The idea that little machine-guardians at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, like mechanical demiurges on the invisible edge of the world, are at least partially responsible for ensuring that this post can be read in Europe is a comforting thought before bed.

"The more I study technology, the more I tend to the view that it is a single connected whole. Recurring motifs like container ships can turn into obsessions precisely because they offer glimpses of a cryptic God. An object for the devoutly atheist and anti-humanist soul to seek in perpetuity, but never quite comprehend.

I go on infrastructure pilgrimages. I write barely readable pop-theology treatises with ponderous titles like The Baroque Unconscious in Technology, and I do my little dabbling with math, software and hardware on the side.

But I still haven’t seen It. Just an elbow here, a shoulder blade there. And I make my modest attempts to measure those distances."

"The problem was that the vending machine operators and owners suddenly realized once the coin was available that it was going to cost them about $50 to retrofit each machine so that it would accept dollar coins...and most flatly refused to spend the money. They wanted the Mint to pay for the retrofitting, which it wasn't authorized to do.

With banks refusing to order the golden dollar in big numbers or distribute them exclusively when they had them, retailers refusing to order them because of the additional cost, consumer wanting them but having a substitute -- the bill -- that they liked at least as much, and vending machine owners refusing to get in the game, the golden dollar died the same ignominious death as the Susan B. Anthony."

Indeed, my friend Charles Marohn and his colleagues at the Minnesota-based nonprofit Strong Towns have made a very compelling case that suburban sprawl is basically a Ponzi scheme, in which municipalities expand infrastructure hoping to attract new taxpayers that can pay off the mounting costs associated with the last infrastructure expansion, over and over. Especially as maintenance costs increase, there is never enough to pay the bill, because we are building in such expensive, inefficient ways.

"One unfortunate use of Pyrex is cooking crack cocaine, which involves a container of water undergoing a rapid temperature change when the drug is converted from powder form. That process creates more stress than soda-lime glass can withstand, so an entire underground industry was forced to switch from measuring cups purchased at Walmart to test tubes and beakers stolen from labs. Which just goes to show, if you think you know all the consequences of your decisions today, you’re probably wrong."

"We are a collaboration of researchers performing a comparative study of scientific collaborations."

by Paul Edwards

News post on an optimistic report on changing world energy supplies. We just need to divert 3% of world GDP to efficiency, renewables, and infrastructure. Whew!

"Terremark's building in Miami is the physical meeting point for more than 160 networks from around the world. They meet there because of the building's excellent security, its redundant power systems, and its thick concrete walls, designed to survive a category 5 hurricane. But above all, they meet there because the building is "carrier-neutral." It's a Switzerland of the Internet, an unallied territory where competing networks can connect to each other. Terremark doesn't have a dog in the fight. Or at least it didn't."

Now it’s done so well every day that we don’t even think about it. But modern sanitation systems are actually really well thought-out, complex structures. When it’s not done -- say, when sanitation workers miss a pick-up even for one day -- it’s unusual enough that people get really upset, as they should. But it’s like that Buddhist saying about housework -- it’s invisible because you only notice when it’s not done. So I’m not saying san men should be called heroes, necessarily, but it wouldn’t hurt to appreciate them a little more.

Goats on a dam!

via io9, which highlighted his Arctic Technology project.

The International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) was formed in June 2002 with a mission to "facilitate the international coordination and collaboration necessary for the development and deployment of the tools, systems and organizational structures necessary to enable the international utilization of astronomical archives as an integrated and interoperating virtual observatory." The IVOA now comprises 17 VO projects from Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Europe, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

World map of intercontinental, oceanic, internet cables.

Neal Stephenson on underwater cables.

Driven by discoveries, and enabled by leaps in technology and imagination, our understanding of the universe has changed dramatically over the course of the last few decades. The field of astronomy and astrophysics is making new connections to physics, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Based on a broad and comprehensive survey of scientific opportunities, infrastructure, and organization in a national and international context, New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics outlines a plan for ground- and space- based astronomy and astrophysics for the decade of the 2010's. - decadal survey

What is the minimum number of people you need in order to maintain (not necessarily to extend) our current level of technological civilization?

There are huge political ramifications hiding behind this question. Let me unpack them for you.

Our mission is to ensure the reliability of the bulk power system in North America. To achieve that, we develop and enforce reliability standards; assess reliability annually via 10-year and seasonal forecasts; monitor the bulk power system; and educate, train, and certify industry personnel. NERC is a self-regulatory organization, subject to oversight by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and governmental authorities in Canada.

What is currently happening is the privatization of our privates, not just our publics. And this is not a mere question of legality but a lack of legal protections being carried over to a new medium. In some sense, this parallels the lack of carrying of wiretap protections on the phone to the Internet – the social relations did not change but the medium changed allowing for a gap in legal protections.

The correct analogy to the current situation would be if tenants had no rights to privacy in their homes because they happen to be renting the walls and doors. This week, you are allowed to close the door but, oops, we changed the terms-of-service. No more closed doors! You had locks last week but we don’t allow them as of this week. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Facebook speaks of itself as a utility while also telling people they have a choice. But there’s a conflict here.

Infrastructure is the stuff we ignore until it breaks. Then it’s the stuff we’re stunned to discover we’re dependent on.

My research investigates communication and information technology infrastructure and public policy -- especially the way that legal, social, and technical elements work together (or don't work together) to shape systems of communication like the Internet. Usually, I read. Sometimes, I write. Often, I drink coffee. I might be found in a cafe drinking coffee and reading, or at home drinking coffee and writing. Or just drinking coffee.

eTec is partnering with Nissan North America to deploy up to 4,700 zero-emission electric vehicles, the Nissan LEAF, and 11,210 charging systems to support them in strategic markets in five states: Arizona, California, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.

The EV Project will collect and analyze data to characterize vehicle use in diverse topographic and climatic conditions, evaluate the effectiveness of charge infrastructure, and conduct trials of various revenue systems for commercial and public charge infrastructure. The ultimate goal of The EV Project is to take the lessons learned from the deployment of these first 4,700 EVs, and the charging infrastructure supporting them, to enable the streamlined deployment of the next 5,000,000 EVs.

"The problem isn't just devilish. It's stuck in a devil's triangle of cross-pressures conspiring to make a solution incredibly tough. On one side of the triangle is the deep and ongoing state budget crisis...On the triangle's second side is the feds' struggle to figure out what national transportation policy should look like....On the triangle's third side is Congress, where all politics is local and all transportation debates are tactical."

DARPA is the research and development office for the U.S. Department of Defense. DARPA’s mission is to maintain technological superiority of the U.S. military and prevent technological surprise from harming our national security. We also create technological surprise for our adversaries.

Founded in 1989, the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC) is an educational nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization with 62 member institutions representing many of the nation’s most forward thinking universities and computing centers. CASC is dedicated to advocating the use of the most advanced computing technology to accelerate scientific discovery for national competitiveness, global security, and economic success, as well as develop a diverse and wellprepared 21st century workforce.

TeraGrid is an open scientific discovery infrastructure combining leadership class resources at eleven partner sites to create an integrated, persistent computational resource.

Using high-performance network connections, the TeraGrid integrates high-performance computers, data resources and tools, and high-end experimental facilities around the country. Currently, TeraGrid resources include more than a petaflop of computing capability and more than 30 petabytes of online and archival data storage, with rapid access and retrieval over high-performance networks. Researchers can also access more than 100 discipline-specific databases. With this combination of resources, the TeraGrid is the world's largest, most comprehensive distributed cyberinfrastructure for open scientific research.

The National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) provides the most powerful computing resources in the world for open scientific research. It is one of the world’s premier science facilities—an unparalled research environment that supports dramatic advances in understanding how the physical world works and using that knowledge to address our most pressing national and international concerns.

The NCCS was founded in 1992 to advance the state of the art in high-performance computing by putting new generations of powerful parallel supercomputers into the hands of the scientists who can use them the most productively. It is a managed activity of the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program of the Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) and is located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Most of my research is focused around the Globus project™, a joint research project with Ian Foster's group at Argonne National Laboratory. Globus is developing the basic mechanisms and infrastructure for grids. One major result is the development of the Globus Toolkit®, the underlying infrastructure used by most major grid projects.

The Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE) is poised to be the foundation of new innovative environmental science through a distributed framework and sustainable cyberinfrastructure that meets the needs of science and society for open, persistent, robust, and secure access to well-described and easily discovered Earth observational data

List of national labs administered by the Department of Energy.

The truth is that the scientific world is far less generative than the digital space. He proposes three major obstacles to generativity: accessibility, ease of mastery, and tranferability. He points out that, as science has gotten more high tech, it’s far harder to master. The result is hyperspecialization: neuroanatomists don’t talk to neuroinformaticists… “and god help you if you cross species lines.” And so universities are making huge investments to try to encourage collaboration: MIT’s just build a $400 million building – the Cook Center – to force collaboration between cancer researchers… and predictably, researchers are fighting the mandate to move in and work together.

The National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) is a broad, collaborative program to provide increased access to data and information on the nation's biological resources. The NBII links diverse, high-quality biological databases, information products, and analytical tools maintained by NBII partners and other contributors in government agencies, academic institutions, non-government organizations, and private industry.

Weblog on infrastructure, transportation, planning, etc.

In a major new policy paper, Green Project Director Michael Moynihan argues that America must upgrade to Electricity 2.0, an open, distributed network, to unlock the potential of clean technology and unleash a renewable revolution.

Beyond The Echo Chamber is a book and blog dedicated to changing the national conversation about progressive media and the future of journalism itself.

Co-authored by Jessica Clark and Tracy Van Slyke, Beyond The Echo Chamber: Reshaping Politics Through Networked Progressive Media tells the story of the rise of progressive media from 2004 to today and lays out a clear, hard-hitting theory of ongoing impact.

Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age examines the consequences of the changes affecting research data with respect to three issues - integrity, accessibility, and stewardship-and finds a need for a new approach to the design and the management of research projects. The report recommends that all researchers receive appropriate training in the management of research data, and calls on researchers to make all research data, methods, and other information underlying results publicly accessible in a timely manner. The book also sees the stewardship of research data as a critical long-term task for the research enterprise and its stakeholders. Individual researchers, research institutions, research sponsors, professional societies, and journals involved in scientific, engineering, and medical research will find this book an essential guide to the principles affecting research data in the digital age.

The proposed Southwest Light Rail Transit line is a high-frequency train serving the rapidly growing southwest metro area - Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Edina, Hopkins, St. Louis Park, Minneapolis Neighborhoods, and downtown Minneapolis.

Of the proposals, the Cargo Tunnel really caught our attention. The guys behind it — a former Intel employee and a UC-Berkeley professor among them — say they’ve developed a miniature tunnel boring machine (TBM) that can create the network of necessary tunnels without disrupting life above ground.

Trucking Country is a social history of long-haul trucking that explores the contentious politics of free-market capitalism in post-World War II America. Shane Hamilton paints an eye-opening portrait of the rural highways of the American heartland, and in doing so explains why working-class populist voters are drawn to conservative politicians who seemingly don't represent their financial interests.

On Board Midwest is our opportunity to support a new high-speed rail connection between Saint Paul and Chicago that will improve passenger transportation in the region and invest billions of dollars in Minnesota’s future.

There is, I think, a very good argument to be made that Obama should be seen as similar to Tony Blair. Blair's argument was that Labor could do a better job of implementing the Tory agenda than the Tories could themselves. This was actually the same argument that Eisenhower made regarding the New Deal. And while Obama's political ideology makes him almost Blair's doppelganger, it's the example of Eisenhower that is most revealing, because Eisenhower was a Republican President in a Democratic era, who was elected as a war hero, not for his politics.

Robin Chase, founder ZipCar and GoLoco (for ridsharing).

Increasing urban albedo can reduce summertime temperatures, resulting in better air quality and savings from reduced air-conditioning costs. In addition, increasing urban albedo can result in less absorption of incoming solar radiation by the surface-troposphere system, countering to some extent the global scale effects of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Pavements and roofs typically constitute over 60% of urban surfaces (roof 20–25%, pavements about 40%). Using reflective materials, both roof and pavement albedos can be increased by about 0.25 and 0.15, respectively, resulting in a net albedo increase for urban areas of about 0.1. On a global basis, we estimate that increasing the world-wide albedos of urban roofs and paved surfaces will induce a negative radiative forcing on the earth equivalent to offsetting about 44 Gt of CO2 emissions.

One example is reducing traffic congestion by eliminating roads. Though our transportation planners still operate from the orthodoxy that the best way to untangle traffic is to build more roads, doing so actually proves counterproductive in some cases. There is even a mathematical theorem to explain why: “The Braess Paradox” (which sounds rather like a Robert Ludlum title) established that the addition of extra capacity to a road network often results in increased congestion and longer travel times.