[HN Gopher] Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Li...
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Bell Labs gave up its roof to patch the Statue of Liberty
Author : jmurphyau
Score : 175 points
Date : 2023-04-04 17:59 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nickvsnetworking.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nickvsnetworking.com)
| fnordprefect wrote:
| In (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 making it susceptible to
| corrosion, and then had to do something else to restore its
| resistance.
|
| I wish I could find it now, as it was a fascinating read, but I
| can't see anything easily online.
| maxerickson wrote:
| 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 equipment (probably
| the equipment to do the DC annealing, but who knows):
|
| https://www.romanmfg.com/roman-manuacturing-helps-restore-th...
|
| The Wikipedia article mentions the annealing and then sand
| blasting to remove iron from the surface (contaminants on the
| surface of the stainless can compromise the oxide layer that
| forms).
|
| Maybe something in there will jog your memory.
| lokimedes wrote:
| 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.
| ushakov wrote:
| The statue was crowdfunded
|
| From Wikipedia:
|
| > Publisher Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York World, started a
| drive for donations to finish the project and attracted more than
| 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar
| (equivalent to $30 in 2021)
| soperj wrote:
| The statue itself was as well, just in France.
|
| >Initially focused on the elites, the Union was successful in
| raising funds from across French society. Schoolchildren and
| ordinary citizens gave, as did 181 French municipalities.
| silisili wrote:
| AIUI, the fundraising was for the pedestal, not the statue
| itself.
| testplzignore wrote:
| A classic scam. Free statue, just pay shipping and
| pedestaling.
| labster wrote:
| Sometimes they don't even send the monument and you're just
| stuck with a random plinth.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zocalo
| schiffern wrote:
| TIL the etymological origin of "The Zocalo" in Babylon 5.
|
| https://babylon5.fandom.com/wiki/Zocalo
| dylan604 wrote:
| We'll continue to ship you a new one each month until you
| finally remember to jump through the hoops, er, call our
| operators who are standing by to cancel
| EntrePrescott wrote:
| The Pulitzer fundraiser wasn't for the statue but for the
| pedestal on which it was to be placed. The statue was a gift of
| the people of France. That being said, crowdfunding campaigns
| were also a part of the the fundraising for the statue (that
| is, in France), together with a wide mix of other sources:
| state money, cities, chambers of commerce, and several other
| groups, huge donations by companies, banquet events, operas and
| other spectacles, merchandising, lottery etc.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| > The statue was a gift of the people of France.
|
| with "reparations" from the people of haiti
| selimthegrim wrote:
| That's what the broken chains on the bottom are for
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| 3 downvotes. I guess we have a few desantis supporter up on
| here...
| geocrasher wrote:
| [flagged]
| nicoburns wrote:
| I 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.
| jegdyjfgyj wrote:
| See this recent artwork by Danh Vo which plays with the idea of
| fragments of the copper skin.
| https://www.publicartfund.org/exhibitions/view/danh-vo-we-th...
| Latty wrote:
| 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 generation, because I think
| they look great. Especially when most of the areas they are put
| up are crisscrossed with overhead power lines anyway, which are
| much less appealing.
| llimos wrote:
| People like a single windmill, standing picturesquely in the
| middle of the village.
|
| I don't think anyone would ever have gone for a field of tens
| or hundreds of them.
| asciimov wrote:
| 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.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| They're replaced obviously because we really need the
| electricity they produce.
| soperj wrote:
| They're buried in places like Wyoming currently.
| mthq wrote:
| Tell that to the Dutch
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmills_at_Kinderdijk
| asciimov wrote:
| As a kid that grew up on the south plains (Texas panhandle).
| I have a love hate relationship with those windmills. On the
| one hand it's neat seeing all that green power generation. On
| the other, it does ruin the landscape to some extent, it can
| be visually jarring to be driving some back road, go over a
| rise that, and be smack in the middle of a wind farm. It also
| can be a little distracting at night, where the darkness is
| awashed in blinking red lights.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I think the red lights make them more mysterious at night.
|
| Especially when you drive over a hill and it's all foggy,
| and there's this big field of red dots flashing. It's like
| the robots are coming :) I like it.
| chucksmash wrote:
| Everybody likes to tell their "...and that's what
| inspired me to go into a technical field" story.
|
| We had several radio masts in an opening near our home
| growing up. I'm going to start incorporating those into
| my story. "It was then, gazing at those red lights as a
| two year old, that I knew I was destined to spend my life
| writing YavaScript."
|
| Probably some truth to it, tbh. That and locomotive
| engineers honking when we'd drive by making the universal
| "honk the horn" sign.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| 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 ;)
| paganel wrote:
| 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.
| trgn wrote:
| the only time I'd appreciate windmills from an aesthetic
| point of view is when they are very very far away. Nearby,
| they are horrible to all senses.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| People hated the Eiffel Tower for a long time.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| 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
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(page generated 2023-04-04 23:00 UTC)