• Interesting 2008?
  It looks like Russell Davies is planning to do it again. 2007’s gathering of interesting people was fantastic.
  (tags: interesting)

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.

• The Charms of Wikipedia
  Nicholson Baker is a brilliant writer. Here at The New York Review of Books his review of Wikipedia: The Missing Manual becomes a fascinating essay on Wikipedia itself. Good start-of-the-week reading.
  (tags: writing,connectivity)