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Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

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Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#81

Post by adamiscool8 »

llm_trw wrote: post #75
adamiscool8 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it cheaper because the infrastructure is going farther, or because every individual is getting less and less of an overburdened commons? If you build out instead and everyone gets the SFH white-picket-fence life, the escape to nature is suddenly less important. Even if it's more expensive to connect, in the process we develop ample capacity in the commons. Maybe it's just not possible with so much cost focus and s…

The only reason why suburbia is possible is because it is _heavily_ subsidized. If you had to pay the real bill for road maintenance alone suburbs would no longer be viable. So the suburbs take from the commons and don't give back in your example.

Would be interested in reading more about this claim, but it is not true for my suburb which raises plenty in development fees and property tax.

Looking at a random SF suburb, "Pleasanton" [0] - it looks like 72% of their budget is funded through taxes and only ~7% is transfer payments.

[0] https://www.cityofpleasantonca.gov/assets/our-government/fin...

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#82

Post by adamiscool8 »

TylerE wrote: post #71
adamiscool8 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it cheaper because the infrastructure is going farther, or because every individual is getting less and less of an overburdened commons? If you build out instead and everyone gets the SFH white-picket-fence life, the escape to nature is suddenly less important. Even if it's more expensive to connect, in the process we develop ample capacity in the commons. Maybe it's just not possible with so much cost focus and s…

I’ve been to Atlanta. A hundred miles of suburbia is not an improvement and is actually a dystopia.

Dystopia usually conjures up a neon bright towers of an overwhelming big city. I've been to Atlanta too and I quite liked it. Low density, lots of green space, decent public transit (MARTA). Lots of interesting neighborhood variability.

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#83

Post by vlovich123 »

perching_aix wrote: post #55
vlovich123 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not encrypted but compression and reliability of the signal is a mixed bag. It’s not encrypted because congress mandated it as a condition for privatizing the analog bandwidth (ie there’s a carve out for public digital and broadcasters have to broadcast publicly accessible signal just like they had to on analog)

Oh wow okay, definitely didn't expect this. That's quite the power move. I guess it's also why it's disappearing, at least partly.

Not really a power move but public broadcast will probably disappear at some point in a boiling the frog kind of way, but it’s definitely being starved and killed by corporate interests.

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#84

Post by hex4def6 »

scoofy wrote: post #67
mhh__ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between urban jungle and (say) nice 5 story European city buildings. Londons problem for example is that they tried to be clever and cheap at the same time in the 60s and now we're stuck with it.

This is why incrementalism is always the best method of development. Spread out the pain so everyone only suffers a little. Spread out the development across different architectural eras. Spread out density to the point where you have diminishing returns. The city shouldn't be changed overnight, but the city should be allowed to change an a consistent rate that slowly accelerates . A good example is to allow each bui…

Unless I'm misunderstanding, this solves for the problem in which someone wants to put a skyscraper in the middle of suburbia. In other words, based on the assumption that developers will always want to build bigger, but the locals don't want that.

Interesting to imagine what this city would look like. If it spread out evenly, you'd get a strange "bowl", with the original SFHs in the center, and high-rises on the periphery.

I guess in reality you wouldn't have such even growth; high rises would still potentially want to clump together for business districts, etc.

As buildings get torn down, you could do the recalculation; each new building can be x% above or below the local building density "slope". So over time, even the SFH areas could grow upwards, just at a slow pace.

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#85

Post by adamiscool8 »

crazygringo wrote: post #80
adamiscool8 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it cheaper because the infrastructure is going farther, or because every individual is getting less and less of an overburdened commons? If you build out instead and everyone gets the SFH white-picket-fence life, the escape to nature is suddenly less important. Even if it's more expensive to connect, in the process we develop ample capacity in the commons. Maybe it's just not possible with so much cost focus and s…

> Is it cheaper because the infrastructure is going farther Yes, that's exactly it! > or because every individual is getting less and less of an overburdened commons? No, it's not that at all. Why would common services be overburdened? Everyone still gets their water, sewage, electricity, internet, etc., but it's far cheaper to provide per-person. And with the density you get to build public transit, so people aren't…

>Why would common services be overburdened?

Water restrictions? Fatbergs? Brownouts? Congestion? Traffic? Breathing room? Not to mention increasing demand on any inelastic local supply will drive up prices. To my initial point, the upscaling of utilities and infrastructure is often magically handwaved alongside the up-zoning demands. There are real negatives to cramming more and more people into one place!

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#86

Post by screye »

cbeach wrote: post #38
legitster wrote: post #28

Completely unrelated, but aerial views of San Francisco blow my mind with how under-zoned the city is. One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see. The distance between Sutro Tower and the "Downtown" SF is less than the distance between the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park. But could you imagine if that space was fill…

> One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see. Ever wondered if it’s desirable BECAUSE it’s not a dense urban jungle?

No? Paris, NYC, Tokyo, Singapore, Shanghai, London are all dense urban jungles. Doesn't stop them from being desirable.

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#87

Post by DonHopkins »

Decades ago a radio technician friend of mine took me up the elevator in the west leg to the top platform, to enjoy the fantastic view of the city. As the caption at the base of the west leg elevator entrance says, it was quite small and cramped indeed, and it definitely was disconcerting when it changed orientation passing through the waist of the tower!

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#88

Post by rz2k »

cbeach wrote: post #38
legitster wrote: post #28

Completely unrelated, but aerial views of San Francisco blow my mind with how under-zoned the city is. One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see. The distance between Sutro Tower and the "Downtown" SF is less than the distance between the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park. But could you imagine if that space was fill…

> One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see. Ever wondered if it’s desirable BECAUSE it’s not a dense urban jungle?

It is easy to argue that Manhattan is far more livable than San Francisco due to the layout and highly convenient zoning, even before taking the obvious transportation advantages into account. San Francisco's advantage is the climate and beautiful natural setting.

Considering the advances in seismic technology made over the past fifty years, it is a shame that much faster upgrades to the real estate have not been encouraged.

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#89

Post by dragonwriter »

scoofy wrote: post #67
mhh__ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between urban jungle and (say) nice 5 story European city buildings. Londons problem for example is that they tried to be clever and cheap at the same time in the 60s and now we're stuck with it.

This is why incrementalism is always the best method of development. Spread out the pain so everyone only suffers a little. Spread out the development across different architectural eras. Spread out density to the point where you have diminishing returns. The city shouldn't be changed overnight, but the city should be allowed to change an a consistent rate that slowly accelerates . A good example is to allow each bui…

> A good example is to allow each building to only double the square footage of the median building within, say, a quarter-mile radius of the property being redeveloped. This means that SFH's can only become duplexes until duplexes are the norm.

No, it doesn't; existing SFHs can, and have when allowed to, become duplexes, triplexes, and sometimes even quadruplexes without changing square footage at all, with doubling, you can go even further. All it takes is remodeling so that each subdivided unit meets minimum habitability standards (separate access, its own restroom, whatever other facilities are mininally required.)

Re: Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro Tower, San Francisco

#90

Post by pchristensen »

adamiscool8 wrote: post #56
legitster wrote: post #28

Completely unrelated, but aerial views of San Francisco blow my mind with how under-zoned the city is. One of the most desirable places on earth to live and it's on a small peninsula. Yet it's a sea of single-family homes as far as the eye can see. The distance between Sutro Tower and the "Downtown" SF is less than the distance between the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park. But could you imagine if that space was fill…

There would be 3-4X the people, yet still the same amount of roads, services, and public utilities. Why is densifying always seen as some unalloyed good? I constantly see this pitched as a plan for housing problems without the basic consideration of whether human beings thrive in such an unnatural environment. If you're going to force-densify anything, why not actual low-per-capita population areas [0] and develop ma…

It is currently being force "low-densified" by restrictions. If those restrictions and force were removed, it would densify itself due to market demands. It would be much, much less forced than the current paradigm.
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