Infrastructure
The People Who Keep Forty-Year-Old Software Running
Payroll, pensions and the water bills of a small country still run on code older than the engineers maintaining it. Meet the night shift that keeps it alive.
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Section
Technology
The machines we depend on, and the people who keep them going.
Latest in Technology
Engineering
Every Bridge Has Sensors Now. Nobody Is Reading Them.
Strain gauges, tilt meters and accelerometers stream millions of readings a day. The engineers meant to interpret them are a vanishing species.
Right to repair
What It Takes to Repair a Tractor You Own
A farmer, a broken sensor and a dealer two hundred miles away. Inside the quiet fight over who is allowed to fix modern machines.
Machines
A Data Centre Learns to Live Beside a Lake
It draws cold water in and sends warm water out. The town downstream wants to know who decided that was fine.
Language
Machine Translation Is Coming for Languages With 4,000 Speakers
For a small language, a decent translation tool is a gift and a threat. Its speakers are arguing about which.
Forecasting
The Weather Model That Runs in a Basement
A volunteer collective forecasts the weather for a mountain valley better than the national service. Their secret is local knowledge and a lot of old hardware.
Hospitals
The Hospital Pagers That Refuse to Die
Smartphones can do everything a pager can, except work in a basement, last a week and never crash. Why the beep survives.