3 ms·

I think it is incorrect to compare ambitious (crazy?) utopian projects of decades gone with the mundane bullshit contract style work you describe. If anything,

by voz_ 6y ago

I think it is incorrect to compare ambitious (crazy?) utopian projects of decades gone with the mundane bullshit contract style work you describe. If anything, there is more of these crazy projects to be found today. It just so happens we don't bother remembering the inane and mundane work, so all that we have of the past is large (fond) memories of projects like this one, or that awesome snow cruiser.

bacon_waffle 6y ago
Yes, there may be more of those crazy projects today, but a major difference is the way abstraction in software obscures the insanity of the bigger picture. The current South Pole Station was designed by an architectural company based in Hawaii; I'd imagine the architects felt like they were working on a really cool project. In the station they designed, the dorm rooms all have windows without blackout curtains, but the sun rises and sets once a year at South Pole and there's an awful lot of ice outside. It's very bright there in the summer, and the dorms are hardly used for anything other than sleeping. There is a large pile of decorated pieces of repurposed cardboard that polies fit in the windows - I can assure you that decorating those window covers feels a bit silly, even if it is novel to play cut-and-paste with the world spinning around you. Byrd's Snow Cruiser and the CMS made in word macros are more alike than different.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Halley VI is my favourite, it looks like something straight out of a Simon Stalenhag painting and yet is a practical design. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley_Research_Station#/media/File%3ALow_sun_behind_Halley_VI_modules.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley_Research_Station#/med...
noir_lord 6y ago
To an extent I’d agree. A good example is SpaceX we now live in a world where rockets can launch payloads in a commercially viable way and then fly back to their drone ships to land... and it has become routine. I remember watching the first successful landing in sheer and absolute awe, “we” as a species knew it was possible, the technology existed and some early starts had been made but it took one person and a boatload of cash to convert a folly into a mundane reality. For all the stupid things musk does, He will always have some of my respect for bringing back the feeling I used to have as a kid in the 80’s watching a shuttle go up. Had they not been able to make it work for whatever reason in the decades to follow it would have been regarded as one of those ambitious projects that never went anywhere.
monkeycantype 6y ago
Compare the Snow train to the mundane shit I did, no I wouldn't, I realise that my comment, which at the time i made it was not the root of a tree, appears that I am. It was the antarctic snow cruiser, an absurd half backed con job, that was never ever going to work i resonated with, no the snow train is the antithesis, competent bold well executed.

by voz_ 6y ago

bacon_waffle 6y ago

Yes, there may be more of those crazy projects today, but a major difference is the way abstraction in software obscures the insanity of the bigger picture. The current South Pole Station was designed by an architectural company based in Hawaii; I'd imagine the architects felt like they were working on a really cool project. In the station they designed, the dorm rooms all have windows without blackout curtains, but the sun rises and sets once a year at South Pole and there's an awful lot of ice outside. It's very bright there in the summer, and the dorms are hardly used for anything other than sleeping. There is a large pile of decorated pieces of repurposed cardboard that polies fit in the windows - I can assure you that decorating those window covers feels a bit silly, even if it is novel to play cut-and-paste with the world spinning around you. Byrd's Snow Cruiser and the CMS made in word macros are more alike than different.

noir_lord 6y ago
Halley VI is my favourite, it looks like something straight out of a Simon Stalenhag painting and yet is a practical design. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley_Research_Station#/media/File%3ALow_sun_behind_Halley_VI_modules.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley_Research_Station#/med...

noir_lord 6y ago

To an extent I’d agree. A good example is SpaceX we now live in a world where rockets can launch payloads in a commercially viable way and then fly back to their drone ships to land... and it has become routine. I remember watching the first successful landing in sheer and absolute awe, “we” as a species knew it was possible, the technology existed and some early starts had been made but it took one person and a boatload of cash to convert a folly into a mundane reality. For all the stupid things musk does, He will always have some of my respect for bringing back the feeling I used to have as a kid in the 80’s watching a shuttle go up. Had they not been able to make it work for whatever reason in the decades to follow it would have been regarded as one of those ambitious projects that never went anywhere.

monkeycantype 6y ago

Compare the Snow train to the mundane shit I did, no I wouldn't, I realise that my comment, which at the time i made it was not the root of a tree, appears that I am. It was the antarctic snow cruiser, an absurd half backed con job, that was never ever going to work i resonated with, no the snow train is the antithesis, competent bold well executed.