Summary of Deb Chachra's How Infrastructure Works

Download Summary of Deb Chachra's How Infrastructure Works PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Milkyway Media
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 26 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Summary of Deb Chachra's How Infrastructure Works by : Milkyway Media

Download or read book Summary of Deb Chachra's How Infrastructure Works written by Milkyway Media and published by Milkyway Media. This book was released on 2024-01-25 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Get the Summary of Deb Chachra's How Infrastructure Works in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "How Infrastructure Works" by Deb Chachra is a comprehensive exploration of the intricate web of infrastructural systems that underpin modern life. Chachra's personal journey, from her childhood fascination with megastructures to her professional expertise in materials science, informs her insights into the elegance and collective nature of infrastructure. She discusses the omnipresence of infrastructure, its evolution alongside societal changes, and the role of engineering in harnessing physical phenomena to connect and sustain communities...

How Infrastructure Works

Download How Infrastructure Works PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0593086597
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (93 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis How Infrastructure Works by : Deb Chachra

Download or read book How Infrastructure Works written by Deb Chachra and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-10-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2023 BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "Revelatory, superbly written, and pulsing with wisdom and humanity, How Infrastructure Works is a masterpiece.” —Ed Yong, author of An Immense World A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, and all around us Infrastructure is a marvel, meeting our basic needs and enabling lives of astounding ease and productivity that would have been unimaginable just a century ago. It is the physical manifestation of our social contract—of our ability to work collectively for the public good—and it consists of the most complex and vast technological systems ever created by humans. A soaring bridge is an obvious infrastructural feat, but so are the mostly hidden reservoirs, transformers, sewers, cables, and pipes that deliver water, energy, and information to wherever we need it. When these systems work well, they hide in plain sight. Engineer and materials scientist Deb Chachra takes readers on a fascinating tour of these essential utilities, revealing how they work, what it takes to keep them running, just how much we rely on them—but also whom they work well for, and who pays the costs. Across the U.S. and elsewhere, these systems are suffering from systemic neglect and the effects of climate change, becoming unavoidably visible when they break down. Communities that are already marginalized often bear the brunt of these failures. But Chachra maps out a path for transforming and rebuilding our shared infrastructure to be not just functional but also equitable, resilient, and sustainable. The cost of not being able to rely on these systems is unthinkably high. We need to learn how to see them—and fix them, together—before it’s too late.

The Innovation Delusion

Download The Innovation Delusion PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Crown Currency
ISBN 13 : 0525575685
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (255 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Innovation Delusion by : Lee Vinsel

Download or read book The Innovation Delusion written by Lee Vinsel and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Innovation” is the hottest buzzword in business. But what if our obsession with finding the next big thing has distracted us from the work that matters most? “The most important book I’ve read in a long time . . . It explains so much about what is wrong with our technology, our economy, and the world, and gives a simple recipe for how to fix it: Focus on understanding what it takes for your products and services to last.”—Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media It’s hard to avoid innovation these days. Nearly every product gets marketed as being disruptive, whether it’s genuinely a new invention or just a new toothbrush. But in this manifesto on thestate of American work, historians of technology Lee Vinsel and Andrew L. Russell argue that our way of thinking about and pursuing innovation has made us poorer, less safe, and—ironically—less innovative. Drawing on years of original research and reporting, The Innovation Delusion shows how the ideology of change for its own sake has proved a disaster. Corporations have spent millions hiring chief innovation officers while their core businesses tank. Computer science programs have drilled their students on programming and design, even though theoverwhelming majority of jobs are in IT and maintenance. In countless cities, suburban sprawl has left local governments with loads of deferred repairs that they can’t afford to fix. And sometimes innovation even kills—like in 2018 when a Miami bridge hailed for its innovative design collapsed onto a highway and killed six people. In this provocative, deeply researched book, Vinsel and Russell tell the story of how we devalued the work that underpins modern life—and, in doing so, wrecked our economy and public infrastructure while lining the pockets of consultants who combine the ego of Silicon Valley with the worst of Wall Street’s greed. The authors offer a compelling plan for how we can shift our focus away from the pursuit of growth at all costs, and back toward neglected activities like maintenance, care, and upkeep. For anyone concerned by the crumbling state of our roads and bridges or the direction our economy is headed, The Innovation Delusion is a deeply necessary reevaluation of a trend we can still disrupt.

Infrastructure Economics and Policy

Download Infrastructure Economics and Policy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781558444188
Total Pages : 472 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (441 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Infrastructure Economics and Policy by : Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez

Download or read book Infrastructure Economics and Policy written by Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez and published by . This book was released on 2021-12 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this comparison of infrastructure across countries and sectors, leading international academics and practitioners consider the latest approaches to infrastructure policy, implementation, and finance. The book presents evidence-based solutions and policy considerations, essential concepts and economic theories, and a current overview.

Built

Download Built PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 1408870371
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (88 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Built by : Roma Agrawal

Download or read book Built written by Roma Agrawal and published by . This book was released on 2019-03-07 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While our cities are full of incredible engineering feats, most of us live with little idea of what goes into creating the built environment, let alone how a new building goes up, what it is built upon, or how it remains standing. In this book, Roma Agrawal uncovers the astonishing science behind her profession. Each of the eight chapters will tackle a great engineering challenge - how we keep a building from falling down or how a bridge is built to span vast distances - explaining solutions from modern times, while reaching back to the Romans and other ancient cultures who developed techniques still used today. Interweaving science, history, illustrations, and personal stories, Built offers a fascinating window into a subject that makes up the foundation of our everyday lives.

Clutter

Download Clutter PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
ISBN 13 : 194874287X
Total Pages : 125 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (487 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Clutter by : Jennifer Howard

Download or read book Clutter written by Jennifer Howard and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I’m sitting on the floor in my mother’s house, surrounded by stuff.” So begins Jennifer Howard’s Clutter, an expansive assessment of our relationship to the things that share and shape our lives. Sparked by the painful two-year process of cleaning out her mother’s house in the wake of a devastating physical and emotional collapse, Howard sets her own personal struggle with clutter against a meticulously researched history of just how the developed world came to drown in material goods. With sharp prose and an eye for telling detail, she connects the dots between the Industrial Revolution, the Sears & Roebuck catalog, and the Container Store, and shines unsparing light on clutter’s darker connections to environmental devastation and hoarding disorder. In a confounding age when Amazon can deliver anything at the click of a mouse and decluttering guru Marie Kondo can become a reality TV star, Howard’s bracing analysis has never been more timely.

The Master Switch

Download The Master Switch PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307594653
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (75 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Master Switch by : Tim Wu

Download or read book The Master Switch written by Tim Wu and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-11-02 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New Yorker and Fortune Best Book of the Year "A must-read for all Americans who want to remain the ones deciding what they can read, watch, and listen to.” —Arianna Huffington Analyzing the strategic maneuvers of today’s great information powers—Apple, Google, and an eerily resurgent AT&T—Tim Wu uncovers a time-honored pattern in which invention begets industry and industry begets empire. It is easy to forget that every development in the history of the American information industry—from the telephone to radio to film—once existed in an open and chaotic marketplace inhabited by entrepreneurs and utopians, just as the Internet does today. Each of these, however, grew to be dominated by a monopolist or cartel. In this pathbreaking book, Tim Wu asks: will the Internet follow the same fate? Could the Web—the entire flow of American information—come to be ruled by a corporate leviathan in possession of "the master switch"? Here, Tim Wu shows how a battle royale for the Internet’s future is brewing, and this is one war we dare not tune out.

How it All Works

Download How it All Works PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Iqon Editions
ISBN 13 : 0711256780
Total Pages : 154 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (112 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis How it All Works by : Adam Dant

Download or read book How it All Works written by Adam Dant and published by Iqon Editions. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautiful guide that clearly explains the laws and phenomena of science by putting them in an innovative visual setting.

Arriving Today

Download Arriving Today PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062987968
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (629 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Arriving Today by : Christopher Mims

Download or read book Arriving Today written by Christopher Mims and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the 2021 Porchlight Business Book Awards, Current Events & Public Affairs The Wall Street Journal technology columnist reveals the fascinating story behind the misleadingly simple phrase shoppers take for granted—“Arriving Today”—in this eye-opening investigation into the new rules of online commerce, transportation, and supply chain management. We are at a tipping point in retail history. While consumers are profiting from the convenience of instant gratification, rapidly advancing technologies are transforming the way goods are transported and displacing workers in ways never before seen. In Arriving Today, Christopher Mims goes deep, far, and wide to uncover how a single product, from creation to delivery, weaves its way from a factory on the other side of the world to our doorstep. He analyzes the evolving technologies and management strategies necessary to keep the product moving to fulfill consumers’ demand for “arriving today” gratification. Mims reveals a world where the only thing moving faster than goods in an Amazon warehouse is the rate at which an entire industry is being gutted and rebuilt by innovation and mass shifts in human labor practices. He goes behind the scenes to uncover the paradoxes in this shift—into the world’s busiest port, the cabin of an 18-wheeler, and Amazon’s automated warehouses—to explore how the promise of “arriving today” is fulfilled through a balletic dance between humans and machines. The scope of such large-scale innovation and expended energy is equal parts inspiring, enlightening, and horrifying. As he offers a glimpse of our future, Mims asks us to consider the system’s vulnerability and its resilience, and who shoulders the burden, as we hurtle toward a fully automated system—and what it will mean when we are there.

Proxies

Download Proxies PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262361949
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Proxies by : Dylan Mulvin

Download or read book Proxies written by Dylan Mulvin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included--and who is excluded--in the future. Our world is built on an array of standards we are compelled to share. In Proxies, Dylan Mulvin examines how we arrive at those standards, asking, "To whom and to what do we delegate the power to stand in for the world?" Mulvin shows how those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included--and who is excluded--in the future. For designers of technology, some bits of the world end up standing in for other bits, standards with which they build and calibrate. These "proxies" carry specific values, even as they disappear from view. Mulvin explores the ways technologies, standards, and infrastructures inescapably reflect the cultural milieus of their bureaucratic homes. Drawing on archival research, he investigates some of the basic building-blocks of our shared infrastructures. He tells the history of technology through the labor and communal practices of, among others, the people who clean kilograms to make the metric system run, the women who pose as test images, and the actors who embody disease and disability for medical students. Each case maps the ways standards and infrastructure rely on prototypical ideas of whiteness, able-bodiedness, and purity to control and contain the messiness of reality. Standards and infrastructures, Mulvin argues, shape and distort the possibilities of representation, the meaning of difference, and the levers of change and social justice.

The Real World of Technology

Download The Real World of Technology PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : House of Anansi
ISBN 13 : 0887848915
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (878 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Real World of Technology by : Ursula Franklin

Download or read book The Real World of Technology written by Ursula Franklin and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 1999-06-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this expanded edition of her bestselling 1989 CBC Massey Lectures, renowned scientist and humanitarian Ursula M. Franklin examines the impact of technology upon our lives and addresses the extraordinary changes since The Real World of Technology was first published. In four new chapters, Franklin tackles contentious issues, such as the dilution of privacy and intellectual property rights, the impact of the current technology on government and governance, the shift from consumer capitalism to investment capitalism, and the influence of the Internet upon the craft of writing.

Standards

Download Standards PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 026229785X
Total Pages : 403 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (622 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Standards by : Lawrence Busch

Download or read book Standards written by Lawrence Busch and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-09-16 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation into standards, the invisible infrastructures of our technical, moral, social, and physical worlds. Standards are the means by which we construct realities. There are established standards for professional accreditation, the environment, consumer products, animal welfare, the acceptable stress for highway bridges, healthcare, education—for almost everything. We are surrounded by a vast array of standards, many of which we take for granted but each of which has been and continues to be the subject of intense negotiation. In this book, Lawrence Busch investigates standards as “recipes for reality.” Standards, he argues, shape not only the physical world around us but also our social lives and even our selves. Busch shows how standards are intimately connected to power—that they often serve to empower some and disempower others. He outlines the history of formal standards and describes how modern science came to be associated with the moral-technical project of standardization of both people and things. Busch suggests guidelines for developing fair, equitable, and effective standards. Taking a uniquely integrated and comprehensive view of the subject, Busch shows how standards for people and things are inextricably linked, how standards are always layered (even if often addressed serially), and how standards are simultaneously technical, social, moral, legal, and ontological devices.

How Was That Built?

Download How Was That Built? PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 154761188X
Total Pages : 82 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (476 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis How Was That Built? by : Roma Agrawal

Download or read book How Was That Built? written by Roma Agrawal and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This striking book explains the feats of engineering behind the world's most impressive architectural marvels. From skyscrapers that reach astonishing heights to bridges that span deep and wide rivers, the world is filled with awe-inspiring structures. But how do they work? Meet the extraordinary people who challenged our beliefs about what's possible, pioneering remarkable inventions that helped build the Brooklyn Bridge in the US, the Pantheon in Italy, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the Shard in England and the Sapporo Dome in Japan. Discover the ingenious methods engineers have come up with to enable us to build underground, underwater, on ice, and even in space. With text written by award-winning structural engineer Roma Agrawal and detailed full-color illustrations by Katie Hickey, this book provides unique and illuminating perspectives of the world's most incredible constructions. How Was That Built? is a perfect gift for curious kids who want to learn more about construction, architecture, science, technology, and the way things work. This children's picture book also serves as a fascinating companion to the author's adult nonfiction book Built: The Hidden Stories Behind our Structures, winner of the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books.

There Plant Eyes

Download There Plant Eyes PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 198489840X
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis There Plant Eyes by : M. Leona Godin

Download or read book There Plant Eyes written by M. Leona Godin and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Homer to Helen Keller, from Dune to Stevie Wonder, from the invention of braille to the science of echolocation, M. Leona Godin explores the fascinating history of blindness, interweaving it with her own story of gradually losing her sight. “[A] thought-provoking mixture of criticism, memoir, and advocacy." —The New Yorker There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be “blind.” For millennia, blindness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality (“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil). Godin—who began losing her vision at age ten—illuminates the often-surprising history of both the condition of blindness and the myths and ideas that have grown up around it over the course of generations. She combines an analysis of blindness in art and culture (from King Lear to Star Wars) with a study of the science of blindness and key developments in accessibility (the white cane, embossed printing, digital technology) to paint a vivid personal and cultural history. A genre-defying work, There Plant Eyes reveals just how essential blindness and vision are to humanity’s understanding of itself and the world.

You Are Here

Download You Are Here PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262539918
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (625 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis You Are Here by : Whitney Phillips

Download or read book You Are Here written by Whitney Phillips and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to understand a media environment in crisis, and how to make things better by approaching information ecologically. Our media environment is in crisis. Polarization is rampant. Polluted information floods social media. Even our best efforts to help clean up can backfire, sending toxins roaring across the landscape. In You Are Here, Whitney Phillips and Ryan Milner offer strategies for navigating increasingly treacherous information flows. Using ecological metaphors, they emphasize how our individual me is entwined within a much larger we, and how everyone fits within an ever-shifting network map.

Start with No

Download Start with No PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Crown Currency
ISBN 13 : 1400045290
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Start with No by : Jim Camp

Download or read book Start with No written by Jim Camp and published by Crown Currency. This book was released on 2011-12-07 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Start with No offers a contrarian, counterintuitive system for negotiating any kind of deal in any kind of situation—the purchase of a new house, a multimillion-dollar business deal, or where to take the kids for dinner. Think a win-win solution is the best way to make the deal? Think again. For years now, win-win has been the paradigm for business negotiation. But today, win-win is just the seductive mantra used by the toughest negotiators to get the other side to compromise unnecessarily, early, and often. Win-win negotiations play to your emotions and take advantage of your instinct and desire to make the deal. Start with No introduces a system of decision-based negotiation that teaches you how to understand and control these emotions. It teaches you how to ignore the siren call of the final result, which you can’t really control, and how to focus instead on the activities and behavior that you can and must control in order to successfully negotiate with the pros. The best negotiators: * aren’t interested in “yes”—they prefer “no” * never, ever rush to close, but always let the other side feel comfortable and secure * are never needy; they take advantage of the other party’s neediness * create a “blank slate” to ensure they ask questions and listen to the answers, to make sure they have no assumptions and expectations * always have a mission and purpose that guides their decisions * don’t send so much as an e-mail without an agenda for what they want to accomplish * know the four “budgets” for themselves and for the other side: time, energy, money, and emotion * never waste time with people who don’t really make the decision Start with No is full of dozens of business as well as personal stories illustrating each point of the system. It will change your life as a negotiator. If you put to good use the principles and practices revealed here, you will become an immeasurably better negotiator.

Writing War

Download Writing War PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781466435025
Total Pages : 158 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (35 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Writing War by : Ron Capps

Download or read book Writing War written by Ron Capps and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2011-10-27 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing War is the curriculum for seminars and workshops provided by the Veterans Writing Project. Written by a veteran for veterans, active and reserve service members, and military family members, Writing War details the elements of craft involved in fiction and non-fiction writing. Beginning with the basic questions "Why do we write?" and "What's different about writing the military experience?", the book includes chapters on scene, setting, dialogue, narrative structure, character motivation and development, beginnings and endings, point of view, revision, writing about trauma, and making time in a busy life for writing. Writing War includes detailed examples demonstrating each element of craft. All examples used in the book were written by writers who are also veterans. It is written to be accessible to beginning and more experienced writers.