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12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
Scrap Metal Sci-Fi Sculptures are Impressive to Say the Least

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Sora57 is OK
02/26/09

In reply to 12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
For once, it's nice to see a kid turning trash into a home instead of the other way around.
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Purple Dave
02/26/09

In reply to 12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
The coolest thing about this is that you don't have to put your trash out every week. When your home fills up, you just collect enough materials out of it to build a new home, tie off the opening to the old one, and set it out by the curb.
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Elhigh
02/26/09

In reply to 12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
That ain't no yurt. It's much closer to being a geodesic dome than anything, a yurt has vertical walls and a shallow conical roof.

There's a guy in my neighborhood with a dome in his back yard, he calls that thing a yurt, too. What's with these people?
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Justin Wyatt
02/26/09

In reply to 12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
I shall use this design in the next shanty town.
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DeusExMach wonders what the hell happened to his star.
02/26/09

@Justin Wyatt: Are you going to call it an "Obamaville"?
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Hello Mister Walrus
02/26/09

@DeusExMach: Perhaps we should just use its current name: "Detroit".
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Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
02/26/09

In reply to 12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
That's pretty cool, although his first version of it was definitely more ghetto..

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Hello Mister Walrus
02/26/09

@Jrsy Devil's Food Cake®: Tell the homeless people to live under piles of garbage bags?
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Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
02/26/09

@Hello Mister Walrus: As harsh as this may sound (and I do apologize for it) many already do. It's usually in the form of whatever belongings they have piled up around them like a barrier against the rest of society. It's very sad..
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Baldyman1966
02/26/09

In reply to 12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
MAJOR DESIGN FLAW - the thing is made of plastic and paking peanuts (the polystyrene kind from the look of the picture. Are these materials not a little flamable for people to be sleeping under.
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Hello Mister Walrus
02/26/09

@Baldyman1966: Don't you realize that this is a ploy to rid cities of homeless people? Not only will they suffocate from that thing having no breathing holes, they will also die when the slightest spark sets it ablaze and makes it spew poisonous gases. Clearly, this kid is the next Adrian Veidt. Do you see his round happy face? That is the face of a future psychic monster octopus-teleporting tycoon.
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rudeadly
02/26/09

In reply to 12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
fuck the homeless.
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fsusmithc2
02/26/09

@rudeadly:

My my. Aren't we a compassionate, blananced member of society? Karma's a bitch my friend.
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Kaiser-Machead
02/26/09

@rudeadly: Hey, not on the first date buddy.
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Hello Mister Walrus
02/26/09

@rudeadly: I don't know... I prefer to have sex with people who have access to showers.
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DeusExMach wonders what the hell happened to his star.
02/26/09

@fsusmithc2: @Kaiser-Machead: @Hello Mister Walrus: Actually, that's a fairly elegant solution, as well: Homeless Porn. I mean, they're already used to getting fucked by the system, and being shit and pissed on by society. Film it, set up a digital distribution model, and for one great night, gap-toothed betty gets to stay in a warm bed, and take a hot shower in the morning.
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BeautifulAgony
02/26/09

@DeusExMach: Hobosexuals, eh? The titles are already coming to me...

Guttersluts

Ragamuffing

Bum & Grind

Vagabondage

America's Next Top Runaway Model
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Cordfucious of Tech Clan
02/26/09

@BeautifulAgony: you need a star for that one.
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weatherman
02/26/09

In reply to 12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
It really has nothing to do with a Yurt, but it's a nice design anyway. If you follow the link there's a video of the design/assembly, and it looks like the kid got some help turning his idea from very rough prototype into something much more elegantly designed. How much of that design (with the geodesic dome and pre-fab insulated panels) was actually his idea is unclear, but no matter what the kid deserves a lot of credit for creating a very simple, useful product out of recycled materials.

Oh, and one thing that always bothers me about these stories; frequently they're referred to as helping "the homeless" when they're actually probably better suited and designed for disaster victims and displaced people. The kid even says that's what it's for, but because "homeless" somehow sounds more direct people latch on to that. Which is a shame because useful as it might be for the chronically homeless, at least in the US there's no way that these structures would be allowed to stand and people know that, which makes them dismiss ideas like this as impractical solutions because they're really designed to address a different problem.
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BeautifulAgony
02/26/09

@weatherman: Well said... here in the US these would get destroyed by vandalism, or the homeless people "living" in them would be arrested with various trumped up charges. Homelessness is treated more as a crime, rather than a problem to be solved.
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dimsum4u
02/26/09

In reply to 12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
hmm...at 12...Darking Wing Duck, Tail Spin, Rescue Rangers and Duck Tails...homeless dome...psh...
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Kaiser-Machead
02/26/09

@dimsum4u: Blathering blatherskite!
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eriegz
02/26/09

In reply to 12-year-old Builds Homeless Shelter Yurt from Trash
Whenever I read stories like this I always think "Man, what was I doing when I was 12 years old?"

The answer is: Probably playing Donkey Kong 1, 2, or 3...

...depending on the time of day...
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irish_stickman
02/26/09

@eriegz: When i was 12 i spent my entire time playing Goldeneye on the N64
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Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
02/26/09

@irish_stickman: When I was 12, I was playing Combat on my Atari 2600...
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BeautifulAgony
02/26/09

@Jrsy Devil's Food Cake®: When I was 12(ish), I was becoming an MS=DOS whiz, and playing games like King's Quest, Space Quest, etc. Then I discovered dial-up BBS's and life was never the same and I irrevocably became a geek girl.

But now I wish I'd been making forts made out of trash! Oh well, mine probably wouldn't have been this cool!
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AzaleaBrutus
02/26/09

@eriegz: When I was 12 , I played with myself...

Still do...:-)
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BeautifulAgony
02/26/09

@AzaleaBrutus: @DeusExMach:

Yeah, I'm sure at that age many of us were setting records in that department... it's one of the most popular single-player games that doesn't require any complex installation, hardware upgrades (though peripherals help) or instruction manuals! The multiplayer version is great too!
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Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
02/26/09

@BeautifulAgony: It was another 4 years or so after before I got my first taste of personal computing in the form of BASIC and a Commodore PET...
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Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
02/26/09

@BeautifulAgony: As great as the multiplayer version is it does have some occasional issues that never occur when engaged in singleplayer mode.. ;)
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fed1
02/26/09

@BeautifulAgony:
Oh, and Larry and Police Quest :-)
Miss a good game of Spca Quest!
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BeautifulAgony
02/27/09

@fed1: I was thrilled when I found that they re-released all the classics, and for a decent price as well. I played them all over again and enjoyed them just as much as I did then. Good, funny writing, witty puzzles and fun characters. Good times!
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