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A comment on Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan.

Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by DanI-S on Tuesday November 30, 2010 @11:19PM (#1956790)
Whenever I go to a really old, really cool building, I think, “This building was built by men with chisels and hammers. How come the modern world, with all its power tools and advanced materials, can’t build such cool stuff?” The answer is “Banks won’t let you.”

That's a fantastic opening sentence if ever there was one.

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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by hugh3 on Tuesday November 30, 2010 @11:26PM (#1956808)
If you wanna build a really cool building out of stone, save up your money until you have enough to build it with cash. That's what the men who built those cool old buildings did.
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by Alex3917 on Tuesday November 30, 2010 @11:52PM (#1956855)
It also helps if you can wait until a period of enormous wealth inequality so that skilled labor is basically free.
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by jfb on Tuesday November 30, 2010 @11:57PM (#1956865)
Wait?
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by nikcub on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @05:02AM (#1957404)
Thats what Dubai and Abu Dhabi did.

Waited for the slave labour to arrive

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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by HeyLaughingBoy on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @12:01PM (#1958527)
I don't have data, but I suspect that labor costs these days are lower than they were back then due to a greater use of machinery. e.g., a foundation trench that would have taken a dozen men a week to dig with pickaxes, shovels and wheelbarrows can be done with one guy and a BobCat in a day.

Don't forget that technology offers massive leverage in construction.

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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by SkyMarshal on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @01:35AM (#1957084)
Give it a year or so, if the Govt and Fed can't stave off deflation anymore, will be perfect timing then.
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by DevX101 on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @12:18AM (#1956914)
If you're talking about centuries old buildings, wealth back then was usually accumulated by way of your family passing along wealth, your inclusion in the favored aristocratic class of the era, or through businesses built on slavery.
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by sliverstorm on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @12:29AM (#1956944)
I think they mostly depended on:

1) extremely cheap to free labor.

2) community effort. Everybody contributed to important buildings. Private homes would be built by the entire family, and possibly neighbors too.

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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by jonhendry on Tuesday November 30, 2010 @11:53PM (#1956860)
Or they announced a special sale on indulgences.
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by c1utch on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @12:24AM (#1956927)
Doesn't Groupon sell those now?
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by jonhendry on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @12:53AM (#1956990)
I saw some online during a Woot-off, between LED toenail clippers and the 'bag of crap'.
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by SkyMarshal on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @01:37AM (#1957088)
That was either one of the more hilarious comments I've read on HN, or I'm too drunk to know any better. Either way, have an upboat.
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by noonespecial on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @01:49AM (#1957108)
I looked into having a small stone wall built a few years ago. It would have cost more than my house.

I find it fascinating that after all the progress of the millennia, skillfully stacking stone is still one of the most costly things men can do.

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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by ahi on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @11:35AM (#1958411)
It gets more costly over time. There's not much that can be done to increase the efficiency of building a stone wall, except for prefab when it's possible. All other goods become cheaper to produce so the stone mason becomes more and more expensive in comparison. At least to some degree, the same principle applies to education and health care.

I find it fascinating that the result of this effect is that it's unlikely to be able to build a high quality brick house ever again. Most brick houses today are just wood frames with prefab brick cladding. The brick row house tenements of 1910 are now the million dollar condos of 2010.

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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by roel_v on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @03:25AM (#1957258)
Well except that it isn't true. As many have remarked, those things weren't funded in the past by banks, but by kings or similar autocratic rulers. Secondly, many people chipped in for free or almost free for religious reasons. Thirdly, ornate buildings are simply out of style, that's why they're not being build so often any more. Fourthly, any modern sky scraper is technologically much more advanced than those old ones (who just took a long time because of all the details), and in that sense I'd argue just as 'cool' as the old ones. And lastly, intricate ornate buildings are still being build, even if only few and between - e.g. the Sagrada Familia.
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by cobralibre on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @10:51AM (#1958225)
Whenever I go to a really old, really cool building, I think, "This building was built by men with chisels and hammers. How come the modern world, with all its power tools and advanced materials, can’t build such cool stuff?" The answer is "Banks won’t let you."

A bit of literary trivia: This is exactly the insight that lies behind one of Ezra Pound's most famous poems, "Canto XLV":

http://emsh.calarts.edu/alumni/bkeresey/

(Note that I don't intend to suggest any deeper comparison to Pound. For him, the idea was an insidious one, leading him on a dark path that would take him from Fascist Italy to a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane in Washington, D.C.)

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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by invisible on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @12:16AM (#1956910)
I immediately thought of this building I see frequently in Orlando: http://www.ferran-services.com/images/building_head.jpg
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Re:Big Nerd Ranch needs a loan by wallflower on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @12:25AM (#1956930)
Off-topic but 'The Affair of the Oaks' came to mind when you mentioned old school construction

http://web.archive.org/web/20031121174515/http://www.new.ox....

http://beebo.org/smackerels/new-college.html

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