Carelessly specified new carpets will off-gas VOCs to the detriment of the local air quality (until there's none left in thecarpet material).

In both cases he's saying that an architect should be aware of the wider context of their material choices and consequential effect on both the planet and the building's inhabitants.

To decry shorts as juvenile is sympotmatic of simple minded attitudes that lead to people in warm climates spending the hottest part of the day wearing full suits in fully glazed boxes which need to be energy intensively air conditioned so that they don't die.

This is not a sensible path for society to take

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

It seems to me that instead of having several passwords in my head (i can remember random long strings of characters pretty well, and have a heirachy of randomness/longness depending on what I care about), I only have to remember one. But if that one's compromised, aren't all the rest then available?

Reminds me of the bit in hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (life the universe and everything i think) where passwords and biometrics etc had become really difficult and secure, so a datacube thing was created to store them all. Which was then found by a character before hilarity ensued.

thanks

1. Your physical machine, or the LastPass/Dropbox server.

2. Your master password

3. (optionally) a second-factor auth source

Then yes, they have access to all your passwords. But this is vastly superior to having one password that alone compromised grants access to all of your accounts, right?

I mean, the most secure way imaginable would be perfect biometric signatures, or humans smart enough that they could perform asymmetric encryption in their heads to sign challenges in a verifiable manner. Outside of that, this is decentish.

You could use a text file in a Truecrypt volume with keys that are stored on separate jumpdrives (but what if someone compromises a machine that you plug those drives into), etc, etc.

but I've known a lot of modest, moderate and heavy recreational ket users - It's been quite a popular recreational drug in the UK for about 15 years. I would perceive (being not a doctor or anything useful) that the proportion of them which are depressed in some way is a noticeably higher than the rest of the people I've ever met.

It's an addictive drug (perhaps not physically, but definitely behaviourally/psychologically). In my opinion it grossly interferes with peoples' ability to interact with those who don't partake. I find it difficult to recall a single example of its use improving someone's well-being - the converse in fact.

Anyway, just adding my observations/bit of life experience.

"If you like this post, please upvote it on hacker news"

Several problems with the article.

The "poor guys in the field". Who are they? Why have they "gotten worse and worse"? Have they? (They have a far greater financial interest in improve efficiency than it is for the more "professional" end of the construction industry - at least in UK)

These "guys in the field"... something tells me it'll be a while before a main contractor starts giving all his workers ipads.

What's the cost per tablet? how many would be needed? How much training in the use of various software would be required? (for people who may not be particularly prone to... using elaborate software). A typical construction worker might work for a main contractor (via various subcontractors) for a total of 6 months. I'm sure they'd be happy to leave with an extra bonus of a tablet after that. How well does a tablet perform when its screen is caked in concrete?

Then there's the issue of the software. Some of this "amazing software" - (i'm going to pick on Revit as that's what I'm most experienced in) requires a supercomputer to run. If that's how the information is organised, then where is it going to be filtered down to the needs of the contractor in question, (who is "asking the question of the architect")

(According to the article, Revit architecture = amazing software. This I wholeheartedly dispute. For many reasons, but that's another story)

At this point I should point out that the "much better communication" bit is quite inaccurate where it details the process of an RFI. For a start - paper is a cheap way for all workers to have the information at hand - ie with them there and then - not in the "trailer".

Once these over-estimates of the time currently spent are taken out, the two are broadly similar. Replace "looks at problem and makes notes on plans" with "looks at problem, cleans his hands, tries to navigate clunky over elaborate BIM model on underpowered tablet, finally finds relevant part of large and complex building, annotates it, uploads to central server via wi-fi.

The bit about tablets being already massively adopted in construction industry has a link to someone using their ipad essentially for accounting purposes. Sure. People already do this all the time, with smartphones. Nothing to see here.

There's a throwaway comment about green buildings in there as well. To which I say the following:

The typical design lifespan of a building nowadays is 40-60 years. What about when they're demolished quicker than this though, perhaps because they're shit? How green is it to cut costs everywhere to result in a nasty piece of urban fabric which is subsequently destroyed, to be replace, even if it's covered in eco tech? What's the lifespan of a really well considered building which grows and flourishes with the love of those who experience it?

Also, new “BIM” software is often marketed as being able to enable “greener” building design. My current experience suggests it will be 5 years or so before its even slightly adequate at this. The calculation procedures offered are terrible, constrained and offer nowhere near the flexibility or creativity of a good old spreadsheet. Yet they slow down the spatial modelling process and provide inertia to change, iteration and flexibility. There's a lot to be said for centralising information storage (whilst contextualising it with a 3D model), yet at present this is beyond the practical means of most hardware (I personally doubt this, and attribute it to sloppy/inefficient software design. But this isn't my field – I imagine everyone else @ HN knows a lot more on this)

It may seem that I'm an anti tech luddite from this post, but nothing could be further from the truth. I'm reasonably young (late 20s) and generally embrace technological progress.

Also, it can't be denied that the construction industry is very staid and has much inertia against change.

However, I think that there is a lot of external pressure on the industry to adopt new technologies imposed from outside, as they are "the future" etc. In many cases, the technology is not appropriate to the situation at hand.

Building design is then adapted to the needs of the software, rather than the other way round. This results in a lot of terrible buildings (which are, it goes without saying, produced cheaply and efficiently). This is a massive shame, as buildings are part of the shared cultural capital of our civilisation and are unavoidable. Just because you don't work/live in a building, it doesn't mean you don't have to experience it.

Anyway, that's probably enough for now. I can probably elaborate on all sorts if people are interested.

Repeating part of a comment I made a few days ago:

Folks have been talking about tablets being a natural fit for the construction market, and frankly I don't see it (at least for field work). Construction sites are nasty places - dust, concrete, bentonite, slurries, oil & grease, rain, snow, heat these are not good things for an expensive tablet to be around.

Furthermore, the trades guys are hard are their equipment. When it's time to go to lunch, stuff gets thrown in the trunk bed or on the passenger seat of the truck as they rush off. Even if a tablet survives the abuse, those guys rarely lock or raise the windows of their trucks on the job, so I wouldn't expect the tablet to be there when the contractor gets back from his break.

I think the potential is there, but tablets need to become more "disposable" first. On the other hand, there may be decent acceptance from engineers and supervisors.

Also, it can't be denied that the construction industry is very staid and has much inertia against change.

I would disagree with that, construction is generally such a low-margin business that (IME) contractors are willing to try new things if it can mean lower bids or higher profit margins. But they have to be convinced first that change makes sense.

And then instead of throwing out some biodegradable/easily recyclable paper, you have a pile of plastics and rare earth metals that you are throwing out, thus obliterating the supposed "green" impetus for going paperless.

Second, there are a fair number of 200$ tablets out there bumping that 50$ for a rugged case and you can make something that lasts long enough for minor increases in efficiency to quickly pay for it. So, IMO the real question is can a tablet increase the average construction workers efficiency by 2+% with good software and I think that's vary doable. (2% efficiency for someone making 10$ an hour would pay for tablet in a little over 6 months getting the average lifespan of a tablet to 6 months seems vary doable.)

Structural integrity declines exponentially. An 1/8th inch piece of glass the size of a credit card is pretty durable. That same piece of glass the size of a sheet of paper is rather delicate. On top of that, a phone screen provides a smaller target for falling debris.

So, even if touchscreen phones become popular on the jobsite, it will take significant additional engineering to get tablets there.

On the other hand, screens have not replaced large sheets of paper to the extent one would expect (note that TechCrunch still references scanning hard copies; something done in the trailer where monitors have become ubiquitous).

Why? Construction management is, at its heart an exercise in coordination. Performing that coordination efficiently requires looking at the big picture, and literally looking at a big picture 8 square feet at a time cannot be replicated on a screen.

What a slate does offer is the ability to access the backup - takeoffs, photos, subcontracts, correspondence, etc. while looking at the issue in the field. But a project engineer who only relies on an iPad to look at the plans before calling the design team is probably in for a Mira Los planos asschewing.

I will not be surprised to see the app be successful, but it will probably not revolutionize construction in the way AutoCAD changed design. AutoCAD was close to the metal of the design industry, but an iPad app is much more of an abstraction when it comes to actual construction activities such as digging a hole or throwing paint on wall.

Good luck.

Perhaps a tablet + projector would. Last night, I was at a friend's kid's birthday party, and they took a nice big wall, a projector,appletv and airplay mirroring the content of the iPad to watch movies and play games. The most interesting part was where the host was showing something to the kids, and the kids would take turns to correct him (and show him how they would do the task) as they passed the iPad around. It was absolutely sublime to watch.

Currently it's a tad clunky for setup (requires 3 devices) but if you merge the three devices into two (or even one) it could be relatively tasty... add in webex-style teleconferencing for flavor.

Basically, what we are trying to do to paper plans what HTML did to paper documents: Make them digital, make them linkable, make the centrally updatable. This should have been done years ago, but just like HTML had to wait for the personal computer, PlanGrid had to wait for the tablet.

Two of the four co-founders of PlanGrid were construction engineers, so we know how important usability is and have made it a major focus of what we've built. Please download it and give it a try, I'd like to hear what you think about it.

How do you reconcile the differences between digital documents containing links and the sealed paper documents which normally are the basis for the construction contract?