2017年12月15日金曜日 - 
Cody: The Aging American Infrastructure
America is a pretty great place. It's the land of the free.
The home of the brave. It's been home to many people who have been responsible
for advances in important and useful technology as well. But while it may seem
like some kind of technological wonderland, the only places where this rings
true are in the major population centers. You've got to remember that America
is big. Really big. There's a lot of open space between the metropolises.
Seattle, San Francisco
and Los Angeles are all densely populated,
modern cities on the Pacific coast with access to things like fast internet,
public transportation and great cell-phone coverage. But what about the places
in between them?
It's quite a
different story. In the small towns littering
the path between those major cities, they are most often still using aged copper-wire lines for communication, which simply
can't support high-speed internet like fiber can. Public transportation exists
in the form of few and far between buses rather than railways. In America,
railroads are primarily used for transportation of cargo, rather than
passengers. Cell carrier relay towers are
similarly sparse, often leaving areas of
very poor or no reception for customers. Should you
venture away from the city, or into a
short tunnel, or perhap
s into a building with slightly thicker than normal walls you may find yourself cut off from service.
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The problem is composed of many parts. The cost of replacing the
old infrastructure is of course one of them. That cost is increased by the sheer
amount that needs to be replaced because of the size of the country. On the
other hand, behind the scenes you have companies and politicians attempting to
control and throttle progress in the name
of profit. Ages ago, when the railway companies sought
to bring public transportation to the nation via railroad, the
automotive companies bought them up and shelved
any such ideas so that cars would remain by far the primary mode of
transportation for the American people, and that accordingly their sales would
flourish.
America is a
pretty great place. But its infrastructure has fallen behind the times, and rabid capitalism is certainly not helping it catch
up.
Metropolises：主要都市
densely populated：人口密度が高い
Littering：散らばる
copper-wire lines：銅線
relay：中継する
sparse：まばらに
Should you：～の際には
venture away：あえて遠くに行く
composed of：～から構成されている
throttle：抑圧する
sought to：～しようとした
shelved：見送りになる
rabid：過激な