Erasing traffic jams all by yourself

This is pretty amazing. One guy was brave enough to experiment with driving more slowly than everyone around, and started documenting the effects. He discovered that he can erase traffic jams by driving into them slowly and maintaining a constant speed. This way, everyone behind him also drives at a constant speed, not having to do that annyoing stop-and-go dance.

The entire description is at http://amasci.com/amateur/traffic/trafexp.html. It's long, but very thought provoking.

It makes perfect sense. He even helpfully added some animation here (do You prefer to be driving in the left animation, or the right animation?).

As it turns out, Inspiring stories happen everywhere...

30% better fuel efficiency with any car?

Some cars show the miles-per-galon (MPG) right on their dashboard, in real time, as You drive. The little indicator goes up and down, changing in response to road conditions and the way You drive.

Especially the way You drive.

I had a chance to drive two cars that have such a real-time MPG display (thanks, Hal!), and they totally changed the way I drive. I noticed that, with just a few simple changes, I could get much, much higher fuel efficiency. This means having to buy less gas, and polluting less. And it's SIMPLE!

The main thing is to accelerate more slowly. It's that simple. Apparently, just accelerating mildly when leaving traffic lights and stop signs can improve your fuel efficiency by a third . A third!

Other small things include:

• Using the brakes less (which means taking the foot off of the gas pedal early and slowing down before arriving at the stop sign, rather than slamming on the brakes after a 100-yard dash between stop signs).
• Using the cruise control when going on highways.
• Driving no faster than about 65 mp/h (~100 km/h) on highways.

More ideas and tips at http://www.hypermiling.com/.

Happy driving. :-) Please, please use your seatbelt, and drive safely.

Can YOU make a spear?

Apparently chimpanzees create and use spears.

The scientists who published the discovery say this is relevant to understanding "...the evolution of tool use and construction for hunting in the earliest hominids."

And I'm thinking Holy crap, people. They use tools, they have insights - isn't it time we agreed that they have awareness?

Oh, and just for fun - here's the link to the famous clip about the tool-making crow.

Outsourcing vs. Offshoring

Hi everyone,

 

Hope You're doing well. I've been looking for places to hire coders, and [yadda-yadda-yadda] found this really interesting post on a fairly famous website called TechCrunch.com. The post itself is a review of a service that I was looking at, but what's really interesting is the discussion that followed it. One person (nickname: AmericanMade) was making a case against offshoring jobs, while two others (nicknames: LongTimeUser and Dave McClure) were making a case for it.

 

Both sides run the full gamut of arguments: moral, macro-economic, business, societal...  I found myself continuing to read despite (or perhaps, more realistically, because) I have something else that I was planning on working on. It's a long discussion, and it took me some time to go through it - but I felt like I was learning from each comment made there, and came out with a lot to think about.

 

So, just in case You're interested: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/09/08/odesk-provides-on-demand-skills/ .

 

Take care, have fun,

 

- Eran