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Is the world really running out of sand?

practical.engineering

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Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#11

Post by colechristensen »

crmrc114 wrote: post #2

Bonus points for articles that start with a tldr and don't try to bury the lead

The Washington Post headline:

>'The Eagle Has Landed' – Two Men Walk on the Moon

That is the entire story, in the headline as it should be. I want to know more! The first sentence should add the most relevant added information.

It shouldn't be "As a child Neil Armstrong always dreamed about..." burying the next most important detail 2/3 through the article. The importance/relevance/interest should start high, end low. Inverted pyramid.

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#12

Post by Havoc »

I wonder if the desert kind of sand that isn’t suitable for construction can be used for those thermal mass sand batteries.

Seems like an obvious solution for storage to me but haven’t heard anything on that front

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#13

Post by diggan »

eichin wrote: post #5

Ironically, we just hit an entirely different "sand catastrophe" - https://mastodon.social/@mimsical/113232531800424706 > the crucibles used to create ingots of silicon which become microchips are made from an ultra-pure quartz sand -- and 70% of the world's supply comes from just one place in North Carolina [Spruce Pine]

> and 70% of the world's supply comes from just one place in North Carolina

A quick search seems to say there are more places available for getting that than North Carolina.

Is it possible that this specific mine just happens to be the cheapest available right now, but in case they for some reason disappear, there are alternatives everyone would switch to? Or is the situation that if that mine disappears, there is no other alternatives at all?

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#16

Post by Maxatar »

anamexis wrote: post #4
crmrc114 wrote: post #2

Bonus points for articles that start with a tldr and don't try to bury the lead

FYI it's "bury the lede," a lede being the introductory section of a news story.

The word "lede" was introduced in the 1970s as an alternative spelling for the word "lead" to resolve ambiguity between the leading paragraph of an article and the metal "lead" which was used in typesetting. It didn't even become popular until the 1980s.

In fact, prior to the 1980s, it was indeed spelled "bury the lead". Here for example is an excerpt from a book about newswriting from the 1970s which uses "lead" as the spelling:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=3IxbAAAAMAAJ&q=%22bury+the+...

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#17

Post by roca »

colechristensen wrote: post #11
crmrc114 wrote: post #2

Bonus points for articles that start with a tldr and don't try to bury the lead

The Washington Post headline: >'The Eagle Has Landed' – Two Men Walk on the Moon That is the entire story, in the headline as it should be. I want to know more! The first sentence should add the most relevant added information. It shouldn't be "As a child Neil Armstrong always dreamed about..." burying the next most important detail 2/3 through the article. The importance/relevance/interest should start high, end low…

I have a theory that a lot of journalists really wanted to be novelists. When they get a chance to write a long-form article they can't resist the urge to flex their stylistic muscles; "look at me, I'm a Serious Writer".

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#18

Post by jzb »

crmrc114 wrote: post #2

Bonus points for articles that start with a tldr and don't try to bury the lead

Note that "bury the lede" isn't really about "make the reader get to the end to find out the answer" but when a reporter/writer emphasizes the wrong part of a story in the intro then you'd say they buried the lede. Like, if the first graf is all about a politician attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Podunk, IL and then in the third graf you have "at the rally, he called for all left-handed people to be put in jail" then you've buried the lede.

If you have in the first graf "so-and-so proposed a radical, and illegal, prosecution of a minority group" it's not burying the lede to make the reader get to the third graf to find out it's against left-handed people. Annoying, perhaps, but not technically burying the lede. :)

Re: Is the world really running out of sand?

#20

Post by rootusrootus »

Every time I watch a practical engineering video I like Grady more and more. Great presenter, interesting videos, great value for the time spent watching. Gets right to the point in the first sentence, and the rest of the video is still worth watching.

Add me to the long list of people who heard the bit about desert sand not being suitable for concrete and believed it. I'm happy to be corrected.

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