AI - Tesla and the Home Automation

Take a look at this video in the Cold Fusion Tv series, the way Tesla is progressing in its software, is pushing into AI areas like we have never seem before, OIt applies to both the car itself, and the Big City data buildup.

How can the auto home incorporate this technology, perhaps the way the hive can be used to inform and request information on weather, I am writing a paper on this and its difficult not to sit back and think of how the way Tesla is evolving and how it might so easily fit the Domestic and commercial construction market.

  

Cold Fusion Tv - How BIG is TATA?

This might seem a strange CPD blog, but take a step back and think about who owns the best steel literature in the UK, Tata Steel, and who also owns Jaguar and Land Rover, plus Tetley Tea. Ok the construction industry might run on tea, but its not a major factor, but the steel industry is and I for one, having once worked for a steel company, ASW Allied Steel & Wire, and one who details a lot of steel structure and detailing of component that need to meet steel structure, them my interest is roused.

So I have blogged Cold Fusion Tv before, you cn see a list at the end of the Video below, its a sharp well edited video presentation, no waffle, just plain facts and great imaging.

You might want to download the steel table, after this and store in Evernote. Unfortunately I always have problems finding Tata steel table, so always go to this site RoyMech, it has the serial size, weight, then the section dims in an easy to read table, just excellent.

Survey Notes and Plot - We don't work for free !

Last week, I surveyed an oldish terraced house, with a view to a loft conversion, The survey its self took a few hours, no more, but the actual plot took about another 3 house, to produce three floor plans, a section and a couple of elevations.

The reason I tell you this, recently several students asked, what to charge for work, the answer is not easy, I have immediate costs that need to be met, so insurance, computer, telephone & Internet, plus upkeep of my CAD package, and general office running expenses,  paper ink and the like, that just keep coming, month after month, then the final cost is how long does it take me to draw it to a level ready for say planning or Regs.

Overall, I recon to at least a full day to draw, so say 7 hours, plus client time of half a day, so a total man hours of 10 hours, so the formula is :

hourly on cost + 10 hour

Now you need to sort out how much you want to earn in any year, and break it down to an hourly rate, oh and stay competitive. don't forget there may be 365 days in a year, but from this you need to remove holidays, and weekends, and at least one day a week for admin, believe me there is a lot of time spent running a small practice, that is not earning time.

So you can see it's not easy, and clients think you will be cheap because it's only a small extension,

Gary Meese asked me to add a link to the CIAT sheet on this, its a really good guide.

CIAT

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Clipboard History

Its always the same. you clip an address, then want it again ten minutes later, and have to go back to the site, perhaps searching for it,  using the history, but what happens if you copy text, or a picture.

I use a little app within chrome that stores all this called " Clipboard History", vey useful. It's a small icon in the top bar, clit it and a list of all your clips drops down, highlight and its back into your live clipboard.

There is even a useful search bar to help, I have gone back over several days to pull a copy back.

Paris

All credit for the Paris logo goes to @jean_jullien for creating the sketch he drew in response to the Paris attacks.

Home WiFi

You may have heard me go on, in recent posts about the way my wifi drops has very load speeds, and in general just does not work, forcing me to use a hardwire link for my internet, where I get speeds in excess of 50mbs instead of less than 1mbs over my wifi, is Google onhub the big picture, being missed, read on.

My experience out and about is not much better, I live on the south side of Birmingham, where you might think I get high speed mobile 3G and 4G, and in the most part I do, but there are glaring gaps, and it disrupts my workflow plus my music far to regularly. Plus the amount of access to the internet given by my provider O2 is so often not enough, I end up with no coverage at all late in the month.

So when I see two separate avenues being created by Google, I started to sit back and look at the big picture, what is the main thing they do not control, yet might be the biggest obstacle to innovation and seriously harm their existing product portfolio, dam right its the mobile access to the internet.

The already well established long term project to get Google Fibre into major cities in the USA, and now Europe, is part 1 of their efforts to move the control of the phone companies to themselves. The introduction of the Google router onhub, is the second part of this movement, first to establish local wifi with some clout, better speeds and a more secure environment, but more important, to allow Google to offer better access to the net, by their customers from the millions of home onhub routers, that almost everyone in the industry sees as over spec’d and far more powerful than is really needed for home use.

You might now wonder why we have both a telephone number and an email address, why not just one, I use google for most of my calls, and after a while I began to see the real benefit of just my email address, no country codes, a fast system, easy video calls, and if connected to google fibre via one on the may onhub systems, a cheap no barrier to use system.

After all this, what does this have to do with CPD and Architecture, well look at the way I run my own practice, I work partly from home and partly from University, I have a Skype telephone number, and can receive calls wherever I am. but as most of my communication is email, and google hangout, with  Skype thrown in.

I rarely get mobile calls these days, so I have to ask, is a phone number really a business tool. Internet and the vast number of excellent apps is far better, all that’s stopping it is the mobile operators who insist on a NUMBER.

Take also my home line, I have no use whats so ever for a land line number, yet bt insist I have one and charge me for it.

Note

This is a reprint of a a blog from the Konstrukshon.com site, I have not been able to upload the export, it's just to large, this way seems better.

Site Modeling in SketchUp

This video has been out for a couple of years, and Sketch up has change ever so slightly, but its a great video introduction intoSite Modelling in SketchUp, and the way it can be used to build up some sort of 3D model.

Any student of Architectural Technology, would do well to watch this excellent video, and make use of the many tips.

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