a thousand thousand megawatts lived on, and so did i

Due to a particular series of links and backlinks, I was introduced to a website called The Vanishing Point yesterday.  The gent who runs it, and other like-minded souls, make a hobby of entering old buildings, ancient drains, abandoned houses, and so on.  The habit / hobby has been given the rather high-falutin’ name of ‘Urban Explortation’ – and while I may be slightly skeptical of the overarching motives and ethics of some of the praticioners, I cannot deny that they bring back drop-dead amazing photos and a remarkable sense of wonder and history:

Digging through all the pictures of huge industrial culverts, old power complexes, and abandoned, rotting buildings also helped crystallize a few particular thoughts in my head.  The fact that my clean, shining life-style is built on top of 140 years of rubble is a little disturbing, and the fact that the world of Web 2.0 and clean vector graphics is powered by thousands of pounds of pressure from ever-falling water is humbling to say the least.