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>> "Providing electrical power, sewage lines, etc.. is not very difficult compared to handling Internet traffic." There is no question that each of these thing

by avn2109 12y ago

>> "Providing electrical power, sewage lines, etc.. is not very difficult compared to handling Internet traffic." There is no question that each of these things is difficult at scale. Furthermore I have never done either of them. However, power systems EE is perhaps the most widely-known example of Big Boy Engineering except building rockets. In the power business, they have an distribution/cabling problem which is at best isomorphic to that found in the ISP business (though probably greater, because ISP's don't have millions of volts to worry about) wedded to far greater stationing/substationing/production problems, and they still have (as noted by someone else in this thread) far more 9's of uptime than Time Warner. As compensation for this, ISP's have a greater Signals and Systems flavored problem, but it doesn't seem like it balances out. So basically I'm trying to say that "... not very difficult..." seems inaccurate.

mmc 12y ago
Here's my favorite story of said "Big Boy Engineering": http://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/ http://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/ It's about fixing a short in a power transmission line. Sounds simple, right? It involves liquid nitrogen and hundreds of people with possibility of explosions or huge oil spills. That's right, the line is suspended in pressurized oil! It goes on… I tried to find a good pull quote, and it's basically all mind-blowing pull quotes. But here: "Every vault also has a nipple which allows sampling of the pipe oil. They said you withdraw the oil through a thick membrane with a syringe (?). This happens monthly on all feeders in the LA area. The samples are analyzed downtown by a staff of chemists who can relate the presence of things like acetylene, butane, and benzene in the oil to arcing, coronas, and so forth. Apparently the oil chemistry is a very good indicator of the health of the segments."

by avn2109 12y ago

mmc 12y ago

Here's my favorite story of said "Big Boy Engineering": http://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/ http://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/ It's about fixing a short in a power transmission line. Sounds simple, right? It involves liquid nitrogen and hundreds of people with possibility of explosions or huge oil spills. That's right, the line is suspended in pressurized oil! It goes on… I tried to find a good pull quote, and it's basically all mind-blowing pull quotes. But here: "Every vault also has a nipple which allows sampling of the pipe oil. They said you withdraw the oil through a thick membrane with a syringe (?). This happens monthly on all feeders in the LA area. The samples are analyzed downtown by a staff of chemists who can relate the presence of things like acetylene, butane, and benzene in the oil to arcing, coronas, and so forth. Apparently the oil chemistry is a very good indicator of the health of the segments."