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Japan's Melody Roads Play Music as You Drive
Krishna Dagli writes "The road works by using grooves, which are cut at very specific intervals in the surface. Just as traveling over small speed bumps or road markings can emit a rumbling tone throughout a vehicle, the melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes."
An oversized viynal? But what if you dont like the song?
Make SELinux enforcing again!
I have to say that after just getting back from Japan that they do have a certain affection for the whimsy even on large scale publicly funded projects that is just awesome. One of the things I saw was a huge platform with a glass top and water on top that served nothing more than a spaceship like cover for a courtyard down below and an attraction. Pics here .
I would have loved to have traveled on these roads while I was there...
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
In Massachusetts, they are continually working on roads... I'd love to know the secret that makes them think that they'll be able to keep these strips around for more than a year or so. Beyond that, I'd think that it places greater stresses on the outermost pieces of tire, because of the uneven loading. Doesn't seem that smart to me...
--
Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.
"driving around 12mph has a slow-motion effect, making you almost car sick."
So it makes traffic jams/being stuck in traffic even worse, then?
but all I could get are big drum beats and the occasional pick screech...
It's my understanding that the rougher the road surface you drive on, the faster it wears out your tires. Not just a small amount either, I seem to recall reading that it could shorten the life span of your tires by 50%.
I don't know about anyone else, but I think tires are expensive and hate spending money on them. I would not enjoy having them wear out quickly so that I can listen to the same damned song every day on my way to work... The radio already does that for me, and it doesn't ruin my tires.
-hps
If you drive up that road in reverse it says, "Paul is dead."
-Peter
What does Born to Be Wild sound like in Japanese?
Watch out... the RIAA is going to demand that drivers pay them royalty fees each time we drive on said road and play a song.
Disney beat them to it. There was pavement that played zip-a-dee-doo-dah.
http://www.allearsnet.com/aa/aa100807.htm#ques5
You'd hear the pleasant melody only if you were going exactly the speed limit. When's the last time you did that?
...companies will buy sections of road and carve their theme jingle in them?
and the road doesn't play The End by the Doors. Or Detroit Rock City.
I'm pretty sure I've seen on some technology shows they have on TV that this has been in development or at least around for a while. No surprises that the Japanese have it in place already, it seems there culture isn't so against change and new ideas. Unlike most western societies.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
would it happen to be the goodyear theme? I'm sure these roads destroy tires
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
Sounds like a form of chindogu.
From over 2 years ago on slashdot.jp: http://slashdot.jp/article.pl?sid=05/02/02/0340256 (pseudo-english translation)
That is awesome. I wonder if you could manipulate the harmonic quality of the hum, and take it as far as synthesized speech. "welcome" or "yokoso" as you enter town. That would be jaw-droppingly awesome.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
Saw this on Top Gear (on Discovery Channel) a couple of years back. Not sure if it was Japan, I think it was a European country. I think they used bumps though instead, so that at certain sustained speeds it would play a nice melody but if you went too fast it would sound horrible and scarring.
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.destroy.the.earth/browse_thread/thread/969522c2a9463f53/743868a735db695a?lnk=st&q=#743868a735db695a/
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
This is an old idea. I remember several years ago reading someones essay about doing this to play the opening notes of "Dark Star" when driven over at 40 mph. I can't find it now. It may have been on the now-defunct GDlive.com
See & hear it in action: Video here
Far out, you seem to have found Bob Dobbs there in that coffee kiosk / snack shack.
What is the motive for playing songs? Maybe the Japanese, with their radically different sense of aesthetics, will play songs. But Americans will have advertising:
rummmble...rumbble..Today's...screee...special...rummble...at..Wal-Mart...rummble...voice...suppression...rummble...tires!
Years ago the Walt Disney World was looking for additional magical things to add to the roads for their upcoming Millennium Celebration. On a desolate piece of road on property speed warning indicators were tested (the kind you encounter on the side of the road or before a toll road) that played a song. That song was "Zip A Dee Do Dah", and for years it stayed there. There were problems with it. First, was the fact in order for it to work, you would have to be driving a VERY specific speed, not faster, not slower, or it would seem like a random assortment of rumbles. And when someone would go the wrong speed, they'd think there was something wrong (veering of the road, toll soon, etc), and would try to break, get the car back on the road, etc, that it became dangerous. Since it was dangerous, no one would drive the correct speed, and the fact they'd need to tear up the roads just to install it, Disney mothballed the idea.
Forget tire wear. What about the uneven coefficient of friction? That can get you killed. Predictability of your vehicle's reaction in all situations -- especial in emergencies -- is important.
Fight Spammers!
I remember an interview with the chief engineer of a road construction company. He claimed that if the state was willing to pay about twice as much, he could build them a road which could last 100 years. But if he did that he'd be underbid for every contract and would go out of business. So the state ends up with roads which need to be resurfaced after 5 years and rebuilt after 15-25. Essentially the longevity is enough to span one politician's career in that office. After that it'll be someone else's problem, so why spend extra money on it?
I thought of something similar to this when I was a kid. (Ya, I know, should have patented it, would have made a killing, yada, yada...)
Anyway, my idea came from the speed warnings in the road driving up to the airport in Dallas: about fifty 1cm ruts, perpendicular to the direction of traffic, caused a loud noise and strong vibration in the car. I thought, "If this can make noise, why not speech?" And the faster you went, the louder, more high pitched, and more strident the voice would be. It could say, "ssloooww doooowwn..." if you were going 30mph, and scream "SLOW DOWN!!" at 60mph.
Ah, the folly of youth.
In America the RIAA/MPAA/??AA want to sue you for umpteen bazillion dollars because you were HUMMING A TUNE in your mind without a license.
In Japan the roads themselves play music for you.
I know where I'd much rather live.... Even without the 100Mbps ethernet-over-fiber Internet services to your home (for less than I normally spend on coffee each week), "japanese schoolgirls" (ahem), tentacle-porn, etc - the list goes on and on. The Land of Sushi/Sake and Asahi truly is DisneyLand for Geeks.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
. . . but Achewood predicted this.
In the arc's defense, the robot did dress up his hair like Pete Rose.
Any information may be true or incorrect depending on your perception of said information
While it looks like these were done just for fun, one idea I have heard is to place them only in the passing lane, at regular intervals. This would discorage people from staying in that lane any longer than they need to, else be forced to listen to "It's a Small World" at increasingly annoying pitch the faster they drive :)
Seriously! As a young teenager in the backseat of the car for a long family trip, I had the idea that either music or, more importantly, warnings could be modulated as a sound onto a road bed. Combine the knowledge of those thing they used to put on balloons that would make a sound when you ran your fingernail over them with the creepy sounds that would sometimes come from the tires when riding over grooved pavement and you have an idea. If only I had patented it.
It's mandatory to wash your hands before returning to the land of Dairy Queen.
you mean like:
Space Station
Space Shuttle
or
Las Vegas
or
Lincoln Financial Field
and... yeah, it is cool that the good old USA can muster up a few of these bad boys:
F-22
So I guess we're just totally broke?
This is my sig.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This may come as a shock, USA is not the World.
Many other countries have their own recording industry associations that are perfectly good at collecting royalties and prosecuting file sharers.
Ruts cut in roads, or slightly raised areas are all over the place in Japan, with the former usually to provide better traction in ice/snow, and the latter to warn of sharp curves, etc. They are annoying as hell, and noisy. They also have a tendency to wake up my toddlers in the back seat, even when driving quite slowly. Sure, use them for better grip on slippery roads, but just for novelty value? Yet another waste of public funds in a country that is notorious for it...
Turn it around, and there's virtue in the tune-strips wearing off: sell the rights to lay down an ad jingle to the highest bidder. The life-span of the strips is the cue to put it out for bid again.
This is old hat. I remember when I was a kid and went on road trips, my old man used to joke that it would only be a matter of time before corporations started carving messages into the horizontal grooves on the sides of the road that buzz when you veer out of your lane with messages like, "Wake up with a refreshing Coke!" or "Don't drive without some No-Doz!"
Must be Paul McCartney's road, it's bloody long and winding and leads to your fecking door!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I thought of doing this when I was 10. Since then, I have seriously hoped that the government never realized it. I really don't think that the unwashed masses could withstand the constant hum of the road telling them "Personal firearm ownership is wrong."..."If your not guilty, you've got nothing to hide"..."Voting third party is throwing away your vote."..."War is peace"..."Slavery is freedom"...
FUNNY, not Insightful! SHEESH!
Take the story of Mr. Shizuo Shinoda and his bulldozer with a grain of salt (simply bullshit for those not politically correct). I have been driving through the northern Japan for ages. The area is mainly hills and mountains, and as far as I remember the roads always had stretches, especially at turns or steep slopes, that were cut by little perpendicular grooves that cause the car vibrations at acoustic frequencies. More, the side strips on highways have tiny bumps that cause the same effect. I used to amuse myself by the tones that my car played on them, never a distinct melody though.
I wonder how long it will take before some disgruntled municipal worker will grind in some really annoying song, or even better... the Brown Note.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
I've been living in China for two months and I haven't seen any car accidents (being cleaned up, even). I don't think it's such a big deal here...maybe people are better drivers? Most of the population doesn't drive, though. If there's a difference, that's probably why.
in my younger Ninja days: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightingale_floors
As cool sounding as the song is, I'm not sure I'd really I'd want to drive on a road that plays,"Highway to Hell".
God spoke to me.
In Montreal a generation of Metro subway cars electric motors were tuned to perfect fifths, coincidentally the first three notes of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man". The tones were even part of a TV ad campaign when the line was opened.
Technical Explanation PDF (in French.)
However the Montreal Metro offers another treat to the senses: Smell.
The train brakes are two part, electromagnetic over ~10km/h and birch wood injected with peanut oil slower. Thus when a train comes to a hard stop the station smells faintly of burnt popcorn. If you have to smell your public transit this is about as good as it gets!I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I'm afraid this is what happens when there just isn't enough cash to go around. The amount the States get from the Federal taxes in various forms is reduced and so local infrastructure expenditures drop. However, it's not like the Federal government is spending more than it takes in on something that benefits only a select few and has quietly hidden the true costs here and there. There is a war going on; how can we complain about the state of our roads when on the other side of the world there are roads actually getting blown up daily? We have to rebuild those first, along with the electrical distribution, water supplies, schools and hospitals...the list goes on and we haven't even started. Once we have rebuilt Iraq in our image, then and only then can we talk about fixing things here with a clean conscience.
Really.
Oh yes? Then I hope you have already sent your regards to your new Chinese and Indian overlords
The hope is that the USA can continue to ramp up its population while sustaining a good rate of growth, such that China and India don't ever really catch up. Check this out.. This is a Census department population forecast for the USA.
Census Population Projections 1998
Notice that it was the high series had the US population at below 300,000,000 in 2006, and we've exceeded that. Thus, assuming the high series continues, the USA population will hit 500+ million by 2050. That's a population doubling time of 75 years. Assuming the same doubling time, we're talking about a billion Americans by 2125...
This is my sig.
Imagine a condom which says "Ay, papi!" as you go to work.
And now I think of it... that's almost a palindrome! Perfect!
No sig today...
I've thought of using the grooves along the road to make a menacing voice for years. 'Get your ass back on the road stupid!' or some such thing. I think it's more American than playing music.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Having short term vision is a common problem among American's and their politicians. Planning for the future doesn't matter - only quick gain does. We'll save a nickle today so we don't worry that it'll cost us a dollar tomorrow. Stupid isn't it? You'd think we're all children.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Read somewhere that the french did this on a road near paris (can't find the link atm) but had to remove it because it gave loads of drivers really bad migraines
--AlexC
Just because I dont agree with climate change doesnt make me a troll
as in "Shit, that ain't nothin'"....
It's a little-known fact that the "wake-up" strips here in America go along perfectly with Dark Side of the Moon if you drive over them and gun it to 105, hit the brakes to about 15, gun it to 84, then.....
THL phish sticks
There's a motorway that plays the first bars of the national anthem of Germany when you drive over it. It's installed at the former border between eastern and western Germany. I think the installation is over fifteen years old. Couldn't find a link, though.
...but theirs just play one very loud note instead of a bunch of soft ones.
If you get a flat, do you get A flat?
I saw something like this on T.V. maybe 20 years ago. I can't remember where it was, but they were using it as an experiment to condition drivers to stay within a speed window. The theory is that if you drive too fast or too slowly the music will be less pleasant.
-- Wodin
You never explained why the noodle place wouldn't accept Europeans, but were glad to see Americans.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Who knew Japanese engineers were reading Halfbakery, let alone getting ideas from it?
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Road_20tunes
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
Have you been wearing a blindfold???? The drivers there are as bad as in Boston.
Fight Spammers!
China... Japan... Are there kangaroos there as well?
One of the things that surprises me about cars from the US is how badly they react to changing road surfaces. You've got the outsize engines sussed, now how about figuring out how to make suspension and steering that works?
I can't remember where, and I can't find the link now. You could hear it for miles, and it pissed everyone off. Eventually they tarmacked over it. Shame really.
+5 interesting
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Boy: Daddy, why are we driving on gravel road?
Dad: I don't know, Watusabi. It was tar sealed road yesterday.
(500 metres later)
Boy: What's that sign say, Daddy?
Dad (slowing down and reading sign): "This melody road contains copyrighted music. Under the DMCA, and Japan's copyright treaty obligations, this road has been dug up to remove the infringing notes"
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Just use microwave radiation to stop the car, of course.
I looked at that translation; check out the moderations -- "score 3, It is strange funny" and "score 4, splendid discernment." For the hell of it, I used babelfish to translate "First post" from English to Japanese and then back again. The result was "Engaging in floor bugle."
I can recall hearing something of the sort that was in the works a few years ago in France (I believe it was). Not sure what's developed of it yet, but the idea was that if you go the speed limit, you'd hear nothing, but if you speed (after so many km/h above the limit) you hear an annoying noise.
Actually up here in Canada they do something like this on some streets going from the highways to inner city roads because it actually helps big rigs slow down/stop faster.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
...as someone who is currently living in Japan...
:-)
:-) No idiot PHBs here insisting on windoze. Whatever works.
They are far, far ahead of anything in North America. All cars, etc. are now produced and come with at least:
GPS, TV (yes, TV, if you wish. Quite safe, of course. When the car is moving, it is only audio, like radio, but when it stops, such as at a traffic light, it kicks in the video as well!) So, if stuck in traffic, watch your favourite program, news, etc.!!!
And of course, due to GPS, directions to avoid traffic jams, if you wish, etc.
In fact, I am always amazed at how much further ahead the Japanese are in terms of anything electronic, cell phones, computers, etc.
And now that they are switching more and more to linux, watch out!
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=775707
Stock exchange, embedded in more and more electronics, schools, etc.
Moderation irony?
Oh arse
a cooler application would be road chimes. people who live near highways and are used to the constant hum of highway noise might appreciate road chimes. it works similarly - cars drive over short bursts of sound and emit that tone. you could have different tones and different intervals interspersed throughout the road, and given the random nature of traffic, it would be like a continual road chimes. if you used a pentatonic scale as the tone set, you could produce very pleasing random melodies.
When we drove through Italy this summer they had prepared the newly-built highways so you'd actually hear it when you were driving onto the emergency lane.
I don't know if the sound would be enough to wake you if you were falling asleep at the wheel, but if it prevents people from mindlessly driving onto the emergency lane and knocking over people that actually are having an emergency there, more power to them...
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
And behold; we've solved the problem of speeding inside urban areas.
Except that everyone outside the car experiences the tone as a standing noise (or a tiny snatch of a melody), which is repeated whenever cars go over the road. I dare say you could go stark raving mad if you lived next to something like that.
There's an old J G Ballard sci-fi story that uses road markings causing noises as its main plot point. As far as I recall, the tire companies are in league with the government and get the roads relaid every year or so so that everyone has to buy new tires that match the profile of the road, otherwise the car becomes noisy and undriveable. I also seem to recall the rumbling is something to do with subliminal advertising too, but would have to read it again. Perhaps another /. reader with a better memory could follow up!
I've always wondered if one could make a road that talked, and whether having two axles (as most cars do) would make it unintelligible. You'd hear it twice, with a small time delay related to the car's speed and wheelbase.
Maybe the effect isn't noticeable, or isn't objectionable, for music.
Why can't they just collide a whole bunch of little hadrons?
The first I'd heard about this type of thing was that Walt Disney reputedly had something similar on the pavement of the (private) airfield at Disney World....playing "It's a small world after all" of course.
I'm still not sure I believe it. I can see on a public road, where the speed would be predictable and ostensibly fixed. But an airstrip where the planes are logically accelerating/decelerating at wildly different rates? Seems nearly impossible to me.
-Styopa
They won't use Massachusetts contractors?
In a revitalization of music recorded as bumps, artists everywhere eschew compact disks in favor of the Japanese roadway format.
Back when New Scientist magazine had the wacky inventions of Daedalus as its back page light-hearted material, textured musical roads was one of these inventions. It is nice to see that someone has actually implemented the invention at last.
(These columns were collected into a book, "The Inventions of Daedalus", by David E H Jones (1982). They are, with very few exceptions, both bizarre and brilliant in equal measure.)
Sean Ellis
Follow OfQuack's antics on Twitter.
*Donut*Reverse*Reverse*FORWARD*Stop*Start*Reverse*Speed Up*Sloooow Dowwwwwn*
I was just thinking of that... around here they place three sets of "rumble strips" ahead of any stopsign on lower traffic roads, to jolt you fully awake when approaching an intersection with a busy road. I remember being able to hear cars and especially trucks when they hit those strips, from a good distance away. Surely that would annoy any locals if you did up a long stretch of road? (long enogh to do any length of music)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
LOL PEOPLE GETTING TAZED FOR NO REASON IS SO FUNNY! No. Not to real people it isn't, only to police-state loving monsters. Go suck bush's cock, some more.
Numbers are still growing; but recently--it is impossible to know exactly when--an inflection point seems to have been reached. The rate of population increase began to slow. In more and more countries, women started having fewer children than the number required to keep populations stable. Four out of nine people already live in countries in which the fertility rate has dipped below the replacement rate. Last year the United Nations said it thought the world's average fertility would fall below replacement by 2025. Demographers expect the global population to peak at around 10 billion (it is now 6.5 billion) by mid-century.
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9545933
(Anonymous to protect friend's privacy, just in case.)
I'm told by someone who works in Oklahoma's DOT that the tension between concrete and asphalt roads is this:
Asphalt roads are pushed by human-factors people because they're softer and less fatiguing to drive on. Obviously this is more a factor with highways. Concrete roads are pushed by engineers because they last longer. However, they're a pain to resurface because great chunks must be pulled up ('crete is laid in large rectangles), while with asphalt you can just pull up the bits that need to be redone, say the area around a pothole.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
There's a simple reason for this... the American public demands cars with big motors that handle poorly. Ask a random set of people, and MANY more will be able to tell you how much HP their car makes... but nobody will be able to tell you what suspension design their car has. Manufacturers have noticed this, and as such figure that suspension is just a necessary evil to allow a smooth ride. To satisfy this need, they simply go with what's 'worked' since the 70's... a solid axle... or maybe even 'new fangled' McPherson struts.
Don't believe me, here's a prime example of how the US snuffs innovation:
US: Chevy Corvair
Innovations: Rear engine, swing axle
Public Reaction: "Unsafe at any speed"
Germany: VW Beatle
Innovations: Rear engine, swing axle (later replaced with trailing arms)
Public Reaction: One of the highest selling cars of all time
Ignorant?
I googled all those numbers in like 2 minutes, based on what GP said and what I already know.
You can google them too.
You know how to google, don't you, kid? You just pull up your browser and... type.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
So, what happens when a motorcycle drives on it?
Dear world,
Will speeding be overlooked for those that tend to like hard rock and speed metal? Sorry officer, that stretch back there just reminded me of my favorite Metallica song, and I just thought that it needed to be played faster just like the original.
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
.
Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
Well, if the optimal speed for driving over these "music roads" is 28mph for every road, I don't see the huge problem in handling performance. A quick Google of 28mph = 45.061632 kph. IMO driving under 30mph affords more than enough reaction time for almost any situation... So perhaps those crazy engineers did think of everything ;-)
No words of wisedom here.
...and of course the government would take responsibility for the friggin' additional wear the grooves would have on the tires.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
But it's cool nonetheless, and much more fun than just plain road noise.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
how funny someone finnaly created it.
Here in holland at rode side's of highways they have withe markers on 'fat' paint so they make a noise when you drive over it. it should be very easily to make that brrrrrrr sound om somthing like a drum rhytm
altough i wonder if the road would become safer (i'ts a nice song but probaply nicer when played fast hmmm)
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
Personally, I'd like to see these musical roads make it over here to the states. Though they might have to speed the tempo a bit and clock it for 70mph.. See, round these parts, the limit on the freeway here next to me is 55...but as student drivers learn VERY quickly..you WILL be run over if you do the limit on TX225. See, the speed limit here is something like a soft limit...the police don't even care unless you're doing like 95-100. (Btw, Toyota Prius, doesnt break a sweat at 100. :) (slashvertisement...sorry, couldnt resist. :)
Of course, we'd have to retrain half of Houston's drivers...though I think they'll be easier to train since we got them to stop turning left on Main street and crashing into the giant train. :) It only took 2 years.
Remember, it's not paranoia if they really ARE out to get you...
I mean, seeing as how the passing fad of radios and audio systems in cars died out and all.
I wonder if it starts suffering compression losses if enough cars drive over it?
HA! I crack me up!
Brings a new meaning to the phrase "Whistle while you work"!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I had this idea back in '94 and got it from a plastic strip attached to a balloon. When you'd scrape your nail along the strip, small bumps would induce a vibration. The balloon would amplify..."Happy birthday"
It was neat. I always thought it would be cool to do it on roads "welcome to michigan! Escape while you can!"
the roads play you!
ha! i kill me!
what? old joke? what do you mean old joke? i'm on slashdot, right? old jokes are the new funny!
The article mentioned patenting the concept. I remember driving over a "rumble strip" designed to warn of an approaching tollboth back in about 1971. My immediate thought was "gee, change the spacing and you could get music". It's obvious.
Does teh Japanese patent system recognize "obviousness"? Of course, the US patent system claims to recognize obviousness, but obviously does not.
i bet that driving in Downtown LA sounds like heavy metal
I remember hearing about this years ago. I don't recall where it was being done but I remember that there were school zones and small neighborhoods using the same effect to generate a "pleasant tone" when cars drove the right speed through the area. It never made much sense to me... it seems anyone living around there would get sick of hearing it and that people who were speeding just wouldn't care.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
In Germany, the road surface is redone every ~30 years, every 10 or so for the right-most track as that is where the trucks drive. A complete renewal must be done after ~70 years. That is with extreme cold in winter and sometimes rather hot summers. There are materials that last even longer, but the roads sink in where the tires usually run, so this does not make sense. The only road surfaces that are redone more often are the highly trafficed ones where you have special tarmac that acts more or less like a gutter, eleminating the splash water from cars driving in front of you. Those are porous and thus the ice damages them with the constant freeze-thaw-freeze cycle in winter. They would last longer, but the reduced traffic accident rate mandates replacing it so the water can drain, once again. Compared to this, US roads and highways feel more or less like off-road tracks (yes, I have been there). Long story short: You get what you pay for. Long-lasting roads are cheaper in the short term, but they cost more in the short term.
Dunno how this got modded to insightful but the idea that there will ever be even 400,000 Americans is ludicrous. The population growth rate of the US is not growing, it is SHRINKING. Same with the rest of the world. The parent seems to be living back in the 70's with his "dire predictions" of overpopulation.
Ah, I merely cited figures by the Census Deparatment, you know, those guys that count people. They have the USA at 1.25 billion people in the year 2100, in their "fast population growth" scenario, which, as I've pointed out, we have already exceeded.
Dude, you aren't factoring in immigrants and their children. The first wave comes in, gets American rich, has a ton of kids.
This is my sig.
Huh? Are you sure this is true? I'd imagine there would be some binding description about the required quality in the bidding for this contract? At least that's how it's done over here in my country. Not fulfilling this requirement would be fraud.
At an interchange on Highway 80 at Phenix City, Alabama there are a series of speed bumps warning you to slow down.
The speed bumps are in a series of 1 speed bump, space, 1 speed bump, space, 3 speed bumps.
When you drive over them in your car, it sounds just like the theme song to Knight Rider.
Duh duh.... duh duh.... duh duh, duh duh, duh duh.
It was bad enough having a pop tune like "Puff the Magic Dragon" stuck in my head for weeks. A pop song stuck in the road in the middle of my commute would result in a whole new type of road rage. OMG! What if it was "A Small World After All"?
If you drive backwards, can you hear Satan's voice?
Or is it just country/western tunes, where you get your dog back....
"I can't drive 55" -- Sammy Hagar
"Radar Love" -- Golden Earring
"Dead Man's Curve" -- Jan and Dean
"Highway to Hell" -- AC/DC
"Traffic Jam" -- Jame Taylor
Have gnu, will travel.
Imagine a new breed of shoulder speedbumps that when you run over them, cause the sound to be emitted from the vibration of someone saying "wake up idiot, you're drifting off the road". Then again, I can imagine some morons thinking it's funny to drive really fast just so they can hear it spoken at chipmunk speed...
I was crazy, when I had this very idea at age 8.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I've long thought that this type of system would be useful for speech. Things like "Stop" before a country stop sign where they just have grooves in the road before.
:)
Or "Hidden Driveways ahead", or "Prison area, don't pick up hitchhikers". Things you normally see on signs, but give the audio clue as well.
Then of course we would get the hackers who modify them. Causing the roads to talk dirty to you.
Maybe it's just our high quality politicians here in Oklahoma, but every time I see footage IED or car bombs in Iraq, I can't help but notice the roads over there, even with warfare going on, are in better shape than the roads here. Maybe it's the friendlier weather in the desert.
Depending on just how accurate a representation this makes, it could be used (On the outside-most lane) to announce exits as you come up to them.
And have the rumble strip along the very outside (Where the shoulder is) to be "WAKE UP YOU MORON!"
In Soviet Russia, road plays you.
Did I get 5 for funny? Ah man I really want to be rated on the XBox live of tech forums, oh my gamer points!
I knew I should have patented that idea 5+ years ago when I thought it up with my brothers... Also, what if you accidentally copy some melody from some artist? Does the RIAA start suing you? Is recording the vibrations considered pirating?
If they made a road that sounded like regular music when driven at the speed limit, and gangsta rap when driven above the speed limit, I guarantee you I'd never speed.
And the people who do like gangsta rap would all be driving fast, increasing the chance that they'd die in vehicle accidents. It's a win-win!
Remember the teenager repellant http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1888844,00.html ?
Perhaps a clever use of this technology would be to come up with a tire rumble strip pattern to annoy teenagers when they were driving too fast?
As an example, encode the barney song (or some other annoying tune) in a way so that only teenagers would hear it when they travel at high speeds and at low speeds it would sound like noise. Might not be so simple to do, but if you could make it work and you sold this idea to street paving companies, I'll bet there would be demand for putting this in back alleys and parking lots that are used for drag-racing starting starting yesterday...
When we get our roads resurfaced, the first thing they do is scrape the road laterally, and you get grooves just like in the Japanese YouTube video linked above. I had it on my road for about 3 months (they take their time with roadworks); it sounded like a whale singing when u drove over it at about 70kph. Trippy as hell!
...the "1812 Overture" is encoded in the highway, with deep, strategically-placed potholes providing the sound of cannon fire.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
oh yeah i remember that road, the damn cop caught me for doing vivace
There is one word for this. AWESOME.
That's one of the dumbest comparisons I've read in quite awhile. You've managed to make statements of utter bullshit in every sentence you wrote, which I suppose is some kind of achievement.
However, I find it especially hilarious that you represent the god-awful swing-axle as "innovation"...
Nader's book "Unsafe At Any Speed" was a general indictment of many design issues of the day, and the Corvair was merely his example in a single chapter discussing problems with suspension design. Anyone with basic automotive knowledge understands that swing-axles are prone to tucking under when the suspension unloads, making the vehicle highly susceptible to roll-over. ANY vehicle. Swing-axles were used purely for economic reasons, not because the design was at all innovative.
GM did recognize that swing-axles were a piss-poor design, and an options package was available which significantly improved suspension performance, including better quality springs and dampers, a front sway bar, and rear axle rebound straps designed to prevent the axles from tucking in. VW never offered any such safety features on their swing-axle design.
Furthermore, VW ditched the swing-axle in favor of a true IRS half-shaft/CV-joint design, and trailing arms didn't show up on VWs until much, much later (70s and 80s).
Mercedes ditched swing-axles in the 50s... I suppose they were somehow "snuffing innvoation" since VW had the foresight to continue using them?
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
In most places it comes down to only two opposing factors:
1. Asphalt requires a six month cure-time. Concrete requires a two month cure-time.
2. Concrete costs about four times as much as equivalent asphalt coverage, depending on geographic location (primarily the asphalt plant's proximity to a port which supplies the required grade of pure liquid asphalt).
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
instead of music you can have it read off the signs too you and if you cant understand it you are going too fast or too slow or are deaf.
Depends how you define "bad." They don't yield nicely to each other (mostly), and they drive fast and break traffic laws, but on the whole I think that the people who are driving here are very competent, unlike in the states, where everyone drives, including idiots.