Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27720912 (170 comments)
Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)
121–130 of 130 posts
Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)
#122It took a second for me to make this connection, but the Charlie Munger in this article is the same Charlie Munger who designed that windowless dorm at UCSB that made the news a few days back. [0] I wonder if he applied the same principles to designing that building. [0] https://www.independent.com/2021/10/28/architect-resigns-in-...
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Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
> his thinking is more nuanced than those shitting on it To be fair, an architect with 15 years on the UCSB Review Committee resigned over this... so it's not just outsiders and the media who are bagging on the design. https://www.independent.com/2021/10/28/architect-resigns-in-...
That's a call to authority. Sometimes, we are stuck in a local optimum, and a new redesign is needed, which involves some tough calls and unusual solutions. As for a bedroom without windows, when I sleep I like that my bedroom is dark. When I don't sleep, I'm not in my bed or my bedroom. So I'm not exactly sure what people complain about his design.
Expertise is authority with foundation.
Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)
#124> For example, let’s say you are trying to figure out “How can I have a great, fulfilling career?” Instead, ask yourself “How can I have a terrible, worthless career?” and whittle away at the choices that you know will ensure that outcome[...] This sort of sounds like the old joke of asking a sculptor how they carved a horse and the sculptor reply's: "Start with a block of stone and remove everything that doesn't loo…
That joke is pretty much exactly what Michaelangelo said about sculpture. I was reminded of that too. See e.g.
https://nilsaparker.medium.com/the-angel-in-the-marble-f7aa4...
Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Creating a dorm that is far from classes and amenities actual encourages social interaction, or it did for my dorm.
How far? I spent a semester at Rutgers and many students need to take busses many miles to get to class. It feels like like a campus community than just about any other school I’ve been on as a result.
Oh, I didn't imagine it could be that far. I meant more than a quarter mile = very far. I meant like being 200m from the dining hall vs 3 football fields from the dining hall -- you end up socializing more with people in your dorm if you're slightly isolated.
Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)
#126TL;DR: provide fake weather reports so that pilots fly into bad weather
Pilots are trained to evaluate weather conditions, so most would figure it out.
In fact, forecasts are expected to change.
For practise, whenever I see clouds, I explain them to friends.
Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)
#127It took a second for me to make this connection, but the Charlie Munger in this article is the same Charlie Munger who designed that windowless dorm at UCSB that made the news a few days back. [0] I wonder if he applied the same principles to designing that building. [0] https://www.independent.com/2021/10/28/architect-resigns-in-...
From what I see in responses to you, Munger has designed other well-received dorms in the past so that gives him credibility on this topic. It doesn't mean he's right but it's a good chance his thinking is more nuanced than those shitting on it - especially coupled with the current article that describes how he thinks. This is total conjecture but I can imagine him doing something like this: Question: how do you make…
This design reminds me in some ways of the disastrous Pruitt-Igoe public housing project in St. Louis. It's demolition in the 1970's was prominently featured in the film "Koyaanisqatsi"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt_Igoe
"Apartments clustered around small, two-family landings with tenants working to maintain and clear their common areas were often relatively successful. When corridors were shared by 20 families and staircases by hundreds, public spaces immediately fell into disrepair.[20] When the number of residents per public space rose above a certain level, none would identify with these "no man's land[s]"
One would expect that a major University building would not suffer from disrepair but the psychological effect of "disowning" the common areas might remain.
The apartments in Pruitt-Igoe were also deliberately small.
Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)
#128For successful network design anticipating as many failure modes as possible isn't just a clever mental hack, it's absolutely essential. I suspect this is true for many engineering disciplines.
What I hadn't considered is applying this technique to more general (non-technical) life problems/optimizations.
Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
The goal when designing something isn't to be as shitty as will be tolerated. And people are doing lots to get these educations... going massively in debt seems like a pretty strong indicator that people want the education I'd say.
Correlation != Causation. American kids go massively into debt because their parents, their legislators and their universities have largely failed them. Kids aren't given a proper financial education before making the biggest financial decision of their lives. Laws were written to make student debt the most secure form of debt ever for lenders. Schools flush with public money have done nothing but increase the costs…
> Correlation != Causation.
So people not clamoring to live in a shit windowless shoebox of a dorm might not reflect on the quality of the education?
Re: Suppose I Wanted to Kill a Lot of Pilots (2020)
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correlation != Causation. American kids go massively into debt because their parents, their legislators and their universities have largely failed them. Kids aren't given a proper financial education before making the biggest financial decision of their lives. Laws were written to make student debt the most secure form of debt ever for lenders. Schools flush with public money have done nothing but increase the costs…
> Correlation != Causation. So people not clamoring to live in a shit windowless shoebox of a dorm might not reflect on the quality of the education?
Students will deal with it for the eduation.
I'm aware of a far less prestigious school where when they ran out of dorms they converted an abandoned super 8 motel for 3 years and the building was absolutely filthy and in terrible shape (it needed a new roof) and it was still full of students.