mwexler

Joined 18 years ago

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Aug 8

Python and data for fun

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Comment · 2 months ago

There's not a word about chess here! Re-title!

Just kidding. Learned a bunch here after I understood the actual topic.

Comment · 2 months ago

Isn't this the exact setup for every compliance, security, or other regulatory group in any company? To say no then "here's what's acceptable that's close" to guide the business or entity?

Perhaps "ethics" is a more slippery slope, but the approach is well trodden.

It's a choice of company culture from leadership on whether the company acks the suggestions or ignores them. And when they get ignored or drive little impact for the cost, then teams disband. Which is also true for any team at any company.

Comment · 3 months ago

This reminds me of Frink https://frinklang.org/ which cleverly carries units through calculations. It borrows from many other languages and has some "clear text" commands like parent post, but it's emphasis on unit consistency helps avoid conversion slop.

Comment · 3 months ago

Also, just saw this mention of a new book from Vaclav Smil: Speed, which delves into some of these topics.

https://vaclavsmil.com/book/speed-how-it-explains-the-world/

Comment · 3 months ago

I'm a fan of Beaty's work from 1998. Nothing I've seen has been as easy to implement: leaving space in front of each car creates smooth motion.

https://trafficwaves.org/trafexp.html or easier at https://web.archive.org/web/20260114173129/https://trafficwa...

https://web.archive.org/web/20251214172912/http://trafficwav... has some nice visualizations.

MIT got more press when they "rediscovered" this in 2017:

https://people.csail.mit.edu/bkph/Traffic_Flow_Animation

I'm a car fan, so I'd rather reward drivers for optimal behaviors vs broad car-reductions. I'll probably turn out to be on the wrong side, but maybe we'll find a good compromise.

Comment · 3 months ago

I wish this had a stepper so I could see how things change at each point in the cycle. But even without, quite cool to play with.

Comment · 3 months ago

Did some digging: yeah, looks like they are keeping some things for themselves.

https://github.com/orgs/OvertureMaps/discussions/298

That being said, it's hard to fault them for trying to monetize some dimensions that are not well supplied by the public, and that companies work to acquire. Still, I agree, it's disappointing.