[HN Gopher] Explore Sutro Tower
___________________________________________________________________
Explore Sutro Tower
Author : archagon
Score : 63 points
Date : 2025-03-05 01:30 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (explore.sutrotower.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (explore.sutrotower.com)
| dtagames wrote:
| There's probably cool information here but these kind of
| "interactive" presentations should have stayed in the 90's where
| they came from. The designers of this app add all kinds of
| unnecessary navigation and hid everything under tiny sections
| with only tidbits of info.
|
| Don't treat adults like your content is Sesame Street. Let us
| read stuff, even long stuff, and give us multiple links (not one
| button per section) like the web was designed for.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Had our morning coffee yet? :)
| jahsome wrote:
| The web was explicitly designed with no design. That's like,
| the whole point man. If you don't like it, there are literally
| billions of other pages for you to check out and even in this
| case, a convenient button for you to click to "vote" your
| displeasure.
|
| People are allowed to like things that don't make sense to you
| or that you don't like. The fact that diversity exists is what
| makes the internet beautiful.
| ipdashc wrote:
| I think there is room for innovative
| presentations/visualizations, but yeah, I have to agree this
| one just misses the mark. Between the various transitions and
| fades it takes an annoying amount of time to navigate between
| pages. The 3D transitions between scenes are flashy but, again,
| slow and don't really add anything. And they went to all this
| effort of getting 3D models of the inside, but your camera is
| fixed in place and can barely even rotate around? And you can't
| zoom? So all you get is a blurry, murky view. A standard photo
| album would genuinely have been better.
|
| The 360-degree view from the top is cool, though.
|
| For anyone else who was mostly curious to see the interior
| shots, Jeff Geerling has a great pair of videos where he and
| his father go inside a similar broadcast site:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_u8x8V4YYs
| gnabgib wrote:
| Related _Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat experience of Sutro
| Tower, San Francisco_ (825 points, 12 days ago, 193 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43120582
| dougb5 wrote:
| Sutro Tower's height is boosted by the fact that it sits on Mt.
| Sutro. It reaches 1,811 feet above sea level, just higher than
| the tallest building in the US (One World Trade Center in NYC, at
| 1776 feet).
|
| I like to mention this fun fact to my visiting friends from New
| York, conveniently overlooking any higher-elevation buildings in
| Denver.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| Am I misreading this or are you giving a measure where a single
| story house in Nebraska would be taller than Sutro or WTC?
| bdavbdav wrote:
| Yeah this makes no sense at all. A tent at base camp Everest
| is significantly taller.
| TOGoS wrote:
| Hence 'conveniently overlooking'.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke
| zamadatix wrote:
| What's the point in introducing Nebraska when they already
| said the same thing about Denver? The point is to be a
| humorous comparison and it works better than most such
| comparisons in that regard because the tower is both actually
| pretty tall itself plus only 3 miles from the ocean.
| walrus01 wrote:
| broadcast facilities in the VHF/TV range bands benefit most
| from what's called HAAT - height above average terrain. This
| is why the midwest has 1800' tall guyed broadcast towers in
| places that don't have any conveniently placed mountains. And
| why the broadcast sites near Seattle and Vancouver are all on
| mountains, or at least large-ish sized hills.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_above_average_terrain
| biker142541 wrote:
| The point is that the relative elevation difference is more
| similar to skyscrapers. You look down from there (or even
| Twin Peaks) and you are towering over sea level locations and
| can see extremely far on clear days.
| barnabee wrote:
| Depends what you're measuring. Sutro Tower's prominence[0] is
| almost certainly greater than the house in Nebraska and
| probably most of the buildings in Denver too (though possibly
| there's some comms equipment or ski infrastructure that could
| beat it?)
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographic_prominence
| creeble wrote:
| Since it can be commonly viewed from literal sea level (like
| the shoreline of the ocean or San Francisco Bay), it's more
| apropos.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Are there others think Sutro Tower is an eyesore or is it just
| me?
|
| (Very cool app BTW)
| cylinder714 wrote:
| #TeamSutro
| nickvec wrote:
| I wasn't a huge fan when I first moved to SF (thought it looked
| a bit dystopian), but it's grown on me over the years.
| rickyyean wrote:
| Even when it looks like a floating pirate ship when it's foggy?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| It does have an "alien space ship" vibe to it.
|
| I enjoy that, but I get why others would not.
| mlinksva wrote:
| Pity it isn't blocked by skyscrapers of greater height, but
| other than that I don't mind it.
| jcl wrote:
| I hiked up there once... There was a reservoir with a trail
| around it and, to my surprise, a fenced-off area full of goats.
| Apparently they were part of a vegetation control program used in
| the parks there.
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| That's not unusual! BART and, I believe, Caltrain also use them
| for vegetation management on their rights-of-way.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-03-08 23:01 UTC)