The Most Beautiful Route from A to B

This is such a refreshing idea!

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/528836/forget-the-shortest-route-across-a-city-new-algorithm-finds-the-most-beautiful

It's a navigation app, much like Google Maps, but it takes users on the scenic route -- a welcome change.

I'll first caveat that for the most part, efficiency is a very good thing. When it comes to governments, corporations, public transportation -- it behooves the administrators to optimize for efficiency. But when it comes to the individual, there are many situations when one misses opportunities and inspiration by taking the most conventionally efficient route.

As a New Yorker, I'm the first to acknowledge that some of our subway stations, for example, are not up to scratch when compared with those in other cities. But there's an uncommon beauty to some of the cityscapes I've had the fortune to encounter in my years here. This is a view of an approaching train coming down the tracks, on a typical subway platform in the city:

And this is an evening view of the iconic Flatiron Building:

I'm a believer in stopping to smell the roses once in a while. I've had some of my best ideas while walking alone through the city, or people-watching from the window of a café, or even in a hot shower on a cold day. I find that beauty begets beauty, just as cunning design or sound judgment often prompts the same. The benefits of walking in beauty are often unseen and manifest subtly, so such pursuits are overlooked in the bustle of our lives. It's a shame, and I hope this algorithm helps users inject a little colour into their lives.

Cover Spy

I've recently begun following a blog/Twitter account that's too much fun not to share:

http://coverspy.tumblr.com
http://twitter.com/coverspy

It's comprised of a team of "undercover" New Yorkers (though it has since expanded to other cities around the world) who report anonymously on what the fellow denizens of their home cities are reading in public. It's a little like Humans of New York, but even more anonymous; public readers are never approached by spies and usually don't know that they've been featured unless they happen to read the Tumblr or Twitter feeds and find that the short personal description accompanying the book cover matches them.

I've always been a bit of a Cover Spy. I tend to notice what my subway-riding compatriots are reading (and sometimes peer surreptitiously at the running headers on e-reader screens). Obviously, as someone in the publishing community, there is a natural inclination to pay attention to these things, but work aside, I find that it helps me keep a finger on the pulse of the city. There's usually a certain correlation between the books I see on the subway and bestseller lists or trending news topics. For example, there was a "summer of John Green" on the F train at around the time The Fault in Our Stars first hit theatres, and a spate of nonfiction about modern European history as the Euro crisis has been playing out.

But New York's cultural milieu is more than what's current or showing at the cinema. I often see people reading books you'd never expect at first glance; sometimes those are the most thought-provoking (teaches you not to judge a book by its cover, ha), like the guy in the power-suit reading Betty Friedan, or the little Jewish grandmother nose-deep in a science fiction paperback. I sometimes make up life stories for them in my head. I do.

Sometimes anonymity can be entertaining. Sometimes a title and author allow a moment of genuine insight. Until they catch you staring, and you have to awkwardly look away, or feign interest in something behind their heads.

The Guardian: Beijing Pilots Recycle-to-Ride Public Transit Program

This seems like a clever idea and incentive structure to address a very specific recycling problem, that of discarded plastic bottles, which cumulatively represent a significant threat to the environment (see the Great Pacific Garbage Patch):

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jul/04/beijing-recycling-banks-subway-bottles

One of the crucial elements of any mass behavioral shift is the incentive structure. Unfortunately, the average human being's sense of morality or duty doesn't stand up well to repeat inconvenience, if the inconvenience in question doesn't tangibly benefit him. (People are generally willing to perform isolated acts of kindness or charity, even if against greater obstacles, in large part because these incidents seem out of the ordinary and don't connote repeat obligation.)

This system set in motion in Beijing has two obvious advantages. One is the instantaneous reward mechanism: the recycled bottles are converted to currency at the station, and the currency can be immediately used to ride the subway. It doesn't require the average person to go out of their way or alter their routine; it can be as simple as recycling your empty water bottle at the end of the day as you head home, or taking your recycling to the subway station in the morning when you leave for work.

The second is that it also incentivizes the transit authority (and thereby the municipal government) to more aggressively promote recycling. Prior to the implementation of this infrastructure, the transit authority would only be motivated to encourage recycling for environmental reasons; citizens' recycling benefited the PET recycling industry, but not the government. Now, because the transit authority would be earning money through this new program (funds which presumably help pay for operation and maintenance of the subway system), there is a direct incentive for the government to encourage recycling.

Obviously, there are some kinks to be ironed out, such as ensuring that the machines themselves operated efficiently and that the bottles collected would be processed at an acceptable environmental standard. As a collection mechanism, however, this seems like a great idea to promote environmentalism that also makes economic sense. I can't wait for the MTA to install some bottle-recyclers of its own; perhaps this would also reduce the number of track fire delays (usually caused by trash thrown onto subway tracks).

io9: The Downs-Thomson Paradox is the Bane of Commuters Everywhere

This io9 article reminded me quite a bit of public transit in California (one of the things I definitely don't miss about university). It's also interesting to consider given the recent spate of service disruptions on MetroNorth (I have a few coworkers who commute from suburbs north of Manhattan).

http://io9.com/how-the-downs-thomson-paradox-will-ruin-your-commute-1152573927

Vehicular traffic, especially of the diesel variety, a huge environmental and economic impact on urban centers. There's debilitating smog (Beijing) that contributes to global warming and respiratory problems, and hours-long traffic jams (Los Angeles) that seriously decreases productivity and happiness, among other problems. Most urban planners, I would imagine, give serious thought to methods of reducing the number of cars on the road. 

The optimization of the weekday commute in urban centers is one of those challenges that is more important than it seems at first blush, and is extremely difficult to implement. It's largely due to massive user inertia, and the difficulties of transition. One of the major issues with any major urban infrastructure project is that the construction required to overhaul the system affects the millions of people who need to use said system every day. In order to avoid such disruption, most updates simply involve adding to, rather than substantively changing, the existing system. That's how we get, for example, redundancies in subway lines, or routes and hubs that are sub-optimal because population densities and distribution change with time. Over the years, problems in transit systems tend to be compounded precisely because our networks are augmented rather than remade anew. And, as the article points out, these inefficiencies drive people (no pun intended) to use cars instead of public transit. Who knew there was a formal theory to describe it?

Abstruse Goose: The Beneficence of Others

My mother reads the Chinese newspapers, which are chock-full of articles that aren't quite news (recipes, health tips, celebrity gossip, &c.). There was recently a spate of (somewhat alarmist) reports about a few instances of people falling, or even being pushed, onto subway tracks here in New York; she has subsequently warned my sister and I, in all seriousness, that we had to hypervigilant, in case crazy people randomly went about pushing us into the paths of oncoming trains. 

I thought this Abstruse Goose was fitting:

http://abstrusegoose.com/479

Updates on the Storm Front

For all of you who are concerned in the wake of Sandy: I'm alive, my family is safe, we have power and water, and our house is fine. My office is in the blackout zone, so the building has no power and even our servers and emergency hotline are down; I won't be returning to work until they get electricity back. (Not to mention that public transportation is down and Manhattan is essentially cut off from the rest of the city.)

I hope everyone else in the Northeast is safe!

Update 11/03: The office building finally has power back!

MSNBC: What Cars Would the Founding Fathers Drive?

Given what we know of the Founding Father's personalities, what kind of car would each of them drive, if they could? This slideshow offers some educated guesses:

http://editorial.autos.msn.com/what-would-our-founding-fathers-drive?icid=autos_2389

I'm not terribly familiar with cars, but the analyses of the various men's personalities are quite good. The entries on Samuel Adams and Alexander Hamilton, I think, capture them to a T. (The writer's clearly put effort into researching the piece -- see the James Monroe entry.)

NYTimes: Wildlife Overpasses

A creative solution to the inevitable problems of encroaching upon wildlife territory:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/science/earth/24overpass.html?hpw

Obviously, it would be impractical to just remove hundreds of miles of road -- not to mention that the populace would never go for it. This is a good and quite innovative way to minimize the impacts of said roads on the (often sensitive) wildlife that populate the areas they traverse, without significantly inconveniencing the humans using the roads -- which is one of the major bottlenecks in implementing most environmental protections. Humans are often selfish, and are reluctant to be inconvenienced in the name of even the best of causes if it does not tangibly benefit us. (This brings to mind the days of Econ 101...)

BBC: Background Noise Affects Taste of Foods

I fly (in airplanes) a lot. I have to, considering that I go to school in California and live in New York, not to mention that our debate league consists of mostly East Coast schools. One thing I've noticed about air travel is the general disappointment that is airplane food. The BBC has an explanation:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11525897

It's not that airlines don't try -- some of them try way too hard, hence the salt overloading -- but it's just a natural phenomenon. Good to know!

NYTimes: A Straddling Bus to Alleviate China's Congestion Problems

My father first showed me a picture of this new vehicle from a Chinese newspaper; this is The New York Times's article on the subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/business/global/18bus.html

I really like the idea; it looks odd (not that that's a problem -- I actually rather like the design), but it's an innovative and tremendously efficient use of space. We should have these back home.

Driver's License

I got one today. (Or rather, a temporary receipt that suffices until the real thing arrives in the mail.)

That is all.

Faux-Starfleet Pods at the Mall

I was at the mall again last weekend (I think I've filled my mall quota for the year; I've been thrice this summer already) because my family decided to celebrate the occasion of my twentieth birthday by taking me to get my ears pierced (upon which I discovered that my ears are asymmetrical, but that's a whole different story). Anyhow, as my sister and I were exiting the store, we happened upon this:


I thought it looked uncannily similar to the pod in which Spock maroons Kirk on the ice planet in the recent Star Trek film; I half expected someone in a Starfleet uniform to pop out of it. Turns out, it's an artificial tanning device. Weird.

Oops: "FML" Meme Now Plastered on NYC Subways

Several of New York City's subway lines have been rerouted or decommissioned this year (mostly, I believe, due to budgetary concerns). Of course, this resulted in the changing of the relevant signs and placards in subway stations. Whether by intention or oversight, this particular combination of trains now intersects at 14th Street and 6th Avenue:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20007547-36.html

I think it was Brett who first sent me this article, although quite a few people have subsequently pointed it out.

A Humorous License Plate

I spotted this a few weeks ago on my way home:


I thought it was clever.

NYTimes: 26 Hour Flight by Solar-Powered Plane

I've seen unmanned solar-powered aircraft, and manned solar-powered cars, but this -- a solar-powered plane piloted by someone in its cockpit -- is huge, almost as huge as Kitty Hawk just over a hundred years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/world/europe/09plane.html?_r=1&hp

The Wright brothers would have been greatly pleased to see this, methinks. How like their Model A this craft appears!