November: Why did we do a recurring joke about not doing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster? Why did we taunt you with this for over a year?... And why did you like it? The reason why we did this is because it's the textbook engineering disaster, like literally, it will be in a textbook for a first-level tertiary engineering course. And the way in which it's taught will be both reductive, and wrong. Like everything you're taught in the first two years of university it's taught to you wrong, on purpose, like as a prank. And so, "uh, it was too much wind and the bridge fell down", uh fine, whatever. And so in that sense it's useful, because it's a 'pure' engineering disaster, right? No such thing. All engineering is political. All engineering requires a holistic and materialist view, of why the thing was built in the first place. Okay, "bridge fall down", right? Great, fine. Why did they build the bridge there, why did they build it like that, and why is 'like that' often 'cheaply'? Why is it left to a bunch of toll-booth guys to do it?
Justin: Why do they allow Man's Hubris to experiment with the third largest bridge ever constructed?
November: Why did the federal government not hunt Mothman to extinction before building this bridge? There are so many questions, and trying to answer these questions, trying to arrive at a better understanding of both a disaster and the society that produced it is the only way to save tomorrow's Tubby
. You're welcome.
Beat
November: Also, we do enjoy annoying you, the listener.
Justin: Why do they allow Man's Hubris to experiment with the third largest bridge ever constructed?
November: Why did the federal government not hunt Mothman to extinction before building this bridge? There are so many questions, and trying to answer these questions, trying to arrive at a better understanding of both a disaster and the society that produced it is the only way to save tomorrow's Tubby
. You're welcome. Beat
November: Also, we do enjoy annoying you, the listener.
— November lays out the raison d'etre of the podcast, September 2021 live show
Justin: Hijacking was an exciting adventure to Cuba, and now it's a less exciting adventure to being smashed into a building. Everyone's gonna try-
November: P-Put it on the Quotes page. People think I don't remember the fact that we have a TV Tropes page with like a religiously updated list of quotes. Whoever's doing that, I see you.
— Justin explaining why hijackings became uncommon after 2001,followed by November referencing this very website, Episode 140: Helios Airways Flight 522
Justin: One of the earliest subjects philosophers pondered was the nature of knowledge. Right?
What do we know? What can we know? Can we know that we know? Is knowledge possible? This is called epistemology. Modern construction has settled these questions once and for all with the only thing we can know is that we know nothing.
After the work of architects, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, contractors, subcontractors, and dozens of project managers come together, there are two distinct end products: The building, and the as-built documents showing how the building was finally built. And they bear a tenuous relationship at best.
As-built documents display, for all to see, our lack of knowledge of our own creations, and as such, to hide our shame, we usually store them in a rusty filing cabinet, under a leaky water heater, in a locked closet, to which only two people have the keys, both of whom are retired. Then, ten years later when some major alteration or renovation occurs, these waterlogged documents are removed from their prison, scanned, saved as a low-resolution PDF, and handed off to an intern, to clean up the photocopier burn as best they can so design work can commence.
Contractors are given these designs and then throw them out and work from actual field conditions, requesting change orders as needed and cursing design professionals all the while. Once the work is substantially complete, design professionals return to survey the work completed and create a new set of as-builts, built based on the original photocopied set, and the cycle continues.
— “The As-Builts Rant:” from Episode 41: Nine Eleven (just the WTC towers)
"America is at its best when it lets you do things as an individual that you really shouldn't; and Americans are at their best when they forget that they have to pay for their health care."
November Kelly, regarding the lawsuits over Panera Charged Lemonade, in Episode 148: De Havilland Comet
November: So funny though if the one consequence of this [episode] is Tom Hanks is assassinated by the Mexican Government.
Liam: That would suck, I would feel bad.
November: Imagine the Chet Hanks vlog.
— “Talking about the movie The Polar Express):” from Episode 143: Corredor Interoceánico)
:” from Episode 143: Corredor Interoceánico)