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I was told that at least in Japan, this is done because it's easier to rebuild after an earthquake than digging up and reburying broken power and communication

I was told that at least in Japan, this is done because it's easier to rebuild after an earthquake than digging up and reburying broken power and communication lines.

kqr 9y ago
Huh, cool. That's a great illustration of the two general ways to achieve reliability. Either you make it rather hard to break in the first place (bury powerlines underground, write software with strong type systems) or embrace the fact that either way, it will break eventually, so maybe it's just better to focus on making it easy to fix (powerlines in the air, write Erlang-style software that reboots quickly in the face of error.)
ivm 9y ago
Yes, same in Chile.