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Sana'a

idlewords.com

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Re: Sana'a

#31

Post by dfryer »

msandford wrote: post #30
idlewords wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the easiest things there is to believe. You need to work on your believing.

You might be right that the whole thing will fall apart. But if this place is indeed the equivalent to Manhattan I can understand the disbelief. Compared to the trillions tied up in real estate the cost of a pipeline to NYC would be trivial. Yeah it might cost $50b (probably much, much less but lets go crazy) but with at least 10mm people around to receive the water it's $5k per person amortized over a decade it come…

One of the big problems right now is that they have a very long oil pipeline, and people keep blowing it up. It's hard to get political stability when the resources are so constrained, and hard to deal with the resource problems when there's so much political instability.

Re: Sana'a

#32

Post by mwfunk »

eLobato wrote: post #9

How is this Hacker News worthy content? It's a great article, granted, but it has nothing to do with hacking (unless I'm missing something). If you downvote this comment, I think explaining in a reply why this article belongs in Hacker News would be great.

The two most tiring and unnecessary comments anyone can make on any news aggregator websites (including HN) are:

(1) "Hey, this article is titled '10 cool things about X' (where X is some programming language or framework or library or server or something) but it didn't explain what X was! I've never heard of X so clearly no one else has either!" Every once in a great, great while, it's a defensible comment, but it's just not worth making the comment even when it is. Just Google it if you haven't heard of it, that's what the rest of us did.

(2) "Hey, this article you guys linked to doesn't fit into the category of articles that I have assigned to your website!" Seriously, no good can ever possibly come of this. Downvote the article if you feel this way, that's why the ability to downvote articles exists. It's just so not worth verbalizing the sentiment.

Unfortunately, the third most tiring and unnecessary comment that can be made on such sites is probably the one I just made, so sorry everyone! :) I mean well, I really do.

Re: Sana'a

#33

Post by amass »

It's interesting that a place that has such overwhelmingly friendly people gives the impression of being a terribly dangerous place to visit to so many Americans.

Re: Sana'a

#34

Post by tptacek »

amass wrote: post #33

It's interesting that a place that has such overwhelmingly friendly people gives the impression of being a terribly dangerous place to visit to so many Americans.

It is in fact a dangerous place to visit. Having an incredibly friendly and hospitable population is something it has in common with several other dangerous places to visit.

Re: Sana'a

#35

Post by amass »

tptacek wrote: post #34
amass wrote: post #33

It's interesting that a place that has such overwhelmingly friendly people gives the impression of being a terribly dangerous place to visit to so many Americans.

It is in fact a dangerous place to visit. Having an incredibly friendly and hospitable population is something it has in common with several other dangerous places to visit.

I definitely don't dispute that fact. But if you ask most people in America what their opinion is of the Yemeni population, "friendly and welcoming" would not be the most common response.

Re: Sana'a

#36

Post by colordrops »

rayiner wrote: post #8

Yemen wasn't always so dangerous. My dad used do development work in Yemen in the early 90s. At the time it wasn't an eventful place. He was there when the civil war broke in 1994. He was stuck in Sana'a while it was being shelled. Finally managed to catch a C130 out of town when the US military evacuated a bunch of Americans.

I don't know anything about Yemen, but my impression is that the country has a bad rap even in the middle east, and it has for a while. My father, of Lebanese descent, moved from Lebanon in the 50s. He had stories about Yemen from way back when. One example was that an eye for an eye was still the norm there - a boy smashed out the eye of a cow with a rock in a morbid attempt at fun, and the owner of the cow did the same to the boy. This punishment was accepted in the village where this occurred.

Re: Sana'a

#37

Post by aaron695 »

kimdouglasmason wrote: post #14

Certainly a place to watch considering that they're going to run out of ground-water sooner rather than later. I imagine the graph of population will look pretty similar to that of reindeer on St Matthew Island: http://www.geo.arizona.edu/Antevs/nats104/00lect21crash2.gif

I call BS on the reindeer on St Matthew Island story.

There's evidence it was a natural disaster, which makes much more sense -

http://www.weatherwise.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/2009/Nov-D...

Re: Sana'a

#38

Post by rmc »

msandford wrote: post #30
idlewords wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the easiest things there is to believe. You need to work on your believing.

You might be right that the whole thing will fall apart. But if this place is indeed the equivalent to Manhattan I can understand the disbelief. Compared to the trillions tied up in real estate the cost of a pipeline to NYC would be trivial. Yeah it might cost $50b (probably much, much less but lets go crazy) but with at least 10mm people around to receive the water it's $5k per person amortized over a decade it come…

Sure, manual labour is cheap. But if you want to buy computers, electric equipment or high quality machines then you have to buy the same stuff that us rich westerns buy. I. E. You're paying western prices.

Re: Sana'a

#39

Post by rmc »

3pt14159 wrote: post #23
idlewords wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know what a water crisis in Sana'a will look like because the city already runs low on water every time there is a shortage of fuel: http://mideastafrica.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/08/30/yeme... It doesn't matter what technology you use to bring in water. When the cost gets high enough, people are going to leave the city, and the poorest will have to leave first.

What is cheaper, building a city or building a pipe? I find it hard to believe that the local economy has collapsed to the point where they can't afford a pipe to a desalination plant.

We're talking really poor people here. They just build a few shacks out of corrugated steel. Shanty towns are cheap to "build".

Re: Sana'a

#40

Post by Kiro »

colordrops wrote: post #36
rayiner wrote: post #8

Yemen wasn't always so dangerous. My dad used do development work in Yemen in the early 90s. At the time it wasn't an eventful place. He was there when the civil war broke in 1994. He was stuck in Sana'a while it was being shelled. Finally managed to catch a C130 out of town when the US military evacuated a bunch of Americans.

I don't know anything about Yemen, but my impression is that the country has a bad rap even in the middle east, and it has for a while. My father, of Lebanese descent, moved from Lebanon in the 50s. He had stories about Yemen from way back when. One example was that an eye for an eye was still the norm there - a boy smashed out the eye of a cow with a rock in a morbid attempt at fun, and the owner of the cow did the…

Sounds like the boy got what he deserved. What kind of psychopath does that to a cow?
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