[fasouto]

This is a bit random, but when I was an intern at CERN I spent a summer living in an old civil defense bunker near Geneva.

Short-term accommodation was notoriously expensive for students back then (probably even worse now), and I didn't hesitate when they offered me this unconventional housing opportunity.

The bunker had a decontamination zone, air filtering system, massive concrete doors, a large communal kitchen, and numerous small bunk beds. It was adequate for short-term use, but we encountered two main issues:

- It's remarkably easy to lose track of time without natural light cues

- Even with the air filering system wet clothes wouldn't dry properly inside

[thatfrenchguy]

> - It's remarkably easy to lose track of time without natural light cues

What was wild to me moving to the US from France was how many office buildings have many rooms without windows: you could be in your office or in meeting rooms and there are just zero natural light. Same in doctor's offices where you're always seen in a windowless window. Would drive me crazy if I had to work there all day.

[macNchz]

Windowless office spaces are so miserable to me. Often under-ventilated and overlit with unpleasant artificial light as well.

On this topic, something window-related that’s common in France but rare in the US is functional shutters—it’s so nice to be able to completely close a shutter outside your bedroom window and have pitch blackness, regardless of the light outside. The best you get in a typical American house is "blackout" curtains or shades that leak tons of light around the edges.

[dekhn]

I strongly prefer windowless offices for work. The outside looks distracting (enticing), people walk by, the light is bright, etc. My ideal work environment would be a small room with a door that closes and excellent sound isolation and ambient lighting control. But I am definitely not typical.

[pyuser583]

More modern buildings are nothing but transparent glass. It feels like working in a fishbowl.

[bschne]

I'm in civil protection service in Switzerland and occasionally spend a few days at a time in one of these doing basically office work or running refresher courses etc., definitely agree on the losing track of time thing --- can't count the number of times I've come up at 4--5pm and been extremely surprised by how light or dark, sunny or rainy it was

[amelius]

Of course there's a technical solution:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43497394

[AStonesThrow]

In high school we were having growing pangs, and so several of my classes were held in temporary trailers that had been hauled onto campus for that purpose. They were serviceable and not particularly hostile, and arguably more modern than the existing classrooms we were using anyway.

Then I graduate and enroll in a cushy university (UCSD) and come to find out, they're also having growing pangs, and so in the middle of campus we found ourselves taking classes in Quonset huts. These Quonset huts were bona fide military surplus, though it was already 1990. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_hut

The Quonset huts were extraordinarily different from the classrooms and lab facilities we used on campus; they were, of course, comparatively set out in the wilderness, and very rough accommodations overall.

However, I was a commuting student, and nobody was living in Quonset huts, so after our hourlong class was dismissed, I was able to retreat to the relative comfort of home, or the Theodore Geisel library.

[linksnapzz]

I worked at UCSD in one of the "temporary" classroom/offices next to the Eucalyptus Point dining hall. We had a family of raccoons under ours for several years, which I blamed on the questionable shoring and piers that supported those.

In addition, one of my co-workers was heavy enough such that he could deform the floor in one just by standing up and walking around, so much so that pens/markers would roll off nearby desks as he went past.

[bschne]

> In high school we were having growing pangs

weren't we all...

[pjmlp]

It was already a pain in 2003 and the whole process looks like hunting for a job with interview process and everything.

For us it was a schock, versus the usual "you can pay it is yours", first come first served that we had back in Portugal.

However while not living in a bunker, we did have parties in some somehow converted into clubs.

[firefax]

>while not living in a bunker, we did have parties in some somehow converted into clubs.

Apparently in Bratislava, there is a club inside what was a fallout bunker underneath what was the king's palace but now serves as the residence of the... PM I think? Maybe president? My memory is hazy.

(Not due to the technobunker party sadly -- I was passing through on a weekday and it was sadly closed, so no uhn tiss tiss for me.)

[elashri]

Summer students at CERN lives in CERN Meyrin hostel nowadays. I heard that this make life much easier for them. But it is more affordable than anything in Geneva or Meyrin. And definitely would fit the low O(2) accepted students. At the expense of "gently" kicking everyone else.

[rz2k]

Hopefully the students weren’t low O_2 when they lived in bunkers.

[Onavo]

How do you deal with the mold problem?

[seb1204]

Control moisture in the air?

[baxtr]

Excuse my lack of experience in that matter, but with modern inventions like the watch shouldn’t keeping track of time be something that is possible?

[jamiek88]

Time is a feeling too, it’s the sense of time that goes awry. Like casinos attempt to mimic.

[palmotea]

> Excuse my lack of experience in that matter, but with modern inventions like the watch shouldn’t keeping track of time be something that is possible?

No, just like the existence of books or the internet doesn't relieve you of needing to know stuff.

Everyone has internal sense of time that relies on external natural cues. A watch is a kludgy bolt-on that's not well integrated with one's awareness.

[rollcat]

Your body will disagree with the watch at some point.

Imagine being stuck sick at home or in the hospital for an extended period of time - you will lose track of which weekday it is.

[AStonesThrow]

26 years ago I was interviewing for a sysadmin job in an academic setting. And I was invited to my prospective coworker's office. He was a software developer, mostly, but jack-of-all-trades for the office systems. There was a lot of data processing involved.

His office featured a Sun workstation on his desktop, and a desk piled rather high with paperwork and whatnot. There was absolutely no wall clock anywhere to be found. His workstation's desktop also did not feature a clock. There was really no indication of the passage of time in that space.

I drank in the import of this, and I asked him if it was true, and he agreed readily. I was sort of amazed. But it was also quite humbling that he could construct such a space, where he could basically throw himself into his work and dedicate as much time as necessary, until his stomach or fatigue drew him back into the real world.

[udev4096]

Past, present and future is nothing but a stubborn illusion!