The Good: Let’s say that you call the police to investigate what you think is a prowler. What would you say if the police could pull up a layout of your area and target just where to look to find the villain? What if they could do all of this and still be there in the same amount of time? Well that is just what the officials of Oklahoma City set out to create, with great success.

The city has created the largest city-owned Wi-Fi network in the world. The system of overlapping signals cost the city $5 million dollars, and in turn has changed the way city officials run their businesses. The system covers 555 square miles and is locked to all except city workers and will provide police, fire, and other essential personnel with maps and data almost instantly. The routers are hooked to streetlamps and utility poles, and will soon be used to track traffic and the bus system. Now let’s hope this system inspires other cities.

The Bad: With all of the technology in the world, one would think that the old system of copper piping would be obsolete. Virginia scientists are saying that this is not the case. They studied copper, lead, brass, and PVC (polyvinyl chloride) piping and found that typical PVC systems can actually leach more metals into the water then all the other piping solutions. While it sounds counterintuitive that plastic pipes would lead to metal in the water, it is true.

The reason is not so much the PVC as it is the PVC connections. Most PVC pipes use a brass pipe fittings and fixtures (faucets, etc). Now brass really is the demon span of copper, zinc and lead and when it comes in into contact with the chloramines treated water that is piped through many of your pipes it can lead to search amounts of zinc and lead being leached into your water. What does this mean? Sometimes it doesn’t pay to completely shut out old methods.