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The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

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Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#91

Post by ben_w »

eru wrote: post #75
TeMPOraL wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, though this and electric cars both required a single man with combination of wealth, charisma and ability to think beyond their own wallet - which is a very rare set of characteristics to coincide in a single person - who then could drag the market kicking and screaming into accepting EVs and reusable rockets. Unfortunately, depending on such happenstance doesn't scale, so it's not a reliable way of creating a b…

> Yes, though this and electric cars both required a single man with combination of wealth, charisma and ability to think beyond their own wallet [...] Elon Musk became the richest African-American in the process. I don't think he needed to think beyond his own wallet? (He might have or not. I don't know what he's thinking.)

Both SpaceX and Tesla came close to bankruptcy, and he started the former and took over the latter with enough PayPal money to spend the rest of his life in extreme comfort.

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#92

Post by aphextron »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #14
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #2

Travelling to the 70s must feel like going to the future: these futuristic capsule buildings existed, supersonic air travel was commonplace, and there were humans travelling to the moon. The epitome of modernity these days is how fast your car videos can load.

I can put on a lightweight headset and hang out to shoot pool with a group of strangers from around the world in virtual reality. In my lifetime countries, including political enemies, worked together to build a space station that has been continually occupied by humans, each usually staying long term, since it became habitable. I watched the F-35 hover over the water and shoot out of sight instantly at Fleet Week, a…

>America is a more balanced and equitable society today than it was in 1970.

The inflation adjusted minimum wage peaked in 1968. An American worker in 1970 could graduate high school and get a job that would allow them to support a family of four, buy a home, and take the occasional vacation. To say that we've progressed in terms of equitability since then is a cruel joke. The area under the curve of material wealth may be greater, but we've become a winner-take-all society.

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#93

Post by the-dude »

knolax wrote: post #19
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #2

Travelling to the 70s must feel like going to the future: these futuristic capsule buildings existed, supersonic air travel was commonplace, and there were humans travelling to the moon. The epitome of modernity these days is how fast your car videos can load.

I've gotten into camping and climbing recently and every time I walk into an REI I'm pretty amazed at how different the gear is from when I was younger. Might not be as flashy but there certainly has been a great deal of improvement in pretty much every consumer good there is.

This week I bought a gardening scissor ( to cut small branches ).

"Main" : modern looking, lots of plastic, maybe had 'advanced' features ( I couldn't imagine what those would be )

Close to € 25.

"House brand" : more or less the same as the main

About € 14

"Basic" or "Budget" : the exactly same scissor I remember my parents had, and everybody had in 70s & 80s.

€ 3,19

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#94

Post by gavinmckenzie »

ekianjo wrote: post #47
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #2

Travelling to the 70s must feel like going to the future: these futuristic capsule buildings existed, supersonic air travel was commonplace, and there were humans travelling to the moon. The epitome of modernity these days is how fast your car videos can load.

> supersonic air travel was commonplace, Only if you had deep pockets

I had the pleasure of flying the Concorde, almost by accident, in the 90s. Yes, I was flying on business, but for some reason I couldn't get a flight on KLM to the Netherlands at all that week and my creative travel agent mused "Hey, do you want to take the Concorde?"

The cost was $3500, which at the time was within a couple of hundred dollars compared to a business-class seat on KLM. Yes, that ticket price wasn't something I'd contemplate for personal travel, and it was a bit discounted at that; but for business travel it certainly wasn't exorbitant.

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#95

Post by CapricornNoble »

Grimm1 wrote: post #83
buran77 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the idea is that today generally speaking there's a clearer separation between art and engineering. We tend to have functional things, or ones focused on impressive visuals at the expense of the functionality. Comparatively very few things want to be both. The car wanted to be both engineering and "art" in the 50s-60s, in the 70s buildings had their turn with all kinds of experimental architecture. In the 80s…

Not that I was around for it then, but the sense I get about things that are trying to be both Art and Engineering is that they fail to be spectacular in either category.

The blending of art and engineering is part of what makes hypercars so interesting IMO. Just 2 examples:

Aston Martin Vulcan: https://youtu.be/7ts_j5Pmwb0 Koenigsegg Gemera: https://youtu.be/1mPmCDS66Qc

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#96

Post by CapricornNoble »

checker wrote: post #89
pfdietz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concorde failed because of the technology. It was hugely expensive and consumed mass amounts of fuel (13x the fuel per passenger of a 747-200). It used 2 tons of fuel just to taxi to the runway for takeoff! I dispute that airlines were actually interested in a Concorde B. The economic problems of supersonic flight would have remained. There's a reason Boeing abandoned any pretense of interest in SST after Congress de…

Yeah I'll take decent in-flight internet connectivity over massive amounts of fuel being consumed to get to the destination faster.

I'd like the option of supersonic travel for transoceanic voyages. I'm looking at plane tickets back to the East Coast from Japan.... Tokyo to Dallas alone is ~12hrs, total travel time ~24hrs across 3 flights. Flying to the other side of the planet faster would be far more valuable to me than even browsing HN while airborne (I tend to sleep through my flights, no matter how long, anyway).

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#97

Post by joe_the_user »

eru wrote: post #74
joe_the_user wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 1970s, plane travel was rare and expensive, with high quality service and everything sparkling. Long distance phone calls were exciting. There was much less future, it was less advanced but it felt more special, yes.

Part of the reason air travel was rare and expensive was regulation. De-regulation of air travel made it cheap and commonplace. See eg https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/AirlineDeregulation.html

Yep,

Deregulation made air travel cheap, commonplace and miserable. I took Greyhound across the country several times in t70s. The quality of travel in airplanes is essentially at that level - but much faster of course. The 1950-70s were an era of regulated private monopolies. Those regulation stood in the way of all sorts of progress but also gave a substantial portion of the working class a middle class income.

I'm not going to argue whether one was better than the other because the change was inevitable, we'll never change back, just "change forward" to some further situation.

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#98

Post by buran77 »

CapricornNoble wrote: post #95
Grimm1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I was around for it then, but the sense I get about things that are trying to be both Art and Engineering is that they fail to be spectacular in either category.

The blending of art and engineering is part of what makes hypercars so interesting IMO. Just 2 examples: Aston Martin Vulcan: https://youtu.be/7ts_j5Pmwb0 Koenigsegg Gemera: https://youtu.be/1mPmCDS66Qc

Today's super/hyper-cars definitely try to be beautiful and stand out visually but they're as much function as they can be. The form just follows the function. Every line prioritizes aerodynamics, every component is about weight saving and performance, every embellishment is about ventilation or downforce. The visual uniqueness is working around the function, not the other way around.

Look at a '50s car and you'll see all kinds of functionally useless fins and embellishments all around, all meant to make the car look more futuristic and "airplane like", simulating airplane's wings and engines [0].

[0] https://live.staticflickr.com/1637/25965835911_3cd002a8b8_b....

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#99

Post by beyondcompute »

beyondcompute wrote: post #84
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logan's Run: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film) 1976 dystopian fiction. It had a look and feel that matches up with this architecture.

Thanks for your reply but it was more of a rhetorical question! :)

Would be very interesting to learn why this was downvoted. I am somewhat loosing faith in humanity recently. If people express their negative feelings towards someone who thanks another person and is politely trying to clarify his previous message, I am not sure what future do we all have.

Re: The Last Days of Tokyo’s Nakagin Capsule Tower

#100

Post by mustacheemperor »

aphextron wrote: post #92
mustacheemperor wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can put on a lightweight headset and hang out to shoot pool with a group of strangers from around the world in virtual reality. In my lifetime countries, including political enemies, worked together to build a space station that has been continually occupied by humans, each usually staying long term, since it became habitable. I watched the F-35 hover over the water and shoot out of sight instantly at Fleet Week, a…

>America is a more balanced and equitable society today than it was in 1970. The inflation adjusted minimum wage peaked in 1968. An American worker in 1970 could graduate high school and get a job that would allow them to support a family of four, buy a home, and take the occasional vacation. To say that we've progressed in terms of equitability since then is a cruel joke. The area under the curve of material wealth…

I think you are right that we have not unilaterally progressed in terms of equitability since 1970, but by my understanding of history the upward mobility you describe would be much more accessible to a woman or non-white person in America today than in 1970. "An" American worker, sure. Someone in the right demographic. But not every American, not by a long shot (not to say that today everyone has equal opportunities across gender and racial demographics, but we've improved).
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