Infrastructure: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters link it when discussions turn to dam failures, bridge collapses, or the unglamorous work of maintenance.
What it is
A John Oliver Last Week Tonight segment on America's crumbling infrastructure and why maintenance is neglected and underfunded. It mixes comedy with real examples such as aging bridges and dams.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2016 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Recommends jrockway · 2016-03 · on “Mosul dam engineers warn it could fail at any time, killing 1M people”
John Oliver did a pretty good piece on infrastructure: [this video] No politician gets to cut a ribbon with a giant pair of scissors when they fund routine maintenance. So why bother.
Recommends frik · 2017-03 · on “Images and video showing extent of Oroville dam damage”
actually the imgur.com comments were very insightful one of several recommended videos about the topic, this one is quite funny even if it's very real: [this video]
Cites colanderman · 2017-02 · on “California Dam Crisis Could Have Been Averted”
I live in a liberal bubble and hear about infrastructure woes often enough, for example from John Oliver here: [this video]
Cites obscura · 2021-02 · on “The World’s Aging Dams”
Added to the problem is the general lack of funding around the world for infrastructure, owing to the fact that politicians control the purse strings and infrastructure isn't "sexy" [1][2]. Building something new that can be named after someone is no doubt easier to fund than the maintenance of something that already exists. "we always forget that maintenance in perpetuity is much much harder" I imagine that part of the problem is that the heavy maintenance for large engineering projects begins years or decades after completion. Upon completion, it's hard to imagine these huge creations falling apart; add to this an element of "this won't be my problem (I won't be here in 50 years)" and you'
Cites StephenSmith · 2022-01 · on “Bridge collapse in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park”
I used to live next to the bridge mentioned here by John Oliver. Pittsburgh is something. [this video] "One of these arch bridges actually has a structure built under it to catch falling deck ... see that structure underneath it, they actually built that to catch falling concrete." ... "They built a bridge under the bridge..." They've since repaired this one.
Cites moomin · 2023-08 · on “Let Maintainers Be Maintainers”
This reminds me of the episode of Last Week Tonight where John Oliver points out the problems America has on infrastructure maintenance: [this video]