links for 2008-05-08
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Clay Shirky gets to the crux of our current social state over at WorldChanging. Fundamental change in society frees up people’s time, which they fill with nonsense at first: Gin in 1700s England, TV in our recent history.
Since Clive Thompson’s comments system over at Collision Detection is broken, I’m leaving this post with a trackback to his recent piece on some Japanese scientists recreating traffic jam behaviours by driving round and round in a circle.
There’s a full report over at New Scientist, and an unintentionally hilarous video of the experiment (at double speed, no less) which you can view larger on YouTube.
This experiment shows on a really small, easy to follow, level that driving smoothly without excessive braking can all-but eliminate traffic jams. Clive makes the link to a 1989 study by an electrical engineer called William Beatty, who thinks he has some solutions.
I’m now dying to try the William Beatty method for myself. I know it wouldn’t work though … because everywhere I can test the theory there will be a second lane of traffic from which other drivers could switch into the gap I’m trying to leave.