Rebuilding America (PopSci)

[mooncliff]

Popular Science outlines how to rebuild the US in the February 2010 issue.

These are the kinds of exponential improvements that could just help us dig out of the very deep hole we have dug for ourselves. In fact, if they work, we could have the biggest boom we have ever seen... after we get through the current nonsense.

http://www.popsci.com/category/tags/rebuilding-america
(For some reason, "#1: Transportation" won't load on the computer I am using, so will try another browser later.)

http://www.popsci.com/announcements/...infrastructure

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Rebuilding America (PopSci)

http://www.popsci.com/category/tags/rebuilding-america (For some reason, "#1: Transportation" won't load on the computer I am using, so will try another browser later.)

#1 Transportation will not load for me either, using any of Firefox, Lynx or Opera. It causes a 403 Forbidden error, which is usually some minor setting problem on the server side.

[Rajiv]

Re: Rebuilding America (PopSci)

Gives me a "Content Encoding Error" - "The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression"

[mooncliff]

Re: Rebuilding America (PopSci)

Well, for now, let's read through the parts #5 to #2 that work and hope they fix #1 soon.

There are lots of interesting pieces of US infrastructure that should be fixed, and doing so would produce enormous economic and quality of life improvements.

For example, with telecom, Japan has had good plug-and-play modems since the 90s. Since around 2005, it is standard for new apartment buildings to have cable, optical fiber, AND telephone broadband, so you can pick the one that suits you best; in some buildings, broadband service is free. Older buildings are being retrofitted for cable, optical fiber, and high speed telephone broadband (or else the landlord will have difficulty renting). I just started using a WiFi modem for my laptop, and it is great. Japan has targeted 20% of workers telecommuting at least a few days per month by next year. You have to have reliable (two brief outages in 10 years), cheap (6M, $20 per month) broadband to do that. This relieves overcrowding during rush hour, allows more flexibility with your time, and prepares for the inevitable quakes. I would give very high priority to making broadband as cheap and as widely available as possible in the US.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Rebuilding America (PopSci)

Japan has targeted 20% of workers telecommuting at least a few days per month by next year. You have to have reliable (two brief outages in 10 years), cheap (6M, $20 per month) broadband to do that.

Aw shucks, you don't need that good. Most humans have more than "two brief outages in 10 years" (aka sick days.)

I recommend for someone who needs reliable modest cost internet to use a pair of Internet connections from different vendors, say one over cable and one over twisted pair, through a load balancing router. This can get you up to an hour or two a year downtime, which is good enough for many purposes, including telecommuting.

[mooncliff]

Re: Rebuilding America (PopSci)

Aw shucks, you don't need that good. Most humans have more than "two brief outages in 10 years" (aka sick days.)

I recommend for someone who needs reliable modest cost internet to use a pair of Internet connections from different vendors, say one over cable and one over twisted pair, through a load balancing router. This can get you up to an hour or two a year downtime, which is good enough for many purposes, including telecommuting.

Oh, that sounds good. Will try that for some friends.

Ha ha... this is Japan... the slightest thing goes wrong and everyone freaks.
The electricity is about 20 cents a kilowatt-hour, but I must say it is reliable. A crane snagged some high tension wires about 10 years ago, and about a fifth of Tokyo lost power for a few hours, and everyone commented on how they had never seen such a thing in 40 years. I lost power once for about two hours, but that was because a pilot had to eject and a fighter jet crashed into the high tension lines near here. The PopSci article mentions how much electrical outages are costing the US economy, so you pay one way or another. Everything has to be overbuilt in Japan because, and I am not joking, sometimes we have a typhoon every week for months, and sometimes there are fairly strong quakes (like things fall off shelves) every day for more than a month. On the other hand, it is usually cool and rainy for most of the summer, and then it is clear and sunny in the winter, and we rarely have water supply problems.