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Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

bbc.co.uk

451–460 of 515 posts

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#451

This reminds me of other "land art" installations around the country. Presumably, these are done with the landowners permission: The Lightning Field: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lightning_Field Spiral Jetty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Jetty Negative Space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Negative_(artwork) Amarillo Ramp: https://holtsmithsonfoundation.org/amarillo-ramp

Does anyone know what those wire grids are in East Palo Alto, just west of the landfill? I can't tell if they're art or synthetic aperture radar. https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4464497,-122.1130144,156m/da...

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try living in Los Angeles. Every other movie has some local detail pretending to be somewhere else. And if you're ever going up the highway east of the Sierra Nevada, be sure to stop in at Lone Pine's film history museum. The Alabama Hills just west of town have been stand-ins for every western state, as well as Mars, Afghanistan, the entire Middle East ... It's disconcerting to be watching a movie and seeing known l…

'Hollywood' in general is like this. All the film studios have real life people working in them and who have lives outside of their work. One of the reasons that Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, Malibu, etc. are what they have become is that they are a commutable distance to the studio lots. The same is then true of shooting locations in southern CA. The ability to go back home on the weekends/evenings (in the least) is very…

Apparently the pay is also different if you're within the 30-mile zone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_zone

[Also, my original comment should have said "southeast" not "southwest", d'oh]

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#453
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large scale castings are also tricky. You can't cast a rectangular prism and get good results. As the metal freezes (solidifies), it shrinks. You'd end up with a very poor surface finish at best, and chunks missing at worst. The shrinkage needs to be made up for with some additional molten metal. The fix is pretty simple though. You need directional solidification, meaning the freezing starts on one end and moved tow…

Iceland's electricity production mix seems to be typically about 70% Hydro and 30% Geothermal (which does not change the overall point - just interesting).

Ah, good catch! I was rusty on my numbers from a year and a half ago when I wrote a paper on this for school. Back in the 80's they were nearly 100% hydro.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Icelan...

When I visited in 2018, we came across a 5 kW turbine installed in 1927 near a famous waterfall. It's no longer online, but was neat to see.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/pLuSyKnStd4smgCCA

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#454
post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try living in Los Angeles. Every other movie has some local detail pretending to be somewhere else. And if you're ever going up the highway east of the Sierra Nevada, be sure to stop in at Lone Pine's film history museum. The Alabama Hills just west of town have been stand-ins for every western state, as well as Mars, Afghanistan, the entire Middle East ... It's disconcerting to be watching a movie and seeing known l…

I feel you. As New Zealander watching lord of the rings with local soap opera actors appearing randomly really break whatever immersion you tried to build up...

Sometimes, this happens to me just because the same actor pops up in two films. I can never quite get over Lord Elrond being Mr. Smith from the Matrix, for example. Perhaps because the acting in the two roles seems so similar to me. I don’t watch movies very much. People who do, must have this happening to them all the time.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They need to get this removed ASAP

Why?

Not OP, but I’d imagine to stop idiots from stumbling through the desert and either fucking up the surrounding nature or getting themselves lost/injured

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#457

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I think it’s amusing that the takeaway from this episode is “the intelligence agencies screwed up” and not “the intelligence agencies found no evidence, and then were directly pressured by their political masters to construct evidence to justify a desired military outcome.”

It wasn’t even a real intelligent agency that drummed up support for war. It was a temporary agency created by Rumsfelds and Cheney with the Orwellian name of “Office of Special Plans.” They deliberately lied and misused raw intelligence signals to force us to war. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Plans

So season 2 of TV Series 24 aired between October 29, 2002 May 20, 2003. Its main theme was US govt using fabricated evidence to attack middle eastern countries. The Office of Special Plans (OSP) existed from September 2002 to June 2003.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#458

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As someone on the spectrum, I approve this message. I wish society was a meritocracy.

Just a heads up the term meritocracy was actually coined to describe an impossibility, since all judgement of worth in society is subjective. Even if you pick an objective metric, it was decided upon subjectively and with bias. I can appreciate wanting society to be more egalitarian, but perhaps you’re in search of another word.

So is egalitarianism.

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#459
post #41

A reddit user [1] found its location [2] and another figured out it was installed sometime during 2015-2016 based on when the satellite imagery changed. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/k01dc3/mysterious_m... [2] https://goo.gl/maps/2xdrTqcnguX3ky8AA

What I really want to know is if that is a solid piece of metal or just a metal “shell”?

So looking at the instragram post it looks like steel plates just screwed together. The screw holes are visible too so definitely a hollow shell. Makes it a lot less cool to me :(

Re: Metal monolith found by helicopter crew in Utah desert

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply put, I think it is cool and would like to to stick around. For what it is worth, here are a few points to consider. There already is art Throughout the wilderness and I think it is great. Sometimes the art is as simple as a statue or plaque commemorating a historic location, other times it is DIY art like this. The point of national parks isn’t to preserve wilderness for the sake of preservation. The point is…

Well you can certainly have your own perspective, I just disagree 100% with it and will use whatever means I have to make sure that the tiny bits of nature we have left are preserved to the extent possible. Some aluminum "art" in the middle of nowhere is a perversion and should be garbage collected. That's my view, which I will use dollars and my vote toward.

We might just have agree to disagree. I have literally seen tens of thousands of pounds of garbage dumped on public land. The idea that some out of the way and moderately interesting art is a priority is laughable.
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