste between the 48 and RISA.
I sure hope that the 33S is RPN.
My 32SII started freakin' out about a week ago, so I went looking for a replacement. None to be found.
So, I emailed HP yesterday, and inquired about it.
The guy replied back that among the new advanced calculators coming out is a 32SII replacement.
This is great.
While I like the 48 (using a 48GX now..), the 32SII is fast, lean and mean. for what I do (civil engineering), if you can't do it on a 32SII, you might as well fire up the computer and Excel.
First, I am a structural engineer.
I'm thinking of bamboo as tubular wood. One of the problems with wood which would be even worse with tubular shapes of wood is torsional resistance. Now, I'm going to get a whole bunch of other engineers going "what? tubes have low torsional resistance? Has this guy been eating paint chips/"
You'd have a problem with the fibres seperating from each other as you twist it.
Now, I really can't think of any other bamboo uses that induce torsion, expecially since you usually don't bolt through it (because of splintering).
heavy pedaling will produce torsion in the frame - you are 'racking' the triangle.
So, yes, this is not so good for a mountain bike.
Actually, that title belongs to Steel. Over 95% of structural steel used today is recycled. The AISC (American Inst. of Steel Contstruction) has a nifty video where they recycle a Oldsmobible into a I-Beam in under 48 hours during a convention.
Hmm, Noatun for video? Methinks you meant KMplayer, Mplayer w/ a little KDE wrapping. Sounds exactly like what you are suggesting they do with the GIMP, but w/ video.
.ogg (on noatun), beeps from window manager operations (changing desktops, new mail) and sound from a flash cartoon _at the same time_.
/dev/dsp, one at a time. ARTS mixes.
As far as ARTS goes - and I'd love for somebody to show me how to get this right otherwise - It seems to be the simplest way to get multiple sounds playing at the same time. Think listening to an
Otherwise, I have to pick which one gets to use
You are right about the PIM's not working together well, at least in the stable releases. For the life of me, I can't remember what it's called, but they are working on an app for 3.2 that can run all the parts at once, as KParts. This means that they will need to work together.
As far as Koffice / OOo - according to OOo's news site, Sun's news release saying that they were going to start OOo was 17 July, 2000, but didn't release any code unil 13 October 2000. KOffice was already released w/ KDE 2.0, the release was 23 Oct. 2000. So, by the time Sun showed up saying 'hey! look at us!' the KDE folks had been hard at work on koffice.
Large orgs, (governments in particular) are seldom known for radical changes of course due to their size and institutional momentum.
So, if we replace the underlying system and keep the top, we've made a small turn. In the right direction, IMHO.
Also, they probably own the windows licences to be used w/ VMware, so there's no new costs there.
Besides, if you read the article, this guy is a hardcore MS zealot. The little blurb under "Glass Half Full Much?" and it's associated denial is pretty frickin' funny.
I think that I've actually done better than that. I'm helping to support more than (1) developer due to the magic of pooled resources. Also, they didn't contract w/ Reiser in a "contractor = employee w/o benifits" kind of way - they contracted his company, Namesys, to make some improvements to ReiserFS that they wanted, IIRC.
I know that I'm going to catch flak for this, but here goes:
I don't care that much about software being Free in a RMS kind of way. I want it to work. Linux just works. Specifically, SuSE's boxed product works very well for me. So I pay money for it.
A couple of reasons why not:
1) It's easier. SuSE sponsors KDE, contracts Hans Reiser, and makes YAST (which is cool enough that I'd just pay for it.) Should I send a couple of bucks to Hans, a couple to KDE e.v., and so on, or just buy from SuSE? I'm lazy, so the boxed set is the way to go.
2) YAST.
3) less hassle from the wife - I've got Product In Hand. A tangable return for the money.
4) Like the other guy said, it makes evangelizing that much easier / effective.
I buy the boxed sets, at least every other release. Yes, it's kind of silly, but I like having the "real" CD. It just looks sexier that way.
:)
Vote with your wallet and all of that. Remember, the busisness world counts sales, not people.
Also, I don't program, so it's my way of giving a little back to the nice people at SuSE for sponsoring KDE developers and the like.
I may not have a stall in the Bazar, but I can bring doughnuts to share.
Actually, this is part of the same bigger problem -
if your post could be summed up with a single theme, it's that the buyer dosen't know what it takes to get what he wants and dosen't know the ramifications of what he did ask for.
How do you deal with this? It's a multistep process. The end goal is owner education.
The process has a couple of steps (in no particular order):
-RFI's (requests for information) or the like. Basically, ask, are you sure that you want this?
-Show examples of things done right, and what can happen when they are done wrong.
-Remind them that despite the fact that they are paying, it's MY name on the project. Don't be afraid to stand up and say, this sucks, I'm not bidding.
Yes, this is painful in the shortterm, but it is the longterm industry-wide strategy that will work.
Also, you are dead-on on the quality part. We don't pour crappy footing concrete, even though it gets buried. That shows the owner that we only care about what he sees, and that we're out to screw him. Not so, we're out to make money buy working for him tomorrow.
..As I step on my soapbox, donning the asbestos...
This, written by and modded "+5, Insightful" from the same group of programers that:
1) bitched about the NSPE coming down on CS's (emphasis on the science part of CS) calling themselves Engineers with a capital letter;
2) wonders why the IT market is softer than a sponge;
3) Actually debates the need for college education in CS;
and so on.
Now, I'm sure that there are quite a few excelent CS people who deserve the moniker "Engineer" (Linus comes to mind, occuping the other end of the spectrum from RMS).
As for the lowest bidder system, I work for a construction contractor. We build highways, bridges, and the like. We do the vast majority of our work under low bidder contracts. More importantly, we deliver the product on time and of a high quality.
How and why, you ask? Quite simply, because we must. We must because we said that we would. We must because the state deserves a fine highway for the money they give us. We must so that we can stay in business and make more money tomorrow. We must so that the system keeps working.
If you can't do what you do correctly, give it up. You are the people Ayn Rand warned us about.
Well, it's almost like that.
I rowed on the crew team in college, another sport where tech dominates. Think carbon fiber out the yinyang.
Despite the computer models showing the "perfect" hull shape, different people row better in different shaped boats. It just kind of is.
Back to the bikes - there is the guy a couple of comments up saying how his Scandium frame is the best thing since sliced bread, much better than those 'dead feeling' carbon fiber bikes. Well, maybe the Scandium does that little extra for him, lets him ride a little harder, a little faster. There's got to be some other guy out there that feels the same way about carbon fiber bikes - they let him ride a little harder, a little faster, in a way that Scandium can't do for him.
Or, to put it in slashdot terms, you can't 100% compare a G5 mac with a P4 X86 - they just plain aren't the same animal, despite their both being at the top of the desktop technologial lader. (flame if you want, but it's a freakin' example. count to three first.)
So, wer're back to man AND machine, not man WITH machine.
Well, in the Fountainhead, Roark designs some buldings for Keating just so he can do it - Think Courtlant.
Roark went poor so that he could uphold his principles.
Linus did it because he can, and because he loves doing it. He isn't mooching from anyone.
This sorta relates to my biggest ADHD experience..
About 10 years ago, I used to go boy scout camp in the summer. The way the kids are supervised is that two or three dads stay for the week and watch all of the kids. Well, my dad was one of the ones there. One of the younger campers was wicked psycho, hard to control and being pumped full fo Ritalin. Well, my dad, being his self-reliant-farmboy-self, decides that this kid doesn't need those damn pills.
It was like he went into withdrawal. Staring at shit for a full day, then normal for the rest of the week. amazing.
when we got back, his mom saw the full bottle of pills and flipped. back on the meds he went, and psycho he stayed.
Yeah, you could probably reclaim it.
however, we were in wet, wet Boston. hell, the concrete we laid down after this thing got done had a 7-day wet cure. Soaker hoses & sprinklers non-stop for a week.
no water conservation in sight around here...
It's a friction thing.
The water is a steady 35,000psi stream that just wears away the concrete by rubbing off the little bits. Think of a dishwasher on crack.
This is how it finds the 'bad' concrete - 'bad' concrete is weaker, and wears away much quicker.
Having been on a crew that used one of these exact machines, it is indeed potable water.
The magic is that it uses 35,000 - 50,000 psi and through a very tiny (.035", IIRC) nozzle. Very low flow, 20 gpm or so.
Actually, only about half of the water remains to be reclaimed - after the trip through the nozzle and all of the friction with the concrete & rebar, about 1/2 is lost as steam. helluva thing to watch.
As for the '15 men' comparison, here's my first-hand experience:
We used men with jackhamers to remove the first two inches of concrete (down to the rebar)
Crew:
(1) operating engineer - man the air compressor. He's frickin' useless.
(1) laborer foreman - push the men, repair the extra jackhammers, rotate into the crew
(5) laborers - constantly on the hammers. (unless too many broke down. We had seven hammers, and about 5 runing.)
The robot is used to remove concrete _under_ rebar. The rebar comes out looking sandblasted - bare white metal. That's the trick that would take 15 men with jackhammers. The crew there was a robot operator and a guy at the pump. Actually, the laborer crew was cheaper than the robot.
Also, the other thing these things do real well is scarification - roughen up the surface before you put down a top coat. The other good way to do it is with sandblasting, definately nastier than hydroblasting and worse results to boot.
Basically these things rock.
And there's the man with the magic answer.
Premature P/T failure is a BIG deal. This would be huge, so long as you could get it into an Ironworker-Proof package.
Also, as a related note, in the new large bridges in California, Caltrans is having accelerometers and other sensors installed in the bridge and down tubes into the bottom of the piles. The idea is if they can plot the relative movement of the top and bottom of the bridge, they can determine if it's OK without a lot of destructive testing.
OK, Maybe it isn't practical to make it fully bug free, but it should be adequate.
I'm a civil engineer, and my work _has_ to be bug free. Errors = high risk of injury and loss of property. So, you see it is possible to have your work error free.
We achieve this level of perfection with many of the things that can be used with software:
1) peer review by an independent engineer.
2) having all work performed under the direct supervision & review of a registered professional.
3) very solid understanding of the basics & theory behind what we do.
4) conservativism that borders on paranoid.
5) every step and component is documented with calculations and analysis.
Anyway, this whole thread just seems like a lot of whining from people who want to be "software engineers" with out the engineering.
For DIY, you can't beat a good brick / concrete block.
If you use dowels and slug the blocks, (fill them with grout) you get most of the goodness of stone and concrete without most of the hassles.
You can buy premade roof trusses and floor trusses.
get some friends and rope, pull em' up. That, and plenty of love & caring should be a real good start.
Well, there's some things that can be done to make it better.
1) rebar is 'passive' tensioning. as such, it requires that the concrete yield slightly before it grabs. This much, you have said in different words. To make this work better, move to 'active' tensioning. Post-tensioning. The real kicker is then getting the P/T right.
2) most of the cracking and spalling is due to a combination of: insufficent rebar cover; plain bars.
This is the chicken and the egg problem. How do you keep the bars away from the forms? Use chairs (little 'seats' for rebar). Now you have the chair penetrating the surface of the concrete, which can be just as big a problem. so, rigid rebar cages and plenty of cover to the resuce. As for plain bars, the problem is this: when steel rusts, it expands. (think of the flaky stuff around rust spots on an old car) As the corroding steel expands, it blows out the concrete. Solution: use vinyl coated or galvanized to prevent the corrosion.
As for dry, you can use rubber mastic waterproofing for stuff you don't mind looking ugly (foundations) and a paint-type sealant for the above ground parts. Many states are going to this for their bridges.
Of course, I'm a big proponent of steel. Give me a big steel bridge over a concrete one anyday.
Epoxy coated is , IMHO, shit.
Why, you ask?
1) epoxy paints do not withstand UV. You are always going to have a few weeks of exposure. This leads to 'hardening' of the epoxy, which in turn, leads to delamination of the coating over the life of the bar. There's a reason California (a very progressive construction state, BTW) is going to vinyl coated bar - the purple stuff. Not that the purple is bad, but galvy is just that much better.
2) extended lap lengths, 1.5 to 2.0 times that of a plain or galvy bar. vinyl also fails this test. This leads to rebar conjestion at corners and things - more laps mean more little mortar runs. bad.
3) if you go with couplers instead of laps, you have penetrations in the coating. galvy is self-healing, epoxy is not.
4) epoxy is _never_ properly field repaired after cutting in the field. no suface prep, requires a 2-part mix, restrictive enviromental conditions, etc. A trained monkey can repair galvy with ZRC spray.
Also, as much fun as P/T is, it's a freakin' horrible idea for a foundation. Corrosion is a killer down there. Think Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Bad. Don't get me wrong, I love P/T. (except when a strand gets loose...) but a foundation is supposed to be heavy. P/T makes things light.
If you used concrete walls, however, a little monostrand P/T would be a great idea. just not in the basement.