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im not from california, but i did play wipe-out on my desk. didnt you?
bozo under the sea
finally researched this album after siting it for years as the obvious inspiration for the b52s rock lobster. "there goes a jelly fish, there goes a sting ray." they got that here!
this 20' over 40' (junkyard?) arrangement (found by luis) achieves the general format i would like to pursue . only missing are the six 4x8' ceiling to floor window/doors i would use.
Meanwhile, homeowners are working through the Road Home decision process, in which the state will fill the gap between insurance and property value up to $150,000. Owners can decide to use the funds to repair, rebuild, or relocate. More likely, owners will remain undecided for a while, waiting to see what actions the city and their neighbors take. Billions of dollars in insurance settlements are sitting in New Orleans banks, as owners ponder their next move. Thus, although progress is being made, significant uncertainty remains. The same is true of rental housing programs.
Finally, this week saw the welcome news that (a) the Mayor's office will finally be a central player in the recovery planning process, and (b) the recovery implementation office will be run by one of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning's own, Ed Blakely. Ed has a challenging job ahead to organize a disjointed city bureaucracy, collaborate with a City Council that has only recently begun to work with the Mayor, expedite the flow of funds, and repair as much as possible as quickly as possible for an impatient and weary populace. Ed wrote the book on economic development planning, but never has one of our colleagues faced a bigger economic development challenge.
As with my previous reports, it is clear that New Orleans is strongly moving in positive directions, which is quite exciting to see. But, as before, many uncertainties still remain. In this still-turbulent environment, it continues to be difficult to predict what will occur even one week ahead. The long-term success of the planning process rests largely on its ability, over the next month, to make progress on the issue of risk reduction. And the new recovery office is yet to be born, so we can't be sure how it will play out (we are rooting for Ed). Finally, thousands of individuals have yet to decide how to invest billions of dollars. So, as has been true for some time, the mantra of planners in New Orleans continues to be, "We should have a much clearer idea over the next couple of months or so."
the box (they really call them cans)
google patent
mikano house
move to philly
barn conversion
nice one in zionsville pa in "on the market" for $380K
rollertoaster
via zars
bartok radio budapest 3
radio b.a.c.h.
via straight-up and the overgrown path and the well-tempered blog
american tin ceilings installation instruction video
my first exposure to python happened in dallas. live appearance (after a first season) in 1975 on kera - i distinctly recall the armadillo bit
via zoller
sailboatescape tells it:
BJC,
Sounds as if you have been a mostly silent but studious reader with real plans to do something of significance. It also is apparent you wish to do it in the best possibly way and I personally applaud your approach. Since you state you are designing it and then handing it over to an engineer, I assume you have a general knowledge of what might and might not work in a structure.
Re engineering of containers is a tiny business in the world of containers with only a handful of experienced firms such as TAW. I believe these firms are usually making modifications to containers that must then be recertified to be handled (and presumably stacked) in the world wide transport system—a hugely different undertaking than modifying it to be used in a dwelling structure. However, that’s not to imply that modifications made to use them in housing is easy to analyze and those modifying containers for use in housing is an even smaller group. I haven’t started building yet but I have also been studying and researching everything I can in preparation and will gladly share what I have learned. A lot of it is from this forum, most notably David Cross’s generous sharing of knowledge.
I know of four basic references: MIL-HDBK-138B which is the DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE HANDBOOK GUIDE TO CONTAINER INSPECTION FOR COMMERCIAL AND MILITARY INTERMODAL CONTAINERS. Next is Rules for Certification of Cargo Containers from the American Bureau of Shipping. I found both of these as downloadable PDF files on the internet. I apologize as I did not make a note of where I found them. I remember the military guide was easy to find and the ABS was buried on their website.
The more definitive reference is ISO 1496-1. As far as I know this is not available for download anywhere and a copy is about $90. However, some large libraries will have it and the one in my small town participates in a loan program where they were able to obtain it for me. Lastly and most importantly will be the reference books your engineer will have for steel structural members, as that is how he really should be looking at this.
Another thing to keep in mind is the prescribed specifications for cargo containers give some leeway in how those specifications can be met. The top rail on one container may be different than another but both work as long as the resulting container meets the specifications. However, the modifications to one container may need to be different than what you would do on a different container to get the same results. David Cross would be qualified to address this, but I think you are going to have to know the specifics of the containers you intend to use before your engineer can do the calcs.
As both David Cross and Greg La Vardera have pointed out here before, every house will be different. Most 40’ containers are designed to carry a load of just under 60,000 pounds. A residential structure is designed for a floor load of 40 pounds per square foot which is only 12,800 pounds for that 320 square foot container. That 40’ container is designed to carry that load on four corners, most conventional house designs can easily have piers or foundations supporting sections of the container as needed. David has pointed out before that much of the reinforcing he does at TAW on modified containers is so they can be transported. If you can set yours in place and modify them on site that will also increase your flexibility in making them strong enough to exceed the requirements of a residential structure. From a design standpoint, not making a lot of modifications (or adding reinforcements where you do) allows you to use them to do overhangs and cantilevers that would be difficult to achieve with conventional construction.
Based on the conversations I have had with structural engineers, we will not approach it from what a container is designed to carry (other than to recognize that it is an incredibly strong structure that can easily take a good bit of modification). The initial designs and proposed supports etc. will be my work based simply on a working knowledge of designing and building conventional structures, gained over years of experience. When I am designing a house and incorporate something that must have an engineers seal, I do not go to an engineer and ask them to design the structural portion. I design what I think will work and take it to them to for an analysis. Most of the time it is acceptable and if not, they tell me how to change or modify what I propose. For my house designed with IBUs, together we will then look at the structure as a dwelling and how strong does it need to be to carry the prescribed floor loads, perform under seismic and wind loads, etc. He will then make an analysis of areas that appear to be of questionable strength due to proposed modifications to see if they are adequate in how I propose they be supported, reinforced, etc.
The question that keeps getting asked on this forum is how much can you modify a container and the experts keep giving the same answer—each one is different. Ask an engineer how much you can modify a container and it still be strong enough would probably be a very expensive question (in engineering fees) as there would be hundreds of “it depends” answers. If instead you are taking him (or her) a design and asking, “will an opening of such and such a size, placed here, with a remaining corrugated steel plate of this thickness above, a steel beam of this size below and a reinforcing frame welding around the opening of this section, be adequate at this place in the structure considering the prescribed loading conditions?” He can sit down with his tables and computer and give you an answer. If he starts with the most questionable areas first he will quickly become familiar with what the parts of the container are and their capacities and move on through his analysis.
Keep sight of the fact that I an starting with the premise that it is probably designed adequately and that my engineer is being engaged to examine that design, make recommendations if he finds areas that are not acceptable and then certify it.
Keep us posted and give us more details, not only on your design but your geographic area in terms of climate, building and zoning codes. Etc.
the elevators - your gonna miss me - dell is using this as advertising music n how do you make a psychedelic video in black and white?
via jschw
samuel adams ~ psychogeography
"Monochromes, from Malevich to the Present," recently on view at the Museo National Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, was described by its curator, Barbara Rose, as the first historically oriented museum exhibition conceived and presented entirely as a unitary installation. The 90 paintings and sculptures, which spanned the last 100 years and included works by 78 artists from North and South America, Western and Eastern Europe "and Asia, were grouped in six distinct contiguous "chromatic spaces" according to their predominant color, in an itinerary which began with black, moved through red, blue, gold and silver, before ending with white. In a small adjacent gallery were several paintings tracing a brief chronology of historical antecedents. These included Monet's Effet de neige a Giverny (1893), an early (1906-08) Monet-influenced landscape by Malevich, Rodchenko's three iconic monochromes from 1921, as well as works by Lucio Fontana, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.catalog just released in october
9/11 photobucket images
remodeled dream home
via zoller
We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels 'cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
but the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray
And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale
She said, 'There is no reason
and the truth is plain to see.'
But I wandered through my playing cards
and would not let her be
one of sixteen vestal virgins
who were leaving for the coast
and although my eyes were open
they might have just as well've been closed
She said, 'I'm home on shore leave,'
though in truth we were at sea
so I took her by the looking glass
and forced her to agree
saying, 'You must be the mermaid
who took Neptune for a ride.'
But she smiled at me so sadly
that my anger straightway died
If music be the food of love
then laughter is its queen
and likewise if behind is in front
then dirt in truth is clean
My mouth by then like cardboard
seemed to slip straight through my head
So we crash-dived straightway quickly
and attacked the ocean bed
curbed found a corbu lobby chair heist
dark terry southern story (mp3) from here
Baudrillard’s rejection of art was all the more unexpected, and appeared all the more outrageous to those who believed he had crossed over. And yet he didn’t seem to notice the contradiction. The episode of the “simulationist school” (and of the “anti-simulationist” controversy) may have had something to do with it. In 1987 Baudrillard didn’t yet know much about the American art world and didn’t quite realize what was happening around his name. At best, he told me later, he sensed that “there was something fishy there” [Je me suis méfié] with a sound peasant-like distrust of sleek city talkers. So he flatly refused to play into the artists’ hands. He might as well have acceded their demand, the way he subsequently accepted the gallerists’ offer to exhibit his photographs because it would eventually have amounted to the same. What could anything one does ever be wrong coming “after the orgy”? If art ceased to matter as art, then what prevented anyone from joining in? Actually that he, who admittedly had no artistic claim or pedigree, would be invited to exhibit his work, amply proved his point: there was nothing special anymore about art. Groucho Marx once said that he would never join a club that accepted him as a member. Baudrillard did worse: he joined a group whose reasons to exist he publicly denied.
“Pataphysician at twenty – situationist at thirty – utopian at forty – transversal at fifty – viral and metaleptic at sixty – the whole of my history,”9 is the way Baudrillard once epitomized his own itinerary. Pataphysics was founded by Alfred Jarry, creator of Ubu, the brat-king with a paunch. It is the science of imaginary solutions, and this is precisely what Baudrillard reinvented in the circumstance. A pataphysical solution to a problem that didn’t exist. Because he certainly had no problem with it. Others may have, but it was their problem and it wasn’t up to him to solve it. Attacking art and becoming an artist all at the same time was perfectly acceptable in his book. He hadn’t asked to show his photographs, merely obliged. As far as he knew, they may have been trying to bribe him publicly, some kind of “sting operation” by the art squad. But they always implicate you in one way or another, so at least it was all above board. It was part of the "conspiracy" of art. Baudrillard didn’t have to feel any qualms about it, could even enjoy the ride for what it was worth. Early on he learned from French anthropologist Marcel Mauss that “gifts” always come with a vengeance. He knew he would eventually have to reciprocate, squaring the circle. And he did: he wrote “The Conspiracy of Art.”