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Nerd Dream Home? 73

Mark Nielsen writes "Offered for you approval - the nerd dream home. It offers privacy, security, a private airstrip, 20,000 square feet of storage space, and is capable of withstanding a direct nuclear hit. What more could you ask for?" I'd say a T1, but I guess if if it does manage to withstand a nuclear blast, your provider is probably going to be down for a few days.
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Nerd Dream Home?

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  • Hehehe. From "Chasing Amy." :)
  • == Man, this thread got distasteful... yuk...

    No kidding. Vanilla Coke? Bleh.
  • Yes, but we have this "corbamite device," see...
  • Most of it is underground to protect the true
    geek from evil things like sunlight, nature,
    fresh air, and human interaction.

  • You start by setting forms for the basement. So there an extra 15 feet thick, no biggie ;P
  • Kill the people but dont wreck the hardware.

    That's a neutron bomb... A regular bomb is rather impartial. :)

  • Are you kidding? It would be wild to have that much room, let alone at a constant temperature year round and spring loaded. Earthquake proof data center comes to mind!
  • Did anyone who was lucky enough to get in before 'the unfortunate incident' (slashdotted) took place mirror this thing? Side note: We gotta write to NATO and tell them how to take down the computer infastructure over in Yugoslavia...just have 'em linked on /. ....
  • SILO

    CLIMATE CONSTANT/ APPROX. 58 DEGREE EARTH AMBIENT TEMPERATURE. 52' DIAMETER X 178' DEEP / 9 FLOOR STEEL SUPERSTRUCTURE. ENTIRE STEEL SUPERSTRUCTURE HANGS FROM GIGANTIC SPRING SUSPENSION SYSTEM DESIGNED TO ABSORB SHOCK OF A DIRECT NUCLEAR HIT. UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES!!!


    So what would you do with such a place?

    It sounds cool, but I don't see how I would make use of it.
  • Forget landlines, just get a retractable satellite dish. If the satellites go down then chances are there are more serious problems in the world than checking your email. So just keep a good supply of porn for the 30 or 40 years you are going to be underground (8
  • It looks like a rather interesting home, only problem is that is is probably in the middle of nowhere, and it youhad windows undergound you'd see dirt (lol). /. score = 1 ?
  • Check CBW [grmbl.com]...
    It explains some terms and methods.
    And why it's BAD!
    --
  • Amazing how many people bought the Soviet propaganda line on neutron bombs. The point of them was not to kill the Soviet population so we could take their cities. They were invented by NATO to stop the Red Army pouring through the Fulda Gap without turning Germany into a radioactive wasteland. (Although Soviet doctrine called for massive nuclear, biological, and chemical attacks throughout Western Europe at the beginning of a land war.) The Soviets realized that propaganda was cheaper than countermeasures, and bamboozled the Greens, etc. into believing that they were an evil imperialist weapon. They succeeded--misguided public outcry prevented NATO from ever deploying them. Score one for the Soviets.
  • I've dreamed about having an underground home, complete with 24inch steal reinforced concrete walls and 70,000+ square feet of living space for most of my life.

    Never really scared of nuclear war or anything like that, I just want a nice, secure, underground home. You can crank the music up and nobody will care, it's nice and evironmentally sound since you don't need air conditioning or heating (but a little heater might make it more comfortable... It has plenty of space for whatever you need. If you put in some that really cool "sun light" fiber optic style lighting so that you get real sun light in there, and put some wood and carpeting in there it's would be real homey.

    Another sick fantasy I had there for a while and honestly thought might happen was that I wanted to buy a used Soviet nuclear sub, plush out the interior, and sail around the world and live in it.

    I love skiing and mountain biking as much, if not more than, the next guy, but there is something really comfortable about living underground. You remember that underground home where the guy lived in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome? Anyone see Until the End of the World? They had a really cool cave style computer lab in that movie..

  • I find it fascinating how many people have said that they would enjoy living underground. It's something that I've dreamed about since I was about 12 or so myself.

    My vision didn't include a former missile silo, but that's a damn good idea. I've thought about putting my dream home under some arizona or new mexico desert. Hopefully by then I'll have enough to drill down to the water table and not worry much about utilities. Solar/wind power with batteries (fuel cells??) should be enough to keep my electronics happy.

    The fiber-optic sunlight transmission is a good idea, too. I was thinking about light wells, but the fiber-optics would probably require less maintenance, and be less expensive to put in.

    I think I'd still like to have one room topside, with lots of glass. Imaging lounging around in the sunroom, reading a book, and then going downstairs into the nicely cooled living room to watch TLC. After that, a mosey into the computer den for some slashdot surfing via ... Hrm. How do I get my 'net access? Packet radio? heh.

    Can't decide if I'd want the bedroom closest to the entrance or furthest away from it. Depends on my level of paranoia, I guess. :)

    *sigh* Dream on...

  • But as a bona-fide framing carpenter (framing carpenters build houses), I really must insist any geek that wants to live in a house like this must build it themselves. And they gotta RTFM, or at least read the blueprints if they are so lame as to need blueprints (real framing carpenters don't need no steenkin blueprints). Otherwise they are just lame posers trying buy some coolness, because of course everyone wants to be as cool as framing carpenters.

    For the humor impaired, please refer to the ongoing debian-clueless-newbie flame war.

    Ciao

    --mtngrown


    "Son, don't come back until you know the difference between a casing nail and a green vinyl sinker."
  • Put the sum total of all human knowledge; literature, art, music, and science on CDs and store them there. Then after we wipe ourselves out, the future archeaologists will know how life was. Or, you could wire it up with 10-base T and rig up a 10,000 x Beowulf cluster :)

  • What is the country code.. like .uk (I know that is the united kingdom...)
  • It's in upstate New York. Nice area, too. (I live here, so I know the area a bit, heh) You're not far from lots of skiing/snowboarding resorts and nice countryside walks. Looks cool to me.
  • Or any other large body of water...

    One of my reasons for wanting to live in Arizona or New Mexico is the geologic and climactic stability. I have to laugh at the idiot who builds his house on a floodplain and then can't understand why his basement floods every spring. Or those who build expensive beach houses only to see them wash away every couple of years when a good hurricane swell eats all the sand out from under them.

    What really gets me is the people who do those dumb things and then expect the rescue crews to come pluck them out of the water. *sigh*

  • Wow...52 degree ambient temperature. Toss in a couple humidifiers and you've got the perfect wine cav.
  • I've heard this a lot, that weapons which kill life but do not destroy infrastructure are somehow more evil than weapons which still kill people but destroy everything else in the area too. I don't get it. Either way they're dead.

    By this thinking, ordinary guns must be uniquely evil too since they can kill a person but leave all their possessions (wallet, shoes, etc.) intact. Where's the international ban on these?
  • Frankly, I've always wanted to move my lab into a silo like that.
    Gotta admit that I really enjoy concrete holes in the ground. Definitely would have to have access though.

    As for the neutron bomb and rotting corpses? Just figure that if you wait long enough... it won't smell so bad and there won't be any squishy stuff to clean up.


    Cheers,

    GreyFauk
  • Well, I don't need blueprints, but the law won't let me start buidling without one, and they tend to get a bit mad if the final result doen'st look anything like the blueprint

    I can understand (don't agree with, but understand) that they want me to build something safe, but they also want it to fit into their idea of right. Remind me to move to North dakota when I get rich...

  • I think there's a little Ted Kaczinski in all of us, and he's tryin' to get out, if you'll let'em...

  • ...or at least I nkow someone who has - here in the UK.
  • I can't believe that it can survive the direct nuclear hit! It doesn't seem to be deep enough under the ground. Even if it did the ground would shift therefor elevators, air pipes - any connection to the surface will be spliced sort or
    ||
    ||
    ||
    This will happen even if the strike is not direct but close to the house. No way out except of digging :)
  • ...there are no more of those. I mean, yeah, neutron bombs are heinous and awful and whatever, but considering the role of wars (well, non-US wars - We (the US) like to go to war just to spend our surplus ammo, apparently, with no expectation of spoils of war), it seems like a neutron bomb would be the best sort of bomb.

    I suppose it would be kind of gross having a million or two rotted corpses to deal with when you could move into the area after the radiation cleared up.

    Note for the sick-humour-impaired: I'm not for neutron bombs.

    "The Constitution admittedly has a few defects and blemishes, but it still seems a hell of a lot better than the system we have now."

  • That should go away in a week... =P
  • I have seen several places out there that sell missile silos. In fact, I think http://www.missilebases.com is one that has a fairly large listing (yes, same link, but 1st level on the domain) It appears to be /.'ed at the moment, but give it a whack later. Here are a few more to get you started:

    http://www.cklein.net/missilee.html - Be sure to check out the Titan...those are impressive...
    http://members.tripod.com/~kturnerga/silo.htm (rehabbing info)

    Superfreak

  • So tell me, how does a framing carpenter build a nuclear hardened concrete silo, anyway :-).
  • Check this silo tour [xvt.com] out! An oldie, but goodie. Reminds me of the days of my youth, spent crawling around the bomb shelters underneath my high school. Wheee! :)
  • by mholve ( 1101 )
    That's what I was thinking, too.
  • There's one available for tours in Long Beach; it's pretty interesting. I should really unearth the pictures I took of it.

    Unfortunately, if it's anything like the (non-nuclear) sub I saw, there's no way you could "plush it up" - all the wood, leather and glass in the world couldn't make that thing an appealing living environment. There's just not enough space, and too many akwardly-located controls. I also think it would take too many people to run - the type of person who would want to escape wouldn't want so many people around constantly.

    D

    ----
  • Helicool... Fill the bottom silo partition with ice and beers.
  • The picture might not have been completely accurate. Also, the place has its own suspension. When you add to that the fact that in a nuclear strike, the bomb goes off pretty high in the air to maximize the spread of the damage, it doesn't seem far fetched that this place could take a nuclear strike.
    On the other hand, the typical nuclear weapon in the arsenals of the US and the former USSR has a yield of something like 300 kilotons. For attacking silos, they have weapons with yields well above a megaton. They also have all sorts of funky technologies to make the bombs tunnel underground and so forth. So, a nuclear strike by a well supplied government carried out with the intention of destroying this silo would probably succeed. On the other hand, if this silo were right in the center of a city and the city were bombed with the intention of destroying the city, the silo would be fine.
  • Just think of the acoustic possibilities ;)
  • Who needs nuclear weapons when you have the slashdot effect!
  • It didn't survive a slashdot attack.
  • Underground, away from prying DEA eyes, flying them newfangled heat-seeking helichoppers...

    Try the new and improved Sizzlean Screen!

  • This is precisely the kind of lair that I was looking for to build my Weather Dominator(tm) in. Looks like there is plenty of room to house an army of Fembots(tm), as well. I guess I ought to go get the power cube from the plant people at the north pole now... (guess that reference... if you dare!)

  • Jeez, live a little, would ya? Why do people live in Cali when there are earthquakes, mud slides, fires, riots, outer space debris and washed up hippies? Because it's cool. It's a beautiful place.

    Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  • That this thing was bomb proof in the sixties or whenever they built it (61?). With today's "bunker busters" it wouldn't stand a chance.
  • think IONIZING RADIATION.
    what kind of link are you going to get with satellite feeds with the atmosphere all screwed up?
  • Yeah, but wasn't that was Arpanet was designed for? Routing around levelled cities?

    Then again, I suppose if your neighborhood was razed to a sheet of glass (molten sand) then your line would probably be down too... Unless of course you did it right and went underground! :)

  • "How'd ya want it, burnt to a crisp, or bloody as hell?

    - Bloody as hell. And to drink, a vanilla coke."

    Man, this thread got distasteful... yuk... (though even scarier is that I couldnt help but smile anyway) ;)
  • That virtual tour of an abandoned silo is clearly written as a warning not to sneak into one as they did. They pointed out that there is tons of asbestos in the place, rumors of dioxins, and a good chance of radon if it isn't flooded.

    I wonder how clean the one that they've converted into a house is?

    It looks from what I can follow of the tour that the silo they were in was a significantly larger complex. That makes me wonder if there are other parts of the original complex that have been sealed off instead of being cleaned up?

    Hmmm.
  • The government sold most of these initially for about 50 grand, as surplus.
  • Sure, they're fantastically efficient, energy-wise. You're in the year-round 52 degree zone to begin with. Build near a river, and you're in style with a home hydro-electric generator. Put solar panels up top, and you won't need much else.
  • Posted by TRF:

    I just can't stop thinking of all the plants someone could grow with that much room. woop!
    Every 45 seconds, another arrest for Linux. 695000 last year. It's time for a change.
  • by mholve ( 1101 )
    Well, the only contamination that I can see is asbestos and rocket fuel-derived ones. It's not like they made the plutonium there... It was pre-packaged all nice and what-not at the factory atop a mighty big roman candle.

    Interesting indeed about the other areas, if any. It'd be good to look at other such facilities and see how they're laid out.

    Watch - there's a hidden room where they swept all the asbestos into and covered up. Heh.

  • unfortunately, as commented before, their server isn't as bomb-proof as their house..

    if anyone did mirror this, could you post the URL?

  • The problem being - if there was to be a nuclear war what's the probability that a Russian missile somewhere is still targetted on that silo, just in case the US was lying when they said they'd de-nuked it?

    Its all very well "surviving", but you'd be five storeys under with the epicentre of the radiation above you, with no power and no net access, and it would really make a mess of the rose garden :)

    -J
  • by mholve ( 1101 )
    No doubt! O'Reilly alone takes up too much. Well, not TOO much - that's just not possible. :)

    Way funny - yeah - with boys, hehehe. It IS a good thing!

  • Given that some mountain in NY isnt the primary goal of a nuclear strike this could actually work out.

    Just think of the perverted thoughts behind nuclear bombs. Kill the people but dont wreck the hardware.

    Seems to be theres plenty of sick people out there, huh?
  • I know that's off-topic, but just to show-off:

    X=Y;
    X^2=XY;
    X^2-Y^2=XY-Y^2;
    (X+Y)(X-Y)=Y(X-Y);
    X+Y=Y; /* Since X=Y, X-Y=0, you can't divide by zero (X-Y) */
    2Y=Y;
    2=1


    It's a fool's day anyway.

    AtW,
    http://www.investigatio.com [investigatio.com]
  • I didn't know that /. was able to approve runways? Wayne
  • Here i thought i was the only person that dreamed about living in am impenetrable fortress of solitude. I've seriously dreamed about living in something like this since i was about 8. But $2.3 *10^6??!!?? There's got to be more of these old gov't ratholes laying around that nobody has turned into some gentrified apocalypse retreat yet that you could get cheap(er). Anybody out there ever seen a listing of gov't surplus bomb shelter/fortresses out there? I know something like this must exist somewhere, it would involve paperwork so it would make the gov't happy, plus the people that made this silo house had to find out where to buy the land in the first place
  • I saw it. I want it. I wish I could commute to my job from it. I bet it's going to get slashdotted again today...
  • If we could integrate a microwave into the neutron bomb, we could just open a cheap burger joint upon moving in. They're already cooked...

    Ugh. ;>

  • Heck, I need almost that much room for all my books.

    And if my twin boys grow up to be anything like I was when a teenager, the ability to withstand a nuclear hit may be no bad thing...
  • I seem to remember seeing something about buying old silos a while back here, but I can't find it. Anyone know where to go should you be in the market looking for such things?
  • by Praxxus ( 19048 )
    That's pretty cool, I must say. How hard would it be to wire up the "storage space" to host a LAN party? A really BIG LAN party.

    heh

    --
  • Hmmm... I didnt even realize how well that Pulp Fiction quote figured.

    Funny coincident though.

    I'd rather have some iced tea with that, please :)
  • That's why it's spring loaded... ;>

"Just think, with VLSI we can have 100 ENIACS on a chip!" -- Alan Perlis

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