Andy Grove on Our Electric Future - "Energy independence [viz.] is the wrong goal. Here is a plan Americans can stick to." Perhaps some infrastructure spending^1,2 is in order? [etc., &c., cf.]
posted on Jul 15, 2008 - View this thread

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush. "The next president will have to deal with yet another crippling legacy of George W. Bush: the economy. A Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, sees a generation-long struggle to recoup." [Via Firedoglake.]
posted on Nov 18, 2007 - View this thread

John Stilgoe is a professor at Harvard who teaches his students how to, among other things, mindfully observe the urban and suburban environments they inhabit.
posted on Oct 11, 2007 - View this thread

"California has a decision to make. We either brace ourselves for long-term [water] cuts that threaten our economy and our very way of way of life, or we invest in a solution to fix the [San Francisco Bay] Delta and expand our water toolbox so we can meet future challenges head-on.”
posted on Sep 16, 2007 - View this thread

Three Generations of “America to the Rescue.”
posted on Aug 23, 2007 - View this thread

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) published their latest Infrastructure Report Card in 2005. America's infrastructure got a D. The ASCE estimate that it will cost $1.6 trillion over a five-year period to bring the nation's infrastructure to good condition. They also have a Critical Infrastructure blog. [Via Gristmill.]
posted on Aug 3, 2007 - View this thread

Roads To Riches (or We've Got a Bridge in Brooklyn to Sell You--Seriously) -- Why investors are clamoring to take over America's highways, bridges, and airports—and why the public should be nervous.--...a slew of Wall Street firms—Goldman, Morgan Stanley, the Carlyle Group, Citigroup, and many others—is piling into infrastructure ... Assets sold now could change hands many times over the next 50 years, with each new buyer feeling increasing pressure to make the deal work financially. It's hardly a stretch to imagine service suffering in such a scenario; already, the record in the U.S. has been spotty. ...
posted on Apr 29, 2007 - View this thread

"[Vitek] Boden had waged a three-month war against the Scada (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system of Maroochy Water Services in Australia beginning in January 2000, which saw millions of gallons of sewage spill into waterways, hotel grounds and canals around the Sunshine Coast suburb." A 2002 Washington Post story on possible al-Qaeda attacks also mentions the Boden case: "Specialists in cyber-terrorism have studied Boden's case because it is the only one known in which someone used a digital control system deliberately to cause harm."
posted on Feb 16, 2006 - View this thread

Polar Inertia is an online photojournal devoted to exploring and documenting contemporary nomadism, urban architectural typology, and the oft-hid-in-plain-sight infrastructure of contemporary existence.
posted on Jun 14, 2005 - View this thread

Anyone smell a conspiracy? London and the South East gets hit by a massive power cut in a similar way to New York and the surrounding areas. Complaints from authorities in both cities of "under-investment in the National Grid " and talk of "antiquated infrastructure" strangely mirror each other and it's odd that these two extremely rare events have happened so close together. Was this a deliberate test of our emergency infrastructures, terrorism or just plain coincidence?
posted on Aug 29, 2003 - View this thread

Halliburton out of the running for the $600 billion contract to rebuild Iraqs infrastructure. Andrew Natsios, director of the USAID, which is handing out most of the postwar contracts, is keen to counter any allegations of favoritism or political influence. "If I got a phone call from anybody putting any political pressure on me, I would report it immediately". Halliburton is the company formerly run by Dick Cheney, VP of the United States.
posted on Mar 28, 2003 - View this thread

There's a lot of news coverage this morning about Afghanistan going live with their official country domain ".af" - the first two advertised sites are here (?) and here (via the BBC). There's a less publicized, and much better site here via google. I guess you know you've made it as a civilization these days when the glass is lit. I remember how excited I was when the ADSL synchronized and my pop up adventure began. . . I hope this isn't our farewell present to this country, though.
posted on Mar 10, 2003 - View this thread

Iraq - Its infrastructure of concealment, deception and intimidation (pdf) is Downing Street's recently released intelligence dossier regarding Iraq, mentioned during Colin Powell's UN speech. Fair enough maybe, but they copied it pretty much wholesale from here (authored by a postgraduate student from California), without even as much as a thank you. More info here (channel4.com) and here (bbc.co.uk).
posted on Feb 6, 2003 - View this thread

Is state government finally doing something right? Who knows? this seems legit enough. Apparently, if you register you can get cyber security alerts delivered to your mailbox. Can I register if I'm from say, Nebraska? Furthermore, how real is the threat to Florida's cyber infrastructure anyways?
posted on Nov 21, 2002 - View this thread

E-mail Reaches the Unreachable via Shortwave in the Solomons
PFNet is an innovative development project which deploys a growing network infrastructure across the largely rural and remote communities of the Solomon Islands. "PFnet is based on a model where community-managed, operator-assisted email facilities provide all groups (even illiterates) the means to send messages and Internet emails. ... Owing to the formidable logistical barriers in this scattered island nation, the mainstay of the network uses HF/Wavemail; a well proven system short-wave radios in Pactor 2 mode." The organization is a finalist for the Stockholm Challenge, an award for innovation in IT development.
    All a community needs is a shortwave radio, solar panels, and a computer running Wavemail to send email, and potentially more. The results are quite impressive: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
posted on Jul 3, 2002 - View this thread

"No national railway of a developed country has ever run a profit. They're not supposed to. The correlative economic and social benefits they throw off -- bringing commuters to taxpaying corporations daily, for one thing -- more than offset any net loss they suffer." [via camworld]

You don't run your home's central heating, air conditioning or plumbing at a profit, so why should a country try to run its infrastructure that way, be it rail, health service, water, ...? Is it forced on us because nationalised services always seem to become fantastically inefficient and bureaucratic?
posted on Jun 26, 2002 - View this thread

Next move - nationalizing the internet infrastructure in Europe ? 300 staff and union officials have blockaded themselves at the network operations centre in Belgium following Dutch telecoms company KPNQwest bankruptcy filing. Stocked up on provisions, taking shifts unpaid to keep the centre fully operational. "If we leave, then in three to five days there will be the largest internet slowdown in European history." From the article - KPNQwest's infrastructure covers 60 cities around Europe, estimated between one third and one half of all European internet traffic.
posted on Jun 7, 2002 - View this thread

Somalia's entire internet access and international phone service shut down by the United States.
posted on Nov 23, 2001 - View this thread

Want to know when the T3 will get set up in Chad, or how much access costs in Djibouti? Check out African Information Infrastructure. It's guaranteed to make you glad you don't live in the Third World and can connect at higher than 14.4.
posted on Sep 8, 1999 - View this thread