DISQUS

Chris! 8000 articles read in 30 days? You're a machine! :-)

Keith

Where/what is their downtown building?

Oddly enough I was thinking about this the other day as I was struggling to get home through heavy traffic. I read an article a few years ago that claimed the cause of traffic congestion is not "too much" traffic - the theoretical maximum traffic capacity of our freeways is much higher than we see in practice - but instead "overbraking". This explains how traffic grinds to a halt without any apparent cause (e.g. an accident). How it works is that someone changes lane to merge or get a better position, and the car behind them brakes slightly to accommodate. The car behind them brakes a little bit more, since drivers always overcompensate, then the next car and so on until eventually so much speed is lost that traffic starts to crawl. The solution, as you say, is computer control. Computers will not overcompensate, and through communication with other vehicles and better reaction times can travel a lot faster and closer to other vehicles. It's claimed that computer control could at least triple the capacity of our roads ... the question is how do we get there? Until most cars are computer controlled we will see little benefit from the technology, so it's a tricky economic proposition that will probably need government subsidy.

Keith

Check out the personal finance site http://www.mint.com/. It was a little disconcerting giving up bank login details at first but I was quickly blown away by the site's slick interface and ability to show exactly where my money was going. I barely log into my online accounts at all now, since mint does such a good job of aggregating access and providing relevant mobile alerts. I even acted on one of mint's recommendations and now have a >5% interest checking account.