Gregory's ServerThe falkirk wheel has to be one of the top pieces of irl infrastructure that look like i messed something up in simcity
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96 comments
 @hannah    @rochelimit @cstross @Sondra @hannah Apparently close. Lego not SIM City (as per the Wikipedia link) “on Wikipedia that initial designs were modeled using the architect’s daughter’s Lego. I think that improves it even more.” @rochelimit @cstross @Sondra @hannah ha, of course Tom Scott has done a video on this. Thanks for the link!  @hannah when you’ve laid down your grid just perfect in cities skylines and can’t get the highway intersection ramp to connect just right so you say fuck it and leave it @DialupDownload @hannah "Ah crap. Well I could raise the terrain level- wait no, that would disrupt the power station, uh what if I move the transit hub, oh whoops now the entire sewer grid is disconnected from the treatment plant... Oh hell, let's just put a big ferris wheel for the boats lol"  @rora_borealis @hannah And a brilliant one. Stick two 10 ton narrowboats on either lift, two 0.1 ton kayaks, or 10 tons on one side and 0.1 tons on the others, and it remains balanced (cos displacement)...and still only uses the power consumption of the average toaster. @_thegeoff @hannah The more I read, the more impressed I am with this engineering. Definitely some out-of-the-box thinking! @rora_borealis @hannah Yup! Nothing that revolutionises physics or engineering, but it's definitely a "we've always done it THIS way...can we change that?" moment. @_thegeoff @metnix @rora_borealis @hannah Bonus points: what aerodynamic advantage does the spiky-cam design offer, given how fast it rotates? (A: Basically none, but spin it up real fast.....?!) @_thegeoff @metnix @rora_borealis @hannah (vaguely serious) my understanding from the visitor centre info was that the asymmetric design was to prevent wind eddy's and oscillations destroying the beauty. @phlash @metnix @rora_borealis @hannah (Appreciation of vaguely serious) Could tie in with prevailing winds and local geography I suppose? @hannah Now do that for Panamax container ships and aircraft carriers going in and out of Lake Gatun instead of the existing locks …  @cstross @hannah Back when I did visuals for marine civils firms, a Giant Grabby Crane System (for picking up container and bulk ships and shaking their cargo into big sorting hoppers) may have snuck into a presentation or two. Rejected by short-sighted fools, as were my Floating Irish Sea Train Link and the London Transport Pneumatic Trampoline Network. No wonder the world's in the state that it is.  @hannah Or like something out of Fred’s book on NASA space station concepts from the 1970s https://cup.columbia.edu/book/space-settlements/9781941332498 @hannah My thought process on seeing that picture: 1. looks like some “Logan's Run”-type thing  @hannah sincerely this is the coolest fucking boat thing i've learned about since i learned how a lock and dam works (we have a lot of them where i'm from)  @hannah if somebody posted this without context I'd probably tell them it was AI generated @hunterking @hannah a remarkable piece of architecture / engineering. Looks out of place when you consider locks would normally be used, but this works so well  @hannah ridiculously low energy usage because it's self-balancing via the Archimedes principle - it's one of my favourite bits in Scotland. Did you go on it? @derwinmcgeary unfortunately not, i just rode the glas-ed train through falkirk station and remembered it existed @hannah @hannah  @hannah That has to be one of the weirdest yet coolest pieces of engineering ever.    @hannah It's fabulous ... so incredibly clever. Finally got to traverse it last year ... amazing engineering, beautiful conception.  @hannah For others who may find this fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHO9gARac-w @hannah I can't remember how close they are to the Falkirk lock now, but don't forget the Kelpies! @hannah I have been there and it is a marvel! They only need a 3 kW electric motor to run this. Why? Because of the Archimedes principle, each boat entering a pod pushes away the same amount of water as the ship weighs - as each pod is always filled with water up to the top - that means the whole setup is ALWAYS balanced - so you only need to overcome the friction of the huge gears of that many tons weighing device!  @hannah Watched it in operation (in the rain) a couple of weeks ago. OK, so I get the engineering, it's not all that far beyond what any couple of drunk spanners could have fantasized about on a beer mat, but the really impressive thing was to have got it funded!    @hannah@posts.rat.pictures The Falkirk Wheel is AWESOME. Not to mention cool AF. Victorian steampunk meets 21st (well, OK, 20th) century engineering.  @hannah I totally get what you mean. But also, having visited and been on it, and learned about it all, it is an incredible piece of innovation and engineering.    @hannah the falkirk wheel is to simcity what the swindon roundabout is to cities skylines   @hannah   @hannah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHO9gARac-w and of course Tom Scott did a video on it. (I wanted to see how it worked)  @hannah it’s an incredibly over the top solution, and I approve of that approach.   |
@hannah this rules