Re: Hello

[Charles J Knight <c dot knight at juno dot com>]

> I am Chris Hansen of Chandler(Phoenix Metro), Arizona.  I have a 
> wife and
> son(11).  Professionally I'm a unix sysadmin.

Welcome, Chris -- my name is Chuck Knight, and I'm an old-timer
on this list.

> I just read the entire archive.  And I have comments/questions.

I'm impressed -- that is a large volume of information.

> I am a greedier sort, and want freedom from the grid for ME, but 
> perhaps
> these are complementary goals.

Fair enough...to each his own.  So, basically, you want to have a
home similar to that which we are designing...  I look forward to
your help.

> There was a long thread on advertising, me driving a 
> porche/rolls/cray
> because I don't have to pay rent/morgage/power/sewage/etc. will be 
> an
> advertizement to anyone that sees me.  And it means I can afford to 
> buy my
> sister and son their own domes, my sister the school teacher driving 
> a
> porche is even better advertizing.

Yes, but until they become relatively common, and their advantages
understood by the general public, who's going to want to live in a
high tech igloo?

Quite bluntly, advertising creates markets which would not have
otherwise existed.

> There were several long threads on connectors, that's useful to me, 
> but if
> the goal is mass production wouldn't welding or adhesives, depending 
> on
> your strut material make more sense.

It depends on where assembly is to be done, and by whom.  If
the goal is to employ millions of skilled workers, hand assembling
buildings on site, then one solution might be in order.

If the goal is to deliver a kit home, for owner assembly, on site,
then the goal is different.

If the goal is to airlift in stacks of empty dome shells, which have 
been assembled by robots by the millions, then the design goals 
are different yet.

My personal choice is to (as a first step) establish a dome market
by the production of "connectors" similar to the Simpsons Strong-Tie
connectors -- the cheap metal joist hangers you can get at Home
Depot.  The average do-it-yourselfer doesn't have access to, or
skills with things like welders or "super-adhesives."  Make the dome
a simple, almost effortless project and people should try building them.
At the moment, it involves measuring, calculating angles, almost
literally creating a new type of architecture.  Take away that difficulty
and I think there would be a dome renaissance.

After people start building domes, a different model can act as
a mass producible home.  

> There was a concern about struts pulling out of the "rubber 
> tinkertoy"
> connectors.  What about holes through the connector or eyes and a 
> cable
> passed through them and pulled taught.

In other words, pin the ends of the struts, to the connector.  A 
simple addition to the idea, and it would work.

Of course, internal friction with the rubber would be enough to
hold it together, unless there are excessive internal forces, i.e. a
water tank?

> On the discussion about server systems for the domes, we don't want 
> this
> to be the same machine as their desktop machine because the customer 
> will
> want to run somthing MStupid and unstable.  I'm against excessive
> embedding in MY house and all the early houses because I want to be 
> able
> to tweak things.  

It should be simple enough to distribute the functions to miniature
embedded systems around the house, and offer central control from
a single server.

As to what server, we *could* just throw caution to the wind and
run something by M$.  Surely it wouldn't require rebooting more
than hourly.  :-)  Your dome shouldn't be more than 100F inside,
after the thermostat crashes and turns on the heater during summer.

> I've run down, will write when I think of more(huge list archive, 
> very burnt out).

We are a creative and very wordy group, aren't we?  :-)  Welcome
to the list.

     -- Chuck Knight
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