Content tagged with “infrastructure” under “My Library”

There are 23 item(s) tagged with “infrastructure” in this section.

See items tagged with “infrastructure” across the entire site.

Other tags used by these items: history, nyc, buildings, engineering, shipping, new york city, transportation, tech, health, architecture

Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
July 25, 2024
Words
399

“This is a lovely history of New York City, focused down to a single street. It follows Broadway north from the southern tip of Manhattan, mile by mile, and talks about the history of the city as the street moved northward. Along the way, it has random vignettes of things that happened on the…”

Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
May 19, 2021
Words
152

“A magisterial history of the Hoover Dam, all the way from the problems of the late 1800s that it was meant to solve, through the arguments during its planning, to the construction and beyond (in fact, they don’t even start building the dam until halfway through the book). The Hoover Dam was an…”

The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
August 28, 2016
Words
298

“I have wanted to read this book for ages. I have a weird fascination with urban planning, and this book is held up as seminal. It’s from the 60s, and was written by the legendary Jane Jacobs. What I find interesting about the book is where it starts: with a chapter on sidewalks. I remember…”

The Grid: Electrical Infrastructure for a New Era
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
February 15, 2021
Words
316

“This is a well-researched book, but seems disorganized. It felt like it jumped around a lot, especially between scopes – from macro to micro. The major points I learned: Electricity is unlike any other resource in that it’s not a storable thing. When you use it, it was generated a fraction of a…”

The Heights: Anatomy of a Skyscraper
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
November 20, 2021
Words
129

“This book absolutely achieves what it sets out to do. It’s a glossy, illustrated love letter about how skyscrapers are built and managed. If that’s what you want, then this is your book. It’s not very deep, but it doesn’t really try to be. The illustrations are well-done and helpful. There are…”

How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
March 27, 2024
Words
134

“This book was okay. It’s not what I expected. It talks about infrastructure, but really from a systems and societal perspective. It talks about the ideas of sharing infrastructure, and how that infrastructure has played out in our society. It also goes deep into the effects on women and minorities,…”

Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, The Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes On Your Back, Gas In Your Car, and Food On Your Plate
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
November 6, 2022
Words
205

“I like the subjects of Rose George’s books. She writes about the background stuff that we don’t think about. This book is about the global shipping trade. She wrote another entire book about going to the bathroom . I think these subjects are interesting. But I don’t love how she writes about them….”

The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
August 30, 2021
Words
239

“This is the definitive history of oil, from the first discovery in the 1850s through the first Gulf War of of the 1990s. It’s a lot – 900-some-odd pages. Not for the faint of heart. I actually brought back in college in the mid-90s, and never finished it. I promised myself I’d get back to it, and…”

Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
June 1, 2014
Words
73

“Really enjoyed this book. The author decided he wanted to ‘visit the Internet.’ The…physical Internet. Each chapter is a look at some physical manifestation of what makes the Internet go, from Internet exchange points to undersea cables to data centers. Along the way you work with road crews…”

Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
September 26, 2014
Words
124

“Genuinely one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read, hands down. Speck explains why and how our cities started being designed first for cars, then for people, and why this is bad. Then he gives us 10 ways to change it, from increasing pedestrian safety, to fixing parking, to making the…”

Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
December 10, 2018
Words
60

“If you’ve read ‘Walkable City,’ I don’t know that there’s much new here, but it’s more approachable. There are 101 smaller ‘rules’ about how to fix cities and make them more friendly to pedestrians. It’s clearly geared to local politicians and city planners, but I am neither and I loved it. If you…”

Why Buildings Stand Up: The Strength of Architecture
Section
Deane’s Library
Type
Book Review
Date
July 11, 2021
Words
88

“A solid book that’s an introduction to engineering. It explains – in the clearest, simplest way – how buildings stay upright. It talks about loads, materials, and different ways of organizing those in a never-ending war with gravity. Along the way, the book looks at some historic structures and why…”