Thursday, January 31, 2008

Highway Bridges: Conditions and the Federal/State Role
"...Of the 600,000 public road bridges listed in the National Bridge Inventory,
roughly 12%, or 74,000, are classified as structurally deficient. This is, however,
roughly half the number classified as deficient in 1990. Given the I-35Wcollapse,
however, even this lower number of deficient bridges leaves Americans potentially
exposed to what some might consider an unacceptable level of risk. A policy
question is how fast can and should the remaining deficient bridges be replaced or
improved. At current annual spending levels, roughly $10.5 billion (2004 dollars at
all levels of government), the bridge investment backlog (in dollar terms) would be
reduced by roughly half by 2024. Reducing the backlog to near zero during the same
period would require an estimated annual spending rate of roughly $12.4 billion (in
2004 dollars)."

Monday, January 28, 2008

Project Play Semester 2, Week 2

Week 2 lesson introduces Google Docs. The assisgnment was to added an entry to the "Garden Budget" spreadsheet and/or add a slide to the "Project Play slideshow".
Adding an entry to the Garden Budget speadsheet proves frustrating. I tried twice and gave up because Google Docs was taking so long accessing the database. Finally, I got in this morning and added an entry for "orange sunshine" watermelon seeds.
A few days ago, I added a picture to the slideshow of geese in the backyard at my sister's residence in Cary, N.C.

We are currently using Basecamp on a few projects, so I am somewhat familiar with the collobarative and sharing of files features of Google Docs. I did a cursory check on Google for comments on Basecamp vs Google Docs. One person characterizes Basecamp as a "rudimentary project respoistory" and Google Docs is "much more collaborative and maintains fantastics change history."

I would be interested in seeing other staff projects take advantage of Google Docs many features. Keeping a local backup of important files, rather than relying on an off site server, is still an important considertion.