Archive for May, 2008
A short break from studying Calculus..
May 31st, 2008
I've been studying for my calculus exam all day and I think it is time for some old-fashioned procrastination. I'd like to talk about living in the dorms. I've lived in Calhoun dorm my entire freshman year. This is where most of the engineering boys live because there are 3 floors designated only for engineering majors. Siddall hall has engineering floors for girls.
Calhoun is set up in the double room style. Siddall is the same way. You share a room with one other person. There is one bathroom per floor with 8 showers, 8 sinks, and 4 toilets. Each floor also has a kitchen and a lounge. Living in the dorms has definitely been a positive experience for me. It is a great opportunity to meet people. Many of my closest friends live on my floor only a few doors to the right or left of mine. It also makes for a motivating work environment. When everyone around you is studying for exams it is a lot harder to become distracted than if you are at home with family.
The 13th floor of Calhoun has been converted to a large studying area. It has several small rooms and one very large room. This makes it easy to find a place for study groups to meet (and you don't even have to leave home!). Like everything, dorm life has a few downfalls as well. I always had a room to myself growing up so when I came to college it was a huge adjustment to learn to share a space with someone. It also did not help that I was not with another engineering major. Living with a criminal justice major has been very challenging because she generally has several people in the room or the television on.
I suggest if you plan on living in the dorm, to be straightforward with setting rules for quiet hours and study hours when you make your roommate agreement. It is much easier to lift a rule after you've set it into place than to try to make a new rule after you've been living together. Many people dread sharing a bathroom with so many other people. I haven't had any problem with this, though. I've never had to wait for a sink or shower. I was also lucky enough to get the room next to the bathroom entrance as well, so that helps.
Overall, living in the dorms is not as bad as you may think. Try to get on an engineering floor and hope for a good roommate.
Back to studying for my Calculus exam..
World’s Smallest Ramen Noodle Bowl
May 30th, 2008
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Recent Podcasts
May 28th, 2008
Recent Pt-podcasts.
If you have software for listening to podcasts you can point it at the RSS feed for the site or for categories or .
Hmm i'm not sure that is the best way to do things and or doesn't produce RSS feeds.
Advice appreciated, otherwise I just have to host these feeds at mathewpeet.org and edit them manually, or write something to make the feeds for me :). I'm at a bit of a loss what people want, since I don't use any software for listening to podcasts.
Copper metallurgy, who discovered it?
May 27th, 2008
Ruthlessly stolen and scrap-booked by, but not written by, me.
Extensive research by eastern European scholars has reshaped our understanding of early copper ore mining techniques that were used during the Late Neolithic and Early Copper Age in the Balkans. Since the late 1960s, archaeological investigations at two copper mines—Rudna Glava and Ai Bunar—have revealed the complexity of early copper metallurgical techniques and revised our understanding of early copper exploitation strategies and their relationship to other socioeconomic processes.
One of the most well-known prehistoric copper mines is the site of Rudna Glava in eastern Serbia. The site, located 140 kilometers east of Belgrade on the Romanian border, was a magnetite mine until the late 1960s. Archaeological excavations by Borislav Jovanović in the 1970s revealed over twenty prehistoric mine shafts that followed veins of copper ore throughout the limestone massif.
The mine was excavated in antiquity using techniques that had been employed for thousands of years to exploit lithic resources, such as chert. Armed with stone mauls and antler picks, the prehistoric miners followed the vertical veins of copper ore into the hillside. They employed a method of heating and cooling to break up the ore and facilitate quarrying. First they would light fires along the wall face. Then they would throw water onto the hot rock, causing it to crack and thus making it easier to chip apart. Some of the veins were followed 15 to 20 meters into the center of the hill, with small horizontal access platforms extending off the main shaft. In those cases where the shaft appeared to be in danger of collapsing the miners built stone supporting walls out of the debris they excavated.
The mine at Rudna Glava is well dated to the Late Neolithic and Early Copper Age, a period also known as the Chalcolithic, which took place during the second half of the fifth and the first half of the fourth millennium B.C. This dating is based on pottery from the Vinča culture that was found in the mine shafts. Jovanović recorded three different accumulations of pottery in the shafts. The oldest, which was found on an access platform in the mine along with a damaged antler tool and a large stone maul, dates to the transitional phase, known as the Gradac phase, between Early and Late Vinča, during the fifth millennium B.C. The two other pottery concentrations are characteristic of Late Vinča culture and date to the early fourth millennium B.C.
Another early copper mine was excavated at the site of Ai Bunar in northern Bulgaria in the Sredna Gora Mountains of central Bulgaria. The mine at Ai Bunar is roughly contemporary with the mine at Rudna Glava, and the miners used similar techniques. They excavated narrow open trenches to follow the veins of copper carbonates into the hills. As at Rudna Glava, archaeologists found antler picks and stone mauls in the mine shafts, in addition to two shaft-hole copper tools and the remains of three human individuals.
The ceramics found at Ai Bunar are characteristic of the ceramics found in the sixth layer at the Karanovo tell (Karanovo VI) and date to the late fifth millennium B.C. While this discovery demonstrates that the mines at Ai Bunar were in use during the later fifth millennium B.C., other evidence suggests the mines probably were in use somewhat earlier, possibly as early as the end of the sixth millennium B.C. Copper objects and ore that have been demonstrated chemically to have derived from the sources at Ai Bunar were found at several sites in south-central Bulgaria that are contemporary with Karanovo V, a phase that dates to the beginning of the fifth millennium B.C.
Chemical analyses, primarily lead isotope analyses, carried out by E. N. Chernykh, Noël H. Gale, and several Bulgarian specialists have demonstrated that Ai Bunar and Rudna Glava were not the only sources for copper ore in prehistory. The analysis of copper artifacts from several sites in south-central Bulgaria suggests that at least four other copper sources were exploited, though they remain unidentified.
A handful of other copper mines have been located in northern Thrace, one of which contained Karanovo V and VI pottery, and another prehistoric mine also is known to have existed at Mali Sturac, a site in the Rudnik mountain range in central Serbia. Unfortunately, none of these sites has been extensively explored, and little has been published about them
As I understand it, fairly complex copper forges dating back to about 5,500 BC have been found in Serbia. Interestingly, the oldest recognised smelted copper object (a mace head from Can Hasan, Turkey) only dates to about 5,000 BC, according to the text books. This older age for the copper smelting forges at and the mine at Ai Bunar than the Turkish find does rather put a big question mark on the ancient Turks inventing it. If the forges at Plocknik were simple, it might still be a coin toss, but apparently the forges were not 'entry level', and showed signs of a well developed metallurgy even 7,500 years ago.
Also, according to , the Can Hassan mace head may have lost its crown as the oldest smelted copper object..
According to National Museum archaeologist Dušan Šljivar, experts found a “copper chisel and stone axe at a location near Prokuplje in which the foundation has proven to be 7,500 years old, leading us to believe that it was one of the first places in which metal weapons and tools were made in prehistoric times.”
It's looking like the Anatolians weren't the discoverers, after all.
car repair
May 25th, 2008
Williton Car & Commercial Repairs
5a-5b Unit Roughmoor Williton, TA4 4RF
01984 633540
Introduction to Facilities Maintenance
May 25th, 2008
Facility Maintenance and Operations can always be a tricky issue for businesses and organizations because it’s always difficult to get people to see the value in maintaining anything. When a computer breaks, we throw it away, when a car breaks down, we buy another one. It has become cheaper and easier to replace things than to repair and maintain them.
The trouble is with a building, you can’t just throw it away when it stops working. The truth is that facilities, maintenance and operations are a matter of stewardship. We have been entrusted wit h a building and we are called to maintain it- efficiently and effectively and to maximize the resource that having a building gives. Taking care of equipment, changing belts, lubricating motors, changing lights and taking care of the general day to day operations and maintenance in a building are all important parts of the overall business or residence that you are taking care of.
There are three parts to Facilities Maintenance and Operations (or FM&O.)
- The first is routine maintenance. These are the things that need to be done weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually to keep the building running efficiently. These items usually include existing HVAC systems, lighting, life safety, plumbing and electrical systems.
- The Second is emergency repairs and breakdowns. Managing the FM&O is an effort to minimize the number of times a plumber has to be called, or the number of times the lighting or heating system doesn’t work.
- The third part of FM&O is in planning for the future; will a new heating system save money on future gas prices? Will different lighting cost less to operate? Forecasting is usually based on historical costs and known immediate needs.
Being an effective maintenance technician or building maintenance professional means staying on top of code requirements, trends affecting the industry, green initiatives, and many other pieces of the puzzle that keep buildings and facilities running smothly. This blog is dedicated to staying on top of these and other facilities maintenance related issues.
Who likes calculators!?
May 23rd, 2008
Even if you couldn't care less about adding devices, you can still appreciate the mechanical complexity and beauty of one of these handheld Curta calculators. It adds, subtracts, multiplies, divides, and can even do roots and some other operations with some tricky handling. It's like have a Babbage difference engine in your hand! Don't think about taking this on a plane, or if you're in Boston, in public at all since it bears a slight resemblance to some sort of explosive device. But you better have some serious dough to get one of these bad boys. They are on ebay for upwards of $500. A little pricey when I can do the same thing with my cell phone. But then again, my cell phone doesn't have a hand crank. Sweet! Google Curta to find out how they work...
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Hot Italian Girl Stripped By Giant Digging Machine
May 23rd, 2008
Hot Italian Girl Stripped by a Mechanical Shovel
Iron Man
May 22nd, 2008
Personal body movement controlled exoskeletons are somewhat of a reality today. I thought I would bring this technological feat up in light of the popular movie Iron Man currently in theaters. No sign of flight capabilities yet. The uses of course span further than just the military environment - search and rescue, construction, and other industrial applications come to mind.
Power is only briefly mentioned in the video below, where we see a functional unit tethered to a power source. I can image power supply weight and longevity certainly play a large role in the mobile usefulness of the unit.