danelabonte

Photo of the evergreens dusted in snow in my backyard last night

Snowing animation courtesy of Google+ Auto Awesome. Upload photos to Google+ and Google Auto Awesome will add this snowing animation to photos it decides are about snow. You can remove the animation if you don’t like it.

http://click-to-read-mo.re/p/51OS

Five Important Changes to the new LEED v4 Green Building Rating System

1 – Building level energy metering prerequisite
2 – Water use prerequisite
3 – Demand response credit
4 – Renewable energy production credit
5 – Advanced energy metering prerequisite

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/5-energy-changes-to-leed-v.4

http://click-to-read-mo.re/p/4ZVx

Construction industry could add 300,000 jobs in 2014

Construction added 17,000 jobs in November 2013.

Since June, the U.S. construction workforce has grown by 60,000.

http://www.equipmentworld.com/construction-expected-to-boost-u-s-economy-by-adding-300k-workers-in-2014/

http://click-to-read-mo.re/p/4ZVw

The Navy and NSF want to use 3D printers to construct buildings

Concrete printers would be able to build a 2,500-square-foot building within a single day.

For the military, that means soldiers deploying to a remote location with little or no infrastructure could be operating out of permanent structures pretty soon after a combat engineer unit arrived with printers and material aboard a C-17.

Essentially, building via printer would work just like any computer assisted manufacturing program. But instead of a robotic tap and die machine turning out parts according to a program, it would be an oversized printer following programmed schematics to lay down, layer by layer, a building, including outside and interior walls, spaces for doors and windows and all electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning conduits.

The machines working now are capable of printing out high strength concrete walls able to bear a compressive stress of 10,000 psi (conventional concrete has a psi of 7,000 or less).

Khoshnevis says 3D construction is likely the solution to be “one of the very few feasible approaches for building structures on the Moon and Mars, which are being targeted for human colonization before the end of the new century.”

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/01/21/navy-helps-fund-3d-printing-buildings/

http://click-to-read-mo.re/p/4ZUx

Navy Rail Gun Showing Promise

The rail gun is a long-range, high-energy, multi-mission weapon able to fire high-velocity projectiles three times as far as most existing Navy guns.

The rail gun, which can hit ranges of 100 miles or more, uses electricity stored on the ship to generate a high-speed electromagnetic pulse sufficient to propel a kinetic energy warhead. The result is an inexpensive, high-impact and long-range offensive weapon.

In addition to range and lethality advantages, the rail gun is also much less expensive than other weapons in the Navy arsenal to operate — the rounds cost about $25,000 each.

The gun is high-heat and high-energy so cooling technologies are required.

y developers are moving into a second phase of testing for an electromagnetic rail gun that Navy leaders hope to mount to surface ships in the future.

http://defensetech.org/2014/01/16/navy-rail-gun-showing-promise/

http://click-to-read-mo.re/p/4ZUy

Violetta was a sideshow performer in the 1920s born without arms or legs

“She moved herself by hopping from place to place on the bottom of her torso, and was able to manipulate objects with her mouth enough to comb her own hair, dress herself, thread a needle, and sew.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violetta_(performer)

http://click-to-read-mo.re/p/4ZyY