Water, Electricity, the Internet, and the Secrets Behind the Systems We Use Every Day
Hardcover, 272 pages
English language
Published March 18, 2023 by Penguin Random House LLC, Random House Graphic.
We use water, electricity, and the internet every day–but how do they actually work? And what’s the plan to keep them running for years to come? This nonfiction science graphic novel takes readers on a journey from how the most essential systems were developed to how they are implemented in our world today and how they will be used in the future.
What was the first message sent over the internet? How much water does a single person use every day? How was the electric light invented?
For every utility we use each day, there’s a hidden history–a story of intrigue, drama, humor, and inequity. This graphic novel provides a guided tour through the science of the past–and reveals how the decisions people made while inventing and constructing early technology still affect the way people use it today.
Full of art, maps, and diagrams, Hidden Systems is a thoughtful, humorous …
We use water, electricity, and the internet every day–but how do they actually work? And what’s the plan to keep them running for years to come? This nonfiction science graphic novel takes readers on a journey from how the most essential systems were developed to how they are implemented in our world today and how they will be used in the future.
What was the first message sent over the internet? How much water does a single person use every day? How was the electric light invented?
For every utility we use each day, there’s a hidden history–a story of intrigue, drama, humor, and inequity. This graphic novel provides a guided tour through the science of the past–and reveals how the decisions people made while inventing and constructing early technology still affect the way people use it today.
Full of art, maps, and diagrams, Hidden Systems is a thoughtful, humorous exploration of the history of science and what needs to be done now to change the future.
I understand the Internet a lot better (and I work in tech!). The history of electricity and water systems are great too -- very readable.
Wasn't actually sure what I was getting when I ordered this, but I'm no an infrastructure kick so this one came as a double-purchase with Deb Chachra's "How Infrastructure Works" (that one's a couple of books down the queue still).
"Hidden Systems" is a graphic telling of the stories of three things we depend upon utterly, but probably spend little time considering how they work in real-world concrete terms: the internet, electricity, and water.
Easy to read, beautifully, and simply designed, and providing a genuinely superb sense of both the scale of these systems and how their many parts inter-connect, "Hidden Systems" is very much worth your time (and it won't ask too much of it, though there's plenty here to look back over more than once).
Nott's explicit goal is to allow us to think in clear and honest terms about the physical and human efforts, costs, and outcomes …
Wasn't actually sure what I was getting when I ordered this, but I'm no an infrastructure kick so this one came as a double-purchase with Deb Chachra's "How Infrastructure Works" (that one's a couple of books down the queue still).
"Hidden Systems" is a graphic telling of the stories of three things we depend upon utterly, but probably spend little time considering how they work in real-world concrete terms: the internet, electricity, and water.
Easy to read, beautifully, and simply designed, and providing a genuinely superb sense of both the scale of these systems and how their many parts inter-connect, "Hidden Systems" is very much worth your time (and it won't ask too much of it, though there's plenty here to look back over more than once).
Nott's explicit goal is to allow us to think in clear and honest terms about the physical and human efforts, costs, and outcomes of the various systems in which we are embedded and live our modern lives. It contains lots of surprising details, sharp, insightful metaphors, and interesting perspective on these things. Will have me pondering it more, and coming back to the book too.
Highly recommended.
An interesting illustrated book that look that three things we take for granted: the Internet, electricity and water. It shows the history of how we created the Internet and how we now harness it and electricity and water to power our modern society. But the book doesn't shy away from showing the damaging effects all three have had on parts of society (like the underprivileged and marginalized).
On the internet, the book shows that our desires to use it to gather information and to broadcast our thoughts (yes, I'm aware that this review is part of that desire) lead to huge resource requirements to store and transmit the information.
The discovery and harnessing of electricity, from the initial small groups to the huge modern conglomerates that generate and distribute electricity, have damaged the environment and people whose lands are now gone (flooded by electricity generating dams, for example).
Water has …
An interesting illustrated book that look that three things we take for granted: the Internet, electricity and water. It shows the history of how we created the Internet and how we now harness it and electricity and water to power our modern society. But the book doesn't shy away from showing the damaging effects all three have had on parts of society (like the underprivileged and marginalized).
On the internet, the book shows that our desires to use it to gather information and to broadcast our thoughts (yes, I'm aware that this review is part of that desire) lead to huge resource requirements to store and transmit the information.
The discovery and harnessing of electricity, from the initial small groups to the huge modern conglomerates that generate and distribute electricity, have damaged the environment and people whose lands are now gone (flooded by electricity generating dams, for example).
Water has been misused since the beginning as a sewer and even today, much of the fresh water in the world is wasted.
But to close on a brighter note, the book's intent is to reveal just how much of how these things are used in the world are hidden from sight and, as a result, we are not aware of the damage they are doing. But now that we have a better idea of how they are used in the world, it is up to us to make better use of these systems, and the many others 'hidden systems' in the world.
Takes three pervasive infrastructures and in a simple graphic treatment breaks them down in systematic detail, in historical and social context, and prompts questioning inequities and future reconsiderations of these built systems and their relationships to our global ecological society.
