People’s Park was a major local landmark with a long history that is well known to students, faculty, residents, and alumni. It had become a home to otherwise homeless people whose existence was inconvenient for the university’s expansion plans and an eyesore to arrogant passersby.
The park’s history includes both civil and violent disobedience, including against the university itself.
It would not be surprising to hear that, whatever is built on this lot, it is subsequently destroyed by an act of arson or other vandalism.
I am surprised they are taking the risk and making the investment at all. IMO it would have been safer to just buy some of the private properties surrounding the park instead, even at a premium.
Sugar will completely eliminate concrete’s ability to cure. A single pound of sugar can destroy an entire truck of wet cement.
Not that I’m advocating for it. But it’s laughably easy to sneak onto a site with a hardhat, safety boots and a vest, and sabotage active construction.
Now i know, I remembered the MythBusters episode where they bury two pigs in concrete, I think it’s the one with Jimmy Hoffa, that will definitely discourage anyone from living in the apartments.
No, a construction site contains plenty other stuff than concrete and steel: tools, equipment, building materials, temporary buildings for the workers, cables and piping.
On top of that each time concrete gets fire damage, it gets weaker and may need to be replaced, at least core samples + weeks of analysis time + $$$ is needed to determine the damage.
And let’s say they eventually finish building the apartments, they may never stop smelling like a BBQ.
And then they need to hire 24/7 security, and maybe new workers because they don’t want to work in a DMZ.
How long would it take for the police to get involved and protect the site for free? Or do you think they would just ignore it? Does the law in USA say that if the victim of the crime is a company they have to hire private security and police is not involved?
This building is being developed by the university on university-owned land, so the university police would be in charge of protecting university property.
For free, probably never. The company can pay to have the police dedicate a force to sit there, but otherwise they’d at best send a patrol through the area a couple times a night.
Really? Police in US doesn’t actively investigate crimes any more? I remember from The Wire that they used observe places where they knew crime is likely to happen. Crazy that they stopped.
No problem. These childish collective fantasies are fun, aren’t they? Yup, they’re fun right up until a bullet rips through your chest when you’re trying to climb through the smashed out window of the barricaded doors to the Speaker’s Lobby or the FBI is kicking down your door three years later. It’s fun in your head when your enemies are incompetent boobs and everything goes your way. In reality you get arrested and/or injured/killed and the buildings get built anyway.
EDIT 2: I went looking for a name for the childish collective fantasies but couldn’t find one. The best I could come up with is a naïve collective fantasy that grew in an epistemic bubble inside an echo bunker. No one bothered to ask “What then?” or, “What will the consequences be if things go wrong and we are caught and held accountable for our actions?” Ashli Babbit and the neo-fascist red hats never considered the, “What ifs” right up until the moment the bullet ripped through her chest. At that point they realized, “Holy fuck, they’re shooting at us.” Everyone else watching on TV expected that to happen on a slaughterous scale much earlier yet they were surprised that it happened to one of them. Someone was not using their critical thinking skills.
Apparently just a kilogram of sugar mixed into a ton of concrete will destroy the ability of it to actually function correctly as concrete. But I learned this here on Lemmy and have not checked the veracity of it, so take it with a pinch (handful?) of salt.
It’s accurate or close to it… Some concrete truck drivers will keep bottles of coke to pour in there in emergencies where they need to make sure it doesn’t set inside the truck.
You figure the cement trucks will pull up to a sugar table so that protesters can add a few bags of sugar to each one? That seems unlikely. It also seems unlikely that anyone could get enough sugar deep enough into any structural element to cause any real damage.
It’s a controversial local issue and in my lifetime I’ve seen local opinion shift from strongly anti-University to now mostly in favor of development.
I credit this to the original activists dying of old age, combined with a younger generation that has never known the park as anything except a place where people overdose in tents.
People’s Park was a major local landmark with a long history that is well known to students, faculty, residents, and alumni. It had become a home to otherwise homeless people whose existence was inconvenient for the university’s expansion plans and an eyesore to arrogant passersby.
The park’s history includes both civil and violent disobedience, including against the university itself.
It would not be surprising to hear that, whatever is built on this lot, it is subsequently destroyed by an act of arson or other vandalism.
I am surprised they are taking the risk and making the investment at all. IMO it would have been safer to just buy some of the private properties surrounding the park instead, even at a premium.
A handful of Molotov’s at night once a week during construction can make it very expensive to build something.
Sugar will completely eliminate concrete’s ability to cure. A single pound of sugar can destroy an entire truck of wet cement.
Not that I’m advocating for it. But it’s laughably easy to sneak onto a site with a hardhat, safety boots and a vest, and sabotage active construction.
Now i know, I remembered the MythBusters episode where they bury two pigs in concrete, I think it’s the one with Jimmy Hoffa, that will definitely discourage anyone from living in the apartments.
Damn. I didn’t knew that so I did some quick research and found out, that mixing in 1% of sugar can completely stop the forming of concrete.
They’re going to molotov concrete and steel?
Cool.
Cool cool cool.
No, a construction site contains plenty other stuff than concrete and steel: tools, equipment, building materials, temporary buildings for the workers, cables and piping.
On top of that each time concrete gets fire damage, it gets weaker and may need to be replaced, at least core samples + weeks of analysis time + $$$ is needed to determine the damage.
And let’s say they eventually finish building the apartments, they may never stop smelling like a BBQ.
And then they need to hire 24/7 security, and maybe new workers because they don’t want to work in a DMZ.
How long would it take for the police to get involved and protect the site for free? Or do you think they would just ignore it? Does the law in USA say that if the victim of the crime is a company they have to hire private security and police is not involved?
This building is being developed by the university on university-owned land, so the university police would be in charge of protecting university property.
if there is a series of crimes in the area, police would increase patrols in the area.
Anything more than that would require hiring a private security company.
ground based security could easily be bypassed by a drone and with a remote igniter and a release latch.
Wow, I didn’t realize the police in US is so dysfunctional they don’t even investigate felonies anymore. It’s like the government already collapsed.
I never said they wouldnt investigate.
I was just explaining how they wouldnt become a private security force.
For free, probably never. The company can pay to have the police dedicate a force to sit there, but otherwise they’d at best send a patrol through the area a couple times a night.
Really? Police in US doesn’t actively investigate crimes any more? I remember from The Wire that they used observe places where they knew crime is likely to happen. Crazy that they stopped.
They will investigate and increase the presence of police activity, but that doesn’t mean they will protect the whole construction side.
Ya…ok…have fun with that.
Thanks, I did have fun coming up with ideas.
No problem. These childish collective fantasies are fun, aren’t they? Yup, they’re fun right up until a bullet rips through your chest when you’re trying to climb through the smashed out window of the barricaded doors to the Speaker’s Lobby or the FBI is kicking down your door three years later. It’s fun in your head when your enemies are incompetent boobs and everything goes your way. In reality you get arrested and/or injured/killed and the buildings get built anyway.
EDIT: 3 years later. Remeber right afterwards when they said that the FBI would lose interest and that there was no way they would arrest and try everyone. It seems to quaint, now.
EDIT 2: I went looking for a name for the childish collective fantasies but couldn’t find one. The best I could come up with is a naïve collective fantasy that grew in an epistemic bubble inside an echo bunker. No one bothered to ask “What then?” or, “What will the consequences be if things go wrong and we are caught and held accountable for our actions?” Ashli Babbit and the neo-fascist red hats never considered the, “What ifs” right up until the moment the bullet ripped through her chest. At that point they realized, “Holy fuck, they’re shooting at us.” Everyone else watching on TV expected that to happen on a slaughterous scale much earlier yet they were surprised that it happened to one of them. Someone was not using their critical thinking skills.
I like your analytical approach to this silly discussion 👍
I have Asperger’s. It’s what we do. Pure critical thinking.
Apparently just a kilogram of sugar mixed into a ton of concrete will destroy the ability of it to actually function correctly as concrete. But I learned this here on Lemmy and have not checked the veracity of it, so take it with a pinch (handful?) of salt.
It’s accurate or close to it… Some concrete truck drivers will keep bottles of coke to pour in there in emergencies where they need to make sure it doesn’t set inside the truck.
What happens to the spiked concrete? Can they add something else to counteract the sugar later?
I’m a sweets guys, so I’ll take it with a pinch of sugar, thanks.
From what I read you need about 1% of sugar to completely stop the process. Anything below will slow down the process, but it isn’t capable of stopping the process. If you’re interested in the Article here ya go(it’s in German) https://www.bft-international.com/de/artikel/bft_Einfluss_von_Saccharose_auf_den_Erhaertungsprozess_von_Zementsuspensionen-3720251.html
You figure the cement trucks will pull up to a sugar table so that protesters can add a few bags of sugar to each one? That seems unlikely. It also seems unlikely that anyone could get enough sugar deep enough into any structural element to cause any real damage.
No for the concrete you use sugar, and for the steel… I don’t know maybe jet fuel or something.
How do you figure they will get the sugar into the concrete?
I low-key wish I could put you and @deegeese@sopuli.xyz in a jar and shake it.
In the nicest way.
It’s a controversial local issue and in my lifetime I’ve seen local opinion shift from strongly anti-University to now mostly in favor of development.
I credit this to the original activists dying of old age, combined with a younger generation that has never known the park as anything except a place where people overdose in tents.
Haha, their take is pretty charged but it’s valid imo.
They’re building student and homeless housing on it and leaving half the park.
Oh, that’s probably going to mitigate some of the risk. Hey, maybe it’ll be enough!