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Comment by _Microft | Hacker News Reader

Related: the Dutch also have some pretty wild stuff. Check out the storm surge barrier protecting Rotterdam and the port:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maeslantkering

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This is petty, but should I believe the Wikipedia article when it says "the barriers are controlled by a supercomputer"?

Unless this is a 1980s-vintage supercomputer, I'm baffled. The barriers' main function is to open or close. Someone needs to assess and predict rising water levels, but a lot of that is surely done by other systems. Add in some speed adjustments and some docking/aligning adjustments to get everything to shut just so -- and it still sounds far simpler than an iPhone camera.

The civil engineering challenge is huge. But I'm not seeing a huge need for the very high end of modern computing power to make it all work.

The citation to the previous sentence (see https://www.dekennisvannu.nl/site/artikel/Rekenkracht-is-mac...) discusses the use of supercomputers, but from Google's Dutch to English translation it's not clear if supercomputer is in contradistinction to the BOS system that controls the barrier, or if BOS was just a lesser type of supercomputer-class controller.

Here's more information on BOS: https://park.org/Netherlands/pavilions/techno/svk/engels/wer... https://park.org/Netherlands/pavilions/techno/svk/engels/wer...

Here's a page describing BOS from the company that built it, though emphasizing it's reliability, not computational power: https://www.cgi-group.co.uk/en/media/case-study/intelligent-...

Maybe it uses a supercomputer to simulate the incoming tide and decide how much water to let in before raising the gate? It seems odd that they'd need more computation power than a tide table and an associated lookup table of setpoints, though.

The thing is made to stop storm surges, not simply the regular tide. Presumably the "super computer" refer to computers predicting the weather, which even these days is a pretty processor intensive thing to do.

Yeah, they might need a feed from the local weather bureau as well. It seems odd to describe that as "powered by a supercomputer", though - unless you'd also say I "used a supercomputer" to decide whether to take the car or the bike on any given day.

From the article: ”Part of the Delta Works, the barriers are controlled by a supercomputer, and automatically close when Rotterdam (especially the Port of Rotterdam) is threatened by floods.”

It’s not the mechanical controller, it’s the decision to pre-activate protection based on prediction (“threat”) of weather conditions and water levels.

“Port of Rotterdam is the largest seaport in Europe, […] From 1962 until 2004 it was the world's busiest port” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Rotterdam

Wow

yup, a much better design that rests on dry land rather than on the sea bed while not in use; reducing corrosion rates and making maintenance a much cheaper procedure.

"Ah, but what about the landscape!" cried the politicos when greasing this pork barrel for their industry friends. Yeah, right... I bet they had the same scruples when they broke ground for Pordo Marghera. SMH

> Ah, but what about the landscape!

Ah but what about the fact that the Maeslantkering closes a canal that is 360 metres wide, the total width of the MOSE is 1.6km...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering

The MOSE consists of 3 separate installations for 3 different harbor mouths, so in principle it wouldn't have been that much different from the Dutch scenario.

It's actually four sections, each longer than the entire Maeslantkering.

The Maeslantkering is only one of a series of structures to control the water flow, the Delta Works[1].

The Oosterscheldekering[2] is a much bigger structure, about nine kilometers long with four kilometers of openable sluices that were added after protests against closing off the water way. Similarly gigantic is the 5 kilometers long Haringvlietdam[3].

These projects are quite old, though, so some innovation to water control is always welcome. The system used by MOSE seems to be quite easy to hide compared to the massive steel and concrete structures of the Dutch system. If it turns out there is no penalty to longevity and maintenance, a system similar to the Italian project might just show up in the Netherlands as well.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Works [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haringvlietdam

Venice is a series of islands that is 100% developed.

There is no open dry land, aside for a few small (<1 city block) sized parks.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Venice_a...

Sure but a double-digit amount of the entire Netherlands was water, and remains below sea level. Hence the name.

I haven't a clue if it's practical/economical for Venice to build more land, however; without more information, I'll assume their solution is right for them, as the Dutch solution is for the Netherlands.

Rotterdam was almost completely rebuilt after WWII, Venice has been there almost unchanged for about 15 centuries.

It's much more fragile than practically any other city in the World and needs a particular care.

Building modern structures on it (choosing carefully where, since it's built on over 400 islands) would ruin it forever.

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