4 ms·

Misleading title. Igloos are made out of ice. This is made out of fiberglass and PET. I was expecting something like a better version of Pykrete. The "don't mel

by mrob 10y ago

Misleading title. Igloos are made out of ice. This is made out of fiberglass and PET. I was expecting something like a better version of Pykrete. The "don't melt" qualifier is especially misleading because it implies that under normal circumstances it would melt. Nobody talks about "non-melting fiberglass" - that's normal fiberglass so you don't need to specify non-melting. This is just a prefab dome building. Domes buildings are interesting, but not as interesting as true non-melting ice would be.

Turing_Machine 10y ago
"Misleading title. Igloos are made out of ice." Nope, though that's a common misconception. "Iglu" just means "house". It can refer to any type of dwelling, made of any material (even a modern wood-frame, brick, or concrete house). Only a few groups of the Inuit/Inupiat/Yup'ik people actually lived in iglus made of snow (not ice), though many groups used them for temporary shelter while on (e.g.) hunting trips. Other groups made their iglus of hides, sod, driftwood, or whatever other local material was available (some of the southern groups, such as the Alutiiq, dug pit houses in the ground).
- mrob 10y ago
  "Igloo" is an English word. It doesn't have the exact same meaning as the Inuit word it's derived from. And snow is a type of ice.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    '"Igloo" is an English word." No, it is not. "And snow is a type of ice." No, it is not. Snow (of the type used to construct shelters) is a mixture of ice crystals and air. The air is extremely important for the purpose under discussion. Snow is a pretty good insulator. Ice is not. Also, "Inuit" is the name of only one group of people. Using their name for (say) Yup'ik is like calling an Italian or Romanian "French" just because they all speak a Romance language.
    - mrob 10y ago
      Of course it is. People will think you're crazy if you call a wood frame house an igloo. An igloo is not an ᐃᒡᓗ, just like a mansion is not a マンション. And while insulation is an important property of snow, for the purposes of the discussion where we were talking about melting not insulation, "ice" is a good word to use. Snow is made of ice, so this is 100% correct. And "Inuit" is absolutely the correct name for the closely related languages/dialects shared by several groups of native Alaskan/Canadian/Greenlandic peoples. I realize the distinction between language and dialect is politically contentious, but speakers of Inuit from close geographical areas have excellent mutual comprehension, so it is not similar to your Italian/Romanian example. As Wikipedia says "Outside Inuit culture, however, igloo refers exclusively to shelters constructed from blocks of compacted snow, generally in the form of a dome."
      - Turing_Machine 10y ago
        "And "Inuit" is absolutely the correct name for the closely related languages/dialects shared by several groups of native Alaskan/Canadian/Greenlandic peoples." No, it absolutely is not. Yup'ik is not Inuit. It is not mutually intelligible with any dialect of Inuit. The Yup'ik languages split from Inuit around a thousand years ago (i.e., just about as long ago as Romanian, Spanish, etc. split from Latin). The correct name for the language group is Eskimo–Aleut. Not "Inuit". I realize that it's become fashionable in Canada to simply ignore Yup'ik and Aleut people and just call everybody "Inuit". However, Canada isn't the whole world. Neither professional linguists (source: Wikipedia article below) nor the people themselves (source: I live in Alaska and actually know Alaska Native people) consider Inuit the "correct name" for all Eskimo-Aleut languages. While an Iñupiat person might not get pissed off at you for calling him an "Inuit" (even thought they don't call themselves that) a Yup'ik person probably would. Just as an Italian would be upset by being called "French". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo%E2%80%93Aleut_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo%E2%80%93Aleut_languages
        mrob 10y ago
        Inuit language is a subset of Eskimo-Aleut language. Yup'ik language and Aleut language are also subsets of Eskimo-Aleut language. I was unable to find any evidence that Yup'ik or Aleut people traditionally built snow houses. I can't rule out that some of them did, but it has no relevance to the English word "igloo", which is derived from the Inuit language subset of Eskimo-Aleut, not the Yup'ik language or Aleut language subsets of Eskimo-Aleut.

by mrob 10y ago

Turing_Machine 10y ago

"Misleading title. Igloos are made out of ice." Nope, though that's a common misconception. "Iglu" just means "house". It can refer to any type of dwelling, made of any material (even a modern wood-frame, brick, or concrete house). Only a few groups of the Inuit/Inupiat/Yup'ik people actually lived in iglus made of snow (not ice), though many groups used them for temporary shelter while on (e.g.) hunting trips. Other groups made their iglus of hides, sod, driftwood, or whatever other local material was available (some of the southern groups, such as the Alutiiq, dug pit houses in the ground).

mrob 10y ago
"Igloo" is an English word. It doesn't have the exact same meaning as the Inuit word it's derived from. And snow is a type of ice.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  '"Igloo" is an English word." No, it is not. "And snow is a type of ice." No, it is not. Snow (of the type used to construct shelters) is a mixture of ice crystals and air. The air is extremely important for the purpose under discussion. Snow is a pretty good insulator. Ice is not. Also, "Inuit" is the name of only one group of people. Using their name for (say) Yup'ik is like calling an Italian or Romanian "French" just because they all speak a Romance language.
  - mrob 10y ago
    Of course it is. People will think you're crazy if you call a wood frame house an igloo. An igloo is not an ᐃᒡᓗ, just like a mansion is not a マンション. And while insulation is an important property of snow, for the purposes of the discussion where we were talking about melting not insulation, "ice" is a good word to use. Snow is made of ice, so this is 100% correct. And "Inuit" is absolutely the correct name for the closely related languages/dialects shared by several groups of native Alaskan/Canadian/Greenlandic peoples. I realize the distinction between language and dialect is politically contentious, but speakers of Inuit from close geographical areas have excellent mutual comprehension, so it is not similar to your Italian/Romanian example. As Wikipedia says "Outside Inuit culture, however, igloo refers exclusively to shelters constructed from blocks of compacted snow, generally in the form of a dome."
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      "And "Inuit" is absolutely the correct name for the closely related languages/dialects shared by several groups of native Alaskan/Canadian/Greenlandic peoples." No, it absolutely is not. Yup'ik is not Inuit. It is not mutually intelligible with any dialect of Inuit. The Yup'ik languages split from Inuit around a thousand years ago (i.e., just about as long ago as Romanian, Spanish, etc. split from Latin). The correct name for the language group is Eskimo–Aleut. Not "Inuit". I realize that it's become fashionable in Canada to simply ignore Yup'ik and Aleut people and just call everybody "Inuit". However, Canada isn't the whole world. Neither professional linguists (source: Wikipedia article below) nor the people themselves (source: I live in Alaska and actually know Alaska Native people) consider Inuit the "correct name" for all Eskimo-Aleut languages. While an Iñupiat person might not get pissed off at you for calling him an "Inuit" (even thought they don't call themselves that) a Yup'ik person probably would. Just as an Italian would be upset by being called "French". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo%E2%80%93Aleut_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo%E2%80%93Aleut_languages
      - mrob 10y ago
        Inuit language is a subset of Eskimo-Aleut language. Yup'ik language and Aleut language are also subsets of Eskimo-Aleut language. I was unable to find any evidence that Yup'ik or Aleut people traditionally built snow houses. I can't rule out that some of them did, but it has no relevance to the English word "igloo", which is derived from the Inuit language subset of Eskimo-Aleut, not the Yup'ik language or Aleut language subsets of Eskimo-Aleut.