Slashdot Mirror
Virtual Tourists in the Swiss Alps
Roland Piquepaille writes "Farmers in Switzerland receive money from their government for letting their cows eat young trees in the Alps. But why? Because this is improving the mountain views for tourists who might return year after year and spend their cash in the country. As the Swiss government wants to wisely spend its money, it is using a computer model of the mountains populated by virtual tourists -- or software agents -- which tirelessly take the same roads again and again and give their appreciation about the best spots. The Economist reports about these virtual tourists in this very cleverly-titled article, "Computer browsers." What will be the next logical step? Pay more the farmers with the strongest potential to improve the views for real tourists? Wrong. Instead, real hikers will be invited to explore the virtual Alps to give their feedback. Their observations will be then integrated into the software managing the virtual travelers. Read more for pictures and references."
It seems he is able to get an article posted on the front page at least once a week, maybe more.
This is just spam to get to his little site.
Maybe the editors are just incompetent and getting trolled, or this is some synergy (paid referrals) going on. So whats the deal?
As an experienced backpacker, I suspect that the miles walked through canopied forest make the scenic views more outstanding because of the contrast.
Constant anything becomes boring. Long miles above treeline make the shady coolness of the forest canopy interesting.
I do not know the duration of hikes in the Swiss Alps, perhaps their shortness makes constant panoramic scenery desirable. Most of my hikes were of many months duration, and I learned to appreciate all of the wonders, large and small, that I came across.
Having to deal with townies in real life always makes me want to NOT visit a place again.
On the other hand, I wish all these "leaf peepers" would get the hell out of my town.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
** So what? His articles are interesting.
**
his articles suck.
basically what the guy does is he follows some other sites that have the real news on them, then he takes them(sometimes pretty much copypastes) them to his blog and after that he submits them to slashdot.
his publication(his blog) is pretty much a standard ripoff of the real sites and their news. but i guess they don't another publication copying their stories verbatim without hesitation.. I wonder if they would mind if started a newspaper that just copied the articles from other papers..
if he just wanted us to know about it he could submit the stories instead of copypasting together 'stories' of his own. yeah, i got karma to burn. i wish the excess karma could be used to vote on _changes_ to the system(among other things filtering the politics.slashdot.org doesn't seem to work, i've ticked both 'politics' topics in the exclude topics tab.. and for the reference there aren't _any_ sections to tick in the sections tab).
and to really 'stick it up': here's actually a meaningful link about the story at hand: http://www.sim.inf.ethz.ch/projects/alpsim/ . It's to the actual project..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
When I lived for a few years in Switzerland, I knew the Alps were beautiful. When you hike along mountain meadows, covered in flowers, under blue skies and the sun making the snow covered mountain tops glitter, it is breathtaking.
:)
But I only realized how much I loved the open space in the Alps when I came to New England in the US. It is nice, but in the last few hundred years, it has grown over with forrest. I like forrests, but I also appreciate some open space.
Appart from the White Mountains, the views are rather limited in New England.
I've stopped complaining about farmers getting payed by the government - not only do they produce food - they help to maintain an open landscapes.
Cows and farmers, keep up the good work