Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with dam

What is this English/Chinese song?

santogold — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 23:00:42 -0800

Name this song: Chinese (I assume) singers singing in English singing praises about the Three Gorges Dam. I heard it in an Asian restaurant about 6-8 years ago. It had lyrics that included something to the effect that they had faith in the dam or something or another. It was a tad corny sounding or I guess simply out of the ordinary.

Sorry for being vague and thanks in advance!

Hydroelectricity times N

boo_radley — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:06:27 -0800

Power generation: Let's say we have a hydroelectric dam. My understanding is that water turns a dynamo, which provides electricty. It seems like there would be a way to use the same water flow more than once. Could we make raceways of some indeterminate length to get the water back up to speed with sufficient force to turn a second dynamo? Could this be repeated so that a single water flow powers some n dynamos? What kind of constraints keep dams all over the world from doing this sort of thing?

DAM the torpedo.pdfs!

Salmonberry — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:28:20 -0800

Digital Asset Management. I'm looking for a web based solution that archives and stores files, but I don't need full on project management. I've looked around and it seems like most options go to project management. I'm not opposed to using one of those systems, just might be overkill. I like the way Basecamp looks, but I need a system with different levels of access. For example, if I put up a file for a printer, I don't want clients to go get it. I don't want my clients to be able to talk to my printers.

Basically this is for marketing, people in different physical office locations, no shared intranet as some are at different companies.

I'd like to be able to upload files and give my clients, creative teams and suppliers different access levels.

I'd like my clients to be able to access and download, via the web, completed artwork and look at archived artwork for up to roughly 6 months.

I'd like to be able to have the creative teams and printers, suppliers, etc, work with files via the web interface, rather than through a combination of ftp and email.

Needs to be mac and pc friendly. No software can be downloaded, as many clients have IT administrators that are naturally edgy about having to load software onto their networks. And cheap - think Basecamp pricing.

Thanks for any suggestions. If you're on Basecamp, would it be a solution? I like the interface and I think the clients would find it easy to work with.

Document management on a shared hosting server?

sprocket87 — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 12:43:18 -0800

Help me find an online document management system / digital asset management system. I'm looking for a document management system (DMS) / digital asset management system (DAM) for my scanned documents. I plan to store all of my important documents, from credit card statements to bills to receipts to insurance info, etc, digitally. I'll be using a scanner with ADF & duplexing to digitize my papers. I need a management system to organize and archive them.

Ideally, I'd like to have some software that can be set up on Dreamhost for a hosted solution. However, to allow for more flexible responses, here are my overall stipulations:

1. Must be free or inexpensive. See 2.

2. Must be hosted online. I don't trust local copies (hardware failure/fire/theft/etc). This applies to portable (DVD, etc) media as well. It does NOT need to be a hosted system per se, in that Company X provides the DMS/DAM software and hosts it. I am willing / would prefer to use a 3rd party host, such as Dreamhost, for cost reasons. They are much more flexible in that they offer tons of storage and bandwidth and whatever else you want for a much lower cost. I don't want to pay $X/mo just for an online DAM. I am willing to pay $X/mo for a shared host that allows me to host anything else I want as well though.

3. Must be somewhat easy to install, configure and use, whether it is a provided & hosted service or a service I set up on a shared host.

4. Does not have to control my scanning experience; I can use a separate tool to get the files digitized but I'm looking for the DSM/DAM service to organize them. Obviously an online service wouldn't have much control over my hardware anyway :)

5. Should have the usual DMS/DAM features: File indexing for a wide array of filetypes (doc/pdf/all images/tiff/archives/etc), support OCR if possible, allow categories and advanced naming/file control, exporting, etc.

I love the looks of Linux DMS tools like DocMGR, but the setup looks somewhat overwhelming. I'm comfortable with basic Linux tasks, but configuring a shared host is a bit confusing to me. Is there any way to even set up such services on a shared host? For instance, is it possible to install DocMGR on Dreamhost? I suspect not, as it uses PostgreSQL and Dreamhost uses MySQL. But beyond this limitation, how does one go about installing their own applications on a shared host? I mean, Dreamhost provides a shell prompt, but not root - are you even allowed to install software? And what about dependencies, etc?

I know Dreamhost offers several "One-click" installable services, like MediaWiki, Wordpress, Joomla, etc, but I don't think any of these are exactly what I'm looking for. I'm assuming it's possible to set up some other service, albeit with more work, but I'm not having much success finding documented "How To's" for this. For instance, how to set up docmgr/doxfs/etc on a shared host.

Also, I know there are some basic Windows tools like PaperPort and Docsvault that do a great job of managing local copies of digital files, but I want them online. I understand I could simply backup a directory to an online host, but I'm thinking a hosted database would be preferable for advanced administration, etc.

Obviously I have a lot of "wants" so this is pretty wide open. Understand that I'm not a corporation and don't need any huge DAM solutions, but I'd like something a little more advanced than a basic client-side software.

$49 Helicopter Tour place south of Vegas near the dam.

gummo — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:51:57 -0800

Anybody know the name of the $49 helicopter place south of the hoover dam on the 93? When you leave Las Vegas going south, there is a hotel and casino off to the left after you pass through the hoover dam. There is a big sign that says $49 helicopter flights. Either that hotel has helicopter tours, or their neighbor is a helicopter place. Anybody know what it's called? (The hotel or the tour place)