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Power shift
June 15, 2005
I've found this chart, drawing on data from David Nye’s Electrifying America and R.B. Duboff’s "Electric Power in American Manufacturing, 1889-1958," useful in explaining how a critical business resource - electricity, in this case - can quickly go from being supplied privately, by individual users, to being supplied as a shared utility.

In 1910, most of the electricity used in the United States was generated by private generators owned and maintained by manufacturers. Each factory had its own powerplant. Just 20 years later, most of those private generators had been shut down, as companies came to embrace the superior economics of the utility model.
IT's next.
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Comments
The Atlantic article:
Is Google Making Us Stupid?"
Nick's new book:
"Future Shock for the web-apps era" -Fast Company
"Ominously prescient" -Kirkus Reviews
"Riveting stuff" -New York Post
Greatest hits
Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians
The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock's avatar
Flight of the wingless coffin fly
Other writing
The end of corporate computing
Nick's last book:
Order from Amazon
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