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Using Math To Design Cities And Supercomputers
caek writes "If you've played Sim City you've wrestled with one of the problems faced by supercomputer designers. Unfortunately there's no GameFAQs.com for the technical staff at Japan's Earth Simulator or Srinidhi Varadarajan and colleagues at Virginia Tech. True enough, they won't have to deal with rising crime or Godzilla but, as hinted at in a recent paper in Journal of Physics A, the physical layout of a massively parallel supercomputer is fundamentally the same problem as minimizing the time commuters spent stuck in traffic jams. Read the rest of my kuro5hin article for a popular explanation."
Just make the city a big parking lot. With roads that lead to nowhere?
The most powerful SimCity bot ever created!! Oh, and I suppose it can be used for other stuff too.
It doesn't surprise me. I've been saying for years that the algorithims used for network and resource optimization have real-world applications; that the reverse is also true is simple logic. Now- if we could only apply *nix resource allocation algorithims to food, clothing, shelter, and medical care; perhaps then we'd actually have an economy that works for the people instead of a people who work for the economy.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
At the time when I was involved with preliminary design of HTMT petaflops supercomputer (yes, it is petaflops, as in million gigaflops, see, for example, here), anyway, one of the problems which would require a supercomputer with this this kind of performance was real-time optimization of car traffic in a city the size of Manhattan, NY.
Paul B.
Cities should layout their High Speed Bus (er Train) routes early
This will provide the contract builders need to build high density housing along high speed corridors - rather than randomly.
The key to getting commuters out of traffic - is only in part - optimizing their route.
The real key is getting them out of their damn cars.
(Electric Bicycle commuter speaking)
AIK
www.arcosanti.org
--
SkyKing, SkyKing, Do Not Answer
Look at this city design. Instead of trying to create better routing of commuters, it eliminates the whole problem of commuting.
This is a great site.
We need to insist that carfree options are explored on an equal footing with highway expansion proposals.
AIK
You're Right - That is an excellent point.
I suggest to do this - we
1. Send everyone to europe for a 2 week manditory car cooling off period.
2. After they come back - they can vote on a central carfree zone in their city.
3. We have better technology now to bridge the gap between the limitation of mass transit (the last mile problem)
SOME IDEAS:
The city should lay down some serious linear transit routes - in order to encourage as much brownfield redevelopment, and density conversions as possible.
Low density neighborhoods in the line of High Density Trasit should be scheduled for redesign "with all deliberate haste".
We should allocate natural beauty for High Density Housing - rather than the other - which is to reward ineffecient design with luxurious vistas.
So if your city has a desireable location (waterfront, knoll, ocean view,) or other attraction - that should be a target for High Density - low impact Transit and housing.
a cellphone GPS based service which garentees a small electric car is waiting for you at at the terminal.
A similar service which can pick you up at the terminal and take you and a few others to work - Like a disney golf-train.
Given the cellphone can know where you are - and where you need too get - it could optimize a last mile service based on current demand and requirements - rather than a fixed - use it or lose it schedule.
AIK
It does not eliminate the whole problem of commuting. One of the design criteria is listed as "Longest Journey". So the carfree people are well aware of the problem of routing commuters. I am glad to see this becuase it means that the authors of the site are not complete morons like you. They realize that getting rid of cars is not some magical panacea that makes problems like commuting go away.
What is wrong with the current allocation system.
Yes it doesn't allow equal distribution, however the key idea behind a capitalist free market IS the unequal distribution.
Capital and resources flow to those which generate more value. This creates a net increase in total value.
I agree, the liars can cause a problem, but this is an implementation issue, not a system issue. If there was greater depth and awareness this problem would go away.
This is similar to democracy, a current problem is the uneducated electorate. If this problem was solved democracy might work a bit better.
If an entity can not create more value then it consumes it should die. This goes for both companies, ideas and people. Harsh, but that is the nature of the system. It is also the way of natural selection.
There's a second problem with unequal distribution: it prevents freedom. I think that's what gets me about this whole subject the most. Part of this comes from just watching the new Sci-Fi channel interpretation of Huxley's Brave New World; happiness, not freedom, was the goal of that communist dystopia, and that's the goal of corporate capitalism as well. Keep the Betas, Gammas, and Deltas happy so that the Alphas can enjoy a life of luxury off of their work, right? That's the REAL meaning of the current allocation system- Capital and Resources flow to those who already have Capital and Resources, and all the time the masses have less and less. So they use cheap labor in other countries to lower prices- so that we can buy more with our less and less, and be happy in a completely materialistic way.
There can be no freedom without there first being equality in resource distribution- otherwise those who have will always oppress those who have not, and in so doing, utterly destroy any hope of a democratic republic.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Object Oriented programmers are already aware of the congruence. Architect Christopher Alexander's books "The Timeless Way of Building" and "A Pattern Language" were the inspiration for the patterns movement in OO programming.
There are important lessons in these books for both urban design and system design. Many architects and urban designers don't like Alexander because his approach is counter to the "power over" (top down) approach to urban design, but encourages supporting bottom up, "power with", design-while-building that is characteristic of vernacular architecture. The problem, as they see it, is that they can't start building until the design is complete - the support systems (as well as the permit process) require it. They're wrong in principle but right in practice, because that's how the support systems already in place work.
Even when designers try to emulate the style of a village, it is still not quite like the real thing that grew over decades or centuries. However, perhaps automation could empower a kind of collaboration and serendipity so that a naive group of 'users' could essentially grow a design.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
The secret to reducing commuting is. Put where you want to go near to (walking distance) where you are already.
The real question is... How do we tack that concept on to already zoned and planned cities?
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