I just caught the tail end of Ground Zero Supertower, a NOVA documentary that aired on 9/11/2013, and am quite amazed by the level of money, effort, dangerous + heavy machinery, and risks that thousands poured into building the new skyscraper, memorial and museum. With the transport and mechanical costs (think: mixtures fried in 3000 fahrenheit temperatures to create heavy glass, then transported a few thousand miles away) needed to create the monuments, I’m reminded by how hardcore engineering seems so much more *difficult* than software engineering.

Human invention (including the cameras and editing techniques and software that led to the production of the well-shot documentary I watched) is amazing… yes, we are still so easily susceptible to car accidents and fires and bullets, but let’s never forget the power that people have built by taking the pieces of collective accumulated knowledge and working together**.

**Also why I love hackathons, but that’s another story.