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Puzzle Series: What is this, or what do you want it to be?
43 responses to “What’s That? (73)”
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Hmm… you got things that go up and down, but they don’t appear to have a second axis of motion. (Otherwise I might have guessed a giant inkjet printer that prints billboard canvas.) Those orange cages are too constricting for them to be used to lift vehicles for service or dumpsters for dumping. The lamps stuck to the outer corners imply that whatever they lift (if anything) isn’t awkwardly shaped enough to bash into ’em. And there’s a reason to do four of whatever it is at the same time.
I have no freakin idea.
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I’m glad to be back! I usually don’t catch the puzzle pics until they’ve been up for a few days and already solved…
There’s that scraper-thing on the back of each lift that seems to be able to flip up. And the cylinders that looked like nozzles at first, I suppose they could be cable reels – for bundling up compressed bundles of recyclables? But who wants a 20-foot-tall bundle of cardboard?
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I think recycling is a great vein. I think the primary purpose of these is to lift the huge recycling bins, like at a centralized self serve recycling center, up in the air, maybe into a pile to be scooped up by a front loader into a dump truck? Or to be emptied into a waiting dump truck? My only problem with this theory is that they don’t look quite stout enough to lift that much weight.
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Is this a sewage plant, and these things are rakes that pull out larger bits?
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Some kind of truck scale or weighing station. (edit: I say this because of the floor.) There is an air pump at the left in the foreground. The short buildings in the background look like the kind at a tolling station. Of course, this is only an attempt at guessing. That is the best part.
I must admit that I researched truck scales and now I know it is not that.
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Looking a little grainy, why the high iso? There looks to be a reflection, did you shoot from inside a bus?
I think the devices definitely lift or lower some sort of cartridge, that seems to be held on by the two anchors at the top, and rest against the two girders dropping down. The cable lengths do imply that the rigs can be lowered to ground level, such that the top of the cartridges would be at ground level. Whatever it lifts can’t be too heavy because the motor units look relatively small…
The warning on the orange gates seems to say "scaffold dance", which is probably "scaffold danger". In any case it looks like they don’t open which as said already makes it unlikely that these unload vehicles.
There’s a possible Italian flag sticker on what looks like an old air raid siren behind the right most lift.
Those plates on the floor look like they might be reinforcement for large vehicles, or grates to allow liquid (possibly from the hose) to drop into a sump. The high vis cone next to the hose makes me think that vehicles manoeuvre in the vicinity.
There’s definitely an underground area because we can see a ladder-well in the right with a chain across it. Is that a conveyor behind the ladder, made of blue girders?
Then there’s the strange hopper style apparatus in the rear left, which looks like it might load some sort of grain type material into containers.
Nope, I’m stumped, unless it’s lifting cartridges off an underground conveyor, letting them empty onto a higher conveyor and putting them back underground. Sounds a little Heath Robinson to me though.
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Man, I’ve stared at it for a while and I don’t know. At first I was trying to imagine something to picks up something long and boxy (like a shipping container) and rotates it to the vertical. But on closer inspection that doesn’t jive, and I don’t know why anyone would want to do that anyway. The only things I can see are:
* there are 4 controls, so they probably move independently
* there are 2 varieties that alternate from left to right
* those lights mean they must use it at night
* We’ve got lots of orange carts like that at SLAC, but that doesn’t help much…. -
Oops, I realize now that there aren’t 2 varieties — they are just elevated to different heights. Still don’t know what they are though…
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I think it’s a concrete manufacturer and these are mechanisms for getting aggregate down a chute.
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Ah, do the ‘things’ rotate to horizontal, so that they can accept a container from a truck *over* the orange fences, and then rotate back to near vertical and lower it down the chute? Second thought, probably not because that would move the lights, and they’re all tethered together anyway so wouldn’t be able to move like that…
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ok.. lets try it this way: there is a conveyor belt coming from the right, going behind the four "thingies". there must be something, probably raw materials, or maybe waste/recyclable that is sorted and thrown down into (whatever is beyond these..) by the apparatus. we see only the backside, it operates either only the "door" sliding up and down, or a compression takes place. which makes "recycling plant sorting thingy" sound good to me..
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This is so much fun! I see that everyone has (as I did) examined the photo in the largest size for a long time to see all the details. It is so interesting to read all the tentative answers. A particularly good puzzle this time Steve!
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If we look at the angle of the arm segments (orange girder bits) we can see that they are different, and it looks like they might reciprocate around the tracks such that they rise behind them, and drop in front of them. If we look at the orange bar on the bottom, it looks like it might grab something while it’s down there, then the thing lifts is up, where it drops on to the conveyor belt behind.. so it could be grabbing one item a time from a large dump of them underneath.
Does it do something like put dead animal carcasses (don’t know why that came to mind) onto a conveyor belt so they can be processed one at once?
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I’d like to know what’s underneath all this – do those lifts go anywhere? Are we looking at a storage facility for something? Knowing your interests, Steve, might this be for rockets/missiles?
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It looks to me like some sort of tensioning device- the stuff runs round the orange spigots and the motion vertically adjusts the tension, maybe at the end of a plastic extruder. Not sure why its outside though.
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mrmanc’s right that the orange girders seem to be able to rotate slightly. That would probably make the "nozzles" / "cable reels" dashpots to keep the orange things from clanking around too fast. But they’ve only got a tiny range of motion. Weird!
I think the thing with the "Italian flag" decal may be a cylinder of pressurized gas with warning labels. I also think I still have no idea what’s going on here.
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right you are…. mrmanc: in your last comment, you are spot on in describing the activity of these things:
it might grab something while it’s down there, then the thing lifts it up, where it drops on to the conveyor belt behind.
Now for the context… For the past 5 years, I would not have been allowed to be there taking the picture.
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I think that the inclination of the thing is an important hint… I read: "what we do is sun-related".
I imagine this is a device that tests photovoltaic or other kind of panel to gather sun rays. The hangers on each lift may serve as panel holders. I see as mentioned already by others it looks as this is connected to the underground… I imagine that whatever these ‘lifts’ lift, is loaded at the underground room.
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Are the lifts used for carrying nuclear waste containers from an underground store? There are some sites in Utah or WA that have not allowed visitors for years (since 9/11/2001), but are allowing tours again.
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Is this a chemical weapon disposal facility?
Steve, your comment about not being allowed there for the past 5 years made me think of extra security after the 9/11 incident and therefore this location must be a protected site.
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Ah, I forgot to refresh the page before commenting and just saw mrmanc’s similar note. Great minds think alike.
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"Stink" is one clue … and you said to ranjit at the beginning: "welcome back to the puzzle series. Masterful logic there, but use all the senses"
This is definitely something that smells very badly!!!! 😀
Perhaps the lifts are used to dry the "things" under the sun and take their smell off?
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Whoa! Hold the phone…. we have a winner…. I somehow totally missed Godi’s comment… the flickr comment summary cut him off in my view. Bingo Godi, a new winner.
Sorry for the late recognition, but the comments just got better and better…
Alieness: right you are. It’s a poly-sensory experience.
Mrmanc: amazing sleuthing throughout. You deciphered every detail, and even deduced that I was in a bus from the ISO and noise. Bravo!
This is the front end of the San Jose/Santa Clara sewage treatment plant, one of the largest in Silicon Valley, located at the bottom of the Bay in Alviso.
10 ft. wide pipes bring raw sewage to these vertical steel bar screen scrapers, the first stop at the treatment plant. This step removes large objects such as sticks, rocks, paper, diapers and rags. A conveyor belt carries the debris off to the right to a guy in an orange forklift that carts the concentrate away.
After 9/11, the public was not allowed to visit these facilities for five years. 1.5 million people in the South Bay depend on their operation, as 150 million gallons of waste pass through these screens per day.
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Yes, and what an amazing puzzle team on the task…. a ‘wisdom of crowds’ collective.
And I hope my screwup on reading the comments did not make these the torture racks that Alieness predicted…. Note to self: don’t post a puzzle before bedtime.
This area you see in Alviso has sunk below sea level, some areas by 17ft. Years of water usage for agriculture lowered the water table, and the land sank.
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Oh, wow, I was right – cool!! 🙂
It was an amazing puzzle, and I was really not sure that I was on the right track -
There exists a whole Flickr group dedicated to wastewater treatment images, named wastewater-technology / Abwassertechnik.
One nice thing about sewage treatment plants: their ponds and open tanks show great colors when viewed from the air.
See?
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San Jose annexed the town of Alviso so that they could expand this facility. Alviso was a cool little town which you can get the gist of by driving through it. The condo crowd has moved in but old charm is still there, including the ‘marina’ which has filled in and is all docks and grass now.
Don’t be downwind of this place though!
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I now see the rakes that scrape against a short grey back wall and move the muck unto the conveyor belt.
Steve, this was so much fun! The difference in the guesswork possibilities was that it was mechanical rather than electronic so accessible to more "minds". The difference in the number of comments and the great contribution was that you were sleeping and not interfering with our fun at trying to solve the puzzle. So do post each time before going to bed and you will permit so many more people to contribute and keep coming back to see the other answers and add more suggestions. If the first person guesses right, there is no reason to spoil our fun by ending the competition. Please post again before going to bed. We will enjoy it even more! 🙂
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I agree with Mimosa: that you may let the puzzle work for some time even if the first guessers spotted the answer right. It enriches the game a lot, indeed. Amen!
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Steve, let that torture persist in that stretching device! In this case, we love it! It expands the mind!
How about 24 hours of guessing? Give the time of posting, noting that it is your time, then, we would all know to make sure to come back exactly 24 hours later for the answer.
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