So this evenings lecture via my nightly blog on stitcher was from the Technology Today podcast, episode 10, re the eight small satellites that cover the globe via the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System(CYGNSS) aims to improve extreme weather prediction. ... In orbit.

I am going to claim 1 hour for this podcast together with another hour researching the technology. Why you might ask, well it's all about the data, and there's lots of it, all helping to provide assistance in predicting the intensity of any hurricane as it hits land, and in what direction.

Is this important, well yes, after all, it's my job not only to teach students about data but also to help them detail against it. so in my book, this is a straight 2 hours cpd

CPD via Stitcher - AI interview with George Hotz

This morning as I walked from the station to the University, I was listening, as I mostly do this time of the morning, to a podcast, I have a backlog at present to go through, but this mornings joy was a podcast on Data, a subject I am particularly interested in.

I currently run a course entitled IDD, or Integrated Digital Design., which for the most part looks at how data at a simple level is added and used in the design, my data page on Scays.co.uk is dedicated to this with a series of slide presentations and gets regular updates.

But this morning my attention was drawn to the bus stop I was walking past, and the way old paper time tables have now been replaced with digital time tables, ok so I have written about this before, so I started to ponder this subject, can I access this data in the same way I can with similar data like the training for trains running on the Dorridge Chiltern line.

The more I look into this subject the more I find new items to ponder, like AI, my next podcast was an interview with George Hotz, see right, on Autopilot, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the form of a Podcast by Lex Fridman, now this is a long interview and you have to stay with it, and some is just not relevant to construction, but several times I thought, oh, need to make a note of that, or could this also refer to construction, or FM, ie Facilities Management.

On a whole, it is a review of AI, with a bent towards cars autopilot, but it so outlines the thinking of AI and I could easily see it's relevance to Architecture, data and of course BIM.

The Interview is 119 minutes long and you need time to listen to it, I split it up into several timeouts. The podcast as a whole is excellent, as the name implies its all about AI, is this relevant to my CPD, of course, we can not teach or use Data, without taking in this subject.

I tend to use Stitcher as my prefered podcast player, just search for "Artificial Intelligence (AI)" Lex Fridman, within the App and look for this podcast, or search via this link there is also a video via Youtube of the interview if you're so inclined.

I am claiming 3 hours high-quality CPD for this, listening to the interview, making notes, and some quiet thinking time. Visit my private website to view my CPD Spreadsheet.

Demolition

I passed this the other day, a block of flat, I remember being built, but now being pulled down. Interesting to see the method. In another shot I took from a train, the skyline was full of tower cranes, and as some once said to me its a sign of the economy doing well.

Put the two together and we get a lot of work about for Architectural firms, and a great time to study for a degree in Architectural Technology.

Exporting from Vectorworks to another ie Autocad

As I close down my practice, which will be the subject of a much longer blog, I have handed over one project to another Architects office. Now I work within the Vectorworks environment, I like the way it works and feels, for me it feels like home. But the new practice want to work in Autocad Lt, this is a slight problem, the project file I have is quite large and although it is need of a clean, it works fine on my version of Vectorworks, But as I export the complete file to dwg, thins started to go slightly wrong, and yes before you ask, I did check and load the exported file into my copy of Autocad, all be it on a Mac, and it worked just fine, given a little patience.

So I had a call, the file you sent over keeps crashing, what are you loading it into, oh an old copy of Autocad lt, ah I say, best I come over, do you have a copy of Vectorworks, yes they replied, good.

To cut a long story short, I managed to export the model to Vectorworks 2016, and show the practice how to deal with this type of model, splitting up the various levels into different files for Autocad, and making Xrefs to a series of master site plans.

You might ask why not use IFC after all its what I teach at University, but in real life the output was a lot of work to make work and often dam difficult. The Autocad export offered the route of least resistance.

This is only the start, I have several other projects being exported to Archicad, which is a Nemetschek company, same as Vectorworks, but there is no real export link other than IFC or using dwg, both ways of importing the projects into Archicad seem to indicate spending a lot of time correcting,

So there it is retirement is not a simple process, apart from the legal bits of shutting down, the need for my PI runoff etc, I thought the drawing side would be a piece of cake, not so.

Linking this blog to my Google Web Site

So some days start of with a bank, some a spark some just fizzle a little, but this morning, a thought of a video I had seen a while back came into my head, and I managed to find it.

So what was this moment, well it was a video tutorial on the way you can embed all of my blogs here into my Scays.co.uk web site, assume, at last, so pleased.

So below the video, not mine but by a gentleman called, Richard Byrne, so simple, I have no idea how he came upon the small addition to the code link but it works so well.

My web site "Scays" grows

After a few months of adding, editing and pulling pages into place, the scays web site is finally looking useful and coming close to how I originally thought it might be.

I still have more to do, move pages about, add contents and several subjects I want to include before I consider it finished if it ever will be.

A lot, if not most of my slide set has no lecturers notes, after all, they were meant to be for me only, and I used them as an aid memoir so that's now the next big push, to add lecture notes and expand these into a small book.

Books whilst I am on the subject, is an interesting way of sharing information, but it has a fault in that the information is so often out of date, consider the digital revolution, the construction industry is going through, hardly a day goes by with some new material, or CAD program being updated. So my intention is to keep the information live, Not just by my intervention, but other clever web sites feeding clips and research papers into Scays.co.uk to add to the knowledge base.

I am also conscious of the wait some of you might have for a page with a lot of slides but hang in there, it's done so that I might allow lecturers to download a complete lecture or even show directly from Scays.co.uk. No need for powerpoint, just a web browser.

I trawl the web for construction news, I love Pinterest, I post there as often as I can, Google news is as important, this link is to a page I use for simple construction news.

Twitter is another important site, hashtags, or just a simple search often brings up news or linked friends who post quite regularly. I had thought about adding a link, but I think search is so personal, and a skill you need in this digital world, so follow my lead and make your own.

I am conscious of how much space the subject of Data, I am going to have to make, just to do the subject justice, Its a wide area of research, from just choosing materials, embedding the data into the cad model, extracting and sharing, not to mention Facilities management, and beyond into the fascinating area of Smart cities. I have added a separate site for the later and will continue to add content over this summer, and will probably do the same for a general look at the Subject of Data.
I first want to understand the route the UK fibre network takes, the rail network seems the most obvious, it connects most big cities, runs in straight lines, and is fairly easy to maintain.and importantly connect to the global network of the undersea cables that makes up so much of the internet. Next comes the UK data centres, are there any, or is it kept overseas. I suspect most of the main cities like London, Birmingham, Manchester and the Glasgow and Edinborough all have some form of large data centres. Then there are still the independents, the institutes who are big enough to warrant having their own data centres, people like the financial centres, and city councils.

On that last point, I thought I might see what my own city council, is doing, and downloaded the Birmingham Digital Plan, only to read one of the most incomprehensible documents designed to confuse I have ever read. Written by a marketing department with little or no knowledge of data. Well, that's my own thoughts, others might well think it great, but to me it said nothing. Yet I look about Birmingham and see digital presence, am I missing something, perhaps I need to re-read the document.

Back with a new site 'Scays'

So, after some time I have started to pull all my sites into shape, :

Scays My Architectural Technology site for my AT slides I use as a lecturer on Architectural Technology

Scaysbrook.com My family genealogy site for the Scaysbrook names

Konstrukshon.co.uk my company site

Konstrukshon.com Current unattached, it was my CPD site but I am transferring that role to Scays, si this site will go to Konstrukshon.co.uk

The photo for this issue is an internal photo os a sash window detail ar Somerset House which we use as a surveying exercise for our third-year students at Birmingham City University.

A fine copy of the January 1907 original of the Architectural Review


I recently had the chance to browse an old bookstall and managed to find an original copy of the January 1907 issue of "The Architectural Review", what an excellent find, full of old adverts for products long since gone, but more interestingly packed with some excellent Articles on Architecture, all be it in a very detailed manner, showing construction and build methods of the day,

I tend to look at this style of work a lot as we undertake work on Historic buildings, so this was a massive find, well worth the £5 I paid for it.