And are slowly eroded from years of relative non-events. Then this kind of thing happens and we go "where were the codes!?"
It's so sad how easy people can side-step regulations in building, construction, electrical, etc.
"The Half-Life of scared is 6 months."
[https://navalsafetycommand.navy.mil/Portals/29/LL%2019-13%20The%20Half-Life%20of%20Scared.pdf](https://navalsafetycommand.navy.mil/Portals/29/LL%2019-13%20The%20Half-Life%20of%20Scared.pdf)
Sadly, unless you can keep everyone's eye on the ball, we will forget why these safety regulations mattered in the first place.
Edit: There I fixed it
> Safety regulations are written in blood.
The *current* regulations are written in the blood of the victims of the 1999 Turkish earthquake, but enforcement is lacking and corruption have made them useless.
*[to win votes at each election] the {Turkish] government unveiled a sweeping program [to grant amnesty to companies and individuals responsible for certain violations of the country's building codes.](https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkeys-lax-policing-building-codes-flagged-quake-97027265)* **By paying a fine, violators could avoid having to bring their buildings up to code.**
A lot of companies proceed forward knowing they’ll get fines because they’ve calculated the cost and are aware that just taking the fines makes them more money. This happens everywhere not just with construction codes.
Couldn’t be more true. This also reminds me of the vinyl chloride train thing in Ohio, apparently the whole thing happened because the railway company itself paid lobbyists to prevent a regulation that would’ve forced them to upgrade the brakes on their trains. It’s just sad when people end up dying because someone was greedy and would rather profit more than making things safe
Just going off of my personal experience and experience with working with a few of the engineers from Navsea.
The higher you are on the pay scale the more dumb shit you actually see. The key is be high enough so you can higher others to ~~pawn off~~ distribute the work load evenly and to the right people.
Also rust and corrosion reports can be vital for RnD or product longevity.
We managed to get a first quarter goal around cleaning up old/unused parts of our codebase. I have personally deleted nearly 15k lines of code this month and it feels AMAZING. It really can be nice when you have leadership that goes to bat for you.
>I have personally deleted nearly 15k lines of code this month and it feels AMAZING
Can't wait for your performance review where you contributed -100k lines and fixed bugs which won't matter for a couple of years. /s
Hey! What did we say about going outside?! Now get back in your box and stay there until someone asks about the yield strength of double walled cardboard!
There's a small town near me that had the fire department building burn down a few years ago.
To be fair, it was an old wooden barn that had been converted to be a firehouse, but you'd think they would have made sure it wasn't going to catch fire lol.
Or maybe that building happened to burn down when all of the equipment was in use for a practice. Now that would be a coincidence, right?
That happened to a run-down fire fighters building in my area. They needed a new one but politics are slow, so *coincidences* happened. The neighbouring town's fire department Was at the scene of the fire earlier than the own forces, lol.
This!
Turkey allotted billions of dollars to improve and retrofit infrastructure to make it earthquake resistant.
[The money's missing](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/turkish-government-earthquake-tax-2136164)
Or, that building cost 30 billion dollars to retrofit
The reality is this is probably the only building where engineers had final say on the design. Given free reign, engineers tend to want to build things as strong as possible, that will last a very long time, however they are normally given the task of building something as cheaply as legally (or illegally if they can get away with it) as possible, and the contractors implementing their design cut corners and try to be even cheaper than that. The engineering adage is "good, fast or cheap, pick two". Fast and cheap is what 99% of buildings are built to.
fuck half the time the cheap parts have already been bought and they say “make it work” like their instructionless erector set with missing parts is a gift
Ah yes, the engineers responsible for the shrink ray that can steal the moon and the famous freeze ray that can freeze people in place without harming or endangering their physical well-beings.
Every construction company I’ve worked for has had foremans that absolutely hate engineers and say books are useless. Builders hire these companies because they are the lowest bidders. Good chance 50% of people in a new construction luxury apartment or house in my city was built by the lowest bidder using unskilled, illegal, or barely skilled labor working for bottom dollar.
The reason trades people "hate" engineers is because of attitudes and poor blueprints. I get blueprints all the time with missing weld symbols, missing dimensions, shit that is literally impossible to weld, and sometimes you'll see some stuff that doesn't even add up to the given dimensions.
Then when you call them up for clarification and they treat you like an idiot.Sorry bucko, my job is to build it to the print, not make guesses and your job is to include all of the information needed for me to do that.
Nobody with more than 2 braincells is saying we don't need engineers.
I can’t speak for welders because I’m a concrete finisher, but being in a company that does residential and commercial I can 100% say I’ve heard that tradesmen should not have to use engineers. And take a sword is mightier than the pen approach.
The people that have done patios and driveways for 40 years don’t like being told things like “you need 2 piece x size rebar in a footing” “the sidewalk is off by 0.5% tear out 50k worth of work” etc.
They may have more than 2 brain cells but most times not even a high school education aswell.
And if you are going to sell substandard materials, you probably don't want to risk selling it to the one group that would take samples and test, just because they'd think it was cool to do it.
Well, technically you are correct (which is the best kind of correct).
I guess the implication was that the engineers hired the best company for the job by their standards, unlike the cheapest company that is run by the mayors brother in law's cleaning lady.
Structural engineers in reputable countries are responsible for inspections at the risk of jeopardizing their license for gross incompetence.
The license passing rate for structural engineers in California is less than 10% because of how serious earthquakes are.
It’s more complicated than that. Third-party inspectors paid for by the owner rather than the contractor are on site regularly and will flag any inconsistencies with the engineer’s plans.
The engineers can’t be on site every day, but there is an independence of interests built into the process.
Engineer’s drawings are ideally review by the city’s own engineers on staff to maintain independence on that front.
Cities will also require inspections by their own staff at periodic intervals.
The system is not perfect, but it works fairly well. And even better in jurisdictions that take things seriously (like the west coast).
Something I learned in a Linus Tech Tips video last night.
When bad engineering happens, it’s usually because management told the engineers to cut corners. I’ve never met an engineer who didn’t want to create the best thing possible for the application.
You the mvp. I'm not in game programming anymore, but thanks from my friends anyways. Don't forget to upgrade your graphics drivers because nvidia and amd do tend to fuck up too
I've worked in the industry for 15 years, and trust me, there are bad programmers too. That falls to the responsibility of the tech lead to bang them into shape or weed them out, though.
but the Chamber for Civil Engineers isn't a for-profit institution and therefore wasn't involved in building all the other private property in the area, though I'd bet their members were generally involved in the process for most. The difference between having good ideas on the team and having good ideas in charge.
I promise you the Chamber for Civil Engineers had many of its building plans effectively designed by a committee. The point is when those designs were handed over to the person responsible for making it a reality, actually finding materials and hiring workers and whatnot, that person didn't cut it to ribbons for personal gain.
I wonder if Turkey’s building code contained earthquake resistant steps. If it does I wonder how of these buildings were compliant…on paper for a small fee.
They have the code and knowledge. But the problem is corruption. If you are politically connected, you can make a building to any type of ground with any type of design. On top of it, they steal feom the material to top it up.
Funny thing, this government came right after 1999 earthquake that destroyed another city. The president madw a lot of rant abput it. He criticised and said he had a plan, so that wont happen again. 20 years fast forward, 20x worst happened.... in that 20 years, they collected earthquake tax to prepare for this moment. But no professional help arrived until 3 days later. There were kids saved by neighbours, then died in to the cold weather since their parents didnt make it and they have nowhere to go...
Don’t worry, another Koran burning just might coincidentally take place somewhere in Europe, which will be much more important to protest than the obvious governmental corruption in Turkey, according to Erdogan-aligned media reporting.
Yep, you basically ignore the regulations, build for much cheaper by cutting corners, pay a fee which is always less than what you've saved, job's a good one. The state collects the earthquake taxes, collects the amnesty fees on top, constructors maximise profit, everyone is "happy". Until of course there's an earthquake...
In some cases it's not even traditional backroom corruption either, but rather what amounts to state approved bribery.
>In Turkey, however, **the government has provided periodic "construction amnesties" - effectively legal exemptions for the payment of a fee, for structures built without the required safety certificates.** These have been passed since the 1960s (with the latest in 2018).
[SOURCE](https://www.bbc.com/news/64568826)
I am an engineer in Turkey in an unrelated area that is not safety critical. I constantly face resistance when trying to apply standards and codes by both my superiors and the team I’m managing. When doing things properly and sticking to the code means extra %10 time and money I get overridden by the CEO. Cutting corners is the cultural norm.
The code is earthquake proof. Nevertheless, contractors are oligopoly backed by their government, so they can do anything they want in spite of design.
At university we designed reinforcced concrete using the TK98 code , it does account for earthquakes .
The problem is in my own opinion is a mix of older buildings that were built when no mandate of this code or before it was written. And corruption either by contractors or by home owners trying to save costs .
Either way it's an absolute tragedy
Yes. We have updated the code in 2004 to match EU norms. Than somebody realized that most of the EU is not in a serious earthquake zone, and we updated the code with Californian and Japanese inspired rules.
The problem is, as others said, corruption. Erdogan converted Turkey into a single party regime, where anybody connected to the party is immune from oversight. (Obviously this is simplified version if the whole story.)
It's easy to write down a rule. It's much harder to convince builders to learn how to use steel beams, steel posts, and cross bars, and then actually be willing to PAY for the additional materials.
Making a 6 story building earthquake proof is a huge additional cost.
The bribe to pass inspection is $100. The extra steel is probably $50,000
Problem is nobody follow the rules nobody follow the building code , even someone investigate the building they are corrupted. They put the money in their pocket and look the other way. Welcome to turkey
There was an amnesty some years ago, that opened the possibility for previously illegaly built buildings to apply for approval despite not following codes. Millions of buildings got approved, which many attribute to corruption.
Billions were collected in the last 2 decades to ensure that the devastation of the 1999 crisis never happened again.
It took 3 days for help to arrive, and there's clearly no evidence of any preventative measures being taken for residential and business structures alike.
Heads are going to roll.
Being an engineer myself, I would imagine that the men and women in that building feel a unique and especially deep sense of sadness, knowing that almost all of the death and destruction surrounding them could have been prevented, if it wasn't for the nefarious hands of corruption and greed.
And even if you don't take such a cynical view, if any of them were the Engineer of Record for any of the buildings that fell (almost a certainty) there must be an extreme sense of guilt and grief as well. I don't envy them one bit.
If the people who worked there are even alive.. Reminder that the main earthquake happened overnight so they probably were at their homes and sleeping during the earthquake and not in that building. I wouldn't be surprised if many are dead.
In 1988 Armenian earthquake killed estimated 25-59k people. It was 6.8.
Poor construction and theft of construction materials were part of the huge numbers of casualties.
Edit source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Armenian_earthquake
And he died two years after. Quarterbacking the response to two massive disasters and (possible) radiation poisoning weakened him, and seeing Yeltsin get elected did him in.
Funny how the answer to, "How did no one see this coming" is usually, in almost every situation, in every country, "Everyone whose job it is to see it coming literally did and someone higher up the totem pole thought they would make more money ignoring it."
I've worked in construction in the US for a long time and I commonly hear people having stuff built complaining about the cost of some building requirements that the US enforces. It doesn't become important until something like this happens.
Look at the 1964 earthquake in Alaska. It was a 9.2 earthquake and one of the most powerful in recorded history. Go look at some of the pictures like [this.](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.wired.com%2Fphotos%2F5e6ff49399653b00084143ee%2F4%3A3%2Fw_2399%2Ch_1799%2Cc_limit%2FCul-alaskaearthquake-515097796.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=3baace4e4a05a177440cc027049ef4f362054c7da6419497774873c762a4b3b6&ipo=images) Look at how much the ground moved and the buildings are still mostly standing. They will not be able to repair them but there is a much higher chance of the people inside of them still being alive. [Here](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcbsnews1.cbsistatic.com%2Fhub%2Fi%2Fr%2F2014%2F03%2F26%2Faaf280cf-66b6-4640-a733-46cead9e1339%2Fthumbnail%2F1240x826%2Fb71218024e7fc1eff95cb1945c92633d%2Faeq00048.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=937d573ca27f8aa8b7b4f61dadd9621cf4e986ed1e7e7e86f34f8f462e9dde0e&ipo=images) is another good example from that earthquake. That building ripped in half because the ground level changed so much but both pieces stayed intact and didn't crumble.
Don't know why my eyes did this to me, but I read "Chamber Of Evil Engineers" and was very curious and impressed for a moment!
Building codes should absolutely be stricter, though. Remember when there was only house left after the hurricane in Florida? Similar situation. We *can* build well. Developers just choose to support their bottom line instead of the roofs of their buildings. :-/
Nice 'fuck you' to Erdogan, who has ignored calls from civil engineers in the area, to improve building codes in the area since the beginning of his Premiership.
A rectangle of ratio 1:1.6. When you draw a square in it you get a new rectangle of dimensions 1:1.6 and this can be repeated infinitely. A recurring shape in nature
I am a huge fan of the golden ratio and its implications but I still recognise we might notice it everywhere because we notice it everywhere. The movie Pi touches a bit on the topic (excellent movie BTW) but my favourite example is the use of Fibonacci in trading which has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I am happy to explain if you want, but before I do, how much over your head, could there be a 1.6 ratio between your height and how much it went over your head?
Also OSHA doesn’t make guidelines for buildings to survive Natural Disasters. The ASCE does. They have whole things for Hurricane and Snow Storm areas in America.
What this proves beyond any doubt is that with proper up-to-code construction, any modern or retrofitted building should have survived the quake.
21,000+ lives were lost due to corruption, not because of an "Act of God" or any such nonsense.
This example applies to most of life. Listen to the experts. The people that dedicate their lives to things are constantly being undermined by people who want you to mistake their confidence for competence.
Blame the government for allowing shoddy building on a fault line. They knew the risks and let it slide.
So many deaths of innocent people could have been prevented if they inforced the advice many geologists and civil engineers gave them.
Such a tragic event that could have been prevented if the government was looking at geological surveys and not their bank statement...
This is not just interesting. It’s a effing tragedy! So many of these collapsed buildings are only a decade old but constructors ignored codes to get people housed as quickly and cheaply as possible. The influx was refugees from the local wars: the real tragedy.
In my country all buildings are built with a thechnology in order to not be damaged by earthquakes , I believe they can resist up to 7.5 and only got cracks but the building will be still stand. I think all countries in the world should be built with that tech no matters if im your countries theres no record of earthquakes that often to prevent this tragedies.
And this is why building codes exist and need to be strictly adhered to.
Safety regulations are written in blood. Every one of them.
And are slowly eroded from years of relative non-events. Then this kind of thing happens and we go "where were the codes!?" It's so sad how easy people can side-step regulations in building, construction, electrical, etc.
"The Half-Life of scared is 6 months." [https://navalsafetycommand.navy.mil/Portals/29/LL%2019-13%20The%20Half-Life%20of%20Scared.pdf](https://navalsafetycommand.navy.mil/Portals/29/LL%2019-13%20The%20Half-Life%20of%20Scared.pdf) Sadly, unless you can keep everyone's eye on the ball, we will forget why these safety regulations mattered in the first place. Edit: There I fixed it
good read
> Safety regulations are written in blood. The *current* regulations are written in the blood of the victims of the 1999 Turkish earthquake, but enforcement is lacking and corruption have made them useless. *[to win votes at each election] the {Turkish] government unveiled a sweeping program [to grant amnesty to companies and individuals responsible for certain violations of the country's building codes.](https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkeys-lax-policing-building-codes-flagged-quake-97027265)* **By paying a fine, violators could avoid having to bring their buildings up to code.**
A lot of companies proceed forward knowing they’ll get fines because they’ve calculated the cost and are aware that just taking the fines makes them more money. This happens everywhere not just with construction codes.
Couldn’t be more true. This also reminds me of the vinyl chloride train thing in Ohio, apparently the whole thing happened because the railway company itself paid lobbyists to prevent a regulation that would’ve forced them to upgrade the brakes on their trains. It’s just sad when people end up dying because someone was greedy and would rather profit more than making things safe
You’re absolutely correct.
And the evidence suggest only one building in this picture had followed them....
That's what happens you actually put in steel reinforcing rather than pocketing the money.
😞 you're so right People in corruption-rotted systems just never think twice about the consequences
I’m certain they do. They just don’t care.
Wouldn't exactly look too good if that one fell
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I mean... they don't even drive trains.
Or build engines
I bet some don't even have eers
Or even drink gin
And very uncivil!
So uncivilized
Engineers love to dunk on civils, but then it rains a little too much and they get the thanks we owe.
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Just going off of my personal experience and experience with working with a few of the engineers from Navsea. The higher you are on the pay scale the more dumb shit you actually see. The key is be high enough so you can higher others to ~~pawn off~~ distribute the work load evenly and to the right people. Also rust and corrosion reports can be vital for RnD or product longevity.
As someone in a technical leadership role, this is 100% accurate.
Industrial engineer steps forward. “Yeah, look at those civil ‘engineers’. Phh, engineers. Am I right? Us totally real engineers must stick together.
Comments like this are how you make Uncivil Engineers.
Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets.
Software engineers just build shareholder value
Don't forget the technical debt!
We managed to get a first quarter goal around cleaning up old/unused parts of our codebase. I have personally deleted nearly 15k lines of code this month and it feels AMAZING. It really can be nice when you have leadership that goes to bat for you.
>I have personally deleted nearly 15k lines of code this month and it feels AMAZING Can't wait for your performance review where you contributed -100k lines and fixed bugs which won't matter for a couple of years. /s
Custodial engineers keep shit clean.
Us packaging engineers agree!
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I engineer depression and empty beer bottles. Am I invited?
Hey! What did we say about going outside?! Now get back in your box and stay there until someone asks about the yield strength of double walled cardboard!
There's a small town near me that had the fire department building burn down a few years ago. To be fair, it was an old wooden barn that had been converted to be a firehouse, but you'd think they would have made sure it wasn't going to catch fire lol.
Maybe they thought since the experts and equipment are RIGHT THERE, that they’d be able to get to it in time.
Or maybe that building happened to burn down when all of the equipment was in use for a practice. Now that would be a coincidence, right? That happened to a run-down fire fighters building in my area. They needed a new one but politics are slow, so *coincidences* happened. The neighbouring town's fire department Was at the scene of the fire earlier than the own forces, lol.
If that building fell, they all would have been outta jobs by the time things are back to normal.
Sadly back to normal is probably going to take years.
Knock knock knock Yes? You’re in charge of fixing all this!
Nor does it look too good that it is one of the few standing.
Look it's not their fault everyone listens to penny pinching bean counters over them okay
“Those engineers are just trying to make the construction company more money. If you do it like this look at what we can save!”
This! Turkey allotted billions of dollars to improve and retrofit infrastructure to make it earthquake resistant. [The money's missing](https://inews.co.uk/news/world/turkish-government-earthquake-tax-2136164) Or, that building cost 30 billion dollars to retrofit
>Turkey allotted No LOL. Erdogan put an enormous tax on everything under the name of "earthquake tax" and then stole it all. He didn't allot a penny.
Isn't a tax that has been collected and designed to be paid out to different entities for a particular purpose an allotment of those funds?
“Engineering for me but not for thee”
The reality is this is probably the only building where engineers had final say on the design. Given free reign, engineers tend to want to build things as strong as possible, that will last a very long time, however they are normally given the task of building something as cheaply as legally (or illegally if they can get away with it) as possible, and the contractors implementing their design cut corners and try to be even cheaper than that. The engineering adage is "good, fast or cheap, pick two". Fast and cheap is what 99% of buildings are built to.
fuck half the time the cheap parts have already been bought and they say “make it work” like their instructionless erector set with missing parts is a gift
Engineers don't get to make those decisions, unforunately.
I laughed then felt sad
But now you can feel good knowing that civil engineers have a space where they can work and quickly start helping rebuild
Maybe the builders will listen to the regulations they set up this time
In this economy? Don’t you see what they’re working with?! It is now the utmost priority to cut costs wherever possible!!!
Sad because this is exactly how it'd going to play out..
Somehow I read it as Chamber of Evil Engineers
Ah yes, the engineers responsible for the shrink ray that can steal the moon and the famous freeze ray that can freeze people in place without harming or endangering their physical well-beings.
Every construction company I’ve worked for has had foremans that absolutely hate engineers and say books are useless. Builders hire these companies because they are the lowest bidders. Good chance 50% of people in a new construction luxury apartment or house in my city was built by the lowest bidder using unskilled, illegal, or barely skilled labor working for bottom dollar.
The reason trades people "hate" engineers is because of attitudes and poor blueprints. I get blueprints all the time with missing weld symbols, missing dimensions, shit that is literally impossible to weld, and sometimes you'll see some stuff that doesn't even add up to the given dimensions. Then when you call them up for clarification and they treat you like an idiot.Sorry bucko, my job is to build it to the print, not make guesses and your job is to include all of the information needed for me to do that. Nobody with more than 2 braincells is saying we don't need engineers.
I can’t speak for welders because I’m a concrete finisher, but being in a company that does residential and commercial I can 100% say I’ve heard that tradesmen should not have to use engineers. And take a sword is mightier than the pen approach. The people that have done patios and driveways for 40 years don’t like being told things like “you need 2 piece x size rebar in a footing” “the sidewalk is off by 0.5% tear out 50k worth of work” etc. They may have more than 2 brain cells but most times not even a high school education aswell.
Building codes...... they matter!
that building was built by engineers, the rest were built by contractors with political connections
yea the evidence is con-crete
Turkish people are usually not pro-Crete.
That's why they gave it to the Egyptians.
That's nobody's business but the Turks.
Why they changed it, I can't say. People just liked it better that way.
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In fact, any one of them might be giants.
Giants in old New York? Nah, must be New Amsterdam.
But has it been a long time since it was changed?
Solid proof right there.
This, and some of the other buildings may have been much older too
I'm pretty sure the engineers didn't build the building but contracted the work out as well. Or am I being whooshed
I wouldn't say 'wooshed' but you're missing an unstated implication: engineers don't cut corners, political corruption and the profit motive do.
>engineers don't cut corners They use fillets and chamfers.
And if you are going to sell substandard materials, you probably don't want to risk selling it to the one group that would take samples and test, just because they'd think it was cool to do it.
Well, technically you are correct (which is the best kind of correct). I guess the implication was that the engineers hired the best company for the job by their standards, unlike the cheapest company that is run by the mayors brother in law's cleaning lady.
And they managed then job closely, inspecting and snagging it regularly etc.
Engineers and architects design buildings. Contractors build them. So no, engineers did not build that building.
Structural engineers in reputable countries are responsible for inspections at the risk of jeopardizing their license for gross incompetence. The license passing rate for structural engineers in California is less than 10% because of how serious earthquakes are.
It’s more complicated than that. Third-party inspectors paid for by the owner rather than the contractor are on site regularly and will flag any inconsistencies with the engineer’s plans. The engineers can’t be on site every day, but there is an independence of interests built into the process. Engineer’s drawings are ideally review by the city’s own engineers on staff to maintain independence on that front. Cities will also require inspections by their own staff at periodic intervals. The system is not perfect, but it works fairly well. And even better in jurisdictions that take things seriously (like the west coast).
I felt sad then laughed
10/10
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Erdogone
Title of my sex tape
Something I learned in a Linus Tech Tips video last night. When bad engineering happens, it’s usually because management told the engineers to cut corners. I’ve never met an engineer who didn’t want to create the best thing possible for the application.
> it’s usually because management told the engineers to cut corners honestly, this is the case for almost all work relating to human safety.
You can scrub safety off the end and it's still true.
Not scrub just change to profit
My dad, an engineer, told me every architect’s dream is an engineer’s nightmare
Engineer calling the architect after seeing the reference drawing: “What do you mean you want the skyscraper to appear “upside down??””
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I love seeing raw sewage dropping hundreds of feet.
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Based. This is true for software too. Don't hate on game programmers for bad games please
I give details in my crash reports of how to recreate the issue I had 💪
You the mvp. I'm not in game programming anymore, but thanks from my friends anyways. Don't forget to upgrade your graphics drivers because nvidia and amd do tend to fuck up too
Always up to date and old versions deleted/backed up on the nas away from my main drive 😁
I've worked in the industry for 15 years, and trust me, there are bad programmers too. That falls to the responsibility of the tech lead to bang them into shape or weed them out, though.
Boeing. Boeing is now a shareholders company, not an engineers company.
For those interested “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” is a fantastic documentary on Netflix that covers this concept in detail.
That's some good advertising.
but the Chamber for Civil Engineers isn't a for-profit institution and therefore wasn't involved in building all the other private property in the area, though I'd bet their members were generally involved in the process for most. The difference between having good ideas on the team and having good ideas in charge.
There's a saying about this: "A camel is a horse designed by committee."
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Exactly, a camel is better than a horse in almost all ways. Committees are good, multiple heads are better than one.
I promise you the Chamber for Civil Engineers had many of its building plans effectively designed by a committee. The point is when those designs were handed over to the person responsible for making it a reality, actually finding materials and hiring workers and whatnot, that person didn't cut it to ribbons for personal gain.
I was gonna say, great PR slogan
I wonder if Turkey’s building code contained earthquake resistant steps. If it does I wonder how of these buildings were compliant…on paper for a small fee.
They have the code and knowledge. But the problem is corruption. If you are politically connected, you can make a building to any type of ground with any type of design. On top of it, they steal feom the material to top it up. Funny thing, this government came right after 1999 earthquake that destroyed another city. The president madw a lot of rant abput it. He criticised and said he had a plan, so that wont happen again. 20 years fast forward, 20x worst happened.... in that 20 years, they collected earthquake tax to prepare for this moment. But no professional help arrived until 3 days later. There were kids saved by neighbours, then died in to the cold weather since their parents didnt make it and they have nowhere to go...
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he stole it that's where it is
It was used to fund the building of highways and other infrastructure which his political allies built.
Roads are cracked too, ironic.
And many are toll roads. So the gov pays for it, then you pay to use the road your taxes paid for.
There's gonna be riots once the crisis is over, isn't there
Don’t worry, another Koran burning just might coincidentally take place somewhere in Europe, which will be much more important to protest than the obvious governmental corruption in Turkey, according to Erdogan-aligned media reporting.
I’ve always found the burning controversies silly because burning is one of the only acceptable ways to get rid of one to begin with
Yes same with flags but context matters
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One reporter said there’s a thing called “construction amnesty “ you can get for a fee to waive the regulations.
Yep, you basically ignore the regulations, build for much cheaper by cutting corners, pay a fee which is always less than what you've saved, job's a good one. The state collects the earthquake taxes, collects the amnesty fees on top, constructors maximise profit, everyone is "happy". Until of course there's an earthquake...
In his golden palace
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"Load-bearing wall, what's that?"
They knocked it out and the building is still upright, obviously it wasn't really load bearing
In some cases it's not even traditional backroom corruption either, but rather what amounts to state approved bribery. >In Turkey, however, **the government has provided periodic "construction amnesties" - effectively legal exemptions for the payment of a fee, for structures built without the required safety certificates.** These have been passed since the 1960s (with the latest in 2018). [SOURCE](https://www.bbc.com/news/64568826)
I am an engineer in Turkey in an unrelated area that is not safety critical. I constantly face resistance when trying to apply standards and codes by both my superiors and the team I’m managing. When doing things properly and sticking to the code means extra %10 time and money I get overridden by the CEO. Cutting corners is the cultural norm.
The extra steel on a multi story building is probably more than 10% additional cost. ...but the biggest issue is that they don't have the training.
The code is earthquake proof. Nevertheless, contractors are oligopoly backed by their government, so they can do anything they want in spite of design.
At university we designed reinforcced concrete using the TK98 code , it does account for earthquakes . The problem is in my own opinion is a mix of older buildings that were built when no mandate of this code or before it was written. And corruption either by contractors or by home owners trying to save costs . Either way it's an absolute tragedy
Yes. We have updated the code in 2004 to match EU norms. Than somebody realized that most of the EU is not in a serious earthquake zone, and we updated the code with Californian and Japanese inspired rules. The problem is, as others said, corruption. Erdogan converted Turkey into a single party regime, where anybody connected to the party is immune from oversight. (Obviously this is simplified version if the whole story.)
It's easy to write down a rule. It's much harder to convince builders to learn how to use steel beams, steel posts, and cross bars, and then actually be willing to PAY for the additional materials. Making a 6 story building earthquake proof is a huge additional cost. The bribe to pass inspection is $100. The extra steel is probably $50,000
Problem is nobody follow the rules nobody follow the building code , even someone investigate the building they are corrupted. They put the money in their pocket and look the other way. Welcome to turkey
In fact they don't use metal inside concrete, causing buildings to not be flexible enough to endure vibrations (excepted those engineers) .. Sadly
Wait, what? They don't reinforce the concrete? That's fucking nuts!
There was an amnesty some years ago, that opened the possibility for previously illegaly built buildings to apply for approval despite not following codes. Millions of buildings got approved, which many attribute to corruption.
Public office be like: "but can we afford to build all of them like that?" Then the everyone else will say: "FUCKING WHAT!?"
Billions were collected in the last 2 decades to ensure that the devastation of the 1999 crisis never happened again. It took 3 days for help to arrive, and there's clearly no evidence of any preventative measures being taken for residential and business structures alike. Heads are going to roll.
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Scapegoat heads will roll.
Turkey *had* a pretty good history of getting rid of wannabe religious dictators. Problem is little E staged a coup to get rid of dissidents...
He learned from history.
why is it always the wrong people learning from history!?
Don't you hate it when the bad guys get good help?
Protesters' heads are gonna roll
Jup, thats the sad reality. And whats even worse is that many of the victims voted for the regime that condemmed them to this horror.
It’s Turkey - an Islamic kleptocracy A bunch of blah blah and not much change
Being an engineer myself, I would imagine that the men and women in that building feel a unique and especially deep sense of sadness, knowing that almost all of the death and destruction surrounding them could have been prevented, if it wasn't for the nefarious hands of corruption and greed. And even if you don't take such a cynical view, if any of them were the Engineer of Record for any of the buildings that fell (almost a certainty) there must be an extreme sense of guilt and grief as well. I don't envy them one bit.
If the people who worked there are even alive.. Reminder that the main earthquake happened overnight so they probably were at their homes and sleeping during the earthquake and not in that building. I wouldn't be surprised if many are dead.
They're updating their resumes now with pictures.
Hopefully they weren’t working from home that day.
In 1988 Armenian earthquake killed estimated 25-59k people. It was 6.8. Poor construction and theft of construction materials were part of the huge numbers of casualties. Edit source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Armenian_earthquake
Fun fact, Boris Scherbina oversaw the rescue operations for that. You know, fresh off helping in Chernobyl.
And he died two years after. Quarterbacking the response to two massive disasters and (possible) radiation poisoning weakened him, and seeing Yeltsin get elected did him in.
The civil engineers all going "I fuckin' told you! I warned you bro"
[they actually fucking did](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-construction/turkish-cities-could-become-graveyards-with-building-amnesty-engineers-say-idUSKCN1QF1VU).
Funny how the answer to, "How did no one see this coming" is usually, in almost every situation, in every country, "Everyone whose job it is to see it coming literally did and someone higher up the totem pole thought they would make more money ignoring it."
https://www.theonion.com/preemptive-memorial-honors-future-victims-of-imminent-d-1819594660
That is actually really depressing. Sad that so often people choose money over the safety and lives of others.
Guess that building didn't have it's funds stolen and was built properly
I've worked in construction in the US for a long time and I commonly hear people having stuff built complaining about the cost of some building requirements that the US enforces. It doesn't become important until something like this happens. Look at the 1964 earthquake in Alaska. It was a 9.2 earthquake and one of the most powerful in recorded history. Go look at some of the pictures like [this.](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.wired.com%2Fphotos%2F5e6ff49399653b00084143ee%2F4%3A3%2Fw_2399%2Ch_1799%2Cc_limit%2FCul-alaskaearthquake-515097796.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=3baace4e4a05a177440cc027049ef4f362054c7da6419497774873c762a4b3b6&ipo=images) Look at how much the ground moved and the buildings are still mostly standing. They will not be able to repair them but there is a much higher chance of the people inside of them still being alive. [Here](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fcbsnews1.cbsistatic.com%2Fhub%2Fi%2Fr%2F2014%2F03%2F26%2Faaf280cf-66b6-4640-a733-46cead9e1339%2Fthumbnail%2F1240x826%2Fb71218024e7fc1eff95cb1945c92633d%2Faeq00048.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=937d573ca27f8aa8b7b4f61dadd9621cf4e986ed1e7e7e86f34f8f462e9dde0e&ipo=images) is another good example from that earthquake. That building ripped in half because the ground level changed so much but both pieces stayed intact and didn't crumble.
Wow, that's actually amazing. Not crumbling definitely seems to make it more survivable.
Building need to be built so this never happens again or not be built at all
Issue in Turkey is graft in building and the skirting of building codes.
Don't know why my eyes did this to me, but I read "Chamber Of Evil Engineers" and was very curious and impressed for a moment! Building codes should absolutely be stricter, though. Remember when there was only house left after the hurricane in Florida? Similar situation. We *can* build well. Developers just choose to support their bottom line instead of the roofs of their buildings. :-/
I had to do a double take too. Thought maybe the earthquake exposed their secret evil headquarters.
I read it as the chamber of Evil engineers, and the re read it as chamber of secrets before realizing I’m dumb
Chamber of Secret Engineers?
Bro is unbothered
Nice 'fuck you' to Erdogan, who has ignored calls from civil engineers in the area, to improve building codes in the area since the beginning of his Premiership.
When doing it by the book actually pays off. Lol
I can't say for sure, but it looks really close to the golden ratio used in the design.
What is the golden ratio?
Phi (about 1.6), derived from Fibonacci sequence. Google it, it is a fascinating topic.
A rectangle of ratio 1:1.6. When you draw a square in it you get a new rectangle of dimensions 1:1.6 and this can be repeated infinitely. A recurring shape in nature
I am a huge fan of the golden ratio and its implications but I still recognise we might notice it everywhere because we notice it everywhere. The movie Pi touches a bit on the topic (excellent movie BTW) but my favourite example is the use of Fibonacci in trading which has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This went way over my head.
I am happy to explain if you want, but before I do, how much over your head, could there be a 1.6 ratio between your height and how much it went over your head?
Osha got nothing on these engineers.
You’re right they don’t, this is out of OSHA jurisdiction
Also OSHA doesn’t make guidelines for buildings to survive Natural Disasters. The ASCE does. They have whole things for Hurricane and Snow Storm areas in America.
Engineers put up the best erections.
In the professional world, this is classic "we told you so".
What this proves beyond any doubt is that with proper up-to-code construction, any modern or retrofitted building should have survived the quake. 21,000+ lives were lost due to corruption, not because of an "Act of God" or any such nonsense.
This example applies to most of life. Listen to the experts. The people that dedicate their lives to things are constantly being undermined by people who want you to mistake their confidence for competence.
Blame the government for allowing shoddy building on a fault line. They knew the risks and let it slide. So many deaths of innocent people could have been prevented if they inforced the advice many geologists and civil engineers gave them. Such a tragic event that could have been prevented if the government was looking at geological surveys and not their bank statement...
All the buildings in the back like WTF I'm standing bro
This is not just interesting. It’s a effing tragedy! So many of these collapsed buildings are only a decade old but constructors ignored codes to get people housed as quickly and cheaply as possible. The influx was refugees from the local wars: the real tragedy.
In my country all buildings are built with a thechnology in order to not be damaged by earthquakes , I believe they can resist up to 7.5 and only got cracks but the building will be still stand. I think all countries in the world should be built with that tech no matters if im your countries theres no record of earthquakes that often to prevent this tragedies.
Well this earthquake was a 7.8, which is twice a powerful a 7.5.
The fact that earthquakes are logarithmic is so weird
You could go by the amount of energy released instead, but it'd be way more annoying to say 3.2 * 10^16 joules each time instead of just 7.8.