World’s Tallest Bridges
August 30, 2005 | 33 Comments
When I had an incoming search for “World’s Tallest Bridge” I was excited at the prospect of doing some research on bridges. For years I have been fascinated with all shapes and sizes of bridge, a definite side effect of living in Pittsburgh, PA. There are enough bridges in that city and county that they have a whole website dedicated to them. According to that website:
Pittsburgh has 30 river bridges with an additional 29 river bridges within Allegheny County for a total of 59. Then you may start to add the many others which cross streams, ravines, roads, railroads, etc. The typically cited a figure of over 2,000 in Allegheny County apparently doesn’t include railroad bridges owned by the railroads, and only includes those over 8 feet in length.
By some counts they have the most bridges in the world, but apparently Paris might have more or less depending on how you cont. While I’m still on that topic, here are my Pittsburgh favorites:
- Fort Duquesne Bridge, nicknamed “The Bridge to Nowhere” because from 1969 to 1986 one end hung in mid-air due to complexities in attaching it to neighboring expressways and bridges.
- Roberto Clemente Memorial Bridge, Seventh Street, and Ninth Street bridges nicknamed the “Three Sisters Bridges” (more pictures)
- Smithfield Bridge
- Homestead High Level Bridge
OK, moving on from PIttsburgh to the main event, the world’s tallest bridges.
The world’s tallest bridge is France’s Millau Viaduct spanning the River Tarn. The bridge stands at an impressive 341m tall and 2,460m long. This is in fact 30m taller than the Eiffel Tower. Construction completed in late 2004. Also, the roadway of the bridge is only at 270m, while the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado has a deck at 321m.
Although, it seems this is in fact only the world’s tallest vehicular bridge, I cannot find any sources naming any other sort of bridge that is in fact taller. If someone knows, I’m dying to find out.
More on the Millau Viaduct:
Official Site
BBC: France shows off tallest bridge
MSNBC: World’s Tallest Bridge
According to Wikipedia, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge (1,991m) in Japan is the world’s largest suspension bridge and this is also the longest bridge span. It seems the Millau Viaduct is longer, so I’m not sure why they haven’t updated. The Messina bridge in Italy is supposed to be completed in 2011 and will have a span of 3,300m, blowing this record clean out of the water.
But what about longer bridges that aren’t suspension? Well the Second Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana is 38,422m long and crosses Lake Pontchartrain. That’s a lot longer… but doesn’t have much height.
To add one more level of complexity, the Tsing Ma Bridge in Hong Kong is the bridge with the largest rail carrying span (1,377m). So this one is really big and can handle lots of weight.
Finally, being from New England I must touch on covered bridges. The longest covered bridge crosses the St. John River in New Brunswick, Canada and is 390m. Plymouth, NH claims to have the world’s strongest bridge, Smith Covered Bridge, but I think they just made the claim and no one has challenged it…
More bridge resources:
The World’s Greatest Bridges
BridgePros
HowStuffWorks.com “How Bridges Work”
A couple other bridges I can’t resist:
- San Diego’s Coronado Bridge - I love it because it is big, high, and has a huge curve in it.
- Prince Edward Island’s Confederation Bridge (Official Site)
- Boston’s Charles River Bridge
- Plymouth, NH’s New Bridge (unnamed to the best of my knowledge) This brige is still under contruction/destruction, but will significantly change the initial view of Plymouth.
Tags: akashi-kaikyo, allegheny county, boston, bridge, bridges, canada, causeway, colorado, confederation bridge, coronado bridge, covered, covered bridge, fort duquesne bridge, france, ft duquesne, homestead high level bridge, italy, long bridge, longest covered bridge, ma, messina bridge, millau, millau viaduct, most bridges in the world, nh, pa, pennsylvania, pittsburgh, plymouth, pontchartrain, prince edward island, river tarn, roberto clemente memorial bridge, san diego, smith bridge, smith covered bridge, smithfield bridge, suspension, suspension bridge, tall bridge, tall bridges, tallest bridge, the bridge to nowhere, three sisters bridges, viaduct, wikipedia, word’s tallest bridge, world’s largest suspension bridge, world’s longest bridge, worlds strongest covered bridge
Mishmash of Acronyms
August 29, 2005 | 5 Comments
While reading technical documentation today Jon and I busted a gut when we read:
“You can set the LDAP authentication process to use Single Socket Layer (SSL).”
I assume this is some tech writers confusion between Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Single Sign-On (SSO).
Tags: definition, secure socket layer, single sign on, single socket layer, SSL, sso
World’s Ugliest Dog
August 29, 2005 | 346 Comments
For three years running Sam has won the San Francisco Sonoma-Marin Fair’s“World’s Ugliest Dog” competition. I’ve been meaning to blog this ever since my father-in-law Brian showed it to me a week ago. The pictures really say it all. Is there a single endearing characteristic about this animal?
I searched around a lot, but could not find any of the runners-up out there. I have no doubt that this is undeniably the world’s ugliest. However, apparently his health is fading so I wonder what the competition will grace us with in years to come.
This UK site claims to have some ugly dogs, but they just don’t compare.
Well, anyway, here’s all the pictures I turned up of this handsome devil.
UPDATE:
So Matt brought up a good point in a comment, is this a friendly creature? Well, no not really. I found the owners blog site and Sam’s site.
From her site:
I invite anyone with complaints to come and see how absolutly adored and well cared for this dog is and to touch his leg and see how little it takes to get him snarly. One time, SAM came SCREAMING into the house dragging his back leg..I dropped the dish I was carrying and thought he had gotten out and been hit by a car or something. When I caught up with him in the bedroom he was looking back at his back leg and screaming and growling..WELL…there was a post-it note stuck on his rump..he had sat on it on the sofa and it stuck. The last thing in the world I would do is hurt SAM but it does NOT take much to get him growling//usually he just does it on his own anyway!
More articles about Sam:
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=10958
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/uglydog.asp
http://www.gadgetryblog.com/gadgetryblog/2005/07/worlds_ugliest_.html
http://xo.typepad.com/blog/2005/07/another_image_o.html
Tags: dog, nasty critter, pooch, puppy, ugliest dog, ugly, ugly dog, ugly mud sucker, world’s ugliest, yuck
Millenials, Retirement, and Harry Potter
August 27, 2005 | 2 Comments
Over the last three days I have found myself in a lecture hall each morning, each for different reasons. First it was because of my adjunct faculty duties, next as a general employee, and finally as a member if ITS.
On Wednesday it was to watch the Plymouth State “Faculty Day” keynote presentation by William Strauss titled “Millenials Go To College”.
According to his website, here is a brief explanation of this generation:
The Millennial Generation (Hero?, born 1982-?) first arrived when “Babies on Board” signs appeared. As abortion and divorce rates ebbed, the popular culture began stigmatizing hands-off parental styles and recasting babies as special. Child abuse and child safety became hot topics, while books teaching virtues and values became best-sellers. Today, politicians define adult issues (from tax cuts to deficits) in terms of their effects on children. Hollywood is replacing cinematic child devils with child angels, and cable TV and the internet are cordoning off “child-friendly” havens. While educators speak of “standards” and “cooperative learning,” school uniforms are surging in popularity. With adults viewing children more positively, U.S. test scores are faring better in international comparisons.
The Millenials are a generation in his “Hero” archetype. Here is a brief summary of this archetype:
We remember Heroes best for their collective coming-of-age triumphs […] and for their hubristic elder achievements. […] All have been aggressive advocates of economic prosperity and public optimism in midlife; and all have maintained a reputation for civic energy and competence even deep into old age.
Overall, Strauss presented a fascinating topic and did it well. I left with hope for the future generation and excitement about helping in my small way to bring them to greatness.
More resources on Millenials:
Pedablogue: Millennials Go to College
Millenials Rising Book Site
William Strauss Books on Amazon
On Thursday, all employees at Plymouth State were called together by President Wharton. We did not know what he was planning to tell us. The big announcement was his planned retirement, effective June 30, 2006.
From Plymouth State Office of Public Relations:
Dr. Wharton is in his 13th year as president and is the 13th president at Plymouth State. He has been the steward of significant changes at the institution, including the transition in 2003 from Plymouth State College to Plymouth State University.
[…]
Under Dr. Wharton’s leadership the Plymouth State campus has changed significantly—adding new buildings such as the Hartman Union Building, Lamson Library, the Draper Maynard building, Prospect Dining Hall, and most recently the Boyd Science Center. In addition, the demolition of the old power plant and associated buildings and construction of the co-generation facility created more green space and the conversion of town streets to campus walkways. This past spring the University broke ground for the new Langdon Woods Student Housing Complex, which will add 347 new beds to campus housing in an effort to have a larger percentage of students reside on campus.
Finally on Friday all of Information Technology Services gathered for some inspiring words from CIO Dwight Fischer. The new group of student staff was introduced and hopefully made to feel at home. After giving a list of of things causing us all stress, it became clear, this was also a list of the great and innovative things we are doing on campus: deploying McAfee Virus Scan and ePolicy Orchestrator, increased integrated services, further deployment of multimedia classrooms, and more. Fischer then made some insightful comparisons between IT and Harry Potter, though sadly the only one I remember is “we learn good spells to counter the ever growing number of evil ones.”
Overall, as a week to ramp up for the beginning of another semester in higher education, this was an inspiring one.
Tags: donald wharton, dwight fischer, generations, higher education, millenials, nh, plymouth, plymouth state university, retirement, speeches, strauss, wharton, william strauss
ADOdb - PHP Database Abstraction
August 27, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Anyone who has used more than one database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, etc) with PHP realizes it is cumbersome. In fact the developers of PHP have recently realized this as well. In 5.1 they are planning to include PHP Data Objects (PDO). However, in the meantime I recommend ADOdb.
Unfortunately, PHP's database access functions are not standardised. Every database extension uses a different and incompatibile API. This creates a need for a database class library to hide the differences between the different databases (encapsulate the differences) so we can easily switch databases.
Example connection to mySQL:
-
$db = NewADOConnection('mysql'); // type of connection
-
$db->SetFetchMode(ADODB_FETCH_ASSOC); // sets the query results to come back as assoc arrays
-
$db->PConnect('mysql_db_host', 'some_user', 'some_pass', 'the_db'); // make the connection
Example connection to Oracle:
-
<?php
-
$db = NewADOConnection('oci8'); // type of connection
-
$db->SetFetchMode(ADODB_FETCH_ASSOC); // sets the query results to come back as assoc arrays
-
$db->PConnect('oracle_db_host', 'jpseudo', 'his_password', 'oracle_sid'); // make the connection
-
?>
Comparing the two examples it's clear how similar connecting to either database becomes. Also notice we're setting the fetch mode to associative so we get back friendly associative arrays. The following is an example of how to query and get back results:
-
<?php
-
$query = "SELECT * FROM tablename";
-
$res = $db->Execute($query);
-
while($row = $res->FetchRow())
-
{
-
// $row is an associative array, indexed by fieldname from the table
-
}
-
?>
This will get back a bunch of rows of data, You might want less, like a single row or single field of a single row.
-
<?php
-
$row = $db->GetRow("SELECT * FROM tablename WHERE id_field='single_value'"); // this returns an associative array of the single row
-
$a_field = $db->GetRow("SELECT a_field FROM tablename WHERE id_field='single_value'"); // this returns the value of single field of the single row
-
?>
More Resources:
ADOdb Database Abstraction Library for PHP Main Site
ADOdb Documentation
Alternate Abstraction Library: PEAR DB
Tags: adodb, database, database abstraction, databases, mysql, oracle, pdo, php, programming
Intro to Arrays in PHP
August 26, 2005 | 4 Comments
PHP has the ability to use associative arrays. These are by far the most useful and versatile data structure in PHP (and debatably any language). Instead of using the more common indexed array, where integers are used to identify the elements of the array, you can use strings.
If you are writing PHP, you have to know associative arrays and feel good about them.
Here's an example showing some common uses:
Associative arrays are also the most readable and convenient way to deal with database results. Suddenly you have an array that is indexed by field name from the table. How could anything be cooler than that?
For debugging arrays, there is nothing more useful than print_r():
Output:
Array
(
[0] => 1
[1] => 2
[2] => 3
[3] => 4
[4] => 5
)
If you want to add an element to the end of an array you can use the [] notation (sort of like a stack push):
Output:
Array
(
[0] => Monkey
[1] => Alligator
[2] => Rabbit
)
Read More about PHP arrays on PHP.net.
Tags: array, arrays, associative, associative array, example, introduction, php, PHP.net, programming
Real Life Comics
August 24, 2005 | 1 Comment
A bunch of years back Sara and I got excited about reading Real Life Comics. Once a web only comic, now a compilation has been made containing all the first year comics. The author, Greg Dean, seems to pull a lot of this directly from his life. There are computers, video games, swords, and anime. The series has great art, is really geeky, and is an all around fun read. Anyway, I have been forgetting about it for the last couple years, but I am working on getting caught up again. My whole point for posting is to remind me to go read it.
On a side note, something about the art at Iconize Me! is what made me remember Real Life. Check out Cliff's icon. Very cool.
Tags: art, comic strip, comics, iconize me, real life