"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence" is a form of Hanlan's razor, an aphorism that explains many actions in academia and elsewhere. For example, we often perceive omissions of important details in published work as intentional acts to prevent reproduction of the research. In some cases, this is true, while … Continue reading Incompetence, Not Malice
Author: Positive Definite
I am a professor of structural engineering at a land grant university in Eastchester, Pacific Northwest, US. I have been involved in the development, maintenance, and growth of OpenSees since its early days. Recently, I've taken an interest in learning Python and improving my academic writing.
Recognizable Dates as Self-Imposed Deadlines
A few years ago, a colleague in Eastchester pointed out the July 4 submission date of an article they had just read. We thought it was a bold move for the author to have submitted a manuscript on a national holiday, in the summertime, when very few US academics are working. But perhaps there was … Continue reading Recognizable Dates as Self-Imposed Deadlines
Blog Delurking Week
I found out that this week, the first full week of January, is International Blog Delurking Week. Go ahead, Google it. This is a week where followers of a blog are asked to say "Hello" and comment on what they hope to see from the blog in the new year. Besides a GUI that does … Continue reading Blog Delurking Week
The Fiber Content of OpenSees
OpenSees is pretty well known for its fiber sections. Although fiber sections are not unique to OpenSees, where else can you choose from 23 uniaxial concrete models and 18 uniaxial steel models to define a reinforced concrete section? There's also a handful of multiaxial material models that capture the interaction of axial and shear stresses … Continue reading The Fiber Content of OpenSees
OpenSees Twitter Bot
Twitter fascinates me. Not only because it's a platform where many academics disseminate the latest additions to their CVs, but also because it has an Application Programming Interface (API) through which you can automate all kinds of cool stuff. One cool thing I've come across is bots that automatically retweet and/or favorite tweets that contain … Continue reading OpenSees Twitter Bot
OpenSees Shells by the Seashore
Other than state-of-the-art material and geometrically nonlinear frame element formulations, it's fair to say OpenSees is not known for its breadth of structural finite elements like quads, bricks, and shells. There are solid elements for geotechnical applications and fluid elements for fluid-structure interaction via the PFEM, but what's the story on shell elements in OpenSees? … Continue reading OpenSees Shells by the Seashore
Unretiring the String Class
If you've compiled the OpenSees source code, you may have noticed the SRC/string directory, whose two files, G3string.h and G3string.cpp, implement character strings as first-class objects, complete with overloaded operators and deep copies. G3string is based on the String class, which I used for programming projects in my undergraduate computer science courses. In the G3string.h … Continue reading Unretiring the String Class
