Ten grids that changed the world: the emergence and evolution of the most prominent visual structure in Western culture. Emblematic of modernity, the grid is the underlying form of everything from skyscrapers and office cubicles to paintings by Mondrian and a piece of computer code. And yet, as Hannah Higgins makes clear in this engaging and evocative book, the grid has a history that long predates modernity; it is the most prominent visual structure in Western culture. In The Grid Book, Higgins examines the history of ten grids that changed the world: the brick, the tablet, the gridiron city plan, the map, musical notation, the ledger, the screen, moveable type, the manufactured box, and the net. Charting the evolution of each grid, from the Paleolithic brick of ancient Mesopotamia through the virtual connections of the Internet, Higgins demonstrates that once a grid is invented, it may bend, crumble, or shatter, but its organizing principle never disappears. The appearance of each grid was a watershed event. Brick, tablet, and city gridiron made possible sturdy housing, the standardization of language, and urban development. Maps, musical notation, financial ledgers, and moveable type promoted the organization of space, music, and time, international trade, and mass literacy. The screen of perspective painting heralded the science of the modern period, classical mechanics, and the screen arts, while the standardization of space made possible by the manufactured box suggested the purified box forms of industrial architecture and visual art. The net, the most ancient grid, made its first appearance in Stone Age Finland; today, the loose but clearly articulated networks of the World Wide Web suggest that we are in the middle of an emergent grid that is reshaping the world, as grids do, in its image.

A revelatory look at our national power grid--how it developed, its current flaws, and how it must be completely reimagined for our fast-approaching energy future. America's electrical grid, an engineering triumph of the twentieth century, is turning out to be a poor fit for the present. It's not just that the grid has grown old and is now in dire need of basic repair. Today, as we invest great hope in new energy sources--solar, wind, and other alternatives--the grid is what stands most firmly in the way of a brighter energy future. If we hope to realize this future, we need to reimagine the grid according to twenty-first-century values. It's a project which forces visionaries to work with bureaucrats, legislators with storm-flattened communities, moneymen with hippies, and the left with the right. And though it might not yet be obvious, this revolution is already well under way. Cultural anthropologist Gretchen Bakke unveils the many facets of America's energy infrastructure, its most dynamic moments and its most stable ones, and its essential role in personal and national life. The grid, she argues, is an essentially American artifact, one which developed with us: a product of bold expansion, the occasional foolhardy vision, some genius technologies, and constant improvisation. Most of all, her focus is on how Americans are changing the grid right now, sometimes with gumption and big dreams and sometimes with legislation or the brandishing of guns. The Grid tells--entertainingly, perceptively--the story of what has been called "the largest machine in the world": its fascinating history, its problematic present, and its potential role in a brighter, cleaner future.

Is city life fencing you in? Break free of the daily grind with off-the-grid solutions for a simpler, stress-free tomorrow. Are you overworked and overcrowded? Do you dream of dropping off the radar? Do you crave the peace of mind that only nature can provide? Fitness and military intelligence expert Gary Collins has helped thousands of people roam free with firsthand advice shared on his popular website. And now he’s here to help you reclaim your independence. Going Off the Grid: The How-To Book of Simple Living and Happiness contains step-by-step instructions for creating your self-sustaining refuge in the untamed wild or the blacktop jungle. Through Collins’ methods, you’ll identify and purge unnecessary stressors from your everyday life. You’ll also learn the basics of off-the-grid living from home construction to energy alternatives, from sewage disposal to internet access. In Going Off the Grid, you’ll discover: - How to downsize your current living conditions for a clutter-free future - Techniques for simplifying your hectic schedule so you can enjoy life’s simple pleasures - How to find the ideal off-the-grid property that will meet your every need - Common types of building techniques and materials for high energy efficiency and insulation - Fun and informative stories detailing Collins’ off-the-grid nomadic lifestyle and much, much more! Going Off the Grid is your must-have handbook for living outside the city limits. If you like DIY guides, practical expert advice, and bucking societal expectations, then you’ll love Gary Collins’ roadmap to a liberating lifestyle. Buy Going Off the Grid to plan your escape into a new world of possibilities today!

Take your design work to the next level with Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop (Third Edition), the essential easy-to-use guide for designers working in every medium. With over 150,000 copies in print, this new edition makes a classic text relevant to a new generation of designers. Updates include: A cross-cultural inclusive re-envisioning of design history related to the grid, including alternative approaches to layout Expanded discussion of grid use in interactive, UX/UI scenarios Greater equity in the representation of design work by women and BIPOC designers Grids are the most basic and essential forms in graphic design—and they can be the most rigid. This book shows you how to understand the rules of the grid to use them effectively, and then how to break them, resulting in phenomenal cohesive layouts. Timothy Samara explains the history of the grid and shows examples of grid basics, such as column, compound, and modular grids. He shows methods for building and using grids, and offers numerous examples of stunning design projects using a variety of imagery and typography. Pages are filled with hundreds of large, full-color layout concepts and diagrams that educate and inspire. After mastering the grid, discover how to break it using conceptual designs that deconstruct and flip the grid successfully. Split, splice, and shift; create spontaneous compositions; make narrative constructs; work on an axis; use intuitive design; and more to create unique layouts or other projects. See ideas in action with eye-catching layout examples. With this book you will: learn how grids work. be inspired to explore new concepts for using—or not using—grids. discover achievable alternatives for boring layouts. get the results you want using fresh design elements. learn designers’ processes via fascinating case studies. see numerous examples of successful layouts created with and without grids. communicate ideas effectively using visual language. This new, expanded edition presents the most comprehensive, accessible, in-depth exposition of layout concepts ever published.

Off-grid isn’t a state of mind. It isn’t about someone being out of touch, about a place that is hard to get to, or about a weekend spent offline. Off-grid is the property of a building (generally a home but sometimes even a whole town) that is disconnected from the electricity and the natural gas grid. To live off-grid, therefore, means having to radically re-invent domestic life as we know it, and this is what this book is about: individuals and families who have chosen to live in that dramatically innovative, but also quite old, way of life. This ethnography explores the day-to-day lives of people in each of Canada’s provinces and territories living off the grid. Vannini and Taggart demonstrate how a variety of people, all with different environmental constraints, live away from contemporary civilization. The authors also raise important questions about our social future and whether off-grid living creates an environmentally and culturally sustainable lifestyle practice. These homes are experimental labs for our collective future, an intimate look into unusual contemporary domestic lives, and a call to the rest of us leading ordinary lives to examine what we take for granted. This book is ideal for courses on the environment and sustainability as well as introduction to sociology and introduction to cultural anthropology courses.

This comprehensive reference text discusses uncertainty modeling of renewable energy resources and its steady state analysis. The text discusses challenges related to renewable energy integration to the grid, techniques to mitigate these challenges, problems associated with integration at transmission and distribution voltage level, and protection of power system with large renewable power integration. It covers important concepts including voltage issues in power networks, use of FACTS devices for reactive power management, stochastic optimization, robust optimization, and spatiotemporal dependence modeling. Key Features: Presents analysis and modeling of renewable generation uncertainty for planning and operation, beneficial for industry professionals and researchers. Discusses dependence modeling of multi-site renewable generations in detail. Covers probabilistic analysis, useful for data analysts. Discusses various aspects of renewable energy integration i.e. technical, economic, etc. Covers correlation factors, and methodologies are validated with case studies with various standard test systems. The text will be useful for graduate students and professionals in the fields of electrical engineering, electronics and communication engineering, renewable energy, and clean technologies.