#Construction data software

[maxwellgeosystems]

Tunnel boring begins at Hànoi Station metro line

[arolesbianism]

Some more concept designs but this time for two guys I’ve never talked abt before oops

[twininfra]

Welcome To Twin Infra - Digtal Twin

A Digital Twin Platform to improve timeliness and reduce cost overruns in your construction projects.

Twin Infra is is a complete IT solution for the Construction/Infrastructure industry based on the concept of “Digital Twin.” The Twin Infra module is an integrated cloud platform to manage data models, people, process, and assets throughout the lifecycle of a construction project. The Twin Infra module has predictive analytic features to anticipate and forecast in all the stages of Construction/Infra. It works on public, private, and virtual cloud infrastructure and uses Artificial Intelligence for operational insights and efficiency. 

Contact us

[projectmates]

Construction Document Collaboration Platform Enhance your team’s collaboration with Projectmates’ document-sharing platform. The software allows teams to work on documents simultaneously, leave comments, and track changes in real time. Whether it’s drawings, contracts, or RFIs, the system ensures everyone is on the same page, reducing errors and improving the decision-making process.

[nasa]

Hubble Space Telescope: Exploring the Cosmos and Making Life Better on Earth

In the 35 years since its launch aboard space shuttle Discovery, the Hubble Space Telescope has provided stunning views of galaxies millions of light years away. But the leaps in technology needed for its look into space has also provided benefits on the ground. Here are some of the technologies developed for Hubble that have improved life on Earth.

Image Sensors Find Cancer

Charge-coupled device (CCD) sensors have been used in digital photography for decades, but Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph required a far more sensitive CCD. This development resulted in improved image sensors for mammogram machines, helping doctors find and treat breast cancer.

Laser Vision Gives Insights

In preparation for a repair mission to fix Hubble’s misshapen mirror, Goddard Space Flight Center required a way to accurately measure replacement parts. This resulted in a tool to detect mirror defects, which has since been used to develop a commercial 3D imaging system and a package detection device now used by all major shipping companies.

Optimized Hospital Scheduling

A computer scientist who helped design software for scheduling Hubble’s observations adapted it to assist with scheduling medical procedures. This software helps hospitals optimize constantly changing schedules for medical imaging and keep the high pace of emergency rooms going.

Optical Filters Match Wavelengths and Paint Swatches

For Hubble’s main cameras to capture high-quality images of stars and galaxies, each of its filters had to block all but a specific range of wavelengths of light. The filters needed to capture the best data possible but also fit on one optical element. A company contracted to construct these filters used its experience on this project to create filters used in paint-matching devices for hardware stores, with multiple wavelengths evaluated by a single lens.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[symetriuk]

The Most Realistic Architectural Visualization Tool on the Market.

Twinmotion can import your data in a matter of minutes, with no detail loss. Once linked, you can continue to refine in your design software before sending those changes to Twinmotion with a single click.It comes with 10,000 high-quality smart assets, which can be dragged and dropped into your scene. The large library of manmade and natural physically based materials – everything from trees growth, doors opening, people movement, cobblestones and non-slip flooring, to water, sand, and mud - it's easy to get the look you want.

[charseraph]

Noosciocircus agent backgrounds, former jobs at C&A, assigned roles, and current internal status.

Kinger

Former professor — Studied child psychology and computer science, moved into neobotanics via germination theory and seedlet development.

Seedlet trainer — Socialized and educated newly germinated seedlets to suit their future assignments. I.e. worked alongside a small team to serve as seedlets’ social parents, K-12 instructors, and upper-education mentors in rapid succession (about a year).

Intermediary — Inserted to assist cooperation and understanding of Caine.

Partially mentally mulekicked — Lives in state of forgetfulness after abstraction of spouse, is prone to reliving past from prior to event.

Ragatha

Former EMT — Worked in a rural community.

Semiohazard medic — Underwent training to treat and assess mulekick victims and to administer care in the presence of semiohazards.

Nootic health supervisor— Inserted to provide nootic endurance training, treat psychological mulekick, and maintain morale.

Obsessive-compulsive — Receives new agents and struggles to maintain morale among team and herself due to low trust in her honesty.

Jax

Former programmer — Gained experience when acquired out of university by a large software company.

Scioner — Developed virtual interfaces for seedlets to operate machinery with.

Circus surveyor — Inserted to assess and map nature of circus simulation, potentially finding avenues of escape.

Anomic — Detached from morals and social stake. Uncooperative and gleefully combative.

Gangle

Former navy sailor — Performed clerical work as a yeoman, served in one of the first semiotically-armed submarines.

Personnel manager — Recordkept C&A researcher employments and managed mess hall.

Task coordinator — Inserted to organize team effort towards escape.

Reclused — Abandoned task and lives in quiet, depressive state.

Zooble

No formal background — Onboarded out of secondary school for certification by C&A as part of a youth outreach initiative.

Mule trainer — Physically handled mules, living semiohazard conveyors for tactical use.

Semiohazard specialist — Inserted to identify, evaluate, and attempt to disarm semiotic tripwires.

Debilitated and self-isolating — Suffers chronic vertigo from randomly pulled avatar. Struggles to participate in adventures at risk of episode.

Pomni

Former accountant — Worked for a chemical research firm before completing her accreditation to become a biochemist.

Collochemist — Performed mesh checkups and oversaw industrial hormone synthesis.

Field researcher — Inserted to collect data from fellows and organize reports for indeterminate recovery. Versed in scientific conduct.

In shock — Currently acclimating to new condition. Fresh and overwhelming preoccupation with escape.

Caine

Neglected — Due to project deadline tightening, Caine’s socialization was expedited in favor of lessons pertinent to his practical purpose. Emerged a well-meaning but awkward and insecure individual unprepared for noosciocircus entrapment.

Prototype — Germinated as an experimental mustard, or semiotic filter seedlet, capable of subconsciously assembling semiohazards and detonating them in controlled conditions.

Nooscioarchitect — Constructs spaces and nonsophont AI for the agents to occupy and interact with using his asset library and computation power. Organizes adventures to mentally stimulate the agents, unknowingly lacing them with hazards.

Helpless — After semiohazard overexposure, an agent’s attachment to their avatar dissolves and their blackroom exposes, a process called abstraction. These open holes in the noosciocircus simulation spill potentially hazardous memories and emotion from the abstracted agent’s mind. Caine stores them in the cellar, a stimulus-free and infoproofed zone that calms the abstracted and nullifies emitted hazards. He genuinely cares about the inserted, but after only being able to do damage control for a continually deteriorating situation, the weight of his failure is beginning to weigh on him in a way he did not get to learn how to express.

[mariacallous]

If you’ve rented an apartment in the US in the past several years, you may have had the sense that the game was rigged: Prices creep up not only at your building but at others throughout the city, seemingly in lockstep. A new civil lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice today alleges that in many cases it’s not just in your head—and that a single company’s algorithm is to blame.

That company is RealPage, a Texas-based firm that provides commercial revenue management software for landlords. In other words, it helps set the prices of apartments. But it does so, the DOJ alleges in its lawsuit, by effectively helping its clients cheat; landlords feed rental rate and lease terms into the system, and the RealPage algorithm in turn spits out a suggested price that enables coordination and hinders competition.

“By feeding sensitive data into a sophisticated algorithm powered by artificial intelligence, RealPage has found a modern way to violate a century-old law through systematic coordination of rental housing prices,” deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco said in a statement.

RealPage’s reach is broad. It controls 80 percent of the market for software of its kind, which in turn is used to set prices of around 3 million units across the country, according to the DOJ. It already faces multiple lawsuits, including one from the state of Arizona and another in Washington, DC, where RealPage software is allegedly used to price more than 90 percent of units in large apartment buildings. RealPage’s algorithmic pricing first gained broader attention when a 2022 ProPublica investigation detailed how the company’s YieldStar software works.

The DOJ civil lawsuit, which was joined by the attorneys general of eight states, is a significant escalation in legal action against the company. It’s also a first for the DOJ, according to officials speaking on background during a call to discuss the complaint. While the government had previously filed criminal charges against an Amazon seller for algorithm-enabled price-fixing, this is the first civil action in which the algorithm itself, the Justice Department official says, was effectively the means of the violation.

The complaint itself quotes RealPage executives allegedly acknowledging anticompetitive aspects of its product. “There is greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down,” one RealPage executive allegedly wrote.

RealPage has repeatedly denied any allegations of antitrust violations, going so far as to publish a six-page digital pamphlet that claims to tell “the Real Story” about its products, along with an extensive FAQ page on a dedicated public policy website. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “Attacks on the industry’s revenue management are based on demonstrably false information,” one section of that site reads. “RealPage revenue management software benefits both housing providers and residents.”

“We are disappointed that, after multiple years of education and cooperation on the antitrust matters concerning RealPage, the DOJ has chosen this moment to pursue a lawsuit that seeks to scapegoat pro-competitive technology that has been used responsibly for years,” said Jennifer Bowcock, senior vice president of communications and creative at RealPage, in an emailed statement. “RealPage’s revenue management software is purposely built to be legally compliant, and we have a long history of working constructively with the DOJ to show that."

The DOJ disagrees. “Algorithms don’t exist in a law-free zone,” said Monaco in a press conference to discuss the case. “Training a machine to break the law is still breaking the law.”

In this case, the complaint alleges that those algorithms consistently drove rental prices upward. “RealPage’s software tends to maximize price increases, minimize price decreases, and maximize landlords’ pricing power,” said the DOJ in a press release. RealPage also doesn’t just recommend prices; in many cases, it actively sets them.

“RealPage actively polices landlords’ compliance with those recommendations,” said US attorney general Merrick Garland in today’s press conference. “A large number of landlords effectively agree to outsource their pricing decisions to RealPage by using an ‘auto-accept’ setting that effectively permits RealPage to determine the price a renter will pay.”

The DOJ also claims RealPage has created a “self-reinforcing feedback loop” with its data intake and pricing recommendations structure that also gives it an alleged monopoly in the apartment revenue management software industry. Any competitor who plays by the rules, the DOJ claims, is at a distinct disadvantage.

The Justice Department has spent the past several years staffing up with technologists and data scientists, better enabling them to “interrogate the code,” as multiple officials described the investigative process. While this is the first major algorithmic collusion case, DOJ officials suggested it would be far from the last.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Concrete has allowed the housing and infrastructure booms of the last century that have lifted millions into better, safer living conditions. That task is not over, with an estimated 600–756 million dwellings needed globally to reach the UN 2030 goal of universal housing access, primarily in the global south; this is where 94 per cent of cement is now produced, making it essential to many livelihoods and economies. And, while arguably modern technologies such as scanning equipment, design tools and modelling software make it more possible to use less‑standardised materials than concrete for building at scale, there are functions for which concrete is genuinely hard to replace. Deep piling, long‑span bridges, tall buildings and complex energy infrastructures are all innovations of the concrete age.  Since we cannot rely on green concrete at scale, but we also cannot get away from using concrete in some applications, a more nuanced approach must be embraced. The overall use of concrete must be dramatically reduced in favour of a more diverse palette of materials and design strategies. Countries with large existing material stocks must reuse and repair existing buildings, maximising the value of the matter that they already have. Where such places genuinely cannot make do without concrete, recycled cement technologies have a promising role to play. In countries which have a need for mass new building and infrastructure programmes, designers must work with a more varied range of materials as appropriate and affordable to the site and context. This includes bricks, formed from clays or waste material and fired with renewable energy, non‑fired bio‑based materials and stone, reimagining traditional methods of construction and introducing modern innovations that enable their use at scale. Concrete should be reserved for the infrastructure that cannot be done without – data centres to feed ChatGPT hardly count as essential concrete infrastructure.

9 October 2024

[kurios-development-hell]

I had time to put into sketch a rough draft of how my SpamEX [[TAQUIÖN]] would look like. I need to do a ton of research about him before doing a clean ref-sheet.

Basically he has 4 arms, but they are braided in bundles of two to each side and tucked against the chest-plate. Because those arms are useless to manipulate objects (the hands are literal laser-guns that can split in half), he produces some kind of ionized smoke from the porthole filters to the sides of his skull faceplate (based on the gas used on old casino machines to fill up the lights -- he's basically constructed after old broken wild-west casino machines and software). This ionized smoke is able to coalesce into more solid things like arms and deft hands (that he uses to play his 15-player Baccarat at his casino or to drink his coffee and spirits). He's used to manipulate objects with just his smoke, and leave his real arms for when he needs to deal with foes, rivals and unruly bounties.

More about him when I get the time to develop him a little more. Thanks to the "Spam Fam" for helping me get the courage to finally draw a first draft of my SpamEX (AFTER A YEAR; I was very shy and unsure about how people would react to my "Enterrador" SpamEX...).

The poncho should have some Mexican "Día de los Muertos" patterns that I need to research later to give it a more readeable pattern to the poncho. The symbols on it (the Pique, Trèfle and Coeur) means "LIFE, LUCK, LOVE" respectively (Fortune is forfeited since he became a greedy casino mogul when he became a SpamEX). The buckle of his belt is a big Spamton NEO skull (represents his transition from the dead NEO and reborn as an "undead" SpamEX).

Anyway, I think he's taller than that Kris, but will make that ref sheet with cleaner profile data when I get the time. If I reckon well, he was made after Kris forgot to check on Spamton tangled in the wires after Kris and co. defeated him with violence. So Spamton's view on the Lightners soured so much that [[TAQUIÖN]] can't see them as anything else but mere walking SOUL capsules waiting to be pop'd...

oof I'm so hungry, I better go make my lunch... 🍝

[messinwitheddie]

What did happen to Gir’s original body?

.......Oh wow, good question... Zim keeps Gir's robot unit, or most of it his whole life. Some peices get lost, but most of Gir's original metal vessel is kept and deeply cherished.

[Towards the beginning of the 18-years-later au, hortly after Zim crashes back on earth...]

[Flashback roughly 16 years ago, sometime during Zim's original visit to earth]

Gir "I'm REAL!! I'm real! I'm real! I'm real! I'm real! I'm real! I'm real! I'm real! I'm-!!"

Zim "GIR!! Enough of this nonsense! The last time you were stuck in this loop, it messed me up for weeks. Drop it! Focus on my orders!"

Gir "But I AM real, master! Really!"

Zim *sighs* "Hate to be the one to explain this to you, Gir, but-- you're not real. You are a robot minion; one of possibly thousands, slapped together on a slave-labor assembly line. You operate with artificial intelligence software coursing through hardware-- faulty artificial intelligence that could use several updates at that."

Gir "But-"

Zim "The only truly Irken thing about you is your default SIR unit program was developed by an Irken engineer with data ripped from the PAKs of billions of aborted sickly smeets."

Gir "But I AM real..."

Zim "You're real in the sense you're a tangible object, but beyond that of a fancy thermos you're just a-"

Gir "But I AM real!! I'm a real boy!"

Zim "If you were real, you would be a real Irken drone, not a "boy."

Gir "Oh... ok! I'm a real Irken drone! YAY! I'm a drone! A real drone!"

Zim "You're NOT a real boy-er- a drone. You're a construct. You're an extension of Irken imagination at best. You, Gir, are a robot-- a robot that SHOULD follow my orders. Go guard the front door already!"

Gir "I don' get it. Why are you "real" but I'm not? Master, what makes someone real?"

Zim "Well--! Uh...? Um...? To be real one must be..." *frustrated growl* "Would you guard the ftont door for a suck monkey?!"

Gir "I love suck monkeys!"

Zim "And if I GIVE you a suck monkey, you will obey me?!"

Gir "Buuuut... if I'm not real then I'm not really enjoying the suck monkey. What's the point? I'm just wasting a perfectly yummy suck monkey that a real being could enjoy..."

Zim "That IS a very good point, Gir. You DON'T actually enjoy suck monkies. The CONCEPT of Gir enjoys suck monkeys, but you--"

Gir "But I DO!! I DO enjoy suck monkies!!"

Zim "GIR!! I'm trying to conquer an enemy planet! Follow your master's orders! Go upstairs! Guard the front door!!"

Gir *whimpers* "I don' get it. I don't get it... This is horrible...I want to be real."

Zim "And I want YOU to guard the front door while I maniacally scheme! Now!"

Gir "I don't understand..."

Minimoose "Nyah...?!"

Zim "No no no no no, not you too--"

Minimoose "Nyah!"

Gir "The implications are unsettling."

Minimoose "Nyaaaah!"

Gir "Master...! We want a second opinion!"

Zim "From WHO?!"

Gir "Anybody."

Zim "Both of you, guard the front door. If a human attempts to trespass, you may ask them their stupid opinion on the matter, OK?!"

Gir "OK!"

Minimoose "Nyah!!"

Zim *eye twitching*

Dialogue loosely ripped off of the Greg the Bunny tapes. This is not an argument in defense of AI to be clear. Just my attempt at humor. I do not use or support AI generated images, stories, videos, ect. I'm not educated enough on how ai operates to use it ethically or endorse it. So I don't

[cognitivejustice]

More than 120 low energy base telecoms stations that integrate solar and battery technology have been set up across rural Liberia to enhance network coverage. 

The network offers 2G voice services for users in remote areas and supports 4G data services which is expected to connect more than 580,000 people.

Each site integrates solar energy and smart lithium batteries, enhanced with PowerPilot AI energy-saving software, to achieve energy-efficient network construction. Transmission challenges are addressed through the use of microwave, satellite and 4G relay technology. 

The project – RuralPilot EcoSites – encompasses 128 communication sites and was completed in three months.

These sites employ low-power-consumption, wide-coverage wireless base station equipment supporting the 800MHz and 900MHz bands, according to ZTE Corporation, who partnered with Orange Liberia on the project.

[projectmates]

For large-scale infrastructure projects, Projectmates offers a comprehensive capital project planning and management solution. Align your project goals with financial resources, optimize planning, and ensure execution with precision. From initial planning to project completion, the software helps manage the entire lifecycle while staying within budget and meeting operational goals.

[jcmarchi]

Many firms prefer ready-made AI software with a few tweaks - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/many-firms-prefer-ready-made-ai-software-with-a-few-tweaks-technology-org/

Many firms prefer ready-made AI software with a few tweaks - Technology Org

Artificial intelligence has changed nearly every industry, from manufacturing and retail to construction and agriculture. And as AI becomes even more ubiquitous, firms often opt for off-the-shelf technology that can be modified to meet their needs.

Chris Forman, the Peter and Stephanie Nolan Professor in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, was part of a research team that examined firms’ decisions to adopt AI technology and how that adoption was sourced: by purchasing ready-made software; by developing their own; or with a hybrid strategy, which the researchers say may reflect “complementarity” among sourcing approaches.

In an analysis of more than 3,000 European firms, they found that many—particularly in science, retail trade, finance, real estate, and manufacturing—are increasingly opting for ready-made technology tailored to the firm’s specific needs. While AI may seem to be threatening the human workforce, these findings indicate that workers with AI-related skills will still be needed.

“In the vast majority of industries, firms are doing both readymade and in-house development, and I think it’s an interesting question for future work to understand why that’s the case,” said Forman, co-author of “Make or Buy Your Artificial Intelligence? Complementarities in Technology Sourcing,” which published March 5 in the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy.

“Ready-made software is important,” he said, “but for the vast majority of firms, it does not appear to be a substitute for in-house software, which suggests that it’s not, at least in the short run, going to eliminate the need for AI-related skills.”

Charles Hoffreumon, a doctoral student at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, is the corresponding author. Nicolas van Zeebroeck, a professor of digital economics and strategy at the Solvay Brussels School, is the other co-author.

For their study, the researchers examined data from a survey conducted in 2020 by the Directorate-General of Communications Networks, Content and Technology from the European Commission (EC), which assessed AI adoption across the 27 countries of the European Union. The team used data from 3,143 firms across Europe in the study.

Business software is hard to implement, and historically as new technologies spread firms have relied on ready-made software. “This aspect of trying to understand the extent to which ready-made software could potentially substitute for the need for skills was interesting.” Forman said.

The study’s data comprised firms in 10 industry sectors, with the largest share coming from manufacturing (19%), trade and retail (18%), and construction (12%). Industries with the smallest share of respondents included agriculture (4%) and utilities (3%).

Firms most commonly use AI for the following purposes: fraud or risk detection, process or equipment optimization, and process automation in warehouses or robotics.

Among respondents who had adopted at least one AI application, more than 58% reported using ready-made software; nearly 38% hired an external consultant; 24% used modified commercial software; 20% used in-house software; and 20% modified open-source technology for their firm’s needs. Some firms deployed the technology in multiple ways.

Among the findings: The financial and scientific sectors – and to a lesser extent IT – preferred developing and customizing their own software while agriculture, construction and human health preferred ready-made solutions.

Forman said that in the past, as new technology spreads, the demand for different types of skills emerges. “Historically, the net effect has tended to be that, overall, labor demand goes up,” he said, “but it remains to be seen what happens in this case.”

As often happens with new technology, Forman said, the diffusion of AI technology to early adopters has resulted in users’ best practices getting incorporated into ready-made software, which makes these solutions even better. This was the case, he said, with enterprise resource planning – automation software that helps to run an entire business.

“When you look at prior digital technologies, there’s often a process of complementary innovation, or co-invention, where you figure out how to use this digital technology most effectively for your firm,” Forman said. “That usually takes place over time, through experimentation and figuring out what works and doesn’t.”

The authors wrote that this research “has taken the first steps toward highlighting the importance of sourcing strategies to understanding the diffusion of AI.”

Source: Cornell University

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[askagamedev]

Is more complicated, or more work to write code for The Game EA Sports FC if you were starting from scratch than it would be to write code for any other large scale game, like an MMORPG also done from scratch? Or GTA6 i.e.? (Licensing issues aside)

Code systems are code systems. Good code architecture tends to follow pretty universal principles, regardless of whether the system is governing loot tables or lighting systems. Constructing software systems is about seeing the general rules at work and using those to write code that adheres to those rules.

It really helps to take a larger view of what a game is from a software engineering perspective. A game (or any major piece of software) is a bunch of systems comprised of smaller subsystems, and how those individual systems interact with each other. All code systems all need to do three things:

Determine when the system needs to do its work

Return the processed results from that internal work to external systems that need those results to do their own work

Do their own internal work to process and handle requests correctly

When planning out what a system will do, it helps to divvy up the work into these three buckets. Once you know what the system needs to do, the engineer can break down the individual functions and data members she'll need in order to actually do that work.

Let's move forward with an example - say that I wanted to build a stealth takedown system in my action adventure game. The design document says that I want the player to be behind an unaware enemy, press a button, and then play a paired animation that kills the enemy. Using the three buckets mentioned previously, let's break it down.

When does the system need to do its work?

Player and enemy position

Player and enemy facing direction

Enemy awareness state

Game controller input state

What results do I need to provide?

I need to know when the player meets the conditions of being behind and facing an unaware enemy (call the UI system to show the button prompt)

I need to call the animation system to play the animations on the player and the enemy (call the animation system to play the animation)

I need to kill the enemy (call the damage system to kill the enemy)

What do I need to do the internal work to provide those results?

I need to calculate whether the player is behind the enemy

I need to calculate whether the player is facing the enemy

I need to determine whether the enemy is aware of the player

I need to know when the player presses the attack button

As each of these elements is built and works, we can use them to interact with each other. Logical checks like whether the player is behind the enemy will determine whether the action can be taken. Actions like performing the takedown animations are then attached to the conditions. These combine to form the rules from the designer and a system is born.

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