[HN Gopher] Lego to release a 9,090-piece scale model of the Tit...
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       Lego to release a 9,090-piece scale model of the Titanic
        
       Author : hackertux
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2021-10-08 21:38 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
        
       | jeffthechimp wrote:
       | But Legos float
        
         | gerdesj wrote:
         | Pretty sure they don't if you expel all trapped air.
         | 
         | Its this stuff:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylonitrile_butadiene_styren...
         | which has a density > 1 x 10^3 kg/m^3 ie 1 g per cc. Water is
         | slightly less than 1.
         | 
         | Lego sinks.
        
           | wrfitch wrote:
           | https://youtu.be/3FxfXVuHRjM
           | 
           | Lego does indeed sink
        
           | gweinberg wrote:
           | Bet they float in salt water.
        
             | gerdesj wrote:
             | I don't bath in salt water so never tested that.
             | 
             | According to WP: "The density of surface seawater ranges
             | from about 1020 to 1029 kg/m3"
             | 
             | According to WP: ABS is 1.060-1.080 g/cm3
             | 
             | Lego sinks in seawater.
             | 
             | If you saturate a beaker of water with salt then lets go
             | here for some results because I can't be arsed to go back
             | to school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saline_water
             | 
             | Roughly 1.193 g/cm3 which is more dense than ABS so Lego
             | will float in salt (NaCl) saturated water.
        
         | egypturnash wrote:
         | They make boat sets with little weighted keel pieces that will
         | give them enough weight to sit nicely in the water; this might
         | have some form of ballast inside it somewhere...
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | srvmshr wrote:
       | This could be somewhat unpopular as an opinion, but Titanic's
       | sinking has been romanticized greatly, fueled partly by a slew of
       | Hollywood movies. There were several great ships marking their
       | firsts - Titanic was just one of them of its time.
       | 
       | If we delve into 20th century maritime history, passenger
       | accounts & disaster records of ships such as SS Lusitania or MV
       | Wilhelm Gustloff were far more shocking to read, as compared to
       | RMS Titanic.
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | No disrespect intended, but I really enjoyed reading this in
         | Comic Book Guy's voice.
        
         | gerdesj wrote:
         | I'm 50 and hence rather older than several films on the
         | subject. Titanic has always been held up as _the_ ship wreck
         | within my lifetime for several reasons. I think the key one is
         | the notion that she was considered unsinkable and yet sank on
         | her maiden voyage. In Belfast, where she was built, they like
         | to say she was fine when she left there. Schadenfreude.
         | 
         | When she left Soton for NY, there was a long, slow burning fire
         | in one of her coal bunkers. Apparently this was fairly common
         | in steam ships. This ship was absolutely massive for the time
         | and let's face it a set of steam engines/turbines of that size,
         | powered by coal are essentially explosions waiting to happen in
         | many places. That's basically how they work too. Then you stick
         | it on an extremely unforgiving ocean and plough a track over
         | several 1000 miles at a pretty high speed. Add crew and
         | passengers and a huge number of distractions and other
         | operational things like plumbing and you have a recipe for
         | disaster simmering away.
         | 
         | How the crew avoided going mad on these monstrous Heath
         | Robinson (Rube Goldberg for the left pond) contraptions is
         | absolutely beyond me. I'm not too surprised that she hit an
         | iceberg if the boss decided to head into an ice field, just to
         | shave a few hours on the crossing time. This is a vessel that
         | steers like an iceberg and is basically staffed by crew who are
         | already half maddened by the complexity of stopping her from
         | exploding or worrying about the pre dinner champagne being too
         | warm.
         | 
         | She also had a few other firsts and I think that she sent the
         | first SOS over wireless, all this stuff adds to the story. Add
         | in a few conspiracies (was she really the Olympic - that's a no
         | for me) and that is really why she gets top billing. The films
         | are a result not a cause.
        
           | DoreenMichele wrote:
           | Some other details:
           | 
           | The captain had a remarkably good record of safety. This
           | likely both helped cause the accident (it is believed he
           | didn't react quickly enough) and helped make it shocking that
           | it happened at all.
           | 
           | It was a civilian ship, so we likely have a fuller picture of
           | what happened helping to make the story interesting. Military
           | vessels often cannot have their full story told for reasons
           | of national security. The most compelling details may be
           | classified, removing juicy tidbits from the public record.
           | 
           | Enough people survived to tell the tale in substantial
           | detail, giving us compelling tidbits like "the band played
           | on." One survivor was a socialite who became known as The
           | Unsinkable Molly Brown and her life inspired both plays and
           | films.
           | 
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Brown
           | 
           | Some people see the sinking as _an act of God,_ punishment
           | for hubris because they bragged it was unsinkable. For people
           | who want to believe in a spiritual view of things or karma,
           | it 's psychologically and emotionally compelling that they
           | made the brag and then not only did it sink, it did so on the
           | ship's maiden voyage. It's like a story a hack author would
           | write to promote ideas like "Don't be a braggart, you foolish
           | fool!" only it really happened.
        
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