Frog Up or Down

 USA Messing with the Global Market Place I have been watching to actions of the USA like a hawk, as I am sure more of the global construction market is also doing. Its frightening, how bad the USA’s decission to inpose tarifs on all goods entering the USA, I am sure there will be exceptions, there always is, but the Construction Market will be hit, of that I have no doubt. The scays Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. I have read most of the FT article on this, and for the first time, had major talks with three AI programs, Grok, Pi and Gemini , all have much the same feeling, pun intended, the ripple we will see, if its not already started, will be: * Increased Material Costs: * The US tariffs, particularly those on steel and aluminum, directly affect core construction materials. This leads to higher import costs for UK construction firms that rely on these materials.   * Supply ...

Google NotebookLM I was listening to Leo Laport yesterday, Friday, on his Intelligent Machines Podcast, which used to be This week in Google, and he had a guest on from Google, Steven Johnson, and the conversation was all about Google NotebookLM. Now this is a show all about AI, but it was clear from the start, NotebookLM, the subject, is not your ordinary AI, this AI has been designed, without the benafit of a LLM or Large laguage Model. It seems to be a clone of Gemini but without the access to a huge global knowledge base. The scays Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Instead the interface expects you to provide the information to answer questions. This is done by linking files, text YouTube, and of course a heap of word, and Google docs, alas no Apple pages yet, although it runs very well in Safari. Then there is the usual question box, if you have provided enough knowledge is gives a d...

 It's been some week, new glasses, and time spent rebuilding my ScaysTech website, plus reading all of James Lovelock's books on Gaia, the way nature is linked. Tim Flanery's book on the same Climate change subject, and a final blast with Alexander Humboldt. I was Humboldt that surprised me the most; why did I not learn about this man before? So many links between science and Nature in particular. If you get a chance, look him up and read one of the many biographies. I read the Kindle edition "The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science", by Andrea Wulf (Author)  I have been playing with ePub lately and hope to have a small selection of digital books out very soon. both Kindle and most ePub readers, I use the Apple Book, which allows you to markup sections and download.

Mitchells Construction Series 1881 – present day The preservation of construction knowledge A Reprint of the 1906 issues of the Elementary Course and Advanced and Honours courses together with a specific 40 plate reproduction of construction drawings used in the two books Ever since the initial issue of the Mitchells construction books in 1881 by Charles Frederick Mitchell, (the photo here is one of the few taken of him), no other book series has a continued presence in the construction industry. For almost 140 years, students and practitioners have referred to both the First Stage or Elementary book and the more detailed Advanced and Honours copy as the stand-alone references to construction detailing and materials, Through a prestigious career as a lecturer at The Polytechnic Institute, Regent Street, London, which became known as the Regent Street Polytechnic, and finally Westminster University, Charles F Mitchell (1859 - 1916) was the senior lecturer. His older brother Robert Mitc...

 Well it's been over a year since I lost used this blog, I could so easily blame Covid, but no, its little to do with Covid, that for me was a background story that caused so many changes. First, I stopped live, or face to face teaching and went online, this to some was the end of the world, for me it was pure joy, I love the internet as a teaching median, it allowed me so much freedom in teaching methods, I used both Teams, and Zoom, and a variety of streaming methods to show my slides. OBS or open Broadcasting System  was, and still is my favourite, the way is allows you to be a tv studio for free is amazing. So for the bulk of the time or Covid, I stayed at home, no more commuting, and no late trips home because of missed trains, or over crowded trains. I did miss though the office interaction and students, but Teams was so good, surprising really, I hate Microsoft, but Teams just worked o my Mac and Chromebook,  At the end of 2021, I decided to retire, and left the un...

The future sometimes has many a strange path, for me, it's my Mac, its 6 years old, and has a few years left on it, but will I replace it, good question, with a simple answer, repacing it with a PC is just not an option, having used them at various workplaces,  I am burned, so my options are a Chromebook or Mac. Google Chrome gives almost all I need, except for CAD, Vectorworks my preferred package runs on Mac and Windows, and as the latter will not ever enter my thoughts, I have to look at Mac, the new Macbook Air is a huge pull.  My Asus flip just works, and its almost a 1/4 of the price of my Mac, so you might think its a no brainer, besides, I have a Pixel 3 and at least two Google speaker things that I can talk to, plus Google cast on the TV, so it's my prime platform, I tried to do everything on the Asus flip, and to a large extent I achieved it, but Chrome OS is not as slick as the Mac OS, and I just crept back to the Mac OS because it was simpler to do things. Openein...

  A Greater Understanding of the change in global weather warming and the effects on Architectural Detailing, Material Choice & Human Interaction.  A change to Adoptive Architecture 2021-10-27 Prof Stephen J Scaysbrook FCIAT ACIOB Chartered Architectural Technologist Visiting Professor at Birmingham City University The evidence is there, Wildfires, high temperatures, high volume rain falls, large areas of the Arctic and the Arctic permafrost and Arctic Ice almost none existent, and glaciers almost gone, the planet is warming, and Global Warming is here, can we do anything about it, before the so-called Tipping Point comes into effect, and the knock-on where events caused by the primary cause takes over if they have not already done so. To be able to understand the complex relationship of all the causes, and there is no longer one, there are many, a comprehensive & relatively high understanding of the problem and related contributors is not just desirabl...