#Market Street Cable Rail line

[demospectator]

"Clay St. West of Kearny SF 1873 - First Cable Car in the World" In this elevated view west on Clay Street to the Clay St. Cable RR cable car at Kearny Street Terminus, Portsmouth Square can be seen on the right. Signage for the R. Cutlar Dentist, H. Traube watchmaker and jeweler at left.   This photo is a detail from Carleton Watkins' stereo card number 2368 (Variant) under the original title: "Clay St. Hill R.R., San Francisco, Cal. Run by A.S. Hallidie's patent Endless Steel Wire Rope and Gripping Attachment. Overcomes an Elevation of 307 feet in a length of 2800 feet. Worst grade, one foot in six"  (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection).  

Chinatown at the Advent of the Cable Car

This year San Francisco marks the sesquicentennial of its cable car system.  In the late 19th century, San Francisco experienced rapid urbanization and faced the challenge of its hilly terrain. Traditional horse-drawn streetcars struggled to navigate the steep inclines, necessitating an innovative transportation solution.

In the predawn hours of August 2, 1873, Andrew Smith Hallidie introduced the first successful cable car system in the world. The cable cars utilized an underground cable mechanism to propel the cars along tracks, overcoming the city's hilly landscape. This new mode of transportation revolutionized urban mobility and played a pivotal role in San Francisco's development.

Historian Phil Choy wrote about the Clay Street cable car terminus at Portsmouth Square as follows:  

“Following Andrew S. Hallidie’s successful test-run of the first cable car on August [2], 1873, horse-drawn cars were replaced with a cable car  on Clay Street.  Thereafter, the Chinese called Clay Street ‘Mo Mah Lie Ch’eh,’ which literally means ‘no-horse-drawn-car’ [冇馬拉車; canto: “mou5 maa5 laai1 ce1″].  Starting from the top of Leavenworth Street, the line ended at a turntable at the bottom of Clay and Kearny Streets, to send the car back up the hill.”

California and Montgomery streets, c. 1889.  Photographer unknown (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection / Courtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives).  The view is west on California across Montgomery, as an Omnibus Railway Co. horsecar #11 passes the Parrott Building, or Parrott Block (1852, Architect Stephen Williams) seen in background.  A Chinese man is walking south at the northeast corner of the intersection.  The signs for the offices of Equitable Life and Dr. William F. McNutt at 405 Montgomery are visible at right.  

The introduction of cable cars in San Francisco had a profound impact on the Chinese community. Several cable car lines conveniently passed through Chinatown, allowing Chinese residents to access transportation. The cable cars provided a reliable means of travel for the community, connecting them to other neighborhoods and employment opportunities initially for domestic workers serving the mansions atop Nob Hill and eventually throughout the city.

Clay Street Cable Car, c. 1873.  Photograph by Carleton Watkins and published as “Pacific Coast. 2369″ and by Taber Photo (from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection).  In this startling image, patrons and car operators can be seen posing on or alongside cable cars on Clay near Jones Street, except for at least two Chinese men seated in the car at left.  Their faces were lost to history because one man placed his hat over his face, while the other inclined his head to avoid the camera’s lens. Watkins' image may be the only extant image showing urban pioneer Chinese actually riding an early cable car, possibly to their jobs as domestic servants for the mansions on Nob Hill.

Watkins' stereo card bears the legend: “Clay Street Hill R.R., San Francisco, Cal. Run by A.S. Hallidie's patent Endless Steel Wire Rope and Gripping Attachment. Overcomes an Elevation of 307 feet in a length of 2800 feet.  Worst grade, one foot in six. 2369”  Photograph by Carleton E. Watkins (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library).

“At the Corner of Dupont and Jackson Streets” c. 1896 -1906.  Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division).  A cable car on the Jackson Street line can be seen at right.  “Two girls wearing embroidered holiday wear are crossing the street,” as historian Jack Tchen wrote in his book about Genthe’s Chinatown photos.  “The store behind them is a ‘Chinese and Japanese Curios’ store located at 924 Dupont Street, southwest corner.  The good-quality, expensive vases in the window display and the sign in English indicate that the store catered especially to tourists.  Some such stores were owned by Japanese, but the main reason that both Chinese and Japanese goods were sold in the same store was that the general public could not distinguish between the two cultures.”   (NOTE:  Tchen’s location of the address at 924 Dupont appears incorrect, as the photo depicts the west or odd-numbered side of the street. The building bearing an address of 943 Dupont actually occupied the southwest corner of the intersection with Jackson Street.  Directories of the time indicate that the Tong Yuen Lai confectionary operated at the 943 address during the 1890’s.  By the 1905 publication of the Chinatown phone directory, the Jong Mee Cigar Store had either co-located or operated solely at the address.)    

The cable cars, particularly the Clay, Sacramento, California, and Jackson street lines, had played a significant role in fostering economic growth within Chinatown. 

“B 3096 Clay Street Hill, Chinatown, San Francisco” c. 1886.  Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection).  In this view east on the south side of Clay Street, and just above Dupont, the trees of Portsmouth Square can in the distance at left, a horsecar can be seen on Kearny and an original Clay Street cable car.  The large billboard for Globe Business College and Conservatory of Music in distance. The large vertical sign in Chinese denotes an herbalist or apothecary store.

The view east on Clay Street, c. 1888. (Photographer unknown from the collection of the California Historical Society).  A cable car is in the process of crossing Dupont Street and heading west up the hill.  The balconies of the Yoot Hong Low restaurant appear at left. 

“161 Street Scene in Chinatown,” no date.  Photographer unknown (from a private French collection).  A cable car can be seen traveling west on Clay passing Stockton Street. 

“Chinese Quarter, San Francisco, Cal.” c. 1891. Photograph by A.J. McDonald (from a private collection).  A cable car is seen passing the 800-block of Clay Street between Dupont St. and Waverly Place.  The decorated balconies of the Yoot Hong Low restaurant can be seen at center.  

“B 2807 Lotta’s Fountain, and junction of Market, Kearny a& Geary Streets, S.F.” c. late 1880s.  Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from a private collection). A Market Street Cable Rail car appears in the right foreground. Two Chinese men can be seen in the background at left on the sidewalk  between the two lampposts and under the Philadelphia Lager sign. 

“Carrying New Year Presents” c. 1900-1905. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the Genthe photograph collection, The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division). A cable car can be seen on the hill just behind the head of the young woman in the photo.  She appears to have been a servant to the family of prominent merchant Lew Kan. The boy in the photo is Lew Bing Yuen, the older son, who also appears in Genthe’s well-known photo “Children of the High Class.”

After transformation of post-1906 Chinatown into the “Oriental City,” this urban transit network remained crucial the neighborhood’s integration with the citywide economy.  Tourists and locals utilized the cable car system, and Chinese-owned businesses along, and in proximity to, the cable car lines experienced increased patronage. This urban mobility represented by the cable car system, even after its reduction to only two lines, has sustained the Chinese community from it pioneer beginnings to this day.  

“San Francisco Cable Car Lines at the Fullest Extent of Operation (1890s)”  (courtesy of the Cable Car Museum). As the Cable Car Museum advises here, “Clay Street Hill Railroad was the sole cable car company for 4 years. A former horsecar company, Sutter Street Railroad, developed its own version of Hallidie's patented system and began cable service in 1877, followed by California Street Cable Railroad -1878, Geary Street, Park & Ocean Railroad -1880, Presidio & Ferries Railroad -1882, Market Street Cable Railway -1883, Ferries & Cliff House Railway -1888, and Omnibus Railroad & Cable Company -1889.”  At its peak, the San Francisco companies had laid “53 miles of track stretching from the Ferry Building to the Presidio, to Golden Gate Park, to the Castro, to the Mission.”

Published in Germany under the title “The Plaza, near Chinatown, San Francisco, U.S.A.” c. 1890. Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection). In this northwesterly view toward the 700-block of Washington Street, a man walks a child through Portsmouth Square, and a cable car can be seen in the background. By the 1890s, a cable car line had been built on Washington Street, running along the northern edge of the square.

For the Chinese families who began to populate the eastern slopes of Nob and Russian Hills (and the garment workers in the small sewing factories along Pacific Avenue west of Stockton Street), the cable cars served as their principal transit system until the establishment of bus routes such as the Pacific Avenue shuttle (championed by Phil Chin and his Chinatown Transportation Improvement Project crew a half-century ago), and now known as the no. 12 Folsom/Pacific line.  

A group of women (at least one of whom has bound feet) disembarks from a cable car in 1908.  Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America). For women with bound feet (including great grandmothers on both sides of my family), the cars represented not only convenience but a necessary travel option for the residents navigating the hilly topography of San Francisco Chinatown.

The clang of cable car bells and the snap of the cable in the tracks remain an integral part of the soundtrack for the several generations of Chinese children who grew up in the greater Chinatown area. 

Cable cars symbolized the vital role of urban transportation in fostering connections and opportunities -- providing convenient travel options for the residents of Chinatown, maintaining the neighborhood’s economy during hard times, and tying the segregated Chinese community to the larger city.

“Convergence of Cultures” oil painting by Mian Situ.

[updated 2023-8-14]

[eckswizi]

For those of us out there who long for good rapid transit and walkable cities in car-centric North America, it can be really easy to doomscroll and it can seem that America is completely incapable of divorcing itself from car culture. But I want to let you all know: right now, at the end of 2022, it’s a great time for rapid transit. So much new construction is going on as we speak, and many new projects are almost finished. I want to go through some of the new projects that have opened over the past 12 months, or will open sometime in the next 12 months, and I want to remind you all that good transit is possible, and is becoming more of a reality with each passing day.

Here’s the most significant new construction from the past year:

The DC Metro finally opened Phase 2 of the Silver Line extension, a long awaited line that extends the DC Metro into a well populated part of Virginia. Additionally, the extension has a station at Dulles International Airport, one of the most major airports in the country.

The Los Angeles Metro opened the first half of the new Crenshaw Line (aka the K line), adding a whole new line and 6 new stations (7, counting the new lower level at the existing Expo/Crenshaw station). The new K line returns service to an area of Los Angeles that had not seen passenger rail service in several decades. The second half of the extension is still under construction, and will connect the K line to the existing C Line as well as LAX.

San Francisco’s MUNI Metro, the system that operates SFs light rail, trolley, and cable car systems, opened their brand new Central Subway. The Central Subway travels roughly North-South through the heart of the city, perpendicular to the existing Market Street Subway. The new subway line will provide service to the densely populated but underserved Chinatown neighborhood, among others.

A whole new system opened this year! Honolulu just opened the Honolulu Rail Transit, operated by the HART, is the first major rail rapid transit in the US to feature platform screen doors and driverless trains.

The MBTA (Boston) just opened the final phase of their Green Line Extension! The GLX, as it is called, brings rapid transit service to the heart of the densely populated town of Somerville, MA. 7 new stations opened as a result of the extension, with one station being rebuilt entirely!

During the summer, Amtrak extended its Ethan Allen Express route to Burlington, Vermont, with two stations in between. The extension returned intercity rail service to Burlington Union Station and the heart of the city for the first time in about 50 years!

The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR; NYC), North American’s busiest regional rail system, completed a project which improved its mainline by adding a third track. The third track is a much needed improvement that allows for more efficient and frequent train operation on a heavily used corridor.

Tempe, Arizona opened a downtown streetcar earlier in the year. The line goes around downtown, and makes the city center more easily walkable, as well connecting to the Phoenix Valley Metro.

Minneapolis opened their new D Line BRT service, a rapid bus service that is but a small part of a massive ongoing transit plan for the Twin Cities

Chicago opened a new flyover junction for the Brown Line, which will speed up and improve service on the Brown, Red, & Purple Lines

Upcoming

A whole new system is opening soon! Honolulu, Hawaii is soon to open the first phase of their new driverless elevated rapid transit. It will be the first non-tourist passenger rail in the state in several decades!

The LIRR will soon open a massive new underground line that allows trains to access Grand Central Terminal in the heart of Manhattan. The new terminal will also relieve pressure from the over crowded Penn Station.

The NYC Subway (MTA) has received its first shipments of its new R211 subway trains, which will be a much needed new fleet of modern rolling stock. The new trains will fill the gap left by the retirement of the 59 year old R32s. Additionally, the MTA also received several sets of the R211T, a variation on the R211 which includes an open gangway between subway cars, like an accordion/bendy-bus.

Seattle’s Link Rapid Transit is currently making major progress on several new extensions, with most of them estimated to open around 2024. The existing line will be extended in both directions. Additionally, the existing line will be complimented by a second line! There will be a total of nineteen (19!!!) new stations, as well as six (6) new stations on the Tacoma Streetcar!

CalTrain, a commuter/regional rail system that serves the San Francisco peninsula, is electrifying their system. When completed, it will bring faster, quieter, and more eco-friendly rail service to the SF Peninsula. Ignoring rapid transit, CalTrain will host the first electrified main line passenger trains to operate west of the Mississippi in several decades.

The TTC (Toronto) is currently making huge progress on their newest train line, the Line 5 Eglinton. It is a brand new light rail line that will have 24 stations along Eglinton Ave in Toronto, and will have connections to the Line 1, Line 2, and Line 3.

The TTC is also constructing the Line 6 Finch, another brand new light rail line north of Toronto! It will run west from the Line 1 along Finch Ave, and will have 18 new stations!

Montreal’s new REM (Réseau express métropolitain / Metropolitan Express Network) is almost ready to open its first phase! The REM is a new light metro line that has one line and three branches, with twenty-six (26!!!) new stations. The line will connect downtown to the airport and several major suburbs.

The MBTA is currently constructing a new commuter rail line that, on two branches, will provide service to Fall River and New Bedford, two notable cities on the south coast of Massachusetts.

Vancouver’s Skytrain is currently working on a massive new expansion of their Millenium Line to travel west and serve a densely populated but previously underserved section of the city.

The LA Metro is currently working on a new subway tunnel through downtown that will connect the A, E, and L lines. When the project is completed, the E and L will be merged into one line.

Mexico City is currently constructing a new commuter train to traverse the heavily traveled corridor between Mexico City and Toluca.

Construction is currently ongoing for the Southwest LRT Line in Minneapolis, a large extension to the currently underserved southwestern parts of the Twin Cities

Calgary is currently most of the way through construction on their new Green Line, which will be the third Light Rail line to serve the region.

Ottawa’s Trillium Line is currently closed for modernization and is expected to reopen this year

Chicago has an ongoing project to overhaul the infrastructure on the aging Red and Purple Lines

Additionally, there have been *countless* new stations constructed and a multitude of other minor construction projects that will have some major effects. Here’s some highlights:

The SEPTA (Philadelphia) added Wawa station to its regional rail system

The MBTA is currently most of the way through construction on a new station to serve the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island

In the fall, the LIRR opened a new station called Elmont-UBS Arena

NYC Ferry established a new service to Coney Island

A new platform at Baltimore Penn Station

Much, much more

Lastly, let’s not forget the fact that a massive number of new transit lines and rail extensions have opened over the past few years, including major openings all over the country. I’ve definitely forgot something, and the fact that I have is because there is so much that has come out of 2022. We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. From where we are, rail transport and public transit in North America is only going to improve, and I can’t wait.

[chaletnz]

La Paz: Teleferico Adventure

From the central station I took the roja (red) line Teleferico up to the highest point in El Alto, 16 de Julio, since there is a great viewpoint there with La Paz city below and all the snow capped mountains surrounding it. La Paz is just under 3,700m above sea level whereas El Alto is about 4,100m so the gondola ride up definitely made my ears pop. They require masks on the public transit and I had to share the cable car with people on every ride but it’s still the ultimate public transport! I didn’t have any wifi or data once there so I followed directions from a blog I found online to get to the viewpoint. El Alto is definitely a dodgy area, I passed a smoky market that must’ve just closed for the day, crossed a bridge that smelled like piss, and avoided some street dogs as well as dodgy people yelling at me the usual “hey bro, hey you speak English, hey where you from”. It’s so frustrating that so many people do this in South America, and more so that they feel entitled to an actual cordial response or a smile from me like “yes thank you for shouting at me, here is my life story, do you want some money too?” When really they all get ignored and actually deserve to get the middle finger from me too. Approaching the viewpoint there was a police car with two officers which made me feel a little better. It was also deserted around this area except for two ladies sitting in the grass while a fire burned on in a pit beside them. I walked out to the viewpoint, a shoddily constructed railing around a concreted platform with several holes through it large enough to fall through or at least drop a foot into. The pictures however were amazing from here. It was directly under the Teleferico red line so I could see each car passing overhead while I stood there admiring La Paz city. The blog I read had recommended staying for the sunset and then riding back down but as the area was so dodgy I didn’t want to stay there any longer so I headed back down around 4:30pm instead, I had the prime viewing seat for photos of the Cementerio General de La Paz and a little neighbourhood with colourful buildings. The central station was quite cool with a train display and La Paz sign set up for photos so I took some there and then Niki’s caught my eye for dinner. I chose the ribs with chips and coleslaw and also tried a papaya flavoured Fanta. The meal was very average as the pork was super fatty but at least it filled the hole somewhat before buying some water, putting my laundry in with reception, and then going to bed for an early night ready to explore more tomorrow.

[travelmart]

Gangtok-tour-package-from-patna

Travel Mart Provide Gangtok tour package from Patna in Best Rate. Gangtok is the capital of Sikkim and one of India’s most stunning hill stations. This tour package offers a perfect blend of natural beauty, spirituality, and adventure. Whether you want to explore its vibrant culture, scenic landscapes, or serene monasteries, Gangtok has something for every traveler For Booking call/mail

Highlights:

Visit the iconic Tsomgo Lake, a high-altitude glacial lake surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

Experience the spirituality of the Rumtek Monastery, one of the most significant monasteries in Tibetan Buddhism.

Explore the MG Marg, the main street in Gangtok, lined with shops, cafes, and local eateries.

Visit the Nathula Pass (subject to permit availability), located on the Indo-China border, offering breathtaking views and historical significance.

Take a cable car ride offering panoramic views of the city and surrounding valleys.

Experience the beauty of Banjhakri Falls and Ranka Monastery.

Itinerary (5 Days / 4 Nights):

Day 1: Arrival in Gangtok by car/rail/air

Meet & greet at Bagdogra Airport/NJP Railway Station.

Transfer to Gangtok (4-5 hours drive).

Check-in at your hotel and relax for the day.

Evening free to explore MG Marg at your leisure.

Day 2: Tsomgo Lake and Baba Mandir

After breakfast, drive to Tsomgo Lake (about 40 km from Gangtok).

Visit the sacred Baba Harbhajan Singh Mandir.

Return to Gangtok by evening.

Day 3: Gangtok Local Sightseeing

After breakfast, start your city tour.

Visit Rumtek Monastery, Do Drul Chorten, Enchey Monastery, Tashi Viewpoint, and Flower Exhibition Center.

Explore local markets in the evening.

Day 4: Excursion to Nathula Pass

Optional trip to Nathula Pass (if permits are available).

Visit the Indo-China border and marvel at the snow-covered peaks.

Return to Gangtok in the evening.

Day 5: Departure

After breakfast, check out from the hotel.

Transfer to Bagdogra Airport/NJP Railway Station for your onward journey.

Inclusions:

Accommodation in 3-star or 4-star hotels (based on package).

Daily breakfast.

All transfers and sightseeing tours by private car.

Permits and entry fees for sightseeing.

English-speaking local guide for tours.

Exclusions:

Airfare or train tickets.

Meals not mentioned in the itinerary.

Personal expenses like shopping, laundry, etc.

Nathula Pass entry permit fees (if applicable).

Best Time to Visit:

March to June for pleasant weather and clear skies.

October to December for beautiful snow views and a peaceful atmosphere.

Travel Tips:

Pack warm clothes as temperatures can drop significantly, especially in higher altitudes.

Carry valid ID proofs as they are required for permits.

Be prepared for long drives through hilly terrains.

This Gangtok tour package From Patna is perfect for nature lovers, adventure seekers, and those looking to unwind in the lap of the Himalayas.

[rogersip]

Best Public Transport in the US

Regardless of where you're going in the United States, you'll be glad to know that the public transportation system is among the best in the world. In fact, there are several cities in the country with world-class public transport systems, such as San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago.

San Francisco

Getting around San Francisco can be a breeze if you take the right public transport. The city has a variety of ways to get around, including buses, cable cars, trolleys, and more.

BART, or Bay Area Rapid Transit, is a train system that services the Bay Area. It runs from the airport to downtown San Francisco. The trains arrive every 15 minutes during the week and every 20 minutes on weekends. They are fast, reliable, and convenient for travelling to the outskirts of the city.

The SF streetcar system is also a great way to get around. These historic, remodeled above-ground streetcars run on the F-line. They start near Fisherman's Wharf, and they go down Market Street all the way to the Castro District. You can purchase a Clipper card to make it easy to pay for your ride.

There are several companies that run shuttles to and from the San Francisco airport. A one-way ticket costs $2-$5 for adults and children under 19 travel for free.

Seattle

WalletHub experts ranked Seattle as the best public transport city in the country. They considered 17 key metrics, including affordability, reliability, and accessibility. They compared 100 cities, focusing on average commute time, number of commuters who use public transportation, and peak hour congestion.

The Link light rail is one of the most popular commuter options in Seattle. The service runs from the airport to the University of Washington and the International District. The trains arrive every 6 to 15 minutes depending on the time of day. The service also stops in popular neighborhoods in the suburbs.

The King County Metro bus system also services downtown Seattle and surrounding areas. The bus system is growing and has increased its ridership from 121.8 million in 2015 to 122.2 million in 2017. They are building new bus bases and buying more buses.

Rapid Ride bus lines cover 64 miles, with more frequent buses and shorter stops. The service costs the same as regular bus fares, but users don't have to worry about a timetable. During peak hours, the buses run up to five minutes faster.

Philadelphia

Whether you're a long-term resident or just passing through, you'll find that Philadelphia offers one of the best public transport systems in the country. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) operates buses, regional trains, and a subway. This system serves more than a million riders each week and is the sixth-largest public transportation system in the U.S. Located in the center of the city, the 30th Street Station is a central train station where you can easily access all of the major SEPTA rail routes.

Another option is the ride-hailing service, which is available 24 hours a day. You can also use a Philadelphia ridesharing app to get an estimate of your upcoming ride before you depart. This allows you to pick a car type based on your travel needs and time of the day.

In addition to these options, Philadelphia's subway system is quite comprehensive. The subway operates 24 hours a day, Thursday through Sunday. You can reach most places in the city by taking the subway. However, you should be aware that the subway is not the cheapest way to get around.

Chicago

Whether you're traveling for business or pleasure, Chicago offers some of the best public transport in the world. It's easy to get around, and with a few apps, you can even find a cab if you're not so fond of driving.

The CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) operates a rapid transit system. The system consists of eight train lines and more than 2,000 buses. The CTA has a bus route guide that's a great resource for travelers.

The CTA serves 35 surrounding suburbs and sees 1.6 million people on an average weekday. This transit is a great way to get to and from the airports and to reach popular landmarks.

Metra, a commuter rail, is a reliable and inexpensive way to get from downtown to the suburbs. Metra makes stops in several cities, including Aurora, Joliet, and North Chicago. It's also handy for getting to the University of Chicago and the South Shore.

Taxis are a popular mode of transportation in Chicago, but they can be expensive. If you're looking to save money, check out rideshare services like Lyft or Uber.

[davidperea-travelart]

“A Brief History of the F-Market & Wharves Line

The F-Market & Wharves line is the most successful vintage rail line ever opened. With 20,000+ riders per day, it is on a par with the National Historic Landmark St. Charles streetcar line in New Orleans, which has been in service continuously as a rail line since 1835, and as an electric streetcar line since the 1890s.

The F-line, by contrast, is a very recent phenomenon. But, while it first opened in 1995, its roots are nearly as deep as the St. Charles line.

San Francisco’s main boulevard, Market Street, has had nearly continuous rail transit service since 1860.

Steam trains, then horse cars, then cable cars provided passenger service on Market Street until the morning of April 18, 1906, when the great earthquake and fire devastated the system. When the city rebuilt, it was largely with electric streetcars.

The privately-owned United Railroads installed multiple streetcar lines that provided service the length of Market. “

https://www.streetcar.org/brief-history/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The future is symmetrical

When Mitch Kapor articulated the principle that “architecture is politics” at the founding of EFF, he was charging technologists with the moral duty to contemplate the kinds of social interactions their technological decisions would facilitate — and prohibit.

At question was nothing less than the character of the networked society. Would the vast, pluripotent, general purpose, interconnected network serve as a glorified video-on-demand service, the world’s greatest pornography distribution system, a giant high-tech mall?

Or could it be a public square, and if so, who would have the loudest voices in that square, who would be excluded from it, who will set its rules, and how will they be enforced?

As with its technical architecture, the political architecture of the net is a stack, encompassing everything from antitrust enforcement to spectrum allocation, protocol design to search-and-seizure laws, standards to top-level domain governance.

Among those many considerations is the absolutely vital question of service delivery itself. What kinds of wires or radio waves will carry your packets, who will own them, and how will they be configured?

For decades, a quiet war has been fought on this front, with two sides: the side that sees internet users as “mouse potatoes,” destined to passively absorb information feeds compiled by their betters; and the “netizen” side that envisions a truly participatory network design.

This deep division has been with us since the internet’s prehistory, at least since the fight over Usenet’s alt.* hierarchy, flaring up again during the P2P wars, with ISPs insisting that users were violating their “agreements” by running “servers.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/altinteroperabilityadversarial

Above all, this fight was waged in the deployment of home internet service. The decision turn the already-monopolistic cable and phone operators into ISPs cast a long shadow. Both of these industries think of their customers as passive information consumers, not participants.

As an entertainment exec in William Gibson’s 1992 novel Idoru describes her audience: “Best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It’s covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth…no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections.”

Contrast this with the other cyberpunk archetype, the console cowboy who doesn’t merely surf the digital, but steers it — the active participant in the technological/media environment who is more than a recipient of others’ crafted messages.

For a long time, Big Tech and Big Telco tried to have it both ways. AT&T promoted teleconferencing and remote family life conducted by videophones in its 1993 “You Will” marketing campaign. Youtube exhorted you to “broadcast yourself.”

But AT&T also set data-caps, kicked users off for running servers, and engaged in every legal, semi-legal and outright illegal tactic imaginable to block high-speed fiber networks.

Youtube, meanwhile, blocked interoperability, leveraged vertical integration with Google search to exclude and starve competitors, and conspired with Big Content to create a “content moderation” system that’s two parts Kafka, one part Keystone Kops.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#content-id

While the questions raised by broad participation in networked society are thorny and complex, one question actually has a very simple and factual answer: “How should we connect our homes to the internet?” The answer: “Fiber.”

There is no wireless that can substitute for fiber. Wireless — 5G, Starlink, whatever — shares the same spectrum. We can make spectrum use more efficient (by tightly transmitting the wireless signals so they don’t interfere), but physics sets hard limits on wireless speeds.

Each strand of wire in a wired network, by contrast, is its own pocket universe, insulated from the next wire, with its own smaller, but exclusive, electromagnetic spectrum to use without interfering with any other wire on the other side of its insulation.

<img src=”https://craphound.com/images/broadband_comparison.jpeg" alt=”EFF’s broadband comparison chart, showing the maximum speeds of 4G (100mb), DSL (170mb), 5G (10gb), cable (50gb) and fiber (100tb).”>

But copper wire also has hard limits that are set by physics. The fastest theoretical copper data throughput is an infinitesimal fraction of the fastest fiber speeds. Fiber is millions-to-hundreds-of-millions times faster than copper.

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

We should never run copper under another city street or along another pole. Any savings from maintaining 20th century network infrastructure will be eradicated by the cost of having to do twice the work to replace it with 21st century fiber in the foreseeable future.

Trying to wring performance gains out of copper in the age of fiber is like trying to improve the design of whale-oil lamps to stave off the expense of electrification. Sure, you don’t want anyone sitting in the dark but even the very best whale-oil lamp is already obsolete.

But besides future-proofing, there’s another reason to demand fiber over copper or wireless: symmetry. Our copper and (especially) wireless infrastructure is optimized for sending data to end-points, not getting data back. It’s mouse-potato broadband.

(this is especially true of any satellite broadband, which typically relies upon copper lines for its “return path,” and even when it doesn’t, has much slower uplinks that downlinks)

By contrast, fiber tends to be symmetrical — providing the same download and upload speeds. It is participatory broadband, suited for a world of distance ed, remote work, telemedicine, and cultural and political participation for all.

Fiber is so obviously better than copper or wireless that America paltry fiber rollouts needed to be engineered — they never would have happened on their own. The most critical piece of anti-fiber engineering is US regulators’ definition of broadband itself.

Since the dawn FCC interest in universal broadband, it adopted a technical definition of broadband that is asymmetrical, with far lower upload than download speeds. Despite lockdown and broadband-only connections to the outside world, Congress is set to continue this.

The latest iteration of the Democrats’ broadband bill defines “broadband” as any connection that is 100mb down and 20mb up (“100/20”). Both of these speeds paltry to the point of uselessness, but the upload speed is genuinely terrible.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/future-symmetrical-high-speed-internet-speeds

US broadband usage has grown 21%/year since the 1980s. 100/20 broadband is inadequate for today’s applications — let alone tomorrow’s (by contrast, fiber is fast enough to last through the entire 21st century’s projected broadband demand and beyond, well into the 2100s).

Any wireless applications will also depend on fiber — your 5G devices have to be connected to something, and if that something is copper, your wireless speeds will never exceed copper’s maximum speeds. Innovation in spectrum management requires fiber — it doesn’t obviate it.

Today, the highest growth in broadband demand is in uploads, not downloads. People need fast uploads speeds to videoconference, to stream their games, to do remote work. The only way a 100/20 copper network’s upload speeds can be improved is by connecting it with fiber.

Every dollar spent on copper rollout is a dollar we’ll forfeit in a few years. It’s true that cable monopolists will wring a few billions out of us if we keep making do with their old copper, but upgrading copper just makes the inevitable fiber transition costlier.

China is nearing its goal of connecting 1 billion people to fiber. In America, millions are stuck with copper infrastructure literally consisting of century-old wires wrapped in newspaper, dipped in tar, and draped over tree-banches.

https://mn.gov/commerce-stat/pdfs/frontier-service-quality-report-final.pdf

Indeed, when it comes to America, monopoly carriers are slowing upload speeds — take Altice, the US’s fourth-largest ISP, which slashed its upload speeds by 89% “in line with competitors’ offerings.”

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/27/immortan-altice/#broadband-is-a-human-right

America desperately needs a high-fiber diet:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/30/fight-for-44/#slowpokes

But it has a major blockage: the American right, who have conducted history’s greatest self-own by carrying water for telecoms monopolists, blocking municipal fiber:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/17/turner-diaries-fanfic/#1a-fiber

It’s darkly funny to see the people who demanded that “government stay out of my internet” now rail against monopoly social media’s censorship, given that a government ISP would be bound by the First Amendment, unlike Facebook or Twitter.

Luckily, Congress isn’t the only place where this debate is taking place. In California, Governor Newsom has unveiled an ambitious plan to connect every city and town to blazing-fast fiber, then help cities and counties get it to every home.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/15/how-to-rob-a-bank/#fiber-now

In tech circles, we use the term “read-only” to refer to blowhards who won’t let you get a word-in edgewise (this being one of the more prominent and unfortunate technical archetypes).

The “consumer” envisioned by asymmetrical broadband futures is write*-only — someone designed to have other peoples’ ideas crammed into their eyeballs, for their passive absorption. A consumer, not a citizen.

As Gibson put it, it’s a person who “can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote.”

Cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion.

[roguzomu-blog]

Effective Strategies for Vladivostok Visa That You Can Begin to Use Today

https://ko.ivisa.com/vladivostok-visa

It gives the chance for aspiring artists and producers to acquire exposure to new audiences and leading foreign professionals. Unfortunately, residents of the majority of countries need a visa, which may occasionally be a time intensive and expensive practice.  The streets have an additional opportunity to claim his life--and he has yet another opportunity to break the rules, beat the odds, and discover a means to remain alive.

The program is just one of the initiatives targeted at boosting the economy in the area.  If you don't understand differently, naturally! One of the absolute most well-known purposes is tourism.

What the In-Crowd Won't Tell You About Vladivostok Visa In this instance, an invitation will be issued on the exact same day as the appliance so you can apply to the consulate in time and receive a visa quickly.  It's also helpful to consult theTimaticweb systemto find the particular visa requirements.  If you want to sightsee on your own you have to have a tourist visa.

Chennai formally called Madras is called the Gateway to the South.  The last stop at stake, or the first if you're traveling westwards, is in Vladivostok.

Failure to create your passport when asked can result in a fine.  If you're in this region, then don't miss the opportunity to delight in the festive season.  There's no thorough record about how many die annually.

The very first step is to get a Russian visa invitation.  In 2019, citizens from eligible countries who intend to come to Russia will have the ability to find an electronic entry visa by completing a web-based application.  China also gives an obvious example.

What You Should Do to Find Out About Vladivostok Visa Before You're Left Behind When you have ordered your invitation, please click on these links to order complete visa services. Thus far, there's no very clear answer.   The EHIC card can be found from ww.nhs.uk.

Applicants may fill the on-line application form by visiting the tab placed below.  A Chinese ID is needed to access Net bars.  Appointments may be created at any moment via the hyperlink below.

Your carriage attendant might be ready to charge items employing the socket in their very own compartment, for a little tip. Always check the most recent visa info, as it changes from time to time.  The period of time for issuing an e-visa is all about 4 calendar days from the date of submission of the entire application.

Business-class hotels are situated in the administrative centre of the city.  Machines have sprung up throughout the city in the past few decades, and can be discovered in the lobbies of the majority of hotels, in metro stations and, naturally, next to banks.  Like all border towns there's a range of goods to purchase.

The Trans-Siberian isn't only a rail journey, it's an experience.  Select which city you want to start your travels in, and which city you would love to finish in.   There are a number of amazing places and tourist come here in order to find these places from all around the Earth, Zolotoy Rog Bridge is the well-known tourist attractions.

Once you pass chinese customs, the bus drives a quick quantity of time to the russian border at which you will get your bags again and need to move through russian customs.   The Bridge is among the five largest cable-stayed bridges on the planet.  Weather doesn't have any memory and supplies no guaranties.

| Wireless internet is offered in the full apartment at no cost.  It's possible to check days of operation working with the on-line system here. No matter which of our Russian tours that you pick, we additionally guarantee the highest degree of quality and client service.

In order to acquire a visa, a foreign citizen is going to be asked to submit an application on a particular online site for a minimum of three days before the expected date of entry.  Mandarin is dominant but Russian speakers aren't tricky to find.  Men are often terrified of dating Russian girls since they believe that the girls need their money to keep expensive lifestyles.

The issuance has the particular information.  Yes, it is digitized.  This list was extracted from several sources.

Visa prices vary based on the nationality of the applicant.  Visa requirements aren't as strict as other Russian ports and you're totally free to venture around all on your own.  You will require a Russian visa.

Approved applicants need to earn a consular payment, but could then be eligible for a visa issued as an e-document.  Moscow thinks that the elimination of short-term visas ought to be reciprocal. Foreigners entering Russia is going to be fingerprinted.

Tourism is definitely not very likely to increase because of completely free visa to a single corner of your country, particularly when the airfares are so large.  Volunteering abroad in Russia can be particularly rewarding once you decide to work in education.  City Day is celebrated in the start of July.

The very first step is to get a Russian visa invitation.  Canada and the USA are also excluded.  Apparently the government was unable to cope.

Whatever They Told You About Vladivostok Visa Is Dead Wrong...And Here's Why It gives the chance for aspiring artists and producers to acquire exposure to new audiences and leading foreign professionals. Unfortunately, residents of the majority of countries need a visa, which may occasionally be a time intensive and expensive practice.  The city is a significant center of scientific research.

The program is just one of the initiatives targeted at boosting the economy in the area.  If you don't understand differently, naturally! There's literally 1 option at each stage.

Business-class hotels are situated in the administrative centre of the city.  You also ought to take a great general guidebook for those countries you're visiting, and perchance a Russian phrasebook, too.   Like all border towns there's a range of goods to purchase.

The Ko Samui islands are ideal for romantic escapades. Russian brides are a few of the most popular that the world offers, and we've got the best of the bunch.  For over three decades foreigners couldn't visit it.

Once you pass chinese customs, the bus drives a quick quantity of time to the russian border at which you will get your bags again and need to move through russian customs.  The Bridge is among the five largest cable-stayed bridges on the planet.  Weather doesn't have any memory and supplies no guaranties.

| If Russian visa is issued as part of a tour voucher, its cost is going to be included in the purchase price of tourist services.  Healthcare volunteer work in Russia is a remarkable approach to produce meaningful contributions and learn more about fields you're interested in.  In the past few years, it has made attempts to enhance the nation's own vehicle market.

The program is just one of the initiatives targeted at boosting the economy in the area.  Depending on the number of individuals are disembarking at when the procedure can take up to 45 minutes, so make certain to factor that in to make sure you make it through in time.  One of the absolute most well-known purposes is tourism.

The populace of the city is almost 592,034.  Moscow and Saint Petersburg provide a wide variety of museums, and you are able to see different cities as nicely with a luxurious cruise of the Volga River.  Two decades later, Vladivostok became a port and started to develop.

The Ko Samui islands are ideal for romantic escapades. It was only in 1974 that foreigners were allowed to join the city.  Steer clear of skinheads.

Once you pass chinese customs, the bus drives a quick quantity of time to the russian border at which you will get your bags again and need to move through russian customs.  After a quick break for coffee you take a walk during the beautiful Red Square, go in the colorful St. Basil's Cathedral and learn more about the famous GUM department shop.  Weather doesn't have any memory and supplies no guaranties.

Top Vladivostok Visa Secrets You don't need to be a Member to come to a HU meeting, access the site, the HUBB or maybe to obtain the e-zine.  In order to acquire our assistance, you must fill in the feedback form on the web indicating foreigner's individual data.  For those who have information about an orphanage or photos which we can increase the website than please don't hesitate to get in touch with us to put it to the website.

In order to acquire a visa, a foreign citizen is going to be asked to submit an application on a particular online site for a minimum of three days before the expected date of entry.  A smooth Chinese visa application procedure demands clear comprehension of the step-by-step lodging procedure in addition to the required set of the documents.  A smooth Russian visa application procedure calls for a very clear knowledge of the step-by-step lodging procedure in addition to the crucial set of the documents.

All we need to do is to provide us with your data and arrive at the consulate with total document collection.  Always check the most recent visa info, as it changes from time to time.  Its museum houses various historic military objects.

The Basics of Vladivostok Visa In summary, it's not a visa waiver but an absolutely free electronic visa granting system, and to pay a visit to Vladivostok.  Visa requirements aren't as strict as other Russian ports and you're totally free to venture around all on your own.  Migration cards have to be carried in any way times while in Russia.

Chennai formally called Madras is called the Gateway to the South.  The last stop at stake, or the first if you're traveling westwards, is in Vladivostok.

Failure to create your passport when asked can result in a fine.  If you're in this region, then don't miss the opportunity to delight in the festive season.  Alternatively there's an option to remain in the city as a portion of our Freedom of Choice touring.

To know about the most recent visa news, it is better to confirm the government website of the Kaliningrad region.  In 2019, citizens from eligible countries who intend to come to Russia will have the ability to find an electronic entry visa by completing a web-based application.  China also gives an obvious example.

[sfmuniverse]

On Friday, a section of the overhead wire in the Market Street Subway became caught in a train, tearing 1000 feet of cable and the supporting infrastructure free from the ceiling.

What exactly caused the problem is under investigation, but it didn't happen in a vacuum and SFMTA seems a little more upfront about it than usual.

The subway is the backbone of Muni’s light rail system, serving more than 160,000 customers each day. It is a single trunk line, which serves the J, K/T, L, M and N lines. The impact of even a single incident such as this one in the subway causes delays across the entire system.

Infrastructure issues; including overhead lines, switches, rails and more; account for 49% of subway delays and stem from decades of underinvestment in “state of good repair” projects. These type of projects are necessary to keep the system working safely and at full capacity. For the past several years, Muni has been working to upgrade the system and improve reliability, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

Some have suggested a connection between this infrastructure-related incident and the operator shortage that is currently impacting service on our bus and trolley lines. We want to be very clear: while an investigation into the cause of today’s incident is already underway, there is no evidence of any kind to suggest a connection.

In the finger pointing to follow, many will criticize the SFMTA for the continued problems despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on subway upgrades and new rolling stock, but it only takes one failure to bring the system to a halt and denying funding to replace the trains does not help matters.

[newstfionline]

The Ultra-Pure, Super-Secret Sand That Makes Your Phone Possible

Vince Beiser, Wired, Aug. 6, 2018

FRESH FROM CHURCH on a cool, overcast Sunday morning in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, Alex Glover slides onto the plastic bench of a McDonald’s booth. He rummages through his knapsack, then pulls out a plastic sandwich bag full of white powder. “I hope we don’t get arrested,” he says. “Someone might get the wrong idea.”

GLOVER IS A recently retired geologist who has spent decades hunting for valuable minerals in the hillsides and hollows of the Appalachian Mountains that surround this tiny town. He is a small, rounded man with little oval glasses, a neat white mustache, and matching hair clamped under a Jeep baseball cap. He speaks with a medium-strength drawl that emphasizes the first syllable and stretches some vowels, such that we’re drinking CAWWfee as he explains why this remote area is so tremendously important to the rest of the world.

Spruce Pine is not a wealthy place. Its downtown consists of a somnambulant train station across the street from a couple of blocks of two-story brick buildings, including a long-closed movie theater and several empty storefronts.

The wooded mountains surrounding it, though, are rich in all kinds of desirable rocks, some valued for their industrial uses, some for their pure prettiness. But it’s the mineral in Glover’s bag--snowy white grains, soft as powdered sugar--that is by far the most important these days. It’s quartz, but not just any quartz. Spruce Pine, it turns out, is the source of the purest natural quartz--a species of pristine sand--ever found on Earth. This ultra-elite deposit of silicon dioxide particles plays a key role in manufacturing the silicon used to make computer chips. In fact, there’s an excellent chance the chip that makes your laptop or cell phone work was made using sand from this obscure Appalachian backwater. “It’s a billion-dollar industry here,” Glover says with a hooting laugh. “Can’t tell by driving through here. You’d never know it.”

In the 21st century, sand has become more important than ever, and in more ways than ever. This is the digital age, in which the jobs we work at, the entertainment we divert ourselves with, and the ways we communicate with one another are increasingly defined by the internet and the computers, tablets, and cell phones that connect us to it. None of this would be possible were it not for sand.

Most of the world’s sand grains are composed of quartz, which is a form of silicon dioxide, also known as silica. High-purity silicon dioxide particles are the essential raw materials from which we make computer chips, fiber-optic cables, and other high-tech hardware--the physical components on which the virtual world runs. The quantity of quartz used for these products is minuscule compared to the mountains of it used for concrete or land reclamation. But its impact is immeasurable.

Spruce Pine’s mineralogical wealth is a result of the area’s unique geologic history and the deposits of what are known as pegmatites. Generally speaking, these pegmatites are about 65 percent feldspar, 25 percent quartz, 8 percent mica, and the rest traces of other minerals, and they lie near the surface.

Native Americans mined the shiny, glittering mica and used it for grave decorations and as currency. American settlers began trickling into the mountains in the 1800s, scratching out a living as farmers. A few prospectors tried their hands at the mica business, but were stymied by the steep mountain geography. “There were no rivers, no roads, no trains. They had to haul the stuff out on horseback,” says David Biddix, a scruffy-haired amateur historian who has written three books about Mitchell County, where Spruce Pine sits.

The region’s prospects started to improve in 1903 when the South and Western Railroad company, in the course of building a line from Kentucky to South Carolina, carved a track up into the mountains, a serpentine marvel that loops back and forth for 20 miles to ascend just 1,000 feet. Once this artery to the outside world was finally opened, mining started to pick up. Locals and wildcatters dug hundreds of shafts and open pits in the mountains of what became known as the Spruce Pine Mining District, a swath of land 25 miles by 10 miles that sprawls over three counties.

Mica used to be prized for wood- and coal-burning stove windows and for electrical insulation in vacuum tube electronics. It’s now used mostly as a specialty additive in cosmetics and things like caulks, sealants, and drywall joint compound. During World War II, demand for mica and feldspar, which are found in tremendous abundance in the area’s pegmatites, boomed. Prosperity came to Spruce Pine. The town quadrupled in size in the 1940s. At its peak, Spruce Pine boasted three movie theaters, two pool halls, a bowling alley, and plenty of restaurants. Three passenger trains came through every day.

Toward the end of the decade, the Tennessee Valley Authority sent a team of scientists to Spruce Pine tasked with further developing the area’s mineral resources. They focused on the money-makers, mica and feldspar. The problem was separating those minerals from the other ones. A typical chunk of Spruce Pine pegmatite looks like a piece of strange but enticing hard candy: mostly milky white or pink feldspar, inset with shiny mica, studded with clear or smoky quartz, and flecked here and there with bits of deep red garnet and other-colored minerals.

For years, locals would simply dig up the pegmatites and crush them with hand tools or crude machines, separating out the feldspar and mica by hand. The quartz that was left over was considered junk, at best fit to be used as construction sand, more likely thrown out with the other tailings.

Working with researchers at North Carolina State University’s Minerals Research Laboratory in nearby Asheville, the TVA scientists developed a much faster and more efficient method to separate out minerals, called froth flotation. “It revolutionized the industry,” Glover says. “It made it evolve from a mom-and-pop individual industry to a mega-multinational corporation industry.”

Froth flotation involves running the rock through mechanical crushers until it’s broken down into a heap of mixed-mineral granules. You dump that mix in a tank, add water to turn it into a milky slurry, and stir well. Next, add reagents--chemicals that bind to the mica grains and make them hydrophobic, meaning they don’t want to touch water. Now pipe a column of air bubbles through the slurry. Terrified of the water surrounding them, the mica grains will frantically grab hold of the air bubbles and be carried up to the top of the tank, forming a froth on the water’s surface. A paddle wheel skims off the froth and shunts it into another tank, where the water is drained out. Voilà: mica.

The remaining feldspar, quartz, and iron are drained from the bottom of the tank and funneled through a series of troughs into the next tank, where a similar process is performed to float out the iron. Repeat, more or less, to remove the feldspar.

IT WAS THE feldspar, which is used in glassmaking, that first attracted engineers from the Corning Glass Company to the area. At the time, the leftover quartz grains were still seen as just unwanted by-products. But the Corning engineers, always on the lookout for quality material to put to work in the glass factories, noticed the purity of the quartz and started buying it as well, hauling it north by rail to Corning’s facility in Ithaca, New York, where it was turned into everything from windows to bottles.

One of Spruce Pine quartz’s greatest achievements in the glass world came in the 1930s, when Corning won a contract to manufacture the mirror for what was to be the world’s biggest telescope, ordered by the Palomar Observatory in Southern California. Making the 200-inch, 20-ton mirror involved melting mountains of quartz in a giant furnace heated to 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, writes David O. Woodbury in The Glass Giant of Palomar.

Once the furnace was hot enough, “three crews of men, working day and night around the clock, began ramming in the sand and chemicals through a door at one end. So slowly did the ingredients melt that only four tons a day could be added. Little by little the fiery pool spread over the bottom of the furnace and rose gradually to an incandescent lake 50 feet long and 15 wide.” The telescope was installed in the observatory in 1947. Its unprecedented power led to important discoveries about the composition of stars and the size of the universe itself. It is still in use today.

Significant as that telescope was, Spruce Pine quartz was soon to take on a far more important role as the digital age began to dawn.

In the mid-1950s, thousands of miles from North Carolina, a group of engineers in California began working on an invention that would become the foundation of the computer industry. William Shockley, a pathbreaking engineer at Bell Labs who had helped invent the transistor, had left to set up his own company in Mountain View, California, a sleepy town about an hour south of San Francisco, near where he had grown up. Stanford University was nearby, and General Electric and IBM had facilities in the area, as well as a new company called Hewlett-Packard. But the area known at the time as the Santa Clara Valley was still mostly filled with apricot, pear, and plum orchards. It would soon become much better known by a new nickname: Silicon Valley.

At the time, the transistor market was heating up fast. Texas Instruments, Motorola, and other companies were all competing to come up with smaller, more efficient transistors to use in, among other products, computers. The first American computer, dubbed ENIAC, was developed by the army during World War II; it was 100 feet long and 10 feet high, and it ran on 18,000 vacuum tubes.

Transistors, which are tiny electronic switches that control the flow of electricity, offered a way to replace those tubes and make these new machines even more powerful while shrinking their tumid footprint. Semiconductors--a small class of elements, including germanium and silicon, which conduct electricity at certain temperatures while blocking it at others--looked like promising materials for making those transistors.

At Shockley’s startup, a flock of young PhDs began each morning by firing up kilns to thousands of degrees and melting down germanium and silicon. Tom Wolfe once described the scene in Esquire magazine: “They wore white lab coats, goggles, and work gloves. When they opened the kiln doors weird streaks of orange and white light went across their faces . . . they lowered a small mechanical column into the goo so that crystals formed on the bottom of the column, and they pulled the crystal out and tried to get a grip on it with tweezers, and put it under microscopes and cut it with diamond cutters, among other things, into minute slices, wafers, chips; there were no names in electronics for these tiny forms.”

Shockley became convinced that silicon was the more promising material and shifted his focus accordingly. “Since he already had the first and most famous semiconductor research and manufacturing company, everyone who had been working with germanium stopped and switched to silicon,” writes Joel Shurkin in his biography of Shockley, Broken Genius. “Indeed, without his decision, we would speak of Germanium Valley.”

Shockley was a genius, but by all accounts he was also a lousy boss. Within a couple of years, several of his most talented engineers had jumped ship to start their own company, which they dubbed Fairchild Semiconductor. One of them was Robert Noyce, a laid-back but brilliant engineer, only in his mid-20s but already famous for his expertise with transistors.

The breakthrough came in 1959, when Noyce and his colleagues figured out a way to cram several transistors onto a single fingernail-sized sliver of high-purity silicon. At almost the same time, Texas Instruments developed a similar gadget made from germanium. Noyce’s, though, was more efficient, and it soon dominated the market. NASA selected Fairchild’s microchip for use in the space program, and sales soon shot from almost nothing to $130 million a year. In 1968, Noyce left to found his own company. He called it Intel, and it soon dominated the nascent industry of programmable computer chips.

Intel’s first commercial chip, released in 1971, contained 2,250 transistors. Today’s computer chips are often packed with transistors numbering in the billions. Those tiny electronic squares and rectangles are the brains that run our computers, the Internet, and the entire digital world. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, the computer systems that underpin the work of everything from the Pentagon to your local bank--all of this and much more is based on sand, remade as silicon chips.

Making those chips is a fiendishly complicated process. They require essentially pure silicon. The slightest impurity can throw their tiny systems out of whack.

Finding silicon is easy. It’s one of the most abundant elements on Earth. It shows up practically everywhere bound together with oxygen to form SiO2, aka quartz. The problem is that it never occurs naturally in pure, elemental form. Separating out the silicon takes considerable doing.

Step one is to take high-purity silica sand, the kind used for glass. (Lump quartz is also sometimes used.) That quartz is then blasted in a powerful electric furnace, creating a chemical reaction that separates out much of the oxygen. That leaves you with what is called silicon metal, which is about 99 percent pure silicon. But that’s not nearly good enough for high-tech uses. Silicon for solar panels has to be 99.999999 percent pure--six 9s after the decimal. Computer chips are even more demanding. Their silicon needs to be 99.99999999999 percent pure--eleven 9s. “We are talking of one lonely atom of something that is not silicon among billions of silicon companions,” writes geologist Michael Welland in Sand: The Never-Ending Story.

Getting there requires treating the silicon metal with a series of complex chemical processes. The first round of these converts the silicon metal into two compounds. One is silicon tetrachloride, which is the primary ingredient used to make the glass cores of optical fibers. The other is trichlorosilane, which is treated further to become polysilicon, an extremely pure form of silicon that will go on to become the key ingredient in solar cells and computer chips.

Each of these steps might be carried out by more than one company, and the price of the material rises sharply at each step. That first-step, 99 percent pure silicon metal goes for about $1 a pound; polysilicon can cost 10 times as much.

The next step is to melt down the polysilicon. But you can’t just throw this exquisitely refined material in a cook pot. If the molten silicon comes into contact with even the tiniest amount of the wrong substance, it causes a ruinous chemical reaction. You need crucibles made from the one substance that has both the strength to withstand the heat required to melt polysilicon, and a molecular composition that won’t infect it. That substance is pure quartz.

THIS IS WHERE Spruce Pine quartz comes in. It’s the world’s primary source of the raw material needed to make the fused-quartz crucibles in which computer-chip-grade polysilicon is melted. A fire in 2008 at one of the main quartz facilities in Spruce Pine for a time all but shut off the supply of high-purity quartz to the world market, sending shivers through the industry.

Today one company dominates production of Spruce Pine quartz. Unimin, an outfit founded in 1970, has gradually bought up Spruce Pine area mines and bought out competitors, until today the company’s North Carolina quartz operations supply most of the world’s high- and ultra-high-purity quartz. (Unimin itself is now a division of a Belgian mining conglomerate, Sibelco.)

In recent years, another company, the imaginatively titled Quartz Corp, has managed to grab a small share of the Spruce Pine market. There are a very few other places around the world producing high-purity quartz, and many other places where companies are looking hard for more. But Unimin controls the bulk of the trade.

The quartz for the crucibles, like the silicon they will produce, needs to be almost absolutely pure, purged as thoroughly as possible of other elements. Spruce Pine quartz is highly pure to begin with, and purer still after being put through several rounds of froth flotation. But some of the grains may still have what Glover calls interstitial crystalline contamination--molecules of other minerals attached to the quartz molecules.

That’s frustratingly common. “I’ve evaluated thousands of quartz samples from all over the world,” says John Schlanz, chief minerals processing engineer at the Minerals Research Laboratory in Asheville, about an hour from Spruce Pine. “Near all of them have contaminate locked in the quartz grains that you can’t get out.”

Some Spruce Pine quartz is flawed in this way. Those grains are used for high-end beach sand and golf course bunkers--most famously the salt-white traps of Augusta National Golf Club, site of the iconic Masters Tournament. A golf course in the oil-drunk United Arab Emirates imported 4,000 tons of this sand in 2008 to make sure its sand traps were world-class, too.

The very best Spruce Pine quartz, however, has an open crystalline structure, which means that hydrofluoric acid can be injected right into the crystal molecules to dissolve any lingering traces of feldspar or iron, taking the purity up another notch. Technicians take it one step further by reacting the quartz with chlorine or hydrochloric acid at high temperatures, then putting it through one or two more trade-secret steps of physical and chemical processing.

The result is what Unimin markets as Iota quartz, the industry standard of purity. The basic Iota quartz is 99.998 percent pure SiO2. It is used to make things like halogen lamps and photovoltaic cells, but it’s not good enough to make those crucibles in which polysilicon is melted. For that you need Iota 6, or the tip-top of the line, Iota 8, which clocks in at 99.9992 percent purity--meaning for every one billion molecules of SiO , there are only 80 molecules of impurities. Iota 8 sells for up to $10,000 a ton. Regular construction sand, at the other end of the sand scale, can be had for a few dollars per ton.

At his house, Glover shows me some Iota under a microscope. Seen through the instrument’s lens (itself made from a much less pure quartz sand), the jagged little shards are as clear as glass and bright as diamonds.

Unimin sells this ultra-high-purity quartz sand to companies like General Electric, which melts it, spins it, and fuses it into what looks like a salad bowl made of milky glass: the crucible. “It’s safe to say the vast majority of those crucibles are made from Spruce Pine quartz,” Schlanz says.

The polysilicon is placed in those quartz crucibles, melted down, and set spinning. Then a silicon seed crystal about the size of a pencil is lowered into it, spinning in the opposite direction. The seed crystal is slowly withdrawn, pulling behind it what is now a single giant silicon crystal. These dark, shiny crystals, weighing about 220 pounds, are called ingots.

The ingots are sliced into thin wafers. Some are sold to solar cell manufacturers. Ingots of the highest purity are polished to mirror smoothness and sold to a chipmaker like Intel. It’s a thriving multi-billion dollar industry in 2012.

The chipmaker imprints patterns of transistors on the wafer using a process called photolithography. Copper is implanted to link those billions of transistors to form integrated circuits. Even a minute particle of dust can ruin the chip’s intricate circuitry, so all of this happens in what’s called a clean room, where purifiers keep the air thousands of times cleaner than a hospital operating room. Technicians dress in an all-covering white uniform affectionately known as a bunny suit. To ensure the wafers don’t get contaminated during manufacture, many of the tools used to move and manipulate them are, like the crucibles, made from high-purity quartz.

The wafers are then cut into tiny, unbelievably thin quadrangular chips--computer chips, the brains inside your mobile phone or laptop. The whole process requires hundreds of precise, carefully controlled steps. The chip that results is easily one of the most complicated man-made objects on Earth, yet made with the most common stuff on Earth: humble sand.

The total amount of high-purity quartz produced worldwide each year is estimated at 30,000 tons--less than the amount of construction sand produced in the United States every hour. (And even construction sand is in high demand; there’s a thriving black market in the stuff.) Only Unimin knows exactly how much Spruce Pine quartz is produced, because it doesn’t publish any production figures. It is an organization famously big on secrecy. “Spruce Pine used to be mom-and-pop operations,” Schlanz says. “When I first worked up there, you could just walk into any of the operations. You could just go across the street and borrow a piece of equipment.”

NOWADAYS UNIMIN WON’T even allow staff of the Minerals Research Laboratory inside the mines or processing facilities. Contractors brought in to do repair work have to sign confidentiality agreements. Whenever possible, vice-president Richard Zielke recently declared in court papers, the company splits up the work among different contractors so that no individual can learn too much.

Unimin buys equipment and parts from multiple vendors for the same reason. Glover has heard of contractors being blindfolded inside the processing plants until they arrive at the specific area where their jobs are and of an employee who was fired on the spot for bringing someone in without authorization. He says the company doesn’t even allow its employees to socialize with those of their competitors.

It was hard to check out Glover’s stories, because Unimin wouldn’t talk to me. Unlike most big corporations, its website lists no contact for a press spokesperson or public relations representative. Several emails to their general inquiries address went unanswered. When I called the company’s headquarters in Connecticut, the woman who answered the phone seemed mystified by the concept of a journalist wanting to ask questions.

She put me on hold for a few minutes, then came back to tell me the company has no PR department, but that if I faxed (faxed!) her my questions, someone might get back to me. Eventually I got in touch with a Unimin executive who asked me to send her my questions by email. I did so. The response: “Unfortunately, we are not in a position to provide answers at this point in time.”

So I tried the direct approach. Like all the quartz mining and processing facilities in the area, Unimin’s Schoolhouse Quartz Plant, set in a valley amid low, thickly treed hills, is surrounded by a barbed-wire-topped fence. Security isn’t exactly at the level of Fort Knox, but the message is clear.

One Saturday morning I go to take a look at the plant with David Biddix. We park across the street from the gate. A sign warns that the area is under video surveillance, and that neither guns nor tobacco are allowed inside. As soon as I hop out to snap a few photos, a matronly woman in a security guard uniform popped out of the gatehouse. “Watcha doin’?” she asks conversationally. I give her my friendliest smile and tell her I am a journalist writing a book about sand, including about the importance of the quartz sand in this very facility. She takes that all in skeptically, and asks me to call Unimin’s local office the following Monday to get permission.

“Sure, I’ll do that,” I say. “I just want to take a look, as long as I’m here.” “Well, please don’t take pictures,” she says. There isn’t much to see--some piles of white sand, a bunch of metal tanks, a redbrick building near the gate--so I agree. She lumbers back inside. I put away my camera and pull out my notebook. That brings her right back out.

“You don’t look like a terrorist”--she laughs apologetically--”but these days you never know. I’m asking you to leave before I get grumpy.”

“I understand,” I say. “I just want to take a few notes. And anyway, this is a public road. I have the right to be here.”

That really displeased her. “I’m doing my job,” she snaps. “I’m doing mine,” I reply.

“All right, I’m taking notes, too,” she declares. “And if anything happens . . .” Leaving the consequences unspecified, she strides over to my rental car and officiously writes down its license plate number, then asks for the name of “my companion” in the passenger seat. I don’t want to get Biddix in any trouble, so I politely decline, hop in, and drive off.

IF YOU REALLY want a sense of how zealously Unimin guards its trade secrets, ask Tom Gallo. He used to work for the company, and then for years had his life ruined by it.

Gallo is a small, lean man in his 50s, originally from New Jersey. He relocated to North Carolina when he was hired by Unimin in 1997. His first day on the job, he was handed a confidentiality agreement; he was surprised at how restrictive it was and didn’t think it was fair. But there he was, way out in Spruce Pine, with all his possessions in a moving truck, his life in New Jersey already left behind. So he signed it.

Gallo worked for Unimin in Spruce Pine for 12 years. When he left, he signed a noncompete agreement that forbade him from working for any of the company’s competitors in the high-purity quartz business for five years. He and his wife moved to Asheville and started up an artisanal pizza business, which they dubbed Gallolea--his last name plus that of a friend who had encouraged him.

It was a rough go. The pizza business was never a big money-maker, and it was soon hit with a lawsuit over its name from the E. & J. Gallo Winery. Gallo spent thousands of dollars fighting the suit--it’s his name, after all--but eventually decided the prudent course would be to give up and change the company’s name. The five-year noncompete term had run out by then, so when a small startup quartz company, I-Minerals, called to offer Gallo a consulting gig, he gladly accepted. I-Minerals put out a press release bragging about the hire and touting Gallo’s expertise.

That turned to be a big mistake. Unimin promptly filed a lawsuit against Gallo and I-Minerals, accusing them of trying to steal Unimin’s secrets. “There was no call, no cease-and-desist order, no investigation,” Gallo says. “They filed a 150-page brief against me on the basis of a press release.”

Over the next several years, Gallo spent tens of thousands of dollars fighting the suit. “That’s how billion-dollar corporations terrify people,” he says. “I had to take money out of my 401(k) to defend myself against this totally baseless lawsuit. We were afraid we would lose our house. It was terrifying. You can’t imagine how many sleepless nights my wife and I have had.” His pizza business collapsed. “When Unimin filed suit, we had just gotten over the Gallo thing. It was the sledgehammer that broke the camel’s back. We’d worked on it for five years. It was more than we could handle emotionally, psychologically, and financially.”

Unimin eventually lost the case, appealed it to federal court, and finally dropped it. I-Minerals and Gallo separately countersued Unimin, calling its suit an abuse of the judicial process aimed at harassing a potential competitor. Unimin eventually agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to have the suits withdrawn. Under the terms of the settlement, Gallo can’t disclose the details, but says bitterly, “When you get sued by a big corporation, you lose no matter what.”

For all the wealth that comes out of the ground in the Spruce Pine area, not much of it stays there. Today the mines are all owned by foreign corporations. They’re highly automated, so they don’t need many workers. “Now there’s maybe 25 or 30 people on a shift, instead of 300,” Biddix says. The area’s other jobs are vanishing. “We had seven furniture factories here when I was a kid,” he says. “We had knitting mills making blue jeans and nylons. They’re all gone.”

Median household income in Mitchell County, where Spruce Pine sits, is just over $37,000, far below the national average of $51,579. Twenty percent of the county’s 15,000 people, almost all of whom are white, live below the poverty line. Fewer than one in seven adults has a college degree.

People find ways to get by. Glover has a side business growing Christmas trees on his property. Biddix makes his living running the website of a nearby community college.

One of the few new sources of jobs are several huge data processing centers that have opened up in the area. Attracted by the cheap land, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and other tech companies have all opened up server farms within an hour’s drive of Spruce Pine.

In a sense, Spruce Pine’s quartz has come full circle. “When you talk to Siri, you’re talking to a building here at the Apple center,” Biddix says.

I pull out my iPhone and ask Siri if she knows where her silicon brains came from.

“Who, me?” she replies the first time. I try again.

“I’ve never really thought about it,” she says.

From THE WORLD IN A GRAIN by Vince Beiser. Published by arrangement with Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2018 by Vince Beiser.

[xtruss]

America Makes Aircraft Carriers, China Makes Money

— Fred Reed | Anti-Empire | May 20, 2021

First, America increasingly relies on strong-arm tactics instead of competence. For example, in the de facto 5G competition, Washington cannot offer Europe a better product at a better price, so it forbids European countries to buy from China. The US cannot compete with China in manufacturing, so it resorts to a trade war. The US cannot make the crucial EUV lithography equipment to make advanced semiconductors, as neither can China, but it can forbid ASML, the Dutch company, from selling to China. Similarly, the US cannot compete with Russia in the price of natural gas to Europe, so by means of sanctions it seeks to keep Europe from buying from Russia. This is not reassuring.

Second, the Chinese are a commercial people, agile, fast to market, cutthroat, known for this throughout Asia. America is a bureaucratized military empire, torpid by comparison. America has legacy control over a few important technologies, most notably the crucial semiconductor field and the international financial system. Washington is using these to try to cripple China’s advance.

A consequence has been a realization by the Chinese that America is not a competitor but an enemy, and a subsequent explosion of investment and R&D aimed at reducing dependence on American technology. There is the well-known 1.4 trillion-dollar five-year plan to this end. One now encounters a flood of stories about advances in tech “to which China has intellectual-property rights” or similar wording.

They seem deadly serious about this. Given that Biden couldn’t tell a transistor from an ox cart, I wonder whether he realizes that every time the US pushes China to become independent in x, American firms lose the Chinese market for X, and later get to compete with Chinese X in the international market. Anyway, give Trump his due. He lit this fuse.

A few snippets

Prototype of China’s 385 mph maglev train

The above beast, developed entirely in China, is the first to use high-temperature superconducting magnets to keep the train floating just above the rails. HTSC magnets are a Big Deal because they can achieve superconductivity using liquid nitrogen as coolant instead of liquid helium for classic superconductivity, this costing, say the Chinese, a fiftieth of the price of using helium. The use of HTSC is very, very slick. The train will extensively use carbon-fiber materials to keep weight down, suggesting that the Chinese cannot distinguish between a train and an airplane.

Asia Times “China’s Hydrogen Dream is taking Shape in Shandong”

“A detailed pilot plan being worked out to transform Shandong, a regional industrial powerhouse, into a “hydrogen society” holds out much hope of delivering on the green promise.”

The article, hard to summarize in a sentence, is worth reading. As so often, the Chinese do things, try things, while the US talks, riots, imposes sanctions, sucks its thumb, and spends grimly on intercontinental nuclear bombers.

“Huawei is Developing Smart Roads Instead of Smart Cars”

“Multiple sensors, cameras, and radars embedded in the road, traffic lights, and street signs help the bus to drive safely, while it in turn transmits information back to this network-“

“Quantum Cryptography Network Spans 4,600 Km in China”

Quantum Key Distribution, QKD, allows unhackable communications. China read Ed Snowden’s book on NSA’s snooping, realized it had a problem, and set out to correct it. If this spreads to other countries—see below—much of the world could go black to American intel agencies.

The Chinese may have thought of this.

“…colleagues will further expand the network by working with partners in Austria, Italy, Russia and Canada. The team is also developing low-cost satellites and ground stations for QKD.”

The last sentence is interesting. If China begins selling genuinely secure commo gear abroad, it is going to make a lot of intel agencies very unhappy. Did I mention that the Chinese are a commercial people?

Further:

“Chinese scientists achieve quantum information masking, paving way for encrypted communication application.”

My knowledge of this might rise to the level of blank ignorance after a good night’s sleep and three cups of coffee. However, the achievement made the American technical press, and suggests Chinese seriousness about gaining privacy.

The video below shows how China constructs high-speed rail lines as if painting a stripe on a highway. Since they can’t innovate, they have to get by with inventing things.

China to Europe rail freight: “Over 10,000 trains and 927,000 containers were forwarded via the China-EU-China route in 2020, China Railways has announced. The current volume of traffic has grown by 98.3% year-to-year, covering 21 countries and 92 cities in Europe.”

America makes aircraft carriers. China sells stuff.

NikkeiAsia: “What China’s Rapidly Expanding Nuclear Industry Means for the West”

One Chinese reactor in Pakistan just went live, with another expected in a few months. Says Nikkei, “The Karachi reactor is just the latest of these to come onstream, with the World Nuclear Organization listing a dozen different projects at the development or planning stage across a dozen countries from Argentina to Egypt in its recent survey. Many more are under discussion.”

In addition, says Nikkei, China intends to have the whole industry from technology to materials indigenous to China and outside of American sanctions. See above, about driving China to make things.

First China-Built DRAM Chip Reaches Market DRAM, dynamic random-access memory, appears in almost everything electronic and is a juicy market. Chang Xin Memory, which makes it, redesigned it slightly to remove American technology. If Chang Sin can ramp up volume, which has yet to be established, guess what foreign companies won’t sell much of in China any more.

Pingtang Bridge, recently opened. Well over a thousand feet high

Even in my short two weeks recently in China, I saw that the Chinese do not believe in vertical motion. An American, encountering a mountain, would, sensibly enough, go up and over. This is not the Chinese way. They go through. Similarly, on finding a valley, they do not go down and up. They go across. There may be some genetic abnormality behind this, or maybe interbreeding with space aliens. But it results in hellacious bridges.

“Is China Emerging as the World Leader in AI?”

“Summary. China is quickly closing the once formidable lead the U.S. maintained on AI research. Chinese researchers now publish more papers on AI and secure more patents than U.S. researchers do. The country seems poised to become a leader in AI-empowered…”

Some argue that Chinese patents are of low quality. Maybe so. But don’t bet the college funds.

“China begins construction of world’s longest superconducting cable project”

“China’s first 35 kV high-temperature superconducting cable demonstration project has started construction by State Grid in Shanghai and it is expected to be completed by the end of the year. This is the world’s largest transmission capacity, the longest distance, 2000A current the highest commercial 35 kV superconducting cable project.”

Regarding the 5G War Trump could have bought 5G from Huawei, gotten a sweetheart deal, great prices, factories in America, and so on. Instead he banned Huawei from the US and then twisted arms of the vassal states of Europe. Thus neither America or Europe has the service, but China is rolling it out fast. Brilliant, Don. This gives China a running start on smart factories, smart cities, autonomous vehicles, and the like.

“An almost entirely automated port in China, during unload of a container ship.“

America talks about 5G, China uses it.

NikkeiAsia: “The port is an example of how operator China Merchants Group has been working to automate and mechanize more operations using ultrafast fifth-generation wireless technology. By developing innovative ways to run the port as efficiently as possible, the company aims to accelerate overseas expansion.”

Aviation Week “Face It: The J-20 is a Fifth Generation Fighter”

Says AvWeek: “Clearly, Chengdu’s engineers understand the foundation of fifth-generation design: the ability to attain situational awareness through advanced fused sensors while denying situational awareness to the adversary through stealth and electronic warfare. The J-20 features an ambitious integrated avionics suite consisting of multispectral sensors that provide 360-deg. coverage. This includes a large active, electronically scanned array radar designed by the 14th Research Institute, electro-optical distributed aperture system, electro-optical targeting system, electronic support measures system and possibly side-array radars.

“In a 2017 CNTV interview, J-20 pilot Zhang Hao said: “Thanks to the multiple sensors onboard the aircraft and the very advanced data fusion, the level of automation of J-20 is very high. . . . The battlefield has become more and more transparent for us.”

Most of the story is visible only if you have a subscription to AvWeek.

Asia Times: Tesla loses lead to local upstart in China’s EV market .

The headline is kidding. The car that is outselling Tesla is a $4,200 el cheapo for short-haul shopping and picking up the kids in the city.

Sexy as a truss ad, but…useful. I’m telling you, put the college funds in this company, not truss ads. Made by an SAIC-GM partnership, majority owned by China, where it was designed and made. Will be sold internationally.

“Unlike Tesla, which requires purpose-built charging stations, the Mini can be plugged into a home power system to charge, which takes about nine hours. It has a range of about 120 kilometers and a top speed of 100 kilometers per hour, according to the carmaker’s promotional materials.” Designed and put into production in one year. (Did I mention that the Chinese are a commercial people?)

China’s Y-20 strategic transport aircraft gets key indigenous engine: reports Chinese design. How close it is to being ready for prime time is not clear, but it is flying. An inability to make high-end engines has been a problem for China.

The WS’20 is a high-bypass turbofan of Chinese design.

Finally, Global Times”, Beijing’s news site: “China’s trade volume increases 37% y-o-y in April, marking 11 consecutive months of positive growth”

Nuff said.

— Source: The Unz Review

[sfmuniverse]

SFMTA announced last week that N-Judah service will resume in May along with T-Third Street service being extended to West Portal. But that rail isn't the only rail the SFMTA aims to restore:

Thanks to the acceleration of the COVID-19 vaccine and a more optimistic outlook for federal funding for public transit, we can craft a path forward.

Our plan is to resume F Line service this May, seven days a week. Cable car service will return on the Powell-Hyde line, between Market Street and Fisherman’s Wharf, first this fall — ahead of the holiday season.

The cable cars run through the heart of the city and will play a fundamental role in helping the city’s economy recover. What we know is tourism is the main driver of city business, and cable cars are a huge draw to San Francisco.

The historic streetcars do not draw tourists like the cable cars but have become an attraction of their own and carry a lot of customers to businesses along the waterfront, Market Street, and the Castro District.

[itslaeshorseeh]

Don Tadeo

The time was set, so close by overhead,                the day was like when barring tighter pants, the free activities were paths to tread,                traditions not begun, since due to chance. The heroes we have read about are dead,                and people ­of today require a dance, The only voice we have beneath the desk  Make aspirations steam had, Romanesque. Besides where this is going, this was when,                The spirit of the times, man cast off soon, Since there was music of the time, again,                A tonic when the quiet lacks a tune, And plus, is there need to make mention, then                Their rains fell long before the start of June? And all they thought lent not more than a touch That life improved, but never by too much. And that, the grasp which we aspire, to bring                Man to a stage, where states have failed to guide, The living day of when, no smart will sting                With pain that spreads from ignorance retried But like the freshness spreading from day’s wing,                To where, commodity becomes a tide, A visual connection’s normalcy, From a coincidence, a form to be. The culmination of time spent in youth,                Was not one of involvement with his gifts, Since he was agile, curious and couth,                All attributes which courage tests with rifts, He was not troubled where he could be smooth.                He made from friends, a schedule for his shifts; All he did at his leisure, for compunction, Left him less time expended as a function. To make from time a change in state or place,                Then to make like this, all experience, Showed what Don Tadeo thought to fill space:                He got when others lost, he could convince, As flowers bent lower, lit by sunny trace,                And sweeter than the trees gave air a rinse. The less it was not tapping, was a grab; This was his method, equally a lab. Collected was the fact, and by conclusion,                Life lived where fear made holding properties A shorter myth, like people know delusion,                As opposite of clarity, which sees The longest explanation seeks infusion.                 This Don Tadeo let so it agrees, That being certain he was not in dream, He owed it to the light, what in eyes beam. A story must begin, provided time,                This was the age of steam and freedom’s pace, When man defined himself, in charge of grime,                This lubricant anew was not as base, As that which Prohibition made a crime,                And Socialism leisure did replace, With promises which took their trust to blame Political repression in their name. But politics is oratory, all,                And something customs make more grave by choice, Between the representatives at call,                Which put together, form a party’s voice; And as the clock, proceeds as minutes fall                to the next hour’s section, we rejoice That, having nothing more to do, mankind Invented ways he lived by light divined.

From telling time, it was a simple notion:     That Man had nothing true beyond belief, He knew from where stars stayed true to their motion,                The changing seasons; so was Time’s chief Subjected to sail in the cosmic ocean;                And by association, be less brief. Since all the planning that it took to start He knew, Don Tadeo told truth as art.

Commodities we have by numbers goad,                Since that is how the masses seek appeal, Despite that men’s own Reason makes his road;                And not the law of nature that would steal Man’s spirit, which the mind and body load,                To labor in the day, and night’s rest feel Onto a bed; Don Tadeo obeyed His heavy eyelids, where last night he laid.

The chiefest danger this, not understanding                If man excels, a habit formed instead, Due to the limits we have braved, demanding                Exchange where there was nothing first that led, To, then, the time when it is worth not branding                The same repeated virtue as one’s head, But limb and neck, which lead all to the heart, Where it is dark, as with an engine’s art. The revolution that was his motivation                Could be traced to the first time it was known, Historiography’s concatenation                Was conductivity made boilers prone, And pencil graphite into lubrication,                And mercury could measure on its own The temperature, which fair Diana sent Like shafts shot from her bow that steadily went. The age as one when empires still warring,                Spread ways on how to drill brine wells, and rails Had carried people to new prospects, pouring,                There was less reason for the deaths of males And all that the new world so far was shoring,                Dependent was on blueprints which from dales, Created places for the traveling miners To call their homes, with ranches, bars, and diners. The newest towns led people out of cities,                Which had their cable cars, to theatre streets, And yet, Don Tadeo knew that men quit these,                When they had just one prize, that trophies beats, The kind which friends agreed were made to fit ease.                They made their country which the law defeats, To serve them new adventure through new science, And pay them livelihoods for their reliance. The theories of the day, put populations                Behind more than accumulating time Within the cities work gave to durations                Of endless years, for people whom the clime Fit well, the humid air of hot air stations,                The lines which lifted people for a dime, And past the tenements, above the courts, To see what Malthus made of death, none thwarts. Those who endeavored to risk on their own,                were made extinct, by the design of crowds, Who were not made to meet their quotas known,                But stirring for the fortune science shrouds Behind its claims, they shared, not being grown,                Their wealth, amassed like droplets in dark clouds, For thunderous was industry’s first days, Of seeing capital renew its rays. The fact man looks for gaining a new way               Out of the manacles of the free market, Is not what made Don Tadeo seek pay,               But since he was a young adult, the dark pit  That people of his type were falling day               By day to was addiction, they remark it, But that he sensibly sought industry, For pen tricks showed to him what sin must be. Though we may think this was an alternate                   Universe, let us think, Don Tadeo Was like the rest of mankind, fortunate;                  The only flaw he had was gladly so, He always destined was, as by roulette,               Which is just French for drills, which smoothly go, To be extremely lucky, which is real As stories get, remembering their deal. Before the thunder-crack is lightning’s spin;                   The people gathered like clouds in their age, This speed due to what politics have been,                   A form of enterprise, stock’s new gauge, When as a rooster calls, day to begin,                   Were clocks that chimed brass alloys that they cage, And made some wake up sharply, and meanwhile, The coal was fed where skies could, unseen, smile.   The relay station was where the manege                   Of stablemen would take the posted mail, To country addresses posters did allege                   In Northern Pennsylvania by tale The steel of crucibles now gave an edge                   In living on the outskirts of their rail. The Allegheny Plateau was up where They sent the quartz, and stone which were not rare.

[lydiahartig]

Service Update During COVID-19

Service Update During COVID-19 By

Today Mayor Breed and the city’s Director of Health Grant Colfax announced that the City and County of San Francisco will join with five other Bay Area counties, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo and Santa Clara, to issue a Public Health Order in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Public Health Order requires that residents remain in their homes, with the only exception being for essential services and needs, effective tonight at midnight. The purpose of this directive is to work together to reduce the transmission of the virus. This is an evolving and challenging situation, and we are prepared to address it. We will be prioritizing service to community lines that get people to hospitals and commercial streets. We will also be suspending express bus and special event services to focus our resources on the areas that need it most.

What Does This Mean For Our Riders?

We will be running on a reduced weekday non-school schedule.

There will be no special event shuttles including the 76X, 78X and LRV AM and PM Shuttles.

Reduced express service, with the following routes cancelled: 

1A/BX, 7X, 14X, 30X, 31A/BX, 38A/BX, 41, 81X, 82X, 83X, 88, 714, NX, E Embarcadero

The Cable Car and Historic fleet will be motorized:

F Market will operate between Pier 39 and Don Chee Way – 4 coaches.

Mason Line – 3 Coaches for the entire day.

60 Hyde Line – 3 Coaches for the entire day.

California Line – 2 Coaches for the entire day.

Questions You May Have?

Is it safe to ride Muni?

SFMTA staff is doing everything we can to keep our vehicles clean. Muni car cleaners, station custodians, and paratransit personnel clean vehicles and high-touch surfaces regularly. Daily vehicle cleaning includes safe, strong disinfectants on high-touch surfaces at the end of service. High-touch surfaces such as railings in Muni subway stations are cleaned approximately every four hours. 

How long will this last?

We are constantly monitoring the situation and are taking our cues from the City, County and State Health Officials.

What can I do to help?

We recommend you stay home and work remotely if you have the option and are not critical to public health and safety.

We are taking proactive measures to minimize the risk of exposure and to ensure that our transportation system works for people when needed – like when residents need to make a grocery trip or when a healthcare worker needs to go to their job.  Please have patience and be courteous to your fellow citizen, these are very trying times and we need to come together as a community to get through this together.

We will continue to keep our customers and our online audience up to date with the latest from health officials on Twitter and Facebook.

For the Department of Emergency Management updates, text “COVID19SF” to 888-777 and please visit San Francisco 72 Hours (sf72.org) or San Francisco Department of Public Health (sfdph.org) for more updates and information.

Published March 16, 2020 at 05:47PM https://www.sfmta.com/blog/service-update-during-covid-19

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Service Update During COVID-19 via https://capitalentrepreneur.finance.blog/

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Service Update During COVID-19

Service Update During COVID-19: Service Update During COVID-19 By

Today Mayor Breed and the city’s Director of Health Grant Colfax announced that the City and County of San Francisco will join with five other Bay Area counties, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo and Santa Clara, to issue a Public Health Order in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Public Health Order requires that residents remain in their homes, with the only exception being for essential services and needs, effective tonight at midnight. The purpose of this directive is to work together to reduce the transmission of the virus. This is an evolving and challenging situation, and we are prepared to address it. We will be prioritizing service to community lines that get people to hospitals and commercial streets. We will also be suspending express bus and special event services to focus our resources on the areas that need it most.

What Does This Mean For Our Riders?

We will be running on a reduced weekday non-school schedule.

There will be no special event shuttles including the 76X, 78X and LRV AM and PM Shuttles.

Reduced express service, with the following routes cancelled: 

1A/BX, 7X, 14X, 30X, 31A/BX, 38A/BX, 41, 81X, 82X, 83X, 88, 714, NX, E Embarcadero

The Cable Car and Historic fleet will be motorized:

F Market will operate between Pier 39 and Don Chee Way - 4 coaches.

Mason Line - 3 Coaches for the entire day.

60 Hyde Line - 3 Coaches for the entire day.

California Line - 2 Coaches for the entire day.

Questions You May Have?

Is it safe to ride Muni?

SFMTA staff is doing everything we can to keep our vehicles clean. Muni car cleaners, station custodians, and paratransit personnel clean vehicles and high-touch surfaces regularly. Daily vehicle cleaning includes safe, strong disinfectants on high-touch surfaces at the end of service. High-touch surfaces such as railings in Muni subway stations are cleaned approximately every four hours. 

How long will this last?

We are constantly monitoring the situation and are taking our cues from the City, County and State Health Officials.

What can I do to help?

We recommend you stay home and work remotely if you have the option and are not critical to public health and safety.

We are taking proactive measures to minimize the risk of exposure and to ensure that our transportation system works for people when needed – like when residents need to make a grocery trip or when a healthcare worker needs to go to their job.  Please have patience and be courteous to your fellow citizen, these are very trying times and we need to come together as a community to get through this together.

We will continue to keep our customers and our online audience up to date with the latest from health officials on Twitter and Facebook.

For the Department of Emergency Management updates, text “COVID19SF” to 888-777 and please visit San Francisco 72 Hours (sf72.org) or San Francisco Department of Public Health (sfdph.org) for more updates and information.

Published March 16, 2020 at 05:47PM https://www.sfmta.com/blog/service-update-during-covid-19 Service Update During COVID-19 via https://newcapitalentrepreneur.tumblr.com/

[newcapitalentrepreneur]

Service Update During COVID-19 By

Today Mayor Breed and the city’s Director of Health Grant Colfax announced that the City and County of San Francisco will join with five other Bay Area counties, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo and Santa Clara, to issue a Public Health Order in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Public Health Order requires that residents remain in their homes, with the only exception being for essential services and needs, effective tonight at midnight. The purpose of this directive is to work together to reduce the transmission of the virus. This is an evolving and challenging situation, and we are prepared to address it. We will be prioritizing service to community lines that get people to hospitals and commercial streets. We will also be suspending express bus and special event services to focus our resources on the areas that need it most.

What Does This Mean For Our Riders?

We will be running on a reduced weekday non-school schedule.

There will be no special event shuttles including the 76X, 78X and LRV AM and PM Shuttles.

Reduced express service, with the following routes cancelled: 

1A/BX, 7X, 14X, 30X, 31A/BX, 38A/BX, 41, 81X, 82X, 83X, 88, 714, NX, E Embarcadero

The Cable Car and Historic fleet will be motorized:

F Market will operate between Pier 39 and Don Chee Way - 4 coaches.

Mason Line - 3 Coaches for the entire day.

60 Hyde Line - 3 Coaches for the entire day.

California Line - 2 Coaches for the entire day.

Questions You May Have?

Is it safe to ride Muni?

SFMTA staff is doing everything we can to keep our vehicles clean. Muni car cleaners, station custodians, and paratransit personnel clean vehicles and high-touch surfaces regularly. Daily vehicle cleaning includes safe, strong disinfectants on high-touch surfaces at the end of service. High-touch surfaces such as railings in Muni subway stations are cleaned approximately every four hours. 

How long will this last?

We are constantly monitoring the situation and are taking our cues from the City, County and State Health Officials.

What can I do to help?

We recommend you stay home and work remotely if you have the option and are not critical to public health and safety.

We are taking proactive measures to minimize the risk of exposure and to ensure that our transportation system works for people when needed – like when residents need to make a grocery trip or when a healthcare worker needs to go to their job.  Please have patience and be courteous to your fellow citizen, these are very trying times and we need to come together as a community to get through this together.

We will continue to keep our customers and our online audience up to date with the latest from health officials on Twitter and Facebook.

For the Department of Emergency Management updates, text "COVID19SF" to 888-777 and please visit San Francisco 72 Hours (sf72.org) or San Francisco Department of Public Health (sfdph.org) for more updates and information.

Published March 16, 2020 at 05:47PM https://www.sfmta.com/blog/service-update-during-covid-19