I have a very easy and straightforward job. It involves making sure that pedestrians and drivers do not find themselves in the way of construction equipment and vehicles. As I said, pretty straightforward, and low-paying, for good reason (partially, because it's not that difficult. Let's be honest.)
My favourite thing about my current line of work is to see all the 'ordinary miracles' (as an industrialist-version of Sarah McGlachlan might say... I'm probably spelling her name wrong...) of which other members of my species are capable. Yesterday, I had a 12 hour shift scheduled at The Republic of Yonge & Eglinton, one of Tridel's latest high-rise residence projects here in Toronto. All of my shifts, thus far, have been at the Republic of Yonge & Eglinton, so that part ain't all that special (though I still think the towers themselves are quite beautiful), what was special was the crane-dismantling/pizza party that occurred! I wanted to share with you some of the pictures I took with my camera phone. Now, bear in mind, this boom truck is only 600 tonnes (with counterweights) one of the engineers working for Mammoet (the boom operator) tells me that their engineers have prototyped a 'crawler' which is a 1900 tonne boom truck, whose hydraulic leg supports are actually mobile! That's right, someone has invented a 1900-tonne arm that walks!
These pictures are not of the crawler (as I said, it's only been prototyped), and these towers are only 27 storeys, so you wouldn't even need a boom that large.
Anyways, this blog post was mostly an attempt to generate some discussion on people's favourite feats of engineering. What are yours? Feel free to post some pictures or video!
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I have a very easy and straightforward job. It involves making sure that pedestrians and drivers do not find themselves in the way of construction equipment and vehicles. As I said, pretty straightforward, and low-paying, for good reason (partially, because it's not that difficult. Let's be honest.)
My favourite thing about my current line of work is to see all the 'ordinary miracles' (as an industrialist-version of Sarah McGlachlan might say... I'm probably spelling her name wrong...) of which other members of my species are capable. Yesterday, I had a 12 hour shift scheduled at The Republic of Yonge & Eglinton, one of Tridel's latest high-rise residence projects here in Toronto. All of my shifts, thus far, have been at the Republic of Yonge & Eglinton, so that part ain't all that special (though I still think the towers themselves are quite beautiful), what was special was the crane-dismantling/pizza party that occurred! I wanted to share with you some of the pictures I took with my camera phone. Now, bear in mind, this boom truck is only 600 tonnes (with counterweights) one of the engineers working for Mammoet (the boom operator) tells me that their engineers have prototyped a 'crawler' which is a 1900 tonne boom truck, whose hydraulic leg supports are actually mobile! That's right, someone has invented a 1900-tonne arm that walks!
These pictures are not of the crawler (as I said, it's only been prototyped), and these towers are only 27 storeys, so you wouldn't even need a boom that large.
Anyways, this blog post was mostly an attempt to generate some discussion on people's favourite feats of engineering. What are yours? Feel free to post some pictures or video!
Arg, I got vertigo just looking at these pictures! It's awesome, but gosh darn it, I get dizzy looking at these things. I'll try and find the architecture I love, but I'm not good at finding things...
Human beings can be incredible jerks sometimes, but we can do some amazing things.
To be honest, the very scientific method, the idea that we can learn from our mistakes and be humble enough to admit we're flawed enough that building up evidence is more sensible than just going with the gut all the time, amazes me to no end. It's stuff like that that feeds my faith in our ability to improve over time.
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