World's Oldest Man (a Land Surveyor) Dies at 113
Wow! Must have been all the fresh air and exercise!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31439522/ns/world_news-asiapacific/
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Wow! Must have been all the fresh air and exercise!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31439522/ns/world_news-asiapacific/
I am long overdue for a post, but I think I have the perfect one. Are you ready? I am convinced that we are witnessing the next evolutionary step in engineering. That being the wide scale adoption of BIM (Building Information Modeling) and/or VDC (Virtual Design and Construction). What are BIM and VDC? Follow the links: BIM VDC My two cents . . . they are esentially the same thing!
CAD, GPS, Laser Scanning each in and of themselves represented evolutionary steps for engineering. Today, BIM / VDC is here and here to stay. Still not convinced? Have you seen the recent cover stories from both CE News and ENR? Check them both out and get ready to retool, rethink and reengiineer your current processes. If you don't I believe you will no longer be able to compete, much less win any size-able, stimulus related contracts. The recent GSA RFP that requires BIM models as part of the submittals is proof enough. This is a 5 year, $35M contract. If you want a piece of the action BIM and/or VDC is the way forward.
You know you are getting old when you have witnessed more than three of these evolutionary jumps in your career. I was hired at my first civil engineering firm to migrate the design shop from ink and mylar to CAD. That makes me about 102 years old. But I am never too old to adopt new, necessary and inevitable processes / technologies - except for reality TV. Not going there.
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I decided to drive down to Carmel, CA this weekend. Along the way I stopped in at Stanford University in Palo Alto because I had heard rumors that the infamous golden spike was on display there.
The golden spike on display at The Cantor Arts Center (Stanford University)
There is lots of information on this historic (and gigantic) civil engineering feat HERE.
East meets West at Promontory Summit, UT - May 10, 1869
Well, I found it. Much to my suprise I also stumbled on The Gates of Hell . . . by Rodin . . . on display at Stanford University.
The Gates of Hell by Rodin
What a day.
I have a question for all you DIRT readers . . . Should I assemble a band, made up of Autodesk employees to compete in the annual 2009 Fortune Battle of the Corporate Bands?
I'll post the results soon!
Another cool application from Google . . . http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html Do I really want folks to know where I am 24/7/365 as long as my Blackberry is on? I'll think about it!
Benjamin Lowy (photographer), me and Jeffrey O'Brien (author) walking up to the Moai on Easter Island - August 2008
I have been waiting five months for this to go to print. If you prefer hard copy see the January 19, 2009 issue of Fortune Magazine.
Fortune Story: http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/13/magazines/fortune/obrien_easter.fortune/index.htm
CNN Video: http://money.cnn.com/video/ft/#/video/fortune/2009/01/13/fortune.tt.easterisland.fortune
Check this out:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/20081112_earthrome.html
This is not only very cool but Bernie Frischer with Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities / University of Virginia, who I met in Oaxaca, Mexico recently, had a big hand in this effort. You guessed it, Bernie and his team are Autodesk customers!
While at Autodesk University this week I had a chance to sit down with Dave Graveline to talk about the Autodesk Easter Island Project. You can watch and listen by picking HERE.
Check it out, Autodesk has it's own YouTube channel.