Open ceiling architecture.
It looks interesting, and makes the room seem bigger with the extra height. But, good lord, does it make a room uncomfortably loud. I know I posted this complaint many years ago of a fastish food restaurant near work, this time it is a hotel lobby/bar/restaurant. You can "hear" every conversation in the entire area all the time, and kids.... very terrible to sit there and try to enjoy a drink and some food. .
wae
UltimaDork
9/8/24 11:17 a.m.
I'm not sure if this is really a rant, but it's kind of one... My homework is due at 2359 tonight. I have to look at the 22 sources that I found for my research paper and write a short paragraph about each author and publisher describing their credibility. That's not the rant.
To complete that assignment, I have to dig in to these sources and find out a lot about them. Some of these authors are somewhat obscure so finding things about them, like where they got their PhD, is a bit of a journey. Some of them are organizations that existed in the late 1800s and stopped existing around Prohibition. Some of the publishers have very common and non-descriptive names that are difficult to search and went out of business over a century ago. But that's not the rant.
This research should have only taken a few hours, but I'm coming down to the wire right now because as I do my research, the stupid library keeps showing me all these things that have nothing to do with the subject that I'm looking for, but are intensely interesting, so I wind up diving down all these irrelevant rabbit holes! I spent about 4 hours reading through newspapers from 1877 to get as much detail as I could on the three Beluga whales, even though that will be very hard to try to tie into my project. And last night I spent a couple hours trying to find more details about this poisoned cake that was mailed to someone. So I guess my rant is: Why does all this stuff have to be so damned interesting!?!?
Duke
MegaDork
9/8/24 11:45 a.m.
In reply to alfadriver :
The thing is, if you go that route, there are a whole bunch of other moves you're supposed to make that help reduce reverberation. You can't just delete the lay-in ceiling, paint the structure, and call it a day.
In reply to Duke :
Yes, and it's not a difficult problem to solve.
In reply to alfadriver :
I'll happily pile onto that rant. Depending on the space and the reason for the lack of ceilings, it can also be a real headache to coordinate all the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems because they're now visible elements.
One of our big projects right now is being built of cross laminated timber, and the architect is sparing no expense (it's the taxpayers' money, after all, and don't they deserve the best?) to show off all that beautiful, sustainable, regional, eminently buzzword-able CLT. Instead of giving us ceilings to hide our stuff behind, we get little chases and niches and hidey-holes to stuff everything into. It's a royal PITA. The architects get to fondle themselves over their use of trendy materials, the city gets to congratulate itself on some contrived sustainability and regional-fit-in-ism goals, the few employees who notice will probably not give a rip, and the taxpayers will never even see it.
We haven't even mentioned Cor-Ten yet...
Man, I wish I could figure out why running a chainsaw for more than 15 min destroys my back
In reply to wae :
That was one of the best and worst aspects of working in the stacks of a library when I was in high school.
wae
UltimaDork
9/8/24 9:31 p.m.
In reply to prowlerjc :
This is an accelerated course so we're doing it in 7 weeks instead of 14, so rather than actually write a research paper, the semester's goal is to write a research paper proposal on a historical topic of our choosing. I chose the brewing history of Cincinnati, focusing on the Over-The-Rhine area, from about 1916 until about 1924 to see how the economic landscape shifted with the onset of Prohibition.
wae
UltimaDork
9/8/24 9:34 p.m.
In reply to eastsideTim :
One of my jobs in college (part uno) was working in the periodicals section of the library. I'd have to shelve the various academic journals that had been pulled for people as well as put the latest edition out on the shelves and take the nth one off the shelves and put it in the box. The nun to whom I reported was always admonishing me for spending more time reading the journals than processing them. I couldn't help it - it would flip open and there would be something interesting that just jumped right off the page.
Holy carp.
I was out in the trails last night cleaning up and doing a little arrowing. Somehow I lost the push rod from the hammer stapler, not once, but twice. No problem, I'll just order a couple, these staplers have been the same since the beginning of time.
I can find them in the UK, and Australia, but not in the US or Canada. Shipping from the UK, and even Australia, to Canada is normally very to fairly inexpensive, but neither will ship outside their own country.
The company website is horrible, and even though they do have a contact form, it's so poorly done I don't expect anybody to respond. New staplers are fifty bucks.
First thing this morning I knocked my coffee off my desk. Naturally, it hit the floor and exploded everywhere. It was a really good cup of coffee.
Now, the carpet is soaked and coffee was splashed all over my desk and filing cabinet. And worse, I only have about 1/4 of the cup left and the only emergency coffee I keep at the office is instant. It's good instant but it's not the same as fresh ground.
This has been a E36 M3ty couple of weeks and this one is not starting off well.
berkeley Mondays.
In reply to Peabody :
That looks like the same part as my Arrow staple guns use.
How likely is it you could find an entire hammer stapler cheap on eBay or Kijiji or Goodwill or what have you? Might be cheaper and/or easier than waiting for parts.
You guys all have parts tools in the backyard to keep your driver tools working, don't you?
It's now just under a full week (we got back at like 7pm last Monday) since we got back from our just-over-a-weeklong cruise vacation in Northern Europe- and today is the first day that I've not just felt completely fatigued and mildly depressed and am actually feeling like myself and not a zombie. Don't know whether I was a bit under the weather, was just depressed due to having to come back to 'real life' after the amazing vacation, or something else- but the last week has pretty much sucked. Glad to be feeling closer to my usual self- hopefully The Dancer is feeling back to normal as well, we were both just drained down in the dumps.
Rodan
UberDork
9/9/24 2:10 p.m.
In reply to Peabody :
Do yourself a favor and just buy one of these:
DeWalt Carbon Fiber stapler
Much lighter, less effort, easier to load... I've used a ton of staplers over a lot of years, and this thing is fantastic. Mine's been going strong for ~5 years, but even if I had to replace it every two years I'd do it over the old metal craptastic staplers.
I was helping my 16 year old daughter on a project and she reversed the "new style" stapler and shot it into her finger.
For five minutes she and my wife cried and freaked out and I kept telling to just pull it out. Finally she took a breath and pulled it out. Then all was good - it wasn't that deep.
wae
UltimaDork
9/9/24 2:37 p.m.
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
I have one of those guns, too. Why in the hell did they decide that they needed to build a backwards staple gun?
In reply to wae :
They are awesome if you have a lot of staples to shoot. No squeezing or holding the nose of the gun tight. Just lean on it and bang. After 3-4 hours of stapling screen, you will never use anything else unless it's air-powered or electric.
In reply to Toyman! :
Except, I had one and I left way more staples loose with it than a traditional one. It takes a different feel to make it work. If you'd never used a stapler before, or chose to learn the new ways, I presume it would be great
In reply to tester (Forum Supporter) :
Can you post a link to that? I can find it on Amazon.com but it says no current offers available. No listings on Amazon.ca.
Regarding the other staplers, when I do a course layout I can use up to 500 staples, 90% of them overhead. I'm not sure one of those would work better than a hammer stapler.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
I have both. The reverse style is better once you get used to it. It does take a little movement for it to reset after each staple. Once you get the rhythm, it really is an awesome tool.
I thought my truck needed a head gasket which sucked but that actual problem seems to be much, much worse.
In reply to Peabody :
Hope this works for you.
Elgoog hammer stapler push rod