Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/02/paris-olympic-village-gains-facepalm-status.html
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We need A/C’s in our eco friendly environment, so let’s use the least efficient models we can find.
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So, why isn’t that working well enough? Operational problems, or basic problems like overloading their underground heatsink?
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So instead of efficient central heat pumps. We now have a ton of rooms with the most inefficient cooling possible. 
I bet most of the portable ACs are going to be the super inefficient one hose kind too…
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I owe you a coke.
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Or perhaps team bosses don’t trust the geothermal cooling system and refuse to take a chance on it.
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And, bien sûr, that’s before we find out if these games will be hosted by a fascist government.
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I enjoyed the London Olympics. It was the last time the UK felt a united country you could be proud to be a citizen of. Of course the longer term goals of raising public sport participation failed, and some of the facilities were sold off in a rather dodgy way, but the event itself was great.
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Silver lining I suppose, most of us weren’t around to watch Jesse Owens’ wins in Berlin.
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Why do we schedule elite outdoor sporting events for the hottest weeks of the year? There’s no reason they couldn’t be held in May or October. When the Olympics are in the southern hemisphere they change the month so clearly the dates are movable.
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The saving grace for it being hosted in Los Angeles is that it’s mostly making use of existing venues rather than the extremely expensive and wasteful construction of purpose-built venues that most host cities build. When LA last hosted the games in 1984 is was widely considered to be a big financial success, actually generating a profit rather than indebting the local government. Hopefully we get similar results this time around.
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IIRC, there was a traffic policy put in place that should still be normal: banning trucks and large shipping/transport off the streets during prime traffic hours and making deliveries like that happen at night. Might no longer work!
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Yeah, given that the Olympic Village is going to be on the UCLA campus in West L.A. they’d better have some kind of effective traffic policy in place. Walking is often faster than taking the bus in that neighborhood.
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That was my first thought too. Worst of both worlds.
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I am not a fan of the Olympics and dread their coming to Los Angeles
I was studying for one of my degrees when the 2008 Beijing Olympics happened. They were stand out examples of complete waste, and occupied a ton of press at the time. A few years later I visited there and saw the mostly vacant Olympic village and it was kinda depressing.
I recall a professor mentioning once that what they should do is move the summer ones to Athens, permanently. The permanent facility means it wouldn’t be built to fall apart, as so often happens, and also Greece would get a nice tourist kick. Makes logical sense - not sure why we didn’t do this. As for winter, I’m not a winter sport person but I bet there’s some place that could be the permanent home for it.
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I remember that. They also asked businesses to adjust their work hours to offset rush hours. Suddenly traffic in L.A. went from unbearable to tolerable. They should have maintained the policy, but it only lasted a few glorious summer months.
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The Olympics are such a conundrum. The athletes are amazing proof of the abilities of humans. They work incredibly hard, dedicating themselves to push the edge of human performance. And bc of the world wide pool of talent, they are a true representation of people.
Sadly, just about everything Else about the olympics is crap.
–edited to add Else.
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Paris is doing the same.
The Paris Games is aiming to reduce its total carbon emissions to half the level of previous editions in London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
As well as the “eco-friendly” village that includes low-carbon building materials, organisers are mostly relying on temporary stadiums or renovated old ones, instead of building new venues.
Only two new permanent venues will be used during the Games.
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Fugging brilliant move, bureaucratically speaking. The At Their Own Expense bit isn’t about the expense, it’s about LEED certification and who owns the misdeed.
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