Brad Ideas - What a great idea - Comments

just relax, if you don't

jonesy — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 17:30:16 -0800

just relax, if you don't like aussies bashing americans, why are you bashing aussies, you're just doing what your complaining about. And we dont like tipping because waiters are paid a good wage that does not require tipping unlike america where a waiter could not survive off their wage.

and that part about isolation, the majority of australians are first generation immigrants children, and as a result have one of the most diverse populations on earth. and america is the isolated one, only a quarter of americans even have a passport. You may have some distorted view of Australians but they don't have some huge vendetta against Americans, and most Americans love Aussies. so if you don't mind stop being bitter about other people cultures. The vast majority of people don't feel that way

On tipping

rachel — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:31:14 -0700

Hey Brad, the thing with tipping here is that it is very insulting to Aussies. Why is that? Because to them tipping is cheating. Why is that? Because the government cannot monitor tipping. Why else do they hate tipping? Because Americans tip. Why is this such a problem? Because these inbred sister screwing retards hate everyone and everything that doesnt drool all over itself. Youve been here. You know. So stop your American bashing already.

To take it further, Australias isolation has resulted in some serious problems for the people here. Totalitarian government, inbreeding, genetic diseases, etc Add to that the fact that the creme of the Aussie crop was wiped out in two world wars. Now one can start to understand why the people here seem to drag their knuckles.

So once again. Hang up the American bashing bs you spew here.

@ozzy

manichattan — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:31:14 -0800

ozzy - have you worked on this idea any since you posted this? I have a cabal of folks that are interested in this.
-manichattan

Idea for congestion pricing

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:05:38 -0800

Actually, I think an odometer could be used as the basis for congestion charging with a simple addition -- time-enable it, putting some accurate (and nondefeasible) timebase in the vehicle that for example updates off the WWV clock signal. Then use a beacon system to signal entry/exit or location within restricted travel zones...

At least some of the access systems -- Manhattan as a case in point -- have a reasonable number of 'gatekeeping' accesses for traffic management that are amenable to use of a 'smartpass' or RFID tag system. You'd be required to have one of the devices set up in order to pass the 'gate' ... or, perhaps better, to receive a 'discount' over the prevailing congestion access charge if you have reason to be going by car. Easy to dereference user information from anything captured directly by the access system, while preserving a reasonably quick ability to scam-detect by passive identifiers,

Might not pay to catch 'cheaters' if there are a sufficiently small number of them. There are a couple of places you can cross the Delaware River free. But the fuel and time you use to negotiate them, vs. just going over the toll bridge, makes the value less, and the capacity (two-lane roads and bridges, sharp corners) limits the traffic per hour even if the pure financial advantage wasn't there.

GPS/traffic rerouting

Overmod — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:30:58 -0800

I'd expect traffic-based rerouting to become far more common when fully integrated in a 'free' feed. I'd thought that as long as traffic information was reported via RDS and not harmonized with the GPS instantiation, there would be problems with doing the required recalculations.

Raises another issue, which is how often, and in what manner, do you see the recalculated route? (Cynically, I imagined the moral equivalent of disk thrash, as the system goes forward and backward with tinkery little updates which might involve the current ridiculous overspecification of fine detail that many of the "direction" interfaces I've seen can provide...)

My own thought would be to have something modal (yes, I know it's not the PC thing for interface design most of the time!) that would let you know that significant traffic changes were ready, and let you load the ALTERNATE into a buffer to consider... with appropriate while-driving attention, etc. ... whether you want to follow it instead of the original routing. Then command it in a separate step.

I've seen a number of proposals for obtaining 'real-world' GPS logs of traffic, some of which I believe are documented in the ITA. One issue involving privacy, which I think you should consider, is that any GPS tracking log which contains obvious violations of law might be used for overzealous enforcement purposes (I still remember the New York State Thruway cleverness, which issued you a ticket if your exit time was "too close" to your entering time...) Naturally, there are data safeguards (perhaps similar to those in HIPAA) that can be used to dereference your datastream and/or logs from you, but this then raises another issue: do you encourage nominally-illegal behavior by directing traffic in ways that tacitly or explicitly assumes illegal operation?

Big case in point: I have argued for many years for mandatory 'truck no-passing zones' on two-lane Interstates. The unfortunate fact here is that much of the time, drivers who are 'held up' by trucks slowly passing other trucks *at or near the truck speed limit* are actually speeding, or intending to speed, and this is why they're "inconvenienced". Do we make policy based on real-world, or even common-sense, breaking of nominal laws? Seems to me that this is raised by using GPS data in the manner you indicated...

Meanwhile: Speed the day that automatic traffic, construction, etc. data automatically factor into route planning and management on nav systems!

best idea ever

ozzy — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 09:39:40 -0700

I thought of doing this on my own, didn't know others had thought of it already. Many people are missing the real use for this, or hadn't thought of the mega implications. Which is....this is not just for SMS or voice. It is way way beyond that. I believe this will compliment, then overcome, traditional Internet very quickly. What you are building is a new wireless Internet backbone, not just a wireless mesh, that will quickly rival any other network because it's built by the people and is completely portable.

Here the real way to do this.
- Incorporate a Wi-Fi N or higher protoocl into a repeater or similar device into a cell-phone, other portable device, cars!!!, and anything else that moves. You would have varying ranges(distance) depending on consumer choice, and cost, etc.
- Use a distributed protocol similar to bitTorrent for high bandwidth applications such as voice. The idea that it won't support voice is BULL crap, if done right it would support full HD video. In theory, you would have less hops to get from A to B because there are no concentrators or towers, and you only take up bandwidth on a path between A and B.
- The bandwidth would depend on the population concentration of the geographic location, which would correspond to the usage ratio, therefore it's a self-healing and a self-growing network. Rural areas would have smaller bandwidth but lower speeds, urban areas higher bandwidth but more load.
- FCC has no say in this anymore then they would to CB radios or home wireless phones, if the spectrum used is public. That means there's no government oversight, no corporate oversight no tax, no service fees, no nothing...it's "free" - you just pay for your device.
- Service providers have no choice, because who ever builds this "phone" first (i call it the fNode as in "freedom node"), runs all the other guys out of business. You're talking billions and billions $$ in just phone sales alone. Imagine iPhone or Windows phone without having to buy AT&T service - Steve Jobs would be insane to pass that up - are you crazy? Then you sell apps for the device - where you make the big bucks.
- This type of network will improve as technology improves.

I hope Microsoft or Apple jump on this. This is the future. There's no avoiding it. There no stopping it. It will happen.

Awesome!!

Ryan Ray — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:45:53 -0700

The part about traffic being taken into consideration and then re-routing is the EXACT idea I have been thinking about for years. Are you listening, Google!?

Credits

brad — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:50:46 -0800

The credits for store purchases would be so cheap as to be pretty meaningless. At the pump or in the home heating and electric bill it would be a different story.

Of course in mandatory credit schemes, buying them is not an option, you can't burn the fuel at all without credits. Usually these get applied to the big vendors who then pass on the cost.

It's 113 gallons to a tonne of CO2, or 8.8kg per gallon. At the Euro price that's 10 cents per gallon ($11/tonne) and with a 20% markup that's closer to $2 on a 15 gallon ($50) fillup, which I could see people doing. Of course with so much demand the price would go up, as it should. And there would need to be more regulations to stop scamming by sellers.

Optional carbon credits at the pump and retail stores

micah — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:48:42 -0800

Okay, so Delta airlines is allowing individuals the option to purchase credits to offset the carbon emissions from their flights. So far it has be popular. Why not expand this into everyday life. Example: one gallon of gas results in the same amount of co2 regardless of the car that burns it right? then at the pump, instead of asking if I want to buy a car wash, ask if I want to offset the CO2 from my fill up today for X cost. In most cases it would be less than a dollar. The station can take a 20% markup (regulated) and the rest buys credits off the climate exchange. This would funnel tens of millions to green energy development. It also means that I can drive my hummer guilt free and dont need to find biofuels.

The same can be done at checkout counters of say wholefoods. Johnson and Johnson could easily calculate the carbon emmission released while making some shampoo. Give that info per item to the big box retailers, link it to the barcode. Then at the end of the purchase ask the customer if that want to offset the carbon for an additional X dollars. It will be added immediately at the point of purchase, retailer takes their 20% and the average cost would be under a buck. I would do it everytime for say 30 cents each visit. Why not? its just 30 cents...

Please post feedback! Thanks mlandis@charityh2o.org

No, it should be ourcarbonnation.com

brad — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:54:00 -0800

My point was you should not just correct the URL here. Instead, just make "ourcarbonnation.com" do a redirectperm to www.whatever so people can type in both.

And switch to a better hosting company, that's the quick way to make it fast. Then, improve the code and go to a cheaper hosting company when you're done.

Woops yes it should

Our Carbon Nation — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 05:49:18 -0800

Woops yes it should obviously be http://www.ourcarbonnation.com. Thank you for taking the time to look at the site. We are aware the site can be a little slow and are in the process of resolving this issue.

Regards
Our Carbon Nation

Good idea

brad — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 11:05:58 -0800

But you don't have anything at ourcarbonnation.com without a www in front, so you should fix that. And it's a very slow, over-animated web site, and produces PDFs at the end which makes no sense. Did I mention slow?

The Carbon Offset Directory

Our Carbon Nation — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:30:30 -0800

If you wish to review the different Offset Providers have a look at http://ourcarbonnation.com
We hold information on price per tonne, administration costs and how projects are verified. We are constantly striving to increase transparency in the offset market and have the support of over 40 providers. Have a look and let us know what you think.
Our Carbon Nation Team

Calculating tip

brad — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:10:56 -0800

As I outlined it, the banker must declare what the tip shall be (or perhaps declare tax + tip since most people will remember the menu-prices of their items) and the table gets a chance to argue it up or down, but one it is set, the expectation should be that any fair payer must not stint on this. Though I would have thought you could allow people to go up or down from a base tip.

Now, if your declaration that it doesn't work (in your situation) is true, then the banker is indeed taking a risk, and so having the rare profit go to the banker does not seem unfair, if they're taking the more common loss. But yes, the system is that the banker is the one person who doesn't calculate what they owe. They just pay what it say son the bill, plus the tip they declared, and don't count the money or calculate their own meal. That is the reward/punishment for being banker.

In Hong Kong

brad — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:07:32 -0800

Curious. When I visited Hong Kong, and found I could not find the good restaurants, I took to calling up people I knew barely (such as people on my customer lists) to ask them to lunch. I intended to pay (and the custom in much of the world is that if a vendor invites a customer to lunch, the vendor always pays, though of course the customer is paying indirectly.) I did this only so they would direct me to good places to eat, and for some company, and that part worked -- but to my embarrassment they insisted on paying, saying they were the hosts and I was the visitor to their town.