http://www.scotthuler.com Scott Huler has written on everything from the death penalty to bikini waxing, from NASCAR racing to the stealth bomber. en-us Copyright 2010 scotthuler.com http://scotthuler.com/blog/ Mon, 30 Aug 2010 8:3:00 EST Look what we did! We're about done with Iraq, so when we talk about leaving them with a few problems to untangle, let's keep this one in mind. Getting something as basic as power is now an enormous problem -- and it can no longer be blamed on insurgents. Here's a story about their current situation.  It's from Radio Free Europe ("jkl;lkj cdioi xzskyioio, "On Broadvey...," for those of you out there who still remember the famous 60s PSA), so I wouldn't look to this story for deeply balanced information, but good lord.  It is all about infrastructure, yes?. Mon, 30 Aug 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler ../blog/20100830_Infrastructure_in_Iraq.html Nobody wants to hear another attack on car culture -- whether it's destroying our environment, eating up our tax dollars, or making us fat, we've heard most of the arguments. Which is why I love this piece about how free parking ruins economies and cities.It's the old externalized cost argument -- if we internalized the artificially low cost of fuel and actually paid for the environmental impact of fossil fuels, how cheap would our imported electronics be? -- applied to cars. If we took a serious look at the opportunity cost of those parking spaces we fill up for free every day; if we asked the mall and strip center developers to pay the actual value of those parking lots, if we afterwards asked mall shoppers to pay to use those paved parcels of convenience, things might change.Actually, things WOULD change. Monday, 23 August 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler http://www.scotthuler.com/blog/20100823_Free_Parking_Is_Killing_Us.html We've heard a lot about the Great Superbowl Flush, when everyone supposedly flushes their toilets at half time of the Superbowl and there's an enormous strain on water systems. That turns out to be not true (there are so many commercials that nobody watching a football game ever has to wait very long to pee), though the same thing did happen during the gold medal hockey game in the last Olympics. The same thing happens on the electrical grid, too. Wednesday, 18 August 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler http://www.scotthuler.com/blog/20100818_Power_Surge_--_for_Tea:_The_Grid_at_Work.html If the Eiffel Tower is beautiful, how is an electric pylon not beautiful? I have asked this question over and over. Now my friend Jason Smith  sends me a link to an award-winning unbuilt design for electric pylons.To me, this is what infrastructure should look like. Thanks, Jason.So -- this is ugly, but ...this is beautiful? I think they're both part of the same species: one celebrates what they other merely uses. Tuesday, 17 August 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler http://www.scotthuler.com/blog/20100817_The_Beauty_of_Electric_Pylons.html Has it come to this? It has: the city of Raleigh, replacing an intersection with a roundabout, has had to print directions for drivers: directions for going around a circle.Not such a big deal, perhaps -- and certainly the revitalization of Hillsborough Street looks like a vast improvement for Raleigh (News & Observer stories here, here, and here; enormous map of the changes here).  And more, there's almost no doubt the roundabouts will be vastly successful in their goals: keeping traffic moving and reducing accidents. Study after study shows that's what they do. A couple great simulation models of roundabout traffic available here, here (an instructional video about how to drive in a circle from Washington State), and here (a video from the State of New York about how to turn right at a roundabout).From comments, you would think nobody in Raleigh evern drove around a circle before. Monday, 16 August 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler http://www.scotthuler.com/blog/20100816_Directions_for_going_in_a_circle.html It's hurricane season, which means I hear from people who have read "Defining the Wind" and have something interesting to share. Today I received this fabulous link, which goes to an interactive animated Beaufort Scale in German and was sent to me by someone from Kiel, Germany. There are so many different Beaufort Scale links out there (including here, set to music with limited success by British composer Joe St. Friday, 13 August 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler http://www.scotthuler.com/blog/20100813_In_Honor_of_Hurricane_Season.html An amazing article by a blogger on the Christian Science Monitor site reminds us -- we're so completely dependent on our grid, and if the sun does anything nutty (like it did in 1859), poof! As the author describes:The 1859 solar event was disconcerting as telegraph systems worldwide went haywire for several hours. Spark discharges shocked telegraph operators and set the telegraph paper on fire. Even when the telegraphers disconnected the batteries powering the lines, aurora-induced electric currents in the wires still allowed messages to transmit. Tuesday, 10 August 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler http://www.scotthuler.com/blog/20100810_Infrastructure_August:_Electricity_and_the_Sun.html I'm thrilled to say my appearance on C-SPAN BookTV last weekend went well, and you can watch the presentation here. Thanks, C-SPAN: that's provided by the cable companies, so it's kind of a gift from the infrastructure.In other infrastructure news, this story in Sunday's News & Observer talked about how Elon College in Elon, NC, is going to be heating and cooling new dorms by using geothermal energy. Pretty simple: It's like a heat pump. Monday, 9 August 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler http://www.scotthuler.com/blog/2010089_CSPAN_and_Geothermal_Energy.html There's lots to say about infrastructure -- I got a wonderful email this morning from Jason Smith, friend and member of our science communicators book group, telling me that after reading "On the Grid" he noticed how many of the stories he heard on NPR this morning were devoted to infrastructure topics -- truck traffic in Wisconsin, heat-buckled roads in Arkansas, Google and Verizon sharing traffic. That's the point! We need to be aware of this stuff, if only to see how much is happening every day that we're NOT aware of, and how -- and that -- it affects us.Bigger news: Check out me and "On the Grid" on Book TV on C-span2 Saturday, August 7 @5 p.m. ET.Infrastructure August continues with more good stuff not about me tomorrow.. Thursday, 5 August 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler http://www.scotthuler.com/blog/2010085_Infrastructure_August,_Indeed:_the_C-SPAN_Moment.html They're repaving Glenwood Avenue, leading to the Five Points intersection that defines my neighborhood, and it's been a wonderful lesson in just how freaking complex something that simple can be. I say "they" because most people don't know who usually does this. The street is actually a state highway and thus the responsibility of the state to repave, though the state has in recent years  just paid the city to do it. Wednesday, 4 August 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler http://www.scotthuler.com/blog/2010084_Infrastructure_August:_The_Complexity_of_Simple_Repaving.html I wrote briefly yesterday about the messages we send by treating those who have no cars as losers, linking to an article on Slate addressing that topic. Today a couple pieces of better transportation infrastructure news. As we all start figuring out that we just can't live in our cars anymore and transit makes a comeback small (in places like Raleigh) and large (in more progressive cities), tiny little changes may make a world of difference. Tuesday, 3 August 2010 8:3:00 EST Scott Huler http://www.scotthuler.com/blog/2010083_Infrastructure_August:_HERE's_the_bus.html