
The Basement - chrislloyd
http://cabel.me/2012/12/19/the-basement
======
nlh
One of the things I like the most about these photos is the fact that the
workers who cut & drilled the walls to install the "new" cables/conduit
actually made an effort to not destroy the old clippings on the wall. Sure,
there's a place where it's clear they had to seam or otherwise plaster over
one section, but for he most part it looks as if they kept it as-is.

This makes me happy. I've seen so many other cases where people doing their
jobs totally ignore their surrounds and paint over, cut through, or destroy
the things around them with nary more than a shrug and a "just doing my job".

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larrys
"Turns out, he claims, “they used to print The Oregonian down here, way back.”

The pressmen, one imagines, worked day and night down here, working the
lumbering machines, spitting out another edition of the day’s business."

I used to be in that industry. I don't think they printed this paper in the
basement (at least not a newspaper). I've had experience getting even small
printing machinery into a basement (that was not even as sub grade as this
one). It's a big task. You have to either cut a whole in the floor or take it
down a bilco type basement door. Generally it would be on reinforced first
floors or possibly even above that on reinforced floors (where it could easily
be craned into windows if necessary). Then you have the issue with paper down
and up most importantly.

It's hard to say exactly based on the info provided in the article. If this
was done by web it most certainly wouldn't be in a basement as you would need
ceiling height in addition to size and weight of the equipment. And it
wouldn't make any sense. Also, you have issues with humidity in basements that
have an impact on printing inks and paper. And you would also have the rolls
of paper most likely (or sheets once again hard to say w/o more details) to
get in and out of the basement? What would be the reason that you would want
to do all that extra work?

~~~
jpxxx
You're correct, this was The Oregonian's editing office and the erstwhile home
of the owner but not a press.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittock_Block>

~~~
larrys
Right and further:

"The paper's offices and presses were originally housed in a two-story
building at the intersection of First Street (now First Avenue) and Morrison
Street, but in 1892 the paper moved into a new nine-story building at 6th and
Alder streets"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregonian>

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nmridul
"100 years from now, when another one of you goes spelunking around this
basement, that data, those bits, today’s moments, will likely be long, long
gone."

Well said. Back then the images were pasted on real walls and it adds to the
emotional appeal. And now the images are pasted on virtual walls (aka
Facebook/desktops).

I always wondered this. The new technology is great in spreading the images
wide (wide in the spacial plane - I can see what was there in that room, and
I'm sitting here far far away. That is the beauty of new technology. ). But it
fails to spread it deep (call it in an emotional plane).

~~~
nhebb
To put things in perspective, 200 years ago there were no photos in existence
to paste onto walls. So what we're feeling is a cultural nostalgia for a very
short period in humankind.

~~~
richardjs
True, but there are other kinds of images--paintings, sketches, drawings on a
cave wall. We've been putting things on walls for a long time.

~~~
graue
That's what I found so depressing in the (awesome) augmented reality video,
"Sight":

<http://vimeo.com/46304267>

When the characters have their digital glasses on, the guy's apartment is full
of pendants and shiny decorations. But you can see that without the glasses,
the walls are bare.

Photography is new, but humans have affixed art to walls for millennia. It
would be insane if that ended.

~~~
fudged71
Interesting video.

After playing with user interfaces like Bump Top, the idea of just hanging an
image somewhere doesn't have the same feeling as having it physically there.

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luigi
I'm in the middle of reading "Tubes" by Andrew Blum, which is the story of how
the Internet was physically built. MAE-East, PAIX, Ashburn, and all that.

The Kindle version is $1.99 right now. I paid $9.99 for it last week.

[http://www.amazon.com/Tubes-Journey-Center-Internet-
ebook/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Tubes-Journey-Center-Internet-
ebook/dp/B006FOHWDI/)

~~~
RickHull
Obligatory <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html>

90s-era

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neilk
I guessed it was a newspaper shop before he got to the bit about the
Oregonian. All the marks are in blue pencil, which was a common tool in
graphic arts until the digital era. And because it's a big basement in an old
building in the center of a big city, that to me says newspaper.

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wallflower
A non-sequitor of sorts - on the subject of Cables and Underground - if you
have never read Jamie Zawinski's (jwz) Cable Story, it is one of the most
fascinating real engineering reads I've ever read.

"What happens when a 230 kilovolt underground cable shorts out"

<http://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/>

~~~
sbshetley
And for a bit more info on the infrastructure spoken of above.

[http://psc.wi.gov/thelibrary/publications/electric/electric1...](http://psc.wi.gov/thelibrary/publications/electric/electric11.pdf)

edit: Also, very nice post and find, Thanks!!

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jordo37
Really cool post. If you have ever been in a printing room while a press was
operating, it's an amazing experience. It's crazy to think that through those
small pipes more data is being passed - more variety, more volume - than was
ever passed with all the cacophony of the press.

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rotten
When something catches your eye on the Internet, do you pull out virtual
scissors and paste the clipping to a virtual wall?

~~~
michaelgrafl
I'm going to start printing out stuff and actually glue it to the wall behind
my monitor. Should look awesome after a year or so.

Thanks for the idea.

~~~
thirdtruck
I did this with lolcat photos when I first started my current job. Leaving a
bit of extra white space at the bottom made them look like little Polaroids.

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lee
I wonder how secure that basement is. Someone going down there with a chainsaw
could do a lot of damage.

~~~
jpxxx
I believe this is in the Pittock Block building at SW 9th and Washington.
While it's certainly not open to all comers, its no Fort Knox. Attractions
upstairs include a police substation, two cafes, and a Swedish bric-a-brac-
ery.

~~~
kaiuhl
You're correct—this is the basement of the Pittock. Upstairs are many, many
closets for rent to shove servers in.

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rdl
Leads you to wonder where the 641a equivalent is in that building (or is it in
the actual telco building nearby, which a lot of the fiber also runs through,
with some additional fiber stubs from the exchange back to the carrier
building)

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albertzeyer
I was expecting some archive.org advertisement at the end.

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peter_l_downs
This is absolutely incredible. I don't have much more to say than that. Thanks
for sharing.

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kondro
I keep meaning to do an art walk like this.

