October 22nd, 2017

What 3 words?

October 22nd, 2017

This is a brilliant idea. Take the world and divide it into 3m squares. Then, given a modest vocabulary, you can label each square using just three words.

For example, I work half-time at ‘faced.ears.sport’, which you can find by typing it into the What3Words map at map.what3words.com, or you can turn it into a handy URL:

http://w3w.co/faced.ears.sport

Isn’t that much easier than saying ‘The south west corner of the William Gates building at 15 J J Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 9JW, UK’? Or ‘52.210577 N 0.092133 E’?

It’s even more valuable, though, in countries where addressing schemes are less well established or non-existent.

Now, it has a couple of limitations that I can see. First, you do need to be fairly precise about those words if, say, you’re reading them over the phone. If, instead of ‘faced.ears.sport’, you went to ‘face.ears.sport’, you’d find yourself in a little residential street in Montana, which would be delightful, but you wouldn’t find me there on a typical work day. ‘faced.ears.port’ is in Louisville, Kentucky. However, the fact that they’re so spread out probably makes such errors less likely to go undetected – this is deliberate.

The second limitation is that this is a commercial operation and not an open standard, which is a pity in some ways, but understandable. It’s free for individuals to use – there’s a free iOS and Android app, for example – and the pricing page contains this assertion:

If we, what3words ltd, are ever unable to maintain the what3words technology or make arrangements for it to be maintained by a third-party (with that third-party being willing to make this same commitment), then we will release our source code into the public domain. We will do this in such a way and with suitable licences and documentation to ensure that any and all users of what3words, whether they are individuals, businesses, charitable organisations, aid agencies, governments or anyone else can continue to rely on the what3words system.

I think it’s a brilliantly simple idea. The concept has been used in other situations (passwords, PIN numbers etc), but works really well here.

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October 11th, 2017
October 5th, 2017
October 1st, 2017

Speedy boarding?

October 1st, 2017

Elon Musk’s latest rocket concept – the ‘BFR’ – would take you anywhere in the world in under an hour, and most destinations in about 30 mins.

Oh, that’s plus, presumably, three hours for check-in, security and passport control. And another for baggage collection and immigration when you get there…

However, if he can fix that – i.e. sort out the airports too – then going to Mars should be easy in comparison…

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September 27th, 2017

The Dyson Car?

September 27th, 2017

So Dyson are planning to make an electric car. Here are my predictions:

  • It will be very expensive, but will look as if it’s made out of cheap plastic.
  • It will incorporate a few very cunning engineering innovations, and many dozens of equally cunning patents.
  • It will probably use some terribly clever steering mechanism.
  • The air ventilation system will be out of this world!

I may post some more serious comments tomorrow!

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September 21st, 2017

Swing Low

September 21st, 2017

The song of most small birds just sounds like a stream of tweets and whistles to us, but if you slow them down, you can get a wonderful feel for what’s going on.

Here’s a nice compilation of lots of them. I like the little wren at the beginning, the (rather quiet) skylark at about 17:57 has a nice rhythm when slowed down, and the song thrush that follows him is quite fun. If other birds can pick out these details, you can imagine there might be quite a lot of communication going on.

The real star, however, is the Veery Thrush, whom you can hear in this slowed-down clip. He’s the subject of the rather fun New Scientist article, which was what first caught my attention.

Now, I wonder if you sped up a clip of cows mooing, you could get a similar effect?

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September 11th, 2017

Head case

September 11th, 2017

Prof. Guglielmo Tamburrini posed an interesting question in a talk this afternoon. Imagine a self-driving car faced with the option of having to hit one of two motorcyclists. One is wearing a helmet, and the other isn’t. Should it aim for the helmet-wearing guy, to reduce the risk of loss of life?

Philosophers must be having a field day with this stuff. They’re being invited to comment on the latest in sexy new technologies in a way that doesn’t happen very often. (Douglas Adams fans may remember Majikthise & Vroomfondel.) Much of the ethical discussion relating to autonomous vehicles, though, boils down to variations on the Trolley Problem, and the key thing about this — the thing that makes it an interesting ethical conundrum in the first place — is that there is no right answer. If deployment of the railways had required the Trolley Problem to be solved first, we would still be using horse-drawn carts.

The question is not, ‘What should a car do in this situation?’, but ‘How do we get to a point where society is comfortable that we’ve had enough discussion about this?’ Or, more precisely, ‘How do we get to a point where a large enough fraction of society is comfortable, that a party proposing to allow such vehicles on our roads would be elected to government?’

Many technologies, historically, have first been used, and then later have had restrictions placed upon them to reduce the risks which are discovered, with experience, to be the key ones: motorcyclists needing helmets, cars needing seat-belts, pilots needing licences, smokers needing to go outside.

What I presume will happen here is that societies who are less risk-averse will go ahead with greater degrees of autonomous driving, and the more conservative nations will watch with interest until they can amass enough vicarious experience to follow in their footsteps.

I imagine, however, that in 50 years’ time, we’ll still be debating the motorcycle question raised above. By then, though, it will be even more hypothetical, since we’ll have long-since banned motorcycles.

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September 10th, 2017

Italian transport

September 10th, 2017

I’m at a conference in Modena, the city of balsamic vinegar and Enzo Ferrari.

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September 6th, 2017

Love in Paradise

September 6th, 2017

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about my sadness that the Lovefilm by Post service was being discontinued, since nothing offered by the streaming companies could really compare with it.

Well, I’m delighted to say that my friend Phil Ashby pointed me at Cinema Paradiso, which offers an almost identical service, and may even have a slightly larger catalog. I signed up and copied over the entries from my LoveFILM wishlist, and I’ve already received one disk which wasn’t available on Lovefilm.

I still hope that someone will offer such a comprehensive catalogue using more modern technologies one day, but in the meantime, I’m a happy viewer again!

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September 3rd, 2017

Tristram Shandy on blogging?

September 3rd, 2017

Little boots it to the subtle speculatist to stand single in his opinions,-— unless he gives them proper vent:— It was the identical thing which my father did;— for in the year sixteen, which was two years before I was born, he was at the pains of writing an express DISSERTATION simply upon the word Tristram,—-shewing the world, with great candour and modesty, the grounds of his great abhorrence to the name.

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August 20th, 2017

Pied Piper

August 20th, 2017

Every time I read something by Nevil Shute, I realise that this is something I should do much, much more frequently. He is truly brilliant, yet I have, so far, read only a few of his books.

The latest one is Pied Piper, which I’ve just completed in the unabridged audiobook version read by the (also superb) David Rintoul. (I’ve enthused about audiobooks here before – if you haven’t tried them, they look, individually, rather expensive, but an Audible subscription makes them about the same price as a book.)

Anyway, Pied Piper comes highly recommended, in whichever form you consume it.

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August 18th, 2017

An unusual four-wheeled electric vehicle

August 18th, 2017

What better way to carry a bicycle than in another bicycle?

A few months ago, I enthused about the electric cargo bike that I had tried out at a local shop. Being without a car for a little while, I started looking at them with more interest, and I discovered that the awfully nice people at Outspoken could actually rent me one for a few days. But they’re on the far side of Cambridge, so I cycled out there on my Brompton and came back with it in the front. It all worked beautifully, but I couldn’t help thinking about The Royal Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things…

Someone who wasn’t quite so sure about the whole idea was my spaniel Tilly, but once she settled down, it was a great way to transport her to one of her favourite walking spots, about 3 or 4 miles away, against a strong headwind, and bring her back afterwards.

(The rattling noise is the little bench seat for children, which I’d folded back for this trip.)

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