https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdOGPBnfoKE
The brand new earthen Teton Dam in Eastern Idaho collapsed on June 5, 1976 at 11:57 am. The entire reservoir of about 288,000 acre feet (or about one-twelfth of the Oroville Reservoir’s capacity), roared down upon two towns in the flood plain, demolishing them.
The human death toll was remarkably low, either 11 or 14 according to various sources, but about 13,000 cows were killed.
The Oroville reservoir is now down almost 48 feet below its brim to 853′ elevation. The goal is to lower the water level to 850′, which is what they were holding it at when it suddenly shot up earlier this month to 902′.
Outflow down the damaged main spillway has been cut from 100,000 cubic feet per second down to about 55,000 cfs, while the inflow from the moderate rains a few days ago is up to around 40,000 cfs. So the drop in the lake’s elevation is down to just over 1 inch per hour.
It hasn’t started raining again yet in Oroville, but a fairly big storm is expected from Sunday through Tuesday. The small town of Feather Falls up in the reservoir’s watershed is expecting about 6.5 inches of rain, which would be about 75 or 80 feet of incremental elevation, all other things being equal (which they never are). Fortunately, the week after this onrushing storm is expected have less than one inch of precipitation, with fairly cool temperatures to retard snowmelt.
The official reason for cutting the main spillway’s outflow so far back is to allow the power station to be restarted, which could add 13,000 cfs to outflow.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Interestingly, there’s a fourth outlet, the “river valves,” that used to have 5,400 cfs capacity, but were cut to 2,000 after an accident, and apparently haven’t been used in this emergency.
Here’s a curious headline:
5 Oroville Dam workers fired after posting pictures on social media
By Allison Weeks, KRON and Clemence Robineau, KRON
Published: February 18, 2017, 6:27 pm
So, it’s All Hands on Deck … except that managing our social media presence is, of course, the highest priority. We can’t let the 16,000 residents of Oroville, CA, 7 miles downriver, get their information unfiltered.
That would be inappropriate.

Can we get by without building dams?
> 13,000 cows were killed.
Well, you know: “XKCD: Land Mammals”
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1338:_Land_Mammals
Among the earthen dams that collapse in my nightmares is Queensland Nickel’s toxic tailings pools next to the Great Barrier Reef.
http://www.australianmanufacturing.com.au/15576/toxic-spill-closes-clive-parker-nickel-refinery
http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/crucial-report-into-tailings-dams-at-yabulu-to-detail-risk-of-overflow/news-story/7b19267d6c9dcf9a21925216af067e8b
Just one poster-child nightmare out of countless such tailings dam sites worldwide.
Hard to believe the devastating bauxite red mud dam failure in Hungary is nearly 7 years ago. Nearly a million cubic yards of red mud at pH 13, with chrome, arsenic, and mercury in the mix.
http://www.infomine.com/library/publications/docs/Hegedus2011.pdf
It’s very hard to get a handle on this issue as an intelligent citizen. Most articles I’ve ever encountered (search or citation) on mineral processing technology, mine tailings dams, their design, failure, and remediation/impacts are behind stiff paywalls ($30 and up per PDF article online via Science Direct, e.g.). Many of the methods and processes applied are proprietary and closely held.
Not generally the case with public works water projects, and this is one of the reasons I’m leery of privatizing these enterprises (as I expect Trump’s brain trust to push) while sneering at public sector involvement.
Remember how thigh-tingly Reagan fanbois got about the idea of “drowining government in a bathtub”? Yep, leave it to our global corporate overlords and all will be well! No sunshine needed here, peons…move along. Extreme weather? What extreme weather?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_waste_water_spillReplies: @The Plutonium Kid, @Olorin
If you're an alum of a major university, you might be able to get a password to access them at home. Even some public libraries might let you have access.Replies: @Olorin
Baby Face Nelson don’t care.
Operation Chastise, 1943
If I lived in Oroville I’d be booking the family vacation right now. From some hotel up a mountain nearby.
“5 Oroville Dam workers fired after posting pictures on social media”: Oroville/Orwell – spooky similarity.
Catastrophic failure of the Hoover Dam would be a disaster of epic proportions. The death toll downstream would be far into the thousands, vast amounts of agricultural lands would be ruined, and with Lake Mead drained Las Vegas would be nearly uninhabitable due to lack of water.
The good news is that destroying the huge dam would be impossible without an atomic bomb.
I don’t think public sector management is really any guarantee against industrial accidents occurring. Remember the EPA’s gold mine disaster from a few years ago?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_waste_water_spill
Off-topic: and here we get to the nub of it, religious purity:
http://nypost.com/2017/02/17/prep-school-cancels-party-at-trump-wollman-rink-over-parents-protests/
...Matt Yglesias,...
...and District Judge Ronnie Abrams--recommended by Gillibrand, appointed by Obama, and presider over two high-profile cases against...you guessed it...Donald J. Trump.
Also her daddy, high powered lawyer Floyd Abrams, argued for the NYT in the Plame Affair grand jury investigation in the Aughts.
El, If this had happened more recently, the message would have been…”Bush hates cows!”
Slumber, The last line of your comment says all you need to know about Trump….”Trump renovated the rink in 1986 after the city fumbled the job for six years.” The rink belongs to the city, but Trump fixed it so kids can skate there.
But yeah: a combination of his contribution to the City and his enormous ego is why his name is emblazoned on the boards, the Zamboni and the labels on the bottled water at Wollman Rink. And at Lasker Rink up in Harlem, for that matter. The horror!Replies: @Buffalo Joe
The water pipes and fittings must be specced out to circulate salt water because this is what the rink refrigeration system does to make the ice. Trump had to make sure his contractors laid pipe according to plan. So Trump obviously knew who to hire who would do a great plumbing job on the skating rink.
Properly built rink + Canadian refrigeration equipment = success. A success that had eluded the NYC government for 6 years. Like these dopes and hacks and their "connected" contractors had the first clue about how to build an ice skating rink.Replies: @Buffalo Joe
https://youtu.be/8oODGikbJ2g?t=36Replies: @Buffalo Joe
OT – Have you discussed Sweden’s self-proclaimed “Feminist Government” dressing up like good little hijabi-clad servants in Iran?
The same principles and the same governing party (though at a local level) also led to feminist snow clearing.
http://heatst.com/world/feminist-snow-plowing-system-brings-stockholm-to-a-standstill/
Dams are a classic human activity that usually have some short term benefits but are a serious long term detriment/danger. They damage river life, alter the watershed, and eventually either collapse or silt up….Humans are very short term thinkers. The dam builders (politicians) always benefit, so who cares about the denouement?
Can we get by without building dams?
You first. In all matters of dispensing with modernity in order to accommodate eco-enviro lunacy YOU FIRST.
Or not skate there, depending on just how crazy their parents are.
But yeah: a combination of his contribution to the City and his enormous ego is why his name is emblazoned on the boards, the Zamboni and the labels on the bottled water at Wollman Rink. And at Lasker Rink up in Harlem, for that matter. The horror!
“We can’t let the 16,000 residents of Oroville, CA, 7 miles downriver, get their information unfiltered. That would be inappropriate.”
Bureaucultural Censortivity?
Ice skating is a bastion of white privilege anyway . . .
Oroville is one of the few California towns where there is a substantial and enduring level of white poverty. It is quite benighted and on par with Bakersfield and Stockton. Bless their hearts, but a significant percentage of the town are the decedents of the people who migrated up to the area to build the dam and just stayed on. Contrasted with Chico, the other population center in Butte county, which is a whitopia there is a real culture clash. There is a large number of rice and almond farmers in the area but they don’t employ that many people, particularly whites. Almonds only need workers for a few month out of the year so ‘migrants’ come and go and rice is almost entirely mechanized. Unemployment is high in the area and there is a real contrast with the farmers many of which are quite wealthy albeit they wear jeans and drive dirty trucks so you would never notice it if you weren’t looking.
But yeah: a combination of his contribution to the City and his enormous ego is why his name is emblazoned on the boards, the Zamboni and the labels on the bottled water at Wollman Rink. And at Lasker Rink up in Harlem, for that matter. The horror!Replies: @Buffalo Joe
slumber, The right to be recognized as a major donor is visible on every college campus building in the USA.
From a few years ago, an account of the mishap that caused the damage to the river valves:
http://www.orovillemr.com/general-news/20120912/dwr-planning-study-on-worrisome-river-valves-blamed-in-2009-oroville-dam-accident
I think the river valves are used to maintain flow downstream if the reservoir level drops below that of the dam’s main gates.
It sounds like the employees there might not be top-flight, and that the infrastructure has been deteriorating.
Donald Trump did not rack his brains on how to get the Central Park Wollman skating rink up and running again. He simply went to the number one builder of ice skating rinks in Canada and told them, “We will buy the refrigeration equipment from you if you tell me exactly how the water pipes underneath the rink must be laid out”
The water pipes and fittings must be specced out to circulate salt water because this is what the rink refrigeration system does to make the ice. Trump had to make sure his contractors laid pipe according to plan. So Trump obviously knew who to hire who would do a great plumbing job on the skating rink.
Properly built rink + Canadian refrigeration equipment = success. A success that had eluded the NYC government for 6 years. Like these dopes and hacks and their “connected” contractors had the first clue about how to build an ice skating rink.
Watching the dam right now on Fox News and it looks like there’s chunks of exposed cement all over the place and the water going wherever it wants.
Is this normal or are we watching this disaster ease towards the climax?
some good footage on the building of the Oroville Dam…….video claims that it was completed one year ahead of schedule; power plant was named after Edward Hyatt a state power engineer.
Mention is also made of the diversion tunnels
Walls don’t work. We need to open our arms to the crumbling of all dams, because it is the moral thing to do. Yes, let the waves wash everything away – cows, people, towns, the whole thing. No fences. No barriers. No walls. No locks on doors. No borders. No dams.
The water is level! The equality of the graveyard is the fulfillment of moral justice, comrades.
“OT – Have you discussed Sweden’s self-proclaimed “Feminist Government” dressing up like good little hijabi-clad servants in Iran?”
While you have to feel sorry for what happened to Patty Hearst, she probably demonstrated that female mammals (etc.) have an evolved submission thing. Males probably do as well, but it probably kicks in for females earlier, because they often can’t run away from the group:
Dams are so repressive. Let mama nature come.
> 5 Oroville Dam workers fired after posting pictures on social media
Seriously, what the actual F***
If they had posted pictures of the year’s end party with the director in a compromising position on the office printer, I would understand, but this is harebrained. Plus probably skills you DON’T want to lose right about now.
Imagine this show at Fukushima. “Yes the guy who knows the in and outs of the pipe system down there has been let go.” Well, the Japs actually refrained from crying uncle quickly enough lest they lose face, so they just lost 4 reactors.
Pretty sure there is good drone footage by now in any case.
There's a shot of the current damage to the main spillway here.
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-92598455/
With reduced water flow, almost no water leaves by the bottom of the spillway, it nearly all heads down what's becoming quite a canyon on the right (east?) side of the spillway. There's a fracture in the spillway, below the existing hole, which might become yet another big hole in the future. Looks like the entire spillway downhill from the break is pretty shot.
More pics here, mostly of the emergency spillway but one showing workers carrying buckets (!) up the left side of the main spillway - who knows what they're trying to patch?
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/19/oroville-dam-dramatic-photos-show-damage-to-dams-emergency-spillway/Replies: @The Anti-Gnostic
This for real?
http://speisa.com/modules/articles/index.php/item.3723/swedish-court-approves-of-child-marriage.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_waste_water_spillReplies: @The Plutonium Kid, @Olorin
So far as I’m aware, no one was ever led responsible for that. I guess the government works by different rules, right?
Oroville dam in Sept 2014 near its low of level at 25% capacity
If you’re in country X, you have to follow their dress codes, at least as they relate to modesty and decency. I find nothing wrong with that. The women who do find something wrong with that should just refuse to go to that particular country. Women and men willing to conform to the demands of their job should go there to represent their country. End of story.
I find everything wrong with that.
Wonderful. Well, might as well start practicing, eh, old girls?
The same principles and the same governing party (though at a local level) also led to feminist snow clearing.
http://heatst.com/world/feminist-snow-plowing-system-brings-stockholm-to-a-standstill/
I would agree with you, as soon as we deport all muslims from Europe.
The parents in an alternative manifestation of solidarity against DRUMPF decided to cut off their childrens’ noses to spite their faces.
Of course. There is no reason we cannot do both. Shoring up our civilizational space is paramount. Unfortunately, Providence showed a sense of humor when it answered our calls for dikes to keep the third world tide at bay 🙂
Technical proficiency is the most dangerous thing in the world. If, as most scientists suggest, our now deathly quiet universe must have once contained myriad planets attaining technology above our level, they went to their doom a la the Krell self extermination by singularity in Forbidden Planet (an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest). As the Bard put it-
Sure, but first we have to get rid of 98% of the people in the Southwest and maybe 30% of them in the rest of the country. After that minor adjustment, no problem!
The water pipes and fittings must be specced out to circulate salt water because this is what the rink refrigeration system does to make the ice. Trump had to make sure his contractors laid pipe according to plan. So Trump obviously knew who to hire who would do a great plumbing job on the skating rink.
Properly built rink + Canadian refrigeration equipment = success. A success that had eluded the NYC government for 6 years. Like these dopes and hacks and their "connected" contractors had the first clue about how to build an ice skating rink.Replies: @Buffalo Joe
Clyde, A few years back the NHL and the Buffalo Sabres hosted the Winter Classic outdoor hockey game at the Bills’ stadium. I actually operated a fork truck for the contractor installing the sound system. Amazing how quickly the main contractor laid out and installed the artificial ice surface. These guys really knew their business, having erected and disassembled the same rink in Japan a couple of weeks previous to the Buffalo game. Sad that a city like NYC couldn’t handle the installation of a permanent rink, sad too for the kids whose parents are too fragile to see the name Trump.
Somehow that dress code protocol only works one way.
I find everything wrong with that.
Hmm. So about 30 years ago, the country really didn’t need dams and could have done without the cost, environmental destruction, and risk.
BTW, your fellow travellers think everyone on the planet should get the same amount of power to live on as you do. So if your standard of living doesn't drop by 80%, whining about the "cost, environmental destruction, and risk" will ring hollow.Replies: @Opinionator
Buff, Trump ripped off the city and Italian-American contractors like yourself building that rink:
It was an EPA contractor who did the work that caused the breach. I don’t think there is any doubt who caused the disaster.
Thanks.
I was inspired to write a Haiku.
Saigon falls in 75,
Grand Teton falls in 1976.
Imperial overeach
https://youtu.be/8oODGikbJ2g?t=36Replies: @Buffalo Joe
Anonymous, Wow, that is a big ice rink. I was thinking NHL rink size. Thanks for the link. Construction contractors play by different rules than most other businesses.
There are message boards where students – Asians, both East and South – trade passwords for databases like Science Direct.
If you’re an alum of a major university, you might be able to get a password to access them at home. Even some public libraries might let you have access.
Our public library system focuses on day care for Latinas, baby sitting for yoga mommies, and providing sensitive bathroom facilities for the homeless, while holding book sales of classic titles to make shelf room for 30 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey (the DVD).
I'm exaggerating only a little.
I do have very good institutional access through a PNW academic library consortium, also my Ivy League alma mater.
Many bright citizens don't have that access, or don't have the classical liberal arts type skills to make use of the mindboggling amount of information out there. I'm simply stunned by how much of even that information is behind paywalls now. It increasingly appears that public universities' tax dollars provide welfare streams for the (often corrupt) "peer reviewed journal" industry.Replies: @Anatoly Karlin
Well, we already have the water. Now all we need is the Kool-Aid.
This Teton Dam thing is just more evidence that the 70s were The Golden Era of Crappy American Workmanship.
Everything in the 70s was just one big awshit, from Vietnam to the Vega, nothing was made or worked well.
This is true. Electrical systems, cars, tires, clothing, cuisine, architecture, the tax code. All crap.
Then came Ronald Reagan, and it was like everybody went from polyester to broadcloth overnight. The 90s were pretty cool too.Replies: @The Anti-Gnostic, @anonguy, @Geschrei
Some of the worst examples of 70s design & construction fiascos would be the Houston Astrodome, the Minneapolis Metrodome (designed in 78), the Montreal Olympic Stadium, the Omni Coliseum(Atlanta), the New Haven Coliseum, and the Seattle Kingdome.
Per wikipedia, this is pretty interesting what happened in one town downstream of the Teton Dam, the flood and the fire, not to mention the battering rams. Really amazing how few people died.
One estimate placed damage to Hibbard and Rexburg area, with a population of about 10,000, at 80 percent of existing structures. The Teton River flows through the industrial, commercial and residential districts of north Rexburg. A significant reason for the massive damage in the community was the location of a lumber yard directly upstream. When the flood waters hit, thousands of logs were washed into town. Dozens of them hit a bulk gasoline storage tank a few hundred yards away. The gasoline ignited and sent flaming slicks adrift on the racing water.[12] The force of the logs and cut lumber, and the subsequent fires, practically destroyed the city.
Come back after you subtract the cost of flooding, the value of the electricity generated by the dams and economic activity generated by having dams in place. Then describe the percentage of how much you are willing to reduce your standard of living by raising the cost of (“carbon-free”) power.
BTW, your fellow travellers think everyone on the planet should get the same amount of power to live on as you do. So if your standard of living doesn’t drop by 80%, whining about the “cost, environmental destruction, and risk” will ring hollow.
The good news is that destroying the huge dam would be impossible without an atomic bomb.Replies: @Cloudswrest
I’ve speculated on the effects of a small (Hiroshima sized) nuke on the Hoover Dam. I think such a bomb, on either side, would cause the dam to fail, but for different reasons. For a bomb on the dry side, the dam could ostensibly withstand the pressure, especially since it’s backed by the water pressure on the other side. But the heat would cause the concrete to dehydrate, turning it back into portland cement. It addition the released internal steam would spall all the concrete. It would lose all its material strength and collapse. An underwater bomb on the water side would simply blow out the dam just by mechanical force. If such a bomb were detonated more than a 1000 yards away on the dry side the dam would just laugh at it.
In the past few years, I lived in a well-populated place that experienced a fairly severe “100-year” flood. Luckily my dwelling was at a local maximum of elevation, but it was still unsettling to see the water overflow from the nearby drainage ditch to my garage and front steps. Eerier still was the complete absence of people from normally crowded areas with flash flood warning sirens going off in the distance.
It doesn’t take a flood of Oroville Dam proportions to seriously debilitate society or cause millions of dollars’ worth in damage. Here’s hoping that the dam stays strong.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_waste_water_spillReplies: @The Plutonium Kid, @Olorin
Take a look at this timeline…then come back and pin the blame on EPA.
http://www.hcn.org/issues/48.7/silvertons-gold-king-reckoning/a-gold-king-mine-timeline
Plutonium Kid is dead wrong–EPA took responsibility for the 2015 spill, and blame was even laid on the shoulders of one particular white working man.
High Country News has covered this mine extensively. Many more public reports are available, many online.
I’m not aware of any similar sunshine for Davis, Soule, and Co., American Mining & Tunnel Co., Anglo-Saxon Mining Co., Gold King Consolidated Mines Co., Otto Mears (the Russian Jewish railroad and toll road developer), US Smelting, Mining, and Refining, Gold King Extension Mines, Standard Metals, Washington Mining Company, Arava Natural Resources, Mueller Industries, Gerber Minerals, Gerber Energy International Inc., Echo Bay, Sunnyside Gold, Gold King Mines Corp., Gold King Consolidated, Silver King Mines Inc., Pacific Silver Corp., Taylor Rand (company), Pitchfork “M” Corp, Kinross, Hennis, Garpa, California Goldfields–all companies that oversaw operations, leased there, held various ownership, and made decisions–or the individuals who came along in the 1990s or later to do remediation, or try to build smaller more environmentally sustainable operations.
Then there’s the BLM, which woke up one day and realized it owned part of the mine thanks to it not having been patented many decades before.
There were a good 125 years of mining at the site before local citizens called on EPA for help as polluted discharges into their watershed kept increasing in the early Aughts.
In fact IME you pretty much have to have Ph.D.-level research skills and institutional or academic credentials to get access to and comprehend the massive logjam of documents.
For any one such mine. And there are countless ones worldwide.
Nothing is a guarantee against anything. But my experience with “public-private partnerships” in the public sector led me to conclude that by the time any remediation/reclamation/cleanup project gets to the public sector, all sorts of monied fingerprints are on it.
White people excel at innovation and risk taking…but also, ostensibly, at forward and systems thinking. Blame is for lesser minds.
Thanks, Jerry.
If you're an alum of a major university, you might be able to get a password to access them at home. Even some public libraries might let you have access.Replies: @Olorin
Right you are.
Our public library system focuses on day care for Latinas, baby sitting for yoga mommies, and providing sensitive bathroom facilities for the homeless, while holding book sales of classic titles to make shelf room for 30 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey (the DVD).
I’m exaggerating only a little.
I do have very good institutional access through a PNW academic library consortium, also my Ivy League alma mater.
Many bright citizens don’t have that access, or don’t have the classical liberal arts type skills to make use of the mindboggling amount of information out there. I’m simply stunned by how much of even that information is behind paywalls now. It increasingly appears that public universities’ tax dollars provide welfare streams for the (often corrupt) “peer reviewed journal” industry.
Alma mater of Emma Sulkowicz…
…Matt Yglesias,…
…and District Judge Ronnie Abrams–recommended by Gillibrand, appointed by Obama, and presider over two high-profile cases against…you guessed it…Donald J. Trump.
Also her daddy, high powered lawyer Floyd Abrams, argued for the NYT in the Plame Affair grand jury investigation in the Aughts.
The fires that were caused by the Teton flood were particularly striking.
BTW, your fellow travellers think everyone on the planet should get the same amount of power to live on as you do. So if your standard of living doesn't drop by 80%, whining about the "cost, environmental destruction, and risk" will ring hollow.Replies: @Opinionator
I think I would be okay with a 1950s, 60s standard of living.
What a First Dame Collapse Looks Like:
Footing the bill for that pedicure treatment could pauperize even Sir Branson.
Everything in the 70s was just one big awshit, from Vietnam to the Vega, nothing was made or worked well.Replies: @The Anti-Gnostic, @CrunchybutRealistCon
Everything in the 70s was just one big awshit, from Vietnam to the Vega, nothing was made or worked well.
This is true. Electrical systems, cars, tires, clothing, cuisine, architecture, the tax code. All crap.
Then came Ronald Reagan, and it was like everybody went from polyester to broadcloth overnight. The 90s were pretty cool too.
Astounding.
I remember first seeing a 1982 Trans Am in late 1981, coolest thing ever after a decade of detroit dreck. That's when I knew the 70s were over and everything was going to be ok.
I have a Rickenbacher 4001 manufactured in April 1973 in Santa Ana, California that is still a fantastic piece of workmanship.
/bragReplies: @Coemgen, @Anonymous
This is true. Electrical systems, cars, tires, clothing, cuisine, architecture, the tax code. All crap.
Then came Ronald Reagan, and it was like everybody went from polyester to broadcloth overnight. The 90s were pretty cool too.Replies: @The Anti-Gnostic, @anonguy, @Geschrei
I was just thinking about the arc of national life from the 70s through today, and guess who’s been on stage for all of it? Real estate developer, billionaire and President Donald Trump. No second acts in American life? Trump is on his fourth.
Astounding.
Great. Then I’m sure both you and these ‘feminists’ are in agreement that all Islamic garments – niqabs, chadors, burkas, whatever – must be immediately removed upon setting foot in the West.
Perhaps a follow up post on the San Franciscito dam incident, Mr. Sailer?
I agree with that. I doubt the ersatz feminists do. After all, Islam is compatible with feminism, no?
I’m mentioning it in a Taki’s column that considers the movie “Chinatown.”
This is true. Electrical systems, cars, tires, clothing, cuisine, architecture, the tax code. All crap.
Then came Ronald Reagan, and it was like everybody went from polyester to broadcloth overnight. The 90s were pretty cool too.Replies: @The Anti-Gnostic, @anonguy, @Geschrei
You are right. All of a sudden it was natural fibers everywhere, etc.
I remember first seeing a 1982 Trans Am in late 1981, coolest thing ever after a decade of detroit dreck. That’s when I knew the 70s were over and everything was going to be ok.
This is true. Electrical systems, cars, tires, clothing, cuisine, architecture, the tax code. All crap.
Then came Ronald Reagan, and it was like everybody went from polyester to broadcloth overnight. The 90s were pretty cool too.Replies: @The Anti-Gnostic, @anonguy, @Geschrei
Not everything. There were some amazing high quality musical instruments made entirely in the continental US back then.
I have a Rickenbacher 4001 manufactured in April 1973 in Santa Ana, California that is still a fantastic piece of workmanship.
/brag
It was the start of the small custom guitar maker, for instance. A dozen small companies made guitars, basses, amplifiers, banjos, mandolins, et al, The workmanship was in fact better than anything previously available anywhere, in fact. Martin and Rickenbacker had mostly held their quality through that era and past, though Martin insisted on incorporating bad ideas like nonadjustable truss rods and pickguards acetate glued onto bare top wood well into the 80s. Gibsons and Fenders, except for the very high end Gibson jazz boxes and banjos, were often dog turds though. That's what made a market for a dozen small companies, though.
Leica cameras were cheapened from the 1950s M3 model, in mechanics, but the optics were improved. Several companies made really good medium format cameras, often far smoother in operation than the awkward and clunky Hasselblad.
JBL and Altec made some of their best drivers and components in the 70s, and professional audio saw the first good solid state amplifiers, EQs, and compressor/limiters. Audio Research had started building a new generation of tube hi-fi gear. flagging the idea that changes needed to be made in mainstream audio equipment.
A lot of other things were to follow the same pattern: the mainstream units were not as good, but small specialist companies sprang up making even better ones. That trend continues today.
Actually, I too think that I would be okay with a 1950s, 60s standard of living. (I suppose that I’ll get some abuse for saying that. Oh, well.) It’s not for me to say what others would be okay with, but you make a point worth pondering.
One hopes that the dam does hold, though.
Steve: As usual, your wit is insightful, but are you sure that the dam’s managers don’t deserve some slack for trying to manage information while managing the emergency? It’s not easy to manage a crisis and a team in the full glare of maximum publicity. In fact, it’s nigh impossible. (Some will assert otherwise, but have they tried it?)
I have no idea whether the personnel in question deserved dismissal, but is it possible that those personnel were unhelpful in other ways, as well? You and I wouldn’t know.
Or maybe it really is a clumsy attempt to hide the evidence of corrupt management. One supposes that Californians will find out, eventually.
I run the Almond Bowl every year; Chico is pretty darned Mexican for a white-opia, but I suppose everything is relative….
The suggestion seems to be that (American) standards of living in the 1950s and 1960s were lower than they are today.
I don’t know the statistics (I welcome them from those who may), but standards of living seem far lower now than they were then: realty is unaffordable, employment unstable, crime ubiquitous, social cohesion eroded, families sundered, traffic intolerable, and on and on – all, at base, because of the invasion, of course.
The Earth can’t support its apex predator numbering in the billions. Not for long anyway. And even more billions are expected soon.
Brilliant feats of engineering give us the illusion that ecological limits don’t apply to us.
Our time horizons are so tiny that when the inevitable happens the refrain is always:
“Who could have anticipated THAT!?”
🙂
I have a Rickenbacher 4001 manufactured in April 1973 in Santa Ana, California that is still a fantastic piece of workmanship.
/bragReplies: @Coemgen, @Anonymous
The 70s were so bad for Fender that they moved production to Japan in the early 80s. Gibson struggled during the decade too.
Yet, there are no shortage of people who were in diapers when these shitblocks were made who will pay 2-3 times what a new Fender costs for one of this vintage.
In coastal South CA the weather is so nice it doesn’t matter what decade you’re in.
Everything in the 70s was just one big awshit, from Vietnam to the Vega, nothing was made or worked well.Replies: @The Anti-Gnostic, @CrunchybutRealistCon
The impression you get for the 70s bein so gawd awful in public works & construction, architecture is that it was a time when some of the worst aspects of corruption in building material supply (eg Mob connections), trade union shenanigans, and poor oversight all combined. Another factor was that the worst aspects of 50s/60s reinforced concrete brutalism had not been contested in the marketplace of architectural ideas. These factors got further amplified by the energy crisis causing downgrades in steel durability as coatings were sacrificed for cost.
Some of the worst examples of 70s design & construction fiascos would be the Houston Astrodome, the Minneapolis Metrodome (designed in 78), the Montreal Olympic Stadium, the Omni Coliseum(Atlanta), the New Haven Coliseum, and the Seattle Kingdome.
Consider that these sort of economic boons like dams facilitate the invasion by (temporarily) lowering the cost of living, increasing Econ opportunity. They are enabling of invasion.
There is perhaps an analogue in the dilemma faced by city planners when widening freeways. Supply of cars correspondingly increases, offsetting some of the benefits.
We have to consider that part of our crumbling infrastructure is lack of enthusiasm for the future; if your country is being filled up with the Other, why bother to maintain the nice things? If the evidence mounts that things are just going to burn as a matter of course, why prolong the process?
I have a Rickenbacher 4001 manufactured in April 1973 in Santa Ana, California that is still a fantastic piece of workmanship.
/bragReplies: @Coemgen, @Anonymous
A lot of things made in the 70s were beautifully made, just not the same things as before.
It was the start of the small custom guitar maker, for instance. A dozen small companies made guitars, basses, amplifiers, banjos, mandolins, et al, The workmanship was in fact better than anything previously available anywhere, in fact. Martin and Rickenbacker had mostly held their quality through that era and past, though Martin insisted on incorporating bad ideas like nonadjustable truss rods and pickguards acetate glued onto bare top wood well into the 80s. Gibsons and Fenders, except for the very high end Gibson jazz boxes and banjos, were often dog turds though. That’s what made a market for a dozen small companies, though.
Leica cameras were cheapened from the 1950s M3 model, in mechanics, but the optics were improved. Several companies made really good medium format cameras, often far smoother in operation than the awkward and clunky Hasselblad.
JBL and Altec made some of their best drivers and components in the 70s, and professional audio saw the first good solid state amplifiers, EQs, and compressor/limiters. Audio Research had started building a new generation of tube hi-fi gear. flagging the idea that changes needed to be made in mainstream audio equipment.
A lot of other things were to follow the same pattern: the mainstream units were not as good, but small specialist companies sprang up making even better ones. That trend continues today.
Fender was owned by CBS and they did not give two shits whether or not a Fender guitar was any good or not. Fender quality slowly deteriorated as the people Leo trained retired or quit or died off (the amazing thing was that so many stayed so long) and the original tooling wore out and was patched by inept clowns. By 78-79 Fender guitars typically needed one to two hours of skilled bench time to make them play okay and many needed neck rework or complete replacement. Sometimes you’d have to rout out the neck pocket and put in a steamed shim and rerout it or bed it in glass bedding compound so it would not wobble and shift.
Yet, there are no shortage of people who were in diapers when these shitblocks were made who will pay 2-3 times what a new Fender costs for one of this vintage.
Yes, but the planners and builders surely imagined the benefits would accrue to their kinsman; they were willing to take chances and make sacrifices to leave something “better” for their children.
We have to consider that part of our crumbling infrastructure is lack of enthusiasm for the future; if your country is being filled up with the Other, why bother to maintain the nice things? If the evidence mounts that things are just going to burn as a matter of course, why prolong the process?
Seriously, what the actual F***
If they had posted pictures of the year's end party with the director in a compromising position on the office printer, I would understand, but this is harebrained. Plus probably skills you DON'T want to lose right about now.
Imagine this show at Fukushima. "Yes the guy who knows the in and outs of the pipe system down there has been let go." Well, the Japs actually refrained from crying uncle quickly enough lest they lose face, so they just lost 4 reactors.
Pretty sure there is good drone footage by now in any case.Replies: @Anonymous Nephew
Apparently they were working for a contractor (Syblon Reid) who has a blanket rule in place that no employee puts stuff about their work on social media. I can sort of understand that, if as a company you rely on larger organisations for work.
There’s a shot of the current damage to the main spillway here.
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-92598455/
With reduced water flow, almost no water leaves by the bottom of the spillway, it nearly all heads down what’s becoming quite a canyon on the right (east?) side of the spillway. There’s a fracture in the spillway, below the existing hole, which might become yet another big hole in the future. Looks like the entire spillway downhill from the break is pretty shot.
More pics here, mostly of the emergency spillway but one showing workers carrying buckets (!) up the left side of the main spillway – who knows what they’re trying to patch?
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/19/oroville-dam-dramatic-photos-show-damage-to-dams-emergency-spillway/
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oroville-Dam-emergency-spillway-in-use-for-first-10925628.php#photo-12356998
Our public library system focuses on day care for Latinas, baby sitting for yoga mommies, and providing sensitive bathroom facilities for the homeless, while holding book sales of classic titles to make shelf room for 30 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey (the DVD).
I'm exaggerating only a little.
I do have very good institutional access through a PNW academic library consortium, also my Ivy League alma mater.
Many bright citizens don't have that access, or don't have the classical liberal arts type skills to make use of the mindboggling amount of information out there. I'm simply stunned by how much of even that information is behind paywalls now. It increasingly appears that public universities' tax dollars provide welfare streams for the (often corrupt) "peer reviewed journal" industry.Replies: @Anatoly Karlin
Sci-Hub – http://sci-hub.bz/
https://telegram.me/scihubbot
I also think Google Scholar does a great job of scraping together obscurely located PDFs (i.e. from random course web sites) of various articles that are "officially" behind paywalls.
There's a shot of the current damage to the main spillway here.
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-92598455/
With reduced water flow, almost no water leaves by the bottom of the spillway, it nearly all heads down what's becoming quite a canyon on the right (east?) side of the spillway. There's a fracture in the spillway, below the existing hole, which might become yet another big hole in the future. Looks like the entire spillway downhill from the break is pretty shot.
More pics here, mostly of the emergency spillway but one showing workers carrying buckets (!) up the left side of the main spillway - who knows what they're trying to patch?
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/19/oroville-dam-dramatic-photos-show-damage-to-dams-emergency-spillway/Replies: @The Anti-Gnostic
Here’s a good panoramic view of the dam and now-destroyed main spillway. There seems to be plenty of dirt between the dam and the spillway, so I guess it’s all good until the dry season starts again and they can do repairs. Lots of repairs.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oroville-Dam-emergency-spillway-in-use-for-first-10925628.php#photo-12356998
The various web addresses are always going in and out — I think that accessing the Sci-Hub service over Telegram is a lot easier.
https://telegram.me/scihubbot
I also think Google Scholar does a great job of scraping together obscurely located PDFs (i.e. from random course web sites) of various articles that are “officially” behind paywalls.