Tag: Quora

Deano’s answer to: “How practical are underground homes?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

Practical can mean a lot of different things… Let me give this a whack, though…

Benefits of an Underground Home

(Photo courtesy of http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo…)

Underground homes (earth shelters) have several advantages:

  • Less affected by/vulnerable to extreme external temperatures, and sudden temperature changes;
  • The stability of temperature within the interior makes rooms feel more comfortable;
  • Lower heating and cooling costs;
  • Less exterior maintenance (painting, gutter repair and cleaning, etc);
  • Naturally soundproofed (varies by design, but still much quieter than surface dwellings);
  • Much better protected against storms, high winds, hail, etc.;
  • Because of temperature, weather protection and maintenance benefits, well-designed subterranean homes in geostable locations are cheaper to insure.

Issues with Underground Homes

(Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/viz…)

On the downside:

  • Such homes are generally more expensive to build – requiring additional expenses for earth removal, higher load bearing walls, moisture control, venting and drainage construction, etc;
  • Any newly constructed underground home will have a somewhat harder time getting a mortgage from a lender inexperienced with the home type and builder;
  • From an architectural perspective, there are additional design challenges to provide sunlight to the interior, creating large open interior spaces (depending on budget and materials), or making the home appear “beautiful” in the more conventional sense – though these issues are not unique to earth shelters, and may not affect overall “practicality”.


(Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/wol…)

In conclusion, an underground home can be extremely practical if you fit at least a few of the following categories:

  • Can afford the additional (~20-30%) premium on initial construction and/or do not require a mortgage
  • Love the look of a house blended into the surrounding landscape as much as possible[*]
  • Do not enjoy housepainting
  • Do not require extraordinary or constant exposure to the sun[*]
  • Are keen on reducing your ongoing utility bills/lowering your carbon footprint
  • Live in a tornado, wind storm, or other non-flood-related susceptible area
  • Desire to be less visible to satellite surveillance[*]

[* Actually, these factors are related to very specific but common design choices – your mileage may vary]

This answer originally appeared on Quora: How practical are underground homes?

Deano’s answer to: “In Thor, does Thor’s power originate entirely from his hammer? Or were there other powers that Odin stripped from him?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

Thor’s power originates within Thor. He’s the God of Thunder, not the Dude Who Carries Thunder-God-Power-Hammer.

That said, magic is a funny thing, as are curses. In Thor’s case, his own powers are “removed” until he can pick up the hammer, and he can’t pick up the hammer until… Well, spoilers, you know…

Anyway, as for Mjölnir (Thor’s hammer’s name) itself, the powers are basically agreed to be the following:

  • It’s a very good hammer, good at hammering just about anything, really really hard (basically as hard as Thor wants it to hit).
  • When thrown, it will unerringly return to Thor’s hand.
  • When Thor aims it, it doesn’t miss.

Between the movie and the comics, there are a few other powers hinted at, though I would submit that the majority of these (like teleportation) are actually particular manifestations of one or more of the above powers combined with Thor’s own (say, unerringly aiming the hammer at a point halfway across the galaxy, then throwing it so hard it travels there instantaneously).

In a nutshell, it’s a really big(*) hammer, that allows someone with god-level powers to actually do even more damage when he hits something – or, conversely, a lot LESS, based on his desires.

When you think about it, it’d be pretty ridiculous for a god to carry around weapons that didn’t make him even more powerful.

(* It also has, according to Norse mythology, the ability to shrink to a pocketable size when not in use)

This answer originally appeared on Quora: In Thor, does Thor’s power originate entirely from his hammer? Or were there other powers that Odin stripped from him?

Deano’s answer to: “Do porn stars enjoy their jobs?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

Well, do they?

(Detention again? But I’m 32! Photo courtesy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil…)

For someone to be a “porn star” rather than a mere “porn actor”, I would say it would have to be enjoyable on some level, but that enjoyment may be based on any number of things:

  • comparatively high pay for low and/or flexible hours
  • many travel opportunities
  • attention and adoration of fans
  • chance to break social taboos
  • promoting positive attitudes towards sexual expression
  • great sex (rare, but possible) with a variety of thoroughly-STD-tested partners
  • working in a “startup atmosphere”, with a small, tight-knit community that is largely supportive and understanding of the work and negatives surrounding it


(Oh yeah, and invitation-only karaoke! Photo ‘courtesy’ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ps…)

And that’s just off the top of my head. Like any job, working in porn is not enjoyable 100% of the time, and sometimes the less bearable parts involve literally having sex with someone you dislike for money, or being treated poorly by directors/producers/crew. But, for those who do stick with it, it’s certainly not merely for the monetary consideration – there are other aspects of the porn industry business model or social subculture that are appealing.

This answer originally appeared on Quora: Do porn stars enjoy their jobs?

Deano’s answer to: “What went wrong with Google Wave?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

Google did a really good job of introducing a new modality and producing a reference platform for Wave… And a really terrible job in evangelizing to, and assisting/incubating a set of early developers in producing commercial products based on Wave.


(Don’t like it? Talk to the hand! Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/nia…)

In addition, the invite-only beta rollout really hampered things, since most non-Valley-tech-bubble folks, when they finally got access, usually logged in to find 0 potential collaborators… When you can’t play with the system and see how it works, you just give up and go on to something else.

In short, it was just complex enough that not enough non-techies “got it” out of the box, and no one stepped in with a “Wave version of Lotus Notes” or the like which would’ve made things more clear in the enterprise or Academia (which should’ve been the initial target(s) for Wave).

Finally, Wave does still exist, sorta – a lot of the upgrades to Gmail/Google Apps over the last several years have been what I would call “Waveisms”, and have generally been well-received within the context of Google Docs/Sites/Reader/Mail/Calendar/etc. Looking back on it, if Google had redone their entire suite as part of Wave first, I believe the reception would’ve been vastly different, and developers would’ve been jumping all over themselves to develop for it, not unlike the interest in all things Android currently.

This answer originally appeared on Quora: What went wrong with Google Wave?

Deano’s answer to: “Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle has the most physical strength?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

All of the turtles are, for their comic universe, quite incredibly strong, with additional “supporting strengths” of high endurance and physical durability.

That said, the most consistent references/occurrences of high physical strength and/or “overall strongmanosity” seem to be in favor of Raphael.

(Lookit those muscles! Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/zak…)

The combination of his rage/anger management issues, and propensity to lunge for the center of the fight, gives Raph more opportunities to use direct brute force/strength, instead of the more subtle, tactically-sound techniques of his brothers.

Still, barring Raphael’s strength stats in later TMNT video games, or various semi-official or fan-sourced expressions of the various turtles’ might in various RPG systems[*] there is very little hard data one way or another.

[* Like this: http://forums.thetechnodrome.com…]

This article originally appeared on Quora: Which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle has the most physical strength?