Actually, tweets of the day.

It’s a tweet storm on why Japan is the only industrialized nation to have two grids operating at two different frequencies:

Just learned a real-world example of the cost of “meh, we can refactor this later”:

Japan is the only modernized country in the world to run on two independent electricity grids, by historical accident. When the 2011 tsunami happened, half the country was knocked off-grid…

— Denise Yu (@deniseyu21) March 10, 2019

And the other half was unable to help out, because the two grids run on different frequencies.

How did this happen?!

In the 1800s, Tokyo entrepreneurs bought a 50 Hz generator from a German company that would later become AEG. Osaka bought one from the US that ran on 60Hz.

— Denise Yu (@deniseyu21) March 10, 2019

This design is a reflection of the political facts of the era: power was consolidated in the hands of local authorities. Centralization came later.

If this isn’t a perfect physical illustration of Conway’s Law I don’t know what is: https://t.co/yOUEErpUe2

— Denise Yu (@deniseyu21) March 10, 2019

In the world wars the Japanese government floated the idea of unifying the two grids, but ultimately the idea was dismissed because — you guessed it! — it was too expensive. Also, the cultural rivalry between Tokyo and Osaka didn’t help.

— Denise Yu (@deniseyu21) March 10, 2019

I suggest read the whole series of tweets.

They are a hoot.