792
We'll fix it later (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 months ago by cm0002@lemmy.world to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
46 comments fedilink hide all child comments
all 47 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 104 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I've been to this bridge. It's the Devil's Bridge in Wales.

Here's another angle, ripped from Wikipedia:

The river underneath is insanely deep. Pictures do not do it justice just how much further it goes out of the bottom of this frame. You do not get out of there. That is death.

The bottom-most bridge was built around the 12th century. How the hell they managed to build stuff like this way back then staggers me.

[-] ruk_n_rul@monyet.cc 30 points 2 months ago

They really should continue the tradition by building a fourth bridge over the current one when the time comes.

[-] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 6 points 2 months ago

That's why they stopped at three. The fourth bridge always takes forever to paint.

[-] BillTongg@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

This deserves many more upvotes than you've had. I guess most people here just don't get the reference.

[-] muhyb@programming.dev 19 points 2 months ago

They really needed to pass that river.

[-] palordrolap@fedia.io 15 points 2 months ago

Clearly a cousin of The Strid. Except the Strid is usually full to the brim and you can't see the literal death walls that lie beneath the surface.

Tom Scott made a video about it during his many adventures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCSUmwP02T8

[-] state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 2 months ago

90m, that is deep.

[-] magikmw@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Duh, the Devil helped it's in the name.

[-] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago

You may joke, but that's actually part of the legend of the bridge!

The legend goes that a woman saw her cow grazing on the opposite side of the river.

To get it back, the devil offered to build a bridge in exchange for a living soul.

The woman threw a piece of bread across the new bridge and her dog went to eat it. The devil got the dog's soul 👍

Poor dog

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

While we're talking about Devil's Bridges, Hamburg has one, too: It was built to make crossing the devil's ford easier, so called because there were so many accidents there people couldn't explain it otherwise. A carpenter was contracted, who is said to have made a pact with the devil, that the bridge may stay, at the price of the soul of the first living thing to cross the bridge. On inauguration day, then, the local reverend blessed the bridge and set off to cross it, when out of the bushes a rabbit appeared and sprinted across the bridge. A statute memorialises the occasion:

...the less exciting explanation is that back when Holstein was still under Danish rule there were two bridges close together, and the double bridge then turned into the devil's one. dövelt -> Düvel in Low Saxon makes a lot of sense but is boring.

[-] ulterno@programming.dev 7 points 2 months ago

The bottom-most bridge was built around the 12th century. How the hell they managed to build stuff like this way back then staggers me.

I find it hard to relate with this sentence. That's just 3 bridges on the top of what seems like a natural rock formation, right? With 2 being arches and the top one being a modern-ish structure.

No matter how deep it is, it's narrow enough to just move a prebuild wooden foot bridge used for people to go around constructing the thing.

[-] cupcakezealot 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The river underneath is insanely deep.

That's when you just say frick it and caulk the wagon.

[-] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

If you're trying to get from Missouri to Oregon and you end up in Wales then you've got bigger problems.

[-] cupcakezealot 1 points 2 months ago

Somewhere Christopher Columbus^*^ shifted uncomfortably in his seat

^*^Obligatory frick Christopher Columbus

[-] inbeesee@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Link to the wiki page here

[-] throwback3090@lemmy.nz 1 points 2 months ago

Labor was free because of slavery, so the economics were not the same. Current engineering has the concept of "over engineering" which is what cracked-up addicts in wall street call "building to last", due to the "expense" of not being shortsighted on a quarter by quarter basis.

[-] ruk_n_rul@monyet.cc 14 points 2 months ago

Actually overenginnering is the thing with pre-modern structures, like the bottom bridge here. Survivorship bias played a role, where things they don't build to last, evidently don't last to this day, but mostly it's because they don't really understand the math behind all of it so they take the most conservative and the tried and tested rules of thumb when doing big structures. This is why big projects back then can take decades to complete.

In the modern day, we design specifically to balance durability and cost, and we are confident of our maths and understanding of material science to use the least amount that does the work for the design life that we choose.

[-] throwback3090@lemmy.nz 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

From my pov I think you're repeating exactly what I said, but I appreciate the additional details.

My last point is that "the design life we choose" is usually dictated by non-engineering forces. A 12th century king can throw resources at a problem. A 20th century governor cannot, and doesn't care to. They care about the bridge lasting until the end of their term limits.

[-] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

This is why big projects back then can take decades to complete.

Good thing that's not a problem anymore.

[-] rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Was it slaves? I am not seeing any references to slaves building the original bridge online anywhere, where did you see that? :o

[-] crapwittyname@lemm.ee 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I think it's just an assumption based on the mode of society at that time in history. If it was built in the 12th century it was built by what we would now consider slaves. In the 1100s the land was divided into fiefs and the lord of that land considered the people who lived and worked on the land as part of that land: serfs. Unless this bridge was an exception to the rule, then serfs would have undertaken all the labour that got it built.

[-] throwback3090@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 months ago

Yeppers that's the thought process. thanks for explaining better than me.

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Slaves nowadays usually refers to either American-style chattel slavery or Roman-style slavery, both of which were systems much different than Serfdom.

But yes serfs will likely have built it, or were involved with the build under direction of hired stone masons, on order of a noble and with resources a noble paid for, under the general societal rule that serfs were to spend a certain amount of days a year working on infrastructure stuff as part of their taxes. For more details you'd have to dig into the law at that time at that particular place but those kinds of arrangements were incredibly common in Europe in the middle ages. You tended to be able to buy yourself out of having to work, and also pay your way in silver or gold out of paying in grain, livestock, etc.

[-] throwback3090@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm considering most economic systems prior to...the last few centuries to be essentially slavery. If some random king owns everything....

Not the same as America's slavery of course, nor is it necessarily legally structured slavery as existed in many societies, but nevertheless.

[-] kitmayfield@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago

Bridge over troubled bridges

[-] jcs@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago

There is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution that works.

[-] lugal@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 months ago

I once learned that Norwegians have a word for that. It's something like permasorium (provisorium being a temporary solution) and I try to introduce it into German because German does not have a word for it.

[-] TwoBeeSan@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Try to remember this everytime I bastardize something. Will always see it 4 months later and be like "heh"

[-] protist@mander.xyz 16 points 2 months ago

We should go back to building things with rocks

[-] fartsparkles@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

My house is made of limestone and is only a few years old…

[-] protist@mander.xyz 5 points 2 months ago

Your entire house is made out of limestone? Or you have limestone veneer

[-] fartsparkles@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Limestone (thick bastard haha) but the inside is still stud walls, plaster board, etc. Quarry is nearby so it was practically a steal.

[-] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 2 months ago

The way we build now is as cheap as will be safe. That's why we have engineers, it takes pretty extensive education to make someone able to make a bridge cheap enough

[-] TomasEkeli@programming.dev 14 points 2 months ago

why remove that? it doesn't affect the new bridge in any way, except maybe making access easier

[-] tiramichu@lemm.ee 13 points 2 months ago

If it's not broke...

[-] Zachariah@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

…marry it!

[-] LuxSpark@lemmy.cafe 5 points 2 months ago

That bridge looks pretty stout.

[-] emuspawn@orbiting.observer 8 points 2 months ago

Don't worry, if the bridge breaks there are two backup bridges conveniently located close by!

[-] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 10 points 2 months ago

Every game engine older than two console generations in existence.

[-] ThunderclapSasquatch@startrek.website 6 points 2 months ago

The primordial code from the Quake engine in pretty much ever 3d game giggles at the passage of time

[-] zarathustra0@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

Surely the devil has something to say about all of this?

[-] CuddlyCassowary@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

Due to lack of participation, I’m pretty sure he’s in Georgia dealing with a musical competition at the moment.

[-] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I see what you did there.

[-] jcg@halubilo.social 8 points 2 months ago

Ah yes the ever elusive "tech debt"

[-] shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

Tbh I don't think my code could last several hundred years.

[-] m33@theprancingpony.in 4 points 2 months ago

@cm0002 Of course, of course...

#XKCD2347 #XKCD

this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
792 points (100.0% liked)

Programmer Humor

22854 readers
111 users here now

Welcome to Programmer Humor!

This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!

For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.

Rules

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Feyter@programming.dev
anzo@programming.dev
BurningTurtle@programming.dev
pylapp@programming.dev