Oh, I just watched that episode of Serial Experiments Lain.
How’s the serenity?
I weirdly don’t mind
But also:
Remembering that show frustrates me. How did they start with such a hilarious premise and end up with a show that’s okay and not one milligram more?
I know it’s a very unpopular opinion but I actually like the aesthetics of infrastructure and industry.
When I see a steel mill, an oil rig or powerplants like wind parks, hydro- or nuclear power I am reminded of the human ingenuity that went into it. How many people needed to band together to work on something bigger than their tribe. I am reminded of our awe inspiring power to shape our environment completely.
Of course with great power… You know the rest.
I traveled across Southeast Asia drawing powerline tangles and run-down alleyways in a sketchbook. It’s definitely a thing.
we have a “wind park” a few miles west of here. i get some of my power from it. slightly less than half of them are inactive at any given time. dunno if its intentional or a rotation scheme. never see any crew trucks around the dead ones
They have to shut off if there’s too much power in the grid, it might be that
Even though I hate car centric infrastructure, watching a new highway or bypass spring up out of nothing is an incredible testament to our ability to work together to achieve great things
Powerlines are cool and they make great framing for art
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/m6wdjr/twenty_skies/
This but unironically.
Fuck appeals to nature.
Honestly, to me the ironic part is the power lines in this artwork are unappealing to me because of the artist not the subject matter. It seems they don’t know what all the lines are or where they go or how they work, so when I look at it and do know what it’s supposed to look like, this just looks like a mess that makes zero sense. The artist has created some sort of electrical fire hazard.
I love nature. Termite mounds are nature, honeycombs are nature, spiderwebs are nature. Humans are a part of nature and our infrastructure is a part of who we are.
Carving out exceptions for human artifacts like this takes for granted that a bunch of arboreal primates figured out how to melt down the rocks themselves to extract their purest essence, then wound that essence into ropes that contain the lightning we learned to generate ourselves to power the many other artifacts we developed to bring light into our dwellings, communicate with primates on the other side of the planet, and automate the menial tasks of our lives.
While certainly selfish and misguided at times, everything we make is nature, just as much as honeycombs and spiderwebs.
Somewhere. Somewhere Japan
It me, in somewhere Japan a couple days ago
Me somewhere Japan yesterday
My entire factorio server looks like the second photo. India style.
Would be a nice QoL update to adds underground poles lol
ah, beautiful Québec :)
Check out the photography by Alex Hyner for some amazing skies between the power lines
This was the first thing I thought of, but couldn’t remember the artists name - thank you!
More like “Yes And”.
Power and telecom lines are one of the more organic and chaotic parts of an urban environment. I live somewhere that has loads of them, including trollycar lines. In some places it’s pretty thick.
I love it. It adds a layer of aesthetic that prevents the world from looking too minimalist, which is nice since that’s where most new architecture is headed…
I’m on vacation in Thailand for the first time right now and it’s sooo true here.
What is your solution?
Underground cables.
Underground works well for greenfields construction, where you can map everything out ahead of time and don’t have to deal with existing underground services.
It’s manageable on low-density streets where its really only three waters and maybe some telephone lines.
It’s a nightmare to underground existing infrastructure in dense environments. Underground is already full of three generations of critical comms, corroding gas, water, HV lines that will fail if you look at them wrong, and if you’re really unlucky, steam pipes too.
The municipality I lived in previously had a really interesting project where they were trying to improve the lifecycle of underground infrastructure.
Instead of digging up the ground, putting in/repairing something/whatever, and then covering it up, they were going to install a permanent ‘infrastructure tunnel’ which could have installations and repairs be done without digging up and covering.
If successful, this kind of seems like what the shipping container did to the shipping industry, an incredible efficiency play.
Plenty of cities have ‘steam tunnels’ used for far more than just steam pipes, and sometimes no steam in there at all. It’s an awesome solution where you have reasonable density, and especially for within a facility/campus.
I don’t think you’re going to see it happen in surburban streets. It’s the tyranny of the car.
Some forward thinking - which we all know is most definitely not a thing when it comes to suburban development patterns - would see these installed from the beginning to ultimately save money long term on maintenance and upgrades.
Since the suburbs are an unsustainable Ponzi scheme designed to cram as much money out as possible though, they will go for the cheapest up-front option, total lifetime cost be damned.
The EU has been burying their wires for a while, and new members are doing it too. Romania used to look like 2nd pic, not so much anymore. It works.
It’s manageable on low-density streets where its really only three waters and maybe some telephone lines.
Have you ever been to a german city? Underground power cables are the norm here, especially in densly populated areas. Usually only railroad power cables and high voltage long distance lines are above ground.
Yeah, we have lots of underground services here in NZ. It’s when you start getting to low population densities that you start having trouble doing it.
And that’s always the best solution? You see no reason for above ground cables?
The highways are even worse.
