Nathan

Plumbing problems

No matter how much technology we have had, no matter how advanced our electricity, heating, and other utilities were, for the longest time, water pressure has been a major limiting factor in the construction of skyscrapers and megastructures. Without making a new utility shelf every few floors on a building, water pumps for buildings would either have to be made unrealistically large, often underground because of that, or they would have tobe put in the ceilings, where they  would make sounds that would disturb the occupants.

Scientists at the University of Kentucky have the answer. Carbon nanotubes are created by rolling up and fusing the sides of an incredibly thin piece of graphite. This would have to be done by machine, though, because the tubes would be so small that 65 billion of them would be able to fit though a 1 square inch piece of paper.

Because of the nature of the tube, it offers much more capacity for far more radical water solutions:

1. The tube is so thin, it is almost entirely unaffected by gravity. This allows water to be pumped up in increments directly related to the consumption, with very few limitations. Scientists have even begun setting the mold for "smart" buildings that would detect behavior that would lead to water consumption, such as heading for a water fountain or entering a bathroom.

2. The tube's molecular bonds allow it to be incredibly strong when a high-pressure environment develops on the inside. This allows greater pressure to be applied to the pipes, despite the fact that very little pressure will be needed as it is.

3. The tube is incredibly smooth, and has barely any friction. This actually allows, in joint with number 2, water to flow at an unbelievable 3.3 feet per second, a speed nearly impossible in conventional piping.

Burj Dubai

Burj Dubai, almost certain future holder of the title "World's tallest building", is coming along remarkably fast. When I first learned of the building, I thought it was just another hypothetical concept that might be started in 2010, and even then, would probably not come to any fruition. However, Burj Dubai is nothing like that--in fact, it is already halfway done.

At over 100 floors tall already, and planned for up to 189 floors, the superstructure towers over the city and is already higher up than the Empire State Building. With the next 30 or so floors, it will become the World's tallest building, if you count the unfinished structure as a building.

Along with the rest of the city, Burj Dubai is one of more than twenty skyscrapers currently being built. The city is growing like a weed, and in a picture of Burj Dubai as it is so far, At least two dozen more tower cranes can be seen on the tops of other skyscrapers in the background. Who knows, Dubai could become one of the most influential cities on Earth, after the long-established media cities like New York or Tokyo.

My house

I decided to build myself a giant house in Google Sketch. I will post regualar updates here.

The first update:

Note: the house is still in its very early stages, so many lines, textures, colors, and shapes are still not set in stone. They ar also, consiquentially, ugly placeholders. Please pardon this until I can get farther in. Many lines are in the model ONLY for the placement of other objects. They will not be in the final model.

Some pictures of the current model:

This is an overview of the model as seen from a flying angle. If you click on the picture to open the pop-up window (If you use firefox, this may be messed up) You can see the door, the large main entrance, the road, the entrance-hole-thing to the the underground garage, the fountain (one of two, the second one is coming soon) and the white marble walls.

A pleasant view of the door from the main entrance. I tried to create almost a tunnel-like feel to the main entrance. If you click to zoom in, you can see the massive arched window above the doors. You can clearly see the lines on the inner walls of the building, to the left and right of the door. These are floor divisions to help me place windows.

A much closer view of the door. Here you can clearly see the bridge, under which I plan to have a small river flowing. Also note the steps up (not easy) the big arched window (not easy at all) and the column (really, really hard for it's size). I like the column job I did, so there is a close up in the next few pictures.

Getting closer. Note that you can see through the window, though at this point only into the unfinished interior, which is basically a giant white box. I personally made a square for every pane of  glass on the big arched window,because making a grid would not work. Every pane of glass is made up of four lines, not just four grid line segments.

Ah, the column. This was probably harder than any other part of the house. I started with a bunch of lines in a grid pattern  on the gold-colored entrance wall thing, turned it black, deleted all the lines except the outside barriers, pulled out the back base, and then added the inverted curved steps. Ugh...

A closer view of the arched window. As I said earlier, I made every individual pane of glass, not just a big grid pattern. Because of the glass, the walls around it, and the spiderweb pattern, a grid pattern would make some kind of a glitch in the program and turn the whole window some shade of brown. So I did it the long way.

One of two views of the one fountain I have made so far. The "water" is actually just a shade of tinted "glass" laid over the spot where it looks like it would go. It wouldn't be featured in a movie, but for an inexperienced amateur SketchUp house, I think it suits the fountain fine.

Another, brighter view of the fountain. You can more e asily see the water here, as well as the path around it. I hope this is to scale when compared with the rest of the building; it's very hard to tell sometimes.

A view of the car hole.  I am certainly not having my staff parking on the grass in the courtyard. This leads to an underground car garage.

A view of the main entrance. I like the style of the "tunnel". I measured it to about 30 feet high at the apex of the arch, which would probably make it about 75 feet wide, or about the width of six lanes. Not bad.

A good aerial view. Here you can see the finished fountain and the place for the other one, as well as all the other features of the house. Because of the width of the roof, I have to wonder whether I will make a full roof, or just roofs at the edges, and a walkway, air vents, or whatever in between. Yopu acdjafvjsjaefjeafjae! ahahahaha....oh well. Im an indiot. try to hit the bumblebee?!!! Thats a bad thing. Dont b =eeaefmaefmaee

Another view, this time of the whole house from nearly straight up above.  Yes, the house is a giant O. Here you can easily see why I have a dilemma with the roof. Something of that thickness, even at a low angle, would rise several stories into the air.

  A good view of the bridge. I will likely have a small river running under it, just for aesthetic reasons. There are some discrepancies and unnecessary lines that I will try to do away with, but then again, you have to look close to see the problems.

A view of the courtyard from inside the unfinished white box, through the window and doors. The bridge looks giant from this angle, but with good reason. You could fit a car across.

One last good view.

New innovations and previews

Popular science has come around with it's Best of What's New 2006, so for the next several weeks, I will be writing about these interesting things.

We will start with the engineering innovations. Today I will be reviewing Beijings 2008 Olympics swimming pool facility, appropriately dubbed "The Water Cube":

Due to be finished next year, a curious blue square can be spotted along the Beijing coastline. This square is, in fact, The Water Cube, a marvel of engineering in obvious and unobvious ways. Seating 17,000, housing 5 pools, and altogether spanning 7.8 acres, the swimming facility was built without a single structural support, beam, or tether. Instead, it contains thousands of weight-bearing nodes housed in the roof.

The building is not unlike some of the squares little children make using dish soap. If there were no buildings to compare it against, nor people, it could easily be mistaken for a block of foam. This building won the 2006 grand engineering innovation prize, and may lead the way for factory buildings, warehouses, and large facilities in general in the future.

See the water cube here.

Read in-depth here.

My favorite picks from the Megagoods 2.0 2006 review

Here is a sampling of a few of the most fascinating goodies from the November Megagoods 2.0 review from Popsci.com:

 
Literally throwing the tent: The new 2-Second Air from Quechua of France is the solution to all camping crises; most people have observed, or worse, experienced the annoyances of trying to assemble some tents. This tent assembles in the 2 seconds that it flies. You throw it into the air, not unlike a big Frisbee, and like magic, it is ready for you to climb into and hide from the bears before it even hits the ground.

 
http://decathlontent.com/, 69US$ from Quechua.

 
The Hippie flash drive: Not only does this odd flash drive come in sizes up to 1 Gigabyte of memory, it also comes in what will become your favorite chunk of wood. These peppy little sapling chunks are precision milled to contain a powerful flash drive. Watch your coworkers faces when you plug a section of an oak branch into their USB port.

 
oooms.nl 57-90US$

 
This one doesn’t shatter: When you really have a need for a rugged laptop, perhaps if your going to go be a journalist in some Middle-Eastern country, you need the General Dynamics GoBook XR-1, the incredibly durable notepad. The little thing can survive a terminal velocity impact, and it completely water, sand, and idiot proof.

 
gd-computing.com $4,330

Go to Popsci.com and look at the Megagoods 2.0 review