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The Construction of a Yurt (1995)
- AstralStorm 9y agoShort version: it is an oversized wicket barrel with an added steep roof. Pretty neat. Instead of a ring, a similar structure Can be made by interlacing wickets with the frame. Can be daubed too if you need more insulation and permanence. This simplicity and effectiveness is why it is ancient yet still used now.
- Jaruzel 9y agoNice Article. Also shows how informative the web could back in in 1995 when pages weren't covered in advertising junk. After reading it, I ended up in a Google Images rabbit hole looking at different kinds of Yurts.
- glaberficken 9y agoInformative AND inspired writing: >"We managed to get about 9 lathes out of each 2x4 on average (sometimes 10, sometimes only 8). Remember, in planning for this, that the saw blade has thickness, and that all the sawdust has to come from somewhere."
- twothamendment 9y agoMaybe it mentions it, but if you only read comments that thickness from the cut has a name - kerf. Don't forget the kerf. Dimensional lumber is anything but that. I once needed to rip down a stack of 2"x6" lumber to the same width. Some pieces would run through the saw without cutting anything off, others would leave a 1/4" strip of scrap. Take into account the kerf and there was almost a 1/2" difference between some pieces.
- ehnto 9y agoThat is how the web is browsed best, in information explorer mode. An agent moving amongst the archives by their own impetus. A tool to satiate their thirst for stories and information. The alternative is in consumer mode, where you sit and consume anything that shows up on the conveyor belt of feeds, wondering why things aren't as good these days.
- lbotos 9y agoAs much as I agree, I think the internet also now has expanded to serve a different class of user, one who "wants" or "expects" to consume, vs. the earlier groups who self-selected as knowledge seekers/explorers.
- jdonaldson 9y agoAre yurts as popular in the rest of the country as they are in the Pacific Northwest? They seem to be a mainstay of many campgrounds out here. Since they were designed according to the needs of the Mongolian climate, I'm wondering what it is about them that makes them suitable for the Pac NW climate.
- mayniac 9y agoI rarely see them in the UK, outside of festivals and the occasional hippy farmer.
- bogle 9y agoNot sure which part of the UK you're in but the North of England and South of Scotland have a fair few campsites with them. They can be set up with stoves and comfortable beds so fit into the "glamping" bracket.
- mayniac 9y agoAh that explains it, I'm in the south. I've seen the glamping sites with yurts in the lake district before, but I assumed they're few and far between. Guess I was wrong.
- n4r9 9y agoThey're all over the place: https://coolcamping.com/glamping/yurts https://coolcamping.com/glamping/yurts https://goglamping.net/glamping-yurts/ https://goglamping.net/glamping-yurts/ http://yurtshire.co.uk/ http://yurtshire.co.uk/
- campsites 8y ago80+ more sites here too https://www.campsites.co.uk/search/yurt-holidays https://www.campsites.co.uk/search/yurt-holidays
- roel_v 9y agoThey're one of the formats of 'glamping' accommodation all over Europe, along with treehouses, gypsy carts, safari tents and tipis. I don't think anyone serious is really claiming them to be 'sustainable', for any mainstream definition of that word.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- leashless 9y agoObligatory link to the American version http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_playa http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_playa
- RangerScience 9y agoHaving put up a Mongolian yurt, a Bedouin tent, and many, many hexayurts, anecdotally... Both of the fabric yurts pack down to more convenient shapes (re: they can fit in more kinds of vehicles and spaces), particularly for the larger amount of enclosed volume. but they're much heavier. It would be a hard job to put them up solo both without tools (aka, ladders) but, I think, doable. They stay decently cool / warm inside, and are decently weather-sealed. They have many more parts and kinds of parts. Every part is completely reusable. I imagine that building one from scratch is a substantial endeavor. Has to be put away dry and is moderately involved to clean. Hexayurts are a PITA to transpo / store (8ft x 4+ft x N inches, can't be bent, etc), but weight nothing. You can expand the design to be pretty huge on the inside, but it gets increasingly harder to put up. They're easy-ish to modify (you can re-use parts to make one of a different size) and multiple ones can very easily be assembled into larger "complexes". They have amazing isolation from the elements (when put up correctly). You can put the small ones up with minimal help, but it's hard to put the large ones up without many hands. Overall, tho, they're less work to put up. But, they also consume some materials (the tape is consumed). However, you can put together "from scratch" pretty easily, can be stored basically anywhere, and you clean it with a hose. There's also some interesting aesthetic considerations - you can pain a hexayurt, but fabric is inherently nice; one flashlight can light up the entire interior of a yurt, etc. If I had to live in something forever I'd go with a Mongolian yurt, but if I had to outfit a refugee camp I'd definitely go with the hexayurts.
- Sukotto 9y agoAlso this 2014 build report which also includes a shipping case that converts into a bike trailer (to get into position), and then a large table. https://steampunkworkshop.com/hexayurt-burning-man/ https://steampunkworkshop.com/hexayurt-burning-man/
- kthartic 9y agoSorry to be completely ignorant here, but what is it with these sites that have absolutely zero styling? 15 years ago I would've put it down to lack of understanding how to write CSS etc. But today it's almost impossible to make a website that doesn't have at least _some_ styling (when using site builders like Squarespace, Wix, etc). Edit: Turns out this site is from 1994 (see http://www.pbm.com/ http://www.pbm.com/). How are you guys finding these ancient sites? :P
- wirrbel 9y agoRather I wonder why Browsers display such non-CSS sites in this primitive way. Pretty sure browser vendors could slap on a primitve CSS limiting the text width and tweaking a few defaults when a site does not load any CSS or JS.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agocf. Reader mode.
- egeozcan 9y agoI'm not your typical JS/CSS hater but for this document, I found the lack of styling perfectly fine. It also works without problems on any mobile device I tested (as expected). IMHO, not every page needs CSS and lots of breakpoints.
- kthartic 9y agoThe text covers the full width of my 27" monitor which, while readable, is not nearly as comfortable to read as text that doesn't.
- alejohausner 9y agoMake your browser window narrower.
- 9y ago
- emj 9y agoJoey Hess, creator of git-annex used a Yurt for a long time, https://joeyh.name/yurt/ https://joeyh.name/yurt/
- egeozcan 9y agoThis made my day: "Ethernet only goes so far, so there's a repeater in the woods enclosed in Tupperware".
- grecy 9y agoMy brother and his wife built a "modern" yurt from a kit sold by an Australian company. I think it turned out nicely - http://instagram.com/barefootyurtlife/ http://instagram.com/barefootyurtlife/ (scroll back a bit through that IG)
- tomxor 9y agoI wonder if modern lightweight tent design can learn something from yurts, since they don't really seem particularly portable by comparison. (I consider a tent "portable" if it can fit in my backpack, not a pickup truck.)
- AlotOfReading 9y agoThey don't solve the same issues at the same scales as a backpack tent. Primarily, yurts have to be larger. They need to accommodate entire families and their livestock in harsh winter storms. That can be keeping upwards of several dozen bodies alive in some of the worst weather on the planet. Secondly, they also have to manage the searing summer temperatures/sunlight of the southern deserts, along with incredibly high wind loads. Thirdly, they have to be repairable with the very few natural resources available in rural Mongolia. That said, regular tents probably could learn from them. Yurts are incredibly modular and flexible designs. You can combine multiple yurts into one larger one, or use them in very different environments. They're also fairly low impact, with the primary damage to the ground being sunlight deprivation and foot traffic. I doubt the design itself could be adapted to backpacking very well though. It's just fundamentally a bit overengineered for what campers require.
- traverseda 9y agoMy biggest complaint with plain html pages like this is that they're unpleasant to read on windscreen monitors. If you're publishing something like this, please consider adding "sakura css". It's designed to be tiny and to apply to plain html pages. They also have a bookmarklet. https://github.com/oxalorg/sakura https://github.com/oxalorg/sakura `<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/sakura.css/css/sakura.css" https://unpkg.com/sakura.css/css/sakura.css" type="text/css">`
- ams6110 9y agoReader mode handles sites like these perfectly, as well.
- dmm 9y agoYou try out stumpwm. It's a tiling window manager that allows you to take full advantage of your big screen. Simply entering "Control-t s" would vertically split your screen and make that unpleasantly wide page readable. Still too wide? No problem! Hit "C-t s" again and you get another vertical split. "c-t r" will undo the last split and "c-t q" will undo them all.
- namanyayg 9y agoMy trick: Hit Ctrl + Shift + I to bring up console on the right, then Ctrl "+" a few times to zoom-in. Takes me less than a second on the keyboard, and makes for a decent experience [1], in my opinion [1] https://i.imgur.com/CnbPq2F.png https://i.imgur.com/CnbPq2F.png
- Retric 9y agoYou don't need to view a page in full screen mode. Considering the site still works unchanged after 23 years I am really happy they did not design it for the 1995 era screens etc.
- greglindahl 8y agoAs the guy who formatted the page you're complaining about, all I can say is that it looked great when I formatted it. I tried sakura just now on a few of my 1990s webpages, and it trashes a lot of my list-and-table-based formatting. Maybe it works well for other pages, but not mine.
- Dylanfm 9y agoIf you're into this, I recommend the classic book Shelter (https://www.shelterpub.com/building/shelter https://www.shelterpub.com/building/shelter). It documents the design, construction and use of many styles of shelters around the world (including yurts).
- spking 9y agoThis looks really neat, thanks for sharing. Some of the photos reminded me of the Miwok bark houses on display at Yosemite: https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/historyculture/indian-village-of-the-ahwahnee.htm https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/historyculture/indian-village...
- steanne 9y agoi think you may have made it too popular. timing out now.
- bovermyer 9y agoJust going to point out here that this kind of article (detailed instructions on how to make something historical, with plenty of exploration into said history) is plentiful in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). The author was an SCA participant of many, many years. Well worth losing an afternoon exploring.
- greglindahl 8y agoShe's still active, I see her at Pennsic.
- bovermyer 8y agoAh, cool. I'm no longer active; there's a handful of people in my local barony that I want to avoid, so I just bowed out altogether a few years ago.