
A Dutchman and his man-made mountain - docdeek
https://cyclingtips.com/2020/05/a-dutchman-and-his-man-made-mountain/
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phyzome
“It had become more of an innovation platform than a building project; it was
used by scientists and universities to think outside the box.”

OK, I love whimsy and spitballing of wild ideas as much as the next person,
but... innovation platform? Did anything actually come out of this? New ideas
that have been put into use? Research that changed how we understand things? A
focal point for education of the public, even?

I love the idea, but I see nothing in this article that backs the spirit of
the claim "a meeting of minds that sparked a new wave of innovation in the
Netherlands".

Design is cheap. And this appears to have never gotten out of the early CAD &
Photoshop phase.

It's fine to just say "it was a wild idea and we had a lot of fun thinking
about it".

~~~
lowdose
The piramides must have been a very strange idea from the start. Transporting
larger than life stones to build an abstract geometric monument.

Im glad they did because it speaks to imagination to build the impossible.

Imagine a mountain as high as the Alpes still standing there in 10.000 years.

I also think the first people to build dikes where seen as a bit strange. You
are well aware that industry has made the dutch engineering name in the world.

~~~
phyzome
OK, but... they _didn 't_ build the mountain. It's only the existence of the
pyramids that inspires. We don't have any records of the amazing, inspiring,
innovative plans to build the pyramids—or at least, if we do, they sure don't
have cultural currency.

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thdrdt
I believe everybody knew there was not going to be a mountain. But people are
curious creatures. The main question became: can it be done?

It is interesting a lot of money was put into the project while most people
knew there would never be a mountain. But they learned so much from it. So I
think you can't say it was a waste of time and money.

But for the coming years I still believe the Netherlands (lower countries)
will remain flat.

~~~
soperj
They made a ski-hill in saskatchewan, which is definitely as flat as the
netherlands.

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mkl
There seem to be two artificial ski hills there, both quite small in
comparison to this proposal, Timber Ridge and Blackstrap Ski Hill (closed),
but also quite a few non-flat natural ski areas [1]. I think they have better
building materials available than the Netherlands, though, which was proposing
to use sand (dredged from the sea floor?).

[1]
[https://www.skicentral.com/saskatchewan.html](https://www.skicentral.com/saskatchewan.html)

