Posts made by dale

Funny, I just took this the other day.

http://youtu.be/LfjHrWOVkgE

I love and use concrete a lot, and have built a lot of countertops over the years, and I wouldn't hesitate to build it as you have it designed.
Attached is a test done on Glass Fiber Reinforced concrete with no rebar, and it resists 1100 lbs befor breaking, so with rebar as per your design..... no problem

But if you really want to have some fun you should get into Fabric Cast Concrete.

This is interesting Richard, and I have use SIPs a fair amount, but the laws of Physics, and in particular the laws of Thermodynamics state that heat migrates to cold. In what I can determine, this takes place at a faster rate if 2 materials are in contact.
What has been of interest to me is radiant barriers. And in particular their mis-use. My inquiries seem to indicate that if a radian barrier is in contact with either the cold or the warm side material, it is virtually useless,in terms of R or U value. But upon separation becomes quite effective.
What some claim is that an air space slows down the transfer, and in essence makes the warm mass side more effective.
This could be all crap, but I throw it out for discussion, as the devil is in the details.

Let's drop em!

As a Canadian, I guess it's supposed to be my job to foist this thing on you so we can continue to live in luxury up here in the North.
We have our own pipeline battle up here, called Gateway.
The thing is, from my point of view, this is about we Canadians shipping Tarsands oil/bitumen to others, versus your point of view if you are from the US( or Asia in the case of Gateway)
then it is about where and how you source your oil, and the credibility and lies over the safety of transporting oil this way.
I'm not in favour of either pipeline.
But I think this is a classic case of divide and conquer on the part of the oil industry.
My question is; Is there any other oil you are going to source that is resourced, transported, consumed, that does not have the potential to harm the environment in its
path from wellhead to your SUV and beyond into the atmosphere?
Why is this divide ans conquer? The debate over the viability of fossil fuels has been scattered to many battlefields including pipelines, rail transport, tanker transport, off shore development, arctic development, and so on.
Whereas the thing is, dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, is greatly threatening our planet.
Spilling it in the ocean, rivers, and into the ground, are greatly threatening our planet.
Just wait till they play the "This is in the County's bet interest card"
Money trumps reason.

@mike lucey said:

@dale said:

Mike

I would not be surprised to see the fracking / oil companies arguing that Global Warming will solve the fresh water shortage when the Ice Caps melt

The epitome of spin doctoring.... ouch.

Mike
One of the real concerns with fracking is the amount of clean surface, and in some cases ground water it takes to frack a well or shale bed, as this is the main medium the in the fracking fluid.
In areas of Alberta where there is heavy fracking there is a noticeable depletion of surface water. Fracking is up for review there this year and there are rumblings it may be stopped. However, the cynic in me doubts it, as I have yet to see money not trump environmental concerns.

Have her milled up. Looks like there would be some fine figured wood in there!

Great work as usual Dave.
I'm thinking with a little modification I could build one of these babies and use it for the old age "walker" I'm inevitably headed for. Outclass all the old folks at the seniors home.

Greetings from the frozen North.
Ah Canada.
Our banking system, which is highly regulated, pretty much dodged the sub-prime debacle, which had the effect of keeping our keel even.
But since our #1 trading partner is the U.S. it has a profound effect on some sectors in particular manufacturing.
In Canada we are so spread out it means economies are really regional, and therefore some provinces feel the economic downturn more than others.
In the western Provinces, where I live, I believe there is really more talk of hard times than actual hard times. Mining in mining exploration and development, oil, both from standard sources, and the much debated tar sands, are both booming. Forestry has been hard hit although recent markets such as China are putting it on the upswing. Construction, commercially is doing well, but residential is down, but that is mostly because of a built up surplus, and a real estate bubble keeping prices high.
I think the difference I see in the past few years is the labour force lives in one area, and works in another.
I know that Central Canada, has been harder hit, as this is where the manufacturing primarily takes place. There has also been down sizing of the auto manufacturing here moving plants to where workers are not so highly paid.
I'm not well connected with the Eastern Provinces, so really not sure how they are faring.

Simon...... are you still out there?

We've worked with several permaculturalists on very intensive projects we have been involved in, and all of them could be considered small in scale.
What amazed me about them was firstly the amount of production out of small spaces, and the variety.
One Victoria (Canada) based permaculturist, raises both the food he eats, and enough surplus that he sells to Victoria restaurants. His garden is quite amazing.
If your interested have a look at the work of Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, the guys who started it all.

Permaculture, now you talking.

There are a couple of ways, but if you right click on the circle to the left of the poster's name you can "Bookmark this Link"

Congratulations Mike. My Grandkids have been the light of my life. Enjoy every minute of them.

Hey Dave
Just finished a stint on a design build project before Christmas where it hit -29. We hooked up a generator and held a hair dryer on the electricians hands so he could do the main drop to a transformer.
Beer doesn't work for that... you need Rum
Good Luck and stay warm.

I have been working in a place where I have no internet, and have to drive to get cell coverage, so I was really afraid I would miss out. But got home today and registered, so will be on my way. Judy is coming again as well.
Looks like the format will be back to a more planned session format versus the unconference style. I think this is a good move.

Mistro
I have worked with a Mac on SketchUp, Kerkythea, and Thea for quite some time, and all of that software works flawlessly.
I do agree with chedda that you should go over to the Thea site and have a look at the specs, particularly to take advantage of Thea Presto's GPU capabilities. Here is a link to what Giannis, the developer has to say about it.http://www.thearender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=85093#p85093
Thea is fantastic software, and the development pace is exceptional.

Of course it depends on what exactly you are trying to accomplish, but using the tape measure tool to give yourself a guide to snap to, in conjunction with the move tool can be helpful.

Yes I think the article is really aimed a grid tie systems concentrating on peak demand. I don't think their intention was to have solo users change their orientation.
Nice reference to Lemmings in the article you posted wind-borne. You see a lot of this in the skim reader viral society we seem to live in now.