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Investigates the systems of infrastructure that sustain the world and the cultures of historical periods, following various elements, from electricity and pavement to water and waste disposal, back to their origins and people who operate them.
A revelatory look at our national power grid--how it developed, its current flaws, and how it must be completely reimagined for our fast-approaching energy future. America's electrical grid, an engineering triumph of the twentieth century, is turning out to be a poor fit for the present. It's not just that the grid has grown old and is now in dire need of basic repair. Today, as we invest great hope in new energy sources--solar, wind, and other alternatives--the grid is what stands most firmly in the way of a brighter energy future. If we hope to realize this future, we need to reimagine the grid according to twenty-first-century values. It's a project which forces visionaries to work with bureaucrats, legislators with storm-flattened communities, moneymen with hippies, and the left with the right. And though it might not yet be obvious, this revolution is already well under way. Cultural anthropologist Gretchen Bakke unveils the many facets of America's energy infrastructure, its most dynamic moments and its most stable ones, and its essential role in personal and national life. The grid, she argues, is an essentially American artifact, one which developed with us: a product of bold expansion, the occasional foolhardy vision, some genius technologies, and constant improvisation. Most of all, her focus is on how Americans are changing the grid right now, sometimes with gumption and big dreams and sometimes with legislation or the brandishing of guns. The Grid tells--entertainingly, perceptively--the story of what has been called "the largest machine in the world": its fascinating history, its problematic present, and its potential role in a brighter, cleaner future.
'A highly original, electrifying read' The Times 'A stylish, riveting thriller' Daily Mail 'An assured page-turner ... it combines action and foreign locations with big ideas a la Dan Brown' Sunday Times The US President Thompson has been dreaming of his own death. A repeating nightmare that hounds him night after night that he can't ignore: something tells him it's not just a dream, it feels too real. Thompson's doctor, military psychiatrist Josh Cain, is summoned to a church tower near the White House. He thinks he is there to talk down another suicidal ex-Marine. But the man he finds tells him of a plot to kill Thompson, revealing secrets he can't possibly have known - just seconds before a sniper's bullet takes him out . . . Battles have been fought man to man, then machine to machine, and even in cyberspace. But now there is a different battlefield emerging: human consciousness and the fight for our minds. What readers are saying: 'A classy, intelligent and reflective investigative thriller.' 'A layered plot, engaging characters and a spine chilling ring of truth to the plot, which lured me in and kept me trapped until the final page.' 'A real page turner with plenty of surprises and twists. Great read.' 'THE BEST BOOK THAT I'VE READ ALL YEAR!'
The history of the grid, the world's largest interconnected power machine that is North America's electricity infrastructure. The North American power grid has been called the world's largest machine. The grid connects nearly every living soul on the continent; Americans rely utterly on the miracle of electrification. In this book, Julie Cohn tells the history of the grid, from early linkages in the 1890s through the grid's maturity as a networked infrastructure in the 1980s. She focuses on the strategies and technologies used to control power on the grid—in fact made up of four major networks of interconnected power systems—paying particular attention to the work of engineers and system operators who handled the everyday operations. To do so, she consulted sources that range from the pages of historical trade journals to corporate archives to the papers of her father, Nathan Cohn, who worked in the industry from 1927 to 1989—roughly the period of key power control innovations across North America. Cohn investigates major challenges and major breakthroughs but also the hidden aspects of our electricity infrastructure, both technical and human. She describes the origins of the grid and the growth of interconnection; emerging control issues, including difficulties in matching generation and demand on linked systems; collaboration and competition against the backdrop of economic depression and government infrastructure investment; the effects of World War II on electrification; postwar plans for a coast-to-coast grid; the northeast blackout of 1965 and the East-West closure of 1967; and renewed efforts at achieving stability and reliability after those two events.
Poetry. In this exquisite third book, Bert Stern grapples with the elemental and the extraordinary, looking back on the length of his journey and finding realms of possibility, powerful proof of a life well lived. Moments of divine recognition pervade these poems--their rough terrains, their changing atmospheres and stunning grace--culminating in a profound sense of gratitude for the tactile world. Here is a poet writing at the height of his powers.
____________________ This ground-breaking book from award-winning author MATT WATKINSON reveals the fundamental, inseparable elements behind the success of every business. The Grid provides the mental scaffolding to help you: · Evaluate and refine product and service ideas · Reduce risk by considering the broader impact of strategic decisions · Identify the root causes of business challenges · Anticipate the impact of changes in the market and turn them to your advantage · Collaborate more effectively across teams Combining practical guidance with real-world examples, The Grid will bring clarity and confidence to your business decision-making. ____________________ 'The Grid provides you with a simple way to look at the complex system which is your business. With the possible exception of Warren Buffett, everyone needs to read this book.' RORY SUTHERLAND, VICE CHAIRMAN, OGILVY GROUP 'The Grid provides a systematic framework for looking at virtually all the critical aspects of your business, and maybe more valuable, at how each affects the others. It'll be a rare reader who doesn't come away with fresh, useful insights into his or her enterprise.' WALTER KEICHEL III, author of The Lords of Strategy 'Matt Watkinson distils strategic know-how into nine ingenious perspectives and, with the use of clever examples, shows us how to apply this technique of thinking to any business problem or market opportunity. An extraordinarily powerful book.' DR JULES GODDARD, author of Uncommon Sense, Common Nonsense 'The Grid presents a unique, joined up approach to decision-making, revealing both the holistic nature of business and all the key elements a business must consider. I can safely say that if you only read one business book in your life it should be The Grid.' PHILIP ROWLEY, Chief Finance Officer, Sony Pictures Entertainment
"Shorting the Grid" describes how closed meetings, arcane auction rules, and five-minute planning horizons will topple the reliability of our electric grid. Hopeful speeches will not keep the lights on.
Ten grids that changed the world: the emergence and evolution of the most prominent visual structure in Western culture. Emblematic of modernity, the grid is the underlying form of everything from skyscrapers and office cubicles to paintings by Mondrian and a piece of computer code. And yet, as Hannah Higgins makes clear in this engaging and evocative book, the grid has a history that long predates modernity; it is the most prominent visual structure in Western culture. In The Grid Book, Higgins examines the history of ten grids that changed the world: the brick, the tablet, the gridiron city plan, the map, musical notation, the ledger, the screen, moveable type, the manufactured box, and the net. Charting the evolution of each grid, from the Paleolithic brick of ancient Mesopotamia through the virtual connections of the Internet, Higgins demonstrates that once a grid is invented, it may bend, crumble, or shatter, but its organizing principle never disappears. The appearance of each grid was a watershed event. Brick, tablet, and city gridiron made possible sturdy housing, the standardization of language, and urban development. Maps, musical notation, financial ledgers, and moveable type promoted the organization of space, music, and time, international trade, and mass literacy. The screen of perspective painting heralded the science of the modern period, classical mechanics, and the screen arts, while the standardization of space made possible by the manufactured box suggested the purified box forms of industrial architecture and visual art. The net, the most ancient grid, made its first appearance in Stone Age Finland; today, the loose but clearly articulated networks of the World Wide Web suggest that we are in the middle of an emergent grid that is reshaping the world, as grids do, in its image.
Find out which technologies enable the Grid and how to employ them successfully! This invaluable text provides a complete, clear, systematic, and practical understanding of the technologies that enable the Grid. The authors outline all the components necessary to create a Grid infrastructure that enables support for a range of wide-area distributed applications. The Grid: Core Technologies takes a pragmatic approach with numerous practical examples of software in context. It describes the middleware components of the Grid step-by-step, and gives hands-on advice on designing and building a Grid environment with the Globus Toolkit, as well as writing applications. The Grid: Core Technologies: Provides a solid and up-to-date introduction to the technologies that underpin the Grid. Contains a systematic explanation of the Grid, including its infrastructure, basic services, job management, user interaction, and applications. Explains in detail OGSA (Open Grid Services Architecture), Web Services technologies (SOAP, WSDL, UDDI), and Grid Monitoring. Covers Web portal-based tools such as the Java CoG, GridPort, GridSphere, and JSR 168 Portlets. Tackles hot topics such as WSRF (Web Services Resource Framework), the Semantic Grid, the Grid Security Infrastructure, and Workflow systems. Offers practical examples to enhance the understanding and use of Grid components and the associated tools. This rich resource will be essential reading for researchers and postgraduate students in computing and engineering departments, IT professionals in distributed computing, as well as Grid end users such as physicists, statisticians, biologists and chemists.