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Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

economist.com

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Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#201

Post by jeltz »

ornornor wrote: post #101
cm2187 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you are equating this to in software, but if it is security vulnerabilities, incompetence has probably more to do with it than time pressure. It takes about the time to write a parametrised query than to concatenate your strings.

The corners that are cut are often around automated testing, security, best practices. And it adds up, so if nothing is done right then it’s faster to keep doing it wrong than rearchitect or abstract everything so you can have a clean implementation. Honestly, I haven’t been working that long (about a decade) but this general attitude from PHBs calling the shots in software makes me count the months until I can retir…

Many jobs are like that but far from all. I recommend looking for a new job where the PHBs are not calling the shots.

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#202

Post by mncharity »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #11

If I remember correctly, Turkiyé (did I spel it write?) has always had a bunch of rolling heads, after buildings fall down like dominoes, during their frequent quakes. Doesn't seem to have changed things. Japan, on the other hand, seems to have a really hard-core construction ethos. During quakes there, buildings rock around like they are at a rave, and don't fall down. If we ever have a big quake in New York, we're…

> quake in New York

Fwiw, I just now enjoyed "Local Geology of New York City and Its Effect on Seismic Ground Motions"(2004)[1]. There's also [2], less fun, but 2020, and has a more extensive soil map.

Briefly, NYC area has a moderate earthquake risk (a magnitude 5+ per century, two 6+ per thousand years), but "it is important to keep in mind that NYC buildings prior to 1995 were not designed at all for seismic loads"[2], and NYC surface is mostly class D medium-dense soil with glacial till and human fill.

[1] https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=261... [2] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Konstantinos-Syngros/pu...

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#203

Post by pkulak »

treis wrote: post #190
pkulak wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That code is a mish-mash of a real safety thing (we don't regulate extension cords at all, so we try to make sure there are outlets everywhere and you don't need them... especially around water, like a sink!) and a general effort to make sure that if you buy a house, you don't figure out later that it's a piece of shit. My favorite examples are minimum length of extra wire in a box, and a neutral required. I don't th…

Like I said, there's an outlet on every corner of the island about 2.5 feet from the sink. And on the other kitchen sink there's one immediately on each side. Nobody is getting fucked.

I'm more commenting on:

> Spooked me enough to make me not get permits for the next renos.

I have no idea what you're going to decide is up to your own personal code going forward.

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#204

Post by kneebonian »

mabbo wrote: post #10

My wife has worked in the 'enforcing building codes' sector of engineering for her entire career. And it's so frustrating to watch. Everyone - everyone - is certain that the codes are all overzealous and their little thing needs an exception. Politicians get elected promising to 'get rid of the red tape'. And then an event occurs and we learn why these building codes exist. Like workplace safety rules, they are writt…

Good to know that if I ever need to switch jobs out of Info Sec I can get a job in building code enforcement.

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#205

Post by terminalcommand »

mabbo wrote: post #10

My wife has worked in the 'enforcing building codes' sector of engineering for her entire career. And it's so frustrating to watch. Everyone - everyone - is certain that the codes are all overzealous and their little thing needs an exception. Politicians get elected promising to 'get rid of the red tape'. And then an event occurs and we learn why these building codes exist. Like workplace safety rules, they are writt…

In Turkey, these buildings were constructed by building companies close to government. They paid their bribes and constructed the buildings with making every shortcut.

What was Turkey's response? The governor of Hatay ordered to demolish the building construction control authority's archive (archive with signed and stamped construction projects, floor studies etc.), with the documents in it (i.e. to bury all evidence). The building is a one-floored archive and did not suffer any earthquake damage. Luckily a group of lawyers found out and stopped the destruction halfway. Now, with the pressure from the press, the heads of the building companies are arrested one by one.

Imagine the level of corruption when the governor orders to demolish the archive holding evidence without telling anyone :).

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#206

Post by katscradle_1989 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #67
mabbo wrote: post #10

My wife has worked in the 'enforcing building codes' sector of engineering for her entire career. And it's so frustrating to watch. Everyone - everyone - is certain that the codes are all overzealous and their little thing needs an exception. Politicians get elected promising to 'get rid of the red tape'. And then an event occurs and we learn why these building codes exist. Like workplace safety rules, they are writt…

> it's so frustrating I feel the same way developing software - the only thing that ever matters, and has ever mattered (at least since I started developing software in 1992) is "meeting the date". Whatever corners can be cut to make the date are cut, and then the thing breaks in fairly predictable ways because corners were cut. It's maddeningly infuriating and I'm not even dealing with people's lives here. I can't e…

There were API keys literally sitting on the site of a F500 company at one point. This is because they were using DJANGO and some brilliant engineer thought having them in the "base.html" was good because that means they could be accessed on any page pretty easy.

I soon realized though that they didn't care about that issue and it would have to be fixed after "busy season." Coincidentally, busy season is 365 days a year. The keys are finally gone but they were there for well over 2 years. I went back to check every now and then lol

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#207

Post by Retric »

toast0 wrote: post #126
mabbo wrote: post #10

My wife has worked in the 'enforcing building codes' sector of engineering for her entire career. And it's so frustrating to watch. Everyone - everyone - is certain that the codes are all overzealous and their little thing needs an exception. Politicians get elected promising to 'get rid of the red tape'. And then an event occurs and we learn why these building codes exist. Like workplace safety rules, they are writt…

> Everyone - everyone - is certain that the codes are all overzealous and their little thing needs an exception. Politicians get elected promising to 'get rid of the red tape'. And then an event occurs and we learn why these building codes exist. > Like workplace safety rules, they are written in the blood of the dead. Some of the rules are, but some of the rules aren't. When code calls for a maximum distance between…

Fire sprinklers are extremely useful even connected to a limited water supply because fires start small and sprinklers can respond quickly.

As long as as you have enough water to use a shower that’s plenty to make a huge difference because they don’t operate like in the movies where everything in the building goes off at once. Instead you only get water when part of the sprinkler head got hot enough to melt.

Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDNolxbzsP0

The odds of dying in a fire aren’t very high, but they can also prevent your house from burning down.

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#208

Post by terminalcommand »

AlbertCory wrote: post #137
mabbo wrote: post #10

My wife has worked in the 'enforcing building codes' sector of engineering for her entire career. And it's so frustrating to watch. Everyone - everyone - is certain that the codes are all overzealous and their little thing needs an exception. Politicians get elected promising to 'get rid of the red tape'. And then an event occurs and we learn why these building codes exist. Like workplace safety rules, they are writt…

Since I live in the Bay Area which does have earthquakes, we have very strict building codes. Your water heater has to be secured to the wall, as one simple example, and I've personally heard of houses catching fire because of the water heater falling over. That said: there are always "grandfathered" buildings which were built before the latest codes; unreinforced masonry, for example. What politician wants to tell t…

Surprisingly many of the buildings were new. Even 1 month old projects collapsed. While old buildings constructed upto code remained unscathed.

They built the buildings without adhering to code. They get a project approved, do whatever they want (steal materials, build another floor, decide not to dig a foundation) and sell the projects advertising that the buildings are upto code. As we have a highly corrupt government, they pay their bribes and get the building approved. Also, the building inspectors are private companies, they approve buildings without ever going on site.

Even newly built government buildings such as hospitals, airports collapsed!! Even those buildings were built with bribes :(.

Corruption killed us here :(.

Re: Turkey’s earthquakes show the deadly extent of construction scams

#209

Post by mhb »

reaperducer wrote: post #121
marcosdumay wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the code is always overzealous (never met an exception), and the smaller the house the more overzealous it is. If it wasn't, we would have a much easier time persecuting people that breaks it, and much more public sympathy for large culprits that actually have much fewer (relatively to their capacity) strings over then than any random person. The same applies to fire codes.

Well, the code is always overzealous It's only overzealous to people trying to cut corners. It's never overzealous to the people who are killed or hurt.

There are people who are killed or hurt by overzealous code who you don't know about.
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