I’m reading at the moment Regulating Railroad Innovation: Business, Technology, and Politics in America, 1840–1920. The book is fairly scholarly, technical and well outside my area of expertise, but I have always enjoyed confusing myself. But it is you, dear reader, who is the beneficiary! I have managed to gleam some information, you see.

In the era the book looks at - or at least the era which I have read up to, about 1880 - railroad technology was obviously being reinvented constantly and quickly. Early American railroads were rather crude by international standards and most technology was developed in the United States, rather than imported. (When I talk of railroad technology, I am referring to things like brakes, steel rails, boiler refinements, etc.)

What I find particularily interesting is the way the technology, once invented, was disseminated throughout the industry. Competition between companies was faculties based, rather than service based and as such, technology was openly shared between corporations. In other words, competition was largely based upon whether a corporation could shift cargo between Pennsylvania and New York, rather than who could move cargo the fastest, or the safest.

The invention of technology was extremely unorganised, and resembled more a craft than a science. There was only one dedicated trade journal, and this was less a communications medium than a place to advertise. Most inventions were word-of-mouth and informally dispersed. There was little reliance on scientific method - few academics were involved with the industry.

Because it was more a craft than a science, there was a reluctance to quickly adopt new technologies. The railroads would often run the new technology side by side with the old one on active trains to see whether they were actually more efficient. Even the jump from iron to steel rails, when the advantages (in retrospect) were obvious, was slow. Companies would continue to buy iron rails because of the conservative nature of the industry.

Strange for such a technologically advanced industry to be so conservative, particularily when it was a largely uncorporatised one.

A fascinating period and a fascinating area to look at. The development, uptake and application of new technology is one of my great interests.

A design blog: DesignObserver

Various people have argued that the European Union Constitution’s failure to gain French support was because the French were fearful that it would force them relinquish their protectionist policies. British support is also lacking, but for the opposite reason - the constitution might force them to increase barriers to trade.

If so, has the constitution itself been killed by the very force which makes the EU unworkable? I can only conclude that pluralism - variety - is the best defense of freedom.

A Melbourne blogger, Alex White, on the coalition’s Industrial Relations reforms:

The only way that you could support these vile, worker-hating, misanthropic, unjust and unAustralian Industrial proposals is if you lacked any compassion or humanity, blindly hated unions and collective community action, or were a pathetic sock-puppet of the interests of the heartless world of big business.

Which begs the question - which one am I? I suspect that most would consider me a pathetic sock-puppet or perhaps lacking humanity.

One of the major lessons in politics that needs to be learnt by both sides is simple: the other side aren’t necessarily evil. There are very few people in politics who don’t intend to govern for the public good. Policies which may appear harsh and unfair on first glance - for instance, reducing or removing the minimum wage - are usually intended to have positive benefits for everybody. To reduce the minimum wage would decrease unemployment.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the facts behind the policies, it has to be acknowledged that the intention is good. To blithely claim that policies are “worker-hating” and that those who support them lack “compassion and humanity” is to degrade debate so completely that it is worthless even talking. Such rhetoric is more likely to foster hate crimes than discussion.

(on a side note: this is an point I have been making for a long, long time, but I understand that it is one which I myself occasionally ignore, and descend into vitrol. I appreciate passion, but cannot stand it when it takes the place of rationality.)

New document up which I contributed to: Impact and Outcome of Regulation on the Economy.

I did most of the the section on Australia’s telecommunications forced access policy - admittedly a small section. But I’m happy with it nonetheless.

Also, on a more vain note, I drew the picture.

Doesn’t Ross Fitzgerald know that flouride causes communism?

A companion piece to the picture I posted a few days ago:

Read gender-theory in to that, I dare you.

Sometimes I get bored:

A genuine job ad for an attorney at the CIA’s Office of General Counsel.

Link via Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy

Greenpeace on nuclear energy:

The history of the Nuclear Age is a history of accidents. Many people in different parts of the world suffer from health problems caused by accidents, which happened years or decades ago.

There have been only two major accidents in the history of nuclear power generation. Chernobyl was, of course, an unmitigated disaster. But a Ukranian reactor in the Societ Bloc, as disasterous as the accident was, should not be used as the measure of nuclear reactor risks in the 21st century.

The experience of Three Mile Island is not an experience of nuclear disaster. The safety mechanism, in this case the containment building, worked exactly as designed, and prevented any such disaster occuring.

A third popularily cited accident, at Tokaimura in Japan, occurred in a preparation site for an experimental reactor. While it is clear that significant human error occured (two people died from the accident), events in Tokaimura do by not means indicate any fundamental problem with nuclear safety. For more reading on Tokaimura, go to here)

Nonetheless, Greenpeace accompanies its text on the undesirability of nuclear generated electricity with a photograph of activists appearing to search for radiation. The aforementioned site shows that none would have been found:

Only trace levels of radionuclides were detected in the area soon after the accident, and these were short-lived ones.

…which didn’t stop them using the photograph. But this is by no means Greenpeace’s only distortion. Check this out:

Neither the nuclear industry nor the governments accept responsibility for the daily disasters caused by deliberate radiation releases to the environment from the operation of nuclear installations. Every day, large amounts of radioactive effluents and gases are discharged, legally and illegally, into rivers and coastal waters or into the air.

No source, no evidence. Daily disasters? Deliberate radiation releases?

The truth is that the nuclear industry is one of the heaviest regulated in the world. Nuclear energy has one of the best health and safety records in the energy market, and is by far the most environmentally neutral of the (realistic) energy choices.

But, of course, Greenpeace and WWF (see here) still oppose it on spurious and potentially libellous grounds.