tag > Infrastructure
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The US is now producing more oil than any country has in history. Insane?
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China Puts Trust in AI To Maintain Largest High-Speed Rail Network on Earth
China is using AI in the operation of its 45,000km (28,000-mile) high-speed rail network, with the technology achieving several milestones, according to engineers involved in the project. From a report:
An AI system in Beijing is processing vast amounts of real-time data from across the country and can alert maintenance teams of abnormal situations within 40 minutes, with an accuracy as high as 95 per cent, they said in a peer-reviewed paper. "This helps on-site teams conduct reinspections and repairs as quickly as possible," wrote Niu Daoan, a senior engineer at the China State Railway Group's infrastructure inspection centre, in the paper published by the academic journal China Railway.
In the past year, none of China's operational high-speed railway lines received a single warning that required speed reduction due to major track irregularity issues, while the number of minor track faults decreased by 80 per cent compared to the previous year. According to the paper, the amplitude of rail movement caused by strong winds also decreased -- even on massive valley-spanning bridges -- with the application of AI technology. [...] According to the paper, after years of effort Chinese railway scientists and engineers have "solved challenges" in comprehensive risk perception, equipment evaluation, and precise trend predictions in engineering, power supply and telecommunications. The result was "scientific support for achieving proactive safety prevention and precise infrastructure maintenance for high-speed railways," the engineers said.
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In China, Fēng shuǐ (風水, Geomancy) plays a role in selecting sites for major computation data centers. Studies suggest that incorporating Fēng shuǐ principles correlates with significantly reduced error rates in essential system components, such as chips.
150y ago: The horror of Chinese geomancers at British attempts to construct railways across the Lung Mai or ‘dragon veins’ of their country resulted in a consortium of local businessmen buying and promptly dismantling the newly-completed railway line around Shanghai, in horror at the devastating impact it would have on the Feng Shui of the city.
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This passage from Deb Chachra's "How Infrastructure works" is a truth that often gets forgotten or ignored on the hunt for profit. It's a familiar and recurring theme in resilience engineering texts and research.
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China opened 2,776 km of new high-speed rail lines in 2023 alone, which is the equivalent of Japan's entire High Speed Rail system. Its total High Speed Rail now stands at 45,000km or 2/3rds of the global total. It intends to reach 70,000 km of HSR by 2035.
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"Silicon Icarus" is closing shop. Raul Diego's reporting on the darker corners of the cybernetic enclosure has been interesting. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish!
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Mysterious Underground City Found In Man’s Basement: How a renovation project in Turkey led to the discovery of a lifetime—a lost city that once housed 20,000 people.
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The killer app of Generative AI is communication augmentation.
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Starting from zero to becoming world's No. 1 in one decade: The first highs-speed railway was built in 2008 between Beijing and Tianjin with a total length of 113.54 km.
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"100 3D-printed homes in Wolf Ranch community will range from 1,574 to 2,112 square feet and feature high-end fixtures and rooftop solar panels. Prices will start in the mid USD 400,000s. The process currently requires three human operators to build one house — wall systems including plumbing and wiring — in two weeks."
