Sana'a • Hacker News Board

Re: Sana'a

#11

Post by dang » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:18 PM UTC

eLobato wrote: post #9

How is this Hacker News worthy content? It's a great article, granted, but it has nothing to do with hacking (unless I'm missing something). If you downvote this comment, I think explaining in a reply why this article belongs in Hacker News would be great.

Hacker News is about more than hacking and startups. That has been in the site prospectus for some 7 years and is kind of the whole idea.

I posted it because it's damn interesting, and secondarily because the site could use a little more diversity.

Re: Sana'a

#12

Post by _hnwo » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:35 PM UTC

this was fascinating, thanks for sharing

Re: Sana'a

#13

Post by jvandonsel » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:36 PM UTC

I love Maciej's writing. His piece on the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel (http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_t...) is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

Re: Sana'a

#14

Post by kimdouglasmason » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:46 PM UTC

Certainly a place to watch considering that they're going to run out of ground-water sooner rather than later. I imagine the graph of population will look pretty similar to that of reindeer on St Matthew Island:

http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/nats104/00lect21crash2.gif

Re: Sana'a

#15

Post by guard-of-terra » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 10:48 PM UTC

dfryer wrote: post #6

I was in Sana'a around this time last year, the article paints a strikingly accurate picture of the experience. Yemenis as a whole are the friendliest group of people I've had the pleasure to meet. On the other hand, the problems of the nation seem to be incurable, unless someone has a recipe for turning sand into water and oil.

It looks like they could employ something like this baby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-350_reactor

Sadly it doesn't seem to be mainstream anymore.

Re: Sana'a

#16

Post by tokenadult » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 11:10 PM UTC

jvandonsel wrote: post #13

I love Maciej's writing. His piece on the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel ( http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda-weehawken_burrito_t... ) is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

I love his writing too. My all-time favorite is one of his best known writings, "Argentina On Two Steaks A Day,"[1] which I first read in a print best essays anthology and didn't realize had begun as a blog post until years later.

[1] http://idlewords.com/2006/04/argentina_on_two_steaks_a_day.h...

Re: Sana'a

#17

Post by kstop » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 11:10 PM UTC

eLobato wrote: post #9

How is this Hacker News worthy content? It's a great article, granted, but it has nothing to do with hacking (unless I'm missing something). If you downvote this comment, I think explaining in a reply why this article belongs in Hacker News would be great.

Because reading about his awesome life makes me want to develop a SaaS product and charge for it from Day 1.

Re: Sana'a

#18

Post by adventured » Sat, Jul 19, 2014, 11:31 PM UTC

eLobato wrote: post #9

How is this Hacker News worthy content? It's a great article, granted, but it has nothing to do with hacking (unless I'm missing something). If you downvote this comment, I think explaining in a reply why this article belongs in Hacker News would be great.

You've been here for nearly three years. The surprising thing is that you don't know Hacker News is not just about hacking. That fact has been repeated almost daily since the origins of this site.

Re: Sana'a

#19

Post by 3pt14159 » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 12:01 AM UTC

I studied Civil Engineering in University.

There is no way that that city disappears. The economic incentives are too strong to pipe water in. 3km up some mountains is nothing. Humanity has built pipelines a thousand of kilometres long and over or through much taller mountains.

The city might be corrupt as hell, but when there is truly a water shortage (right now, if they are using it for crops, there isn't in the economic sense) some rich guy is just going to bribe everyone in the way and build that pipeline then charge everyone in the city a dollar a cubic meter or something. Certainly cheaper than rebuilding a stone city.

Re: Sana'a

#20

Post by idlewords » Sun, Jul 20, 2014, 12:31 AM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #19

I studied Civil Engineering in University. There is no way that that city disappears. The economic incentives are too strong to pipe water in. 3km up some mountains is nothing. Humanity has built pipelines a thousand of kilometres long and over or through much taller mountains. The city might be corrupt as hell, but when there is truly a water shortage (right now, if they are using it for crops, there isn't in the ec…

We know what a water crisis in Sana'a will look like because the city already runs low on water every time there is a shortage of fuel:

http://mideastafrica.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/30/yeme...

It doesn't matter what technology you use to bring in water. When the cost gets high enough, people are going to leave the city, and the poorest will have to leave first.