Top all-time · #1295
BLDGBLOG
Personal blog · bldgblog.comdesignculture
BLDGBLOG is a personal blog at bldgblog.com about design and culture. Since 2016, 54 different Hacker News readers have linked it 60 times, most often “Nakatomi Space”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-03-22, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (25) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Geoff Manaugh's BLDGBLOG covers architecture, cities and space. Commenters link its posts on Nakatomi Space, Die Hard's architecture, urban surveillance and odd building histories, and note the book A Burglar's Guide to the City grew from it.
- Recommended for · 5 comments
- Called 'an amazing blog' about architecture, space and the city; a Ghostbusters fanfic post 'great'; an LA post that 'captures the spirit of LA'; the book 'a go
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 25 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Architectural Conjecture | Urban Speculation | Landscape Futures
Most-linked posts?
- /2010/01/nakatomi-space/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-05-01
- Nakatomi Space3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-05-10
- Nakatomi Space2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-06-23
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-05-27
What Hacker News says?
As well loosely related, it is a few years that there are projects to use muograpgy to better undertstand how the dome of the Duomo in Florence was built by Brunelleschi: https://bldgblog.com/2022/09/ maybe they will start this year.
Comment linking /2022/09/
on “Show HN: I 3D scanned the interior of the Great Pyramid at Giza”Submitted The Ghost of Cognition Past, or Thinking Like an Algorithm as a story · 58 points
HN discussionJust realized that the "blogs" category in my Feedly has 347 entries in it, and about half of them haven't published in more than 3 months. Here are some that are prolific and good: https://marginalrevolution.com/ Marginal Revolution: wide-ranging and prolific blog about economics and culture. https://evidenceanecdotal.blogspot.com Anecdotal Evidence: well-written personal blog, mostly observations on books. https:/…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite Blogs by Individuals?”Submitted Project Iceworm as a story · 49 points
HN discussionThe Soviets tried, but we didn't want to hear what they had to say: https://bldgblog.com/2007/02/sleep-labs-of-the-soviet-empire...
Comment linking /2007/02/sleep-labs-of-the-soviet-empire/
on “Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)”Submitted Fungal Lightning as a story · 39 points
HN discussionhttps://www.bldgblog.com/2009/06/nynex-embedded-angel-of-new...
Comment linking /2009/06/nynex-embedded-angel-of-new-york-city/
on “Twitter Suspends PG's Account”Submitted The Drowned Lands of the Wallkill as a story · 37 points
HN discussionAlso interesting are the resolution targets, using sets of black and white bars at varying widths in both X any X orientation, to determine the spatial resolution i.e. how high frequency a component could still be imaged separately as lines, similar to TV test cards. These are discussed in various blogs [1][2] with some amazing picures. I think these were for both satellite imaging and spy-plane (U2 and SR-71 plus l…
Comment linking /2013/02/optical-calibration-targets/
on “Decades-Old Mystery Put to Rest: Why Are There X's in the Desert?”Submitted Paralyzed Fish 'Swims' Through Piscine Virtual Reality as a story · 31 points
HN discussionUrban combat tactics are fascinating. I’m reminded of this post that explains how the IDF in the early 2000s would try to “walk through walls” in urban combat. It also discusses how the film ‘Die Hard’ is a study of architecture. [0] The underlying essay referenced in the post is brief and interesting as well, discussing how those urban tactics were influenced by postwar French thought, in particular the ideas of De…
Comment linking /2010/01/nakatomi-space/
on “Stealing the Enemy's Urban Advantage: The Battle of Sadr City”Submitted Nakatomi Space as a story · 27 points
HN discussionThere’s a great piece of Ghostbusters fanfic about this building: NYNEX, Embedded Angel of New York City https://www.bldgblog.com/2009/06/nynex-embedded-angel-of-new...
Comment linking /2009/06/nynex-embedded-angel-of-new-york-city/
on “Titanpointe: The NSA’s spy hub in New York, hidden in plain sight (2016)”Submitted Through this building shines the cosmos as a story · 19 points
HN discussionRelated reading for anyone who wants to learn more about this stuff http://www.bldgblog.com/2012/06/
Comment linking /2012/06/
on “Camouflaged Military Bunkers of Switzerland (2015)”Submitted Electronic Plantlife as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFollowing up on this... The blog post Islands at the Speed of Light ( http://www.bldgblog.com/2011/03/islands-at-the-speed-of-ligh... ) with a "global map of 'optimal intermediate locations between trading centers,' based on the earth’s geometry and the speed of light" There's a similar article at When The Speed Of Light Is Too Slow: Trading at the Edge ( http://www.kurzweilai.net/when-the-speed-of-light-is-too-slo.…
Comment linking /2011/03/islands-at-the-speed-of-light/
on “A Gazillion-Dollar Standoff over Two High-Frequency Trading Towers”Submitted Star Forts, Mines, and Other Maastricht Subterranea as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere's a few articles that go into a loosely defined faulting area dubbed the Walker Lane[1][2][3] in which it's theorized that the East Pacific Rise (a rift), under the Gulf of California, may be expanding directly north. I know some geologists were surprised at first at the 7.4 Landers earthquake in 1994, and the article goes into that the Walker Lane seems to follow US 395, so I wonder if this is just a continui…
Comment linking /2019/04/walker-lane/
on “Strongest earthquake in years rattles Southern California”Submitted Nakatomi Space as a story · 2 points
HN discussionNote, that link is actually a link to a tag page; it just happens that the post you're trying to point out is the only post with that tag. The actual post link is here: http://www.bldgblog.com/2009/06/nynex-embedded-angel-of-new-...
Comment linking /2009/06/nynex-embedded-angel-of-new-york-city/
on “33 Thomas Street”Submitted Agency of the Subsurface (International Subsurface Exploration Agency Like NASA) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionWhenever I hear about this building I can't help but be reminded of Geoff Manaugh's idea for a Ghostbusters III, where the Ghostbusters discover that the NYNEX telephone system is actually... well, I'll let you read it: http://www.bldgblog.com/tag/ghostbusters-iii/
Comment linking /tag/ghostbusters-iii/
on “33 Thomas Street”Submitted Synthetic at Every Scale as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis reminds me a lot of BLDGBLG's post about Die Hard's architecture[1], especially this line: his dream house included a maze of trap-doors and what Sergeant Scheimreif called “escape holes.” It was everything he seemed to want a building to be—with near-infinite ways of getting from one room to another and no upper limit on the places he could hide. This stuff is a weird obsession of mine, probably stemming from…
Comment linking /2010/01/nakatomi-space/
on “The Burglar with His Very Own Mac Attack”Submitted The Drowned Lands of the Wallkill as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI wonder what the tradeoffs are between ground penetrating radar and Muon tomography? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon_tomography http://www.bldgblog.com/2008/08/mayan-muons-and-unmapped-roo...
Comment linking /2008/08/mayan-muons-and-unmapped-rooms/
on “Archaeologists have mapped a Roman city using ground-penetrating radar”Submitted Ghost Only Cars Can Perceive as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYou should ask the residents of Hollister. http://www.bldgblog.com/2015/04/the-town-that-creep-built/
Comment linking /2015/04/the-town-that-creep-built/
on “How long should we wait for an overdue earthquake on the San Andreas?”Submitted Geofencing and Investigatory Datasheds as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
