Water drops suspended in mid air
Low pressure shower head?
Posted via email from Blog.SteveHill.cc
12 July 2009 | posted by Steve Hill | General | Comments Off
Finally
Finally; a camera that can stop water drops in mid air! And you can zoom in on the drops and they don't pixilate.
Posted via email from Blog.SteveHill.cc
12 July 2009 | posted by Steve Hill | General | Comments Off
Stopping By The Salton Sea At Sunset
I was heading home from an inspection in El Centro the other day and decided to take the route through Imperial Valley. While passing the Salton Sea, I noticed the reflection of the setting sun on the water and several birds. I’m still trying to get used to my new digital SLR so I thought I would get some practice using some of the features.
You can find the rest of the photos at Flickr.
| www.flickr.com |
24 January 2009 | posted by Steve Hill | General, Photography | Comments Off
Construction Defect Firm Corruption Investigation In Las Vegas
Federal and local law enforcement officers raided nine sites around the valley on Wednesday in a sweeping probe into possible collusion between homeowners associations and businesses benefiting from construction defect lawsuits.
The raids are part of a “pending public corruption case,” according to Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman Dave Staretz, who refused to release details. He said no arrests were made.
коли под наемAccording to a law enforcement source, the FBI is investigating whether individuals were placed on homeowners association boards who, in turn, would direct business stemming from construction defect lawsuits to select companies.
At issue, according to the source, is whether HOA members were steering contracts to certain construction companies.
Other sources said there has long been speculation that some HOA representatives were hiring certain law firms to handle construction defect lawsuits in exchange for kickbacks.
According to this article and others, a law firm would become involved with a homeowners association in the Las Vegas area representing the board in a construction defect case. The law firm (it was always the same firm, according to law enforcement) would recommend that the repairs be made by one Leon Benzer. His construction company would front the costs of the work and thereby receive the bulk of any settlement or award at the conclusion of the law suit. If the HOA board didn’t go along, they were replaced through carefully orchestrated and possibly fraudulent election proceedings. The new HOA board would likely be comprised of members that were on good terms with either Benzer or the law firm.
Benzer is purported to be an advocate for homeowners but the implications are much different. The FBI and local law enforcement are still tight-lipped about the investigation, so little more is known at this time.
Link to Las Vegas Review Journal Article, Link to Las Vegas Now Article
Updated: A well-known construction defect plaintiff attorney, Nancy Quon, has been added to the roster:
Agents are also interested in documents related to political consultant Steve Wark, who served as president of the Vistaña Homeowners Association, as well as prominent construction defect attorneys Scott Canepa and Nancy Quon.
30 September 2008 | posted by SHCC Webmaster | Construction, Construction Defect, Construction and Law, Litigation | Comments Off
Agency Fights Building Code Born of 9-11
The International Code Council has recommended incorporating tough new requirements for 2009 that apply to tall skyscrapers. The code is specifically intended to address some of the issues believed to be most detrimental at the World Trade Center on 11 Sept 2001. Curiously a major objector to this standard is the federal government’s own General Services Administration. Serving as the “nation’s landlord”, the GSA’s mission is to “help federal agencies better serve the public by offering, at best value, superior workplaces, expert solutions, acquisition services and management policies.” Ironically, the government and its properties (which are managed by the GSA) are exempt from building codes, although it “generally requires that buildings it rents or buys honor building codes.”
“A federal agency has joined some of the nation’s biggest landlords in trying to repeal stronger safety requirements for new skyscrapers that were added to the country’s most widely used building code last year, arguing that they would be too expensive to meet.
“The new provisions, which include requiring tall office buildings to have more robust fireproofing and an extra emergency stairwell, were enacted as a result of an exhaustive federal study into the collapse of the twin towers at the World Trade Center seven years ago this week.
The entire article is worth a read. Emotionally charged politics vs. economic interests of major political contributors square off. In the middle is the NIST’s report following the investigation of the WTC collapses and the ICC attempting to translate that data into applicable codes.
10 September 2008 | posted by SHCC Webmaster | Business, Construction, Construction and Law, General | Comments Off
2007 California Building Code Available For Free
The Public.Resource.Org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to making the governing laws of the U.S.A. available to the public that those laws apply to. As they point out here, there are numerous companies that profit greatly by making these documents available (West Law, Lexis Nexis), but at a high cost. It is the opinion of Public.Resource.Org that these laws, court decisions, codes belong to the people and therefore should be freely available to the people, not “locked up behind a cash register.” And this isn’t uncharted waters, either as pointed out below:
In Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress, 293 F.3d 791, the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, met en banc “because of the novelty and importance of the issues” presented before the court:
“The issue in this en banc case is the extent to which a private organization may assert copyright protection for its model codes, after the models have been adopted by a legislative body and become ‘the law’. Specifically, may a code-writing organization prevent a website operator from posting the text of a model code where the code is identified simply as the building code of a city that enacted the model code as law?”
In an exhaustive opinion that carefully traced the reasons why our laws must be public, the Honorable Chief Judge Edith H. Jones stated the conclusion of the court:
“Our short answer is that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder’s exclusive prerogatives.”
So without further ado, please take the time to download the full set of the 2007 California Building Code, made available by Carl Malamud of the Public.Resource.Org as a gift to the public in honor of this country’s Declaration of Independence.
P.S. – Laws cannot be copyrighted.
5 July 2008 | posted by SHCC Webmaster | Construction, Construction and Law, General, Litigation | Comments Off
Tom Hanks Loses Home Construction Lawsuit
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have been in a dispute with Ketchum, Idaho based Storey Construction, Inc. over the construction of their Sun Valley, Idaho home. Hanks and his wife were ordered to pay $1.85M to the firm in 2004, but filed a request for arbitration, alleging latent defects. After the first request for arbitration was rejected, a second request was filed in December of 2007. That request has now been rejected as well and attorneys from the construction company will seek attorney fees and other damages as a result.
“A Blaine County judge has rejected Tom Hanks’ second request for arbitration over what the actor says was $2.5 million in faulty workmanship by the construction company that built his sprawling compound north of this central Idaho resort town.
“Following the decision, a lawyer for the construction company said it will seek monetary damages from Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, for what it alleges was “abuse of process” for filing the second arbitration request.”
27 June 2008 | posted by SHCC Webmaster | Construction, Construction Defect, Construction and Law, General, Litigation | Comments Off
Watch Fire Researchers Torch Homes, Offices and Warehouses
Wired Magazine has a video gallery profiling the testing and analysis work conducted at the NIST’s Building and Fire Research Laboratory’s Fire Dynamics and Smokeview software modeling and laboratory fire testing experiments. The BFRL provide invaluable data for manufacturers, contractors and others in the building industry to further fire safety standards and practices. And how can one go wrong watching researchers getting paid to burn all manner of things in the name of science?
“To model how flames turn buildings into ashes, the nation’s leading fire researchers don’t play with matches over the sink. Instead they burn down entire homes, cubicles and warehouses.
“At the National Institutes of Standards and Technologies, researchers set huge fires under a 40-foot-long by 30-foot-wide exhaust hood that is connected to an $8 million control unit.
21 June 2008 | posted by SHCC Webmaster | Construction, Construction Defect, Consulting, Experts, General, Inspections, Technology | Comments Off
Concrete Testing at Yankee Stadium and Freedom Tower Is Scrutinized
“Manhattan prosecutors are investigating whether the leading concrete testing company in the New York area, which has been hired to measure and analyze the strength of the concrete poured at some of the biggest construction projects in the city, failed to do some tests and falsified others, officials involved in the inquiry said on Friday.
“The investigation has uncovered problems with tests the company conducted on concrete poured over the last two years at the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and the foundation of the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan, along with as many as a dozen other projects, said several of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.
“The investigation has also raised questions about past work done by the company, Testwell Laboratories Inc., at a wide range of sites around the city. Construction and inspection practices in the city are already under scrutiny as a result of a series of fatal accidents and arrests on corruption charges.”
This article is fascinating on a number of levels. First, who would have thought that the New York Times would run an article that goes into such detail about concrete testing, specifically slump tests? Secondly, and perhaps more notable, law enforcement is conducting an investigation into the practices of a noted high profile concrete testing firm. But it isn’t just any law enforcement division, it is the Manhattan District Attorney Office’s Labor Racketeering Unit. Racketeering? That’s a serious charge.
It should be noted that Testwell Laboratories, Inc. (website appears to be down – here is the Google cache of the site) provides much more than concrete testing, offering a full range of testing services including geotechnical, metallurgy, construction materials, petrographic and chemical. Testwall Laboratories, Inc. describes itself (ironically) as “an independent full-service testing, inspection, quality control and quality assurance organization that has earned a valued reputation for reliability and professionalism in the construction industry“. [Emphasis added.]
21 June 2008 | posted by SHCC Webmaster | Construction, Construction Defect, Construction and Law, Consulting, Inspections, Litigation | Comments Off
How Not To Transport A Ladder
24 May 2008 | posted by SHCC Webmaster | Construction, Experts, General, Inspections, Photography | Comments Off
