Frank Varro

To over generalize, as long as it drains, within around 12 hours, or has enough flow to the water, mosquitos cannot breed, and malaria etc is uneffected.  Essentially, created wetlands need to have some flow pattern, and detention basins need to drain.

I would look at tomshardware.com. Tons of great advice there, and they do system builds every few months in three price brackets.  What is your total budget looking like? In march they build a $650, a $1250, and a $2600 machine. 

The productivity comparison (between each and their January builds) is here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overcl…[Read more]

Maybe Trimble will take over where @Last left off and, unlike Google has, start fixing some bugs again.

LEED and Sustainable sites has almost 0 overlap with RLA testing.  Sure LEED is important, but only important for someone who has already proven they are skilled in the things RLA testing tests.  Plus, LEED, realistically, is much more architecture focused right now.  If they pull a sustainable sites portion in more, that’ll change the story SL…[Read more]

If you don’t value things ASLA has done, like title/licensure acts in most states, then fine, don’t be a member. Personally, I like supporting the group that has the power to lobby for me, and telling them about issues that matter to me as a professional.  In NYC recently the city Dept of Building has stopped accepting some LA stamps for things…[Read more]

So, instead of looking at the ASLA as a group to promote the career path you are in, that you think needs some new guidance, as a resource, you look at it as evil and run away? Why not become active in your chapter or on the national level? It isn’t hard, within a few years of graduating I sat on two different national commitees, and now am…[Read more]

Are you thinking just black inkline type work, or something where everything is in shades of green, or blue?  I think either can work, but its not an easy thing to pull off.  I have tried it in the past and while it never went terrible, I’m not sure it was worth the extra effort for me with my graphic design sensibility.

I was there for my first semester of LA undergrad, its a good, competitive program, and I think it’ll be a great place for someone who wants to explore the different fields a bit before locking themselves in (My friend got his Arch degree from ISU as well).  The only trick is you won’t do much real design in that first year, so you’re going to…[Read more]

The long and short of it is: Architects design buildings, Landscape architects design everywhere people are not inside a building (including placing those buildings in theory), Planners design regulations to ensure the multiple designs (buildings and non-buildings) work together to create a functional neighborhood, city, or region.

There is some…[Read more]

I have to say, whatever road it is that leads to Villa Lante from Viberbo is pretty mind blowing.  Huge trees growing through the pavement in the street. A horror show, but amazing.

I’d go PC over Mac (I know at least last years CAD for Mac was apparently fairly badly disabled in some features), and I’m a PC, not a Mac in general…
For good PC laptops, brand wise look at Toshiba, HP, and Alienware. 
HP just announced that they have decided NOT to be idiots and sell off the only profitable part of their company, which is…[Read more]

closest images I have found are these:


  None of which are great/exactly what it sounds like you are looking for.  Do you need a photo, or would a 3D rendering work?  Send me a plan sketch, I’ll see what I can put together.

It all depends on what level of graphic work you are looking at doing.  If its CAD and basic photoshop, you’ll be fine with about anything.  If your planning on doing 3D, large and multilayer photoshop, then you need more of a workhorse.  I built my own system with an i7 940 processor (quad core 2.97 Ghz) 6 Gigs of DDR3 ram, and a GeForce 470 Gr…[Read more]

Quick link: the uncanny valley I mentioned get explored in some new research: http://gizmodo.com/5822648/why-brains-get-creeped-out-by-androids

I think its in part due to the fact that as programs get better, people find themselves falling into the “uncanny valley”, where things looks ALMOST photorealistic, but just enough not real to REALLY throw people off.  That means to get a good looking photorealistic rendering more work has to be done on the front end with good materials, and with…[Read more]

I started a series of Photoshop tutorials a ways back, I didn’t get to prairie type areas, but the same techniques I used for turf-grass and dirt should work.
 
Turf: http://land8lounge.com/profiles/blogs/tuesday-tutorial-turf-and
Dirt: http://land8lounge.com/profiles/blogs/tuesday-tutorial-time-to-get
 
I did do a phase of this design with p…[Read more]

Sketchup is a tricky thing.  You CAN get decent results with careful material work in sketchup itself, but its hard, and without bump/displacement mapping and reflections, its limited.  Daniel Tal is a big fan of the ShaderLight plugin.  It gives him some really good work, with the ease of modeling of SketchUp.
 
I am using a program called The…[Read more]

It really does come down to preference.  At this point, almost all software available on PC is available on MAC, even without doing a windows boot on a Mac (Which is also a viable option in the event you find yourself in need of, say, full ArcGIS).  What it really comes down to is this:
PCs offer easier upgrade-ability if you are looking for a d…[Read more]

“A current Mac laptop would still be in use 100 years from now…with no upgrades and virus free.”
Now you are just being a fanboy and silly.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/mac-defender-did-you-really-think-apple-macs-
Have fun being virus free…