tingilinde

the fehmarnbelt tunnel

A long underwater tunnel to connect Denmark and Germany .. one of those remarkable large engineering projects.

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Hemmingsen said making the tunnel bore more of a resemblance to building electronic components than traditional construction

“What we’re doing right now is not so much a normal construction project, where you have a lot of people running around like small ants in a limited space. It’s more like building iPhones actually.”

There are six production lines – designed to be “optimised and lean” – each producing a different element of the tunnel.

Hemmingsen compared piecing about 900 small elements together to form 90 larger elements of the tunnel to “using Lego blocks”.

“If you fail at one element you can actually replace it,” he said. “Once it’s done it looks very simple, but from an engineering perspective there are a lot of details that have to be in place before you can start.”

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amtrak's hopelessly outdated northeast corridor

There have been an increasing number of infrastructure failures

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Long stretches of that system are unchanged from when the defunct Pennsylvania Railroad first electrified it a century ago, The New York Times has found. And any wholesale modernization effort would come at tremendous cost and take more than a decade.

“It’s staggering, it’s just staggering that we’re still having antique technology controlling our rails,” said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board whose duties included overseeing railroad investigations from 1995 to 2004. “That’s last century’s technology.”

Michael Bezilla, a historical researcher at Pennsylvania State University who wrote a book on the electrification of trains on the Northeast Corridor, said, “The question is, why hasn’t Amtrak upgraded and why isn’t it using modern technology?”

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a car-free olympics?

And Los Angeles?!?

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In their winning bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, Los Angeles leaders pledged that the city’s version of the Games would be the greenest ever — a goal they planned to achieve in large part by making access to the event “car-free.”

It was a bold statement because, well, it’s Los Angeles. Could America’s capital of car culture, where traffic shapes daily life more than the weather, really pull that off?

As the Paris Olympics come to a close this weekend, the clock is ticking. Los Angeles must complete much-needed upgrades to the region’s transit system to handle an influx of athletes and visitors without bringing car traffic to a standstill. That includes extending rail lines, adding a legion of buses and clearing countless traffic lanes to allow hundreds of thousands of people to navigate a metropolis that sprawls across 4,000 square miles.

“I’m optimistic,” said Eli Lipmen, the executive director of Move L.A., an organization that advocates for the expansion of public transit in the region. “There’s nothing better than a deadline.”

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on the terrible mercedes ev fire in korea

In a parking garage for a few days and not charging - the fire did serious damage and has people in the hospitral

 

useful vandalism

on boeing

Commentary on Boeing's sweetheart deal with Justice - it turns out the Trump Justice Dept protected the execs.  Interesting commentary on what went wrong over the years.  WBUR's OnPoint from July 11  wherever you get podcasts or here.

An interesting issue for Boeing is will they be able to come back?  Is it possible for them to change and regain the confidence of airlines and the flying public.

 

 

 

 

ford's 1967 electric city microcar

Just a concept, but for urban and some suburban use cases something this small could work.

 

 

looking deeply into montreal's subway tickets

Ken Shirriff looks at the super simple/super cheap disposable chip in a subway ticket.

when ship owners abandon ships

and crews...

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Shipowners often abandon crew members when they are hit by rising fuel costs, debt or unexpected repairs they can’t afford. Some owners vow to pay when their finances turn around. But those promises can mean little to the men on board, who often resort to handouts for food and basic supplies. Many are also supporting families back home and risk losing everything if they step off their ships.

Crew members or the countries where the ships are registered or docked can pursue the shipowners in court. But recovering past wages can be a yearslong battle that often fails.

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a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

some tips if you fly with expensive and fragile kit

A photographer's bad experience with United and some tips if you fly with fragile gear.