High Anxiety: Rooftop Excavators Tear Down from Up Top

High Anxiety: Rooftop Excavators Tear Down from Up Top: [ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture & Design & Urbanism. ]

Rooftop excavators? On my multistory highrise building? It’s more likely than you think, especially in China where painting one’s self into a corner is no longer just for painters anymore. The difference here is, the corner in question could be several hundred feet above the ground.

Demolition, Man

(image via: ChinaSMACK)

Hydraulic excavators are often used in Chinese demolition projects to quickly bring down roofs. This can be somewhat problematic when the roof – and the building beneath it – just happens to be supporting the multi-ton excavator being used to do the demolition.

(images via: Ynet.com, Skyscraper City and QQ.com)

Consider also that high-rise roofs aren’t designed to support great concentrations of weight, and the roofs doing the supporting belong to buildings being knocked down because (generally) they’re having trouble staying up.

(images via: RobertG69 and Dog Brothers Forum)

The situation is even more problematic in China, where a combination of lax workplace safety laws and shoddy construction has given rise to a world where buildings are slapped together, sold, condemned and torn down – often within just a few short years. Sometimes the buildings don’t wait for the demolition men: what goes up too quickly, often comes down even quicker.

Don’t Claw Us, We’ll Claw You

(images via: ChinaSMACK)

Here’s a lone excavator hard at work on top of the 12-story Shanxi Science and Technology Hotel in the Chinese city of Taiyuan. The slender, triangular building has a very limited amount of roof space in which the excavator’s driver can manoeuvre, yet manoeuvre he must if the building is going to be eaten away down to ground level.

(images via: ChinaSMACK)

Click here to watch a short video from CNS News that shows the rooftop excavation project from various angles, including from the roof itself. It’s in Chinese but as they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words!

(images via: Sina Weibo and NetEase)

One assumes that the excavator claws a certain amount of material from one side of the roof, and then drives over to the reduced area and does the same to the place he just left, over and over again.

(images via: AcidCow)

Alternatively, a ground-based crane might just pick up the excavator and plop it down (not too hard!) on another portion of the roof. It’s not rocket science, though working atop an unsteady platform honeycombed with rooms and open areas may still end up with the worker flying through space.

Knocked Up, Sold Off, Knocked Down

(images via: Sweet Cherry Cake)

Readers surely must be asking, “why not just dynamite the building such that it collapses in on itself?” Ask any expert, controlled demolition is a precise and delicate operation which, if unsuccessful, cold result in extensive collateral damage to surrounding buildings and nearby construction workers – not to mention TONS of dust to sweep up. Believe it or not, in China at least, demolition via rooftop excavator is the safer, cleaner, and above all cheaper option.

(images via: Daily Mail UK and Sweet Cherry Cake)

The 18-story residential apartment building depicted here in mid-demolition a few weeks ago was built in the city of Taizhou, located in eastern China’s Zheijiang Province… in January of 2011! Yes indeed, the highrise didn’t even last one full year before the ground beneath it began settling unevenly, eventually causing the building (and several others nearby) to be deemed unsafe.

(images via: Sweet Cherry Cake)

Consider the plight of a Mr. Zhan, who bought a unit on the building’s 16th floor yet had to move out just 17 hours after moving in when a structural support pillar cracked. “I heard loud banging sounds like an explosion,” explained Zhan to reporters from China Daily, “it was really scary. I bought my unit because of the beautiful ocean view. It’s such a pity I can’t live in it.” Hope you’ve got Collapsing Building Insurance, Zhan.

Deconstruction Wizards of Oz

(images via: Riotact)

Rooftop excavation is not exclusive to China, it seems, as these images from several demolition projects in Australia indicate. The above scene from earlier this year showed demolition underway in central Canberra.

(images via: Riotact and Brisbane Times)

Unlike similar building demolitions in China, however, the Aussies use smaller excavators on lower buildings which are wrapped in protective covers to corral debris.

Rooftop Excavators, How Do They Work?

(images via: 2DayBlog and AcidCow)

You might be wondering how these huge hydraulic excavators get up to their precarious perches in the first place. Giant helicopters? The service elevator? Disassembled, brought to the roof and reassembled? Maybe each highrise was built with an excavator entombed on the roof in anticipation of its eventual demolition, or perhaps the excavators simply climb up the balconies, floor by floor.

(image via: ClubSNAP)

Actually, if the building isn’t too high the excavators can be lifted to the top by much larger, ground-based construction cranes as shown above. The ground-based cranes are designed to lift, not dig, so using them to reduce the heights of condemned buildings is not a viable option.

(images via: Crushing Machine and AcidCow)

Once in place up on the roof, it’s dig, dig and dig some more… which leads to the next question: where does all the excavated dirt and debris go, especially in a crowded urban environment like that of Datong City in China’s Shanxi province? Either it’s going down the central elevator shaft, or (more likely) dumped over the side.

(image via: AcidCow)

A word of advice: if you wake up one morning, look out your window and see an excavator of the roof of the neighboring building, be sure to wear your hard hat before walking out your front door. Better yet, call in sick and don’t go out at all lest a rooftop excavator turn you into an ex-person.

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[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture & Design & Urbanism. ]




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High-tech helps to drive down jobless rate in capital region

High-tech helps to drive down jobless rate in capital region: "Edoc develops and sells software services to assist marine transportation companies, such as tugboat operators, organize and track operations. Its market is concentrated in North America, particularly in the southeastern U.S."

'via Blog this'

The global power shift: Paddy Ashdown on TED.com

The global power shift: Paddy Ashdown on TED.com:

Paddy Ashdown claims that we are living in a moment in history where power is changing in ways it never has before. In a spellbinding talk at TEDxBrussels he outlines the three major global shifts that he sees coming. (Recorded at TEDxBrussels 2011, November 2011, in Brussels, Belgium. Duration: 18:30.)

Watch Paddy Ashdown’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 1,000+ TEDTalks.

Lectures Are Slow to Leave Education

Lectures Are Slow to Leave Education:

Traditional lecture formats are a staple for modern education (Source: Andrew Scott, on Flickr)

Eric Mazur is a professor of physics at Harvard. Like many successful academics, he was trained to teach in the same way he learned — standing in front of a room filled with students and lecturing them on the fundamentals of Newtonian mechanics (among other things). If his course evaluations and lack of empty seats are an indication, Mazur is apparently quite good at this.

“For a long time, I thought I was doing a really, really good job,” Mazur told NPR in a radio segment earlier this week. After encountering some articles by Arizona State physicist David Hestenes, he re-assessed his teaching philosophy.

The lecture is an old form of education. In the days before printing, it arose as a means of mass producing books. One person would read a master copy, and others would write what they heard. In the digital age, however, we are a couple major technological paradigm shifts from that being an efficient way to disseminate information. Arguably, it was never the best way to learn.

What Hestenes realized is that physics was being taught in a way that rewarded parroting formulas, not understanding concepts. Exams demanding qualitative analysis and application of physical laws of nature aren’t solved with a general formula unless the students understand what the calculus represents. Together with a colleague, Hestenes’ response to this insight was to develop a way to assess how well students understood conceptual physics: the Force Concept Inventory (PDF).

The FCI focuses on the Newtonian concept of force, without which the rest of mechanics is meaningless. The example used in the NPR story was the problem of two same-sized objects of different weights falling from the same height. The possible answers favor the heavier or lighter object, or that they will both take the same time to fall. While the FCI is a way to measure the effectiveness of past instruction, it can also become an approach to teaching the concepts in the first place.

For Mazur, his well-received teaching style demonstrated only a modest gain in understanding. His physics class has since changed, making the students debate as the primary means of learning. 100 students will break up into small groups to discuss questions like those posed in the FCI, using mobile tech to vote for an answer before and after they do so. Mazur noted that student understanding triples through this process, culminating in a “peer instruction” session to reinforce the reasons behind the answers.

This re-working of traditional sage-on-the-stage education is a philosophy of education gaining some traction, thanks to open information platforms like YouTube. Khan Academy calls it flipping the classroom, where the information transfer takes place outside of school and working through the concepts together is the best use of time with instructors. Sitting passively in crowded classrooms has other consequences, too. Researchers in Amsterdam announced a significant positive relationship between physical activity and academic performance.

While there appears to be some consensus among professors that lecturing isn’t effective, few are willing to innovate. Many are threatened by what modern technology might do to their job security. Mazur argues that educators need to realize their role in the classroom is changing for the better, from a source of information to a guide in how to use it.

Listen to the full 7-minute segment on NPR.

Obama’s New Defense Plan: Drones, Spec Ops and Cyber War

Obama’s New Defense Plan: Drones, Spec Ops and Cyber War:

The President announced his vision for the future of the U.S. military today. Kiss big counterinsurgencies goodbye. Get ready for more shadow wars, drone attacks and online combat, with the military’s eyes on the Pacific, rather than Afghanistan.

In a rare visit to the Pentagon, President Obama declared that the U.S. will be “strengthening our presence in the Asia-Pacific,” while “turning the page on a decade of war.” In practice, that means cutting the Army and Marine Corps and unspecified “outdated Cold War systems,” part of a broad effort to cut what the Pentagon now calculates as $487 billion over 10 years from its budget.

But it also means that the U.S. is going to lean hard on other military specialties between now and 2020. Obama identified those as “intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, counterterrorism, countering weapons of mass destruction, and the ability to operate in environments where adversaries try to deny us access.”

Translated from the defense wonk: lots of spy tools including drones; lethal special operations forces; offensive cyber weapons; jammers; and a presence to deter and confront Iran — and maybe China, which seeks to keep the Navy and Air Force off its shores.

If this sounds like an updated version of a Pentagon vision from 10 years ago, maybe it should. The military will become “smaller and leaner, but will be agile, flexible, ready and technologically advanced,” according to the brand-new Pentagon document delineating the strategy shift, retaining “cutting-edge capabilities, exploiting our technological, joint and networked advantage.” Somewhere, Donald Rumsfeld is smiling.

But the document doesn’t spell out what that actually means — as in what guns, ships, trucks, planes, and troops are on the chopping block. That’s a task for next year’s defense budget, which the Pentagon is still finalizing and will release in early February. But, as Danger Room reported Wednesday, the Air Force will lose 200 planes and the Army will lose nearly 100,000 soldiers as the Pentagon trims $450 billion from its budget over 10 years. And the document released by the Pentagon vaguely alludes to cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, too.

The attack lines on Obama’s defense strategy were clear before the ink on it dried. Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called it a “retreat from the world,” marked by “massive cuts to our military.” And while the strategy is predicated on a defense budget slimmer by $487 billion over a decade, as currently scheduled, the Pentagon will lose an additional $600 billion-plus over that time starting next year unless Congress agrees on an omnibus deal to shrink the deficit. There’s a lot of time for the military to overturn that deal. But Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned that those further cuts would “force us to shed missions, commitments, and capabilities necessary to protect core national security interests.”

For the past year, the Pentagon has questioned how to revamp the U.S. defense posture — not necessarily because it wanted to, but because the likelihood of budget cuts forced it to rethink how to defend the country for cheaper. Critics deride that process as backwards, with cash driving strategy, rather than strategy guiding Pentagon cash. After all, the last time the Pentagon asked itself what its priorities should be over the next several years, the first answer it provided was to “prevail in today’s wars.” (.pdf) That was February 2010.

No longer. The new strategy “transitions our Defense enterprise from an emphasis on today’s wars to preparing for future challenges,” the document pledges. Those challenges are “inextricably linked to developments in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia.”

But the Pentagon isn’t ending the Shadow Wars — the undeclared attacks on terrorist targets, led by drones and commandos, in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond. Subtly, however, it shifts their purpose. “For the foreseeable future,” the document says, the U.S. will hunt terrorists — “by monitoring the activities of non-state threats worldwide, working with allies and partners to establish control over ungoverned territories, and directly striking the most dangerous groups and individuals when necessary.”

If that means anything substantive, it puts global spying ahead of missions to capture and kill terrorists. Those missions always required intelligence, but it sounds like far-reaching surveillance programs like the Air Force’s wide-area surveillance clusters like Gorgon Stare and the military’s massive spy blimps are about to grow in importance.

Nor is it the U.S. saying it’s getting out of the Middle East. It will “emphasize Gulf security” — which is to say the military’s new priority in the Mideast is to contain Iran. Doing that requires a “premium” on the “presence” of U.S. and allied forces “in and around the region.” Translation: the Air Force will keep its huge airbase at Qatar’s al-Udeid and the Navy’s Fifth Fleet will keep patrolling the Gulf.

But counterinsurgency, the focus of the U.S. Army for the last decade, is all but abolished. Officially, it’s ninth on a list of defense priorities. And even then, the strategy document envisions, at most, “limited counterinsurgency,” whatever that means, since “U.S. forces will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations.”

Even as the military tilts toward the Pacific — which means stressing the Navy and the Air Force — and on spying, jamming, and surgically striking, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned against writing the Army off. “Nowhere in this document does it say we’re never going to fight land wars,” Dempsey said.

Photo: AP

How Attaching Smartphones to Microscopes Could Change Global Health

How Attaching Smartphones to Microscopes Could Change Global Health:

To diagnose a disease like tuberculosis, you need two things: a good microscope and someone who understands medicine.

Andrew Miller spent his senior year of college designing a device that makes the first component more accessible — a portable, battery-powered $240 microscope similar to devices that retail for as much as $40,000. But even as Rice University began field tests with the prototype, he questioned the impact it could make in global health.

“I was inventing this new, cool tech, but I also knew that I wasn’t solving the problem,” he says. “You also need to have people there to use the microscope.”

Bringing healthcare providers to developing countries is not a likely project for a medical device engineer. It turns out, however, that bringing microscope contents to doctors elsewhere was a project that Miller could tackle.

To make diagnosing from a distance more viable, he and his co-founder Tess Bakke developed a simple plastic smartphone holder called Skylight that turns any microscope into a camera. After attaching any camera-phone to any microscope, users can easily take photos and videos of diagnostic slides and share them with doctors elsewhere via email, text or video conferencing.

Hospitals already use cameras that transmit diagnostic images, but these can cost as much as $10,000. Adapters that allow SLR cameras to photograph slides are also easy to find and cost less than $1,000, but SLR cameras are more difficult than camera-phones to find in most of the world. Both of these options are often made for specific modern microscopes, whereas Skylight, which will sell for about $60, fits even microscopes made in 1980.

Miller and Bakke are building the first Skylights with $22,727 they raised through a Kickstarter campaign and prototyping services they won through a Proto Labs contest.

Along the way, they noticed another potential application for the device in schools. Putting smartphones on microscopes allow multiple students to view one microscope at a time.

It also, Miller says, makes microscopes a bit more exciting. “Younger people, who are used to always being with their phones, can interact with old technology in a new way,” he says.

The first Skylight will ship to Kickstarter funders in March.

Though the device has the potential to make the microscope a viable tool for diagnosis in more of the world, the team hasn’t run out of challenges to solve. How to distribute the devices, and where to find doctors who will diagnose images created by camera-phones, are on the top of the list.

More About: global health, kickstarter, Skylight

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Milling ice molds for craft cocktails

Milling ice molds for craft cocktails:

Alcoholics go to meetings, I go to parties

Want some fancy ice for your next cocktail party? You can try to find spherical ice-cube trays but you won’t get the kind of results seen here. It turns out the trick to this isn’t how you freeze the water, it’s how you melt the ice.

[Brendan O'Connor] started this project after seeing an ice mold that could make beautiful shapes rather than just cubes. But the price tag was $1400. If he could make his own at a hackerspace we’d bet that would pay his membership for an entire year!

The concept is pretty simple. The video after the break shows the mold he was trying to recreate. It’s two hunks of metal with a shape milled into them. The mold is pre-heated, then an oversized hunk of ice is placed between the blocks. The heat melts away the parts you don’t want, and leaves a perfectly shaped ice orb in between. Gravity is responsible for pulling the mold halves together as they slide along some machined rods.

With a big hunk of scrap aluminum he milled two halves of a sphere. They can be sufficiently heated if held under running water, and a some leftover printer rails keep the two parts aligned as the ice orb is formed. Now [Brendan] just needs to work on his method of creating a crystal-clear ice block as a starter and he’ll have achieved total win.

[via Sector67]

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