Infographics, The Electrical Grid and Internet Backbones, and Napoleon's Failed Invasion into Russia

Yes. these things are all related.

Of recent, I've been fascinated by the oddly developing state of the nation's power grid. The interest started some time ago as I'm sure you'll all remember this event once reminded: Nor'easter Blizzcon '03. Apparently all you need to take down the entire Ohio-Maine power network is get a plant to go offline, and get the operator to fail to restart the machine after introducing new data.

"Would you like to restart now or later?"

When one plant shut down, power was diverted to the affected (or is it effected?) area by bringing online hydro and nuke plants, certain high-voltage lines (the kinds that are so high they have to go to a transformer station that can take up a city block of space OR MORE!!!11!ONE!1) got destroyed by some trees. Since these lines were offline, they had to divert around them, eventually tripping automatic controls in place. Eventually, large areas were dropped from the grid, instantly reducing demand and causing the voltage to overload nearby systems, which, as they failed, only continued the problem.

One sec, I think I need to hear the explanation for why the Modest Mouse song Lives has those lyrics "It's hard to remember..."

ANYWAYS...

My HeroThe interest in the electrical system was added to when Leigh Tesfatsion came to talk about her paper regarding the way power is traded in the U.S. Can't hurt that it was agent-modeling that helped investigate the issue.

It's all very interesting stuff, I assure you.

A little while ago, Maria was almost affected (or is it effected?) by the huge internet outage orchestrated (probably) by some lame-ass phone workers who had been laid off.

So flash forward to today, and this (via) is sitting in my Reader inbox.

Your new best friend!I'll let you play with that for a little bit. If you click on the "Power Plants" tab you can see the "East Lake" generator near Cleveland that was one of the factors causing Static Shock to visit the northeast.

But check out the "The Grid" page and you'll get where I'm going. Compare that map to some on this website of internet backbones. Pretty similar, huh?

So I think all of this interests me because I have interests in a lot of the background elements of these networks. I love map making as anyone who remembers my prototype webpage that essentially geo-located where I took certain photos. It was all in static html, but what more do you want from an essentially proof-of-concept idea?

Add in a model which can be easily implemented in an agent-based paradigm.

Give it a human-like network quality capable of cascading failure (geeze it just feels like that should have a movie about it), and you have a winner.

Most importantly though, make the graphs fucking awesome. I mean even the bad ones on the backbone page are pretty cool. I'd love to have been able to design ANY OF THESE.

Saving the best for last, I'm always drawn back to this image. An econ prof showed it once in class as a demonstration of excellent data representation.

Awesome.

So, for those of you that made it all the way down here, here's some crazy delicious videos I've been jonesin' on lately:

<<<<<<<>SORRY THIS ONE HAS EMBEDDING OFF.<>>>>>>>>>
Jeremy Clarkson Road Test Ford Fiesta 1/2



I don't know if this is a joke or if he's genuine. The Fagina Is Full of AIDS.


And the reprise:


The (angry gorilla) setup:




More BarelyPolitical:


TTFN, have a good weekend.