Translucent concrete

This is really cool. A Hungarian architect has developed concrete with embedded parallel fibre-optic threads. This basically allows you to cast shadows on one side of the concrete and have them appear on the other — the wall not only allows light through, but appears to have no thickness (because the fibres are perpendicular to the blocks).

No effect on compressive strength, apparently. Should be nice for office blocks, car parks, and modern art installations!

Posted at 2004-03-22 12:26:35 by Richard • Link to Translucent concre…

Artists that need tabbing

There is a serious dearth of guitar tabbage for Thea Gilmore, Stars, and Astrid. That's the problem with enjoying slightly obscure artists — you don't get armies of people noting down tabs for the songs (as opposed to, say, the Foo Fighters).

I've been tempted to figure out The Things We Never Said, but it'll take me hours, and it's a price my wrists can ill afford.

Posted at 2004-03-22 11:49:38 by Richard • Link to Artists that need …

Stability

An odd exchange of stabilities just now… I look at my Mac's menubar clock: it reads 17:49. It's now 19:45. So, for nearly 2 hours now part of my machine has hung, and I haven't noticed. The actual menus work; just one of the Apple menubar icons (probably iSync or the VPN) has locked up that side.

I don't know whether I think this is unstable (because the clock has locked up!) or stable (because absolutely everything else has remained standing with an aloof expression).

I'm listening to my 48 Thea Gilmore songs on random on my iPod, hooked up to my stereo. Good times. 'course, at the same time I'm trying to figure out some description logic transformations, so it's not all good, but you can't have everything!

Posted at 2004-03-22 11:32:33 by Richard • Link to Stability