energy
Tracing Power Lines with the Pylon Appreciation Society
Pylons
Not all the towers along a transmission line are identical. Look closely at a tower where the line makes a sharp turn and you will likely find it is wider and beefier than other towers along the route. The added strength and weight are needed to resist the unbalanced pull of the conductors, which might overturn an ordinary tower. These special towers are called deviation or angle towers.
The transmission-line tower everybody knows is an Erector Set latticework of steel girders and diagonal braces. The techniques for designing and building these towers are the same ones used in constructing steel bridge trusses or crane booms. The individual pieces can be made cheaply from rolled steel and then bolted together on the site. This last point is more important than it might seem: transporting a fully assembled tower 100 feet tall is an awkward and expensive business.
A haunting, syncopated music
"Rappers" on the roof of the electrostatic precipitator knock the accumulated dust free, letting it fall into the storage hopper. Each rapper is the size and shape of a baseball bat. Inside is an electromagnet that pulls a steel plunger upward, then allows it to fall again, producing a sharp knock. The rappers are energized at seemingly random intervals, producing a haunting, syncopated music. (The rhythm seemed more modern jazz than rap.)
Safety cut rope axe man
In the first nuclear reactor, constructed by Enrico Fermi in 1942 under the bleachers of the University of Chicago football stadium, the control rods were held up by a manila rope. A man with an axe was told to cut the rope if the reactor got out of hand. This "safety cut rope axe man" is supposedly the origin of the term SCRAM for an emergency shutdown procedure.
Color coding
Telephone wires erupt in a multicolor cascade in a ground-level, pedestal-type splice case on a city street.
Dividing the set of 10 colors into two contrasting groups of 5 allows for exactly 25 combinations with one color from each group; thus, each pair in a bundle can be uniquely colored. A similar color code is applied to the ribbons that bind together all the pairs in a bundle, and to those of the superbundles. The result is highly festive! A specific wire might be identified as the blue-red conductor within the orange-black bundle within the brown-yellow superbundle.
Bo Burnham: Inside
It's a beautiful day to stay inside
It's a beautiful day to stay inside
Went out to look for a reason to hide again
Well, well
Look who's inside again
Went out to look for a reason to hide againDon't wanna know
Is there anyone out there?
Or am I all alone?
It wouldn’t make a difference
Still, I don’t wanna know
I thought it’d be over by now
But I got a while to go
I’d give away the ending
But you don’t wanna kn-A little bit of everything all of the time
Could I interest you in everything all of the time?
A little bit of everything all of the time
Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime
Anything and everything all of the timeThat funny feeling
That unapparent summer air in early fall
The quiet comprehending of the ending of it all
There it is again
That funny feelingNow get inside
You say the ocean's rising like I give a shit
You say the whole world's ending, honey, it already did
You're not gonna slow it, Heaven knows you tried
Got it? Good, now get insideCome on in, the water's fine
Are you feeling nervous? Are you having fun?
It's almost over, it's just begun
Don't overthink this, look in my eye
Don't be scared, don't be shy
Come on in, the water's fineCall me up and tell me a joke
If I wake up in a house that's full of smoke
I'll panic, so call me up and tell me a joke
When I'm fully irrelevant and totally broken, damn it
Call me up and tell me a joke
Oh, shit
You're really joking at a time like this?