Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 94 posts

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#21

Post by shswkna »

arjie wrote: post #17

It is an outrageously cool thing to give money for an infrastructure project. They must have some faith that the government can deliver on something with $3.5 million. That would be two public toilets in SF, one toilet of which actually cost $300k in paperwork and so on despite two local businessmen signing up to have the work done.

I do not understand the downvotes.

It is a rational response to bureaucratic excesses worldwide in public procurement.

It is a plea to more common sense, to more down to earth thinking and decisive action in the public sphere.

This is not a call to ignore processes. But it is a call for civil servants to respect that they are exactly that. In service, and their ambition should be to do it well and efficiently.

The downvotes are an expression of those that think civil servants should be protected from such sentiment.

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#22

Post by RupertSalt »

userbinator wrote: post #7

More than 20% of Japan's water pipes have passed their legal service life of 40 years, according to local media That is rather low. The US still has some wooden(!) water pipes in use, as well as other plumbing installed in the late 19th/early 20th century.

When the sections are stored above ground, they can make for some really gnarly skate parks. You've heard of the half-pipe, now see the attempts at full-pipe!

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#23

Post by sharkjacobs »

userbinator wrote: post #7

More than 20% of Japan's water pipes have passed their legal service life of 40 years, according to local media That is rather low. The US still has some wooden(!) water pipes in use, as well as other plumbing installed in the late 19th/early 20th century.

Urban trees in Montreal (and presumably other cities) only survive through the summer because of the water they get from leaky pipes.

> Maple trees drink about 50 litres of water every day, and it seems some of their hydration is coming from Montreal’s crumbling infrastructure.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/montreals-leaky-pipe...

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#25

Post by vasco »

shswkna wrote: post #21
arjie wrote: post #17

It is an outrageously cool thing to give money for an infrastructure project. They must have some faith that the government can deliver on something with $3.5 million. That would be two public toilets in SF, one toilet of which actually cost $300k in paperwork and so on despite two local businessmen signing up to have the work done.

I do not understand the downvotes. It is a rational response to bureaucratic excesses worldwide in public procurement. It is a plea to more common sense, to more down to earth thinking and decisive action in the public sphere. This is not a call to ignore processes. But it is a call for civil servants to respect that they are exactly that. In service, and their ambition should be to do it well and efficiently. The do…

You went from not understanding them to knowing exactly what they were an expression of pretty quickly!

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#26

Post by foxyv »

arjie wrote: post #17

It is an outrageously cool thing to give money for an infrastructure project. They must have some faith that the government can deliver on something with $3.5 million. That would be two public toilets in SF, one toilet of which actually cost $300k in paperwork and so on despite two local businessmen signing up to have the work done.

It wasn't even really that big either. 50 square feet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noe_Valley_public_toilet

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#27

Post by rester324 »

arjie wrote: post #17

It is an outrageously cool thing to give money for an infrastructure project. They must have some faith that the government can deliver on something with $3.5 million. That would be two public toilets in SF, one toilet of which actually cost $300k in paperwork and so on despite two local businessmen signing up to have the work done.

"would put it to good use - including tackling the deterioration of water pipes"

There is your faith in action. Zero concrete promise, no accountability.

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#28

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

rester324 wrote: post #27
arjie wrote: post #17

It is an outrageously cool thing to give money for an infrastructure project. They must have some faith that the government can deliver on something with $3.5 million. That would be two public toilets in SF, one toilet of which actually cost $300k in paperwork and so on despite two local businessmen signing up to have the work done.

"would put it to good use - including tackling the deterioration of water pipes" There is your faith in action. Zero concrete promise, no accountability.

* In the culture that also produced this comment. This is not a universal problem, just a societies unable to produce a high trust environment problem.

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#29

Post by N19PEDL2 »

userbinator wrote: post #7

More than 20% of Japan's water pipes have passed their legal service life of 40 years, according to local media That is rather low. The US still has some wooden(!) water pipes in use, as well as other plumbing installed in the late 19th/early 20th century.

Meanwhile, in Europe: https://romanempiretimes.com/aqua-virgo-a-2000-year-roman-aq...

Re: Mystery donor gives Japanese city $3.6M in gold bars to fix water system

#30

Post by zaptheimpaler »

arjie wrote: post #17

It is an outrageously cool thing to give money for an infrastructure project. They must have some faith that the government can deliver on something with $3.5 million. That would be two public toilets in SF, one toilet of which actually cost $300k in paperwork and so on despite two local businessmen signing up to have the work done.

They likely wouldn’t even accept the money because it’s in gold bars, and they wouldn’t be able to prove its source.
Post reply on HN