Collective Efficacy

Just adding a note to myself for a topic to dig into at some point.  – Collective Efficacy but mentioned in a way as to be less controlling as the definition found on the wikipedia page.

A Google Talk that is worth listening to:

 

Will self-driving tests have a benefit for pedestrians and bicyclists?

Autonomous Vehicle Testing

I was on my weekly bike ride through downtown as I noticed the new signs warning that the autonomous vehicle testing will be taking place in downtown Austin, TX.  Was it a coincidence that I was able to ride through the 3rd street corridor in the bike lane in one smooth reasonably timed swoop?  Or… will the city be taking this as an opportunity to use the bond funding we passed to place some well timed additional effort into making the light timing and traffic flows predictable and free flowing?  Getting things as predictable as possible would help reduce the problem set a bit for this initial testing as well as making life easier for the humans in this system.

Here’s hoping it was intentional.

Describing every 10 square feet of the surface of the earth

Interesting approach to make sharing your location verbally easier. GPS has more resolution, but is almost impossible to share quickly without some sort of electronic handshake.

What Three Words

How What3words pinpoints every spot on Earth for better navigation

Note to Libraries colleagues – this company currently has a staff of 12 just to manage and encourage the use of this single set of three-word terms…

“We make money by a tool that converts three-word addresses into latitude and longitude” (spoken by Sheldrick in the CNET interview)

Lest you say – “well, that’s interesting – but I think the terms we use should be in the public domain…” may I refer you to Patent #9883333