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AI Predicts Manhole Explosions In New York City
reillymj writes "Every so often, a 300-pound manhole cover blows sky high in Gotham, followed sometimes by a column of flame and smoke. (There are a few hundred 'manhole incidents' per year in the city, not all of them this dramatic.) Researchers from Columbia University applied machine learning algorithms to Con Edison's warren of aging electrical wires and sewage access points around Manhattan. As the system learns where dangerous mixtures of sewer gas and decrepit wiring are likely to come in contact, it makes forecasts about trouble spots, including where the next explosion may occur. The team has just completed rankings for manholes in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and plans to return to Manhattan's grid, armed with the most recent inspection and repair data." The research was published in the July issue of Machine Learning.
I thought those manhole popping incidents were due to the heavy microwave emitter vaporizing the water?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
They need something like this here in Rio de Janeiro. There have been several exploding electrical manholes around here too.
I wonder if anybody has ever died from being hit on the head with one of these, seems it is likely. Shouldn't there be a way to secure the covers to the ground with a bolt that would at least cause the cover to not fly up but just turn over in case of an explosion?
You can't handle the truth.
New York is Metropolis.
Chicago is Gotham.
So many possibilities with a name like that. Naming an indie band would be the most obvious.
Et voila, no more gas build up, no more explosions.
Even if they're primarily covers for electrical boxes there are obviously drains or some other means by which the sewer gas infiltrates.
Seems like the little bit of rain or snow that would get in through vents would be able to drain away.
Always one step behind the CHUDs.
That's a joke, right? Exploding manhole covers? In pre-Snake Plissken-New York? OMG
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
I predict massive manhole manhole cover blowouts and big explosions anywhere within a mile radius of the next Michael Bay movie.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Why not call it 'humanhole incidents', you male chauvinistic pigs??
Who the fuck is Al and why should I care if he predicts manhole explosions? What, is he psychic or something?
So they are now doing villians that spend their time blowing up manhole covers. Remember the good old days when Gotham would be under the attack of villians like Ra's al Ghul and Bane.
The skyline and culture for Gotham always seemed more like New York City. wikipedia also identifies Gotham City with NYC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham_City#Origin_of_name
Metropolis, meanwhile, appeared Midwestern in the early comics, although wikipedia claims that they haven't been consistent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(comics)
Couldn't they harness all that energy that blows up manhole covers into some kind of renewable energy? Feed the sewer gas back into natural gas lines, attach pistons to manhole covers, etc
Christopher Nolan (director of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) has adapted Gotham to be Chicago. However, throughout history, Gotham is most closely recognized as New York City in the Batman comics. Wikipedia weighs in.. Search for Chicago.
Comics aside, one of New York Cities many nicknames is Gotham. Check the nickname sidebar. Quite a few businesses in NYC have taken this nickname as part of their name. Most famously, the Gotham Gazette and, more recently, Gothamist.
Disagreeing with me does not mean you get to mod me troll.
Around in Paris and the suburb (wonderful Banlieue...) all manhole cover can be removed with a metal crowbar. there is no bolting. And this is the first time I *ever* hear of manhole cover blowing up (stolen , oh yes, as a dangerous prank). I got the feeling it is not the wide spread problem in major city you think it is.
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Superman - Metropolis.
Batman - Gotham
Chicago never entered into it, except in your mind.
So we have millions of people desperate for work, and a whole lot of dangerous wiring all over New York City. Why aren't we (and by "we", I mean ConEd or any level of government) investing in training up as many electricians as we can and replacing the bad wiring while it's relatively cheaper to do so?
Oh, wait, maybe because there are no financial consequences to any organization if a manhole cover gets launched 300' up and lands on some 3-year-old.
I am officially gone from
Some wise guy just noticed one day that all known incidents happened near the locations of Taco Bell toilet sewer pipe connections, and so extrapolated the other locations from all known franchise pipe connections.
Every so often, a 300-pound manhole cover blows sky high in Gotham, followed sometimes by a column of flame and smoke.
Video or it didn't happen.
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
New York is Metropolis.
Chicago is Gotham.
Gotham is New York. This is a popular name for the city that dates from the Nineteenth Century (Washington Irving in 1807 to be precise).
The association with Bat Man is due to a DC writer's decision to invoke this nickname of the actual city of New York to evoke its essence in the fictional city.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Won't a "save" or two totally screw with the AI's pattern matching since the gas isn't building up the same way as it would have? It will have to let a lot go pop before learning a new pattern.
How about some sort of pressure relief valve... so it just steams people alive instead of squashing them.
History Channel:The Crumbling of America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBSPcIGGcIc
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
One time I witnessed one of these explosions in Boston, and let me tell you, it's quite impressive! It was a hot August day and I was standing about 20 ft away from it, when out of nowhere, BOOMBOOMBOOM! There were actually a series of explosions that knocked the manhole cover a foot or two in the air each time, and each time the cover came back down perfectly on the hole, as if nothing ever happened. There was a college kid who was even closer to it than I was. He was just a few feet away when it happened and I could see that it shook him up pretty badly.
I asked the workman who was there a short time later what exactly had happened and he said a transformer had blown.
Metropolis is a composite, but it was originally inspired after Toronto
I wonder why they need to predict that. Wouldn't it be better to fix the stuff? I've heard that sometime animals get electrified in NY because the wiring is broken. I don't know, but when such thing happens I would either fire the responsible person and order to fix it (as mayor) or when the infrastructure is not state/city owned (which is definitely stupid) I would revoke their commission on the lines.
Do they have any way to measure the accuracy of the prediction algorithm? The article says of a 'blind study'that "The top 2 percent of manholes ranked as vulnerable by the algorithm included 11 percent of the manholes that had recently had a fire or explosion" but to me that seems like statistical blather: do they mean that if they ranked 10,000 manholes and there had been 100 incidents recently then the top 200 manholes they ranked included 11 manholes that had incidents? And if the answer to that is 'Yes' then how does that compare to a random guess? In my view (I am not a professional statistician), you could flip a coin about whether the manhole will have a problem or not, and probably come up with 11 correct answers out of the first 200 flips.
The News Building in New York was the basis for the Daily Planet in the first two Superman movies. For reference: http://www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/MID014.htm
As a side note, if you're in New York go visit the lobby of the building and walk around the globe exhibit therein. Look at the floor and note the distances to various locations. The walls surrounding the exhibit have clocks for different parts of the world as well.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
but can it predict whether it lands heads or tails?
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Too bad, because if it had been published in the Journal of Machine Learning Research instead, people might actually be able to read it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
As a concept, this AI thingy to 'predict' manhole explosions sounds cool - but can anyone explain why they don't just change the 'decrepit wiring'? First time I'm hearing of exploding manholes, and on top of that, a cool technique to 'forecast those explosions'!
Gotham actually came from a need to express the love for bacon and since Gotbacon sounds pretty weird, they decided to use Gotham.
A friend of mine who does some professional photography takes some really cool pictures while "draining". There are a lot of neat places down there!
Yes there are.
But you can die in the drains - and it can happen very quickly.
Sewer gas is mostly methane but may include hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Improper disposal of petroleum products such as gasoline and mineral spirits can add to the fun. [freely adapted from the Wikipedia]
Methane is something to be feared:
Two kids among five killed by methane gas
Interesting. I'd always assumed Gotham's name came from the Gothic style of the comics, including the architecture.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Making predictions is not impressive. Making *accurate* predictions is. I'm sure you could get a psychic to predict this too if you paid one.
Currently hooked on AMP
Truly a man of many talents; who knew he was so scientifically minded?
I had never heard of this happening before a week and a half ago, my cousin and his wife were crossing the street in Rio de Janeiro and a manhole cover blew off throwing her a few meters and burning 80% of her body and cousin only had 35% of his body burned. They are both doing ok, luckily no third degree burns, but the idea that this can happen is absurd. I thought that is was ridiculous that this could happen in South American country, but especially so that it happens in NYC.
Con Edison blind-tested the team’s model by withholding information on a recent set of fires and explosions. The top 2 percent of manholes ranked as vulnerable by the algorithm included 11 percent of the manholes that had recently had a fire or explosion, Rudin notes.
According to the article, there are about 51,000 manholes in New York. A few hundred explosions occur every year. (Lets say 300). So the algorithm listed (51,000*.02)=1020 manholes that were high risk. Out of that 1020 manholes, they were correct on (300*.11)=33 manholes.
In my industry, we would call this a complete failure. Even the weather forecaster would call this a failure. It reminds me of Demolition Man
Chief George Earle: We can just wait for another code to go red. And when Phoenix performs another Murder Death Kill, we'll know exactly where to pounce.
John Spartan: [sarcastic] Great plan.
Chief George Earle: [not realising the sarcasm] Thank you.
Erwin: He likes your plan, Chief!
...err, foreigners. Don't use words like "manhole" in headlines. My native tongue isn't English, and you don't want to know what kind of associations comes to a foreign mind while reading the word "manhole".
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
*pop*
Heads!
Aw, phooey. You win.
Not really furthering the discussion, but all Tuesday night from 7 pm to 9 am Wednesday I was without power because a manhole (or 2) exploded at the end of my street. 8 firetrucks, many many police cars.... tons of fun. I'd really hate to be on top of one when it explodes.....
And what can you say about them?
Al Gore?
Steam Explosion
Manhole Explosion
Crane collapse
Manhole electrocution
Light Pole electrocution
Then there are the construction and scaffolding deaths from stuff falling on peoples heads, not to mention getting hit by a taxi or bus or falling on the subway tracks. Watch your step!
Agreed. The source is the Salmagundi Papers, 1807.
I would quit my City Works Dept job if my Identification Tag said "Manhole Inspector"
They're often welded to the frame for theft prevention. IIRC when metals prices were peaking, there was a rash of manhole cover thefts in Detroit. Apparently it got bad enough that it became a substantial road hazard in some areas.
Is this to be known as the Goatse effect?
New York has been called Gotham since long before Batman was inked. Metropolis was any city, since "metropolis" is a synonym for "city." It only became midwestern when an actual, real town in Illinois named Metropolis adopted Superman.
Free Martian Whores!
They should publish this to the Web - there are lots of looky-lous that would happily traipse from site to site, waiting for a show.
If they charged for access, they could even raise some money for repairs.
They could raise even more by requiring a cut from any video taken of the events.
www.eFax.com are spammers
All of those high voltages in wet areas are dangerous. They should be running power over fiber.
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So it seems that by now the public infrastructure in NYC (and elsewhere in the US?) has deteriorated to the point where they've given up on fixing it, instead resorting to using computer models to predict when and where it will literally blow up.
With timed electrical arcs or a heated element.
I remember reading somewhere that metropolis was supposed to be "New York City by day" and Gotham was supposed to be "New York City by night" And it's true to me, during the day the skyline does resemble metropolis quite nicely, but once it gets dark, there are lots of dark gloomy places all over the city. York Avenue facing the 59th street bridge from around 64th street looks scary in an industrial grity way in the dark. This is it at day but night changes it a good amount.
If you read the mentioned JMLR journal article (link to free version: here), it presents this problem as one of prioritizing maintenance. It's some neat AI, and seems quite useful.
Does having a witty signature really indicate normality?
It became Midwestern when they wrote the original strips in Cleveland and set some of them there. It was based more on Toronto. As it went on it became more of a vague somewhere on the east coast location.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
Why not make the manhole covers perforated so that the pressure never builds up?!?
No, Chicago is Gotham. Didn't you see the scene in Dark Knight where Batman stood on the Sears Tower?
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Slashdot, could you change the font used on the site to something where "I" and "l" do not look the same?
Thank you.
I feel much better afterwards tho.
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The old London sewer system had a system of gas lamps atop flues that drew the air out of the sewers, and the flame helped reduce the odor of the sewer gases. Most of these sewer problems have been looked at for a couple thousand years now. Electric wires are a new addition, but I'm sure that other ignition sources were problems before.
I'm actually surprised that several hundred gas explosions that rocket 300 pound discs of steel into populated areas is considered so minor, but perhaps the chances of death are much less then I would expect.
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