This past weekend I drove from Los Angeles to Tucson via Interstate-10, and took to noticing the names of the various ditches and washes that are spanned by the highway out in the middle of the high lonesome desert. There are a lot of them. Ghost Ditch, Taro Ditch, Larry Ditch, Stubby Wash, Fornat Wash, Itta Wash, Edom, Mccoy, Rollie, Bula, Sutro, Calotus, Esso, Arco, Teed, Turala, maybe a hundred between the ditches and the washes. The names don't seem to refer to nearby municipalities (there aren't any) or other geographical features, and are clearly part of the National Bridge Inventory. How were these 'waterways' named? Who named them? Were they named before the freeway required infrastructure to pass over them, or during the construction process, or when the NBI was implemented, or after the fact altogether?
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posted by carsonb
on May 14, 2013 -
7 answers
I have been tasked with finding a web solution for a volunteer group associated with a university.
There are already pages on one of the departments' websites, however, it will be months before any changes can be made to that as it's under the rule of a CMS which is about to be migrated and to which we won't be able to really do anything until November. We want all the usual stuff like a blog and a Twitter widget and latest news and yadda yadda, but anything we add - and possibly anything we remove - would have to wait till November if we use the existing hosting arrangement. This is why I want to stick up another web infrastructure for us somewhere else, probably not hosted by the university.
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posted by tel3path
on Apr 11, 2013 -
5 answers
It seems to me that street sweepers don't "clean" a street - they just move dirt around. Do they suck up dirt somehow? Or is the point of them that they raise up ground-in dirt so that it can be washed away by rain later? Really, what is the point of them?
posted by Mechitar
on Apr 11, 2013 -
19 answers
I was looking around in a semi-abandoned industrial area in Detroit today when I found an unusual looking piece of infrastructure on the side of the road. It consists of a cabinet with an electric feed, an antenna, and no other obvious openings. There were a couple signs on the cabinet, and something inside was making intermittent motor-type noises. Audio, video, pictures, and a maps link are inside. Please take a look if you think you might be able to figure out what this thing is!
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posted by Juffo-Wup
on Mar 9, 2013 -
18 answers
What percentage of my monthly ISP bill pays for the internet infrastructure? What percent of the internet is paid for by home users and business users as consumers, versus business users who are serving content, like Facebook or NetFlix Streaming? I would love a pie chart, but whatever you got is appreciated...
posted by mzurer
on Oct 18, 2012 -
6 answers
Trying to finalize infrastructure for my site selling software online...hoping you guys can help me understand and make some choices.
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posted by amsterdam63
on Sep 11, 2012 -
6 answers
How do they determine the real costs/values of things like Amtrak, a subway, a highway or a dam?
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posted by ebesan
on Sep 11, 2012 -
8 answers
Looking for family vacation recommendations for infrastructure and transportation-o-philes.
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posted by apparently
on Jan 12, 2012 -
22 answers
I'll have to redo the network infrastructure for a platform soon, but it's in US, San Francisco and I don't know the local market.
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posted by anto1ne
on Jun 24, 2011 -
2 answers
Windows Server 2008: Tech support advice needed! What are the options for helpdesk staff to remotely control client computers? Details inside.
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posted by Funmonkey1
on Jun 10, 2011 -
10 answers
Urban Infrastructure—a Thorough Introduction: Where can a layman learn more about infrastructure: the electrical grid, water supply/sanitation, transportation/distribution, waste removal, etc.?
(many others listed inside) Everything I find wants to either explain it to a 12-year-old or explain it to an engineering grad-student.
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posted by jjjjjjjijjjjjjj
on Nov 12, 2010 -
9 answers
Smart people: I'm trying to understand the issues relating to municipal broadband. It seems to me -- a complete layperson, understand -- that the proper approach here is obvious: The municipality should build out the fiber infrastructure, and leave the provision of services open to private ISPs. What is the current thinking on this issue?
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posted by Alaska Jack
on Oct 20, 2010 -
10 answers
I am looking for a list of Pacific Telephone/Pacific Bell switching stations that were built before the 1980s around Los Angeles County. I want to do a series of photographic portraits of them. It seems like this information may be "suppressed for reasons of homeland security" but if anyone had any suggestions of where I may be able to dig it up archivally, it would be much appreciated!
posted by refractal
on Aug 3, 2010 -
4 answers
Are water mains more likely to break in the middle of summer? There have been many water main breaks in the DC area lately.
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posted by LightStruk
on Jul 27, 2010 -
10 answers
What are some restrictions in infrastructure and logistics that have greatly effected human history? A friend of mine was telling me about the history of Cyprus, and he launched into an intriguing explanation of the practical differences between a galley and a modern sailing ship. "The world at that time had to be designed around parking galleys. There are many cities and towns in Europe that used to just be galley parking lots. Cyprus changed hands a lot because it was a great parking lot." I want to have more ways to organize and make sense of history like this. Can you guys help me? If you have books about this to recommend (I've already read the Jared Diamond work btw) that would be amazing.
posted by voronoi
on Apr 16, 2010 -
15 answers
When did electricity and indoor plumbing first become widespread and commonplace in even the poorest
urban first world homes, in the same way that owning a television is unremarkable now? (Obviously rural communities took longer to acquire utilities.)
posted by desjardins
on Feb 17, 2010 -
10 answers
Is there a site out there that catalogues what technologies various web apps are built on?
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posted by mkultra
on Nov 12, 2009 -
6 answers
I've owned a cellphone for ages, and have largely remained ignorant of the business workings. Is there a crash course on cellular markets?
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posted by pwnguin
on Nov 6, 2009 -
6 answers
I would like to learn more about electricity markets, electrical infrastructure, utilities, transmission systems, generation technologies, applicable regulations, etc. Where can I find up-to-date and comprehensive information on these topics?
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posted by theexpgen
on Nov 20, 2008 -
6 answers
What is the total deployment cost of US wireless telephone infrastructure?
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posted by yesno
on Jun 11, 2008 -
3 answers
I work for a small web development company. As we are growing, I have been tasked with looking at a few pieces of our business:
- Version Control (Currently we don’t do it. We’re starting to use Subversion at my recommendation)
- Development Environments (We don’t exactly have formalized dev/stage/production right now, more like just dev/production…)
- Hosting (How we host our different clients varies… too much… we need a good solution)
- Infrastructure (i.e. how we host our own email, how we back up our data)
I already have some thoughts and recommendations, but they’re based on my personal experiences, so I thought I’d see what other experiences are out there and find out what other people/companies are doing…
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posted by twiggy
on Jun 5, 2008 -
10 answers
Network admin / geek question:
I'm in the process of building a small cluster of servers for my quickly growing wallpaper website, but I've never charted those waters before. I found a nice article on TorrentFreak about
Mininova's server setup, and found it quite intriguing. My question is, are there any other big-ish sites like Mininova that are open about their hardware infrastructure? Googling around yielded few results. I'd be interested to see the setup for a site like Digg, MeFi, or Flickr. Thanks in advance.
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posted by hmaugans
on Feb 16, 2008 -
5 answers
I'm taking a road trip through the southwest, and I'd like to see places with an interesting backstory or that show you "behind the scenes." I'm interested in places with political, economic, environmental, or industrial significance. Can you recommend some?
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posted by salvia
on Sep 30, 2007 -
9 answers
NewJobFilter: I'm a programmer with some phone interviews next week that I'd like to be prepared for. I'm up for some non-senior coding positions on site reliability, infrastructure and operations teams with a few different top ten internet companies. Any tips on what I should brush up on before I'm on the phone with some expert?
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posted by anonymous
on Sep 15, 2007 -
3 answers
Having a helluva time finding a book I saw once: It was a guide to roadside infrastructure items, including electric boxes, lightpoles, etc...
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posted by Unsomnambulist
on Jul 2, 2007 -
3 answers
Internet infrastructure: how does the physical infrastructure of the internet cross oceans? Is all of the data transmitted by communications satellites, or are there big-ass intercontinental cables running across the ocean floor? And if there are big-ass intercontinental cables, how are they maintained?
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posted by COBRA!
on Mar 31, 2004 -
9 answers
