I’m currently reading the book this site referenced, “The idea factory” a wonderful account on Bell Labs with portraits of Shockley, Shannon and the other fathers of the information age.
Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
31–40 of 116 posts
Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Often the kind of thing people hate for a while, and then with enough time becomes iconic and you'd probably end up with an article about how they were debating whether to preserve it or not as it aged. I think about this a lot when it comes to "eyesores", particularly wind turbines. When you think of how windmills are considered picturesque, it always makes me a little surprised when people moan about modern wind ge…
People hated the Eiffel Tower for a long time.
It is said that Guy de Maupassant ate lunch everyday at the base of The Eiffel Tower, because it was the only place in Paris where he couldn't see it
Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
#33I feel like it might look quite cool if it was patched with new copper (at least if it was done well). A bit like kintsugi pottery.
Often the kind of thing people hate for a while, and then with enough time becomes iconic and you'd probably end up with an article about how they were debating whether to preserve it or not as it aged. I think about this a lot when it comes to "eyesores", particularly wind turbines. When you think of how windmills are considered picturesque, it always makes me a little surprised when people moan about modern wind ge…
After seeing a video of someone showing how the nearby windmill cast a rotating shadow on their living room window some months of the year I understood it is a legitimate issue for some.
But generally I’m with you. I just don’t get it. Windmills look neat and do neat things.
Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
#34In (I think) the first edition of Zumdahl's chemistry textbook, there was a great summary of some of the things they had to do to preserve the statue, and it went beyond just repairing the skin. The wiki article ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation-restoration_of_th... ) has a lot of it, but IIRC after they installed stainless steel, at some point they passed electricity through it, which had the effect of ma…
One of the NYT articles at the link mentions the stainless steel. This WaPo article talks about it more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/07/02/b... This article suggests that the DC current treatment was to avoid corrosion (also has some nice illustrations of the support framework for the skin): https://copper.org/education/liberty/liberty_reclothed2.php A related blurb just says they built some…
stainless passivation usually involves an acid to form an oxide layer. wiki says nitric and citric, but we used to use an HF gel which was pretty damn nasty
edit: I rabbit holed a little bit. apparently its not that straightforward. the acid encourages the iron to leave the surface layer (probably through oxidization and dissolution) with just the chromium and the nickel. this then oxides in the presence of air, leaving a protective layer without the surface iron to start to rust
Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
#35This donation in 1986 was also approximately the last time that Bell Labs contributed something noteworthy to the country.
/snark
Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Often the kind of thing people hate for a while, and then with enough time becomes iconic and you'd probably end up with an article about how they were debating whether to preserve it or not as it aged. I think about this a lot when it comes to "eyesores", particularly wind turbines. When you think of how windmills are considered picturesque, it always makes me a little surprised when people moan about modern wind ge…
Yeah I don't understand why people hate them so much either. I think they look nice too. Better than old-fashioned windmills. Where I'm from in the Netherlands there's is much less resistance to them anyway because we know the alternative is for our country to be under the sea ;)
People just hate change
source: am people
Not a blanket statement to say all change is good tho
Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I kinda wonder what is gonna happen to them when they reach end of life. Knowing the history of these kinds of things, they will be left to rot and dangle in the fields they were planted.
They're replaced obviously because we really need the electricity they produce.
Not if solar keeps improving or we get the fabled affordable nuclear.
Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I don't understand why people hate them so much either. I think they look nice too. Better than old-fashioned windmills. Where I'm from in the Netherlands there's is much less resistance to them anyway because we know the alternative is for our country to be under the sea ;)
Some of them kill a lot of birds and bats. On top of that, they of course need access roads for maintenance crews to come do their thing once in a while, if located in a former pristine environment that isn't ideal. To say nothing of when the construction actually takes place, again, if it all happens in a pristine location then it's not ok.
House cats kill an order of magnitude more birds and bats than windmills. Practically no one calls domestic cats ugly, or suggests to ban them.
Access roads required for wind generator maintenance are neither large nor busy: there's no fuel to bring, and no ash to take away.
Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're replaced obviously because we really need the electricity they produce.
Not if solar keeps improving or we get the fabled affordable nuclear.
Solar and wind peak at different times, and windmills don't compete with farmland. They're complementary.
(Sometimes farmers do complain about windmills - that's because farmers are a kind of landlord and their actual problem is that it's harder to sell the land with a windmill on it.)
Re: Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Often the kind of thing people hate for a while, and then with enough time becomes iconic and you'd probably end up with an article about how they were debating whether to preserve it or not as it aged. I think about this a lot when it comes to "eyesores", particularly wind turbines. When you think of how windmills are considered picturesque, it always makes me a little surprised when people moan about modern wind ge…
Yeah I don't understand why people hate them so much either. I think they look nice too. Better than old-fashioned windmills. Where I'm from in the Netherlands there's is much less resistance to them anyway because we know the alternative is for our country to be under the sea ;)
The "Levels" in Somerset (UK) were drained from the C12th much of which involved Dutch engineers later on. It's not quite the same as your polders but quite a lot of village names here basically mean "island". Glastonbury Tor may well be the origin of the fabled Isle of Avalon. The Tor is a hill that was surrounded by marshland and waterways - it was only accessible by boat. Nowadays you drive up to it. There's a tower on it - the Tor.
You may not be a fan of the old school windmills but I think they are a marvel of engineering. They were built without finite element analysis, CAD and all the rest. Take a look at say the iconic row of mills on Kinderdijk. They are pumps with sodding great archimedes screws that shuffle water from low to high. It has to be said that the Netherlands really go to grips with mills.
The old school job is a tower mill - a tower with some sails on it and a simple pair of gears or a pulley system to turn a grooved round stone over another one to mill flour.
I believe that most of the subsequent innovations in windmill technology were largely invented in the Netherlands and then copied or sold to elsewhere. By the time your forefathers (and mothers) had finished with them, you have things like a smock mill (the upper section looks a bit like a smock worn by rural workers) with a tail vane that automatically rotates the upper section of the mill into the prevailing wind. The sweeps are adjustable and can be rotated like an aircraft propellor - even feathered for a storm and the sails can be reefed much like a sailing boat's sails.
There was the post mill - with a wooden trestle that a boxy shaped mill sits on with the sweeps and sails attached. The post mill was ideal if only wood is available and no bricks or whatever to make a tower. The smock was handy if you have some bricks to make a base and a lot of wood to make a lighter structure on top. The tower is basically very strong. There are several more options. There is an awful lot more to mill construction and design choice than you might idly imagine. Stuff built 300 years ago was absolutely using what we might consider cutting edge design decisions.
Some relatives of mine renovated a towermill with an onion cap and tail vane to move the cap in Northamptonshire about 30 years ago. It took quite a few years but the flour it eventually produced was delightful. On the opening day we had to use long poles to get it started because the breeze was a bit naff. The bread baked from its flour in a big old wood oven tasted amazing.
(edit - speling)