Latest posts
- Trends in US Construction ProductivityFeb 12, 2026Brian Potter
(This is a chapter of a longer report I’m working on that summarizes and expands the last several years of my work on construction productivity.
- Reading List 02/06/2026Feb 06, 2026Brian Potter
Welcome to the reading list, a look at what happened this week in infrastructure, buildings, and building things.
- Reading List for 01/31/2026Jan 31, 2026Brian Potter
Welcome to the Reading List, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology.
- On Technologies vs. CommoditiesJan 29, 2026Brian Potter
A theory that has gained traction in the renewable energy space is that renewable energy sources like wind and solar are based on manufactured “technologies”, while fossil fuel energy sources like oil, coal, and natural gas are based on extracted “commodities”.
- Reading List 01/24/26Jan 24, 2026Brian Potter
Welcome to the reading list, a weekly list of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology.
- Do Commodities Get Cheaper Over Time?Jan 22, 2026Brian Potter
This American Enterprise Institute chart, which breaks down how price changes for different types of goods and services in the consumer price index, has by now become very widely known.
- Reading List 01/17/2026Jan 17, 2026Brian Potter
ALARA, OLED screens, bus stop frequency, Ozempic and airlines, and more.
- The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum TubeJan 15, 2026Brian Potter
The last several decades of technological progress have, in large part, been about finding more and more things we can do with semiconductors and the technology for producing them.
- Reading List 1/10/2026Jan 10, 2026Brian Potter
Waymos as kid shuttles, naval reactors for data centers, welder’s anthrax, flood buyouts, and more.
- How Did TVs Get So Cheap?Jan 08, 2026Brian Potter
You’ve probably seen this famous graph that breaks out various categories of inflation, showing labor-intensive services getting more expensive during the 21st century and manufactured goods getting less expensive.
- Reading List 01/03/2026Jan 03, 2026Brian Potter
Automated code checkers, meranti wood, shifting snowfall patterns, launching spacecraft with bullwhips, and more.
- Should US homebuilders emulate Sweden?Jan 01, 2026Brian Potter
A common sentiment I see with folks interested in improving US homebuilding is that we should try and emulate Sweden.
- How Accurate Are Learning Curves?Dec 24, 2025Brian Potter
We’ve talked several times on this substack (as well as in my book), about the learning curve, the observation that costs of a produced good tend to fall by some constant proportion for every cumulative doubling of production volume: go from 100 to 200 units, costs might fall by 15%, go from 200 to 400, another 15%, and so on.
- Reading List 12/20/25Dec 20, 2025Brian Potter
Tesla’s robotaxi crash reports, a fusion startup merger, the decline of US injection molding, Wyoming’s snow fences, and more
- How Bell Labs Won Its First Nobel PrizeDec 18, 2025Brian Potter
Bell Labs, as we’ve noted before, was for years America’s premier industrial research lab.
- Reading List 12/13/2025Dec 13, 2025Brian Potter
Boom Supersonic’s gas turbine, the reliability of learning curves, a fake bridge collapse, using coal mines for geothermal energy, and more.
- Stagnant Construction Productivity Is a Worldwide ProblemDec 11, 2025Brian Potter
We’ve spent a lot of time examining the problem of construction productivity in the US — the fact that, across a variety of different metrics, construction never seems to get any more efficient (in terms of how much output you get for a given amount of input), or any cheaper.
- Reading List 12/06/2025Dec 06, 2025Brian Potter
3D printed legos, exploding wire detonators, the David Taylor model basin, multi-point metal forming, and more.
- Reading List 11/29/25Nov 29, 2025Brian Potter
NIMBYism and aesthetics, defibrillator drones, railway track detonators, a proposed mach-23 space gun, and more.
- How a Government Think Tank Trained The First Generation of US Software DevelopersNov 26, 2025Brian Potter
The US government had a hand in creating much of the early computer industry.