In Case of Armageddon, Break Out the GIS 289
ADiva writes "There's a detailed, three-dimensional, interactive map of New York City which captures the five boroughs down to the square foot, incorporating everything from building floor plans to subway and sewer tubes. Could the city be rebuilt if destroyed? Should it?" As a New York resident, let me say that if something Bad happened to the city, I hope it is built anew rather than trying to recreate the 1910-era buildings that make up half the city's housing. An "Old New York" in the Metaverse might be fun to visit, though.
if new york is destroyed, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:if new york is destroyed, (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope the question posed in the topic wasn't really serious. If New York (or anywhere else) were partially destroyed neither you nor I nor anyone you know would have the slightest say in the rebuilding process - land owners would make these decisions on an individual basis. What we would see, I'm quite certain, is a lot of wealthy individuals buying up the land at firesale prices (assuming it was livable).
New York: Viridian version.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Newer York, New York: After the Great Blaze of 2015, Manhattan went green - thanks to Bill Gates and bambootekture. [wired.com]
by Bruce Sterling?
Detailing a new ecologically sound/networked New York City...
Good read if you have the time.
Mass media (Score:2)
Re:if new york is destroyed, (Score:4, Funny)
Citizen 2: "What about the radiation?"
Citizen 3: "Don't worry about that. Our first order of business is to get the Empire State Building back up. We're Americans! We have to show 'em we're not afraid! Give me a hand with this girder... c'mon! We've got to get all these building back up before they come back and bomb us again!"
As a NYC native, I must concede the discussion would probably wind down to an argument over which to rebuild first: Yankee Stadium or Shea Stadium. And the survivors would kill each other trying to work it out.
if new york destroyed, we can play it in quake3+! (Score:3, Funny)
quake3 levels so I can do some fraggin
in all 5 boroughs!!!!
GTA3+ levels would be even better!
muhahaha
Re:if new york destroyed, we can play it in quake3 (Score:2)
GTA3+ levels would be even better!
You mean, you can't just play it in a real NYC? ;-)
Re:if new york is destroyed, (Score:2, Insightful)
-shut off gas lines - the WTC ones burned for a month because they didn't know where they were.
-find water lines
-find roads
If you ever wondered what the effect of a mile-high sryscraper would have on Manhattan, this data could be used to create models and simulate designs.
There are a WHOLE LOT more uses for this data than just reconstruction after a disaster.
One thing to remember - the data will never be perfect, but it will get better every day.
Re:if new york is destroyed, (Score:2, Funny)
Destroy France?
We're too late! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:We're too late! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:We're too late! (Score:2)
DennyK
Re:We're too late! (Score:2)
Not exactly. The floors in the WTC were held up by trusses coated with fire retardant foam. The impact of the plane blew off much of that protective coating leaving the steel trusses susceptible to the heat of the burning jet fuel. The superstructure of the building was damaged badly, but may have held if it were not for the failure of the trusses holding up the floors. Imagine an empty beer can with a heavy book on top of it. It can take a surprising amount of downward force because the rigid cylinder doesn't buckle. Now imagine a 20 foot high beer can. You can see how much easier it would be for the sides to buckle in/out without internal supports. That's what the floors did for the WTC. Without them the external skin buckled out and caused the building to collapse upon itself.
Cool idea but.... (Score:3, Funny)
agreed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:agreed (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, you'd need octo-42GHz CPUs and a few terabytes of RAM, but so what?
Re:agreed (Score:2)
Re:agreed (Score:2)
Re:agreed (Score:2)
I'm just saying that if you are playing a game anyway, it'd make it that much more fun to play it in a place that you recognize.
No, I don't play MMORPGs, and yes, I leave the house. It would just be interesting.
Re:agreed (Score:2)
Your off by a factor of 8 - 8 million as of 2000
Re:agreed (Score:2)
security concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
The only way that a virtual NYC will ever be constructed from these bits is if it is wiped off the face of the earth, so that there's no real world analogue to be concerned about anymore. I'm not particularly interested in that scenario.
Re:agreed (Score:2, Funny)
Oh, yes. I am not kidding. The gameage potential for that much cubic volume of one of the most famous cities in the world would provide awesome potential for any genre of Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG).
Actually, inspired by the fine legacy of New York landlords through history
Bwah ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, yes. First we fake Manhattan, then we'll fake Berlin. (So terribly sorry, Leonard, I won't let it happen again...)
c0,d1
I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:4, Interesting)
Somewhere along the way, modern industrial culture lost the ability or the desire to build anything that isn't a piece of crap. If anyone can explain why that is exactly, this thread might not be a totally useless fluff magnet.
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:2, Insightful)
Because somewhere along the line everything started going to the lowest bidder instead of the better builder. Also, the modern train of thought is something akin to: "As long as I make my buck, I don't care who I screw as long as I don't get sued." I'm sure everybody here can come up with several companies that have adopted this philosophy are. And the consumers' mindset is something like, "I don't have a million dollars, but I sure would love to make my neighbors think I do; so, I'll buy this really cheap piece of crap that looks a lot nicer than what they have!" The sad part of this is that small companies that build quality products tend to get bought out by the larger companies wanting only the quality name or just simply go bankrupt because nobody buys their parts.
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:2)
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a degree of false sorting in the belief that the things built that long ago are better. Part of the reason that those 100 year old buildings seem to be so well built is because the badly built buildings from the same time period have all been replaced already. The 1900 equivalent of our lousy apartment buildings and cheaply built houses have either been knocked down for those newer developments or have degenerated into the awful old slum housing that you've probably never visited.
Also, when you look at the wonderful 100 year old buildings that impress you so much, you have to remember that they're not necessarily exactly like they were when they were built. Buildings are not static. The structure may remain largely the same but the interiors undergo periodic renovation and reconstruction. In the process, people change the things that annoy them or they think are badly done. Space gets redistributed to different needs, design flaws get smoothed over, and things are generally improved. Many, many buildings become gradually more functional over time as they're adapted to the way that people actually do things, rather than the way that architects imagined that they'd do things.
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:3, Insightful)
Plaster & Lathe is much more durable for walls than wallboard.
Solid Hardwood Floors last much longer than composite hardwoods.
Solid boards for your roof last much longer than plywood.
Of course these techniques are all but impossible to replicate in this day and age at a reasonable cost.
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:2)
Plaster is extremely expensive. It requires a great deal of skill (and time) to set. Wallboard is much easier. Your other examples are similar. Very expensive. So my guess is that the 1920s "tract" housing might have been better, but they would also have been much more expensive. Perhaps out of the financial reach of most people at the time. The cheaper and less durable options these days reach a greater audience. I think this is a good thing, even if it does mean more repairs. The repair costs are possibly still less than the higher cost of hard wood floors and plaster walls.
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:2)
I disagree. In many European cities, a great deal of the buildings come from the 19th Centry. They are still standing because they were so well built. And it's not just a few of them, it's whole cities - look at Paris, St.Petersburgh, Barcelona - it's whole cities, not just a few buildings.
The fact of the matter is that they did build them better in those days.
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:3, Interesting)
Another substantial problem is legal: zoning laws over the past 60 years have grown to make 1910-style construction more or less impossible. You can't build brownstones, Victorian row houses; you can't build a house without a huge strip of lawn around all side, there are modern parking demands you are constrainted to build, mixed-use neighborhoods are forbidden, and there are huge packages of material and design constraints. This is a huge topic, easily dwarfing this NYC thread. But believe me when I say that affection for 1910-style construction is more than just nostalgia.
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:2)
In New York when these buildings were being built a hundred years ago Banks didn't finance them. People in the community would get together and invest in building a single 6 story walk up. If you build things for yourself or people like you, you'll make something you would want to live in.
I love my old apartment. It's been renovated to include a bathroom(yes!), and unfortunately a raised floor(wood) and dropped ceiling(plaster board). There used to be just bathrooms on the first floor, there is still a key-box outside the door.
Somewhere along the way, modern industrial culture lost the ability or the desire to build anything that isn't a piece of crap.
This is isn't entirely true, there are some new buildings going up in New York that are decent. They are in the $2-3+ million category. The reason they are being built is because the price of pre-war buildings has gotten insane($6M+), so banks can be convinced to build something that costs more per sq. foot than it absolutely has to. The most important thing from a quality of life standpoint is the soundproofing.
Anyway I think the explanation really comes down to that old maxim, "If you want it done right, do it yourself." + "..or, pay through the nose."
Why I like newer buildings (Score:3, Insightful)
For the most part, I'd much rather live in a newer building than one built 100 years ago. I don't know if people have grown, or we just need more space, but a lot of old buildings are VERY claustrophobic. Hell, some of the doorways are barely 6' high. Never mind the rambling tenements built to house immigrants back at the turn of the century, where having an 8'x10' bedroom was considered a luxury (this trend seems to have continued at least into the 1960's - most houses over 30 years old here have TINY bedrooms).
A building constructed 100 years ago may not have originally had much in the way of central heating, let alone air conditioning. Retrofitted, most of these buildings have atrocious heat efficiency (so sue me, I live in a -40 to 100 degree climate
Older buildings often are very difficult, if not impossible, to get modern appliances and/or furniture into - especially if they have any staircases, ESPECIALLY if those staircases try to 'save space' in the house by turning once or thrice. A lot of these places were designed for people who owned essentially nothing, or nothing that wouldn't fit into a suitcase - I've spent many an hour trying to navigate a 3-seater couch around turns, whereas it would take all of 10 seconds straight down a modern home stairway.
Obviously I'm over-generalizing, and can only speak from my own limited experience, but unless you radically alter the interior designs of most of the older buildings (let's try avoiding the mud basements from now on, eh?), I'd much prefer living in something designed with how people actually *live* nowadays.
Asthetically though, I have to agree - older is better. New houses and apartments look like utter crap.
Re:Why I like newer buildings (Score:2)
Re:Why I like newer buildings (Score:2)
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:2)
Re:I vote for 100 year old designs (Score:3, Funny)
Why are they building everything from a cardboard?
Now I live in a relatively old concrete building, but it still has way too much of dry wall in it for my taste.
It's still amusing to see a paper company logo on the office paper and know that the same logo is painted over on the office walls.
combine this with more buzzwords! (Score:2, Interesting)
Point is, I want to be able to walk through the NYC metaverse and read notes posted like "THIS RESTAURANT SUCKS! Despite being in Chinatown, this place is slow, and serves vomitous food with slow, resentful service. And not even the vomitous food that you ordered."
Or "Landlord here is a sucker; if one of your housemates is a cute girl, have *her* do the rent negotiations."
Or "This museum is worth the price, especially on Wednesday (half-price day)"
Or "This park is dangerous between the hours of midnight and the next midnight."
(details facetious, idea serious.)
timothy
Rebuild it? (Score:2, Funny)
Needless to say, his response was not featured on the 6:00 news...
We are rebuilding it. (Score:3, Insightful)
--Blair
god damnit! (Score:2, Funny)
Most places should get virtual copies made (Score:4, Interesting)
With the advent of these new standardized 3D file and render formats (see here [slashdot.org]) I would think that there would be plenty of room in the virtual museum business, along with maybe virtual architecture, virtual chamber of commerce, etc, to construct virtualized cities from the past and present for everyone with a copy of Mozilla 2.0 to view and enjoy.
Granted, it is a lot of work...
I really like this one [phimai.ca], a temple in ancient Thailand reconstructed for walktroughs and everything. It's only a small area, of course, but this sort of thing would at the very least change the way history is taught in the future... especially if it is easily editable.
Of course, being able to play 2nd generation and later online multiplayer games in super-accurate virtual cities from around the world would be pretty cool, to say the least.
Flushing? (Score:2, Funny)
Suggested plans to rebuild NYC (Score:5, Funny)
* Rebuilt New York as a maximun security prision and plot out a flight path for Air Force One right over the city.
* Rebuilt New York a mile away. Motocycle gangs will battle each other, gray skinned wrinkly children will roam the streets, and a teenage boy with a red cape and a "Da Da Da" theme will wreak havoc.
* Dinosaurs. 'nuff said.
* In case of flood: Lease out above water skyscrappers to robotics manufacturers.
* In case of attack by phantasmal alien beings: Erect a "Barrier City" and make everyone look like a Doom III screenshot.
* In case of attack by 200' tall lizard or ape: Air force to the rescue, barbecue for the civilians.
As you can see, you can rest easy knowing that every possible scenario regarding NYC has already been covered.
Warning: NYC rebuilding scenarios may require several poor thought out and executed "sequel" scenarios should the first scenario be received well by the population.
Re:Suggested plans to rebuild NYC (Score:2)
TETSUO!
AKANE!
boom
TETSUO!
AKANE!
boom
I could have written a better diologue...
Besides, you forgot the "talking apes keeping humans as slaves/pets" option.
Re:Suggested plans to rebuild NYC (Score:4, Funny)
I think he assumed everyone was familiar with present day New York.
--
AC
Re:Suggested plans to rebuild NYC (Score:2)
* scooped up wholesale by an alien vessel and plopped inside a giant terrarium to preserve it from the imminent destruction of the world by another alien vessel (Manhattan Transfer, by John Stith)
* plopped under a weather-control dome to become a part-time tourist trap and full-time ghetto (City of Darkness by Ben Bova)
Re:Suggested plans to rebuild NYC (Score:2)
* moved onto a giant floating raft (Snow Crash - Stephenson)
* moved onto a giant floating raft which can be used to attack those damn terrorists (1984 - Orwell)
Erf (Score:2)
Re:Erf; don't make the same mistakes... (Score:2)
You can't do that. We're talking urban planning here. If you want a really fascinating read on how Robert Moses fucked up New York traffic while screwing the indigent, read Robert Caro's most excellent biography The Power Broker [amazon.com] an extraordinarily detailed and well-researched book about the making of New York City.
As a few examples of how fucked Robert Moses was, when he built some of his highways/access roads he specifically built the overpasses to be so low that buses couldn't fit beneath them. This is because he didn't want poor people driving on them. He built a lot of parks, let's say order hundreds. Of these parks, approximately order one of them was in an area which was predominantly African American. He specifically designed several of his bridges to exclude mass transit, such as subways or trains, even though after EVERY bridge was built, traffic in New York only increased.
In order to avoid rebuilding mistakes, you have to change the fundamental infrastruture. This means that the outside's gonna have to change fundamentally.
Of course, if New York is destroyed and rebuilt, it'll probably be done by committee and it would be even worse than its present incarnation.
James Joyce Did This With Ulysses (Score:2)
So, yeah, maybe you could re-create New York physically using a Holy Grail GIS device that stored all the physical parameters. But after you'd done that what you'd have would be an archeological model of New York, dead as old bones and stripped of its meaning. People invest physical objects and locations with meaning and then reproduce, evolve, and disseminate these meanings through culture.
To really re-create New York, you'd have to take an instant brainmap of all the inhabitants of New York, and anyone in the world who "knew" New York. And then recreate those minds and bodies. And then you're into the whole postmodernist problem of inter-textuality and non-finiteness. Or, if you will, the soft vs hard AI debate of whether a map of a brain can really re-create consciousness...
Is it just me or.... (Score:2)
Pre-war Housing (Score:2)
There are some ratty tenements in NYC to be sure, but much of the so-called "pre-war" apartment buildings are far sturdier than the crap that was put up in the last 50 years. Plus, many have outstanding Art Deco ornamentation.
... and nobody's frightened by this? (Score:4, Interesting)
BECAUSE IT CAN (AND WILL) BE USED FOR TARGETING!!!
Am I saying that al Quaeda is going to fire cruise missiles at us now? No. But you can guarantee that with this kind of information publicly available and a little structural analysis can easily help someone figure out where to plant bombs to get buildings to fall down like giant dominoes (what both terrorist attacks against the WTC were trying to achieve to begin with).
Welcome to the Twenty-fucking-First Century, where information really is ammunition. I'm finding it amazing that the people here on
Re:... and nobody's frightened by this? (Score:2)
I'm not all that worried about any terrorists just going out and downloading information that people can't even talk about. (sure, perhaps they could hack into a database to get it, but then we're hosed anyways). And besides, if someone wanted a terribly accurate map of any particular area/buildings, they could do a reasonable job themselves. The lack of targeting information is not the only thing which prevents people from blowing shit up.
Re:... and nobody's frightened by this? (Score:2)
It's not like al Qaida is about to start a program demanding we provide them personal information about ourselves, but it's a bit more realistic that they or another "enemy of the US" could have detailed 3D maps made fairly easily (with enough money that is).
Thistledown - Greg Bear - Using "virtual cities".. (Score:2)
Anyone out there ever read any books in the Eon series by Greg Bear? In it, we find a lot of ideas and concepts behind the re-creation of "virtual cities." All I could really think about while reading this article.
On the presumption that Something Bad will at one point or another happen somewhere in the US in the not-as-distant-as-we-would-like future, I hope as much data about it can be saved, if only for historical significance.
50, 100, 200, or 300 years from now, all aspects of life in this pivotal century+ will be closely studied and examined. The more data for those future anthopologists and historians, the better. Perhaps they'll be able to learn from and understand our mistakes better than we can now...
um. get Sim City. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:um. get Sim City. (Score:2)
~Philly
Gaming... (Score:2, Interesting)
This could be the basic structural data for a TRULY EXCELLENT large-scale online or gaming environment - either as a self-contained world like Liberty City in GTA3, or as an online multiuser environment for gaming...or just as a huge 3D cool-ass online "place to go". I'd love to live in NY and be able to invite folks to visit my online apartment....hell, that's something I wouldn't mind paying 5-10 bux a month rent on, just to have. And the client feature possibilities are sooo cool - you could have a software agent that monitors visitors to your online pad, and pretty much extend any other environmental metaphors to cool features and interaction possibilities. Furnishings, lighting, parties...entirely too much coolness.
And this is ignoring the excellent possibilities for gaming - from missions, to large-scale team based warfare, and suchlike.
*droooool*
Re:Gaming... (Score:2)
Someday publically available? (Score:2)
It seems this would make tunneling into/robbing/terrorizing buildings easier if it fell into the wrong hands (perhaps ironically helping to instigate the "need to rebuild" scenario).
Naw (Score:2)
Naw, just build a layer on top of it and leave the old ruined city underground for the mutants...
So many uses! (Score:2)
Depends on the Armageddon in Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Using New York as the example, lets assume an ID4 level of armageddon... Y'know... Where a giant UFO brings his destructo-beam of fun to bear on the city, causing wide-spread "conventional" damage (if you can call a giant destructo-beam of fun conventional). Anyway, you'd be facing an engineering debacle of the Trade Center proportions, but on an epic scale. Any structure that hasn't been leveled would probably be dicey in terms of structual support. That goes all the tunnels beneath the city as well. It'd be a grim task to have to sift through all the damage, clear it out and rebuild... An entire city... Hell, the refugee camps set up to take survivors would probably become full cities before New York was even habitable again. I'm also assuming this would be the senario for carpet bombing and earthquake/giant tidal waves.
Nuclear? We all know the answer to that, though the yield of the weapon makes a hellva difference. Biologicals and chemical devistation could hopefully be delt with after the inital blow and loss of life, as the city would be realitively intact. You'd just have to watch out for masive decay and the diseses it spaws if you go in within a few weeks.
In short, assuming your New York sized city suffered a major conventional casulty, you'd probably be better off writing it as a loss for the next decade. Of course, that's nothing compared to a good Slashdotting...
Re:Depends on the Armageddon in Question (Score:2)
Did anyone else read "Aftershock"... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a bad read. The plan to rebuild what was destroyed was interesting... It's been years since I read it, but IIRC there were ideas something like, make it a city for the people, a social and cultural mecca even moreso than it was, packed full of parks, museums, libraries, etc. No internal-combustion vehicles allowed on the island, just people-powered and non-polluting vehicles. Subways would be repaired, but used to move freight, not people, with the rationale, "why force people underground to travel quickly and clog the streets above with trucks full of cargo?"
I'm just kinda rambling here, and that's all I remember now, so time to click "Preview" and "Submit."
~Philly
Death and Re-birth of Great Cities (Score:2)
Let us hope that neither New York or any city experience a large scale disaster, again. However, do not think that even a large scale disaster is necessarily the end.
I dunno... (Score:2)
Re:Death and Re-birth of Great Cities (Score:2)
Infrastructure (Score:2, Informative)
Has this guy seen photos of Hiroshima after the blast? Those trains certainly weren't running 'a few hours after the bomb went off' if they were anywhere within a kilometer of ground zero.
Re:Infrastructure (Score:2)
Maybe hes truly bought into the "hey we did this to save lives, not because we are crazy murderers!" propaganda?
One day some other country will decide to "stop the war" but it will be the US that is fighting against them...
Sheesh - Sounds like a game blurb (Score:2)
Sheesh - sounds like a game blurb. :)
Anyway, a real-time CAD map of a city is sweet for a lot of reasons. Not just civic. Virtual tourism, interactive maps, and the obligatory Quake levels.
interesting article... (Score:3, Informative)
Oh tease me, tease me (Score:2)
If New York was destroyed... (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot more at stake than rebuilding the city... (Score:3, Interesting)
i live in times square (Score:5, Funny)
yes, there are dishes in my sink, but when you rebuild could you replace them with an empty sink?
i have a pile of laundry as well. see what you can do about that. thank you.
i'd like a bigger tv for me in new york 2.0, please? oh and more windows! i don't know why there isn't one on the west wall, it's a perfect place for it.
move that hotel over a few feet so i get a better view too.
thank you! much appreciated!
ps: can you fix the bedroom window? it lost it's spring and doesn't stay up when i open it, thank you very very much.
Book (Score:2)
Tim
It's just an archive and a tool, not a blueprint (Score:2)
The information is archival in nature; it would not be used to rebuild the city, any more than the plans and photographs of the World Trade Center are now being used to rebuild the World Trade Center, instead of something new.
The value it has is as a tool today, as described in the article, makes it just that: a tool. And the security concerns aren't over its value in rebuilding, they're over it's value to someone who wants to raze the place, or model a "Cobra Event" style drop of a bioagent.
Massive datassemblies are probably some of the few valid objects for protection via security through obscurity.
-- Terry
my contribution (Score:2)
But I can't use it (Score:2, Informative)
Paris has had an interactive "You want to see it, tell us the address" [pagesjaunes.fr] site for a few years now. It's not 3D, but it's available to the public.
Digital replica: Good, but dubiously useful (Score:2)
But it is laughable to think that it would be used as any sort of blueprint for reconstruction. I mean, they can't even decide what will replace the single building complex that was destroyed on 9/11 [cnn.com]. Even though they still have the blueprints of the original, and could rebuild it floor for floor if they wanted to. Why should the entire city be any different?
I'm reminded of Detective Ross Sylibus's (Armitage III) derisive comment on seeing the Statue of Liberty replica on Mars. "They think they can just build that kind of thing anywhere."
This might have already been said, but... (Score:2)
rebuilding isn't the problem... (Score:2)
Sounds good in principle, but... (Score:2)
Will we have to install Flash 9 or RealThree to view it? Or is it "safely" tucked away in a Visio document? I just hope it's not built with FrontPage.
Something is very fishy...(They Might be Giants!?) (Score:2)
Or is that supposed to be in there?
Anyhow, I seriously think that after being reduced to burning rumble, there will be more serious problems than deciding if NY should reconstruct the old houses or build more modern ones. So I'm thinking, maybe the author's priorities are so skewed that the TMBG paragraph isn't a content management bug, but put in deliberately.
I propose collecting DNA samples of all NYC residents and storing them (the samples) in large off-site databases, so they to can all be reconstructed after "The big catastrophe". Oh wait, they're already doing that!
HOAX! (Score:2)
Slashdotters need to get out more...
3D Map of New York (Score:2)
Cool.. Can someone import this into a 3D shooter? Perhaps id could include this map with Doom 3? :-P
It could even be used in a driving game. I've always though it'd be cool to race around you local area with an accurate level of detail...
Get over it (Score:4, Interesting)
pretty much the fifties to the dismantling of the USSR, you're letting this pissant terrorist threat thing get to ye far more than it should. It's hard not to wonder if you aren't in fact just being cynically manipulated to distract you from the ridiculous amount of domestic problems your current administration is causing and/or ignoring.
It's about time you got over it, either built a Ground Zero memorial park or used the space for buildings, stopped beating up on random eastern countries, implemented decent accounting laws, and returned to being the arrogant but lovable bunch of tech-obsessed golden boys that we all remember from the 90s.
And ratify Kyoto already - have you seen the weather lately? Can't you take a hint?
Re:My first response - Max Headroom (Score:2)
It's all about Theora and her terminal - provding live assistance to Edison Carter on his location...
Even 15 years later, that's still pretty cool...
Re:New York is cool as it is, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, New York doesn't have nearly the sprawl a lot of cities do, mainly because the boroughs are built primarily on a series of islands that limit the soulless overbuilding you find most places. Sprawl isn't densely packed buildings; it's constant development outwards of strip malls, ugly housing, and too many roads.
Granted, Manhattan has little greenspace other than Central Park, but there is some; there are several parks, and the northern edge of Manhattan Island (the Inwood section) is actually very pleasant, with impressive views of the palisades and a lot of parkland.
You're also ignoring the outer boroughs, which make up most of the population. Brooklyn and Queens have plenty of backyards and parks. The next time you're in New York and want to see what I mean, take the elevated J train towards Jamaica, and look north. Queens is almost a forest, with a VAST canopy of trees with the occasional house and building poking out.
The Bronx, despite its reputation, has some of the loveliest sections of the city, with extensive parkland, beautiful old houses, and the Zoo and Botanical Gardens (both very sizeable). The Bronx also has, I believe, a little old-growth forest that has never been built on.
Staten Island is for the most part suburban, though admittedly the landfill probably doesn't qualify as greenspace.
As for the recycling issue, it didn't quite happen that way. What basically happened is the city realized that a) they were losing a lot of money recycling plastic and glass, and b) most of it was ending up in landfills anyway. They're planning to revamp and reintroduce it next year, and we still recycle newspapers and cans. Personally I think it's better to admit something's failed so we'll have to deal with it, rather than give people the illusion that they're recycling and just throw the stuff in a hole.
Re:New York is cool as it is, but... (Score:2)
As a former resident of that "almost a forest" part of Queens (who took that J train before the Z train ever existed), while I appreciate your sentiment, you're missing the fact that pretty much the entire above-ground stretch of the J train in Queens goes over Jamaica Avenue, which is just a few streets down from Forest Park, which stretches (roughly) from the Brooklyn Border all the way to Woodhaven Boulevard. Plus, Forest Park is on one of the highest points in that area of Queens. So, the reason why it looks like "almost a forest" is because it really is a forest, kinda! But look out the South windows, and you can see plenty of those backyards you're talking about it, even if they do look like Peter Parker's concrete backyard from that Spider-man movie!
But I agree that that the J train gives you one of the best views on the entire subway system. I always liked going right to the front of the train, next to the motorman's little cabin, and getting a good view of everything. The parts of Brooklyn that the train goes through have some magnificent old buildings and churches! And when you get to the turn just before the bridge, you get a spectacular view of Lower Manhattan. Even if the view has changed since I last rode that train, it should still be worth the price of admission.
Re:So... (Score:2)
Interestingly enough, they're microprinted on the foil wrapper that surrounds a tasty, refreshing confection [hersheys.com] that you can buy in any corner store or gas station for 39 cents.
Re:So... (Score:2)
You dozy pillock. The 'original' York is still right where it was 400 years ago! That is.. about 200 miles north of London.
Re:nuke? (Score:2)
He's right. This one unlikely circumstance could happen. Cancel the proeject immediately!
Re:Like Project A-ko (Score:2)
Uhhh... in anime, Tokyo gets destroyed every other day!
I feel sorry for Tokyo Tower in particular...