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Building Your Own Hobbit Hole
Alien54 writes "Sometimes people go too far in being a fan of a great movie or of a great book. Now you can be the proud owner of a Hobbit Hole. The site offers basic plans, as well as technical resources. For example, one thing you might want to consider in your planning is Large Elliptical Precast Concrete Pipe."
Great. Just what a Geek needs. Something the promotes sunlight deprivation all teh more. *shakes head*
Really though, half of what makes Bag End from the movie so damn kewl was the woodwork and *THAT* isn't cheap. My uncle did it for a living (before going back to school again and becoming a newspaper editor) and the cost of godly woodwork of the Hobbit or Elf is enough to buy another whole house...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Build a monolithic dome and cover it with sod. Should work just as well. Monolithic domes are cool.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
You are definitely right that it's not very practical. Even in the book (The Lord of the Rings) Tolkien mentions that most modern hobbits do not live in holes.
Only the very poor and the very rich hobbits live in holes. The poor hobbits live in holes because they can't afford to build a house, and the rich live in elaborate holes because it is traditional, and because they can afford to make them luxurious.
... anyway, that's what I remember reading. If anyone can confirm that I'm not just pulling this out of my ass, please do. (I can't find it in the book at the moment.)
Actually, if you listen to the director's commentary track on the special edition DVD, Peter Jackson says the head-bumping incident with Gandalf was an accident. It's a tribute to Sir Ian McKellen that he was able to go right on acting as if it was scripted...seems to have fooled a lot of people, including myself at first glance.
Judging by the Yoda-speak
"Yoda-speak" you can call it, but the technical term is "OSV typology", for "Object Subject Verb".
J.R.R. Tolkien's hobby was building fictional worlds and languages. The Lord of the Rings began as his back-story for a book about Elvish tongues. Some of his languages might have been OSV, but most were SVO like English.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I saw the history channel show about this and I thought it was one of the coolest things I had seen in a long time. But now it's for sale... check it out...
underground fortress
But when a grown adult man daydreams about living in an underground wizard cave instead of about girls, money, and cars, I believe that there is a problem.
I don't doubt he dreams about girls; but some of us need other, more realistic dreams. Cars just aren't everyone's thing. He who truely dreams about money is lost; they get to spend their life in the cold and heartless chase of cash.
I doubt any of us live on grounds that are vast and mountainous enough to actually build one of these holes.
You doubt that any one of the tens of thousands of slashdot readers lives near a hill? Go back to geography class; just because you live in Kansas, doesn't mean we all do.
being a hero and saving everyone from a death by drowning. [...]imagine that you're a sexy, long-haired Mel Gibson.
Because these are such realistic goals. Instead of dreaming we're a hero in the ancient past, let's dream we're a seductive commoner in the recent past (who, IIRC, only saved one person) or a sleazebag who lies, and steals his way to the top and is a complete cad, but it's all right, because he has charisma and is Mel Gibson.
You offer us the sad myths of the modern world instead of the great myths of fantasy. Sorry, not interested. I'll try and take my modern world straight, and let my fantasies go where they may.
The way to go is tunnel liner, bolt-together segments used for making tunnels and small underpasses. Diameters to 6 meters are available standard, and to 36 meters by special order. Various cross sections are possible by mixing curved sections of different radii. You can get a nearly flat floor if desired.
Armtec's tunnel liner system isn't particularly good looking inside, but there are nicer ones, such as the ones used in newer Jubilee Line stations of the London Underground. The Tube is a good place to look for ideas on how to use curved underground spaces.