The article says that the tower is a "self powered sustainable system including generators" and hydroelectric power. It also claims the tower would be disconnected from the grid. I wonder how many generators they expect to use?
Their theory seems to be that they could put a turbine into the water park to generate electricity. Which is obviously nonsense, and a great illustration of why open-ended "design competitions" like this are useless.
Duh, you just use the power generated from the water to pump the water right back up to the top. And to mine crypto. And there's unlimited free cotton candy. Because a 12 year old came up with the concept.
I find these 'design concepts' vexing; they consist of renders of impossible or non-existent materials and technologies. Are they intended as some sort of 'science fiction product designs', or do the creators believe that they can will things into being? And why do the concepts get so much press coverage?
I'm sure these renders look great in a portfolio, but
as someone who does (a little) industrial design, I find unconstrained designs a bit pointless.
I think you're missing the point, it's an elaborate joke to draw attention to Iran's difficulties:
> As a way to get around the imposed embargo, mining would have to be done secretly and undercover. Hence, a hybrid type is proposed, a mining farm that is juxtaposed by a vertical water theme park. The water infrastructure hides the hi-tech facility [...]
And that's on a public website. No way they're being serious. I think it's pretty funny;)
The problem statement is the problem - it's way too broad and vague to yield useful results. If the aim is to find a solution to a specific problem (e.g. using less water), that should be the problem statement. If the aim is to find a novel improvement over the "standard" skyscraper, it should start with a reference design and then ask for an improvement subject to some reasonable constraints (e.g. improve one of the listed areas for at most a 10% cost increase).
I don't find them any more vexing than anything else that also exists purely in the realm of 3D rendering and visualization software. Do people also find vexing (haha, video game in-joke) the design of the Pyramidion in Destiny 2, or the giant world eating octopus/robot production annihilation machines frozen in place in Horizon Zero Dawn?
It's purely nothing more than a creative opportunity for people to do something cool and fun with 3D CAD software. And perhaps for the Iranians who designed it, to get their personal names ranked higher in google searches and gain some very small degree of recognition in the architectural community.
Is ancient egypt actually considered a theocracy, rather than a monarchy? Also, I think the parent poster's point is that theocracies fell out of fashion a long time ago.
As near as I can tell the criteria for the us government getting involved is you have natural resources and you mistreat your people. Neither one alone seems to be sufficient.
The US mistreats its own people daily. The idea that they care at all about other countries mistreating their people is a farce. They dislike the fact that Iran is part of an axis of countries which want to challenge the dominance of the US in global politics today. That's it, period.
The US's best buddies are Saudi Arabia, who both have natural resources and mistreat their people. Not true that "mistreat your people" enters into this calculus at all.
> As near as I can tell the criteria for the us government getting involved is you have natural resources and you mistreat your people. Neither one alone seems to be sufficient.
Surely, you must be aware of the history of US involvement in Iran.
How do you reconcile the difference between the reality of US foreign policy, and your idealized view of its foreign policy?
Iran has always has always had policies that the US populace would consider mistreating people. Sure their "intervention" didn't help (it generally doesn't) and in fact made things worse, but the conditions were satisfied.
>As near as I can tell the criteria for the us government getting involved is you have natural resources and you mistreat your people. Neither one alone seems to be sufficient.
the US seems to be pretty chill about saudi arabia, which does have oil and mistreats people. I'm sure the rest of the countries around that region aren't exactly a bastion of human rights either.
Thats because the US requires juvenile moral arguments to maintain support for things that have nothing to do with juvenile moral arguments.
It derives it’s power from a population that has little history, prophecies or goals in common, so childish moral high ground is all it has to continue stewarding its massive resource appropriation efforts.
Iran is very different than Norway. Iran was actually a friendly ally to US. Biggest ally in the region. So close that US designed a coup to overthrow Iranian democratically elected leader in favor of the monarchical rule of the Shah.
Their relationship was damaged to the point that US intentionally didn't support Shah during Iranian revolution and he was overthrown and replaced by Islamic Republic of Iran. There are even conspiracy theories that suggest CIA even did aid the revolution.
Iran had a democratic leader. He was toppled in a 1953 coup and replaced by their last monarch, who was himself overthrown by the Islamic revolution in 1979.
That 1953 coup was orchestrated by the United States (TPAJAX Project or "Operation Ajax") and the United Kingdom ("Operation Boot"), because the leader was too far left from them. The name Ajax refers to cleansing communist influence, because Iran wanted to nationalise the oil controlled by what is now a part of BP.
It is more democratic today than it was before the 1979 Revolution...
Actually one of the more democratic countries in its region. They have elections, and they are usually certified as fair by NGOs. I know the selection of candidates is trimmed by an unelected body, but that's also true in the US as well (to a lesser degree, but still).
It says that it's "Disconnected From the Power Grid" with "Self Powered Sustainable System Including Generators" and "Taking Advantage of Water Flow for Cooling and Generating Electricity".
I can't think of a way that this works in reality. Electricity costs for the servers would be huge, and you still gotta pump water to the top of that tower.
To get this off grid, are they planning on having the guests have to carry a 5 gallon bucket of water every trip and spend 30 minutes on pedal power generators for every lap?
Also, if this is supposed to be some kind of covert way to mine crypto... they failed at go.
Do you even realise what you're commenting about? A 500 metres tall water park with slides to hide a giant crypto farm to save a country of 80 million from a near total embargo? Come on.
I chuckled at the number of people in this thread who don't seem to grasp the concept of an intentionally ridiculous or improbably difficult to build architectural concept rendering. Like this:
If you think someone is seriously proposing a 560 meter tall waterpark/cryptocurrency mining tower... I have a bridge to sell you?
It's named after the JCPOA nuclear deal, which no matter what side of the issue you're on, has significant follow on effects on Iran's civilian economy.
> I chuckled at the number of people in this thread who don't seem to grasp the concept of an intentionally ridiculous
Some people simply don't read the article before leaving a comment.
And for others sometimes it's just the challenge of understanding written humor. Humor can be sophisticated, and written humor is more challenging since there is no speaker to make adjustments. You mix that with the fact that many users don't expect to see these kind of articles here in the first place (especially non-native English speakers), and you get a lot of serious opinions about a joke.
Both the headline and the serious tone of the article makes people here very confused thinking this is a real plausible thing that will help Iran's economy.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadI'm sure these renders look great in a portfolio, but as someone who does (a little) industrial design, I find unconstrained designs a bit pointless.
> As an entry to the 2019 Evolo Skyscraper Competition, JCPOA Tower was designed to combine cryptocurrency mining with a water park
So it’s a design competition. It would be similar to you asking why teams build autonomous vehicles for the DARPA grand challenges.
I find it funny and endearing- its absurdity seems to be part of the message.
> As a way to get around the imposed embargo, mining would have to be done secretly and undercover. Hence, a hybrid type is proposed, a mining farm that is juxtaposed by a vertical water theme park. The water infrastructure hides the hi-tech facility [...]
And that's on a public website. No way they're being serious. I think it's pretty funny;)
Competition's problem statement is at https://www.e-architect.co.uk/competitions/evolo-2020-skyscr... ... remember architects are not engineers. It's much easier to break than to build. What would you have proposed?
I mostly design plastic enclosures, and assemblies for electronic products, and have to keep manufacturability top-of-mind.
I don't find them any more vexing than anything else that also exists purely in the realm of 3D rendering and visualization software. Do people also find vexing (haha, video game in-joke) the design of the Pyramidion in Destiny 2, or the giant world eating octopus/robot production annihilation machines frozen in place in Horizon Zero Dawn?
It's purely nothing more than a creative opportunity for people to do something cool and fun with 3D CAD software. And perhaps for the Iranians who designed it, to get their personal names ranked higher in google searches and gain some very small degree of recognition in the architectural community.
As near as I can tell the criteria for the us government getting involved is you have natural resources and you mistreat your people. Neither one alone seems to be sufficient.
I don't see any relation between two inputs of that and gate.
Norway shares oil revenue with UK and EU companies and therefore has strong defense against colonialist USA.
The US's best buddies are Saudi Arabia, who both have natural resources and mistreat their people. Not true that "mistreat your people" enters into this calculus at all.
Surely, you must be aware of the history of US involvement in Iran.
How do you reconcile the difference between the reality of US foreign policy, and your idealized view of its foreign policy?
the US seems to be pretty chill about saudi arabia, which does have oil and mistreats people. I'm sure the rest of the countries around that region aren't exactly a bastion of human rights either.
It derives it’s power from a population that has little history, prophecies or goals in common, so childish moral high ground is all it has to continue stewarding its massive resource appropriation efforts.
Iran is very different than Norway. Iran was actually a friendly ally to US. Biggest ally in the region. So close that US designed a coup to overthrow Iranian democratically elected leader in favor of the monarchical rule of the Shah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Iran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
Problem started when Iran became a founding member of OPEC. And Shah was controlling (raising) oil prices with his influence at the OPEC.
"NYT: Shah warning US and UK to increase oil price in 70s": https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/20/archives/shah-warns-oil-p...
Their relationship was damaged to the point that US intentionally didn't support Shah during Iranian revolution and he was overthrown and replaced by Islamic Republic of Iran. There are even conspiracy theories that suggest CIA even did aid the revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi#Criticis...
And after that a few more events completely destroyed their relationship.
"Siege of the American embassy in Tehran" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis
"Siege of the Iranian embassy in London" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Embassy_siege
"US supporting Saddam Hussein to invade Iran, and during the Iraq-Iran war"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_attacks_against...
"Iran Air Flight 655"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
Both sides had many many more since then and the last major one was US withdrawal from JCPOA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Ac...
Is Iran a good democratic country now? No!
Do they deserve it? I don't think so.
That 1953 coup was orchestrated by the United States (TPAJAX Project or "Operation Ajax") and the United Kingdom ("Operation Boot"), because the leader was too far left from them. The name Ajax refers to cleansing communist influence, because Iran wanted to nationalise the oil controlled by what is now a part of BP.
Actually one of the more democratic countries in its region. They have elections, and they are usually certified as fair by NGOs. I know the selection of candidates is trimmed by an unelected body, but that's also true in the US as well (to a lesser degree, but still).
A skyscraper might not be the safest place to store a cryptocurrency private key - many companies use bunkers instead!
It says that it's "Disconnected From the Power Grid" with "Self Powered Sustainable System Including Generators" and "Taking Advantage of Water Flow for Cooling and Generating Electricity".
I can't think of a way that this works in reality. Electricity costs for the servers would be huge, and you still gotta pump water to the top of that tower.
In civilized worlds we don't use children as shields.
But sure, maybe Iran are the bad guys in this hypothetical scenario.
Also, if this is supposed to be some kind of covert way to mine crypto... they failed at go.
Do you even realise what you're commenting about? A 500 metres tall water park with slides to hide a giant crypto farm to save a country of 80 million from a near total embargo? Come on.
.... they are procedurally generated right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimizu_Mega-City_Pyramid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Seed_4000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_City_1000
Closest real world inspiration I can think of is this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd%27s_building
If you think someone is seriously proposing a 560 meter tall waterpark/cryptocurrency mining tower... I have a bridge to sell you?
It's named after the JCPOA nuclear deal, which no matter what side of the issue you're on, has significant follow on effects on Iran's civilian economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Ac...
Some people simply don't read the article before leaving a comment.
And for others sometimes it's just the challenge of understanding written humor. Humor can be sophisticated, and written humor is more challenging since there is no speaker to make adjustments. You mix that with the fact that many users don't expect to see these kind of articles here in the first place (especially non-native English speakers), and you get a lot of serious opinions about a joke.
Does someone here with access to GPT-3 want to try? Would we know if this was how the linked article was written?