InBerkeley

Overhear on the Twitterstream today:

Brandileigha: That’s what i love about sf/berkeley, you can walk around dressed as a pirate at 7:30 in the am and not feel particularly odd.

Claudiatweets: I love how you can see the clouds move in berkeley. And you’re so close to them.

Marcusslaterus: The drunk chicks in the shuttle were the same drunk chicks behind us at the Berkeley concert last year.

Mgreene2700: Found $40 on the ground next to a jewelry stand in Berkeley today. Convinced it was fate so…new turquoise ring! yes:)

Justeennaa: Berkeley made me forget reality =]

Ncecire: Lavender fig jam: delicious, or just ridiculously Berkeley?

Berkeley Tweets, General

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have reached a new milestone in laser physics by creating the world’s smallest semiconductor laser, capable of generating visible light in a space smaller than a single protein molecule.

…

The achievement helps enable the development of such innovations as nanolasers that can probe, manipulate and characterize DNA molecules; optics-based telecommunications many times faster than current technology; and optical computing in which light replaces electronic circuitry with a corresponding leap in speed and processing power.

via Science Daily.

Science, UC Berkeley

When I was a child in Brooklyn, I watched as they constructed the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to Staten Island.  At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world with a center span of 4,260 feet.  I remember at the time hearing that the span was so long that the distance between the two supporting towers was greater between their tops than their bottoms because of the curvature of the earth.  Construction on the bridge began August 13, 1959, and the upper deck was opened on November 21, 1964; just over five years.

The new eastern half of the Bay Bridge comprises two parts, the so-called Skyway portion, which is mostly completed, and the SAS (self-anchored suspension) portion. The SAS, with a total length of just 2047 feet, began construction in May, 2006, and is not expected to be completed until sometime in 2013 — roughly seven years, or two years longer than it took to build the entire Verrazano-Narrows Bridge five decades ago. If you also consider the Skyway, which began construction sometime in 2002, the entire project will have taken more than 11 years to build.  And this does not include all the delays in the design process before construction even began.

I haven’t been able to figure out why it’s taking so long.

Regardless, you will not be able to use the Bay Bridge to drive to San Francisco (or even Yerba Buena Island) from the East Bay starting at 8 p.m. this Thursday, September 3.  The bridge will be closed all Labor Day weekend, and then some.  It is scheduled to reopen by 5 a.m. on Tuesday, September 8.

While the bridge is closed, a 300-foot-long, double-deck section of the East Span will be cut and rolled out of the way, 150-feet above Yerba Buena Island (YBI). A new double-deck section will be slid into place to connect the bridge with a detour that will route traffic off the existing tunnel approach, allowing crews to connect the new East Span to the YBI tunnel.

When the bridge reopens, the speed limit will be reduced to 40-mph in both directions on the detour section for the next three to four years (i.e., until the new East Span opens).

Get up to the moment information on the Bay Bridge closure at the Bay Bridge Info web site, or follow them on Twitter at @BayBridgeInfo.

Forewarned is forearmed.

General, Uncategorized