It isn't a half-cylinder. It's a flattened egg shape. You cut doors and windows after the cement has cured.
I stand corrected re. cylinder vs. egg (so I guess that's the big difference between Quonset and Nissen huts), but in the pictures one of the structures is drying and you can see the inflated bag. It clearly is not necessary to cut a door after the cement has cured. In the second picture, it shows a back door, as well.
No, it's a glorified plaster cast. They even mentioned they "were also inspired by the plaster-of paris-impregnated bandages used to set broken bones."
I can't tell whether you are
a) Trying to show off that you know what "AK" stands for, or
b) Trying to badmouth the AK-47 because it uses less powerful rounds than an M-16, or
c) Use "Kalashnikov bullet" to mean "wimpy bullet," even though for most people it would have been clearer if you talked about caliber, or grain, or something more relevant than the manufacturer, or
d) Attempting to be humorous
So which was it?
(I do agree these would make lousy bunkers; I doubt it's possible to make a good portable bunker, unless you start getting into sci-fi stuff like force fields)
Seeing as they came up with the idea as an entry in a "innovative concrete uses" contest, they probably didn't want to use fiberglass.
There is also the issue of wind. I'm sure concrete structures don't blow away as easily, and many disaster areas are going to have lots of wind and water. Plus, concrete doesn't need to dry to set. Apparently it sets up quite nicely underwater.
My father has been building unique houses for about thirty years. One was an earth-covered house ("underground" is a bit misleading, but that's what I would normally call it) and he's been looking into a very modular building material called
3-D Panel which is basically styrofoam between wire meshes. After you assemble the building, using rebar or something to connect wire meshes together, you spray it with
shotcrete, and you're done. I mean, if we're allowed to have a spraying apparatus, why not? The specs for this panel system are impressive. They say the insulating value is R-18 to R-33--better than the new homes they throw up these days in my neighborhood.
The fact that AppleScript is so English-like can be pretty confusing sometimes, because you tend to fall back to writing code like English speaking patterns. That tends to break programs.
And having a programming language that breaks your programs if you bump the spacebar is an improvement???
Yes. Because although a whitespace error is easy to debug, it can be a lot harder to find a programming syntactical error which is not an error at all in spoken English.
I'm sure AppleScript could do a lot of the same things, but still--do you know if there is anything like this for the Mac version of Photoshop? Python is much more intuitive for me than AppleScript. The fact that AppleScript is so English-like can be pretty confusing sometimes, because you tend to fall back to writing code like English speaking patterns. That tends to break programs.
Maybe talking about the small size of the application was meant as a complement to the supporting software libraries, rather than an attempt at "taking credit"
That would seem to be supported by the note at the bottom:
The Glyphsaw Puzzle solver is implemented in less than 200 lines of Python code by making good use of the PARC DataGlyph Toolkit, the Python Imaging Library (PIL), and Numerical Python.
I don't doubt that he did make very good use of the libraries, but that doesn't detract from the point that measuring goodness of code by number of lines is stupid. You could write an indecipherable 15 line Python P2P program. Or you could write a similar program in 100 lines of code, but other people might actually be able to understand it. Or you could write 1000 lines of indecipherable spaghetti code. Number of lines of code is not a good measure of quality. Period.
BTW, I wasn't saying this particular guy was trying to take credit for other people's work, but there is, in general, a leet attitude in saying "I did this in x lines of code." It sounds like bragging.
You are so correct, my man. What is the point of a library if you didn't write it yourself? Why, it would be utterly useless!
First, you ought to know that sarcasm does not work well in ASCII.
Second, who the fuck said libraries weren't useful?
Python is great for many reasons (my favorite is that code can look like pseudocode if you don't use lambdas all over the place), and one reason is the great libraries available. I threw together a working curve-fitting program with
NumPy, Numarray, and the builtins.
It was a learning exercise for me, really,
because I do molecular biology by trade--not programming.
The vast majority of "my" curve-fitting program was the code from NumPy and Numarray. Can I really take credit for all their work, and call it my own?
Taking pride in the number of lines of code is pretty stupid, unless there is some way to normalize it. What language are we talking about? Do you count the lines of code in all imported libraries? If not, why not? And some languages are very sparse, with few builtin libraries. Obviously I can write a program with fewer lines in a language that has everything including the kitchen sink built in. I never said this jigsaw program wasn't impressive; I'm just saying I'd be way more impressed if someone did the same thing in 200 lines of assembly.
Anyone remember that? It was pretty cool--the guy wrote a scoring algorithm and brute-forced all possible positions for whatever piece was about to fall.
Oh, and I also think it's pretty stupid to talk about how few lines it took to write the program when it's using a bunch of libraries. I could just write a one-liner that calls this program, by that rationale.
I'm not sure if you are asking about wireless streaming, but I just ran audio cables to my stereo system, and S-Video to my RF modulator (using a DVI-S-Video adapter). Works fine for me. I know you could do something similar with a Powerbook, because I used mine to play DVDs until I got a Playstation 2.
As someone else pointed out, you could stream video via LAN with (what else?) Video LAN Client (VLC). It has its bugs, too, but is updated and fixed more frequently than any open-source software I've ever used.
It requires a lot of petroleum to make nitrogen fertilizers. Yes, the nitrogen comes form the air, but the hydrogen (see "Haber-Bosch Process") comes from petroleum. I agree with you that saying it's derived from petroleum is like saying aluminum cans are derived from electricity.
I'm glad you agree with my basic sentiment (and I like your example of aluminum cans). Of course, hydrogen can easily be made from renewable resources (hydrolysis), and legumes (well, symbiants that live in legume roots) have been fixing elemental nitrogen to ammonia for longer than recorded history. Just because we found a cheap, environmentally-unsound way to make a product from oil doesn't mean it must come from oil.
fertilizers are certainly NOT derived from petroleum
No, they're typically derived from natural gas (steam-reform to hydrogen, Haber process combines H2 and N2 to make ammonia, ammonia is either used as-is or oxidyzed to HNO3. HNO3 is chemically combined with ammonia to make ammonium nitrate or urea to make urea nitrate).
The cheapest source of methanol and ethanol are also petroleum, but I certainly don't consider those petrochemicals. You can make pretty much anything from petroleum. I could synthesize the amino acids from petroleum, then use those amino acids in a medium to grow yeast. I could use take the CO2 and water byproducts of the refinement process and give those to plants, which would produce glucose. Then I could mash up the plants, feed them to the yeast, and make 100% petrochemical beer.
If that sounds a bit ridiculous, well, that's how I interpret the assertion that fertilizer and pharmaceuticals are petrochemicals. If it doesn't come off of the cat. cracker, and doesn't have a significant hydrocarbon component, it isn't a petrochemical to me. Your definition is too broad to be really meaningful to me.
The real problem is that there just aren't enough turkey guts in the world to replace crude oil, and the grain that the turkeys are fed is produced by an agricultural industry that is totally dependent on petroleum-derived fertilizers and pesticides.
First, if you had read the article (this time, or the last time thermal depolymerization was mentioned on slashdot), you would know turkey offal is only one type of feed that can be used. Any sort of agricultural waste will do. Any sort of organic waste, including hazardous chemicals (which are often just dumped in the ocean, or even injected into the ground, crazy as that sounds). Do you think there will be a shortage of raw sewage any time soon? Or garbage, in general?
As a side note, fertilizers are certainly NOT derived from petroleum, and pesticides are sometimes synthesized using petroleum products (i.e., organic solvents), but I don't think that makes them petroleum-derived any more than pharmaceuticals are.
However his words may appear, Jeanneney insists that his remarks were not intended to be anti-American, and went out of his way to commend the short-term effects of Google's work as a "Messianic dream" that would "profit" under-privileged populations.
It sounds to me like more of a criticism of France's lack of effort of digitize French books than an attack on Google. It's a call-to-action for the French (or non-English) speakers to follow Google's lead if they don't want their languages to become irrelevant. It would be bad for everyone (those who speak English, French, or Swahili) to ignore non-English books, but I don't think Google plans to stop with digitizing American libraries.
Furthermore, since it's a non-linear optical process, you can only get the necessary intinsity to drive this process from a coherent source. Therefore you must have an actual laser to start this process. This is something that they state in the articles.
What do you mean by "actual laser?" Are semiconductor lasers not coherent sources? Or are they not bright enough? It did say you need another laser . . . I think maybe I'm not fully understanding what they're talking about:
Using the Raman effect, the chip firm has produced an optically pumped laser, with outputs up to 9mW.
"We have proved that silicon can be considered as a gain material," said Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's photonics technology lab.
. . .
At 300mW pump input, the laser outputs around 6mW. The slope efficiency, with a 25V bias on the PIN diode, is 4.3 per cent. Half power linewidth is claimed to be better than 80MHz.
So what exactly does it mean that silicon is a "gain" material if the laser output is one 30th the energy of the pump input?
Also, they mentioned something about optical modulation in the article; do you know if this proof-of-concept chip can actually modulate the light? I wonder if just reversing the bias would do it . . .
Oh well. I guess I'll have to read the Nature article when I get to work. We have pretty nifty online access to a lot of scientific journals.
Although Bickner is apt to invoke "we Web professionals," this book is not really appropriate to Web creatives-for-hire (who would be better advised to seek out clients with the wherewithal to ask for something original, cool, and spendy).
The second I read the word "spendy," I was betting this reviewer was from Oregon. And yep, he's from the Portland area.
Workspace switching effects so lavish they make Keynote jealous
I know you were quoting the article summary, but I just wanted to note that whoever wrote that probably meant "Expose" instead of "Keynote." Unless Keynote has some hidden workspace switching effects I'm not aware of. Maybe they meant the Keynote graphical transitions within presentations?
This is why, when I can, I mandate usage of three-letter abbreviations for months and four-digit years.
I started exclusively writing dates that way after dealing with some Cuban refugees. Almost every country in the world but the US writes dates as day-month-year, often using only numbers! So now, it's 16 Feb. 2005 for me, NOT Feb. 16th 2005.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's a glorified plaster cast. They even mentioned they "were also inspired by the plaster-of paris-impregnated bandages used to set broken bones."
a) Trying to show off that you know what "AK" stands for, or
b) Trying to badmouth the AK-47 because it uses less powerful rounds than an M-16, or
c) Use "Kalashnikov bullet" to mean "wimpy bullet," even though for most people it would have been clearer if you talked about caliber, or grain, or something more relevant than the manufacturer, or
d) Attempting to be humorous
So which was it?
(I do agree these would make lousy bunkers; I doubt it's possible to make a good portable bunker, unless you start getting into sci-fi stuff like force fields)
Nope. No cutting necessary with a half-cylinder. It comes with two openings.
Actually a "Nissen" hut, and apparently the Quonset hut is an improvement on the Nissen,, but they're both half-cylinders. They come with a front and back door.
Then we can have shelters that double as kites!
There is also the issue of wind. I'm sure concrete structures don't blow away as easily, and many disaster areas are going to have lots of wind and water. Plus, concrete doesn't need to dry to set. Apparently it sets up quite nicely underwater.
My father has been building unique houses for about thirty years. One was an earth-covered house ("underground" is a bit misleading, but that's what I would normally call it) and he's been looking into a very modular building material called 3-D Panel which is basically styrofoam between wire meshes. After you assemble the building, using rebar or something to connect wire meshes together, you spray it with shotcrete, and you're done. I mean, if we're allowed to have a spraying apparatus, why not? The specs for this panel system are impressive. They say the insulating value is R-18 to R-33--better than the new homes they throw up these days in my neighborhood.
Let's hear it for the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas! No software patents there. No export restrictions. True freedom of speech.
I'm sure AppleScript could do a lot of the same things, but still--do you know if there is anything like this for the Mac version of Photoshop? Python is much more intuitive for me than AppleScript. The fact that AppleScript is so English-like can be pretty confusing sometimes, because you tend to fall back to writing code like English speaking patterns. That tends to break programs.
The Glyphsaw Puzzle solver is implemented in less than 200 lines of Python code by making good use of the PARC DataGlyph Toolkit, the Python Imaging Library (PIL), and Numerical Python.
I don't doubt that he did make very good use of the libraries, but that doesn't detract from the point that measuring goodness of code by number of lines is stupid. You could write an indecipherable 15 line Python P2P program. Or you could write a similar program in 100 lines of code, but other people might actually be able to understand it. Or you could write 1000 lines of indecipherable spaghetti code. Number of lines of code is not a good measure of quality. Period.
BTW, I wasn't saying this particular guy was trying to take credit for other people's work, but there is, in general, a leet attitude in saying "I did this in x lines of code." It sounds like bragging.
First, you ought to know that sarcasm does not work well in ASCII.
Second, who the fuck said libraries weren't useful? Python is great for many reasons (my favorite is that code can look like pseudocode if you don't use lambdas all over the place), and one reason is the great libraries available. I threw together a working curve-fitting program with NumPy, Numarray, and the builtins. It was a learning exercise for me, really, because I do molecular biology by trade--not programming. The vast majority of "my" curve-fitting program was the code from NumPy and Numarray. Can I really take credit for all their work, and call it my own?
Taking pride in the number of lines of code is pretty stupid, unless there is some way to normalize it. What language are we talking about? Do you count the lines of code in all imported libraries? If not, why not? And some languages are very sparse, with few builtin libraries. Obviously I can write a program with fewer lines in a language that has everything including the kitchen sink built in. I never said this jigsaw program wasn't impressive; I'm just saying I'd be way more impressed if someone did the same thing in 200 lines of assembly.
Oh, and I also think it's pretty stupid to talk about how few lines it took to write the program when it's using a bunch of libraries. I could just write a one-liner that calls this program, by that rationale.
Here's the Artificial Intelligence Tetris I was mentioning.
As someone else pointed out, you could stream video via LAN with (what else?) Video LAN Client (VLC). It has its bugs, too, but is updated and fixed more frequently than any open-source software I've ever used.
If that sounds a bit ridiculous, well, that's how I interpret the assertion that fertilizer and pharmaceuticals are petrochemicals. If it doesn't come off of the cat. cracker, and doesn't have a significant hydrocarbon component, it isn't a petrochemical to me. Your definition is too broad to be really meaningful to me.
As a side note, fertilizers are certainly NOT derived from petroleum, and pesticides are sometimes synthesized using petroleum products (i.e., organic solvents), but I don't think that makes them petroleum-derived any more than pharmaceuticals are.
Woo-hoo!
Using the Raman effect, the chip firm has produced an optically pumped laser, with outputs up to 9mW.
"We have proved that silicon can be considered as a gain material," said Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's photonics technology lab.
. . .
At 300mW pump input, the laser outputs around 6mW. The slope efficiency, with a 25V bias on the PIN diode, is 4.3 per cent. Half power linewidth is claimed to be better than 80MHz.
So what exactly does it mean that silicon is a "gain" material if the laser output is one 30th the energy of the pump input?
Also, they mentioned something about optical modulation in the article; do you know if this proof-of-concept chip can actually modulate the light? I wonder if just reversing the bias would do it . . .
Oh well. I guess I'll have to read the Nature article when I get to work. We have pretty nifty online access to a lot of scientific journals.
I know you were quoting the article summary, but I just wanted to note that whoever wrote that probably meant "Expose" instead of "Keynote." Unless Keynote has some hidden workspace switching effects I'm not aware of. Maybe they meant the Keynote graphical transitions within presentations?
Anybody know if I'm missing something?
I started exclusively writing dates that way after dealing with some Cuban refugees. Almost every country in the world but the US writes dates as day-month-year, often using only numbers! So now, it's 16 Feb. 2005 for me, NOT Feb. 16th 2005.