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• 3 months ago

  Would a "bump" feature be useful to fluther users?

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• June 29th, 2009

  Does anyone have a good streamlined process for moving their clipped RSS articles into a proper idea organizer such as Evernote, DEVONthink, or some other tool?

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• May 24th, 2008

  Does anyone else think that SNL endorses Obama over Hillary, and why?

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• April 28th, 2008

  What is the r-value of HDPE (high density polyethylene)?

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• March 28th, 2008

  Based on my favorite authors, who should I read next?

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Answers

• 2 days ago

  Is there a standard time ratio for how long it takes to build the foundation of a skyscraper, as opposed to the superstructure?

  “I realize it may vary based on the amount of stories. Perhaps there is an equation that takes into account the amount of stories.” Um, yes, definitely. There are dozens of equations. But there is waaaaay more to it than that. The answer to this question depends on a number of factors. Namely, as you mentioned, the height or number of stories of the superstructure, the subsurface soil conditions, the type of construction (steel or concrete), local surroundings, even how you define the term “skyscraper”... Most “skyscrapers” will require the driving of many deep piles. Often hundreds of them to a depth of hundreds of feet deep. This task alone can take months. If it is a short skyscraper, the time to drive the piles can easily exceed the time to build the superstructure. However, in a shorter “skyscraper”, it is possible that the pile-driving task will exceed the superstructure construction. In general, however, I don’t think this rule holds up. A recent skyscraper in San Francisco, the One Rincon, Tower One, rises 60 stories to a height of about 650ft. For the bulk of the superstructure construction, the concrete subcontractor was making 3-day floor cycles, meaning that every three days they installed reinforcing and placed the concrete for one floor. I think this was their peak production rate, and it is entirely likely that the early floors went much slower, as did the completion of the roof, as both of these areas are irregular, while the middle floors are all identical plates (more or less). Nonetheless, if we assume that they were able to complete two floors per week, then it took thirty weeks to complete the concrete core. I know that the exterior glazing and cladding also lagged the concrete considerably, so I think it’s fair to say that the “superstructure” took close to a year to complete. I have a very difficult time believing that the foundation took this long, though it is possible. Keep in mind that this is not considered a tall skyscraper, either. The tallest buildings in San Francisco are about 25% taller than this one. New York and Los Angeles both have buidings twice as tall as this, and Chicago has even taller buildings still. And here’s the kicker, One Rincon, being a residential condo building, had to be concrete for a variety of reasons related to residential construction, whereas most of these taller offices are steel superstructures. Steel is considerably slower to erect than concrete. As such, I believe most of the tallest skyscrapers took considerably longer to complete the super- as opposed to the sub-structure.
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• 3 months ago

  Would a "bump" feature be useful to fluther users?

  @ Jeruba I guess I just don’t see this site being actively mined by these so-called “prospective answerers” you mention who are apparently going back in the fluther archives to answer old questions. I would guess – and this is purely a guess – that the VAST majority of users are not going back in time so to speak to answer old questions but are starting fresh. At any rate, point taken. I will simply manually repost my old questions that have not been answered yet. It seems like the wrong way to go about it, but appears to be the preferred method.
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• 3 months ago

  Why are 2x4's actually 1.5x3.5?

  @Harp good catch. Going from memory…and college was a while ago ;)
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• 3 months ago

  Would a "bump" feature be useful to fluther users?

  How about if the option only became active after a certain time period as well? I am not trying to turn this in to Digg or any of the other social news sites, I simply think there is a better way to nudge a question. If the main concern is rampant Suggesting that a question doesn’t get answered simply because no one is interested in it is a) insulting, and b) presumes that this site is stagnant, not growing, and therefore no new users are joining. I don’t think this is true. Since new users are joining and contributing regularly, there may be new users that would have a good answer to these previously unanswered questions. If you review my old questions, you will see that I only ask serious questions that I actually need or want the answers to. Thus, my suggestion is coming from the angle of someone sincerely looking to see if anyone new has a suggestion or if there is any new info on a topic. Maybe it needs to be a combo of questions that have received “Great Question” votes but which have not actually received any responses? Maybe there is another solution. However, there are several questions that I have not gotten responses to that it would be nice to re-inject into the collective. How about an option for a user to delete an old question that never got answered? Make it just useful enough so that people who actually want to update a question can, but difficult enough that it won’t be super spam friendly. For instance, If you make a new post with the same subject as a post you previously posted, it will then prompt you to delete the previous post. This still requires manually posting the question, but makes it less likely that the conversation will fork and end up with duplicate response streams that mods have to join up later (if they even do that…?). It just seems like not having any solution in place invites the type of duplicate posting that is usually frowned on here.
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• 3 months ago

  Researching a novel - q about a single key witness to murder?

  Go read “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. It uses a very similar plot/discovery device to the one mentioned by @fireside above. Also, it is a very good read and would be great inspiration for you in your current writing endeavor. (I am not going to mention the exact nature of the device here, as it would spoil much of the plot of the novel)
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