Tag: USD

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Can He Build It? Yes He Can!

Livejournal user gornev led me to a most excellent meme in his comment to my post about wooden NYC water tanks. You see, there is this humongous wooden skyscraper in the Russian city of Archangelsk.

I wanted to post about this since I saw the picture of that building (which became my desktop wallpaper), but it took some time to find more information and to find the time to write it up. The sources that I used provide somewhat conflicting information, but that’s mostly because the articles were written at different points during the construction.

First you’ve got to see it. The links keep failing, but this google search will lead you to at least some articles with pictures.

I’ve obtained permission from Nikolai Gernet aka nixette to use this recent picture:

Nikolai also has a nice collection of old examples of wooden buildings in Archangelsk.

So here’s what I was able to find out about the building and the builder. The builder and architect is Nikolai Sutyagin, an owner of a lumber yard and a small construction company. He was brought up by a single mother in a crappy communal flat. At 14 years old he was sent to a youth correctional facility for “hooliganism” (probably a fight). When he came back he started working as a construction worker to help support his mother and younger brother. Turned out that he was a pathological workaholic. His supervisor advised him to try his hand at “shabashing”. “Shabashing” was a free market anomaly in a planned socialistic society. Because of the shortage of productive workers in the land of fixed salaries jeopardized the completion of five year plans, collective farms and factories were allowed to hire freelancers and offer pay based on performance. This meant that a skilled workaholic such as Sutyagin could earn about 2000 rubles a month when a college educated engineer’s salary was 200 rubles. Teams of shabashniks were universally hated by collective farmers and factory workers (as well as all other salary men and women), but were tolerated.

When Perestroyka came about Sutyagin used his money to start a lumber and construction business which brought him a substantial fortune. Now he needed a suitable residence. At first he planned on building a huge two story wooden house. Wooden structures are limited by law to two stories for fire safety reasons. At first he built a refrigerator sized wooden mock up. He liked the scale, but didn’t like the proportion of the roof. He decided to elongate it to achieve a more pleasing proportion. Then he started building working with his team like in the old times, but using the timber from his own company. When he was about done with the roof, he decided to build it up a little higher so that he could see the White Sea from the very top. Even though his building has two stories, the roof spans 11 more (some articles estimate the structure to have 12 stories, others – 13 and even 15).

The government and his neighbors hated Sutyagin’s masterpiece. Fire hazard or not, it stands in the middle of a rather poor village, yet it’s higher than the tallest cement building in the city of Archangelsk itself. The city government ordered the structure to be torn down, but the order was never realized as far as I know. But Sutyagin was accused by one of his employees (who supposedly stole $30,000 from Sutyagin’s company) of beating him up and imprisoning him in a shed. True or not, Sutyagin got 4 years of prison. He was let out in 2 years. While he was away his company was looted like Baghdad after the war. Now he and his wife and daughter live in the unfinished skyscraper that he built.

Now, here are some of my thoughts. I am deeply disgusted by the messages on Russian bulletin boards. There are three most common attitudes there: mocking the unfinished structure as a glorified barn, lamenting about the “mysterious Russian Soul” and gloating about the fact that the builder was sent to jail presuming that the source of the money used to build the skyscraper is stealing. Most of the press coverage concentrates on the eccentricity of the builder rather than his genius, strength of will and work ethic.

Sutyagin’s skyscraper takes up a very special place in my heart, right next to the AIG building, the Flatiron (Fuller Building) and all my favorite skyscrapers, remaining, gone and those that were destined never to be built.

I’ve used a number of articles as sources, but they all went offline. You can use this google search to find new ones though.

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I’d Like Some Shareware For Lunch

There are 3 pieces of shareware that I’ve been using for a long time and like very much. They are:

Clipmate by Thornsoft Development – a little app that lives in the system tray and keeps the history of everything that is copied and pasted. It also lets you keep organized collections of “copies” and allows you to paste them in rapid succession. It can also do encryption, spell checking and other things as well.

Trillian by Cerulean Studios – everybody’s favorite instant messaging client

Powermarks by Kaylon Technologies – a very, very, very good bookmark manager.

I am also using Snippets by SoftCircuits, but I am looking to replace it with some other hierarchical database. It has been at version 1.51 for many years, there is no development planned and it doesn’t have many of the features that I need.

All of these programs a worth the money that I paid many times over. I wish I bought them earlier.

Right now I am shopping for a hierarchical storage database / outliner (something like Mybase or Treepad, but I can’t decide because there are so many choices). I am also looking for an anti-spam tool (on big requirement is being able to look through my mail client and clean out the stuff that is already there, not only the new stuff that is arriving), a popup and ad killer (something like the now defunct Popup Killer, ) and probably a personal firewall in addition to the one in my router.

The common problems with shareware products are :
a) Priced too high (over $30) like Lyris Mailshield
b) The evaluation version is severely disabled like Axon Idea Processor
c) Given away for too small a fee or altogether for free, causing the development to stop like the Popup Killer which I mentioned already or even more so, like Semagic Livejournal client.

Which shareware programs do you like? Any recommendations?

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IRT – Going Your Way

What was the logo of IRT (Interborough Rapid Transportation Corporation)?
I am not sure, but it looks like the designer that was in charge of the corporate image of the first NYC subway company really liked wings.

A genderless angel holding a winged subway wheel from an $100 IRT stock certificate I recently purchased for 25 bucks.

A logo I scanned from a reprint of “Interborough Rapid Transit ; the New York Subway , It’s Construction and Equipment” which I mentioned before. Wheee. Notice the third power carrying rail. Cute.

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Worldwide Plaza


I see this building daily. I’ve even been inside a few times attending some sort of Microsoft training (they have a few floors there). After I took this picture I decided to find out a few things about the triangular beacon on the top.

Turns out that it’s called “David’s Diamond” (after David Childs of SOM). Digging deeper, I found out that the diamond was put together on the ground, then disassembled and assembled again on the top. And if I understand this correctly, the diamond was made by “Mohawks who live on a reservation near Montreal”. That’s so freaking cool.

More than that, the smaller tower of the Worldwide Plaza complex contains condominiums. $0.55M to $0.75M for a 2-bedroom. Hey, compared to what you can have for that much in Brighton Beach it’s a good deal methinks. A two bedroom in Oceana goes for $535,000 these days. Huh.

Maybe there will be a time in the future, in a galaxy far, far away when middle class people (an not just the upper and proletariat) will be able to afford to live in a highrise in Manhattan. But so far it looks like that’s not happening any time soon.

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Back to the USSR


See the spiked ironwork on this subway railing? See the art deco pattern on the cast iron? That stuff is very very old. The IRT line which became lines 1, 2, 3 and 9, was built around 1903. The cast iron work looks as good today as it had back then. The stations themselves fell into disrepair. NYC subway companies could not raise fare and thus follow supply and demand and were bought by the state. The hammer and sicle is a final insult to capitalism in this case.

Construction of the 23 street station :

Interborough Rapid Transit ; the New York Subway , It’s Construction and Equipment was a book published by the IRT in 1904. Only 200 copies were printed, for gifts to bigwigs. Abebooks.com has the cheapest copy at $150. Luckily it was also reprinted in 1970es. There is also an online version for you cheapscates.

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Brilliant Pebbles, Lost Marbles or The Proud Audiophile

I don’t know. If $30 billion was spent on SDI, and their Brilliant Pebbles are “cheap” at $1.4 million each, the Brilliant Pebbles in this ad from “The Audiophile Voice” magazine don’t seem like such a bad deal. I bet they would work just as well as the SDI ones. Maybe even better. Oh, and the 10 Kilodollar DAC also seems cheap.

“A rather astonishing improvement in depth and transparency of the soundstage”. What, no improvement in imaging? How can that be? You must always mention imaging when you mention soundstage. (Though some claim they understand soundstage and imaging, it seems to me that they are just extra senses that audiphiles that purchase $99 pebbles and $10,000 DACs have. You know, like that robot from Kuttner’s “The Proud Robot”. )

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All I Really Want for Christmas is a Memex

I am finishing up “Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the Origins of Personal Computing “. Next up are “The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal” and “Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century”. I’ve read a good chunk of Ted Nelson’s “Literary Machines”. It’s difficult. Just like Nelson’s personality. I’ll write about all of that in a little while.

I can’t fricking believe how expensive “From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind’s Machine” is. You know, overall, used books at Amazon got so expensive. I used to be able to find almost anything for a few bucks, but now people have snapped up all the cheap copies. The only advantage of buying used books there is that they will be shipped faster. This sucks. Where is Xanadu? Where is my Memex? Where is my flying car?

Speaking of expensive. I’ve finally broke down and purchased a Tablet PC. It’s an Acer TMC102Ti . I’ve got it for about $1700 at ecost.com, and it comes with a $100 rebate. I finally own a laptop! I’ll post a review soon.

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Thank You, Corporate Masters!

This is so amazingly cool. Ooooh.

Well, it turns out that the whole third floor of the Newscorp Building has been turned into the News Club which is open to the employees of all Newscorp companies. It consists of a number of conference rooms and classrooms, a gym and an espresso bar! They have a pretty decent superautomatic machine. The coffee is Moka D’oro (check out the logo on the site), which is no Espresso Vivache by a long shot. From packaged brands Illy and Lavazza are much better than it too. But it’s still a passable brand. And the barrista is keeping the machine very clean. And they serve espresso in porcelain cups. And it costs one dollar!!!

The gym is $5 a week. Woooo! I am joining.

See, and I was just complaining about how there was no club I could go to. News Club rocks! Laptop ports, papers from all over the world on the tables, view of Radio City Music Hall. I don’t want to go home to my dumpy apartment.

You know, those four espressos that I’ve had there today boosted my morale much better than Team Newscorp yacht.

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Whatcha Gonna Do?

Today I had lunch with lj user tonomo at a really cool Cuban cafeteria called “Margon Restaurant“. That place rocks! On our way back asked — where would I go if were to become homeless. Knowing me, I don’t think he was much surprised by the fact that I already gave this question much though.

One thing for sure – I would not go to a shelter. You see, homeless people don’t go to shelters because those places are very dangerous. It’s very easy to get beaten, robbed and raped at the same time there.

I guess I would try to raise some “capital” first. said that it would probably be a good strategy to try and look really miserable. But my approach would probably be to drag around some humorous sign. Something classic, like “Tell Me Off for $2” or “Official Sperm Donner – Fill My Cup and I Will Fill Yours”. I would definitely not beg for money in two places – trains and near places where people eat. I would try to pick places where people go for a walk – near Central Park of ferry terminals.

Having enough money for a subway fare would allow me to ride around in subway cars. In winter it’s a sure way to keep warm at night. I would have to take a lot of cat naps, sleeping for long periods of time would be dangerous. I would try to switch to Uberman’s sleep schedule. I would also spend a lot of time sleeping and reading in libraries. Libraries also have bathrooms (as well as some of the better terminal subway stations).

Keeping my personal hygiene at a semi-decent level would be hard, especially in winter. I suspect that there are some churches that have showers, which let homeless in. Dunno. That’s a tough one.

Finding a place to stash my things would be tough.

There used to be times when homeless could rent a small cubicle in special “hotels” for very small sums of money. There’s an amazing book by my favorite photographer, Harvey Wang, about such places. It’s called “Flophouse: Life on the Bowery“. Well, those places are now gone with gentrification and all.

Another alternative would be to become one of the Mole People, but I am afraid that after that book came out, all the homeless were kicked out of the tunnels. My favorite chemistry professor, Dr. Hussey, told me once about homeless that lived in the tunnels under Brooklyn College. Those tunnels were secured as well, I believe.

There is a “Homelessness For Dummies” type book called “Homeless Survival Guide“. The price is a bit steep at $18 though. To the wish list it goes.

You know, “Clean Underwear from Amazon’s Target Store” is a good suggestion (as always). Not so “Ladybug Rain Boots” and “Helicopter Sleepwear Sets for Baby”.

In any case, what’s your homelessness strategy?