Eigenvector wrote:
I was talking to a buddy of mine today and he mentioned that he was having
his kitched floors redone with bamboo. For a long time I was incredulous,
cause I always thought bamboo was this nice round segmented bush/tree that
was rife with problems - it was small and round, it was relatively soft, it
harbored bacteria, and it was hollow.

The inner portion is soft, the outer part is quite hard. There are a
multitude of varieties of bamboo, some of which can reach heights of
120 ft or so which are quite large in diameter and consequently, have
sizable thickness of the outer layer required to support that kind of
height.

He mentioned something about how it was processed into a composite material
that was harder than oak and very long lasting. What gives, when did bamboo
become a flooring material of choice?

Oh, about 5000 years ago or so....

There are several ways to process it, from simply milling the larger
stems noted above into usable pieces of material similar to more
familiar sawmill operation, lamininating multiple thinner pieces a la
laminated beams to chipboard-style usages.