SHODAN LIVES
Notes and links from @colemanm.

India’s economic reliance on the tech outsourcing industry is making it difficult for them to keep up with their own internal infrastructure:

In 1990, civil engineering programs had the capacity to enroll 13,500 students, while computer science and information technology departments could accept but 12,100. Yet by 2007, after a period of incredible growth in India’s software outsourcing business, computer science and other information technology programs ballooned to 193,500; civil engineering climbed to only 22,700. Often, those admitted to civil engineering programs were applicants passed over for highly competitive computer science tracks.

There are various other reasons that India has struggled to build a modern infrastructure, including poor planning, political meddling and outright corruption. But the shortage of civil engineers is an important factor. In 2008, the World Bank estimated that India would need to train three times as many civil engineers as it does now to meet its infrastructure needs.

We used the monorail for the first few days we were in Vegas, to go from Riviera on the north end of the Strip down to the main southern section. It’s expensive and kind of a pain to use. Riding the bus worked a lot better:

“On the Strip, as I walked south from the Sahara, I couldn’t help noticing the crowded bus stops. As it turns out, in 2005 the RTC started running a flashy double-decker bus called the Deuce up and down the Strip. It costs $3 a ride and is very popular, averaging 35,000 passengers a day. The monorail has been attracting about 17,000 a day, roughly a third of its predicted ridership.”

In 1909, planner Daniel Burnham proposed his grand Plan of Chicago:

“Because Chicago’s transportation infrastructure was so congested—the railroads, harbor and streets were a disorganized mess—the plan analyzed the city within a 60-mile radius, proposing boulevards connecting the center to the outlying suburbs and the suburbs to one another. While the full street system was not built, the proposal for a double-level boulevard to handle commercial and regular traffic was realized in Wacker Drive—still a wonder to visitors from congested cities. The plan urged that the Chicago River be straightened, as indeed it was, to produce more efficient water-borne commerce and ­transportation.”

The one time I drove through Chicago, I thought it was gorgeous. At the time, I’d never been to NYC, which I’ve since become pretty familiar with. Another visit to Chicago is definitely in order, I’m interested to compare the two.

“North Korea Uncovered” is a project by a Ph.D. student from George Mason University named Curtis Melvin. The objective is to map as many “unknown” points of interest in the super-secretive DPRK as possible, from data gathered on his trips to the country as well as information from other “local spies.” All sorts of infrastructure and military data is mapped, including mines, dams, missile facilities, military bases, prisons, and burial mounds. It’s a huge and fascinating dataset.

Download the Google Earth point data layer here.

(gadling)