Concrete and Steel VS Wood

As an answer to Annoms Question: which material is better for the environment: concrete and steel or wood.

I did some life cycle analysis (LCA) calculations, and this is my starting point:

building life time: 35 years

Materials calculated with their Maintenance cycles (from the gain (start) to the use of the material to the demolition of it (recycled or ends as waste).

I calculated the hidden milieu costs, these costs are the prices you pay to remediate the milieu problems. This way you get one number out of the 14 milieu effects.

I compared a beam that can strain 6 meter with 14 KN/m pressure. ( for 100 pieces).

Steal beam: HEA 280

Milieucosts: €220

To make steel fire proof it need a fireproof painting, otherwise the construction can bend when its get to warm. This painting i didn't calculated because its not always needed.

After steal is used we calculate with a change of 20% recycling.

Wooden beam (with FSC mark)700x280mm

Milieucosts: €107

This wood is from a Forrest with a good forest maintenance.

Every 5 year a painting and fixing.

When a wooden construction gets burned it creates a charred bit from around 20 mm, this char protects against fire so the construction doesn't need fire protection.

The wooden beam has some thermal treatment so it protects against the weather, and it makes it stronger.

After the 35 year we calculate with a 100% waste

Wooden beam (without FSC mark) 700x280mm

Mileucosts: € 250

This wood is from a heist cut.

Concrete beam 400x200mm

Mileucosts: € 160

Concrete beam with steel reinforcement, the concrete is made for 40% out of recycled old concrete.

Concrete construction are well protected against fire.

The bad thing about concrete is that's heavy so the building gets heavier and you need more concrete to hold its own weight.

After the 35 years we calculate with a 10% recycling.

S0 the wood with the FSC mark gets the lowest milieucosts, the most milieu effects come from the diverence in young trees and old trees (CO2 decrease). The transport is also a milieu effect. because we calculate with a mix of origin (countries from around the world). If you decide to get the wood from a forest close to the building location the milieu costs would get lower.

What we don't calculate are the milieu costs to build the factory, tractor etc. This is a discussion on my work how we going to calculate these things as well. Once these are implemented, steel and concrete will have more milieu costs added.

Wooden construction for a fabric hall.

Oops

Germany's First Offshore Wind Farm

These things are huge with a rotor diameter of 126 m and a hub height of 92 m. The project cost €250 million and delivers 60MW. This sounds really expensive and results in a capital cost of €4167/kW, but surprisingly this doesn't compare too badly to some recent nuclear projects estimated between $3376/kW to $8071/kW. However China is currently planning it's future nuclear plants will produce at $1000/kW which is very favorable. These are only capital cost and I don't know how much the upkeep of offshore windmills or nuclear costs. And of course this doesn't factor in the intermittent power produced by wind, which would need expensive storage systems to be able to provide base-load power. At least they are impressive to look at. On the factor of safety windmills aren't as benign as is sometimes assumed, resulting in 66 worker fatalities since the 70s. Other fun things that can happen to windmills are: 172 instances of blade failure Pieces of blade are documented as travelling up to 1300 meters. In Germany, blade pieces have gone through the roofs and walls of nearby buildings. (Video) 139 fire incidents 84 instances of structural failure 30 incidents of ice throw, travelling up to 140m

World's largest private yacht

The yacht — the fourth in Abramovich’s private fleet — drips luxury. It boasts two helipads, two swimming pools — the larger of which doubles up as a dance floor when drained — and 6ft-wide home cinema screens in all 24 guest cabins. In a move that could eventually be copied by all discerning billionaires, Abramovich has installed an anti-paparazzi shield on his newest vessel, the world’s biggest and most expensive private yacht. The high-tech system on Eclipse, a mega-yacht measuring up to 557ft, relies on lasers to block any digital camera lenses nearby. More @ Times

Run, Mr. Wiggles. Run.

Watch on Vimeo for HD. Highly recommended.

De gemiste kansen van het WK hoofdstadion

The missed changes of the World CUP stadion in Johannesburg South Afrika.

Het nieuwe hoofd stadion van de wereld cup 2010 staat in Johannesburg South Afrika. Hier worden zowel de openingswedstrijd, wedstrijden van het Nederlandse elftal en de finale gespeeld. Het gebouw is gebouwd door de nederlandse BAM in samenwerking met de Afrikaanse aannemers grinaker / LTA en heeft de bijster creative naam: Soccer City.

Doordat tegenwoordig alles onder het kopje duurzaam verkocht moet worden kon de bam natuurlijk niet achter blijven. Zo zijn de stoelen in het stadion UV-resistent en brandwerend!!!1!. Heeft de BAM een klein schooltje en fabriekje bij het stadium opgezet, om de Afrikanen te leren hoe ze beton moeten blubberen. Dit weerhoud de weldoeners van de BAM niet om te blijven herhalen dat je voor het zelfde product 5x meer afrikanen nodig hebt dan dat je in Nederland nodig zou hebben.

Het schooltje en de fabriek hebben ze daar neer gezet onder het mom we moeten die afrikaantjes wat leren, maar ik voel aan mijn klote dat het hier gewoon gaat om de goedkoopste oplossing gaat . De staalskeletconstructie wordt namelijk uit Italy geïmporteerd waar hij 1:1 is proef geassembleerd, zodat de Afrikanen hier niks aan konden verknollen. Ook al de hijskranen en groot materieel komen uit de rest van de wereld en gaan daar waarschijnlijk ook weer naar toe terug. De overige materialen komen uit de rest van de wereld: gevelpanelen (oostenrijk) (dakbedekking (Duitsland/Thailand) stoelen (china). Niks geen typische Afrikaanse producten die worden gebruikt.

Over duurzaamheid gesproken zijn staal en beton een van de meest milieubelastende constructie materialen. Zoals het de BAM beaamd zijn ze hier niet zuinig mee omgesprongen, er is in totaal 90.000 m3 beton geblubberd en 7100 ton staal gebruikt. Ik weet dat de constructieve en brandwerende eigenschappen van deze materialen ideaal zijn voor een stadium, maar als je het stadium als duurzaam verkoopt en hierbij geen aandacht besteed aan het materiaal gebruik dan vind ik dat een beetje laf.

Hier een snelle Levens Cyclus Analyse van het beton en staal dat gebruikt is in het stadium.

Emissies:

Broeikaseffect 2516782,0 kg CO2 eq.

Ozonlaagaantasting 0,3638 kg CFC-11 eq.

Humane toxiciteit 221448,2 kg 1.4-DB eq.

Aquatische toxiciteit (zoet water) 22323,9 kg 1.4-DB eq.

Terrestische toxiciteit 3927,0 kg 1.4-DB eq.

Fotochemische oxidantvorming 705,2 kg C2H4 eq.

Verzuring 10421,6 kg SO2 eq.

Eutrofiering 1197,5 kg PO4 eq.

Liefkozend wordt het door de Afrikanen: de melting pot of African culters genoemd. Persoonlijk vind ik het meer lijken op een pot met diarree, maar over smaak valt niet te twisten. Waar ik wel trots op ben is dat de FIFA in de trucjes en leuke verkoop praatjes van onze enige echte BAM trapt, zo hoeven we het WK niet eens te winnen om een trotse Nederlander te mogen zijn.

Pathfinder Example

Ever wondered how your troops, tanks or heroes find their way on the map of a RTS game? Or why they get stuck or change their direction every move? I did and decided to find out and program a pathfinder myself. I implemented the A* pathfinding algorithm. My implementation is not very efficient (I know how to make it more efficient), but does work. It's not very special and something most n00b programmers have probably done, but I want to share it anyway as it gives a more satisfactory ending to my little Sunday afternoon project. I also want to know if it runs on other computers, so it would be cool if some of you could try it. No need to install anything (at least, that's what I hope), just unzip and run the exe. I can't compile it for OSX, because I need a Mac for that.
Controls: 
q = quit
r = reset/restart
space = start/pause path finding
left mouse = add water/wall
right mouse = remove water/wall
Settings: Edit settings.txt

Download: 
PathFinder for Windows XP/Vista/7
PathFinder for Ubuntu x86 (Linux binary)

Kopvoddentaks in Verkiezingsprogramma PVV

What a joke, hij heeft het daadwerkelijk in zijn verkiezingsprogramma gezet. Een belasting op hoofddoekjes. Hahaha, wat een droplul. Uit het PVV verkiezingsprogramma onder "islambestrijding",

"Verbied de boerka en de koran, belast hoofddoekjes"

Pay bitches!

Hier is een video van de algemene beschouwingen waar hij deze belasting introduceerde, daar noemt hij 1000 euro per jaar.
Geen shops binnen een straal van 1 km om scholen, is het enige dat hij zegt over drugsbeleid. Dat betekent volgens mij alleen nog maar shops tussen de koeien.

Interchange Collection

I got intrigued by different interchanges and used Google maps to find a few. I try to practice my Unix command skills, mainly sed for this, and semi-automated the process of embedding the interchanges I found in a html page. Here is the page I made with a collection of random interchanges: http://www.rainbowboys.org/annom/googlemaps/interchanges.html

Eyjafjallajökull

It's about time for some nice pictures and clips of the recent eruptions of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Some great pictures @ The Big Picture. Visible shock-waves in the eruption plume.

Nice shots and lightning.

A few live high quality webcams, example still: And finally Volcanolypse 2010! Includes news people struggling with the pronunciation.

Vector Park

Vector park is the site of a great flash designer who has made some very creative, bizarre, trippy and fun flash things. Like Feed the Head, which you could call a game because you can finish it, but it's more like a toy. Also be sure to check out Windowsill, which sadly, you can only play halfway without paying.

The Sun performs for SDO

"On April 21, 2010, NASA released the first-light images from its newest sun-monitoring mission, the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The mission’s high-speed, IMAX-quality photography will improve predictions of solar activity that can disrupt everything from GPS satellites to high-voltage power lines.

This image was captured by the new observatory’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on March 30, 2010. The sensor views the lower atmosphere of the Sun in ultraviolet wavelengths, and it captured this view as a massive plume of dense, cool (only compared to the rest of the solar atmosphere) plasma erupted on the Sun’s surface. The plasma flows in a loop along a magnetic field line.

When these ribbons of plasma appear against the black backdrop of space, as in this image, they appear bright, and they are called solar prominences. Compared to the size and mass of the Sun, the prominence seems insubstantial. But a small white circle at the lower left corner of the image dispels the misperception: ten Earths could be stacked in a line between the Sun and the top of the loop."

The video shows a 50 min event. Here is an example of the raw images SDO makes.

Axis of Awesome - 4 chord songs

America can't be considered a civilized country

Sure the US is a developed and rich(for now) country, but it's only very few people who are rich. However, America is not a civilized country. I'll give two recent exhibits out of a very deep pool of uncivilized conduct.

And this recent article:

Sonoma County CA separates elderly gay couple and sells all of their worldly possessions Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place--wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health. One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold's care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see elderly_man.jpgHarold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes. Full story...

Winscape Virtual Windows

A hobbyist made these amazing virtual windows which track the users position for added realism, you can see how he did it here. The tracker still needs a bit of work to miniaturize and of course it can only work for on person. Maybe he can upgrade it once glasless 3D TVs are made.

The fake nature documentary that spawned myths

Douche recently brought up this video:

Because the above clip is obviously staged (note the convenient camera placement in the water cave) I did some detective work, and apparently it is from controversial and at least partly staged 'documentary' Animals Are Beautiful People. However the technique in the clip might be a valid way of trapping monkeys, but I can't find any firm sources. This documentary also produced the famous drunk animals video, sadly this also seems to be a myth according to various sources (1, 2).

Age Determination and Art Forgery Detection using Nuclear Tests

"The above-ground nuclear tests that occurred in several countries between 1955 and 1980 (see nuclear test list) dramatically increased the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere and subsequently in the biosphere; after the tests ended the atmospheric concentration of the isotope began to decrease.

One side effect of the change in atmospheric carbon-14 is that this enables the determination of the birth year of an individual: the amount of carbon-14 in tooth enamel is measured with accelerator mass spectrometry and compared to records of past atmospheric carbon-14 concentrations. Since teeth are formed at a specific age and do not exchange carbon thereafter, this method allows age to be determined to within 1.6 years. This method only works for individuals born after 1943,^[11][12] and it must be known whether the individual was living in the Northern or the Southern Hemisphere at the age when the tooth would have formed." - wiki

"Synthetic elements, such as einsteinium and fermium, created by neutron bombardment of uranium and plutonium during thermonuclear explosions, were discovered in the aftermath of the first thermonuclear bomb test. In 2008 the worldwide presence of new isotopes from atmospheric testing beginning in the 1950s was developed into a reliable way of detecting art forgeries, as all paintings created after that period may contain traces of cesium-137 and strontium-90, isotopes that did not exist in nature before 1945." - wiki

Lighting Up Leaves

Science Friday: Leaves have an intricate web of veins that transport nutrients and water and provide structural support. But what determines the pattern of venation? Physicists Marcelo Magnasco and Eleni Katifori, of The Rockefeller University, investigated this question using sophisticated algorithms and a little glow-in-the-dark dye.

It's Finally Getting Crowded in the ISS

No need to watch the video.
6 crew are permanent, 7 are visiting with the Space Shuttle.
There are now 5 spacecraft docked to the station, 1 Space Shuttle (7 crew), 2 Soyuz (3 crew each) and 2 Progress (Russian cargo craft). We better enjoy this most expensive object ever made now it's there anyway.

Bob Saget sings

I challenge you not to think of dirty things while listening to this song.

Even though Saget sucked in "Full House" and was never funny in "America's Funniest Home Videos", he's a lot better and more vulgar doing stand up.

Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again

New York Times - April 11, 2010 As a retired clinical psychologist, Clark Martin was well acquainted with traditional treatments for depression, but his own case seemed untreatable as he struggled through chemotherapy and other grueling regimens for kidney cancer. Counseling seemed futile to him. So did the antidepressant pills he tried. Nothing had any lasting effect until, at the age of 65, he had his first psychedelic experience. He left his home in Vancouver, Wash., to take part in an experiment at Johns Hopkins medical school involving psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient found in certain mushrooms. Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them in the 1960s with the slogan “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Now, using rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to study once again the drugs’ potential for treating mental problems and illuminating the nature of consciousness. Full story... Psilocybin @ wiki

Rocket to Uranus

After a long period of inactivity the Vengaboys are producing a new song; Rocket to Uranus, it's supposed to be their gayest song yet, maybe even gayer than a handbag full of rainbows. However I doubt it's going to be as gay as "What, What, In the Butt". So I'm guessing they are going to pronounce it jʊˈreɪnəs and not the less ambiguous ˈjʊərənəs. You can hear the pronunciations here.

Top US Marginal Income Tax Rates

Did you know that the US has had high income tax rates in the 90% range for decades. Up to 1963 it was 91% for all income over $400,000. Now it's at 35%. Somewhat related:

From alternet In 2009, the worst economic year for working people since the Great Depression, the top 25 hedge fund managers walked off with an average of $1 billion each. With the money those 25 people “earned,” we could have hired 658,000 entry level teachers. (They make about $38,000 a year, including benefits.) Those educators could have brought along over 13 million young people, assuming a class size of 20. That’s some value.

The income from hedge funds is capital gains and only taxed at 15%

Diogenes of Sinope

What a great character.

This guy had some nice ideas. However I can't identify with his lifestyle. From what I know about Greek philosophers I agree most with Epicurus.

The Rockets of Ukraine

The Ukraine has three launch vehicles (rockets): the Dnepr, Zenit and Tsyklon. All come from the Soviet era. The Dnepr and Tsyklon are modified ICBMs and the Tsyklon is a rocket booster for the Energia.

The Ukraine does not have any launch facilities and launches from Russia or Kazakhstan. The Zenit can also be launch from a modified oil platform.

The Dnepr will retry to bring Cryosat-2 (the first exploded) into space today. It launches from a silo, starting with an explosion under the rocket to bring it out of the silo.

Dnepr launch:

Zenit launch.
Tsyklon launch.

Wall of Death, with cars!

The Wall of Death or motordrome is a carnival sideshow featuring a drum- or barrel-shaped wooden cylinder, ranging from 20 to 36-feet in diameter, in which stunt motorcyclists ride and carry out tricks. This one takes it a bit further.

Fun interactive 3D simulating cube

Cubee is an interactive cubic fish tank VR display system that enables viewing from around all the screens. Its perspective-corrected rendering and real-time physics simulation establish an interaction metaphor of having real objects inside a physical box that a user can manupulate.

Rules of Engagement

"WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.
After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement"."


NY Times article from 2007.
Longer video with more civilians shot.

---

You have probably all seen this by now, but fuck, they are too shoot-happy, report 6 armed men while it's 2 possibly armed and shoot civilians trying to help the wounded. This is only a news story because journalists are involved.

Banks Peninsula

"Banks Peninsula forms the most prominent volcanic feature of the South Island. Geologically, the peninsula comprises the eroded remnants of two large stratovolcanoes (Lyttelton formed first, then Akaroa). These formed due to intraplate volcanism between approximately eleven and eight million years ago (Miocene) on a continental crust. The peninsula formed as offshore islands, with the volcanoes reaching to about 1,500 m above sea level." View Larger Map

How It Was Made, Pictorial Webster

Resynthesize Example

Here is a resynthesize example I just created, pretty fun to play with :)

Jimmy Carr's Laugh

Whole show is here if you're interested.

Where science meets art

Operation Cornflakes

"Operation Cornflakes was a World War II Office of Strategic Services PSYOP mission in 1944 and 1945 which involved tricking the German postal service Deutsche Reichspost into inadvertently delivering anti-Nazi propaganda to German citizens through mail.

The operation involved special planes that were instructed to airdrop bags of false, but properly addressed mail in the vicinity of bombed mail trains. When recovering the mail during clean-up of the wreck, the postal service would hopefully confuse the false mail for the real thing and deliver it to the various addresses.

The content of the mail often included copies of Das Neue Deutschland, the Allies' German language propaganda news sheet. In addition, the postage stamps used were subtly designed to resemble the standard stamp with Adolf Hitler's face, but a close examination would reveal that his face is made to look like an exposed skull or similarly unflattering imagery. Also, the country identifier 'Deutsches Reich' (German Empire) read 'Futsches Reich' (Kaput Empire)."

Topographic Maps on Android

I bought the HTC magic for the GPS functionality, the rest was all bonus. I just tested the free 1:50,000 New Zealand topographic maps. It works well with the free OruxMaps app. Don't need an internet connection for this. I only die when out of power.

Androids are almost ready to take over

Ok, not quite, but they're getting there.

She can even sing using a Vocaloid.

Obama sells "Health Reform is a BFD" t-shirt