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Sana'a

idlewords.com

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Re: Sana'a

#21

Post by simonw »

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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

Re: Sana'a

#22

Post by kudos200 »

tokenadult wrote: post #16
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...

My favorite by far (or, well, the other one that comes to mind) is No Evidence of Disease. I've recommended it to all my friends.

http://idlewords.com/2012/09/no_evidence_of_disease.htm

Re: Sana'a

#23

Post by 3pt14159 »

idlewords wrote: post #20
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.

What is cheaper, building a city or building a pipe?

I find it hard to believe that the local economy has collapsed to the point where they can't afford a pipe to a desalination plant.

Re: Sana'a

#24

Post by stupidpost »

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.

I totally agree 100%. I began to read the blog post and noticed that the author was trying to make it sound like a novel. If I wanted to read a book I would. It wasn't interesting; actually pretty distracting.

Re: Sana'a

#25

Post by idlewords »

3pt14159 wrote: post #23
idlewords wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is cheaper, building a city or building a pipe? I find it hard to believe that the local economy has collapsed to the point where they can't afford a pipe to a desalination plant.

That's one of the easiest things there is to believe. You need to work on your believing.

Re: Sana'a

#26

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Sana'a

#27

Post by tokenadult »

kudos200 wrote: post #22
tokenadult wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

My favorite by far (or, well, the other one that comes to mind) is No Evidence of Disease. I've recommended it to all my friends. http://idlewords.com/2012/09/no_evidence_of_disease.htm

Wow. Thanks for the link.

Re: Sana'a

#28

Post by Zancarius »

dang wrote: post #11
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.

I found it fascinating, because it's a place I'd never go to--and because I admire those with the intestinal fortitude to visit places that could potentially land them at the bottom of a 6' hole in the ground. One of the reasons I read HN is because of the occasional morsel like this that is simultaneously unexpected and rewarding.

The other side of the coin is that it was well written and humorous, which helps, but the language itself brought to life incredible images. Writing is a skill. Good writing is an art. Both can be appreciated but one is adored. I always assumed that hacker-types generally had a wide array of eclectic tastes and interests, and I'm pretty sure some of the more famous ones would agree [1]. Besides, who doesn't like a good, lively story about a culture that's alien to the majority of us Westerners?

I'm still puzzled though. I've never understood why some people have a penchant for clicking links they know they'll hate, read them anyway, and then post their misery and suffering. It would seem less of a cognitive load to ignore the unwanted than to embrace and let it fester.

[1] http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/reading_habits.html

Re: Sana'a

#29

Post by chetanahuja »

This is the second time I ended up on Maciej's website through a hacker news link and ended up spending far too much time happily browsing about. He's a far better writer than one would expect a "blogger" to be. Let's call him an essayist instead.

This was the essay that took me to his site the first time around:

http://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm

Re: Sana'a

#30

Post by msandford »

idlewords wrote: post #25
3pt14159 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is cheaper, building a city or building a pipe? I find it hard to believe that the local economy has collapsed to the point where they can't afford a pipe to a desalination plant.

That's one of the easiest things there is to believe. You need to work on your believing.

You might be right that the whole thing will fall apart.

But if this place is indeed the equivalent to Manhattan I can understand the disbelief. Compared to the trillions tied up in real estate the cost of a pipeline to NYC would be trivial. Yeah it might cost $50b (probably much, much less but lets go crazy) but with at least 10mm people around to receive the water it's $5k per person amortized over a decade it comes out to $50/mo/person

I realize that the economics in Sana'a are probably hugely different than here in the US. But if people earn less, labor is cheaper too, etc.

The difficulty here isn't that given the facts it could happen. It's that getting to the point where you have all the facts has turned all the assumptions that you normally take for granted completely upside down. Speaking as an engineer I can understand the difficulty.

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