[HN Gopher] Ontario Science Centre to close immediately due to r...
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Ontario Science Centre to close immediately due to risk of roof
collapse
Author : amichail
Score : 45 points
Date : 2024-06-21 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbc.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbc.ca)
| walterbell wrote:
| _> claim the roof of the science centre is at risk of
| collapsing.. the same year that he is proposing to move the
| science centre to Ontario Place.. "to support a private foreign
| spa company".. allows public infrastructure to fall apart in
| order to advance private interests.. "Closing a world-class
| science and cultural institution is heartbreaking".. "The
| [province] could have invested in revitalizing the Science
| Centre, but instead it's using our public money to concoct a sham
| business case against this important community hub"_
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Science_Centre
| When it first opened [in 1969], the Science Centre was a pioneer
| for its hands-on approach to science, along with San Francisco's
| Exploratorium and the Michigan Science Center in Detroit. Unlike
| a traditional museum, where exhibits are for viewing only, the
| majority of the exhibits at the Science Centre were interactive,
| while many others were live demonstrations (e.g. metalworking).
| The Communications room contained a number of computerized
| displays, including a very popular tic-tac-toe game, run on a
| PDP-11 minicomputer. By 1974, it hosted about 250,000 students on
| field trips annually.
|
| Over 50 years, the Ontario Science Centre has introduced hundreds
| of thousands of students to scientific principles via interactive
| exhibits. It will now be replaced by a commercial theme park in a
| tourism venue, rather than serving local students via the new
| Science Center subway station. The Ontario
| Science Centre Science School (OSCSS) offers grade 12 University
| Preparation courses in STEM subjects.. [and] an interdisciplinary
| studies credit in science communication.. the program.. is
| available at no cost to students from anywhere in Ontario. While
| at the Science Centre, students earn practicum hours through
| volunteering and interacting with visitors.. Ontario
| Science Centre was used by David Cronenberg as a location for his
| 1970 film Crimes of the Future.
|
| Does Canada not have a tech lobby that can outbid construction
| boondogglers, to defend the next generation of tech talent?
| Alternately, the US tech lobby could defend the Ontario Science
| Centre, as part of a talent supply chain that leads to U of
| Waterloo and subsequent engineering labor pipeline to US tech
| companies. If the Ontario Science Center and future labor pool
| must be sacrificed, can they at least fetch a higher price at the
| altar of special interests?
| frfl wrote:
| Was one of those 250,000 kids. The only real vivid memory I
| have left of that unfortunately was seeing a Tour de France
| documentary in the IMAX screen they have. That was really
| incredible.
|
| Haven't really followed the story closely, but quite sad to see
| it getting (forcefully?) shutdown like this.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| And it's a real IMAX dome screen, not the diluted version
| that gets the stamp these days.
| mcphage wrote:
| I'm just glad I got to take my kids to the museum and watch
| a movie on the dome last year before it closed.
| hervature wrote:
| I was part of OSCSS. I come from rural Ontario and this was the
| first time I was really exposed to other people with the hacker
| ethos. Tried to bootstrap a company with a friend met at the
| school but two 18 year olds trying to partner with enterprises
| went as well as you would expect. Did not know YC was a thing
| until a couple of years later.
| agentultra wrote:
| Gates are being put up while there are still kids inside [0].
|
| [0] https://x.com/SaveOSC/status/1804193939903152613
| mhurron wrote:
| It's been well over 30 years since I've been there but I always
| enjoyed going there in the summer, along with the ROM and
| Planetarium. I'm actually pretty sad to hear this.
| nsm wrote:
| I know nothing about architecture/construction, but how much of
| these timelines and costs are due to the massively inefficient
| construction costs in Anglophone countries? Like, does it really
| take double digit millions and >2 years to fix some roof panels,
| when we can repair bridges in a fraction of that time? How much
| of this is going to be permitting, excess proceduralism and
| "environmental assessment" crap and how much of it is our current
| technological limitations?
| moltar wrote:
| There is/was also rampant corruption ran by real mafia. Some of
| them are from Montreal and are on the run in Sicily. Not sure
| if this spread to Ontario but given the timelines I imagine it
| had.
|
| See Turcot collapse in Montreal.
|
| See Olympic building in Montreal.
| morkalork wrote:
| It's just a stadium roof, what could it cost, $870M?
|
| But seriously, the city has had issues finding contractors
| for basic services because they'd all been banned for ties
| with organized crime. It's absolutely mad. Then there's
| what's happening at the port with all the stolen cars...
| krooj wrote:
| Weird - this is the first place I saw the "internet" on display
| as a kid. Shame to see it close in such an unceremonious way.
| amichail wrote:
| While science is important and someone has to do it, I don't
| think it is as intellectually rewarding as hobby/indie computer
| programming.
|
| Maybe trying to get students interested in science instead of
| computer programming is problematic for this reason?
| yarnover wrote:
| Learning about science is more rewarding to me as an amateur
| than hobby/indie computer programming. There are others like
| me, though perhaps a minority on this site. I'm sad to see this
| go. One of my favorite experiences as a child was visiting the
| Boston Science Museum.
| saghm wrote:
| Why view it as a dichotomy? Expose kids to both (and other
| fruitful intellectual hobbies) and let them pick the ones they
| like. I don't think it's "problematic" to consider that how
| rewarding a hobby feels might not be an objective hierarchy and
| instead might vary by individual.
| imtourist2718 wrote:
| The Science Centre is actually a collection of different
| buildings, I highly doubt that all these are structurally unsound
| now prompting the closure of the entire centre. It's highly
| convenient for this to happen now when the Premiere of the
| province has been advocating selling off the valuable land to his
| developer buddies.
| elchief wrote:
| this is probably more due to cronyism by the Ford government than
| anything. I highly doubt they just discovered this problem.
| morkalork wrote:
| Chronically underfunding and neglecting things on purpose to
| turn around and sell/privatize them after they've failed is a
| trope at this point.
| up-n-atom wrote:
| As someone who recently took their nephews to the Science Centre,
| not visiting since high school roughly 25 years ago, it was
| pretty decrepit and rundown. Regardless of the politics
| surrounding all this, it's in desperate need of a rejuvenating
| both in terms of infrastructure as well as exhibits.
|
| PS not worth the admission, if you want to take the kids on an
| educational adventure go to Ripley's Aquarium.
| not_your_mentat wrote:
| The great blue whale bones that hung from the ceiling was found
| beached in the maritimes, transported to Maple, and buried behind
| my dad's OFRI lab in an attempt to decompose the flesh and
| extract the bones (eventual success!). Our family dog dug it up,
| chewed it, rolled in it, contracted worms from it, and died. My
| family will forever be attached to this structure.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Their logo looks like
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red,_green_and_blue,...
| with missing colors.
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(page generated 2024-06-21 23:02 UTC)