Coolshite on the tube (Score: 0)
by Anonymous Coward in Podcasting software still needs some improvements on 2014-12-06 02:49 (#2VN1)
Their setup is very good - http://www.coolshite.net/about-us/
I just find it odd that the examples we can see are often projects that were started by emperors, which would have then had little impediments either monetarily, or hiring the best cement mixers, etc.I don't find it odd. Even if the best cement was available for 'the middle class', how likely is it that an average house survives 2000 years? Nobody would demolish the colosseum to build the next bypass road, but the house of Nonimportus Averageus?
You are ignoring a third possibility, that making good cement was something that you had to be part of a guild to learn.. and guilds can be very protective of their trade secrets. That's why there is very little written down.I know of guilds in the middle ages, but have no idea if and how common they were in ancient Rome. But the Roman empire existed for more than 1000 years. Now, the perfect cement might not have existed from year one on, but if the mixture was a guild secret, this guild still must have kept their secret for several hundred years.... this really would be an impressive feat. Even for today.
Used pozzolana cement from Pozzuoli, Italy near Mt. Vesuvius to build the Appian Way, Roman baths, the Coliseum and Pantheon in Rome, and the Pont du Gard aqueduct in south France. They used lime as a cementitious material. Pliny reported a mortar mixture of 1 part lime to 4 parts sand. Vitruvius reported a 2 parts pozzolana to 1 part lime. Animal fat, milk, and blood were used as admixtures (substances added to cement to increase the properties.) These structures still exist today!Fat? Milk? Blood? Oh, I am sure those materials really play an important role in the cement's durability. But I am also quite sure, that initially they were added for some sacrificial reasons. Not because the Romans knew that this really improved the cement. Furthermore the used material are natural materials. The composition of almost all natural materials vary a bit. Then: 1 part of lime and 4 parts of sand. Or 2 parts of pozzolana and 1 part lime... to what precision? Does it make a difference if it is 1.95 parts of pozzolana and 1.05 parts of lime? Does it make a difference where the lime came from? With all respect for the Roman accomplishments, but it is very unlikely that their cement had over centuries always the same quality.
300 BC - 476 ADToo bad....To really have durable structures, sacrifices to the gods have to be made. So virgin instead of animal blood. Damn... now way we ever can reproduce the Roman cement now.
RomansUsed pozzolana cement from Pozzuoli, Italy near Mt. Vesuvius to build the Appian Way, Roman baths, the Coliseum and Pantheon in Rome, and the Pont du Gard aqueduct in south France. They used lime as a cementitious material. Pliny reported a mortar mixture of 1 part lime to 4 parts sand. Vitruvius reported a 2 parts pozzolana to 1 part lime. Animal fat, milk, and blood were used as admixtures (substances added to cement to increase the properties.) These structures still exist today!
FreeBSD was once solid and good. 4.x series was really stable and I never experienced any problems. Then they begun with way too big changes and there was not even one version I would not see problems and panics with.I guess it matters what you use it for. I switched from Linux to FBSD as my main OS of choice after yet another root vulnerability in Linux 2.2.19. On the desktop, Linux is better: more driver support, more applications etc. As a server though, FreeBSD outruns every other OS I've worked with. I once managed to squeeze a webhoster's server farm of 8 racks full of 1U servers into two racks of FreeBSD boxes, same hardware.
everything was lunchroom style - the entire suite was one big room.Have you been to the Facebook campus in Menlo Park lately?
All it takes is for one exhibitionist, loud mouth, megaphone personalityIn a previous company, they had this brilliant idea of putting marketing guys right next to the developers and they never shut up all day, either on phone or "quick team meetings" etc. I had to go to the sub-zero server room to get anything done.
For all the things Romans got wrong (lead pipes anyone?) did you know we're still using a less advanced concrete than they did? Consider some of the massive structures in Rome that have passed the test of time, lasting for more than 2000 years. The typical concrete that we use in construction starts to degrade after only 50 years.People, who make and repeat this claim, fall for some kind of selection bias. Actually there was no 'the Roman cement'. Mixing cement was no hard science back then. I doubt that even two batches were identical. So yes... some structures last more than 2000 years. But how many structures are gone because they did not even last 50 years? Erm... no one knows... because they are not there anymore. What we are seeing now are structures where the mixture was more or less coincidentally right and environmental factors were favourable so the structures survived.
only physicists know MaxwellHey! I'm an engineer! [insert jokes about insensitive clods and Howard Wolowitz here]
the well-known 4 equations that we all read oncehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations
I were him, after the divorce I would've renamed it "Dorkian" or "Dumbian" as a reminder.And, in so demonstrating your emotional maturity, you'll also avoid the complications that accompany remarrying!