Monozukuri

Junya Watanabe’s on monozukuri, the “art, science and craft of making things.”

Illuminating Infrastructure

I'm very nervous about the state and direction of our nation right now and am unsure about how to deal with it.

I want to get back into the habit of writing quick posts to share interesting things I come across.  At the very least, I hope to inform and entertain a few people.

I'm fascinated with infrastructure*.  It's so ubiquitous and reliable that we stop seeing it.  Yet, our comfortable lives would not be possible if we didn't cooperatively build and maintain our common infrastructure.

I recently learned about my neighborhood lift station, a place that pumps sewage uphill so that it can continue to flow downhill to a sewage treatment plant.  These stations are scattered all over the place, but they are usually designed to be as nondescript as possible.

I wish my neighborhood lift station was as cool as this one in Calgary.

That's a shame, because we then stop thinking about the everyday magic of infrastructure.  We flush and forget until something goes wrong.

Check out Calgary's solution that combines public art and the visual display of status information.

The crisscrossed LEDs on the Forest Lawn Lift Station form a graphical map of the 9 kilometers of pipe that feed into this building. Inside, a pump lifts Calgary’s wastewater to higher ground so it continues to flow by gravity to the Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Plant. Connected to instruments inside, the lights change color according to water volume and demand: blue when water flows freely, red when the system is taxed.

I'm not a Canada fan girl, but I love the names.  The sewage treatment plant is called Bonnybrook!  Forest Lawn means something very different in Los Angeles.  LOL.

I first learned about this art/infrastructure project from a highly negative newspaper article that I refuse to link to.  Honestly, I think that the $236,000 (Canadian) is a reasonable price to pay for

1. a real-time visual display of system operational status 
2. public warning system for when their infrastructure is over-taxed
3. public education about infrastructure
4. cool art (Art is supposed to get you to see and think about things differently so this might reiterate point 3.)

Forest Lawn is just one of 40 sanitary wastewater lift stations in the city (Calgary); 33 more handle just stormwater. And yet, until this project, “I’d never seen one once,” says Surtees. “[They’re] not visually present in the fabric of the city.”

If I can see when my local lift station is over-taxed, I can delay my shower or my load of laundry. Alternatively, if I see that the local sewage flow is running sluggishly, I might start the clothes or dish washer earlier to help keep the water pressure up.  If we see that the system is running red (overtaxed) much of the time, we can plan to upgrade to a larger pump before a catastrophic failure.

Isn't it cool to see a map of how our homes are all connected by our common infrastructure? To see the shape and size of our network?

Walking My Watershed contains pictures of my local RB stormwater basin, which I will write more about soon.  Now that it is actually raining during our rainy season, the pictures will be more interesting.

* My work is commonly described as data infrastructure. IMHO, my work is fascinating, but it's not fodder for this blog. Read my work blog for more about that; the link is on the right.

2016 in books

2016 has been a rough year for me.  I really didn't know how to respond.  But, I recently read a book that helped me make sense of what I was observing.

So, I'm gathering my friends and family around me by throwing a party tonight for LA-area friends.  I need to get back to picking up clutter and cooking.

I'll quickly share my eclectic 2016 reading list on Goodreads.  I read to learn; I read to connect to other humans; I read for entertainment; I listen to audiobooks to help me fall asleep.

My thoughts about the book, What is Populism, by Jan-Werner Mueller:

This is a short book and should have been readable in one evening had the last election not freaked me out so much.

I had to put it down when too discomfited by PTSD from all the rhetoric that reminded me of living under Chang Kai Shek and martial law.

Even my 6 yo self could recognize the lies in our textbooks. I never expected to live in a post-truth United States.

Chapter 1 describes 'What is populism.' This is the scariest part for me, which brought up PTSD.

Chapter 2 explains 'How populists rule.' This scares me.

Chapter 3 gives some proscriptions for how to fight populists, from a scholar who has studied how populism waxes and wanes in regimes around the world. It gives me hope b/c some countries have defeated populists. But it is difficult as they change rules as soon as they are in charge to make it difficult. E.g. North Carolina voting changes and the Supreme Court that ruled that Lily Ledbetter couldn't file for discrimination because she didn't do so within 6 months of the wrong-doing, even while ruling her employers can withhold information and stall requests for info as long as they like. This is populism.

It's a difficult book, because of the emotional stuff. The language may be difficult for people who aren't used to academic treatises. But this book is essential reading for our times.

Bad Dad's thoughts on the same book:

With the election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States of America, What is Populism? is officially promoted from useful reading to essential reading. Jan-Werner Muller first defines populism both in terms of what it is and isn't - the defining feature of populism being a claim to represent a "real" citizenry that excludes elites and/or minorities. Another important feature is a derisive attitude towards the give and take of the political process and a rejection of the entire idea of political pluralism.

Then comes the scary part of this monograph, where Muller describes how populists rule. Populists start by controlling and purging the government bureaucracy (note the Trump transition team's requests for names of DOE climate scientists and State Department personnel working on women's rights issues). After decrying the corruption of the previous regime, populists are incredibly tolerant of their own corruption and don't seem to care when this corruption is pointed out (sound familiar?). Finally, populists change the rules of government so that their party is difficult to remove and their policies are difficult to change (are events in North Carolina a sign of what is to come in Washington?).

The third chapter is about how to talk to populists, and explains how those who want to protect political liberalism need to address the very real concerns that are causing populist movements to flourish. Many, including me, will feel that they are reading this chapter a bit late in the game.

Muller's monograph is very well researched, and has numerous examples from populist movements of both left and right (including countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey). Although its tone is very academic, the intelligent layperson should have no problem with this book - unless it totally freaks him or her out.

If you view his list of 2016 books read, you can see why I love him so and hate his housekeeping.